Jack - Episode 18 - Jail the Hitman (feat. Harry Dunn)

Episode Date: April 2, 2023

This week, no one is above the law, Trump was indicted in Manhattan; Jack Smith is reportedly looking at conspiracy charges; new chief judge of the DC District Court, Jeb Boasberg, says Pence must testify; plus listener questions.Follow Our Guest:Harry Dunnhttps://twitter.com/libradunnStanding My Groundhttps://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/harry-dunn/standing-my-groundDo you have questions about the cases and investigations? 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

I signed in order appointing Jack Smith. And those who say Jack is a finesse. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. Wait, what law have I grew? 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 Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It is Sunday, April 2nd and I'm your host, Andy McCabe. And I'm Allison Gill and today we wake up in an America where no one is above the law. Donald Trump has been indicted by 23 of his peers in Manhattan. And as we await the unceiling of the nearly three dozen charges against him, we have some stunning news in the Department of Justice Special Counsel investigation, as well because we can include now some of the stuff that happened this week that's totally being drowned out by this indictment of Donald Trump, which I'm not sad about. Go ahead.

But some some news that happened this week, including the new chief judge of the DC District Court, Jeb Bowsberg, ruling that former vice president Mike Pence cannot use the speech or debate clause to shield him from testifying about alleged crimes that Donald Trump committed. And we also ruled. He also ruled that Donald has no executive privilege against the testimony of the former vice president. And a CBS News report this week indicated that Jack Smith is looking at conspiracy charges involving the former president. And if that wasn't enough, we also heard this week that Trump has appealed Judge Barrel Howell's order compelling the testimony of top aides, including our very favorite Alice

and former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who could very well end up being the most important witness in this whole thing. In addition to the news, we're going to be joined today by Capitol Police Officer and super good guy Harry Dunn to discuss his thoughts on the Manhattan Trump indictment and the disposition of the special counsel probe. And then of course, we'll take some listener questions. So let's kick it off with that indictment and what it means particularly for the Department of Justice. Yeah, absolutely. Now we know this is not a Jack Smith indictment. It's not a Department of Justice indictment. This is an indictment, presumably, according to reporting because we haven't seen the charges

yet, Andy, about the hush money payment paid to Stormy Daniels and maybe even Karen McDougal, because we got some news this week that Karen McDougal was also involved questions about her Catch and Kill from the inquirer which is run by David Pecker who came in twice to testify before this grand jury But you know these if this is a manhattan DA 23 people New Yorkers voted on this a A lot of people say that the Manhattan DA has indicted Donald Trump. That's not true. The grand jury indicted him. And I think it's important that we understand that process.

But according to sources, 34 counts per sources that have to do with falsifying business records. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, because all we can do about these charges is speculate. Right now we know that the judge, and by the way, the judge overseeing this case, look at the draw, same judge that oversaw the 17 count conviction trial of the Trump organization for falsifying business valuations

and all that fraud that happened there, fraud charges against the Trump org. Same judge. He's been lashing out at the judge, but that judge is apparently, according to MSNBC, weighing whether or not to unseal the charges before a rainment, because the DA can ask for that. The DA can also ask if he can talk, if he can tell the public about the indictment before

it's unsealed. And we have seen now the piece of paper granting Alvin Bragg the ability to announce and disclose that the indictment happened. But we are waiting to see whether these charges will be unsealed prior to a raiment or if we'll have to wait for a raiment. But I'm very interested in what those charges are. Absolutely. And, you know, I mean, there's so much to think about here. I think provisionally, Bragg's office is going to feel a lot of pressure. Most of itself imposed to handle this as normally as they can, to at least check as many boxes that we would all consider to be normal process. And keeping the indictment sealed until the defendant, in this case, our former president, Trump,

has been presented at his arrangement. That's the normal way it's done. So for that reason only, it's my guess that we probably won't hear those details until he's arraigned on Tuesday. But boy, 34 counts, which I think was a piece of reporting that John Miller broke on CNN. 34 counts is a lot. But I think it's also important to point out that it is kind of the common practice in the Manhattan DA's office to charge each separate act in a conspiracy or an overall criminal series of criminal

activities, each separate act is a separate count. That's not typically what we see on the federal side. The federal indictments read pretty cleanly as each count addresses a group of activities, things, actions that were taken, conversations that took place, what have you all around a particular crime. In this case, because the fundamental crime is the falsification of business records, it's entirely possible that each one of those counts is a separate, separate business record. Now we know there were, I think, 11 payments to Michael Cohen

in the course of the payoff to Stormy Daniels or compensating Cohen for having paid off Stormy Daniels. So you can imagine right there that could easily be charged as 11 separate counts instead of one count of having paid off Stormy Daniels. So yeah, and I did look at some of the past indictments out of New York, out of the Manhattan D.A.'s office, four falsifying business records.

And they have consistently been one count for this record, one count for this record. If there were 11 payments and then 11 entries in the business record and then 11 counts of something else, that looks like it's about 34 counts. And it's what that second crime is that I'm really interested in knowing because you have to, this was presented in this Supreme Court in New York, which means it's a felony. And in order for falsifying business records to be a felony, you have to pair it with another

crime. I have my own theories about that. I don't necessarily think it's going to be campaign finance violations, because I do think Trump has a long history of catching and killing these stories and might have done this regardless of a campaign or not, although all these did happen. And there were probably witnesses to keep it out of the public eye because of the campaign. But I tend to think this might be something more along the lines of conspiracy or even racketeering, which in New York is the enterprise corruption statute.

They call it little Rico, right? It's kind of like the federal Rico. It's been around in New York since 1986. And there's three elements to it. I can go over those in a minute. But what I found interesting is something we learned this week that Weiselberg has swapped out his attorneys. Apparently, his attorneys weren't Trumpy enough and they were actually considering a cooperation

deal and that upset Donald. So he sent in a guy named Seth Rosenberg and Andy, Seth Rosenberg used to run the rackets bureau at the Manhattan D.A.'s office. So I find it very fascinating that somebody who's into that sort of criminal enterprise has a background in that is now representing Weiselberg who could face additional charges as well. So, you know, I just wanted to sort of bring that up that I'm not sure. And everybody's been guessing what that second crime is,

but we'll have to just wait until we see those charges. That's absolutely right. So the importance of the second crime cannot be overlooked. It's what turns this falsification of business records into a felony. It also brings, depending on what crime they pick, it could bring vulnerabilities to this legal theory. So one of the things people have been speculating about is that second crime would be violation

of federal campaign finance laws. So there's all sorts of good questions about whether or not you can base a New York state crime on a violation of federal campaign laws. There's also a possibility that the second crime is a violation of New York State campaign financing violations, although that would have taken place in the course of a federal election, a national election. So that raises other questions. Can you be guilty of violating New York State campaign finance laws when you're running

for national office, not not office violating New York State campaign finance laws when you're running for national office, not office in New York. So lots of, lots of legal problems, potentially associated with those two. I think you're right. It's possible that the DA's office has tied the false business records to an entirely different criminal theory, but either way, you can count on the fact that the Trump team is going to use this kind of bootstrapped felony as an opportunity to fire a flurry of pretrial motions, attacking the legal sufficiency of this indictment, of this charge, and that spells one thing to our folks,

the our listeners, and that is delay. This is going to take a long time to go anywhere. I trust me on that one. Yeah, for sure. And just to follow up on what I was talking about before a class B felony of enterprise corruption in New York, it says here, when having knowledge of the existence of a criminal enterprise

in the nature of its activities and being employed by or associated with the enterprise, he or she intentionally conducts or participates in the affairs of an enterprise by participating in a pattern of criminal activity, or participates in a pattern of criminal activity and knowingly invests any proceeds derived from that conduct, or any proceeds derived from the investment or use of those proceeds in that enterprise and this certainly benefited monetarily the Trump organization. So again, I might be shooting for the stars here, but the signs are pointing my brain toward I mean, I

Five years ago, I was like, oh, Davidson Cohen and Pecker and Trump have quite a racket going on they caught and killed Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougall, a woman named Shira Bashard, who was paid $1.6 million to be quiet about an abortion for an affair that she supposedly had with Elliott Brody. He was convicted of some other crimes that weren't associated with that, but ended up being pardoned by Donald Trump. So, I mean, we'll see how this plays out. But Andy, how does this impact, because this is the jack podcast, we're about the special

council here. How does this impact what the special council does? Does it at all? I mean, because this is such a different crime, this crime happened in 2016. It's not anything that Jack's looking at. That's right. So, on that level, it doesn't impact him at all.

This is not conduct or activity that Jack and his team are investigating, you know, as far as we're aware, it's pretty far outside of his mandate. However, I am going to guess that two of the, maybe not happiest, but most interested, closest watchers of this development yesterday are both Jack Smith and Fawni Willis. I don't think as much as we've heard people ringing their hands around the timing of this indictment

and particularly people who are critical of Alvin Bragg's indictment of the president, they're saying this is the least significant criminal investigation of Trump, and it shouldn't have gone first, and there's all kinds of worries that this is going to, it's the most political looking,

and it's gonna kind of poison the well for the cases or potential indictments that come after it. I don't think that Jack Smith and to Lester St. Farmer, you will. It's really that concern about that. What they're looking at right now is this is a perfect opportunity for them to not have to go first. So that's a good thing.

It's also a good chance for them to just sit back and see how this goes. Let's see what kind of public response Trump gets on the day of his arrangement or, you know, who knows, on the first day of his trial, whenever that might happen, that could be a long way away. So I think in one respect, it affects Jack Smith by giving him, you know, kind of an opportunity. If you're out playing golf and you're in a for some, and there's a lot of wind and you're not sure how, you know, the fairway is going to has been cut and you don't, you know, understand, you know, you don't really know the course. Well, you don't ever want to be the first person to tee off, right? You want someone else and you're a foursome to go first because like,

let's see how they deal with the wind. Let's see where their ball hit lands and how it rolls. And I think Jack Smith is probably using this for that opportunity. So I instantly thought of my time as a comedian. You never want to take the boat, which means going first. You want to see what this crowd likes. Do they like dirty jokes?

Do they like clean jokes? Do they like jokes about this? Are they a laughing crowd? Are they a kind of a quiet crowd that you need to reach in and pull the laughs out of? You get a lot of information by watching other people go first. That's absolutely right. So I think they're going to learn a lot from it.

There may be, we don't know yet, because we don't know exactly who Jack Smith may end up using in his case, but on a less positive note, if there are witnesses that Jack Smith is counting on in his case, and those witnesses are also going to be called upon to testify at this trial, that's less of a good thing because you always, especially if it's a witness who's who's testimony, you're really counting that person on the stand. And simply because when they've testified somewhere else under oath, whatever problems they created with that testimony, whatever issues might have been raised about their truthfulness or the quality of their recollection or anything like that, you're going to have to deal with those in your case that goes second. So to have the first cut at the witness, you don't have any of the baggage that they might have created in these other cases. So that's a little bit of a downside for him. I'm sure they'll be watching the witness lists and ultimately whatever testimony comes out of them.

Yeah. And you know, a lot of people ask me like, oh, you're going to talk about this on the Jack podcast, but what does it have to do with the special counsel? And I'll tell you, because I think there's a third person smiling today. You talked about Fanny Willis, you talked about Jack Smith. I'm going to bet somewhere, have an Amargarito, or probably a Scotch, is Robert Mueller, the third, because the origination of this investigation is in the Mueller investigation. He is the one who uncovered these Hush money payments and the whole scheme. He put it in Appendix D of the Mueller report, which is sitting right behind me, as one of the 14 cases that was handed off to somewhere else. It's unredacted now because it was settled in the Southern District of New York already, we know Cohen served a prison sentence and individual run did not.

But this crime, the investigatory birth of this crime that was charged in Manhattan this week is from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. I just wanted to remind everybody of that. I love that reference. And I also love the visual of Mueller sitting back drinking a margarita, maybe with a huge sombrero on or something like that. I don't know. That's entirely in my imagination. I'm not I'm speculating here, but you're right. You know, and Mueller and his team to be fair, they had the the burden and the kind of bad luck, I guess, of having to do that work while Trump was still president.

And that, of course, was the biggest factor in walking away without pursuing an indictment. If you're a close reader of the report, which I know that you are, Alison, and I know most of your listeners are as well, you know that. Yeah, it's number nine on page three of Appendix D. And you can see my face right now. I'm not referencing anything. I just know that. There you go. There you go. Look, we all know Mueller, how Mueller felt about obstruction and the fact that, um, you know, the fact that Trump had, uh, in Mueller's words, you know, the evidence, uh, proved each one of the elements of the offense, what eight or

nine times across the, across the across volume two. So yeah, I think he's sitting back raising a glass saying, well, finally, somebody, somebody brought one of these things over or this starting to bring one of these things over the finish line. Yeah, Southern districts should have, but we know that Burman and Barr, there was a lot of there was a lot of things that were shut down, including what I personally think was shut down early, the Mueller investigation. I remember they were in the middle of a proceeding in court and they hit the Mueller prosecutors, had to go to court and say, hey, this is news to us. We were ready to prep on April 1st and now, bye, we're done.

So I don't know that it'll ever come out, but I have a feeling that that was curtailed earlier than it should have been as well. So just my thoughts, just my thoughts. Let me hit one thing real quick before we move on because it's been such a big topic on TV. And it's this issue of timing. There seems to be the thought or the desire by many commentators that,

oh, they should have coordinated this better. Jack Smith and Fahny Willis and Alvin Bragg should have all gotten together and drawn straws or something are coupled with a strategy as to who would go first. better, you know, Jack Smith and Fahny Willis and Alvin Bragg should have all gotten together and, you know, drawn straws or something or come up with a strategy as to who would go first. And I'm telling you, it just does not happen that way. And that would look awful.

You think that the cries from the right about weaponization are bad now? Yeah, that's right. The federal government is conspiring with prosecutors and two separate states to build the strongest case. That's just not how cases are brought. In very rare circumstances, if you have two jurisdictions that are putting on a case against the same defendant in their separate jurisdictions and they depend on the same witnesses at the

same times, they will coordinate who goes first simply because the defendant and maybe a witness, it can't be in two places at the same time. So there could be, you know, judges make those sort of allowances for attorneys and defendants availability when they're scheduling trials and motion hearings and things like that all the time. If those kinds of conflicts come up, I'm sure they'll be worked out without a problem. But separate sovereigns don't ask each other for permission. They don't take a back seat because, oh, your case is more important than mine and mine is less significant. That's just BS. Alvin Bragg thinks he's got probably cause to believe that Trump committed this crime. We think of falsification of business

records possibly to the extent of making it a felony. He's going to bring that case If he thinks it's strong enough and needs to be brought that's his prosecutorial discretion And if people don't like it and by people I mean the people of Manhattan of New York County That's Manhattan New York if they don't like it they can vote them out the next time he's up for reelection Yeah, absolutely. That's the check and balance right there the ballot box So yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for that insight because that, you know, I, that's something that I had also seen and been wanting to address as well.

So, um, well, it is, it is a new day in America. We have now held a former president accountable, criminally through indictment. So the rule of law stands so far. We'll be right back after the. We'll be right back after the, we'll be right back after this quick break to talk about some other stuff that came out of the DC District Court. Stay with us. Hey everybody, welcome back. The new chief judge at the DC district court overseeing grand jury proceedings had a hell of a first week on the job. First of all, he had to hand down a ruling about the form of vice president.

And he did under seal, by the way, so we're getting this from sources familiar, probably team Pence, saying that Pence cannot use the speech or debate clause to shield him from all questions that Jack Smith's team of prosecutors want to ask. And the reason I think that Pence is the one who put this information out is because the way they spun it was Vice President Pence wins his speech or debate clause battle partially, footnote partially. My headline was he lost his speech or debate clause battle because most of what Jack Smith, in fact, from what I can tell all of what Jack Smith wants to know,

the judge decided it is not covered by the speech or debate clause. But the judge said, Hey, you don't have to testify about stuff directly related to your presiding over the Senate, uh, that day. Uh. But you do have to testify about any crimes that you do crime, crimey discussions you had with Trump and so on and so forth. So I think that this was actually a win for Jack Smith. What are your thoughts? I think that's right. And as a provisional matter, I also agree with you that the likely source of this information is from the Pence team. And he gets back to that thing we talked about last week, like Pence really needed the

battle here, but he doesn't need the victory. He needed to make this showing that he he resisted. He didn't knuckle under to Jack Smith and the grand jury. And he's done that now. So now it's entirely foreseeable that he would be laying the foundation as it was to like, hey, this is why we're going to end up in front of the grandiers. It's not because we want to, it's because of this ruling from Judge Bozberg. So yeah, and I think this one, most legal commentators, myself included,

there's a lot of room here for a compromise decision. It's pretty clear that that absolutely hardcore Senate business sort of thing, conversations with senators in the Senate. Like, that was your best bet or his best bet for having parts of what he was looking to protect considered behind the shield of speech and debate clause. But the question with speech and debate clause always becomes, how much does it really protect conversations that, let's say, a member of Congress has with other people outside the boundaries of Congress, not about legislative things with people who aren't members of Congress.

And by that, through that lens, it always seemed like, you know, a rational judge, like Bozberg, we know is, is going to find some area that Jack Smith could ask questions about. That's clearly not within the kind of traditional core protections of the speech and debate clause. And I think it seems to me from what little we know, that's what they came up with. Yeah. And it sounds a lot to me like Judge Barrell Howell's ruling against Scott Perry for his speech or debate clause saying like, sure, we're not going to ask you about your

these particular things with regard to your job as a congressperson, but we are going to ask you about conversations with the executive branch but we are going to ask you about conversations with the executive branch. We are going to ask you about this and that. We're not we, but the prosecution team is allowed to ask you about these things. I think that this matches this. I think Pence, honestly, when we read the ruling, it's going to sound like Pence got his ass handed to him. But since he did get a little bit of a victory there, I think that that's the way that they're pushing this.

And I think that that's what, because right now, Pence has been asked about whether or not he's going to appeal. And he said, we're looking at that. We're weighing that. And we haven't heard a decision as of this recording as to whether or not Pence is going to appeal this to the DC circuit court of appeals. But in my opinion, I don't think he will. I think he's going to take because he's spun it as a partial win. I think he's going to take this win because if he

appeals, he risks a total loss. Right. And that would be bad. I think he's going to take this little W that he's found here. And by the way, this has changed the way that vice presidents, they have a privilege now when they're as sitting as president of the Senate on the speech or debate clause. But I think they'll take that. I think you'll take this win. And you won't appeal it. Now, Jack Smith can also appeal those two, but I don't see him doing that because he gets to ask Pence all the questions he wants to ask. And I don't think Pence will plead the fifth because he's not a target here. And if he does for some reason,

and he's worried he could be implicated in a crime, which I don't think he could be, but if he does, I think he'll be granted immunity in these cases. They're not going after Pence here. I don't feel like. Not a chance. And I think you're right.

And it also allows Pence to do the very pensy and thing of kind of trying to straddle this thing and play both sides at the same time. So he can say, oh yay, I won, but then he can also say, but not completely. So I have to go and testify. I don't really want to, but the judge is making me testify about this small kind of, you know, non-Send it business stuff. And so he gets the, he gets the opportunity to have resisted and appeal to the hardcore Trump supporters in that way.

But he also looks like Mr. Rule of Law, you know, I have some independence from Trump and that and that silliness that happened on January 6th. And finally, I will say that in talking to a couple of very well-connected folks in town last night, Pence was interviewed on CNN last night by Wolf Blitzer, which was a pre-planned kind of scheduled event before the news broke about the indictment. And a few of the folks that I was talking to seemed very confident that Pence was going to say during that interview that he was not going to appeal the verdict. Oh, we got a little inside scoop. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I do.

And he made him a cab and thought, No, this is speculative and so who knows? And then of course, he was asked about it during the interview and he didn't say that. He just said, well, we're still considering it. We're still considering it. So it knows possible that he already intends not to, maybe he was thinking about making some sort of public

announcement, but then just kind of stepped away from the flame last night, the raging dumpster fire of Trump's indictment and didn't want to kind of, you know, take away from any of that. So who knows? But I think we'll hear from him probably by the beginning of next week. And I agree with you. I think his decision is going to be, let it lie.

I'll go in and testify. Either that or don't even announce that you're not going to appeal because that could make him look weak. Just let it all go in and testify and be like, oh, I did my duty. And I was protected by the speech or debate clause. I won that fight vote for me. Yeah. And then a fly lands on his hat or whatever.

Yeah. It was. We can only hope on that one. But if he does, if he doesn't say anything, it doesn't make an announcement just goes in. At some point, he's going to have to answer the question. People are going to say, well, I guess you decided not to feel well, yeah.

Oh, we ran out of time, or I didn't feel like it that day, or I was wondering what you were talking about. Yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, it looks like you, the appeal window is closed, so we'd be like, yeah, but I didn't have to appeal, I won, you know? Yeah. That's the way he'll spin that, and that's the way he's been trying to spin it

since we got this news. But Bozmerg also ruled in another matter too. First week on the job, first day on the job. And that's Trump's executive privilege claims trying to prevent Pence from testifying. So we covered the speech or debate clause claim by Pence, who is making that claim. Now Trump is stepping in like he does with everybody and trying to assert executive privilege. And Judge Bozberg tossed that all out, whole cloth. Nope, nope, no executive privilege here. You must testify. That means he has to

testify about his, Pence has to testify about his conversations with Trump leading up to January 6th. That would include the phone call on January 6th, because no executive privilege applies, because Bozberg threw it out. And no speech or debate privilege would apply, because that conversation could be in further interests of a crime. And if it wasn't in further interests of a crime, then you don't need that testimony. So yeah, so that was also tossed out. And we knew that I didn't expect that any part of every single executive privilege claim Trump has made. He has lost all the way up to the Supreme Court. So this one will happen to he has appealed. Trump has appealed. He will lose. But again, Delay is his friend.

Absolutely. And that's what this is. It's a strategy to drag things out and and cost people time and effort and, you know, try to distract them. The more he can delay, the more he drags any potential culmination of this investigation into the center of the campaign. That's what he seeks to do. Push it as far and deep into the campaign season as he possibly can. So it raises some good questions about how Jack Smith sees that timing and if there is in fact a point at which he feels

like he has to slow down or back off. I certainly hope not, but I'm sure we'll talk more about that as we get closer. Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody, stick around. We'll be right back with Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. You don't want to miss it. Stay with us. Everybody, welcome back.

Today I am honored to be joined by Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who testified before the January 6th select committee. Let's listen to part of that testimony, where he describes what he wants from investigators. I use an analogy to describe what I want as a hitman. If a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to jail, but not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired them does.

There was an attack carried out on January 6th. And a hitman sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that. Everybody, please welcome officer Harry done. Hi, Harry. Hey, what's up, y'all? Thanks for having me on the show. Hey, Harry, it's such a thrill to have you here. You've become like a fixer. I think in so many

people's minds from your courageous testimony and the way you were able to stand up and speak your truth to the January 6th committee. I wonder, I think it would be great for our listeners to understand a little bit more about your background. So can you tell us just a little bit about when did you start with the Capitol Police and what kind of work did you do there? Sure. As far as the fixture thing, I wanted to have to do with anything of my stature, standing at 7 or without her.

Well, it doesn't hurt. Like a literal fixture, you know. No, I have been with the Capitol Police Officer. I'll start year 16 coming up in November. So I've been there for a good while. I work outside of the Capitol, may, responsible for providing building security, exterior security for the main complex of the Capitol.

I've been there to all kinds of for some amendment demonstrations, civil disobedience, and unscibble disobedience. Let's not confuse that with legitimate political discourse. But anything in between just creating a safe environment for Congress and to fulfill their congressional responsibilities in a safe, secure environment. That's pretty much my main responsibility as a Capitol police officer. That's outstanding and thank you for doing that. Thank you for sharing that with us.

And Harry, after the indictment of Donald Trump voted on by the grand jury in Manhattan this week, you tweeted, I'm not excited. I'm even more angry. The hell with that hush money, he incited an insurrection and had his goons attack me and my co-workers. Let's go department of justice. Talk to us about that and your thoughts behind that. You know, I'm speaking right now as a angry selfish victim, I guess, you know, sure, America and democracy was put in jeopardy. It still is on January 6th. The day's leading up to it,

and hell, even afterwards. But that day, you know, everybody sees police officers a lot of time as people who are there just to save the day and to rescue people. But while we were doing that, we were also being victims of an attack and victim deserve justice. And I think that's one of the reasons I've been so outspoken about that. Yeah, I do believe in the strong sense of, you know, duty, patriotic duty standing up for what's right and doing. But I'm a victim. And my coworkers were victims. And we want justice and we demand justice. And it's unacceptable. That is taken away. I think we're at 814, 15 days now,

since that attack on the Capitol and not just the capital on us. So selfishly, I want a little bit of, you know, be able to be some justice. And yes, the hush money, I know you were talking about it earlier about the hush money. Sure, that, you know, that's important. And that needs to show that nobody is above the law. But this is a, if I can say this,

I want selfishly, I want him to pay for what he did to me speaking as they victim. So. Yeah, you know, how does it, we've all sat back and watched what is by any stretch, by any characterization, a massive investigation that the FBI is involved in right now, and they've got, I don't know,

a 950 people that they've indicted and charged and many people convicted and serving sentences and stuff, but like, talk to us a little bit about how, that just doesn't feel like the whole picture, right? The people who are on the Capitol that day and who engaged in that bloody combat with you and your colleagues.

Yeah, those folks need to be held responsible. That seems to be happening, but it just doesn't feel like the whole picture. Yeah, you know, while I was thinking the same thing, because I was like, you know, what, how would I feel if Donald Trump is arrested and held accountable? We're like, yeah, so that's it.

And then we just go back to normal. No, like even after Donald Trump doesn't exist anymore, there's who's the next Donald Trump. Like, it's an ideology. Now, that's spreading. And it's almost cancerous. That's spreading through this society. I mean, the company people are supporting him. He bragged this week or last week that his J6 song with the J6ers made like the billboard like top 100 or something like there are people out there that support the so-it's this ideology now and that's what's kind of get you little down and depressed sure like as a victim or somebody who just cares about justice being served yeah when that happens but then you have a lot of people out there

that support him that don't really care that he did with you, that's not a big deal to them. So that's the bigger picture of it. It's so threatening, like we were at now, that we're on this, you know, there are people on the right that are saying that they want this civil war. And it's kind of like that's, it's really scary, man. When you think about it, it just was a country like, you know, where are we going there? You know,

how do we get back to where, you know, there's a little bit of civility and a little decorum and decency amongst each other. And now everything's about hate, hate, and either your disser, your debt. And if you are a diss diss then you must be like, it's like your with us or against us kind of thing. And it's, and it's really, that's the bigger picture. So it's not just about Donald Trump going to jail. I mean, yeah, as a victim, that's what I want, you know, but as an American citizen who's concerned about our country, it's like, it's so much more than just him going to jail. country, it's like it's so much more than just him going to jail. Yeah. And despite the fact that his support is dwindling, it, it, it still exists. There are still is an existing support of, of Maga. But maybe, if it helps you feel any better,

uh, there were eight people at Mara Lago today, uh, Trump supporters protesting and zero in New York. Um, we can go all the way back to 2015 and 2016 where Cohen paid somebody with with cash and a boxing glove in a Walmart bag to rig polls. He always lies about his numbers. He always, whenever they put, they Photoshop more crowds in, whenever he, you know, because they have to seem bigger and more important than they, than they are constantly trying to fluff up their numbers like when my cat gets scared and his tail gets poofy and tries to look big. Isn't that because it's all about image to them. It's not about anything that we're actually

saying of substance. It's all about, hey, we wanna make it seem like we're fighting for you, we wanna make it seem like it. So people will be more to donate money to them when it's all about, you know? Yeah, and I wanted to ask you because, you know, there was a sort of a more somber conversation on Maddo last night about dispassionate applications of justice and how it doesn't always look and sound as sexy as we want. Justice usually ends up somewhere in the middle.

And I wanted to ask you about that because it could be, and I'm not sure how the country would react to this or how you would react to this, that some of the charges that come out of Jack Smith's office won't be like treason and sedition or even insurrection. It might be something more like obstructing an official proceeding or wire fraud or money laundering or obstruction of justice, those kinds of charges that are easier to win, but also not as bombastic as something like seditious conspiracy, but also not as hard to prove as something

like seditious conspiracy. And I not as hard to prove as something like seditious conspiracy. And I was wondering, does it matter to you what those crimes are? Because I mean, if he goes down for obstructing an official proceeding, the coup, and trying to obstruct the official proceeding by sending the mob out there, is that going to feel like justice, you think to the two Americans? You know, that's so interesting. As you said that because I, we as Americans, we want everything in black and white, every single thing, Zeta, black or white, and when that, when you, that comes to applying the law and it's either right or it's wrong, did he break the law? Yes or no.

And then if it's no, then all right, he needs to go to jail or excuse me if it's yes, then he needs to go to jail And then everybody they it's just wiggle room around it. So as a police officer I train new officers. I'm a field training officer So these new officers they're coming. They learn and hey, can we do this and they just want a yes or no answer I'm like wait, it's not that simple. It's grayery You can you can do whatever you can articulate that you, that you, why you did what you did. Like, can there be circumstances

when you can shoot somebody in their back? Yes. Can I tell you also, we just do people in their back? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, it has to be a reason and you can articulate why you did what you did. So I think that's why it's frustrating

because Americans, we just want a yes or no answer. Like it seems like just as she'd be straight forward and that's why it's a little frustrating for me because it's like, yo, we saw what he did. Like, that's why that's what my frustration, it was a take so long. We saw what he did, we heard what he did through his own words, we see what he's continuing to do,

he's doubled down, triple down, all of these statements. And it's so frustrating. This is black and white right now. We don't get black and white that often. And yeah, that's why it's a little song-bearing. Because it's like, we got a actual black and white case right here. What are we doing?

But then again, I'm not a prosecutor. I'd have no experience in the criminal justice system as far as the judicial process of it. But I think I'm just as frustrated as many other Americans out here. I totally get that. And as a law enforcement officer, how many times have we, how many months, years, whatever it is, and a long investigation where you're seat, you know what someone is up to. You know what sort of crimes they've been involved in. You know, they're, you know, whatever it is. Moving drugs in a neighborhood or extorting businesses or committing financial crimes,

and you just struggle to be able to collect the evidence that you need to hold someone accountable in this system, you know, up to the thresholds and the requirements of our democratic system. And that is frustrating. But when the day comes that you finally have built that case and it's strong and solid and goes forward, even if it doesn't address every single thing that that person's ever done,

you take a lot of satisfaction in the fact that you've built something that's gonna stand up in court and tell the truth and hold someone accountable and You know, hopefully that's the end here no matter whatever charge it ends up being That we have an opportunity to hold the right people accountable for that horror that we all watch and that you had to live through on January 6th Yeah, and yeah, like you said that's the main thing and that's what a lot of people that I've talked to are saying this has to, like when you heard the saying before, when you go back to the king, you better not miss or something or whatever variation of that kind of that quote. And I get it.

And like I just said, as a law enforcement officer, when you see something black and white, yo, we got it. What are we waiting for? You know, you're working with prosecutors, are you working with the D.A. And you're like, look, yo, this is, what are we doing? Stop. I got right here.

Trust me. Like, and I feel like that's where I'm just like squeezing. Like, look, you got it. But, you know, like I said, I trust the people that are in position that are doing their jobs. Just like me and my coworkers, we did ours. We just want the same expectation that they are going to do theirs.

And I do believe that they are. I'm just a little frustrated with the pace of it, but then again, that doesn't, you know, I don't know. I've never worked on that side of a case before. So I can only just sit back and wait impatiently, I guess. Yeah, and the thing that's hard about it too is that not knowing leaves a vacuum for for any number of disinformation and things to come in. But since Jack Smith was appointed, how do you feel about the pace of the investigation now with Jack Smith as special counsel versus the pace of

the investigation that we knew about at least when before he was appointed. Well, yeah, to go back to what you just said, it leaves a vacuum. I'm gonna look at what they're doing already now for this indictment. Like, they're already speculating what's in it. And we have no clue. Like, you don't even know what's in it. They're saying, President Trump has been charged with X-Wat. Nobody knows what he's been, you don't know. So they're trying to get out in front of it. And then when it comes out, and then I've just been waiting, I hope that it's

nothing that everybody speculating about. So now they're just going to have to triple, double down on what they're saying and say, well, they wouldn't have done it anyway. Or who knows what you'll say. So that back in me does exist. But with the in regard to Jack Smith, I'm just glad that the things that happen, you know, as we've seen, he's the court in DC the last week or so have a compelled witnesses that they have to testify leading to all the way up to Mike Pence and, you know, who's testimony or do they want more that's outstanding besides him, what Mr. Meadows. So I think the pace of that, that's like, all right. So not like you're going to talk to the king of England now, you know, you know, who's next, like this is where this is it,

this is it. So it feels like, you know, we're getting close. You know, this is the testimony that's outstanding that doesn't that we don't have yet. So I think once you get that and we've been compelled now that they have to give it, then we'll get the ball rolling even more. But it does see that, you know, and based on all accounts where people have that no jack Smith that know his work, I'm just say that he is serious about doing his job. And that's all you can really ask for, follow the facts and wherever the facts lead, you act accordingly.

And that's all you can really ask for in investigations. And I've said that more than one time that, you know, the facts lead could say that, you know, what he didn't do anything, story, I'll be upset, I'll be pissed, but I accepted as that's the rule of law and that's the way the justice department works. You follow the facts and you act accordingly

based on only the facts, not your opinions and none of that stuff. So yeah, that's for sure. That was for sure. Well, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us today, sharing your time. I appreciate you. And we thank you so much for your service.

That day and every day, because every day is a day of service in your job. And so we appreciate you. And everybody must follow Libra Dunn on Twitter. Absolutely, absolutely wonderful. I've got a book coming out. I've got a book coming out. I'm going to ask you.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to ask you. Tell me what I'm going to ask you. I'm sorry. Well, no, so coming out. Oh, please. Yeah, I'm coming out. Just gonna ask you, tell me. I'm sorry. Well, no, so I mean, it's some memoirs, it's just my story. I just have realized that people like listening to me and listening to things I have to say. So I'm gonna put it down on paper. I'm not a big reading fan, what I've started to, as I've been writing the book,

I've started to wanna read more. But right, been writing the book, I've started to, you know, want to read more. But, you know, October 24th, standing my ground would be out and I'm just excited to be able to have that opportunity to turn something a tragic day, and a dark day in this nation's history, to be able to turn it into some kind of light. But I will say this, I would trade all of that shit and all the accolades, all the metals, all the words,

the books, I would trade all of it in for that day to have never happened. And you know, because it was such a dark day in our American history. But I am excited to be able to share a little bit a memoir of my life, my life before and my life actor January 6th. So I'll talk to you for it. We can't wait to read it and you got a promise to come back here and talk to us again after it comes out because I'm sure we're going

to have a ton of questions for you. I'd be happy to be happy to. Awesome. October 24th standing my ground officer Harry Dunn, thank you very much. Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Harry. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay. This week on CBS News, Robert Costa reported that sources directly familiar with witnesses and questions tell him that it's clear that special counsel is now tightening the January 6th probe around Trump and his inner circle with a focus on the infamous December 18th, 2020 Oval Office meeting. And you will recall that that meeting involved efforts

by Trump to really pressure national security executives and DOJ officials with kind of getting in the middle of that, you know, using them to buttresses claims that there was problems with the vote in Georgia and other places. Okay, Kosta also says that witnesses have been pressed in recent weeks about Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and others. We sought to use the levers of government

to stop the certification of the election. And sources directly involved believe that a case on conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding could be in the work. So here we are, Alison, at your favorite of all statutes, I think. I was asked, what is your favorite statute? I'd be like, oh, my friend, Allison, she loves 18 USC, 1512C2. C2, woohoo! Yeah, it's by far my favorite statute. I first started noticing the language when Liz Cheney started using it, headling the lead up to the January 6th hearings.

I was like, that's real specific language there. Then we learned about it again when there were two particular crimes that Judge Carter in California found that John Eastman and Donald Trump violated more likely than not by a preponderance of the evidence in order to force him to hand over his emails to the January 6th committee under the crime fraud exception. And those two crimes were conspiracy, 18 US code 371 and obstructing an official proceeding, 18 US code 1512C2. So those are, that's very, that's where I expected this to go. But what I found a little concerning about Trump's behavior on that day on the 1218 day was going to the DOJ, the DHS everywhere he could, the US Marshall service to try to get them to seize voting

machines and end the election and redo the whole thing. That's what he was trying to do. A while he was pressuring Pence to throw back the votes from certain states, seven states and working to try to get Jeffrey Clark installed. That whole, there's like eight different prongs of that conspiracy to obstruct the electoral account on January, January 6. So I think that that sort of confirms for me where I thought Jack was going to go in the first place. I agree.

And, you know, that, that mess of different, you know, I think they described it kind of like a hub and spoke. He had, you had Trump and his advisors pursuing all these multiple different lines, some of which were clearly in effort to kind of scrub the results of the, of the election and started over, have a new one, or just throw out the results from some places, or just simply delay the certification. But in any case, each one of those efforts ends up relying on that fundamental obstruction of the official proceeding, which in this case, of course, was the certification of the

election on January 6. So it is core to each one of these different possible conspiracies that Trump and this cast of characters were pursuing at the time. Yeah. And that's why the testimony of this last round of subpoenas that were the people who were compelled over the objection of Trump for executive privilege to testify to the grand jury, including Meadows, Scavino, Nick Luna, John McIntee, that whole group, Coochanelli of top Trump aides and lawyers, why their testimony is so important. And we learned

this week that Trump has appealed now to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds of executive privilege to block their most of them coming in a second time because they asserted the privilege the first time. Again, this is a loser, but his whole point is to delay. So we will see what happens in that. We're following all of those cases for you. And before we go, Andy, I am really interested in the listener questions that we have this week, because I bet we have some really, really good ones. We do. We have some great ones. And some of them,

man, our listeners are really thinking around corners. And so some of these questions are pushing my knowledge of Georgia state law and things like things like that, which is not very deep to begin with. But I've got two picked out that I think we can probably cover pretty quickly. The first one we talked about a little bit at the top of the show, but I just want to make clear for our folks, the principles behind this. And so this one comes from Gail.

And Gail says, I hear the Stormy Daniels case always referred to as, quote, the hush money payment, but that isn't actually a crime, is it? I thought it's an illegal use of campaigns fund charge. Can you clarify and what's the difference? Thanks and love the podcast. Well, thank you, Gail, for the question. And you're right.

It's referred to as the hush money payment case because I mean, what better title than the hush money payment case? The porn star pay off. I mean, you don't get a better little tagline for your case than that. But in fact, paying someone hush money to keep a story quiet is not a crime. There's nothing criminal about that. The crime that's alleged here, we think, because we haven't seen the indictment yet,

but from all the information that's come out from the grand jury proceedings, the fundamental crime is that falsification of business record. So it's the allegation that they made these payments to Stormy Daniel and then Trump paid Michael Cohen to kind of reimburse him for making the payment out of his own personal funds, Cohen's personal funds. And then those payments to Cohen, the reimbursement,

was captured internally and Trump documents as a business expense. They claimed that it was a, they were paying Cohen for legal fees and things like that. And that characterizing, mischaracterizing the true purpose of that payment is the fundamental crime. Now, that crime becomes a felony if it's committed with the intent of covering up or committing a separate crime. Now that crime becomes a felony if it's committed with the intent of

covering up or committing a separate crime. And we talked earlier about how that separate crime they may be relying on could be a campaign funds campaign finance violation at the federal or state level, or it could be something entirely different. So we're gonna see on Tuesday when Trump is arraigned, what that case is actually predicated on, but we think that the core of it is the falsification of business records. And one thing I've been wanting to point out, I forgot the second crime that makes it a felony.

The statute says it becomes a felony if the falsification of business records was committed with the intent of committing or covering up another crime. That does not mean that Trump has to be found guilty of the second crime. Of course, the prosecutors will have to show evidence of Trump's intent. And in this case, an example of that would be, you know, they were Trump wanted to kill the story because he thought it would be bad for his election. So they used this money to pay off this woman and they didn't claim that as a campaign

expense, which they should have, because it was really done in furtherance of helping his campaign. They don't have to prove the fundamental campaign finance violation. They would have to show evidence of it so that the jury would be able to conclude that he had the the records in intent, but it's not like they vote on it like a guilty. Okay, so it's kind of like obstruction. How despite what Bill Barr thinks, you don't actually have to be guilty of the crime that you're. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And what's our second question. Second question is Dave.

He says, I don't know why the Justice Department can't know exactly how many top secret classified documents were left at the White House during the Trump administration and not returned to a vault at some agency. I mean, it sounds perfectly reasonable when you put it like that Dave. Do you imagine the DOJ has such a list? Quick answer, no.

I'm quite confident that don't have such a list. The people are arriving at the White House with classified documents literally many, many times every single day, as people from other agencies come in to talk to White House staff and aids about different classified materials. So it's all kinds of flow of classified stuff in and out of those spaces in the White House that are approved for classified storage. So it's not a problem in and of itself, but it does create an environment where there's a lot of classified stuff floating around. And there isn't any one person who can tell you every piece of classified that's on the grounds at any given time.

Yeah, and I think you talked about that in an early episode too. The only kinds of classified documents that have sort of an inventory like that are the code word classified documents. And the majority of classified documents are not code word classified. And that's why I'm hoping that at some point we can digitize our classification system, bring it into the current century.

That would be absolutely wonderful because then we'd be able to keep track of all of those documents. That's where we need to go with the question. Totally. Thank you so much for your listener questions. If you have one, you can send it to us by emailing hello at mullershierote.com and putting Jack in the subject line. It's been an amazing week of news.

Thank you so much for covering it with me. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. And we'll see you next week on Jack. And I'm Andy McKibb. And we'll see you next week on Jack.