Jack - Episode 26 - Copious Notes

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

This week: the Mar-a-Lago Grand Jury hasn’t met since May 5th; a new informant who worked at Mar-a-Lago comes forward; the LIV Golf investigation expands; the documents investigation moves into Trump’s foreign real estate deals; some Oath Keepers get sentenced; plus listener questions and more.Do you have questions about the cases and investigations? Email [e-mail] and put Jack in the subject line.OrClick 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. 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.

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 26 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It is Sunday, May 28, 2023, and whoa, now we got a lot of information about some of the details in the documents case this week. I'm your host Allison Gil. And I'm Andy McCabe. First Allison, when we noted the news two weeks ago that there was no news, that was exactly right. According to new reporting, the documents grand jury hasn't met since May 5th. And we also have information from a new informant that worked at Marlago along with new information on Evan Corcoran's detailed notes. Yeah, like 50 pages worth, right?

Yeah. It's like that's, he took really, really detailed notes and it reminds me a little bit of when Donald Trump was really angry at Don McGahn for taking such detailed notes in the Mueller investigation. He's like, what kind of lawyer takes notes? No, no, no notes. Well, now we have that situation again. And we got some information about a tech company,

Sapina, along with an expansion of the live golf tournament arm of the investigation. And a few of the Oathkeepers have been sentenced to now. And we'll talk a little bit about that and then we'll take some listener questions. And Andy, let's talk about what blew my mind this week in the news. And that's the expansion of the documents probe into foreign real estate deals between Donald Trump and seven foreign countries. And this comes from the Times, federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into the former

guy and his handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Trump's business dealings in foreign countries since he took office. The subpoena Andy went to the Trump organization and we don't know when nor do we know what Jack Smith was wanting to find when he issued that subpoena, but it sought details on the Trump organization's real estate licensing and development deals in seven countries, China, France, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. That's right. That's, and, you know, of course, that stands out to me because we learn in this story that the

subpoena for these real estate and licensing documents was part of that little tiny snippet that we got in a New York Times report a couple of weeks ago that he was looking for information about the live golf tournament and that that was somehow connected to the documents case. And later in the show, when we talk about some new information we're getting from a guy who helped Walt Nauta move some boxes, that that also has a role in, you know, because he helped pack an SUV to go to Bedminster, which is where he had met with the Saudis to discuss the live golf tournament. So what are your thoughts about this?

I mean, this was a bombshell, especially since there hasn't been any activity since May 5th. And then we just get this information that all of a sudden, they're looking for all these real estate documents and deals in seven, four in countries. Maybe it was a dead end. You know, really hard to say at this point, Allison, because we tend to think of these investigations, quite naturally, from the perspective of the information that we know, right? And we know that they're deep into the documents case. We know that they're probably getting

close to the point of wrapping things up and potentially putting, you know, kind of handing it over to the grand jury for a vote on potential indictments. And so we think about all that in terms of, well, have they polished off the details about, well, Mata and maybe moving the boxes around, this subpoena specifically about the live golf stuff a week or so ago, completely took us out of that mindset,

like, wow, what does this mean? Wow, is the live golf tournament even connected to any of this stuff? Well now we get maybe a little bit bigger view as to the relevance here. If what Jack Smith is going after is information about this wide swath of foreign countries, well we know that the one country on this list that actually entered into an agreement with the Trump organization in the last few years is of course Saudi Arabia. And it had to do with the licensing of the Trump name

to some real estate ventures, including a golf tournament or golf facility. And of course, he is deeply tied in with the live tournament, which is a Saudi funded and organized professional golf tournament. So connecting the live inquiry to this broader look at foreign governments and any agreements that they may have entered into with Trump really gives us a whole new window into what might be included in the documents case.

Several people have speculated that possibly what they're looking for is motivation, right? We've always wondered, we know we kept hundreds of documents that were classified. We know we kept national defense information, classified information that he should have given back. But the question hanging out, there was always why. What did Trump intend to do with this stuff? Was it something as minimal as souvenirs and memories and things like that, that's hard to believe, but nevertheless the possibility

or was it the opposite end of the spectrum? Something as potentially nefarious as he was maybe intending to use this information or broker it, offer it, give it to someone, use it as leverage against the enemies. Well, this subpoena to the foreign governments really sheds potential light on that. Like, is this a way of getting at why Trump was holding on to these specific documents? at why Trump was holding on to these specific documents. Right, because we know that there's been a $2 billion investment from the Saudi wealth fund

against the advice of Saudi bankers and people who manage that wealth fund to Jared Kushner. And we all sort of wondered what that was in payment for. And I think the reason we have these general like go to thoughts of, well, he was doing it, he was because he's such a transactional guy. That's right. Like, everything is a quid pro quo for him.

And, you know, and I was also wondering about the, you know, the lack of magnet ski sanctions against Muhammad bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Kashoggi. And then we had that weird blockade against our ally, Qatar, in the region, that was all of a sudden lifted once the Qatar Investment Authority invested into Kushner's 666th Avenue debacle. So it's all just been this really like blatantly and obviously transactive behavior on the part of the Trump administration and Donald Trump, the Trump organization. So of course it all occurred to us naturally to be like, well, maybe he was, you know, I

think it was Mary McCord who said, you know, it could be blackmailing the Saudis into holding these tournaments at his properties using some of this intelligence or you know trading it for Maybe the two billion dot, you know, whatever it could possibly be for but that's where our brains instantly go is his transactional Sort of way of life That's absolutely right and and you know, let's think about it in terms of the case that ultimately Jack Smith may be putting on. Obviously, there's no case yet. There's been no indictment, but if there is an indictment, he's got to prove the elements

of these crimes, whether it's withholding or misuse of classified, whether it's an espionage act for taking national defense information or whether it's obstruction, he's got to prove the elements of each of those crimes. It's not necessary to prove motivation. It is necessary as we've discussed many times to prove intent, but it's not necessary to prove motivation, but it's incredibly helpful. So to have this question hanging out there of,

why did he go to such lengths to keep this stuff? Why did he go to so many lengths to try to obstruct the Justice Department and the National Archives from getting back their material? If you can answer that question, although it's not essential to any one of those potential charges, it enables the jury to understand more about why the defendant, in this case, potentially Trump can acted along these sort of criminal lines. Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually don't have to be successful in that act

in order to, if you're just trying to prove intent, like he doesn't have to have used the documents, there doesn't have to be proof that he used these documents to get the live golf tournaments at his course. For example, that didn't have to, you have to play out through fruition in order for there to be the intent to do so. Am I correct in that? Because I'm thinking of the Bill Barr memo that there was a big fight to get released about his decisions to not prosecute for obstruction of justice that was written

by the paydag. It took like a weekend that they didn't have any time to actually review the Mueller report before they put that out there. But what Bill Barr contends is that in order to prosecute for obstruction of justice, there has to be an underlying crime that was completed in order for you to obstruct the justice of the investigation into that crime. And that was his reason for saying, even if we didn't have a No L C memo that said you can't prosecute a sitting president, we wouldn't have prosecuted Donald Trump because there

was no underlying crime that he was trying to obstruct, which is also a false. But that was his purpose. And I'm wondering if that memo, because it's a standing memo at the DOJ, I think Jack Smith will probably have to contend with those arguments that Bill Barr made in that memo. You know, I have to say, I think Barr's reasoning in that memo

is likely disregarded by this Justice Department because it does diverge from kind of conventional thinking about obstruction. You are correct. There doesn't have to be a successful crime in order to have a question of obstructing the investigation of that crime. You don't have to have been successful in your initial criminal act. But I do think it's helpful in terms of, you know, the prosecutors have to tell a compelling story to the jury. And part of that story is understanding why a person acted in the way they did, especially when you're talking about something about obstruction, right? You're right. You don't have trying to lay in as many of these facts as you can

to enable the jury to see this as one smooth narrative. Here's what they did, here's why they did it, here's how it's illegal. If there's a gap in that narrative, every time you have a gap, you have another place for reasonable doubt to be inserted. Right, and I am like 100% certain that if an obstruction indictment comes, which

is a title 18 US code 1519 when it comes to obstructing justice with, you know, with regard to the classified documents or documents with classified markings, that Trump will use that bar memo that says you can't obstruct justice without an underlying crime as part of his defense. And so I'm assuming that Jack Smith, we've seen this memo at least parts of it. So I'm assuming Jack Smith knows about it and has already prepared prep to defense because as you said, and as we're going to go into a little bit later in the show, the Wall Street Journalist said, we're wrapping this up. Last week you said, you know, now they're just doing those tying up the loose ends,

things, and one of those loose ends is the National Archives handing over documents that show that they discussed with and Trump understood the processes for declassifying documents. So I think that tying up a loose end, that's what makes it seem like we are close to a charging decision here. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're here. That's our hearing more of these stories about, for

instance, we'll get into this in the next part of the show, but the Marlago employee who allegedly assisted Walton audit moving the documents around. That, again, that's another one of these. It's an important fact. It's an additional witness to some activity that could be at the very core of an obstruction charge. And so it's only now that we're learning about each one of these kind of crucial witnesses. Their testimony has been locked in.

They've been in front of the grand jury prior to that. They're interviewed at length by the agents and attorneys who are investigating these cases. Those are the sorts of things that you really have to tie off before you see the grand jury. Okay, you've heard all the evidence, you've filled in all the holes. Now it's time to vote. Yeah, and just like Jack Smith has, and is anticipating some of the Trump defenses, whether they're outlined in a letter to Congress to tell the DOJ to stand down

or whether he hears them on a CNN town hall. He's prepping for those defenses on the Trump side and I'm assuming he's also prepped to counter that Bill Barr memo from the Office of Legal Council that says that underlying crime is required, which is just totally and completely untrue. That's right, that's right, totally agree. All right, cool.

Well, that's the first big chunk. We've got more huge news, but we have to take a quick break. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, AG, we are back and we're going to move now to a Washington Post report that a second witness who helped Walton out of move the boxes the day before DOJ came down to collect classified documents pursuant to the subpoena on June 3rd. So this is really interesting because it's timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction. a comfortable, you as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction.

Now, the new details also broaden the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining, a period stretching from Advanced Mar-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI search there on August 8th. Mm, yeah, and that's really interesting to me that the timeline has broadened, right? Because the way that I was always picturing it in my head is the obstruction happened up until the search.

But then you and I have been talking extensively about a lot of things that happened after that search that could also fall under the category of obstruction. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But like you said, at the top of the show, that grand jury on the documents case has not met since May 5th, although, as a side note, the Grand Jury working on the Save America Pack money, you know,

wire fraud probe, they're still meeting, and last week they got testimony from someone named William Russell, who's a Trump aide that worked for him at the White House and is being paid by the save America pack. But I really want to talk about this move in the boxes the day before Jay Bratt and everybody gets down there, right? And let's recall Jay Bratt went down himself because he's probably one of the only guys on the planet with clearance high enough to even handle these documents. So he goes down on June 3rd and they have on tape Walt Nauta and a pal who out of the kindness of his heart was like,

that looks heavy man, let me help you with those boxes. Help him move stuff the day before and we also have information that it was that night after Walt Notta moved some of those boxes with his pal, they called up Jay Bratt and said, you can come on down tomorrow now, right? So that, how does that time, I mean, it's just, I guess that's part of the narrative you were talking about in the first segment of the show. Like, you paint that picture and everyone goes, really, you're moving stuff around the day before,

and then you move stuff around, then you call them up and say, come on down tomorrow. Like, that is just fishy and it goes toward intent, right? It tells, tell that story, that narrative. It absolutely does. And then you layer on top of that, the fact that we now know from discussion of Evan Korkren's alleged 50 pages worth of notes that both Trump and NADA had this detailed, specific understanding of exactly what Korkren was doing.

So before Korkren goes to conduct his own investigation in the infamous storage room to collect the documents that he intends to hand over to Jay Bratt the next day or a day or so later, that's when these boxes are being moved. Now tie into that, not as previous testimony, which sounds like it's been all over the map, but at least at some point in his interactions with the investigators has indicated that Trump told him to go to the storage room and move boxes around. So you're starting to see what could have been a very carefully planned out act of obstruction, moving things in or out of the storeroom, immediately prior to a court-con search, and the turnover of a small number of documents to Jay Brad.

Yeah. And this second guy's lawyer, not Nauta, right? Now to goodness. This other guy, his lawyer's name is John Irving. He's representing the guy who helped Nauta move the box. He said that he didn't know what was in them. He was just trying to help Walt out. And then here's the quote.

He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt not to move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nata moving the boxes and volunteered to help him. The next day, the employee helped now to pack an SUV for Trump to head to Bedminster for the summer. And that's like, what'd you put in that SUV to go talk to the Saudis? But I think it's fascinating that because you and I were like, well, not a capi, the only guy on these video tapes, right? And as we know, there was like a process to get these

video tapes. And the first subpoena of the video tapes to the Kalamari's junior and senior had gaps. Gaps in those video tapes, so Jack Smith went to the company that stores all the software company that does all the storage and presumably got those gaps filled in. And here we have this. Now, it would be especially obstructiony

if the gap in the tape was that particular time frame of moving these boxes in and out of the storage facility. Do you know what I mean? Well, you know that's exactly what they were looking for, right? Now, I want to be fair. There's oftentimes technical difficulties with things like surveillance video and recordings and things like that that can, you know, account for gaps at different places where there should be

recording. But as an investigator, that's not what you're thinking. You're going for that backup recording. You're going for that original source recording that's held by the tech company because you're thinking like, hey, what have I not seen so far? Who else is going to show up on this video? What else might they be doing? And this new witness, I mean, this is like, this is like the guy who just happens to walk by and help a dude lift the body out of his trunk. Right?

He has nothing to do with this case. He's not thought of likely as a subject or a suspect in any way. He is a completely clean, hey, I just happen to be walking by, saw him moving some boxes, thought it'd lend him a hand. And now here he is with a key piece of insight into this narrative.

Yeah, and let's think about the timeline too, because the subpoena for the surveillance footage to the calamaries or to the Trump organization, the calamaries are kind of in charge of security at the Trump organization would be the point of contact for these tapes. That subpoena happened June 24, three weeks after the June 3, visit. And so at some point in there, I don't know if they developed evidence to lead to the subpoena of the surveillance tapes or if they just subpoena the surveillance tapes because they figured it would be a good idea to have the surveillance tapes because when they were down looking at the storage room and Corcoran said you're not allowed to open any of the

boxes, they looked up and noticed that there were cameras in the hallway and said we should probably get a subpoena of these tapes. I'm not sure how that came about. But June 24th, and there was, by the way, a phone call, a discussion between Evan Corcoran and Donald Trump, the night of that subpoena, did June 24th surveillance tape subpoena

that had to be handed over to Jack Smith using the crime fraud exception to pierce attorney client, privilege. That's right. They wanted information about that phone call. And then, so 624, they subpoena the tapes, and then it's not, a whole month goes by, like maybe six weeks goes by before their authorized to get the search warrant. And so what I'd like to know is how soon after they got the surveillance tapes, how long did it take to hand them over, how long, you know, then they realized they were gaps,

then when did they go to the software company to get the original tapes and did that lead to them speaking then to Walt Notta or did they have the Walt Notta footage before they got the original source tapes. And but in any case, it was after all of that developed that they were able to get the search warrant to go down and actually retrieve an additional 103 documents or whatever. Yeah, no doubt. It'd be also interesting just as a side note

to see how the Trump organization and Mar-a-Lago handled the ongoing video surveillance after they got hit with a subpoena for that coverage. Like, you could see, like did they turn the camera off? Exactly, exactly. Exactly. We just decided that data stopped recording what we were doing down in the basement because you know, I don't know why not. Skating expensive, whatever. Yeah, but and you know, I think we, we, we, you know, I was assuming that because of the reporting said that they got the tapes for all of the Trump

properties, but they must not have been able to either one, they must not have been able to develop evidence to be able to search any other properties, or two, they did and searched them and we don't know about it. But what I wanted to address real quick was that that timeline expansion passed August 8th, because I have a theory as to what it is. I think that the Washington Post had posited that it was some reporting from the Guardian about that. Remember the hapless Trump staffer who worked for the state of America pack that uploaded a box of presidential schedules that may have had previously classified information and it onto a laptop or a drive or something. And that's what they were thinking perhaps could have been part of the obstructive act. But what I really am focused on and the way and the reason I lean toward this is because the amount of emphasis that Jack Smith put on this was to get the names of the two investigators that did the additional searches to the properties to these other properties after, you know,

Judge Barrel how ordered them to. And then the DOJ asking for the names and then the Trump team being like, we don't want to give you the names and then they had to give the names over and then they subpoenaed those two folks and ask them questions to all of that occurred after the search warrant. And I think with the amount of attention that that additional search and those two witnesses were given, I feel like that that might have something to do because didn't we hear in some public reporting that one of the Trump lawyers of Parliamentary was trying to stop those additional searches from happening, that could be the obstructive act Parliamentary was trying to stop those additional searches

from happening, that could be the obstructive act, and he just left the team. We did. We did. And think about this. We now know, okay, so we knew from Judge Howell's order that piercing the attorney client privilege, we knew that Judge Howell really saw in that pairing of Evan Quircoran and Donald Trump, she saw a Trump as likely using the privilege to commit a crime, not so much Quircoran. We now know that Jack Smith is looking from all the things we've talked about this week,

very closely at how Evan Quircoran's search of the Mar-a-lago storage room may have been obstructed by Trump. So he's thinking Trump and his closest, you know, flunkies, what have you, are actively hindering his lawyer's efforts to conduct a thorough search. Well, I'm going to want to then talk to the two people that the Trump organization hired to search the other properties because the same thing might have happened to them. Like you're not worried that those two people were part of the conspiracy or did a terrible job.

I mean, you want to certainly not understand how thorough was their search. But now you're trying to match up like let's hear what they did and match that against what steps may have been taken at those properties before these additional searchers showed up to do what they've been paid to do. Yeah, they did Trump instruct, parlatory to tell these two guys where to look or where not to look, which is sort of something that Jack Smith is looking at with respect to Corcoran.

So, all of that kind of stuff falls under the blanket of obstruction of justice. And, you know, just to talk about this other guy represented by John Irving for a second, he's a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee. The lawyer didn't want to identify who he is, but he is cooperating with the government. He's been questioned multiple times by authorities. And we know that a lot of people got brought back into the grand jury several times before they went on heiress on May 5th Presumably because now they're prepping pros memos or or their or declination decisions. Let's be fair Right, whatever the decision is to send over to Merrick Garland and again

It's more informative than then it is asking permission to go forward with any charging decisions or not, because as we've said multiple times, and as Mara Garland has intimated, he is not going to override anything that Jack Smith says unless he, like, is guilty of some sort of prosecutorial misconduct or goes outside of the rules of the Department of Justice, which I don't see happening. Now, Irving, this lawyer for this other guy also represents several witnesses in the investigation. His law firm is being paid by Trump's Save America Pack. He seems less obstructive with this fella than whoever the lawyer is over there for Walt Naughta, who's just clammed up after the DOJ threatened to charge

him with perjury for the first initial lie, lies that he told to the investigators. But the story goes on here to say that Donald Trump told his aides that he wanted to make sure he could keep papers that he considered to be his property. So there's some intent, right? And the prosecutors have been separately told by more than one witness that Trump kept classified documents out in the open where others could see them and sometimes showed them to people, including AIDS and visitors. And now we're dipping into espionage laws, more than obstruction, if I'm correct in my presumption there what what are your thoughts about

Him showing stuff to people I mean that that is really the biggest wildcard here And I think the question kind of shifts our focus to The governments but one of the governments kind of primary objectives in this entire investigation And it's not the thing that we're looking at and talking about and wondering if indictments are coming, but it's rather understanding a potential threat to national security. That is really the core of the foundation of every counterintelligence investigation, whether it heads in this direction with espionage or mishandling classified or obstruction

charges or something like that. You're trying to understand what information was lost, what information may have been compromised and what sources and methods may be in jeopardy. And so when we talk about like what could he possibly, who could he possibly have been showing this stuff to, you know, it really leads you down this road of like who might have been there? How do we develop a better understanding of the the foot traffic Internet of that office or wherever those documents, those documents may have been. And I think that gets us back to the subpoena we were talking about at the

beginning of the show, the subpoena to the Trump organization for information about deals they may have entered into with foreign entities or foreign countries. That to me is really kind of the subtext of what Jack Smith and his team are like we're looking for here. It's to understand what damage may have been reflected in the national security. Yeah, because there's also an ongoing risk assessment that's being conducted by the ODNI at the same time. And that was what was inextricably linked to the criminal investigation that allowed the arguments

to the 11th Circuit that everything needed to be handed back to the Department of Justice, both non-classified and documents with classified markings. So, all right, we have still more breaking news. We're gonna talk about Evan Corcoran's notes, how detailed they were, as soon as we just take this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back.

All right, everybody. Welcome back. I want to talk about Evan Corcoran's notes, but first, the Wall Street Journal came out with a story this week, and they say special counsel Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and other evidence in the documents case. Some of Trump's close associates are bracing for his indictment, according to the journal. They anticipate being able to fundraise off of a prosecution. They're already doing that planning. And in recent weeks, prosecutors working for Jack Smith have completed interviews with

nearly every employee at Trump's Florida home, from top political aides to maids and maintenance staff. And that just blows open this concept of he's only talked to a few people, right? Because you and I had this discussion before. How do you even check on whether classified information is at risk of being seen by other people? And you said, Andy, they have to talk to every single maid, they have to talk to every single maintenance guy,

janitor, staffer, everybody who works at that hotel and everybody who works for the office of Donald J. Trump, but at his little Mar-a-Lago resort there. And apparently, that's all been done. So that's what the Wall Street Journal is reporting. Yeah, that's a huge amount of work. And that is really the investigators taking that net and spreading it as wide as they possibly can.

You never know who might have seen something, anything that's relevant to your inquiry, whether it's something as minimal as the presence of a document in a certain place that it shouldn't have been, or maybe it's just maintenance worker or someone else who observed someone entering Trump's office, maybe by themselves without authorization to have been in there. There's all kinds of first-person credible testimony that you could tap into. Now, maybe 90% of those interviews get you nowhere. It doesn't make any difference. You do them anyway.

You can't have us that entire place, anybody who goes in there on a regular basis, anybody who works there, anybody who works around those areas that you're interested in, and it sounds like they've completed that work at this point. Yeah, and we don't know whether that testimony of the guy who helped not to move the boxes came before they subpoenaed gaps in the tapes, or whether it came as a result of something they saw on the video tapes. That's the whole reason you interview everybody. They might have not known that Walt Naughton, him were moving boxes on June 2nd, until they talked to somebody who said,

oh, I helped a guy move some boxes on June's I'd that down to that storage room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did that. And then, like I said, we don't know from the public reporting yet, which came first, the chicken or the egg, but those are the kinds of things that you can discover through interviewing everybody on the property.

And that's why it's so important. There is, I guarantee you, there is a standard, a standardized list of questions that every employee, every contractor, every maintenance worker was asked. And one of the questions on that list has to do with the infamous basement storage facility, the boxes that are in there, whether or not you've ever been in there, picked one up, or gone in there and sat one down, or seen anybody else do that. So that kind of standard list of issues that's run by a staff everyone could uncover exactly that sort of witness.

Yeah. And again, I'm not saying that this happened, but if they talk to that guy and he said, oh, yeah, we moved the boxes and they go, oh, that's weird, we don't have that on the video. We should probably, you know, that we got from the Kalamaris, we should probably go, you know, I don't know that that's necessarily the way it happened if it is, boy, woo, howdy, that is obstruction,

just right down the middle. But again, that's why those interviews with everybody is so important. And just like you said, Andrew, the special counsel team conducted a flurry of grand jury interviews in recent weeks that appeared to tie up the loose ends. You had talked about this on the last show when we didn't have a lot of news, but we learned that that NARA was going to hand over 16 documents that had to do with instructing Trump on the declassification processes. Basically, you know, we told you exactly how this goes and you signed off saying you understood or whatever it is. And that happened to that transfer happened on May 24th. So just a couple of days ago, and like

you said, Andrew and you were saying, that's one of those loose ends where you want to just make sure you have evidence in response to a potential defense, not necessarily as part of your prosecution. Yeah. And from everything we've seen over the last couple of weeks, they are, you know, it's an embarrassment of riches in terms of how much evidence they have sitting in that bucket right from the documents that NARA has turned over to testimony from attorneys to campaign folks like you are filling that bucket with as many different witnesses and as many different documents many pieces of evidence you possibly can to refute that potential defense of, oh, I didn't know.

Even though ignorance of law is no defense, nevertheless, anticipating that they'll hear that at some point. They want to have plenty in their pockets to counteract it in the mind of the jury. Yeah, for sure. Now, what do we have from Hugo Lull, our buddy at the Guardian, talking about Corcoran's notes? This was an incredible story. Yeah, no doubt. So Hugo says that federal prosecutors have evidence that Donald Trump was put on notice

that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year. So this previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump's handling of classified materials, given that it shows that he knew about his subpoena obligations. So, A.G. last June, Corcoran found roughly 40 classified documents in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago, as we've been talking about, and you've of course told the Justice Department that no further materials remained at the property.

Now, that warning was one of several key moments that Corcoran recounted in roughly, all right, sit down, 50 pages of notes that he dictated after his interactions with Donald Trump. And now these notes are being described to the Guardian. But it is a lot of notes, holy cow. Yeah. No, it's a lot, doesn't know, it's Holy Cow. Yeah, and they reveal how Trump and Walt Naughta that you were talking about earlier had unusual detailed knowledge. Like, we wouldn't expect them to know these things unless they were like really steeped in it about the botched subpoena response, including where Corcoran intended to search and

not search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago as well as when Corcoran intended to search and not search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago as well as when Corcoran was actually doing his search. And we've talked about this before. Those notes ended up in front of a grand jury. Same way that we got some of the previous testimony from Corcoran, especially about that June 24th phone call about the tape's surveillance tapes, Sapina. But these notes were found to be in furtherance of a crime and pierced the attorney client privilege. And they had to be handed over to the special counsel's office. And that's how they got a hold of these 50 pages of notes.

Also included in the notes, Andy, how Corcoran told Walton Aura about the subpoena before he started looking for classified documents because Corcoran needed him to unlock the storage room. So imagine this. Corcoran has detailed conversations with Trump and Nauta after receiving the subpoena, which he explains to them now as a result of the subpoena, we have to go out, I, as your lawyer, have to go out and search where these documents are located to round up

the classified and give it back because you're not allowed to keep it. And I'm going to search in this room and and I'm gonna search it at this time, and I need you, Mr. Nada, to help me enter the room, to help me unlock the door so I can get in there, and I don't want you to come in with me. Knowing that, you then have possibly evidence of boxes going in and out of the same room at the hands of Walton Nada,

and the helpful assistant who's not testifying. At the direction of Trump. It's unbelievable. This is, I mean, it's like, it's such a completely constructed tale, that narrative that we keep talking about just gets more detailed and visit really, you can like imagine these things happen. It's unbelievable.

Yeah. And also in the notes, they suggested to prosecutors in these notes that there were times when the storage room and this blows my mind might have been left unlocked and unattended while the search for classified documents was ongoing because it took a couple of days to look through all of these things. And every once in a while, Corcoran would take a break and go hang out by the pool and just leave it wide open. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know where to go with this. It's like, it's the gang that couldn't shoot straight. When the gang who didn't want to shoot straight, I don't know, it's, uh,

it's amazing. Yeah. And then, uh, there's also in the notes here, Donald Trump asked Korker and whether he could not comply. He could push back against the Justice Department right in the notes. And if he asked me that note right there could be the reason all 50 pages had to be turned over the crime fraud exception, because that's pretty blatant intent to obstruct justice. Can I push back on justice? I mean, it's, look, it certainly can be, I'm trying to be fair here. Could he have meant, hey, is there a way that we can legally challenge this subpoena?

Can we file a motion to quash the subpoena as being overbroad or irrelevant? What have you? Yeah, that's possible. But when you lay that comment on top of getting your body man to go move the boxes out before when you know your attorney is going in there to search, it looks a lot worse. I'm just saying it looks a lot worse in that light. Especially if you've plotted to not turn over all the surveillance tapes, very specific gaps.

If in fact that was also on purpose. And again, this is all speculative at this point, but that's pretty much what's going on with these corkernotes. There's going to be more information coming out about these. I'm sure as the days could go on here, I know that there's additional reporting that we can be looking for about maybe further discussions with some of the attorneys involved. So we're going to keep an eye on that. And as always, follow Hugo Loll.

Follow him on Twitter, follow him on social media. And if you're able to, throw a couple of bucks to the Guardian because this kind of reporting is so, so important for us to understand where we're at because the Department of Justice is so tight, lip down everything. And we just have to, you know, take these little crumbs that we get and do our little speculative dance. But anyway, yes, definitely follow Hugo Lowell, very good reporting. We have a little more needs to get to from Politico about a really interesting group of lawyers that went to have a hearing before the judge

and charge of the grand juries. And we'll talk about that. We're just gonna take another quick break, stick around. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum Okay, A.G. we are back and we're going to jump now to a story we saw in Politico. Said, Adjust the Department of Attorney, who works closely with the Special Counsel probing the January 6th attack, took on a prominent lawyer, a lawyer who primarily defends social media companies in a sealed appeals court argument on Friday, according to a review of court records. So this attorney is a gentleman named Ari Holtzblatt.

He's an attorney with a high-powered firm Wilmer Hale. He's most recently represented Twitter, Google, and Meta. He argued against just a department trial attorney, James Pierce. Now Holtzblatt has most frequently represented Twitter in recent months. Pierce is among the DOJ prosecutors working closely with the special counsel, Jack Smith, team.

Huh, that's really interesting. And I just want to give a little background on this because this is one of multiple sort of privilege battles that have gone on under sealed proceeding. And this has already been ruled on, and then the Appellate Court got an emergency stay request from whoever this tech company is, and then that was denied.

So we'll go with a timeline a little bit, but this material has presumably already been handed over to Jack Smith, but now they're hearing the rest of the underlying appeal that is still ongoing. And the nature of the litigation is very unclear. We're also guessing that this has to do with the Jack Smith investigation because of Pierce's involvement, although I mean, it's right along the same timelines with everything else that Jack Smith

is looking at. Docket entries connected to the case have just been going on for months. And like I said, a growing list of secret battles that Smith has had to wage to secure testimony and documents. The closed-door argument was supposed to be 30 minutes long, but it took more than two hours, Andy. And like I said, here's the timeline, judge how ruled in favor of the Justice Department on March 3rd, prompting a quick appeal and emergency motion to stay.

The same three appeals judges briefly halted the order administratively, did an administrative stay, but then they decided to reject the full stay on March 23rd. And so apparently it was around mid-March that Jack was able to get whatever this stuff is that he's trying to get. And it has to do with Andy, it's a matter about, quote, stored communications. And we know that because that verbiage was listed in a minute order that had to do with the the docketing of this case. But it's stored communications, which typically references an effort by prosecutors to obtain

communications from third party sources. Now in your experience, when you're trying to get stored communications, Gmail, Facebook messages, Twitter, DMs, Signal, WhatsApp stuff, and you go to that third party, I guess there's probably going to be some fight, and then you battle it out, and the judge makes a decision, and in this case, they ruled for the Department of Justice. What is your experience with these stored communications from third-party tech companies? So the government's efforts to reach stored communications, which can be essential to an investigation, particularly in national security investigations, aren't typically the cause

of major court battles, right? So you start out probing sources of stored communications with things like 27.03 D orders, which would be the government reaching out to, let's just say, as a hypothetical example, let's call, let's say it's Google, and you're interested in your subjects, email who they've been contact with, and emails.

You use a 27.03, de-order to get the metadata, that who they've been emailing, who'd been emailing them back on what days, at what times, things like that. But it doesn't get you the content of the communications. In order to get the actual content of that stored communications, these are historical emails

that are still sitting in the account of your subject, you need a search warrant or if it's a national security case, you need a Pfizer warrant. So those are, like I said, these requests are pretty typically executed without objection, which only draws more attention to what might be happening here, right? So as you mentioned, we're assuming because of the involvement of Pierce, the DOJ attorney that this is connected to January 6th effort, we're also assuming that the involvement of Holtzblatt

who's the attorney from Wilmer Hale, that he is likely representing one of these social media or internet tech companies that we know he's represented in the past. But what it looks like is they resisted the government's efforts to obtain that content of communications in some sort of historical folder or repository that the internet service provider maintains. I could be emails, could be text messages. It could be end-to-end encrypted messages that maybe on the companies servers. These are all details we don't know just yet,

but nevertheless, the court record here indicates a pretty viciously fraud battle. Yeah, and I'm wondering about that too, because like you said, we usually see these as friendly, like when they wanted to get Eastman's emails from Chapman University. Chapman was like, cool with us when they wanted to get the tax information from Mazar's. Mazar's was like, that's fine with us. Just shoot us a subpoena. We'll send everything right over. Sales Force with the January 6th committee that sent out all the

fundraising emails. Sales Force is like, dude, you can have it, but we need a subpoenaer. And of course, Trump thought that. And we don't, I guess, I was like a little taken aback by the fact that somebody was fighting against this. And it made me think of, like, Apple. You know how Apple, if you want something from somebody's iPhone, they'll fight you on it. Absolutely. And so, I'm just very curious to see They'll fight you on it.

And so I'm just very curious to see what this tech company is. If it's in fact part of Jack Smith's investigation, Jack Smith won. Will we see those stored communications show up in a speaking indictment or will they remain sealed until we're all dead and gone under grand jury secrecy rules. But I'm very interested in this particular court battle because like you said, I generally don't see these tech companies push these third parties, pushing back on. Yeah, you really don't. And it's another kind of indication that much like the battle that was going on underneath the surface over the accessing or forcing Evan Corcoran to come in and provide his

notes and to provide testimony to the grand jury, piercing that attorney client privilege. Here's another indication of a possible kind of secret battle happening beneath the surface outside of our awareness, but being waged by likely the Jack Smith team against, you know, another, someone else, another party that's trying to resist compliance. It just shows you the scope of the litigation and the activity that this team is covering right now is, it's massive based on what we know, and then there's all the stuff that we don't know about that I'm sure is going on as well. Yeah, that also answered a lot of questions about why this is taking so long, and I think all of those questions will, the remaining questions of that type will be answered when you see just how extensive the charges are. These speaking indictments when they happen,

and I'm sure they're going to happen. That's my two cents. I don't have any insight information on that, but I think we're going to see just how big and sprawling these investigations are, how many witnesses there are, and information on that. But I think we're gonna see just how big and sprawling these investigations are, how many witnesses there are, how many terabytes of information you have to analyze and subpoena and get and then get again

because there's a two step process for the warrant and all that stuff and all these privileged battles. So we will see that, hey Andy, the Stuart Rhodes got 18 years for seditious conspiracy. I'm still waiting for the sentencing order because I want to see how many years he got for which counts. But 18, 18 years, the DOJ was asking for 25 and for the first time, which is what I think is very important here. Judge Amit Metta agreed to the terror enhancement. He has rejected that in the past for other January 6th, the capital rioters.

I think all four times the DOJ tried to bring a terror enhancement in the past. It's been rejected, including by Judge Metta, but he accepted it in this case and sentenced him to 18 years. So what is the significance of accepting the terror enhancement for seditious conspiracy and could this impact charging decisions that Jack Smith makes? Well, I mean, it'll definitely have an effect on how the special prosecutors' team looks at the possibility of sentencing, right? I think first and foremost, this sentence,

which is really significant, 18 years is a long federal sentence on it in anybody's estimation. And I think it's a worthy and reasonable acknowledgement of Rhodes's leadership role in his particular issues, so obviously, seditious conspiracy. This is the court basically saying that we are going to hold the leaders of this activity, those who organize and direct plan and execute this activity, we're going to hold them to a higher level of accountability.

And 18 years certainly sends that message in a strong way. Yeah, and that speaks to the DOJ's motion. One of the parts of the sentencing recommendation is we have to sentence like people for like crimes, like lengths. And this is different. This should be considered more like other people who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy, unless like other people who have been convicted for being at the Capitol holiday. And I think that that bears out in the decision. been convicted of seditious conspiracy, unless like other people who have been convicted for being at the Capitol right day.

And I think that that bears out in the discussion. And I think a lot of people who've complained from the beginning that the ground level folks, the unrelings people who just kind of got swept up in the activity and entered the Capitol building and got charged for whether it's trespassing or obstruction of official proceeding, those folks are getting sentenced to time and jail,

some of them, and others at the top level of the spectrum are, you know, we're seemingly escaping any sort of serious accountability. Well, what you're seeing here is the Justice Department leveling up. They are slowly getting bigger and bigger fish, people who are involved in building conspiracies and executing those conspiracies, roads being obviously the first big name among them, fish, people who are involved in building conspiracies and executing those conspiracies, roads being obviously the first big name among them. But we're still, you know, we're waiting to see what those convicted in the proud boys

sedition cases get what sort of time they face as well. And I think this is a very bad sign for them. Yeah, and I also wonder if it's going to make any of them change their mind about the fact that they're not cooperating. And comes to mind and reek atario who could probably give some really important and useful information about Alex Jones or Roger Stone or what happened at the Willard Hotel on the fifth or any of the other dress rehears know, dress rehearsals for the attack on the Capitol that happened in November and December leading up to. So it'll be interesting to see. I

don't have too much hope that anybody will change their mind and flip, but if anything could do it, it could be this kind of a sentence that the proud boys would soon face. All right. That, we finally made it through all the news this week. The fact that there's not a grand jury going on in the documents case is not slowing the news down, but we do have some really thoughtful questions from some listeners. What did we come up with this week in the questions pile? Well, Alison, we have two really good questions. I actually got a lot of good questions this week. I had to narrow them down to these two.

So I'm going to start with one from Janice B. And Janice says, you spent a great deal of time discussing Trump's intent related to classified documents. However, isn't it the case that regardless of the arguments about declassification status, the documents are the property of the U.S. government, potentially subject to FOIA or historical research, and they don't belong stashed away at Trump's properties. Is that an important part of the law? Well, it certainly is an important part of the law.

And you really don't have to go too much further than that if all you're looking at is something like mishandling, right? You had classified documents in a place that's not certified for storage of classified documents. But as we know, Janice, we're going far beyond that with the Trump document case. We're talking about violations potentially of SB&I's act, which is kind of like a mishandling on steroids, I guess, as the best way I could describe it. And more importantly, obstruction of justice.

So it's Trump's efforts to thwart the government in recovering those documents that are absolutely undeniably under the law, the property of the government. And to do that, we have to think through these issues of intent, because intent has to be proven as a part of any of these crimes. And then we go one step further to thinking about how we're going to contradict any defenses that he might put up. So I get it. It seems like we're complicating this a bit, but I guess welcome to the law. Yeah. And the intent does have a lot to do with whether or not they're classified.

I mean, that's a part of the intent. It doesn't have to be there because, you know, like she's like, Janice said, we were able to get the search warrant on three criminal statutes that don't require any documents to be classified. And so that's how you started, but I don't know that that's how it's going to end, whether we look at, because even the S.B. and Ajak doesn't require, it's just national defense information. And in fact, the one statute that Donald Trump himself made a felony after the Hillary

thing, misunderstanding the classified documents, wasn't on the list of statutes, because and that would require documents to be classified. And I always kind of thought that the DOJ didn't that way on purpose in case the declassification defense ever became an issue. And so you'd be like, but we don't care whether you declassified them with your mind. You had them, you weren't allowed to have them. But now that we know he's looking to get those documents that prove that Trump understands the process of declassification, that sort of throws a little wrench in the mix there,

and is something that is important to consider. So, yeah, great question. Great question. All right, our next question comes to us from, and I love this listener name. Listener is, the clash is not for sale. So I feel like, based on listener name alone, this question, how do you get that red, but nevertheless, the question is, are the convicted proud boys and oath keepers eligible to be president of the United States? Give us the legal nerd deeds, please.

Well as of the designated legal nerd of this squad, the answer is, yes, they're all eligible to be president of the United States. You cannot legally purchase a firearm in this country if you have a felony conviction. But you can be president of the United States for the felony conviction. So I'll be felons out there. Keep hope alive if you get a campaign going, theviction in your past is no obstacle to becoming president, no technical obstacle anyway. Yeah, and this kind of brings up that law I was just talking about. The one that Trump made a felon. Felon. Felon. Felon. From a misdemeanor because it actually says that anyone who's guilty of this crime cannot

hold public office. That's never been litigated. And I, in my opinion, and this was my opinion when he tried to bring it against Hillary Clinton, it would not stand up in court because the Constitution is super clear about what the requirements are to be able to run for president. And there's only three of them. And being a felon doesn't disqualify you. And you would have to amend the Constitution to make that change. And so even if a law, a statute, says that you wouldn't be able to hold office again,

I'm 100% sure, especially with the, you know, unholy executive power thing that this particular Supreme Court likes to throw around, that it would ever beat, that that would ever hold up, that that statute. I think that statute would be considered unconstitutional and be found to be unconstitutional. And because you know, Trump wanted to charge Hillary with it. In fact, they investigated the Hillary Clinton Foundation until just days before he left office. And if he had to found a grand jury somehow that would have brought that charge against Hillary Clinton, she would be barred from running for office again.

That would be challenged in court and I'm pretty sure it would be thrown out. That's the nerdery constitutional part of it. I'm going with you on that one. I agree with you. I think that's any law that tried to accomplish that would have a tough road, especially in front of our current court. So we'll have to see. Okay, so those are the questions.

I just have to give one shout out this week, Allison, to a very long message with multiple questions in it that we received regarding not specifically special counsel stuff, but more questions about Pfizer Section 702, which is one of the most complicated, significant and controversial aspects of our barn intelligence surveillance authority, and it is up for reauthorization. I think by the end of this year, so people are talking a lot about it. The question was great. I can't possibly answer it here quickly. It would probably take at least half of a show

to cover 702 in any sort of depth, but I thought it was worth putting this out there. If people are really interested in something like that, we might think about doing kind of a special episode on 702 for the full on legal nerd deeds that we could put out on 702. So if people are interested in that send us a message at hello at mullershoerope.com and of course put Jack Smith in the subject line and let us know your thoughts about it. Totally nerdy half hour or so on 702.

Yeah, we could do a bonus for patrons or something like that and then release it to the public. So yeah, I would love to discuss it because there's a lot of controversy around FISA right now and the reauthorization of 702. So that would be very interesting. Thank you, everybody, for your amazing questions. You can send them into us at the email address Andy just gave and it's been a long week. What could possibly happen next week, Andy?

I think the answer is anything. Anything could happen. It is anything. Yeah, May 24th, he got the last, I think, a little bit of stuff that he wanted. They've been out for three weeks. I'm assuming the Prost memo is already written if not done and maybe in front of Garland, we don't know, we aren't going to know until those indictments happen. I'm sure that's pretty, this is a very leak proof investigation. But thank you all so much for listening. We will be back next week in your ears. And I really appreciate all of you so much for listening to this show. And Andy, I appreciate you too. Thank you so much for listening to this show.

And Andy, I appreciate you too. Thank you so much for doing this with me. Oh, it's such a pleasure. And I'm happy to say that I'll be back home base next week. And hopefully the sound and the connection will be a little bit better. But off the road and back at home, so looking forward to it. Awesome.

Thanks so much. Everybody will see you next week. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. looking forward to it. Awesome. Thanks so much. Everybody will see you next week. I've been Allison Gill. That I may indicate.