Jack - Episode 2 Unity v Accountability (feat. David Rothkopf)

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

On today’s show: Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Horowitz, is investigating whether the previous POTUS tried to overthrow democracy; Leahy will preside over the impeachment trial; SCOTUS lets Trump run out the clock on the emoluments cases; looking at Trump’s pardons; a Lightning Round; plus Andrew and AG bid less than fond farewells to a bunch of Trump appointees and sycophants.Follow our guest on Twitter:David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf)Author - Traitor | Host Deep State Radio Want to support the show and get it ad-free?https://www.patreon.com/aisle45podPromo Codes Special offer for DAILYBEANS listeners, get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/aisle45 Check out American Giant for high-quality clothes. Get 15% off your first order when you use promo code DAILYBEANS at american-giant.com Download the Stereo app to your phone for free! Interact with some of your favorite podcasters. https://stereo.com/en-u

M-S-O-W-Media I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubles. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a bi-weekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders!

Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me, and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Proveil. The rule of law is not just some lawyers turn a phrase. It is the very foundation of our democracy. The essence of the rule of law is that light cases are treated like that there not be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans, one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless, one rule for the rich, and another for the poor, or different rules depending upon one's race or ethnicity. To serve as attorney general at this critical time is a calling I am honored and eager to answer. So yeah, now it's clean up on aisle 45 time and for a long while yet it is going to be clean cleanup on aisle 45. Hey everybody, it is January 27th, 2021, and welcome to episode two of Clean Up on aisle 45.

This is Andrew Torres, also of the opening arguments podcast. And this is A.G. Allison Gill, Dr. Allison Gill, if you're nasty. And I am of the Mollishy Roten Daily Beans Podcasts. And we are here today to bring you the news of how this administration is cleaning up after the last one. And we've got a barn burner for you today. Yes, we do.

How are you doing today? I'm good. It just so everyone knows, it's very, very windy here. And so if you hear any knocking and pinging, sort of sounding like engine problems, it's probably things hitting my house. So go ahead and ignore that I just wanted to let you know we're hunkered down We've got some really

Bad weather today, but other than that I'm doing really really well. Thank you. How are you? I am fantastic? Nothing is pinging into my house If you if you hear you know my corgi lily go nuts as she tends to always do right in the middle of our recording, but other than that, you know, that's my that's my strain noise warning, but No, I'm super excited. We have a we have a fantastic show. Yeah, we're gonna be talking about a couple of major stories in the A and B blocks and then on the third block today We're going to interview David Rothkopf who's written a couple of pieces about what we need to do, going forward to restore faith in our institutions and to hold people accountable

and why that is so important in order to move forward. Yeah, he was great, but that right in line with everything we have been discussing. But no, well, why don't you kick us off for our first story, Angie? Yeah, I'll kick us off. And then everybody want, you're going to want to hang around for the end of the show too, because we've got a new lightning round and a segment we call Bubi, which is all of the former Trump administration officials and borrowed employees that have been removed, resigned, retired or unceremoniously fired by the new

administration, and I think you'll enjoy it. So I'm going to kick us off with this first big story, what I think is the lead story of the week. And that is the Justice Department's Inspector General. As we all know, Michael Horowitz has announced Monday that his office is going to investigate whether any former or current Department officials have, quote, engaged in an improper attempt to have the department seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Now, the investigation, I'm quoting here,

from a statement from the Inspector General's Office, the investigation will encompass all relevant allegations that may arise that are within the scope of the Office of Inspector General's jurisdiction. And that is from Horowitz and his statement. He says the OIG has jurisdiction to investigate all allegations concerning the conduct of former and current Department of Justice employees. The Office of Inspector General's jurisdiction does not extend to allegations against other

government officials. Hopefully, you'll be able to clarify what that means, Andrew. Horowitz's office said it will not comment further on the probe until it is finished, and that is normal for the Office of the Inspector General. And the Justice Department Inspector General has also begun examining the abrupt departure this month, and I know you covered this on opening arguments we certainly did on the daily beans of the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta after then a President, Donald Trump, former President Donald Trump, complained officials in Georgia were not doing enough to find election fraud.

And the investigation into the sudden resignation of Biong or BJ PAC by Inspector General Horowitz appears to be in its early stages. Investigators have not yet talked to PAC. And it's unclear how broad their inquiry will be, not according to people familiar with the matter. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe.

And that is sort of where we are with new inspector general matter, like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe. And that is sort of where we are with new inspector general, new inspectors general, well, this one particular inspector general in investigations that have been lit up under this current administration. Okay. Wow. So a lot to talk about on that. I think what's what's probably most important to keep in mind is that the

sole article of impeachment transmitted by the House representatives as we were recording this, right? Monday, late Monday, to the Senate, with the trial to begin, I think February 8th, is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, so that article of impeachment contains names one person other than Donald Trump by name, and that is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Rathansperger. Somebody that I think the Senate is very likely to be interested in hearing from his awareness. I mean, you know, we're doing some tea leaf reading, but it certainly seems like the environment is quite a bit different now than

it was a year ago at this time. So all of these stories, right, are part of the overarching story. Did the president of the United States attempt to overthrow democracy? I was nervous when I saw that it's an existing inspector's general undertaking the investigation because, you know, as we know, in light of the last impeachment, when Donald Trump felt empowered to literally do anything, he purged everybody that he thought of as hostile that sat in a watchdog capacity. So Michael Horowitz. But he did, he did hang on to Horowitz and and Horowitz is and a kind, he kind of had to because Horowitz was the only one who delivered any little bit of bad news about what happened in the Russian investigation.

I mean, he cleared McCabe and Comey and everybody and everyone in the FBI have anything political or having any bias. He cleared everyone of saying that the Pfizer warrant for Carter Page, you know, there were 17 errors, which he pointed out, which is what Trump glommed onto and probably why he couldn't fire him. But you know, he is a holdover from that, from that administration. Yeah, no, that, that's right. And I think that, I think that you're exactly right on why Haru is sort of escaped the firing squad. As far as I can tell, he's a moderate to liberal Republican career prosecutor, named Inspector General

Biobama in 2012, but history of bipartisan, like Clark for a Reagan-appointed judge. He's a straight shooter. He's a straight shooter. He seems to be, right? And more so, you know, sort of, not just, you know, my worst call of my entire professional career was saying, well, Bill Barr seems to be a pretty conservative Republican, but he does seem to be an institutionalist and not a Trump hack. That's one it's gonna take me a while to live down. He kind of he

kind of strikes me as a Jeffrey Rosen type, right? Like a career guy wouldn't do Trump's bidding and refuse to allow Jeffrey Clark to take his place, which is what that first Inspector General investigation I was telling you about is about. Also, in your right, there are through lines to the impeachment, very interesting we learned today that Chief Justice John Roberts will not be presiding over this impeachment.

Senator Patrick Leahy will be the presiding judge, so to speak, over this particular impeachment. I thought that was an interesting move because it seems political. And I'm wondering what the thinking behind that was unless John Roberts was just like, I'm not doing it and I don't have to. I don't know. I mean, it is required. I mean, we have very little precedent on what constitutes an impeachment

and most of the procedures that we follow today, you know, the robes with the little golden circles on it, we're just invented by William Rankis during the Clinton impeachment, right? And we only have one, I believe, which is the William guy that was impeached after he left his office, the war secretary. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I do. I can't recall the name off the top of my head. I have it. Let me get it because it's important to note that there is precedent for this because we know the Republicans are going to be arguing that you can't and shouldn't impeach someone who's already been removed from office. And then, you know, and then they're already arguing against not having the Supreme Court Justice,

Chief Justice, preside over it. So it's gonna be interesting, but it's William Belknap is the fellow's name. Yes, that's me, yeah. And so we do have precedent for it. And we have multiple instances of precedent for people being impeached after they left office. Yeah, that's right. And remember that the key issue, the reason why you want to impeach after someone has left office is the ultimate sanctioning power of being prescribed from

holding any office of trough of of profit or trust under the United States. And there have been a dozen or so article three judges that have been not just impeached and removed, but sanctioned and forbidden from serving ever again. Because otherwise you just blow up a whole balance of power thing by saying because then a president can go on a crime spree and then just resign before he's impeached and convicted and not just allowed to hold office again. So they can't do it. It's kind of like, that's why there's a 30-day return policy and why some places say

we'll also give you the difference if this item goes on sale within 30 days because otherwise you would just return it and repurchase it for the lower price. And that's kind of what's going on here. I love that analogy. I was thinking running out the clock, right? Like we learned today that the Supreme Court, this is no surprise, but that the Supreme Court is going to dismiss, as Moot has dismissed, as Moot, with orders to vacate the lower decisions in all of the remaining emoluments cases. There's one, I know some of the lawyers listening, everybody like, what about the fourth circuit? This has been telegraphed since before the election.

Right. It was clear that the president was going to be able to run out the clock on the emoluments clause litigation and keep in mind crude citizens for responsibility in ethics in Washington, they filed their lawsuit in February of 2017. Right? Like I mean, it was, it's hard to imagine having been more on top of, oh, this guy is using the powers of his office to enrich himself. And right at the clock. And I will say, it is a proper dismissal of these emoluments cases. Oh, it is. It is. Yeah. I'm glad you pointed that out. It sucks. But you know, it would be disingenuous to come out and say that the Supreme Court should not have made this decision based on the way that the lawsuit was filed and what the definition of emoluments is.

It is moot. It is legally moot. And the vacating, the lower court decisions, is a super cool legal edge case called the Monsignwear doctrine, which I did on opening arguments a couple of years ago, but it involved underwear during World War II. It's super fun. Yeah. And again, it's the right result, even if, you know, I like, we, we would all like to see Donald Trump have to give the money back. He's, he's not going to have to

give the money back. So, yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it's important. I don't want to lose, lose track of your original point, which is when Uncle Frank says, well, you know, he's not even president anymore. Yeah, but people like you would like him to be president again. So let's litigate that out, right? Otherwise, what are you worried about? Yeah, 100%. And we're going to be right back here in just a moment, and because we have another lead story for this week, we have two stories tied for the lead this week that Andrew is going to go over the second story. everybody stick around we'll be right back. Hey everybody it's AG and this portion of Clean Up on AL45 is brought to you by BetterHelp. They provide professional counseling to help you navigate life's challenges.

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All right, welcome back to CleanUp on IL-45. If you're like me, you've been tracking all of the arguments, both good and bad against Donald Trump's pardons, all of which were pretty much bad, right? So we just took a part on opening arguments yesterday, actually. The terrible and not true argument that there's this one weird trick where Biden can reverse some of the pardons and it has to do with the Ulysses Grant case from 1868. No, it doesn't. No, there isn't. No, you can't do that. Okay, I know we would like to. And I know, you know, there are 70 different scumbags and hardcore criminals. People that Donald Trump has pardoned for the sole purpose of enabling

them to crime again, right? Like that, that's really the key story underneath all of this, almost all of the people who were pardoned by Donald Trump on his last day in office had already completed their sentences, right? This was about expungering the felony conviction so they can go back to running hedge funds and selling real estate and committing crimes against the American public. So it is with that level of trepidation that I approached an article in Just Security, right, called the gaps in Trump's partens. The way these partens are written, it looks like the Biden administration is still going to be able to go after villains like Paul Manafort.

Seems too good to be true, right? Well, I'm here to tell you, it's not too good to be true. Woohoo! I win! I have a winner! I love it. This is great. Let's start with the fact that the president can issue an absolute pardon, right? An out pardon for any and all offenses and doesn't have to identify them by particular offense.

They don't have to be indicted. But when you start to try, when you start to try and you have somebody like Sipalone here don't know. Genialist or Sydney Powell write this shit out for you. You could you could shoot yourself in the foot. And this is my favorite favorite part about this because he could have done this right. Had he consulted some pardon attorneys in the Department of Justice who might have, you know, said,

well, I wouldn't do this if I were you, but if you were gonna, here's how you should word it. And, you know, he's too smart for everyone, right? And here we are. And I also think there, whatever the explanation is for Donald Trump not pardoning himself and his family, right? Whoever whoever had that kind of leverage against Trump is I think the you know the biggest story of the past five years and this may be related to that, right? Like it may be that he was afraid to issue

Partons that modeled other historical Partons, right? So you think about in terms of Leaving, you know, dotting all your eyes and crossing all your T's when when Gerald Ford pardon Richard Nixon, right? He said I hereby do grant a full free and absolute pardon under Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States, which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969. That was inauguration day through August 9, 1974. That's the day he resigned and crawled out of the White House in disgrace. You can say that, right? You can also pardon people you don't know, right?

Yeah, you can blanket pardon all the insurrectionists, anybody who was involved in storming the Capitol. I was terrified that we were gonna see that. I was terrified, I was terrified of that too, and he did not. Somebody either talked him out of this, or he thought he knew better. But what are some examples of gaps in pardons that we're looking at here? Like, can you have an example of the wording of

the pardon and how you could slip in a prosecution? Yeah. So for example, let's go back not to Trump's last day in office, but to December when Trump pardoned Paul Manafort, right? It says, I grant to Paul J Manafort, Jr. a full and unconditional pardon, okay? So far so good if you're rooting for the bad team, right? And then it says, but that pardon is, quote, for his conviction in the US district court for the Eastern District of Virginia on a superseding indictment listing the docket number, right? For which he was sentenced, right, to 47 months in prison, three years supervised release, $50,000 fine, $25.5 million in

restitution and an $800 special assessment, right, comma, and in the US district court for the District of Columbia, right, that was the judge Jackson case. Yeah, because he had two ankle bracelets, right, right, right, that was the Judge Jackson case. Yeah, because he had two ankle bracelets. Right, right. They matched on a superseding information, charging with violations of various sections of Title 18, for which he was sentenced to 73 months in prison, 36 months supervised release, concurrent, 6 million in restitution, a $200 special assessment,

and 4-feature of $11 million bucks. And then that's it, right? And then it says, I hear by direct the part and attorney to sign the grant of clemency and declare that her action is by the president and being taken by me. Now you and I have talked about, ever since I read Andrew Weissman's book.

And because we always wondered why he wasn't charged with conspiracy against the United States in that whole collusion, which is not a term of art as a federal crime. And the only reason he was not charged was because of the open and shut nature of all of the other things that they got him on. So this new Department of Justice could file that charge because it is not specifically listed in the pardon. Do I have that right?

You have that right. There is one more wrinkle with respect to it. And that is in the DC case, you may recall the multiple hearings after which in which Paul Manafort, under the condition of his plea agreement, was required to fully and truthfully cooperate with the Mueller investigation and with the U.S. Attorney's office. And there is a judicial determination that he breached that agreement. Yeah, he blew it up. And so what that means is anything that was related, that was listed in that information is fair game. A lot of which we might know about. A lot of which we might not even know about.

Absolutely. So, you know, it is worth re-hating. And I can't believe I have to do this. That the investigation into Paul Manafort was, The the investigation into Paul Manafort was This was somebody who took a C tier US political expertise Went to America's ally Ukraine and helped elect a

Pro-Russian stooge then took the tens of millions of dollars. He earned electing a pro-Russian stooge as president of Ukraine. Yana Kovic, yeah, 60 million. And and and hid them in offshore accounts in order to evade paying taxes. Yana Kovic then abdicated fled Ukraine, which precipitated the crisis that led to the Russian invasion of Crimea, which they still occupy today, right? Eight percent of Ukraine is occupied by Russia. And Paul Manafort, like he's not, you know, Vladimir Putin has something to do with it, right?

Like Manafort's not a hundred percent responsible, but he's not zero percent responsible. He earned tens of millions of dollars undermining the national interest of the United States in a bipartisan way. Remember, the Democrats were late comers to the need to partner with Ukraine. We've still got you and I have talked back and forth about Obama's regret of his joking debate comment versus Mitt Romney of saying, the 1980s called and they went there foreign policy

back. Like I laughed at that. You laughed at that Mitt Romney lost, but like that was a mistake. And, and, and, and, and, and, and metaphor is a, the highest order of scumbags, just like, even if you don't care about his connection to President Trump. And then when you realize that, you know, he was also sharing campaign polling data with Russian intelligence operatives, like maybe, just maybe somebody like that should be in prison and guess what? Like he still can be. Yeah. And three of those four states of which polling data he shared were the three were

Trump was able to clinch the presidency by just a mere 88,000 votes. So yeah, we could see a lot of really interesting things going forward here. Again, it's all going to have to do with decisions by the new attorney general and what sort of appetite this Justice Department has for going after these old crimes, but they're still within the statute of limitations. Are they not? Oh yeah. And can I talk to you a little bit about Steve Bannon's?

Because it's not quite as clear. Yeah, there's Steve Bannon, right? Tell me about Steve. So now, I think he, I mean, he was indicted recently and arrested by the post office. Now, I think he, I mean, he was indicted recentlyfendant spent that money on personal stuff, which is illegal. So that he was indicted on that charge. But what does the pardon say? Yeah. Okay. So the pardon here, this is kind of a hybrid as compared to the Manafort pardon, right?

Manafort pardon was specifically for the offenses charged on those two indictments. specifically for the offenses charged on those two indictments. Bannon's is a little broader, but still entirely wide open. So it is in connection with that post office arrest, right? For offenses that were ultimately charged in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, right? On Docket 20-CR-412. And then for any other offenses, under Title 18, Chapter 95 of the U.S. Code, that might arise or be charged in connection with those offenses in the above listed indictment, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York or any other federal jurisdiction. Right? So in other words, it is only in connection with the case for which he was arrested, right? And any crimes that might flow from that, right? So in other words, the loophole that we discussed

with Manafort would not apply to ban it. Everything relating to him, defrauding Trumpsters, applied a ban. Everything relating to him, defrauding Trumpsters, he's fine and free to go. But what about everything he did? There's nothing else. There's nothing else. Yeah. That's right. And I cannot, I just, I, because I'm assuming he had an agreement with, with Muller, because I mean, he told him

everything pretty much and maybe they agreed not to charge him for his cooperation. I don't remember seeing a cooperation agreement, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. But if you, you know, none of that's there. They could decide if there was a cooperation agreement to turn around and charge him for these things. Couldn't they? Or would they be then in breach of any cooperation agreement?

No, no. They would not, right? Because, well, all right, let me, let me, let me say the one area in which they might be. And that is, if there is an explicit non-proscution agreement signed by and between Mueller, anyone on his team or anyone in the Department of Justice, and Steve Bannon that says, in exchange for X, we agree not to prosecute you and that information lists everything. That's the one way in which we would have

kind of a get out of jail free. That will be in the supplemental Mueller materials that Joe Biden's DOJ, you know, Joe Biden can declassify and Joe Biden's DOJ can release. Yeah, because like I said, we don't, we knew Manifort had a cooperation agreement, but I never heard about one for Bannon. I feel like if there was one, we would have gotten that reporting. Yeah, I think we would have spullunked that. You would have spulunked that certainly. So, let me be clear. Those other offenses under chapter 95 of title 18, I just realized that I spoke in kind of a lawyer's code there.

Chapter 95 of title 18 of the US code, that's racketeering. That's Rico, right? So, in other words, he's only being, right, it must be a Rico-related offense, right? Connected to the scheme to defraud, Trumpster. So yeah, this is a really, really narrow part, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Like once you've taken the hit.

The only thing I can think of, the only thing I can think of is that he tricked him. Like he's like, no, I'll keep my word and then gave him shit ass pardons. And then, you know, it's either incompetence or it's total throwing them under the bus. Well, the metaphor, my supposition when this came out was that by naming the particular offenses and the amount of restitution that he could set up Paul Manafort to go petition the US government to try and get the money back. Right. And while the law is pretty clear the other way, it's not a slam dunk, right? And so it kind of just hoping it gives him a key to get his money back and that either the Justice Department won't have the appetite or won't have the evidence to prosecute on

the other stuff. Exactly, right. And so I got the Manafort part, but I do not get why Steve Bannon was sort of hung out to dry. I mean, it seems to me to be a pretty good roadmap of like, all right, do not charge him on X. Could we charge him on Y? Do not charge him on X. on why do not charge him on X like I yeah and I haven't seen any reporting on any anyone from either party commenting on why these narrow these narrow these parties are so narrow I haven't I haven't seen anything on that nobody's commented on I don't either and and again I think that you know this is really like the the Rubicon for the show, right?

And that is, is Joe Biden with all of his talk of unity, but also all of his talk of accountability, willing to pull the trigger and say, you know what, this is not just Democrats can't get over the Russia thing. And oh, God, the bad faith actors will be another Glenn Green walls and garbage monsters will be out in force. But it's not, or does Mayor Garland, yeah, you know, or, or will Mayor Garland, because Joe Biden has promised to stay out of it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's right. That's right. And, and, you know,

well, we're going to talk about that a little bit in our interview. So I won't, I, we're going to talk about that a little bit in our interview. So I won't, I won't spoil that. But look, I don't think it's a done deal either way. And I think as you always point out, right, it's up to us. Yeah, you're totally right. And speaking of that interview with David Rothkoff, we will be right back. We're going to talk to him.

And you don't want to miss it. It's a really, really good interview. So stick around. Hey, clean up on L-45 listeners. This is AG in today's episode of the podcast, brought to you by American Giant. Did you know back in the 60s, 95% of our clothing was made in the United States. Today, it's only 3%. Most of the stuff we buy now is made overseas. It kind of feels disposable, is poorly made, and that's why right now, it's the perfect time to buy clothes made here in the United States, and in American Giant, they wanna make things better by making better things. American Giant has built a 100% USA-based supply chain,

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You get 15% off your first order when you use promo code daily beans at American-giant.com That's 15% off when you use code daily beans at American-giant.com you use code dailybeans at american-giant.com. All right, everybody, welcome back. We have a very special guest today on Twitter, the bio reads here, Proud Father, Husband, CEO, TRG, Host of Deep State, Radio, and the author of the new book, Trader, also a contributing columnist to the Daily Beast USA Today. Please welcome David Rothkopf, David Hi. Hi.

Good to see you. And these are some really great articles, one that came out over the weekend and the USA Today piece that just came out this morning. I guess it's still technically over the weekend, it's pre-football. So I wanted to talk a bit about your opening line here in the USA Today piece that you penned, where you say that the most abused word in 2021 hands down has to be the word unity. Can we talk a little bit about that? Well, sure. I mean, Joe Biden ran on unity as a theme. He certainly emphasized unity in his inaugural address, but even before the inaugural dress, shortly after January 6th,

then the insurrection, the coup attempt on Capitol Hill, you had Republicans trying to defend themselves against being held accountable for this by saying that it would be divisive. They would, they later said that impeaching the president would be divisive. It would be contrary to Joe Biden's goal of of unity and and we've we've seen that since with You know somehow Republicans arguing that you know keeping the filibuster promotes

how Republicans are doing that, you know, keeping the filibuster promotes bipartisanship, which helps us towards unity, although the filibuster has been used exclusively for obstructionist reasons for the past 30 years. And so, you know, it's incredibly cynical. And, you know, it's going to force And, you know, it's going to force Biden and the Democrats to sort of come to grips with the reality that these guys are not changing their stripes. They're not going to play fair. They are going to continue with scorched earth politics. And unity is going to be, have to be something we shoot for and we try to produce policies that promote and not something that we're going to get out of the GOP on the hill. Well, David, you make a really forceful case in the USA Today article for removing the filibuster.

And I want to drill down on that a little bit. Are you hearing is is there momentum towards that position in terms of the Senate rules, the, you know the attempted kind of craft to compromise between majority leader Schumer and Mitch McConnell, what are you hearing in terms of what we're looking at? Well, I mean, you know, first of all, you know, you've had the negotiation going on between Schumer and McConnell and McConnell

came in and said essentially, you gotta take Philobuster off the table for us to have conversation. And Schumer said no. And that doesn't mean that he's willing to embrace getting rid of the filibuster, but he does recognize that keeping that as an option gives him leverage. Whereas if he gave that up at the beginning, it would be a big, big mistake. Now, will he go the next step? I think we're closer to them going the next step than we have been at any time in the past four or five years. Because what happened was the Democrats realized that the Republicans

got rid of the filibuster to advance their judicial agenda without any hesitation. They just want to keep the filibuster to stop the Democrats agenda. And so it's cynical. And then, you know, the Republicans who say, well, you know, the filibuster, you know, Susan Collins, that great institutionalist. Right. Allow me to furrow my brow. Hold on. Yeah. A furrier brow. Show your concern. But Susan Collins said, well, you know, this is an anti-institutional point of view. Well, filibuster didn't exist until the middle of the 19th century. It was hardly ever used in prior, you know, in the 1950s, it was used once a year. It only started

it's picking up in the 1990s and the 2000s when it started being used regularly by Republicans, occasionally by Democrats as an obstructionary tool. And it's time to get rid of it. We don't have filibuster in the house. It's anti-democratic. It gives the minority essentially a veto. It gives the minority essentially a veto. And the minority in the Senate already has this ridiculous advantage because the 50 Democratic senators represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans. Right. And that's my question for you, David, because I am 100% for getting rid of an obstructionist filibuster.

I think we have other tools like budget reconciliation, for example, for the America Rescue Package, the America Rescue Act. But my concern is that we're already coming from behind as Democrats. If we talk about us being the Democrats, so I'm thinking let's get our voting house in order and let's make the voters have actual representation in the Senate before we maybe go down that road. But also is going nuclear, they make it sound like there's no way back from there. Like once you do it, it's done forever and you can't change that. Is that true?

Well, of course not, because the rules can change any time. The rules on the filibuster have changed many times. And would it be better if the Democrats could do it when they had a few more seats and a little more security? Sure, it may not even be possible to do it until they do because one Democrat, at least Joe Manchin, who is a Democrat in name only, I guess he's a dino, a dino, you know, Joe Manchin has said that he's opposed to it. And you know, you need to get

to 51 to change the rules anyway. Now, having said that, there was a good piece by Ezra Klein in the New York Times looking ahead to when that might happen, 2022. And he made the really good point that if you don't pass the Democrats agenda, you know, it's going to be hard enough to win in a midterm election to begin with. We rarely ever do. If history is any indication, 2022 will probably give some seats back on on both in both houses. Right. Which would give control potentially back of both houses. which would give control potentially back of both houses. And at that point, Biden, his goose is cooked because you know how McConnell and you know how McCarthy are going to play this. And they're going to say, we're not giving him anything. You're not going to have any more judges. You're not going to have any more people approved.

Everything's going to be executive order. You're not even going to have this week tool of reconciliation, which you could only use for budget things. And so, you know, I guess there's an argument to be made if you can get mansion across the line. It's argument to be made for DC statehood as well. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying is, but you're not going to get to DC statehood unless you change this rule. And you're not going to get to put your budget reconcile your way into DC statehood unless you change this rule. And you're not going to get to put your statehood. You can't budget reconcile your way into DC statehood. Right. Right. And I think that's the most important thing. The Republicans are trying to cheat. It's not an aspiration that I'm guessing. It's central to their policy. Motor obstruction is part of what they're about is you know, is part of what they're about, gaining an unfair advantage for red states is what they're about.

Well, you know, you're not gonna change election laws, you're not gonna fight voter suppression, and you're not gonna change the number of states unless you change Philbuster. Got it. And now, you know, this show is called called cleanup on aisle 45. And I want to move on to your daily beast article, where you talk about the very first step in, in, in unity, the most abused word in 2021 is that we have to hold to account the criminals of, of this past administration.

And I want to know what you think about how we're going to do that, especially in light of the new announcement that we just got over the weekend, that the FBI and Department of Justice are saying that they're not going to arrest all of the insurrectionists. Well, you know, I find that very dispiriting news, you know, that the notion that there are, you know, going to be hundreds of people walking around saying, I attacked the United States capital with the objective of undermining American democracy and there were no consequences, is going to send a very powerful message inside of right-wing extremist circles. And I think it's going to send a message that they feel like they have allies within the FBI, that they have allies within law enforcement and that they're gonna be able to get away with this stuff.

Now, if somebody came to me with a grand bargain and said, I'm gonna hold Trump accountable, I'm gonna hold the Trump campaign accountable, I'm gonna hold crews and Holly and Bob Burton, Gosar and all these. Yeah, and right, and those characters accountable. But I'd say, okay, let's ensure that the organizers and the insiders are held accountable and will we'll let the foot soldiers off. But I don't think that's gonna happen.

And so, you know, I think the reality is that we're gonna have had the first coup attempt in the United States, the only such attempt led by a president, the worst effort by an organized political entity to undermine democracy in America in our history. And I think it's, it's, it's going to be essentially very unsatisfying conclusion. And I think most of the people are going to walk away unpunished.

And Andrew, isn't this still sort of technically Trump's Department of Justice until we confirm America, Ireland and could things be reversed? Could this decision not to prosecute everyone or hold people accountable? And we know, of course, the Department of Justice has said, you know, they're not looking at, or I think it was actually the US attorney in DC has said, whose Michael Sherwin, who's famously part of the commutation of Roger Stone, has said, we're not going to look into going after the president. But once maybe that U.S. attorney is replaced, or we have Merrick Garland, could those things change? Or once a decision, I guess, my question is, once a decision to not prosecute is made, can it be reversed? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have no, right, double jeopardy or other considerations in the absence of

a formal agreement, like a deferred prosecution agreement, or a signed non-prossecution agreement. So yeah, I mean, I certainly, I shared David's perspective that this was an incredibly disheartening and announcement and I would look for an attorney general, Merrick Garland, to maybe set a different tone from the top down because David, I think you've really forcefully made your points in what might be considered prisoner to lemma terms, right? Like the Republican practices are not going to change no matter what you do. So why try and incentivize them to change at your own peril? And I think no one knows that better than Merrick Garland, right? I don't know what your view is on that. He may know it better, but you know, he's also a judge by temperament.

He's a very, very, um, uh, uh, small sea conservative guy in terms of how he approaches the law. That's a good thing. It's why he's a good choice for attorney general. He will not, you know, one will be able to accuse Merrick Garland of being political. They will. Yeah. Well, you're absolutely. We said the same thing about Robert Mueller, remember? Yeah.

Well, yeah. And I have to say, we were disappointed also by his angry country of Democrats. Well, but the point is he's the right kind of guy for this. But I have a feeling, you know, if you go into the inner circle of the Democratic party in the White House on the hill, and within even Democrats that are ending up in the Justice Department, they're going to lean away from harsh justice on this stuff. Why? Because I think they think it's a distraction that will inflame the Republican base that will give Trump more air time. And they want to advance their agenda because they think that if they can advance their

political agenda, they will be able to persuade the red state people who benefit from that agenda to move across the line. I'm not optimistic. That's correct. Neither of us. Well, when Merrick Garland delivered his comments upon his nomination, he did specifically mention the attack on the Capitol,

and that gives me a little bit of hope as far as holding folks accountable. But, you know, it's all speculation game at this point, based on what we know of the man, and we will see what happens going forward. Will you come back and join us, David, when we have a little clearer picture of what Merrick Garland may or may not do? Absolutely, of course, but I'm from Washington and I'm happy to comment on things even when

I have no idea of what's going to happen. Well, we certainly appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for coming on Clean Up on L45. Tell everyone where they can find you and where they can find your book. Well, I can find the book wherever, you know, books are sold or bought and they can find me at Twitter, at DJ Rothkoff for a deep state radio,

our podcast and you go look for that wherever you get podcasts. Thank you so much. All right, well, thanks. Appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. All right, well, thanks. Appreciate your time today. Appreciate that being invited. Hey, everybody, it's A.G. and I want to tell you about the stereo app. You know Andrew Torres and I.

Every Tuesday at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern, hop on the stereo app and have discussions, live interaction on this platform called stereo. It's so awesome. We talk back and forth to each other. We have our little icons. And you can record questions and submit them and we'll play them on the air right there on the platform while we're broadcasting and answer your questions live. It's really fun. It's interactive. And I absolutely enjoy it. And it's a little more irreverent. You know, it's not as put together or polished and it's just sort of a kind of a cool casual hangout. We do it every Tuesday at 5pm.

Just download the free stereo app and get started. It's so much fun. Follow us at, I think he's Andrew Torres and I'm Allison Gill, two wells in Allison, two wells in Gill. And you can catch us every Tuesday at 5 Pacific 8 Eastern. And stick around after the end of this show, as soon as the credits are done rolling, you can hear a little clip from last week's stereo show. I appreciate it.

And we thank Stereo for supporting the podcast. All right everybody, welcome back. It is time for Clean Up On Isle 45's Lightning Round. All right, so this is gonna be the part of the show where you and I go back and forth with some of the headlines, maybe talk for a second or two about them, but there's so much news, there's so much cleanup going on, it's impossible to fit in in all in one show, so we've devised the lightning round.

I will kick us off that Rudy Giuliani is being sued for defamation by Dominion, that's the voting machine manufacturer, for 1.3 billion with a B dollars. And this, I think, is kind of going to be an open and shut case, much like the other Dominion lawsuit that has been filed. It is straight up defamation. And I think it'll at least go to Discovery, which should be extremely interesting. I agree with that. I think the one billion billion is kind of hilarious.

And I think intentionally so. So look, defamation. It is defamation per se to accuse someone of committing a crime, right? And saying you, Dominion as a company, engineered your voting machines to steal the election is fits that definition to a T. So the only real questions are going to be if that's allegation is true or not, which it isn't hint.

But also then you have to trace back, even in definition per se, what that means is you don't have to prove you were harmed by the statement right there's some things that the court will just presume like oh yeah if you prove somebody falsely accused you of committing a crime that's deaf and you don't have to prove to us that that you as a result of that. We take that as given. But the question is, what does a company get in damages for having done so? And there are a couple of different ways in which we measure damages and definition, right? One of them is presumed damages, right? And that is just when people say bad things about your rep, you're probably

entitled to some money. That's not going to be a high dollar value for Dominion. One is punitive damages. That will be very interesting. A court's threshold for punitive damages is usually very, very high. But the conduct here is unbelievably egregious, and the way that Dominion has pled the suit is really, really smart. The centred is 107 pages long, but the argument basically boils down to Rudy Giuliani is running around in public saying we committed fraud But when he gets into court He does not say that because he knows that's a fucking lie, right? so

And you can they can also take the evidence of looking at how Fox News and Newsmax responded to letters of threatening lawsuit They immediately complied with everything that Dominion wanted to do, and Rudy just doesn't seem to want to do it. So, we will be on top of this lawsuit. We will tell you about discovery, and we will follow it as it goes along, because it's going to be a fun one. Their sole damage, I got to do, their sole damages are in paragraph 126.

They've spent $565,000 on private security, which I believe, right? Like if you look at right wing monster sphere, like people are out for blood and, you know. Well, they have transcripts of voicemails that are left, like we will f and kill you. You are f and dead. We will hang you.

We know who you are. We will find you. That guy showed up with an AR-15 at Comet Ping Pong, demanding to see the nonexistent basement. So yeah, they're definitely going to get their money back on their private security. They may not get, you know, a million billion dollars, but I sure hope they do. So. All right. And next lightning round story. Just today, we learned that a majority leader Chuck Schumer story. Just today we learned that majority leader Chuck Schumer refused to agree to Mitch McConnell's proposed power sharing arrangement in the Senate because McConnell wanted that

condition in writing on the Democrats not blowing up the filibuster. And, you know, and and and Schumer said, let's look back at the 2001 power sharing arrangement. It was a barebone skeletal arrangement. It by definition said, left a lot of issues unresolved. And you know what issue we're leaving unresolved? Whether we're going to continue to commit to the filibuster. Yeah, but here's the problem, right? We don't have 51 votes on the Democrat side, the Democratic side, to change the rules, or to do a mini-nuke where you would just nuke this particular filibuster on the power-sharing agreement, or a Maxi-nuke, which is to nuke the filibuster altogether. Manchin and cinema have said they will not vote for the filibuster, and Manchin has taken

it a step further, saying he will not vote on anything that would at all threaten the filibuster. So we would have to get a couple of Republicans to come on board to go this route. So we're sort of at this weird stalemate and I'm waiting to see how this resolves. Yeah, I agree with you, but I would point out a couple of different things. Number one, Joe Manchin has a history of what I think is very good on our side and very frustrating when you see it on the Republican side, Susan Collins, of saying things that play well with his constituents back home. But when it comes time to casting the votes, being able to vote when it when it actually does make a difference. Kirsten Sinema, I have always been more skeptical of, there is nothing wrong with being ambitious

and wanting to be president, she clearly does. But she has been sort of needlessly centrist in her career vis-a-vis the constituency that she represents. So she makes me nervous. She's being a Republican right now. Like, stop it. Yeah. No, it, it, it, it, different people. Again, I, I don't want the sexist element to creep in there, right? Like, you cannot be more ambitious than Barack Obama, who was

Senator for 11 minutes. And then was like, well, I should be president and was, right? So, let's be clear that, that is often unfairly level. So you think Manchin might just be, might just be all bark and no bite. He might actually vote to eliminate the filibuster or at least do him any news on it. I think, I think, I think if conditions become intolerable, right? If they become so gridlocked, because here's the reason that it's an issue under the Senate rules, right, which require a two thirds vote to overturn. So I mean, there's not a chance that you're changing any of the Senate rules.

If a proposed bill is split 50, 50 in committee, then it cannot be advanced out of committee and put on the calendar. And so if there's no change to that under a, under some kind of Senate resolution, then literally you could stop everything from going on the calendar as, as the Republicans. And Republicans know that, right? But they also know that that condition of events is not remotely stable. So. Well, I guess we'll end up seeing what happens in that case.

Right now, it's just sort of everyone is like, hey, we want to send it. Take your power. Next up, Riley Williams has now been charged with theft of government property and obstruction, which could land her 20 years in prison. So basically, this young lady has actually did steal a laptop, turns out to be a presentation only laptop, she couldn't actually end up selling it to the Russians, but she stole it and that is stuff to government property,

and she did some sort of obstruction of justice. So that takes her from a couple of years in prison for trespassing and violent entry to the capital up to 20. Yeah, I'm going to be the the negatron on this one here. I've taken a look at the indictment and we all have seen the hearing or the transcripts of, you know, the judge releasing Ms. Williams on her own recognizance and saying, you know, don't make me, don't make a liar out of your mother to me. And, you know, just, just, well, she really, he, well, he released under her mother's supervision, custody. And if she, and if she does something

wrong, her mother could go to prison. Right. Right. And, and that seemed a little favoritism. Quite. So I've, I've, I've looked at the indictment and the two top line charges here. So, hey, this is still on the Magistrate Judge's docket, like we discussed on episode one. The two top line charges are 18 USC 641, that's theft of government property, and 18 USC 1512, which is aiding or abetting others so as to in embezzling so as to obstruct or impede any official proceeding. But the biggest offense out of that is the theft offense, and that is a base six offense level because it's measured by the value of the thing you're stealing, right?

And so you start piling on additional levels when it's more valuable. I don't want you to think that I think she's going to serve 20 years in prison. I'm just saying, she seriously kicked up her time here by doing this. Oh yeah, I just wanna be clear for the listeners. Absolutely, both of these have a

maximum 10-year sentence for somebody with no record. I think our listeners know that like, you know, Manafort got like 10 seconds and Poppodopolis got 12 days and Vanders Wong got 30 days and all of these folks were up for five, 10, 15 years in prison. Most of them up for five years in prison. I think they, I think our very frustrated listership knows how this goes. Yeah. And that's where I'm throwing the cold water is that this is very likely to fit within that same category.

A base six offense level is squarely within the zone of probation for a first-time offender. So now, now mind you, that's without additional charges. As we have long discussed, right, the deal isn't long, it's episode two. But as you and I discuss, I think every day, the DOJ is free to issue a superseding indictment if during the course of the investigation, there really is something to the, we're going to sell this to Russia or the comment of, like, oh, make sure you're wearing gloves, right?

The less, you know, she looks like, at the arrangement, she was portrayed as, at her lawyer, her lawyer statement was, well, this is an unfortunate young woman who was led astray by the president. And lots of these people are going to be, you know, offering up that defense. But the more it looks like, yeah, maybe you plan this out in advance that the less likely that is to fly. Yeah, we'll see. Well, that is our lightning round today. And now as we say goodbye to you today in this episode, I'd also like to wave goodbye to the following Trump allies that have been fired by the Biden administration resigned otherwise on ceremoniously leaving government service. And this is our bubbi segment. First of all, Dr. Debra Berks, bubbi.

National labor relations, National labor relations board general counsel Peter Robb was told either to resign or be fired. Robb refused to resign, so Biden fired him. See you. Bubbi. Biden dismissed the director of the voice of America, Robert Riley and his deputy Elizabeth Robbins

and replaced them with experienced journalists with long careers at VOA and other government-funded networks. I know you want to say something about this. Just, just, bye-bye. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. And Biden is terminated Michael Pack, who was Trump's head of the US Agency for Global

Media. That's that umbrella organization over voice of America. So, bye bye, Michael Pach. And Biden has sacked Kathleen Craninger, who was Trump's director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is laughable, and Craninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency's role as a watchdog for the financial sector. So bye bye. And finally, Adios, a do to Trump's

surgeon general Jerome Adams. He has gotten the axe. They usually serve a five year term, but nope, not this time. Couldn't come too soon. Hopefully, the first of many more to come. I'm sure there will be many more. So goodbye to them in memoriam, et cetera, and everyone goodbye to you as well.

Don't forget to join us live Tuesdays at 5 p.m. Pacific 8 p.m. Eastern on the stereo app. It's a lot of fun. We will answer your questions. It's interactive live app. You can download the stereo app for free. And it's, it's a really good time and we'll take your questions there. Anything else before we get out of your Android? No, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. And we covered more ground than I think I've ever been able to do in an hour before. So you, you, you, you reigned me in for a lightning

round segment. I'm, I'm impressed. Scared. It was terrible. It was slow roll in Lightning, but we got through it. We got through. As far as I'm concerned, those were immediate thunder claps. Thank you so much, A.G. Love doing the show with you. Yes. Thank you, too. Everybody, until next week, this has been Clean Up on AL45.

Clean Up on AL45 is written and produced by Alison Gill and Andrew Torres, and is engineered and edited by McKenzie Mazzell and Starburns Audio. Fact checking and research by Alison Gill and Andrew Torres with quality assurance and media by Muller She Wrote LLC. Branding Design and Logo by Starburns Audio and Joil Reader with Moxie Design Studios and our copy is written by Jesse Egan. Our music is written and recorded by Adam Oren, Christopher Houghey, and our opening sequence was designed by Alison Gill and mixed by Mackenzie Mazzell and Starburn's audio.

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