Jack - Episode 12 - Ostrich Instruction

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

This week: subpoenas and testimony from former national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Trump attorneys Boris Epshteyn and Evan Corcoran – who has just lawyered up proving yet again that MAGA stands for Making Attorneys Get Attorneys – Christina Bobb, the two private investigators that searched Trump’s properties for more classified documents and FOUND more; we learned that Mark Meadows has been subpoenaed along with some additional Arizona State Republican lawmakers; Trump paid an outside research firm to find proof of election fraud and that firm briefed Trump and Meadows that no widespread fraud was found; former Vice President Mike Pence intends to fight the Special Counsel subpoena using the Speech or Debate Clause; and more.Do you have questions? Click here: https://formfaca.de/sm/PTk_BSogJFollow the Podcast on Apple Podcasts:https://apple.co/3BoVRhNCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AG on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill https://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on Twitter, but you can buy his book The Threathttps://www.amazon.com/Threat-Protects-America-Terror-Trump-ebook/dp/B07HFMYQPGWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyhttp://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=shortThis 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

When is the last time you didn't fill enough? If you relate to that question, check out the podcast authentically us. This is where we talk about what it means to be authentic and everything that you do and every space that you occupy. Join us on this journey. I signed in order appointing Jack Smith. And nobody knows you. And those who say, Jack is a finesse. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor.

Wait, what law have I grown? The events leading up to and on January 6th. Classified documents and other presidential records. You understand what prison is? Send me to jail. Hello and welcome to episode 12 of Jack. It is Sunday. February 19th, 2023. I'm your host, Andy McCabe. And I'm Alice and Gil. Hi, Andy. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good, but holy, Majoli, we had a heck of a week of news. We have a bounty of news. Yeah, a huge show for you today.

We have subpoenas. Everybody gets a subpoena and testimony now of former national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, Trump's attorneys, Boris Epstein and Evan Corcoran, who by the way, just loyered up proving yet again that Maga stands for making attorneys get attorneys. We have Christina Bob, the two private investigators that searched Trump's properties for more classified documents and found something. And we learned that Mark Meadows has been subpoenaed along with some additional Arizona State Republican lawmakers. That is right. And a really big story this week. We learned that Trump paid an outside research firm to find proof of election fraud. And that firm then briefed Trump and Meadows that lo and behold no widespread fraud was found.

And we learned that former Vice President Mike Pence intends to fight the special counsel subpoena using the speech and debate clause of that typically protects Congress. But before we get to all that, let's answer a listener question. All right, A.G. This week's question comes from Dr. Tarell. I'm not going to use his last name because I don't want him to get hounded for the rest of his life.

But Dr. Tarell writes in, I have a lot of respect for the way the court is constructed, but I have to ask, is there ever a point where filing frivolous appeals and lawsuits amounts to obstruction? In reflecting on Pence's decision to falsely claim that he was a part of the legislature to get out of testifying, and other knowingly false yet novel legal claims that end up taking years to be adjudicated, is there a point at which these acts of tying up the investigations and appeals amounts to obstruction? While I am a psychiatrist, it doesn't take a shrink to see that these arguments are made in bad faith or to obstruct in delay. Okay, doc, good question here. And I think it's timely in light

of the reference you make to the Mike Pence situation, which we're going to talk about in more detail later. But let's start out by reminding everyone a little bit about obstruction of justice, which you can find at 18 USC, 1503. And that statue defines obstruction as an act that an obstruction of justice is enacted corruptly or by threats of force or by any threatening letter of communication influences, obstructs or impedes or endeavors to influence obstruct or impede the due administration of justice. instructor had knowledge and the intent to obstruct, but also had knowledge of the existence of the proceeding and knowledge that the obstructive activity would actually have an effect on that proceeding. So I guess the short answer to your question now that we've read the statute, my opinion

here, Doc, is probably not. And the reason is that attorneys and litigants are given wide latitude to make arguments to the court, and particularly so when you are the defendant. So in this case, Mike Pence didn't just initiate this legal action that he is now trying to obstruct. He's essentially making arguments to try to quash a subpoena that he thinks has been unfairly served upon him. Now, I'll agree with you that Pence's position raises some, let's call it, novel legal arguments.

And those arguments could very well find the way to the Supreme Court, which would really slow things down a lot. But actually going after a litigant in a criminal context and trying to hold them criminally liable for obstruction of justice is highly unlikely. I don't think it's even possible in this case, and it's pretty unlikely in any case. Right. And I would say, you know, with the element of obstruction of justice of nexus to an official proceeding, court proceedings don't really qualify as that. The remedy for frivolously tying up the courts is sanctions and contempt and things that

are inherent powers of the judiciary, not the executive. And I think that might be part of the whole separation of powers issue, which is oddly enough, Pence's argument here. And also, we can't take that right away from potential defendants simply because there are those who would abuse it to delay. That's a very fine line. I've walked it in the government. You've walked it in the government.

That's right. So we talk about the grievance system, for example, to file a grievance or an EEO complaint, we have to listen to and read all of those. That system is abused from time to time. But if we constrict it or curtail it, then we're taking those rights away from people who need those remedies. That's exactly right. And so we always kind of have to put the shoe on the other foot.

That's right. You know, you run the risk of denying people their day in court or denying people the opportunity to mount their most vigorous defense or argument. So the way that civil courts typically handle this, as you said, AG is by holding people in contempt or levying fines or ordering one side to pay the legal fees or the court costs of the other side. Best example of this recently was the recent order that we had in Florida where none other than Donald Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, have been ordered to pay $938,000 in the Trump V Clinton civil case, full disclosure, I was in that case as well.

But again, very different from the Pence situation because in the Trump situation, he was the plaintiff. He started the case and infamously judge Middlebrook's stated really early in the order, and I quote here, here we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. So that's really the grand slam of examples of where a judge in a

civil case is going to sanction attorneys for doing exactly what the doctor has questioned here, and that is, you know, bringing bad faith arguments, and in this case, raising an entire lawsuit against a whole bunch of people for no good reason. So that's more what you can expect to see, although I don't believe that the mic pants fighting the subpoena situation is likely to end up in that kind of remedy. Either, and we'll get into that a little bit later in the show. Yeah, I don't think that it would be a sanctionable lawsuit either because it is a novel question. Is the vice president, who's presiding over the January 6th count of the electoral

vote, considered part of the legislature, and is that considered a legislative act? I mean, none of the, we've never been in this situation before. And so that separation of powers may be something that this court, the Supreme Court might want to hear, and we'll just have to see how that goes. Now, I do wanna, you know, give a little rea hope here. There are a lot of frivolous lawsuit filers who have met some of these remedies for filing

their frivolous and absolutely BS lawsuits. You mentioned Donald Trump and his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton. They withdrew a couple of their lawsuits that they had sued New York Attorney General Tish James. Those have been pulled off the docket because they were going to be sanctioned for those. Kerry Lake in Arizona has faced rule 11 sanctions. We have the the Kraken Strike Force in Michigan. All faced sanctions as a group for their frivolous lawsuit for election fraud claims that were

just totally unproven. Rudy has had his law license suspended. Several others from the Kraken Strike Force have been referred for disbarment. Eastman, John Eastman is now going through a disbarment procedure. And so we are seeing these remedies come through. We are seeing quote unquote justice when it comes to filing frivolous lawsuits, which is good because those are pretty rare. And we're seeing it happen quite a bit to a lot of these folks who would otherwise use the court kind of in a similar way, Andrew, to the way, the way, progo, Jean tried to use the court of the United States courts when he filed a lawsuit

on behalf of his catering company or something that basically the company that put together the troll farm in Russia, and he was trying to get at Mueller documents through discovery. And the judge quickly figured that out and shut it down. And said, we're not doing this. This is ridiculous. It's a waste of the court's time. And so, we do see, I think, as we should be seeing, the court taking proper action. And you mentioned Alina Haba.

I just want to say something real quick about Haba, because we're going to get into after we take a break here and we get back into the show our next segment. We're going to talk about subpoenas. And in a time. We're waiting to see and know if Alina Haba has been subpoenaed by the grand jury. And I find her case specifically interesting

because you know, Corcoran makes sense to me, Christina Bob makes sense to me because they signed that attestation that there were no more classified documents after the subpoena, which led to the search warrant of Mar-a-Lago. But Alina Habba also signed a declaration. But she signed a declaration in the New York Attorney General Tish James is $250 million civil suit against Donald Trump, Donald Trump's companies, his adult children. And she testified or signed a sworn affidavit or a sworn statement or attestation letter letter that she did a diligent search of all Trump properties looking for accounting paperwork, right? Because that's what they were investigating

at the New York Attorney General's office. And I'll be cut, Dan, pardon my French, if she didn't run into classified documents when doing that search, or that she didn't actually do that diligent search. So I'm interested to see where that heads. Yeah, you know, that is one of the most fascinating things that I think we picked up this week about Alina Haba. And it's another one of these things that we're just going to have to put

on the shelf and see how this plays out over the next couple of weeks. And then, you know, finally to close this question out, I think it's also worth mentioning that although criminal sanctions, criminal proceedings are not typically seen as the remedy to seek against litigants who are abusing the system, in this case, we just might, and I'll give you the context. So we already know that the special counsel team is looking at Trump and Eastman, for example, in terms of the the fraudulent electors scheme, the scheme to delay, you know, to install a puppet regime in DOJ to essentially delay the certification

of the election. And they might actually experience criminal penalties in the form of fraud against the government for their abuse of using lawsuits to further some of those schemes. So it's not exactly, it's a bit of a bank shot. It's not exactly the very clean question that the good doctor asked us this week, but still kind of an interesting way to look at it. Yeah, and and Pence's lawsuit wouldn't fall into that category. So. That's right. Yeah. Well, everybody, first of all, thank you for that question.

Excellent question. If you have any questions that you want to ask me and Andy, you can send them in to us by emailing hello at mullersherote.com and putting Jack in the subject line. And Andy will pick a question every week and answer it, maybe two. So send them in and we appreciate you. Stick around everybody. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about some subpoenas. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum together prominent figures from government law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day.

Most news commentaries delivered a 90-second sound bites to just scratch the surface of a new development, not talking feds. Each Monday I'm joined by a slate of feds favorites and new voices to break down the headlines and give the insiders view of what's going on in Washington and beyond. We dig deep, but keep it fun. Class side bars detailing important legal concepts read by your favorite celebrities, such as Robert DeNiro explaining whether the president can pardon himself, and Carol King explaining whether members of Congress can be disqualified from higher office, and music by Philip Glass.

Find talking feds wherever you get your podcasts and don't worry. As long as you need answers, the feds will keep talking. When's the last time you didn't fill enough? If you relate to this question, you want to check out our podcast, Authentically Us. Yes, guys, our podcast authentically is what we talk about. What it means to be authentic and everything that you do in every space that you occupy.

Tony and I created this podcast, the creative space, to talk about just who we are, our experiences, and just things that we are going through. Yes. So come join us with the journey as we figure out what it means to be authentic together. Alright everybody, welcome back. It's Sapena time. Sapena time. Alright and hey Andy, there's a It's Sapena time. Sapena time. Sapena time.

All right, and hey, Andy, there's a lot of Sapena's and testimony happening this week. I could barely keep track of them. I was even emailing you, changing the script of this show up to the last minute on Friday, because more went out. As a matter of fact, the more that went out went to some Arizona GOP lawmakers.

Now, you'll remember back in November, that rhymes, that's fun. Um, Jack Smith sent out a whole gang of subpoenas to like a hundred fraudulent electors, potential fraudulent electors, wanting their communications with 18 different Trump campaign officials and lawyers. That's right. And they, you know, were looking for information about, you know, any communications that they had. And, and these were, you know, electors and election officials in all seven states. Well, there is, this is basically the same subpoena.

Daily Beast has seen a copy of it. It went out after that, and it went to some additional Arizona lawmakers to get information from them about communications with the same group of 18 campaign officials and lawyers. And this again goes toward the aggressiveness with which Jack Smith is investigating the fraudulent electors scheme. That is absolutely right. It has been raining, subpoena's all week, first on Arizona. And then of course, we as our intrepid reporters

and their, I don't know, surveillance operatives at the court are picking off, seeing all sorts of particularly Trump lawyers rolling into the grand jury and showing the evidence, I guess the physical evidence of having been served with the subpoena. The top among this group for me this week, AG is Evan Corcoran. So Evan Corcoran, I'm sure our listeners know is one of the astute legal minds that has

been hired by Donald Trump to help guide him through the trouble he's created with himself, with his retention of classified documents, presidential records, maybe national defense information down at Marlago. Notably, Corcoran was the one who wrote the affidavit asserting that they had conducted a diligent search and found all remaining classified documents. And then, of course, got a different attorney to sign that form. Having written it probably had some idea of how wildly inaccurate it was, he had someone else sign it,

Christina Bob, and then of course provided that to the Justice Department, shortly before the search warrant was executed and they found several hundred more documents. So we know now that Mr. Quarkin has been in front of the grand jury in DC as a result of a special counsel, Sapena. And apparently during that appearance, he, as you would expect, invoked executive privilege or maybe attorney client privilege to protect his conversations with his client, Donald Trump. So this week we learned that this special counsel has now moved to invoke the fraud crime exception to essentially pierce

that attorney client privilege. So if approved by Judge Barrel Howell, that will enable the special counsel to bring Mr. Corcorern back in front of the grand jury again and essentially force him to answer those questions that he claimed who were privileged. So just an act you don't see very often. See an attorney dragged in front of a grand jury is pretty rare. I know it doesn't seem like it this week,

but nevertheless, and then to go after that attorney with through the crime fraud exception is really, really rare. Yeah. And if he's compelled, if Judge Barrel Hall finds that the crime fraud exception applies and there is no attorney client privilege, and he is compelled to testify and he refuses, he can be held in contempt. It's not just like, oh, well, I'll just go home.

He can be held in contempt for not giving that information over. Yeah. And significantly just filing the motion and invoking this action puts the special counsel team in the position of essentially representing to the judge in their, their motion papers, explaining why they believe that the conversations that Corcoran and Trump were engaged in were actually in furtherance of a crime. So it's hard to imagine that you would file such a motion to get the attorney's testimony in an

investigation where you did not believe the subject of the investigation, i.e. Donald Trump actually engaged in a crime. So it's a little bit of a foreshadowing. It's not an indictment. Nobody's been indicted yet, but this certainly leans in the direction of charges coming at some point. Yeah, and by the way, it's raining. Sipinas, maybe that should be our music introduction for the Sipina time. Let's try it. Sipinas. for the subpoena time. Let's try it.

It's Rain and... ... subpoenas. I don't know where I get to rain and... ... subpoenas. I like that one, Andrew. Well done. I'm... You can't go wrong with its rain and whatever.

So, you know, I'm digging it. Yeah. Now, I want to talk a little bit just for a second before we move on to Christina Bob who you mentioned, because she's also been subpoenaed and has testified. But the crime in the crime fraud exception, everybody's like, oh, there could have been a crime committed here. Oh my God, there's a crime committed here. And I hate to be a party pooper, but we kind of already knew this when

obstruction was on the search warrant, affidavit, for Mar-a-Lago. That is the crime likely. It could be a whole different crime. I don't know, but that is likely the crime here that you would use the crime likely. It could be a whole different crime. I don't know. But that is likely the crime here that you would use the crime fraud exception to Pierce Attorney Client privilege with was that they said that they had handed over all the documents pursuant to a subpoena that was issued on May 11. They did not.

It took about three weeks and they decided the Department of Justice said we got to go for the search warrant, obstruction of justice, which is 18 US code 1519, was on that affidavit as one of the three crimes. And that's the crime. So, so yes, while the DOJ, say wanting to use crime fraud exception to get at his testimony, is news. It's not really new news. If in fact, it is the same crime that was used, utilized to get a search warrant to search Mar-a-Logga. That's a pretty big indication of a crime. You can't just get a search warrant, especially of the home of a former president. I know that the other standard is pretty, you know, probable cause. But with the home of a former president or a lawyer or something to that effect, it's going to be like, you know, probable cause. But with the home of a former president or a lawyer

or something to that effect, it's going to be like, you, you, you're going to want to be really sure that there's fruits of a crime. And that's why I think it took, it took three weeks to decide because I think Merrick Garland knew if he found fruits of a crime, he could be faced with charging a former president of the United States. And so that took, that took a minute. No question. And no question. Garland was personally involved in those decisions. These, as you said, AG, these decisions don't get made like run of the mill.

Hey, we send a source into an apartment. He bought some drugs. Therefore, we have probable cause of leave those drugs in there. Let's get a search warrant. This is at the very high, you know, the kind of top of the food chain when it comes to challenging legal issues. Let's also remember that the evidence they used to prove, to convince the judge that there was probable cause to believe there was evidence of a crime in there was not just the affidavit that we've talked about that

Corcoran wrote and Christina Bob signed, but it was also the, apparently, whatever they saw on the videotapes, the surveillance tapes inside Mar-a-Lago that showed the room where the items, the documents were allegedly being stored securely that no one had access to and lo and behold, has been reported, the tapes show things coming in and out of the room. So they had very solid evidence that there was evidence of a crime, that crime being obstruction,

and other crimes, retention, retention of national defense information. That evidence was on that premises, so hence your search warrant. Yeah, but like you said, that doesn't preclude the fact that there will be an indictment. I mean, look at Rudy Giuliani, best of you know, for example, in the Southern District of New York, it took a decided that they were going to search Rudy Giuliani's home and office. This is a attorney for the for the vice president at the time, at the time. And they did. They went in and they, you know, had to have probable

cause of a crime, maybe a little bit higher standard in their own heads at least because they're going into that Rudy Giuliani office. But there's still what there were no charges that came out of that search that was, I believe, April 2018. So it doesn't guarantee anything, but I mean, you know, the obstruction case is a little bit, I don't know, seems a little clear to me, but I just want to put that out there that doesn't guarantee anything. Now, let's talk about Bob, right? She's the one who signed it.

She actually told Korkren, I'm not signing this unless you put to the best of my knowledge in there. She made some edits to that affidavit, that attestation letter to make it a little more smushy, a little more ambiguous to use a better term because she didn't feel comfortable signing it. She loyered up last year. I don't know why Corcoran took until now to get a lawyer, but he hired one finally named Levy, I believe his name is Levi. I'm not I'm not familiar with, without particular person, but he finally lured up, but she's been lured up for a while. And, and has already spoken to the Department of Justice a couple times.

And we found out she was subpoenaed and has spoken to the federal grand jury. And then, let's talk about national security advisor, Robert O'Brien. We knew last week you and I reported he had been subpoenaed. Well, he was spotted outside prettyman, which is where the grand juries meet so he presumably was testifying before the jacksmith grand jury this week so that happened. Yeah no Brian as we said could be a very significant witness maybe not so much on the documents case although you never know I mean technically the it's the national security staff in the White House that's responsible for the securing of all classified materials.

So maybe he knows something there. But particularly where I think O'Brien helps or could help the special counsel is on his interactions with and observations of the president in the weeks leading up to January 6th. He is a person who could provide information about the president in the weeks leading up to January 6th, he is a person who could provide information about the president's intent, things he may have said, folks that he met with, you know, who knows all kinds of ways that that O'Brien could have come across direct evidence of the president's intent with respect to the plan for January 6th.

Yes, and some more subpoenas, we aren't. Yes, and some more subpoenas. We aren't done. We still have more subpoenas. Andy, we were right. Remember the two private investigators? You know, when Judge Barrel howe was like, you need to search your own properties. And he went and hired a quote unquote,

independent private investigation firm. Two of them went and searched the rest of his properties. And the Jack Smith actually filed a motion to force them to force Trump's team to hand the names of those people over. You and I positive. That was because they wanted to bring them into the grand jury.

And we were right, my friend. They have been brought to the grand jury. They have testified before the grand jury. I'm interested. Those are all under seal. All grand jury proceedings are. Right. And also Boris Epstein, you remember him from the Mueller investigation.

How could we forget for us? He's been around for a long time. And the interesting part here, there's a little buried lead in the New York Times story by Haberman that came out this week. Jack Smith is asking people if Boris Epstein tried to influence anyone's testimony, I'm going to guess Christina Bob and, you know, you know, other lawyers on the Trump team. But it could, but I'm, that's just a guess we, we aren't sure. But talk just for a minute about how serious a crime it is to suborn perjury, intimidate

a witness, influence testimony. I mean, that's a big deal. It really is. There's obvious significant, serious criminal penalties that come along with it. It's also the kind of thing that could lead very quickly to the revocation of your law license. So it could be yet another Trump attorney or Trump associated attorney who ends up with no longer being an attorney when this whole thing is played out. From the reporting that we've seen over the last several months, Epstein is, he seems to be among the most hardened kind of, I don't know how to describe this other than maybe

obstructionists and I don't mean that's only in the criminal way, but he seems to be the guy inside the trump camp that advises trump in the most aggressively kind of confrontational way. He's the one that doesn't want, you know, denied, denied, denied, don't hand anything back to DOJ. You know, don't cooperate with prosecutors on the recovery of these items. So he's kind of out there on the fringe. I could see him, you know, if that's his kind of role to be Trump's gadfly of, you know, trying to get him to buck up and stick with his instincts of fight, fight, fight, it might all this parade of other Trump lawyers getting subpoenas

probably causing him a few nights of loss sleep. Yeah, agreed. And then we get to the three big daddy subpoenas this week. First of all, there was an additional subpoena for Trump. We didn't know about. Apparently he had a folder that was labeled classified evening briefing. And Trump, somebody from Trump world went on television and said that that folder was being used to cover a blue light on the telephone in his bedroom. Okay. But that apparently that and a bunch of Trump schedules,

some of which were also marked classified, were found by those two private investigators that, you know, have recently been questioned by the grand jury, by Jack Smith's grand jury. And also, some of those schedules, actually that whole stack of schedules was scanned into a laptop of an aid for of Donald Trump. She works for the pack, a save America pack, but I don't think that her uploading of the schedules had anything to do with her work at the save America pack. Yet she's young, aid, and she was just uploading everything and says, oh, I didn't notice the the classified markings. I'm not sure that, you know, well, first

of all, they asked for the laptop and said, if you don't give it to us, we're going to subpoena you. And then they subpoenaed that folder that said classified evening briefing. And it was returned to them in, I think, December. And then they went for the laptop. They had to go pick. Well, actually, Trump wouldn't let him come and pick up the laptop. It was delivered to the Department of Justice. So interesting, but really quickly talk about, because this is your wheelhouse, uploading classified stuff to a laptop, even if it's accidental, there's going to have to be a risk assessment done on that. No question. So, I mean, obviously, classified material is processed on computing systems and which sometimes includes laptops all the time but those are

laptops that are specially set up and and cleared essentially for whatever level of classified you're working with so you might have a laptop that's cleared up to secret you might have one that's clear to top secret they have all sorts of security precautions and software and things built into them. One of the many things that those security programs do is they keep a detailed record of every document that crosses that machine to understand if things go missing or if the machine is misused or misplaced or what have you, investigators

can look inside and get a very good understanding of every place that every document has been saved on the machine and whether or not those documents ever left, whether they were attached to emails or exported onto thumb drives or what have you. So there's a really good audit trail on those machines to kind of break that stuff down. Now in this case, we don't know if this was, I think it's probably fair to assume this was not a laptop that was officially cleared for classified, but nevertheless, the investigators are going to grab that thing as they would with any spill or alleged spill of classified material and they're going to break it down to its component parts and understand exactly what was in there where it went,

who communicated it to who, and that could of course cause more problems for people down the road. Yeah, good. Now, my feeling here since I think there was some reporting saying that these were Presidential movements and schedules which are classified until the movement happens and then they are no longer classified I don't know that and if it was inadvertent and you know He was really just wanting to get his schedules uploaded to a laptop I don't think that they'll find anything criminal, like criminally, like I don't, I just don't feel like there's a lot of intent here. Much like the couple of documents they found in that storage facility that have been in

there and taped up since they got there. Yeah, it's hard to imagine, especially if this is in the hands of kind of a low-level staffer who has given a task to digitize documents in a box and just went through all that, put it all, kind of following orders, no obvious intent to possess or destroy or remove classified documents. And as we've said many times on this topic, most of the spills that the FBI is notified about over the course of a year resolving this way, You do an investigation, you cover the material first and foremost,

you do damage assessment to figure out where it was and who might have been exposed to it. And then you look at whether or not somebody needs to be held accountable. And in most cases, if it's a mistake, there's absolutely no indication of bad intent, no cases brought. People could be disciplined at work,

they might lose their clearance, they could lose their job over it, but it's rare that people actually go to jail. Yeah, agreed. All right, we're going to take a quick break before we talk about the Meadows Sapina. And when we get back, we're going to discuss that because there's a couple of key pieces that we should talk about with regard to Meadows and his disposition in this entire investigation, both the January 6th investigation and the documents investigation, and then we're also going to talk about Pence and his battle, his legal battle to defy the subpoena from the special council. We'll do that as soon as we get back from this break. Stick around.

So Renato, do you still have your own podcast? Yeah, it's complicated. What's so complicated about a podcast? That's the name of the podcast, remember? Oh! Will you still be exploring topics that help us understand the week's news? You bet, but we'll have a new name because we're going to be working together to explore complicated issues that are dominating the news. Working together?

Yeah, you're hosting it with me, remember? Oh, right. Wait, does that mean our podcast is going to have a steam op segment? Let's not get carried away. But we'll discuss hot new legal topics, so check out our new episode, coming soon to everywhere you get podcasts as well as YouTube. Okay, we are back and we're going to close up our Mando Sapina conversation this week by looking at one of the biggest. And that is the Sapina apparently received by Mark Meadows. You will remember Mark Meadows, AG.

Is it somebody we've talked about several times? He was pretty much there for everything. He's chief of staff toward the end of the administration. He's there for all of the meetings with the crowds of really interesting folks who came into the White House at that time, the Jeffrey Clarks of the world, the Sydney Powell's, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lendell, the whole kind of cast of characters was, of course, there in the building with the president on January 6th, and presumably has a lot to offer on his observations from that day as well. So he has now been subpoenaed to appear in front of the grand jury in DC.

What are your thoughts? Yeah. Well, first of all, a couple of things. Just wanted to spell a myth. A lot of people thought he was subpoenaed after Pence was, but this subpoena apparently went out in January. And his lawyer, who is terwilliger of the third, is a really known conservative lawyer. He's a good lawyer, right? He got him somehow got him off the hook for contempt of Congress when he defied the Security of the January 6th Committee by handing over some documents or negotiating or something that made the DOJ decide not to prosecute. A couple of questions that we don't know, the answer to, my first question is it says, according to the reporting from people who have seen the subpoena, or maybe they haven't, I don't even know that they're reporting that they've seen the subpoena as much as someone's told them about it, but that this is with

regard to the January 6th attempt to overthrow the election. Right. And I would want to subpoena him for January 6th and the documents, Mar-a-Lago documents case, because as we know, Donald tried to sign a declassification memo on January 19th before he left office, and Meadows was like, no, DOJ is not cool, FBI is not cool, privacy act stuff, so no, and then Meadows got a bunch of those papers, brush the papers back, send them back to the Department of Justice. He's going to have a lot of knowledge about what was on Trump's mind and Trump's intent when he walked out of the White House with certain documents. So, I want to know about that.

I also want to know if there was an advice of rights, and we could talk about what that is. You're familiar with that. Whether he's a subject or a witness or a target of an investigation. Generally, you don't subpoena a target of an investigation, but sometimes you do. We know Bob Mueller didn't subpoena, but had written questions for Donald Trump to answer. So there might be, I suppose, be a target and still have to have some questions answered in front of a federal grand jury. And so, you know, those are just a couple of the questions that I, you know, that I'm wondering about here.

That and, you know, what does this say about potential cooperation? Because we've all been like, is he quietly cooperating this whole time? I don't know. He seems like he has a good lawyer. It doesn't feel like the cooperating type. So everything's kind of still up in the air

without this additional information. It really is, and it's more complicated by the fact that, well, we know the kind of guy that Meadows is, and by saying that, I mean, his history across the arc of this story, this series of events has been kind of on again, off again, right? He initially not cooperative, appears to be aligned with Trump, then he puts his memoir out, says a bunch of things that did not sit well with the former president. Then he goes, then he's back at Mar-a-Lago, back in the Trump camp, then he turns over thousands of text messages and documents to the committee, which now we're back in the cooperation,

of text messages and documents to the committee, which now we're back in the cooperation lane, then he refuses to come in and actually answer questions. So he's been on both sides of the cooperating, not cooperating dilemma from the very beginning. It's, you know, when someone gets comes before the grand jury on a subpoena, you tend to reflexively think that this is a someone who is not a cooperative witness. They just, you know, they're being forced in to answer questions, but that's not always the case. As we've talked about with some other folks, there are times when the government will take a cooperative witness and then hand them a subpoena and say, okay, now we're going to go

over all these questions that we've asked you 100 times already in front of the grand jury, because they wanna lock that person's testimony in in a way that it can't be changed or manipulated later. It's also possible sometimes witnesses, people who are cooperating ask for a subpoena because being served makes them look like they're not cooperating and that can be better for their friends and associates who don't, who they don't want to know like they're not cooperating and that can be better for their friends and associates

who don't, who they don't want to know that they're actually cooperating. Is the DOD ever do that on purpose to kind of give cut? Does the DOD like, we wanna give cover to you so that you're not manipulated by Boris Epstein. You know, like, like, we're gonna issue a sub... We know you're gonna come in, we're gonna issue a subpoena anyway.

Don't tell anybody. And Metos has been very good about not telling anybody shit. And so I could see the DOJ being like, we're gonna issue the subpoena so that the Trump camp thinks that you're not being cooperative. And then they won't reach out

and try to suborn your subborn perjury. Yeah, that's absolutely possible. Sometimes it's as minimal as something like you ask for a particular record or something from a business or a tech company or something like that. And they'll say, yeah, we're happy to give it to you, but please give us a subpoena first. So then it looks like we were compelled. And when, in fact, they were inclined to give it to you anyway, which is fine. Well, we would typically, you know, give them the subpoena they requested.

This is a little bit more tactical because what you're suggesting is like both sides agreed, this is the best way to do it to maintain the appearance that this witness is not on the government side, but that is a reasonable and often used tactic to maintain that sort of appearance. It's done a lot in organized crime cases, right? You don't, if you have a witness, that witness could be in real trouble or their family could be threatened or hurt

if their former associates realize that they're now cooperating with the government. So you do all kinds of things like that to maintain the illusion of conflict. things like that to maintain the illusion of conflict. Yeah, and then talk a little bit about advice or rights and subject versus target real quick because my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong is if you're a witness, you're subpoenaing as a witness.

And I'm thinking maybe they gave immunity to Cosh Patel, so they're witness. And then if you're a subject, I feel like the DOJs like on the fence could go either way. It depends on what we find and how, I mean, it depends on a lot of things, right? A target means you're a target of the investigation, and you'll get a target letter saying you're being investigated. And right now, we know Trump is the target of these special counsel investigations, as was the Trump campaign during the Mueller investigation? Sure. Yeah, that was clear in the Attorney General's designation of special counsels in both

cases. So, yeah, typically, I mean, the basic rule for advising someone of their rights is it's done when that person is in a situation where they are experiencing custodial interrogation. So they have to reasonably believe they cannot leave where they are, either in your custody, and you're asking them questions. Questions beyond just like, what's your name? Questions like, you know, substantive questions. Usually, you know, you don't advise people of their rights, in my experience, when they've been summoned in front of the grand jury, because, you know, you're there, you can invoke the fifth amendment. You get the subpoena in, with enough time to go seek legal counsel if you wish to do so.

That's entirely up to you. What the subpoena requires is that you show up at a designated time and place and you're sworn in to answer questions. If you don't want to answer questions, you don't actually have to. You can assert your fifth amendment right and not provide answers. So it's typically not a part of the actual appearance in that moment, but it's certainly possible that the prosecutor might say, you know, you understand you have the right to remain silent or what have you. I gotcha. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. I'm assuming learn more as

the investigations roll on. All right, hey, let's talk about Pence, baby. Let's talk about the former VP. I don't know. Okay, another that. Pence wants to use a speech or debate class as an excuse or a reason, excuse me, not to testify before the grand jury. Now, he's claiming he, I've, I've heard him talk about this and he's saying it would set a bad precedent that a member of the legislature could be subpoenaed by the executive branch. It, it raises separation of powers issues, but none of that would matter if he would voluntarily testify. No precedent would be set for him voluntarily testifying before the grand jury. There would be no.

And we know, Andrew, he's been talking back and forth. They've been in negotiations since before Jack Smith was appointed, trying to get his testimony of January 6th committee committee subpoenaed him. He said executive privilege bars me from having to comply with your subpoena. And now he's trying to use the speech or debate clause saying that he has the president of the Senate presiding over the January 6th electoral vote count. He is a member of the legislature, and therefore protected by the speech or debate clause privilege.

So what are your top line thoughts on this? Because I've heard a lot of different arguments and push back. I've got a very novel argument. I would personally make if I were the department of justice. Maybe you could call some of your friends and let them know. But what do you think? Well, those are all really fascinating issues. And I think, I think we all kind of shook our

collective heads a little bit when the news broke this week about the subpoena and the position that the former vice president intends to kind of assert before the court. So let's back up just for a second and remind everyone that what we're talking about here is typically referred to as the speech and debate clause. It's an article one section six clause one of the Constitution. And it basically lines out kind of the responsibilities of senators and representatives. And representative says they receive compensation for their services to be ascertained by law and paid out of the treasury, blah, blah, blah. And it also says that they shall in all cases accept treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, end in going to and returning from the same, and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

So that last line, line or two, is the part of the speech and debate clause that essentially makes senators and representatives immune from having to undergo questioning for any sort of legislative business that they engaged in in their respective houses. It is often relied upon by members of the House and the Senate to push back on things like subpoenas or congressional inquiries for that matter. So it's a kind of, I don't want to say a get out of jail free card. It's not that,

but it is a, you can't stop me and talk to me and compel my testimony because what I was engaged in was legislative business on behalf of, you know, in my role as a senator representative. So kind of fascinating, and the Pence is now arguing that as the vice president, he is also the president of the Senate, right? And we are all familiar with this with respect like Kamala Harris's role in casting the deciding vote in 50-50 Senate situations in the last Congress. So in that role as president of the Senate, Pence is saying he is in effect a member of the Senate, and he was there conducting the senatorial business of certifying the vote, and therefore he cannot be questioned about any of that activity. As far as I know, a totally novel argument, not one that

I mean, not one that anyone has made before, but let's be honest. There's not a whole heck of a lot of people who could possibly make that. You would have to be either a vice president of the United States, or a former vice president, to have the standing to make that claim. Yeah, and I think that this would probably go in three different arguments. Here's the order of operations I see happening when the Department of Justice files its response to whatever PENSE files. First of all, I think they're going to say the question of are you a senator in this particular case?

They're going to answer that question. I think they're going to argue you didn't get compensated for your time there that day as a senator. So no, you got compensated as a vice president. They're going to say, um, was there debate? Sure. You know, when you debate on the different states, but was this a legislative procedure or was it legislative activity? I think they will argue that it was not, and that would be the second tier there after you shoot him down for saying you're not a senator, that shoot the idea down by the way. And then the third thing, I wanted to bring up

because those are the common arguments I'm hearing. I know Judge Ludig, who is a long time friend of the former vice president, and a conservative judge, he testified before the January 6th committee. You know, he said this just, this isn't going to work for several reasons, but one argument I'm not hearing that I would like the DOJ to make if they even need to make it to get this far into the weeds.

Let's say they do say he was a senator that day or they, you know, they say that this was a legislative, that it was more than ministerial and this was somehow a legislative act, what they were doing and not just accounting of the votes, a ceremonial thing. I think that giving the former vice president the ability to claim speech or debate as a senator is a violation of the separation of powers of the Constitution. And here's why I think that, Andy, the check on that privilege, on the speech or debate privilege is censure or expulsion by the Senate, and I, you know, or the House, but we're

talking about the Senate here. But the vice president, he can be impeached as vice president, but he can't be censored or expelled as the president of the Senate. So there's no check on the speech or debate. Those are the only checks on the speech or debate privilege. And without those checks, I think his assertion violates the separation of powers. And that's just my two cents. I don't know that they'll necessarily have to get that far.

I make weird novel arguments like when Durham was appointed, I was like, his whole investigation needs to be tossed out because he's not eligible to be special counsel because he was appointed from inside the government. But nobody listens to my novel arguments. They don't really go with arguments that have been made before. We love your novel arguments, so don't stop making them.

I actually think that you're onto a pretty good one here. I think it is a little bit of setting up a straw man because I think you don't even get to that. It's the guy. The jurisdiction of the Eileen Cannon argument. We don't even have to talk about why a special necessary. You didn't even have jurisdiction in the first place. And that's why there's that order of operations.

Exactly. He's not a senator. He was not elected to the United States Senate. So I mean, look, is the sergeant in arms who is actually works for the Senate has a discrete role to play there as a part of the Senate infrastructure. Does he enjoy the speech and debate clause?

No. I don't know. We could look at Gervell, right, because that had to do with Senate aides, right? Yeah. I mean, at least they're conducting legislative business on behalf of the Senator or the member, right? I just don't, I think it's a total stretch here. I don't know.

I just love it when this particular, particularly this Department of Justice says, okay, we don't even have to argue the other richy factors, but we're gonna for completeness. So here we go. So I would just love for them to say, look, look, let's just say even if, you know, et cetera, et cetera, you don't have the check on the VP as a senator. It doesn't exist.

And so therefore that would be a separation of powers. I would just love to see the argument. So I'm sure if you're listening, please. Yeah. If this goes forward, I'm, you're not going to be disappointed because they're going to throw everything at the wall, right? You're going to see every argument in the alternative that anyone could possibly come up with.

I think that's the real problem here is that, you know, if this is, Pence has already said publicly he's going to fight this to the Supreme Court if that's what it takes. So it's just delay. It's more delay. It's the number one, it's the top five tactics of the folks who are not interested in having

these investigations concluded in any sort of an effective way. Yeah, and this actually is an argument that has a shot at getting heard by the Supreme Court, whereas the executive privilege argument, we have seen time and time again, the Supreme Court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, be like, we aren't even going to take it up. We aren't even going to look at it. You don't have the executive privilege. It's not yours to make. And the former president doesn't have it here because this is an investigation of a crime.

We can't get that information anywhere else. And that's another very big important point too, that a lot of legal experts are bringing up. There are things that only pens can answer. And in that criminal investigation, that's just clearly going to outweigh any privilege that you would assert. We saw it happen with Lindsey Graham

in the Faulten County District Attorney's investigation. He tried to assert that and they said, okay, well, all right, we promise you don't have to answer questions about anything that you did that was legislative in nature. None of these questions look like that to me though, because, yeah, breach of the peace and treason, you can't, and there's cry, you know, you just can't have that privilege for every single thing.

The other thing you could do in this case when it comes to wanting information from Mike Pence, you could cordon off certain areas that get close to even an arguably legislative function. So in other words, okay, fine. We don't care about your speech and debate while you were sitting in your chair, reading the votes, certifying the votes. That's not, we're not gonna ask you about any of that stuff. What we wanna ask you about is when you were standing down in the loading dock, calling

the White House, talking to Trump, talking to Meadows, whoever else he might have talked to, and even conversations he had during the course of that day for the hours that he endured almost getting attacked and killed, that's really what they want. They're not looking for like which state objected first and on what grounds and what did you think about that? So there are ways that they could cordon the questioning to really not even go close to anything that could arguably be considered covered by the clause.

Yeah, and I think I feel the same way about the phone call that he had with him on the morning of January 6th. could arguably be considered covered by the clause. Yeah, and I think I feel the same way about the phone call that he had with him on the morning of January 6th. There's no way that trying to stop the electoral count and interfere and obstructive official proceeding can be veiled by any kind of speech or debate clause. And you know, in Gravel too,

we learned that it doesn't cover third party testimony, testimony about third parties, which in this case would be Donald Trump. All right. Fasting. I don't think he's going to win this. It could drag things out quite a bit, though. Yes. We'll see how that, we'll see how that ends up happening or what ends up happening with

that. I do worry that they may not, because of this delay, be able to get the testimony of Mike Pence and I'd be interested to know how that impacts, negatively impacts the investigation. And again, the great thing about a special counsel is we'll learn all about it in the report when it comes out. There you go. Like we did with the Miller Report.

All right, we have one more big giant story. What I think is the story of the week to talk about, we're gonna do that right after a quick break. Stick around. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum the story of the week. And I think this is huge. I think this is the nail in the coffin for the intent piece of the fraudulent electroskeem trying to overturn the 2020 election. Trump and the Trump campaign hired an outside independent research firm, a big firm of known firm called the Berkeley Research Group to look into at least a dozen different claims of voter fraud, to at least a dozen different claims of voter fraud,

an election fraud, and report back to them. And that was done in December. And both Meadows and Trump were briefed in December about this, about their findings. And their findings were, we looked at dead voters. We looked at immigrant voters. We looked at envelopes. We looked at your quote unquote suitcase video that you claim. We looked at every single thing, we found nothing that would indicate or enough to overturn

the election. And also we found it on both sides, honestly, if the very little that we did find, it was like even Stephen on both the Republican and Democratic side. And that report was never made public, public obviously because it would be devastating to their case i i think that the appointment so many people i personally think any years when i think happen i think that trump didn't pay them because he didn't like the results and

they're the ones who went to the press that is findings. I mean, that is not a crazy suggestion. I just can't get over thinking of this report as like the ultimate Trump campaign buzz kill. Like, oh, no, what? What does the report say? No fraud. No, here's something really interesting that I had remembered. You remember that ongoing January 6th legal battle between the committee and Eastman

trying to get at his Chapman emails, his Chapman University server emails, and we found out the cool thing is DOJ already had them all when they went through this whole public thing. But because of the public thing, we learned that several in three different rounds of Eastman's, John Eastman's emails were subject to the crime fraud exception and had to be handed over to the general's committee. In round two of this, emails handed over, one of the emails from John Eastman was sent out on December 30, so after Meadows and Trump received this briefing, saying, hey, look, I don't think Trump should sign this, I'm paraphrasing. I don't think Donald Trump should sign this Georgia lawsuit because it lists specific numbers of dead voters and specific numbers

of immigrant voters and specific numbers of ballots that are missing and harvest it, whatever. And the president has since learned these numbers are inaccurate. It wouldn't be good for him to put his name on this lawsuit. And Andy, he signed that lawsuit anyway, attesting that those numbers were true and accurate. And I really think that this Berkeley research firm, these findings touch on so many things, touches on that. It could be what Judge Carter, when Judge Carter kept referring to, I have evidence that Donald Trump knew that he, that these election fraud claims were false. And we were like, what evidence other than, you know, 800 million people told him. Right. What's obvious to the rest of us. It might have been this Berkeley research firm stuff.

This touches on the defrauding donors, which you had brought up a couple of weeks ago, saying, looks like Jack Smith is really honing in on the big steel, the big scheme, the big grift, as Zolofkren said, which is raising money for the election, defense fund that never existed, getting all this money, sending out emails on election, defense fund that never existed, getting all this money, sending out emails on election fraud lies, defrauding donors, wire fraud, I mean, it's a pretty open and shut case. That is huge for that case.

This is huge for that case. It really goes a long way. If it's not the only evidence we have indicating that Trump knew or should have known that the claims of election fraud were baseless, but it is a very powerful one because he initiates the report. So presumably he's interested in its results. We know he was briefed on it with meadows. So it's kind of an inescapable evidentiary piece that points in the direction of you knew

or at least you had reason to know, right? He can always pick up some other, you know, maybe Johnny McIntee wrote him up a memo before lunch one day about, here's how much fraud we have found, sir. And he can pick, hold that up and say, but I had this memo also and it says there was fraud, so that's the one I believed.

But the point is with this accumulation of evidence that shows that any reasonable person should have drawn the conclusion there was no fraud, it becomes less and less likely that a jury would believe that he, I went with the one piece that said there was fraud, and I ignored the 15 people and pieces of evidence that said there wasn't any. It isn't there a jury and there's I think Joyce Vance told us that there's a jury instruction called the ostrich rule, which means that you can't feign willful ignorance. Yeah, willful blindness. Willful blindness at some point, you know, and they instruct a jury on that. I don't see him getting out of that, especially. I mean, maybe with Hirschman and bar and, you know, Don Hue and everybody telling him Ivanka, but yeah, but this race, these research firm findings

really just that are the nail and the coffin, I think. Yeah. You know, and, and this is, of course, not evidence specifically relevant to Trump, but I thought it was remarkable at reporting that came out on Friday or maybe Thursday about the emails that have now the internal Fox emails and text messages from Fox News that have now been disclosed in the litigation between dominion voting and Fox that show that even the hosts that were putting this stuff on the air, Sean Hannity, Laura Anger, and Tucker Carlson, were texting, and Lewdabs texting each other commenting about how crazy this was and how there was absolutely, you know, they knew that it was false.

They knew it was fraudulent. And yet they were putting this stuff out, along with Rupert Murdock and some of his advisors. So when you sow all these things together, the reasonableness of one man who happens to be the president of the United States, thinking the complete opposite of everyone else, it becomes less and less believable. And that's what will impact the jury in the long run. Yeah, I didn't even think of the Fox files. That's what I'm calling them, by the way, in response to the Twitter files.

And I hope that we have a bunch of Senate Judiciary hearings on the Fox files. There you go. Yeah, it's, I didn't even think about it because I've been reading that, that 194 page, defamation suit with all of those texts in it. Apparently, Sydney Powell was listening to someone who thought she was time traveling and was being told by the wind or something and has a unicorn head. I'm not quite sure. They were saying like, this is absolute, like bullshit, like they were swearing at each other.

She's a crack pot. I'm not having her on her show, same with Rudy. Yeah. Just some of the really incredible admissions behind the scenes at Fox News. And I really hope that this takes them down. I can't be good. It really can't.

I mean, defamation suits are hard, right? They're almost impossible to uphold against media entities, but this one, I mean, all the experts are saying that this, you know, Dominion has some incredibly powerful evidence, and this thing is on, I mean, it is moving forward like a freight train. I think it's set for, they're going to start picking a jury or something. I want to see an April. I saw. So yeah, we should, we should definitely hear more about that one. Yeah. So that's big news this week. And I just want to encourage everybody if there's anybody in your life after hearing

this news that is a Fox News watcher and says, man, I guess I was duped. And yeah, you know, make room for them. You know, make, make room for them. Don't, don't be like, yeah, you were dumb make room for them. You know, make, make room for them. Don't be like, yeah, you were dumb, get out of my face. You know, be like, hey, yeah, that sucks. I'm glad that you, you know, you're seeing the light. And if you have any questions, I'm here for you. You know, I don't wanna, I don't wanna yell at people

to change and then give them no room to do so. Now, I mean, it's, mean, the tragedy of this whole thing is that the only people who actually believed these claims were the millions of people who were fed lies over and over again from whoever they were listening to and whatever channels they watch, but the people propagating them, almost to a person now we have evidence, knew all along.

It was fraud. It was created by some people to raise money for a campaign. It was created by one person to try to hold on to the job he didn't want to lose. It was propagated by other people at a network who were unhappy with the fact that they were losing ratings to competitors. Everyone had their reason. Most of them were motivated by money or power. And the folks who got victimized were, as always, you know, innocent Americans who sat back

and believed it. Very true. Well, thank you. What a heck of a show. Sorry, we went over a little over an hour. There was too much to talk about this week. I don't know. I feel like everyone's been subpoenaed it now. So maybe the maybe they'll slow down a little bit next week. I don't know. No way. More rain. Bring the rain, baby. Make it rain.

It's rain and days coming up. Like drill instructor used to say, we're going to make it rain. You get indoors. They turn the heat up and you exercise until the condensation falls from the roof That's nice make it rain was good. Yeah, let's subpoenas though. Please from from the sky All right, we will see you all next week Thank you so much for listening to Jack if you want to become a patron and get these episodes out free Just go to patreon.com slash muller she wrote sign up at the five dollar level You'll get both this show and the daily beans,

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Thank you so much. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. And we'll see you next week. Hi, I'm Harry Lickman, host of Talking Feds. Around Table, it brings together prominent figures from government law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day.

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