Jack - Episode 43 - One of those Jumpsuits (feat. Brian Greer)

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

This week: Rolling Stone reports that Trump is privately fretting about possibly going to prison; DoJ filed their proposed don’t-call-it-a-gag order in the DC case; CIPA expert Brian Greer joins Allison to discuss the implications of that and what’s going on with a supplemental briefing Judge Cannon requested; plus a couple of very fine questions from some very smart and good-looking listeners.Our Guest:Brian GreerSecrets and Laws (@secretsandlaws) on TwitterQuestions for the pod:https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AG:Follow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump We would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

M.S.O.W. Media. 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. Welcome to episode 43 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. I'm Andy McCabe, and today is Sunday, September 24th. We have a lot of news in the federal investigations and prosecutions into the former president this week, including the late filing from the government of the proposed gag order in the DC case that we covered last week,

along with new reporting from Rolling Stone about the former president, privately threading that he could be going to prison. Yeah, hey Andy, I'm Allison Gill. And a lot of the questions he has are a lot of questions I have. So I can't wait to get to that segment. Yeah, we're all spreading. We also have additional stories, including a recap

of the protective order considerations with SEPA expert Brian Greer. We're going to talk about what's going on with a supplemental briefing. Judge Cannon has asked for and Sp a section for next steps. But let's start with the narrowly tailored motion for limiting Trump's pretrial extrajudicial statements, which is a long way of saying gag order, but don't call it a gag order. You did a new name for it because it reminds me of how like there's regular phara then there's 951 which some people call

espionage light but I call phara on steroids like it's it's in between. It's not a gag order but it's not like you can just say whatever you want. It's a half step towards a full gag order which means half a gag order? I don't know something like that. Half a gag. That's what we'll call it. There you go, half gag. I want to talk about that because there may be some Trump shenanigans here that we didn't really address last week, and Trump has made an additional filing this past Sunday in the recusal motion. So let's go over the timeline for the half a gag order

because there's some sneaky Trump stuff going on, possibly. First, the government filed their motion for a limited gag order under seal. Then, Trump filed his motion for Chuck Kenture recuse. And he did that before the motion from the government for a partial gag order was made public. And this is from MSNBC. They say those two motions, which could be fundamental effect

the trajectory of the case case might well be connected. While Jack Smith's proposed gag order only became public when Chutkin unsealed it on September 15th, it was initially filed under seal on September 5th. That was six days before Trump filed his motion requesting Chutkin recuse herself. Now this sequence has been omitted or under emphasized in most of the commentary surrounding both motions, but it's essential to understand Trump's gamesmanship. It seems, according to MSNBC, and I agree,

that the Trump team's response to Smith's request for the gag order was not merely to oppose it, but to also try to paint Chutkin as biased before she ruled on it. So make no mistake, they say, the issuance of a gag order against a defendant who's being publicly prosecuted, yet has a constitutional presumption of innocence is a significant curtailment of that person's rights under the First Amendment. Nevertheless, constitutional rights are not absolute.

They can be restricted in certain extreme circumstances. You talked about this last weekend, Andy. We did. We did. Every trial gag orders are far from unheard of in criminal trials. And similar restrictions have been imposed in recent high profile cases, including Roger Stone and Maria Bhutan. So what do you think about the timing of this, Andrew, because it seems pretty suspect to go out and file your emotion for a recusal while that, you, while that partial gag order motion is still under seal.

Yeah, what it is, from my view, is incredibly aggressive litigating. Right? So, oh, okay. You are requesting a partial gag order. I'll see your partial gag order, and I'll raise you a full-on recusal. We're going to try to get this judge to blow herself up and remove herself from the case. It is a very escalation, I think, in litigation tactics. Now knowing the sequence better than we did, obviously last week when we discussed

the gag order motion and largely the government's response to it, it really does put the whole thing in a very different perspective. Right, because now it could look like, since we didn't get the news about that partial gag order until after Trump filed his motion for recusal, it could look like she's retaliating against him for him trying to get her to recuse, and also make it look like she should recuse herself when the order actually came in much differently. And we'll talk a little bit more about part of that motion for a partial gag order not being released until just this week,

just today actually, as we record this on Thursday because that will probably also play a little bit of a role in that. And that was senior editor at Law Fair Roger Parlov. He noticed. He noticed because and I, I didn't notice this. Normally when you file a motion like that, you make a draft order for the judge to sign. This is what an order might look like. That wasn't part of that motion from Jack Smith to put a partial gag order on Donald Trump and his lawyers in this case. Roger Parlov actually nudged the government and said, hey, can you file that?

They did. So we have that now. And I wonder if it was really not an intentional request and the order is so it's pretty, I don't want to say volatile, but it's a pretty consequential thing to be asking for. It struck me reading the government's motion, how carefully they suggested how the order could be constructed. Maybe they wanted to leave it wider open to let the judge and her clerks have kind of the first shot at defining the terms for themselves.

But who knows, it could have been just an oversight as well. We don't know. Well, yeah, because now the government's filed it a week later at that. And so again, to clarify, this is not a ruling from the judge. This is Jack Smith's draft of what this order could look like that she could just sign. Right? And we see this kind of all the time in a lot of different things. They'll do a proposed summary judgment

if somebody's asking for a summary judgment. I mean, you've seen it a lot, right? Everyone, that's standard practice in federal courts. If you are required, if you've filed the motion, you started the motion request, you have to include a draft order with it. It's just a way most of the time of reducing a workload on the court.

They can just, if they agree with you, they sign it or maybe they make minor revisions to it. Sometimes judges just, if they agree with you, they sign it, or maybe they make minor revisions to it. Sometimes judges handwrite things onto the proposed order and then hand it back, but it's a very standard part of the practice. Yeah. And some key provisions from this proposed order, it's very short. It says, the parties in this case and their attorneys are prohibited from making or authorizing statements to the media or in public settings, including through social media, nudge nudge, that pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case. Such statements include, but are not limited

to a, statements regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses, and b, disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating statements about any party, witness, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses, and be disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors. The defendant is also prohibited from causing surrogates to make such statements on his behalf. I think it's crafty the way they made the arguments in the motion, really focusing on the jury tampering effect of these sort of statements. And I think that's their strongest argument. And then they're able to wrap these other kind of classes of people into that restriction

as well. But of course, it's the last sentence in that thing you just read that's basically impossible to enforce, that the defendant is prohibited from causing surrogates to make such statements on his behalf. I mean, that's literally your, you're lying on him to police himself, which is impossible in this case. And there's no way you could prove that. He's got so many people out there, so many supporters, so many surrogates speaking for

him constantly, you'd never really be able to stay on top of that. Yeah. speaking for them constantly, you'd never really be able to stay on top of that. Yeah, and it's sort of like the the bail conditions in the Mar-a-Lago case where the judge set these up. Exactly. Like you can't talk to Walt Mata about the case and and give me a list of other witnesses, DOJ, that you don't want him to talk to about the case. How do you even go about enforcing that? But I mean, I guess there is value to putting it in writing and having somebody sign it. Yeah. I mean, if you, if you later, by Hookerbright, Crook stumble across a blatant violation of that term, then you could take corrective action as a result. But again, it's, you know, that would be happenstance or luck. Yeah. And while it might chill a regular person

from doing something like that, I don't think you know what's like on him. Yeah. He cannot be chilled. He's permanently unchilled. Yes. He has, he has zero chill. Now, it's, oh, it goes on to say, by the way, consistent with local criminal rule 57.7. This prohibition does not preclude the defendant or his attorneys agents or others acting on his behalf from a quoting or referring without comment to public records of the court case be announcing the scheduling or result of any stage in the judicial process or see requesting assistance in obtaining evidence and finally D

announcing without further comment that the defendant denies the charges. So that's sort of what makes this not a full gag order, right? And if we had seen this particular order, we would have been able to articulate that a little bit better last week, this proposed order because there are things that he can say. And that is what makes this different from a full gag order, right? It is. I think the best example is the gag order in the Roger Stone case. Where stone was basically prohibited

from speaking publicly about the case at all. That's kind of what you think of, there is no partial gag, right? There's either gag, do you're not? And I think that's what people typically think of as a gag odor. This clearly is not that. They're trying to carve out some space for him

to be able to discuss the case in a very limited way, publicly, maintain his own positions of, I'm innocent, you know, denying the charges, that sort of thing. But it's, I mean, in reality, that's a pretty narrow lane. Yeah, agreed. Now, what did Trump have to say in response to? Now, we're going back now to the public motion for a partial gag order.

But Trump had a response on truth social. He did. He did. Of course, he reacted to the motion with a response on truth social. He did. He did. Of course, he reacted to the motion with a post on truth social. And I quote, I'm campaigning for president against an incompetent person who has weaponized the DOJ and FBI to go after his political opponent. And I am not allowed to comment all caps. How else would I explain that Jack Smith is deranged or Crooked Joe is incompetent? Question mark. So yeah, I mean, basically making the government's case for them once again.

Yeah, he takes a shot at an attorney, you know, taking a shot at the president wouldn't really violate the terms of the proposed order. I was going to say, Donald, you can say Quirky Joe is incompetent. Of course. All day long. That's that's full on it. First amendment protected.

You know, I just I just think he's, he doesn't really have a chance of convincing the judge that this is not necessary. He's going to do it again. He's going to continue to insult the attorneys. He's going to continue to say demeaning and intimidating things about witnesses, about potential jurors. It's all on the table. The question is, how far does Chuck and think she can go at this point?

That's really what this is going to come down to. There's no, you don't need a fact finding here to determine that wherever you draw this line, he's going to go across it. It's just the question for the judge is how can she navigate? This is going to be a very consequential and controversial ruling.

And now we know she's also going to have to do that with the specter of recusal hanging over her head. She's got to decide that as well. So they've put her in a bit of a pickle, but I have confidence that she will find her way through it. Yeah, exactly because if she does grant this, she then has to hold herself to holding him accountable when he crosses the line, which he will.

So she puts her, kind of like you said, kind of puts her in a pickle. And if she denied this, I wouldn't be surprised. But, you know, I wouldn't get mad about it because she has to think about what happens when and if he does violate any order that she puts in. It reminds me of when Garland had to decide whether or not he was going to authorize the

search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. He took him a couple weeks and it occurred to me. He's not just deciding whether or not the search is appropriate. He's deciding whether or not he's willing to go through with what he has to go through with if evidence is found, of evidence of a crime is found. You know what I mean? Like, you got, I mean, that shouldn't stop you from following the facts in the law, but in such a consequential case, you have to make those considerations of what the second and third and fourth step look like. Yeah, I mean, I can look. I can tell you from having been there on other cases that you will

remember. And our listeners will, I'm sure, are still top of mind. It's not just about what's the law say, what facts do we have? Do we have probable cause here? Do we have enough to go forward? You have in a case of this profile and of this magnitude and this kind of historical, historically unprecedented criminal prosecution of a former president who's currently running for president, everything is magnified a hundred times. And it takes some time and some thought and consideration and discussion with people you trust and whose opinions you rely on to figure out, okay, what happens after this? What's the second, third, fourth step? How are we going to navigate those things? And it's not even really with a view on, oh, if that takes me to a place I don't want to be, then I'll change

my mind and won't go forward. I mean, that's possible, but not the pre-determined result of that sort of mental examination. You just try to get yourself ready. Make sure your team is ready. Make sure other stakeholders who might have an interest are, if it's appropriate for warned. That's not really the case here in a federal court action, but nevertheless, she is, I'm sure doing some hard thinking on this whole thing, both motions together really. Agreed. And just so everyone knows, there is no timetable for when she will make

a decision on either the recusal or the partial gag order. We just have to sort of wait and see what she does and watch the docket. And we'll watch that docket for you and we'll talk about it as soon as we get the news. All right, we have to take a really quick break, but we're going to be right back. So everybody stick around. Welcome back. Okay. Sunday night, Trump filed a reply in support of his original motion for Judge Chuck and a recuse herself from the case. And this is standard against standard federal practice.

When you file a motion, you make your arguments. The other side gets a few days to file their response. And after you read their response, you get to rebut their response. This is his rebuttal filing. In the filing, he basically raises this, for my view, a lot of the same points from the original motion. For instance, he says, Judge Chuchkin's statements point to the unmistakable conclusion

that the appearance of pre-judgment will infect every aspect of this case and cause the public to rightly question the very legitimacy of these historic proceedings. He goes on to say the prosecution for its part does not seriously dispute that Judge Chutkin made the disqualifying statements that she was referring to President Trump. So that's, of course, Alison referring to those comment, the quotes of Judge Chutkin that he included in his original filing. That's what he's referring to as the quote unquote disqualifying statements, that's his term.

When the government responded, they didn't deny that in those comments, she was referring to Trump. And they kind of point to that as if it's a dispositive fact, which I don't really see it that way. I don't know how you think of it. No, I agree. It's not, I don't think it's a dispositive fact at all. I mean, I thought it was funny that he was saying she didn't call him out by name. And he was like, Oh, that, yeah, that's me. I did that whole thing right over here. I got it. Yeah. But the government's not gonna argue whether or not

the judge was referring to Trump because I think that that's kind of an irrelevant point. It's totally irrelevant, you're right. Yeah, so that's why they didn't argue it. I mean, it's an odd thing to point to. Like it would be like, well, she didn't say she likes chicken McNuggets. So Trump is off the hook. Like it's just like, it's totally, complete non-sequitur.

But they make it seem like that's the argument that they're making. Yeah. So then in a glancing blow to the point that the government actually made, the Trump filing goes on to say, more over, although a judge's opinions are entitled to some difference when based on a judicial source, the, quote, unquote, disqualifying statements have no such origin. Rather, Judge Chuck can made clear that her opinion on potential charges against President Trump was just that, an opinion, and not a judicial finding of fact based on briefing and evidence properly before her.

This opinion is completely irrelevant to any issue before her prior to the instant case. So that one just kind of enraged me because that's not what the government said at all. They made it perfectly clear that in this, particularly in the sentencing phase of another case, which is where Judge Chutkin statements come from, that's the point. That's the moment in the proceeding when the judge weighs in with their opinion.

That's the part where the opinion is relevant. She's giving her opinion as to how the facts and the conviction applies to the unique circumstances of the defendant and how all that should impact that person's sentence in the judge's opinion. And it absolutely had to do with the case. And that specific sentencing because they were saying, well, he's not charged, why am I charged? So it's honestly just a complete falsehood to argue that the opinion was irrelevant to any issue before her prior. It's absolutely relevant. They're trying to make it seem as if Judge Chutkin just at random through in an abroad side against Trump

for no reason other than she hates him, which is not what happened. And what what's called extra judicial, right? Like they're going to argue, oh, she went out, she saw the news, et cetera. She made, she decided in her mind that Trump was guilty. It shouldn't be walking around free. And then she brought that into the courtroom totally without any basis from that case. But that's absolutely 100% just not true. And they even say it. Interjudicial statements are not interjudicial sources. And the disqualifying statements are extra judicial. And they go on to say, as a result, there's

simply no judicial basis for disqualifying statements. Nonetheless, in a desperate effort to avoid mandated recusal, the prosecution quotes a handful of sentencing submissions from other cases that never briefed let alone resolved the question of President Trump's alleged culpability. Why would his culpability be resolved in a different case that didn't involve him? She even says I don't decide that right like in her in the statements They quote her as saying she's like that's not for me to decide. I don't decide those things. I'm not the decider I sentence people you know like yeah, even just this little shot in a desperate effort to avoid Even just this little shot in a desperate effort to avoid mandated recusal, there is no such thing as mandated recusal. It is in every one of these cases up to the individual judge to review the

circumstances and make a decision as to whether or not they're going to do it. Yeah, it can be reviewed on appeal, but it's very, very rarely questioned. Yeah, this is just a ridiculous filing that I think might do the more harm than good because then they go on to say the prosecution offers up only rank speculation that judge Chuck and statements must have come from quote, knowledge and experience the court gained on the bench. knowledge and experience the court gained on the bench. They 100% did and to refer to it as rank speculation when they have the receipts is like, I don't know, it's just one of them. This is an incendiary filing.

Yeah, it is. And it's not uncommon, I think, in these things. Look, lawyers try to make the most aggressive argument they can. In doing that, they sometimes push the boundaries a little bit. What they should not be doing is pushing the boundaries of fact and truth. But they present the cases that are good for their side. They spin them up as like, this is the one that you have to follow and all the other ones Don't matter. That's pretty typical, but I think that's what you're what you see here. I think they feel

The loss coming and so they just basically took a really hard swing. I think they overheated it a bit I think their their references here are are really right at that edge of being misleading. Yeah, here's my favorite part. They say, finally, the prosecution misstates the law by claiming that there is a presumption against recusal and that Trump must overcome by clear and convincing evidence to get one. Then they cite the fifth circuit saying, quote, the new statute requires a judge to exercise his discretion in favor of disqualification. So Department of Justice is saying you, you air on the side against recusal, right. And they're saying, no, no, no, fifth circuit says you air on the side for recusal, but it goes on to say, if the judge has any question about the propriety of his sitting in a particular

case, she doesn't have that here, at least not yet that we know of. There's an if there's an attachment, there's a condition to that and PS, the fifth circuit doesn't cover the DC circuit core. Exactly. How about some DC circuit opinions? I thought that's right. Those don't go your way. So you got to go outside the house, right? You got to go to the fifth circuit or someplace else.

And this is the one that they decided to cherry pick. Pretty again, a little bit on this lazy side, but all in all, probably pretty standard. Lawyering, they're trying to make chicken salad out of chicken. You know what? So chicken chicken. Yeah, but they, but they keep like poking and thrown out these little political bombs in there like in this, this statement, the core value at issue here is whether the public will accept these proceedings as legitimate or instead view them as a politically motivated effort

by the incumbent administration to take it out its most significant political opponent in a presidential campaign. The opponent who, by the way, is not only free, but has a strong lead in the polls. Like, come on, guys. That's just like straight up out of the campaign talking points. Nothing to do with the legal argument here. It's like, uh, have you seen my Iowa polling results? That is not going to go over well with this judge. I can guarantee you that. And then they try to turn around the infamous statement that she made in the January 6 case where she said, presidents are not kings, and Mr. Trump is not the president. Yeah, quote in Katanji Brown Jackson. Yeah, that must have stung. So, Loro closes with a reference to Chutkin saying,

presidents are not kings. No president is a king, but every president is a United States citizen entitled to the protections and rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. It's just not as pithy. It just doesn't land as well as the original. I'm sorry. I see that as a swing and a mess. Yeah. And not only that.

Now you're arguing that the president is just a United States citizen with the like, oh, today is yeah, just a US citizen with a very strong lead in the polls. Yeah. And we were wondering like, I was wondering in that first thing, like they didn't know they didn't do the no president's or King's thing. And here they brought it up. Yeah. They're waiting, waiting for when they really needed it. I think they do really need it. I don't think they got it. But um, yeah, she's gonna, she's gonna shit can this. She's gonna shoot this thing down. It's, yeah, it's not gonna, it's not gonna go their way. And then they will cry. Oh, yeah. Deep state.

You should have read. He'll be posting on Truth Social about this is the judge who should have recused every day if she denies this motion. I guarantee it because he is, as you said, I think this was all part of a calculated attempt to paint the judge as biased against him. And they will point to, if she denies this motion, they'll point to this as the see its

proof she's biased against me. Yeah, especially if she orders a partial gag, then he can't say that about her. And then he will, and then she'll have to do something. Yeah, and then it's game on. Yeah. All right, we'll be right back with my interview with SEPA expert former assistant general counsel for the CIA, Brian Greer for our under seal segment. Everybody stick around.

We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. We are happy to be joined today by the former Chief of Staff for the General Council of the CIA, Brian Greer, and this is our Under Seal segment. See ya I'll have you You'll see what's left to keep And the night is right away In the darkest days we will play Yeah All the time see you

That's classified It's what? It's classified I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you Brian, how are you today? How are you? I am really good, and we have, like, we're sandwiching you in the middle of, like, all of this news from Special Counsel investigation.

But I'm so glad to have you back, because last week, and Andy and I talked about this a little bit, Judge Aileen Cannon finally approved her protective order, but I think it's in line with the schedule she put out. And we're going to talk a little bit about that schedule and some pitfalls that might want to be addressed by the Department of Justice. But I wanted to start out with some of the basic stuff and and have you give us like a section three seat, but you know, remind everybody what's see is talk about we'll talk about section three and section four section 10. So talk a little bit about that and we'll start with section three. Yeah, so section three of see is where the Department of Justice can move for and have the court

enter a protective order, which would govern how classified information is used during the discovery process in the case. And so that's what they asked the judge to do. She took obviously a long time to do that, a lot a little more lengthy briefing than you would normally see for that. And ultimately though, the Department of Justice and at least Trump's team were able to mostly agree on the parameters of that protective order. It's things like the documents will all be held in a skiff. You know, the attorneys will have to be cleared.

You might be able to designate documents as having been for cleared counsel only, which isn't relevant to Trump, but is relevant to the other defendants. In order to set, like, the security rules around discovery, but it's, it's critical to have that in place because the Department of Justice is not gonna turn over any classified discovery until that happens. So that's sort of been one of the holdups.

Section three also allows the Department of Justice to ask for all of the pre-child dates for the various SEPA deadlines. You can have issues where a judge might just like sit on SEPA rulings for way too long. CEPA is a sequential statute like you have to resolve section four before you go to section five and resolve section five before you go to section six. So judges like not ruling on section five or section six motions can hold things up. So this is a way for the Department just to go to

the court and say we need a schedule, we got to follow it. And so that's where we are today. And a couple of the things that she addressed in that particular protective order, because you know, and again, Andy and I spoke about this, but I'm interested in it from a, from a CIA or a CEPA point of view, is that Donald can't have a private skiff at Mar-a-Lago. She didn't like outright deny it, but she didn't approve it either. So it's, I guess, sort of inferred. She also said in a footnote that there were about 3500 pages. And that's different. I want to, you know, make clear, you know, everybody was like, I thought there were only 300 or so documents. Pages is different from documents,

isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I figured, look, there were 330-ish documents, I think, that were ultimately taken by Trump out of the way house that were classified. And either he either kept them, he kept them all at some point in time. A bunch of those were returned to NARA, other those, he returned to the grand jury to NARA, other those he returned to the grand jury, Spina, other of those he kept forever, right? So I would think that the Department of Justice would turn over all of those in classified discovery, even the NARA ones, just because why fight about it? He had them in his possession. They may want to, in Trump's team, they want to make some arguments about, well, his intent because he returned

all those. I think all those would have gone over. But still, if you guess that the page count of those, probably not more than 2,000, 2,500, maybe 3,000 pages. Obviously, there's more discovery at issue. The Department of Justice has said that includes witness transcripts that were classified right. If there's that Iran War Plan document and they asked witnesses about it,

the 302 summaries that FBI prepares of those or the transcript, if it was in front of the grand jury, that would all be classified. The department just has said in another filing that they look for evidence of other Trump declassification efforts, which is interesting. And that some of those would be records are classified as well. I think those are only two hints we have as to what the additional universe of classified materials is. Another one would be,

you know, there was almost certainly been a classification review of those documents by the intelligence community. Just saying yes, that document really is top-seeker, HCS or so on and so forth. Those records would be discoverable as well. But it doesn't seem to be just from the volume that they're going much beyond those narrow parameters. Yeah, it seems like it.

All right, let's talk a little bit about, because one of the other things that was addressed was, I think Walt Nauta said that he should be able to see some of these classified documents because he was in the Navy one time. And I don't think that was granted either. And specifically, I think she addressed, no, this is going to be very limited. But also, she noted some of the clearance statuses for some of the lawyers, right? In this particular order.

Oh yeah, it may have actually come from a status report. I'm not sure, but the... Oh yeah, that's right, a status report. Yeah, there was just a status report from DOJ last week where they still said that, well, I think everyone has their, police, it sounded like everyone has their interim clearance. Some of the lawyers still don't have their final clearance.

And because of that, there are some more sensitive classified materials that they can't see. The other J outlined that at one point, but I believe HCS, which would be information related to human, human sources, human, would be something that you cannot see without a final clearance. There wasn't like a ton of that at least looking through the indictment. That's being charged here, but obviously there could be more of that in discovery. Some of those other code word materials that, like those code words that are actually redacted in the indictment, those are also may require additional, like that final clearance. But I believe DOJ previously said for special intelligence

SI that they could, which comes, basically what comes from the NSA, you could actually see that within an interim clearance. So my guess is a bulk of the discovery is available now to the council with interim clearances, but they still can't see the most sensitive materials, which is probably a minority of it. Yeah. Okay. Now that the CPIS-3 protective order has been entered, like you said, we have to go in order here, we can get to the classified discovery. As you said, we have to go in order here. We can get to the classified discovery, as you said, until that's resolved, none of it's going to go over. And the first phase of that is CPISection 4. What is CPISection 4? And how do you expect things to play out here? Yeah. Well, on some of your prior episodes, I've talked about how it's important to think about

SIPA as a funneling process of just picture a triangle pointed down. I'll retweet the article I wrote that has a little chart of that in there, where you're gradually taking the universe of classified material that's at issue in the case and just gradually narrowing it down so that when you get to trial, you've got a very small sliver of that information that's actually that's of core relevance to the case that the parties are actually arguing about. And so that proceeds sequentially in the first step of that is CPCS Section 4, where you have a unit DOJ has gone out and determined by having all the intelligence agencies search and FBI search for potentially discoverable records. They've gone through all those and said, okay,

here's our universe of discoverable materials. Within that, is there anything we want to apply basically protective measures to? Because it's so sensitive and we're concerned about how it could be handled in discovery. So those measures could be withholding it from discovery or deleting it from discovery. It could be just a form of that would just be

redacting it or withholding the record in full or summarizing it where you would take it. Sometimes you might just summarize it by exerting it and other times you might just have a stipulation or admission. Let me just give you an example. Let's say there's a CIA cable from overseas and it reports that a foreign intelligence service told the CIA something,

and it was based on the foreign intelligence services human source. And there's only a sliver of that cable that's actually discoverable. It's important to remember, I was taught, information is discoverable, records aren't. Like there's tangible information that's discoverable, right?

Like a gun, in a case involving a gun, that's just tangible, discoverable evidence. All this classified information is intangible. It's just information. And so all the department justice really needs to do is make that information that is discoverable available. So they could go into that cable, excerpt out the most relevant, that core

relevant information and write a summary of it. And so instead of producing the cable, they would say the United States government is in possession of the following information that on X state, the US government was told this thing and they would fuzz up some of those details. They wouldn't be told the name of the intelligence services because that's not relevant. They wouldn't be told the name of the source or any identification about the source. That's not relevant either. So we'll leave out those sensitive details

while still giving them the court as scalable information. So that's how the process normally plays out. You go to the court X part A, meaning the Department of Justice will go in just DOJ only. Trump's lawyers cannot participate in this process. So we talked earlier about the education of Judge Cannon. This is another sort of step in that process where they get the

chance to go in and start to talk about the case, right? Like it's not, you gotta be a little careful not to abuse this process, right? But they can say, here's our theory of the case. Here's some of the damage Trump did. We're concerned about some of this information even being provided in discovery, being damaging the national security. And so they can educate her through that. Another question is how closely she will scrutinize all this because she has to sit there. Some judges, like they just read the DOJ brief that explains all this and the declaration and that's it.

Other judges want every single classified record to come into their chambers and they want to sit there and look through them all. So how much scrutiny she gives will be another question. And then the biggest question is sort of bearing the lead, which is, as you've noted, there's only these 3,500 pages of records. That's not a lot, right? Like I think DOJ has obviously has a sort of narrow scope of discovery, which makes sense because this is a pretty simple case. And I think that they may not use section four at all with Trump, or they may use it very minimally, right?

Like he was president of the United States. He had access to all this when he was president. So I think anything from his presidency, they may not redact at all. They just say, why fight about it with a hostile judge? Let's just turn it over and discovery. With NADA and another defendant, they might still invoke it and fight about it there a little bit, but I think if they use it at all, it would just be for stuff that post-ates Trump's presidency,

and that may be a little extra sensitive. But so I think they'll probably apply a very light touch to all of it. Oh, interesting. So you think that they might not go too deep into section four, because a lot of this might just be old information like, you know, where troops' locations are in a certain place at a certain date, and that's no longer really classified or well, it's still classified, but it's not. It's okay to just give it all to Trump instead of fight about it. To me, it's more, not that so much is typically in an espionage act case, if the person had

access, even if they weren't president, if just if they were a case officer and they're being prosecuted for a leak, if they had access to an information while in government, DOJ typically doesn't want to fight about giving them access to the same information while you've already seen it. Yeah, they've already seen it. Now Trump obviously with his memory and all that, like, you know, he probably doesn't remember a lot of this information.

He probably didn't even read it all. So you could still make a theoretical argument that we shouldn't give it to him again, but DOJ is just not gonna mess with that. I think they're just gonna say anything from his presidency, he gets, and we might surgically apply it to stuff post-ating as presidency. Well, he was fighting to get it back and kept asking, like, tell me what they are, what

did you take? I need to see the inventory, you know, et cetera. So, you know, one other thing, one other note real quick is it's unclear. This is all going to happen on October 10th coming up. We won't know, you know, we'll know the deadline passes that none of this will all be filed under seal. So we won't get to see any of it. Trump's team will, she did put on the schedule that he can make defense challenges to section four on that same date. She didn't really spell out what that is. One argument might be challenging the constitutionality

of that, this exparte process that's been made before that will probably fail. But the other thing that they might do then is the defense team can go into the judge exparte and explain, here are the areas of the case. Here's what we think is discoverable. So as you're scrutinizing the government's filings and the redactions, please keep in mind these defense theories as you're doing that. And that's fair. I mean, that happens in other cases cases And so that may happen here as well

Got it now the government also filed something called the CPISection 10 notice as required by the scheduling order But it was redacted what is a section 10 notice and and why wasn't it filed on the public docket? Yeah, it's a notice that's only used in cases involving basically Compromisesises of classified or national defense information. And in those cases, CPR requires that the government give the defendant notice of the portions of the material that it recently expects to rely upon to establish the national defense or classified information element of the defense.

So basically, here's what we're going to focus in those documents that they've charged them with, the 30 documents. Here's what, here are those portions of those documents that we are going to point out to the jury to establish that this is national defense information. So it's, first of all, another great opportunity, right, to inform the judge of some of the damage that's taken place here. They're not gonna go beyond that. They're not gonna say explain why it's national defense information is filing. They're just gonna basically highlight or excerpt those documents, but it's still a good way to sort of preview to the judge

what they're gonna be focused on and obviously the Trump's counsel too in that way they can prepare their defense accordingly. And sort of the scope of discovery going forward will be based a lot around what they're gonna to rely on. Now, why is that still classified? As we've talked about before, we don't know if DOJ is prepared to classify these records for trial. One strategy is they will. Another strategy is they won't, but they'll use the silent witness rule, because they'll use the silent witness rule just to show them to the jury and testify

about them in generalities. Either way, though, the fact that this is classified makes sense to me because even if they're going to declassify for trial, they don't want to do that till trial, right? Like in most cases, the case could plead out so you wouldn't want to do it until trial. Here, I think there's no chance of that, but obviously the case could go past the election. Trump could get reelected. The case goes away. Why declassify all this stuff for that. So in any scenario, they're going to wait until basically the eve of trial. And then there will be these declassification memos signed for

anything that's going to come out and trial. And there will be formerly declassified then. So we won't know until trial. What was in these documents? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, then. we won't know until trial what was in these documents. Yeah, that makes sense. It's been. Yeah, right, even if then. Yeah. One last question before I let you go. There was a felony raskin who was brought on last year,

but he hasn't really been on any of the pleadings. He entered a notice of appearance on behalf of the SCO and you expressed excitement about this on your Twitter page. Who is David Raskin? and why is this a good development? Yeah, I think it's a great development. I actually don't know David Raskin personally, but I know of him by reputation from when I was in government. He was a terrorism prosecutor, prosecutor in the Southern District of New York for a long time, and the early 2000s was sort of his prime time. And obviously, there were a lot of terrorism prosecutions going on then.

And he, like, hears his resume does that arise from a silly case? Who's prosecutor in that case? Um the Galani case which maybe people don't really think about that much but Galani was at Gitmo He was subject to EITs and before Any of the other folks at Gitmo could be brought to the US he was and tried in the Southern District of New York. So all the problems they're having at Gitmo, which are now, you know, what is it? 2023 were on year, whatever, 16 or 17 of not bringing those cases to trial. He brought that case to trial.

Same issues. He was subject to the interdiction techniques by the CIA. He brought that to case to trial in a year. They actually, he actually, Galani actually got acquitted on a lot of the CIA, he brought that to Case to trial in a year. They actually, he actually, Galani actually got acquitted on a lot of the charges, but it was kind of thin evidence in that case. But Raskin was the lead on that case as well. He was rumored to be if the KSM had been brought to the United States for trial. He was rumored to be the lead prosecutor for that case. And then everyone is really with that recent case in Kansas City about the FBI analyst

who was hoarding the documents at home. He worked on that case too. So he, by reputation as one of the best lawyers around at, cases involving classified information, but in particular, what's appealing to me is that, how to try those cases. He is a trial lawyer. He is used to arguing these cases to a jury.

The counter-espionage prosecutors, Jay Brad and Julie Edelstein, who have been on this case from the start, they are pros at SEPA, they are pros at the discovery process. They still have trial experience in Jay in particular, does, but like they are not at their heart trial lawyers, no offense to them. David Raskin is a trial lawyer. He can get in front of South Florida, jury, right, and make this case appealing to them, I think, in a way that others can't. Like he's just regarded as one of the best trial lawyers around, buddy has all that experience with CEPA 2.

And that's critical to me in terms of how it's presented to the jury. And then also how he interacts with the intelligence community, you get to there because you can have prosecutors who interact very poorly with intelligence community and it just doesn't work. So the fact that he's been brought on, I think, is a great sign. So you think he'll be at the prosecution table when we get around to this trial? I think the only reason to bring him on is to try is like, again, Jay, Brad, Julie, I just didn't like there can handle the seat pass which with this 100% competently better than anybody. I think he'd only be brought on to make the arguments to the jury. And he's one of the best at that. And you know, I think

we talked about this offline with Andy last time, but just if people want a little inside baseball. People and then lawyers in the intelligence community get along well with great with some prosecutors, not with others. One of the sort of the worst categories of prosecutors we ever dealt with were public integrity prosecutors. And that's because they are not, I think just to defend them, all their cases involve corrupt government officials.

So they are inherently hostile to other government officials, right? In these national security cases though, you have to be, you know, work fisting glove with these agency attorneys and other agency officials to how this case is going to be tried, what you're going to classify, what you're going to use, they're not used to that. And they hate it. Like it's just like a bowl in a china shop because they're not used to anyone telling them, no, you can't use that. You have to go through this procedure to use this evidence like they're not used to any of that. They're just used to corrupt public official like Bob and endez.

We're going to do whatever it takes to bring them down and they're allowed to do that. So I've always been a little weary of some of the Jack Smith and his team members who are public integrity prosecutors being on the moral of a case. I'd rather them focus on the January 6 case, which is more of their alley and leave this case to the now security prosecutor. So, raskin' being on this case, I think is sort of a good sign for that inside baseball dynamic.

Well, we'll keep an eye on it. And I appreciate you coming by to speak to us today about all this because EIT, is that interrogation techniques? Oh, sorry, yeah, I'm sorry. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Yeah. sorry, yeah, I'm sorry. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Okay. And that's why I appreciate you coming on.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Because there's a lot, I've been focused on all kinds of criminal prosecutions and investigations, but none of them really have to do with classified documents. The Jack Smith DC one does a little bit, but it's not even going to be their case in chief. So Thank you for coming on and explaining it to us all. We really appreciate you and Everybody tell everybody where they can find and follow you on social media. I'm on Twitter and all the other various platforms at at secrets and laws Great. Thank you so much. Everybody Brian Greer, we'll talk later. Thanks for it. All right, everybody, stick around.

We've got one more segment left. We'll be right back. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Welcome back. Okay, let's end with an inside look at Trump's concerns about being incarcerated. So, yeah, bummer, right? So from Rolling Stone, in the past several months,

Donald Trump has had a burning question for some of his confidence and attorneys. Rolling Stone goes on to say that three sources familiar with his comments say he's been asking lawyers and other people close to him, what a prison sentence would look like for a former American president? Great question, isn't it?

I've thought about that myself. I have, yeah, I've been wondering too. Yeah, so Trump wants to know, would he be sent to a, quote, club fed style prison, a place that's, you know, pretty comfortable as far as prisons go, or a, quote, bad prison? I think we all know what that refers to. Would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement? Would government officials try to strip him of his lifetime secret service protections?

You know, he wants to know what would they make him wear? Of course, that's his first concern. Would they have dark blue brioche suits and red ties that I can wear? Two red ties. That's right. He'll want to know, he wants to know if his enemies will actually get him in a cell, right?

An unprecedented set of consequences for a former leader of the free world. Would authorities make him wear a jumpsuit? So these are the questions that are bouncing around in that head. Do I have to wear one of those jumpsuits? Orange is not my color except my face. I mean, I really think it's probably a good color form. I think you could kind of smooth out all that, whatever's going on up there. But you know, I listen, I can't blame the guy. He should be thinking about this. He is facing this serious prospect of jail term. Now, I have really come full spectrum on this.

When we were talking about these potential indictments six months ago, eight months ago, whatever it was, I was thinking to myself, I don't know how you could ever put a former president in jail. How could you adequately guarantee the safety of that protectee in a federal facility. But from everything I've been reading lately, there's actually some thought and planning going on within the Secret Service and with other security professionals about what that

would look like. There are many folks who believe it would actually be easier than what they're doing now because he's essentially he would be pinned into one place. And yes, that place would be picked very carefully. So if he was sentenced to in-course full-blown incarceration, which I don't think is a guarantee by any chance, but I do think it's a possibility, he would likely as a person with no prior criminal record, and certainly no connection to crimes of violence or anything like that, he would, even if he weren't the former president, he would be going to a minimum security federal facility. So, you know,

a camp, style, whatever, where people have a lot of area to move around, and you have generally lower security risk inmates in those facilities. So you could control some of the risk to him in that way. You could also control within the facility, which other inmates can get physically, you know, in physical proximity to him, you could screen all those people to ensure that you weren't letting anyone near him, because you can control everyone else, right? In that environment, it's not just the fact that he's not moving around much. You can control who else comes in contact with him.

And then from there, it's pretty easy. It's not going anywhere. Yeah, that was my thought, too, when I went, same, same Z's, Andy, six months ago, I was like, and the project put them on home to buy my mechanical bracelet. But then I talked to a few people and started reading a little bit more into it. And I had the same thought too, like wait a minute.

How is it harder for the secret service to keep tabs on him and keep him safe when we know exactly where he is And he's not moving around and you know, it seems like he's right there in a very limited amount of space and then also I thought about after Watergate where Erlichman and Specifically John Dean Where did they serve their terms right and? And as it turns out, on military bases in safe houses. And so, I mean, the particular one where they served is no longer there. But that is a very feasible option if you don't want to put them in a bad prison, you know, you put

them in a government safehouse on a military base or some other confined location, we're not limited to just Rice Street jail or Mar-a-Lago. That's right. You know, we have to think about other possibilities too. And so I thought that that was a really interesting perspective that we got from John Dean. Like here's where I went. What's wrong with that?

Yeah. And there's a couple of things that a couple of unique factors here. The federal case, particularly Mara Lago, under normal circumstances. Somebody, if convicted of those espionage charges that he's looking at, you would get jail time. If you look back over those prosecutions historically,

and look at Teashara, right? Who's the guy from Massachusetts or... Yeah, Air National Guard guy. Air National Guard guy. Yeah, so he's actually being held pretrial. So, you know, he's definitely looking at incarceration. And the fact that NADA and Dale Lavera are not gonna get any of this former president

consideration, those guys are if convicted, likely doing some time. not a and Dale Lavera are not going to get any of this former president consideration. Those guys are if convicted, likely doing some time, it would be very hard for a judge to not send in to some period of incarceration if his co-defendants who are arguably less culpable than he is because he was directing their actions, they were acting on his behalf. If they get jail time, that's gonna put a lot of pressure on the judge to give him some as well. So I think that's the most likely place he gets it. Now, the wild card in this whole thing is Georgia.

I mean, if he takes a conviction in the Georgia case, I can't profess to be an expert on Georgia criminal law and sentencing processes, but I can't imagine he dodges it there either. No, same. I agree with you there. We also have to remember, Merrick Garland has filed his intent to appeal the oath-keeper sentences for being too short. I think that might have something to do with how you can recommend a sentence for 15, 12 violations obstructing an official proceeding. He's got two counts of that against him, right? In this federal DC Jack Smith thing. And I want to go back to something he said about the S.B. and Ash case, the Mar-a-Laga documents case, because we learned

this week that Trump paid Molly Michael, who's probably going to end up being a star witness in this case. And I wanted to get your thoughts on this, but apparently Trump wrote to do lists for her on the back of classified note cards and documents, and that she was told by him, you don't know anything about the boxes. What are your thoughts on this? It didn't show up in the indictment. I can't imagine this is information that Jack Smith didn't already have before the indictment happened.

Or could this have been uncovered in an ongoing, separate or but connected obstruction of justice investigation by Jack Smith? Because it seems like this is a big deal, but we didn't see any indictment. What are your thoughts on that? Just a tough one to call. I think it's possible that they had this

and just for whatever reason chose not to put it in, and maybe they didn't want to front her as a witness that early in the process. Maybe they were still working with her on her cooperation, who knows, but it's possible that they had this and didn't make a choice not to put it in. And I should note, what you saw in the indictment is not the sum total of what they will have when this trial starts. There will be a lot more witnesses, there

will be more information, more allegations, more proof. You don't put everything in the indictment. So that's one possibility. The other possibility is she just wasn't fully on board at that point. But I do think that that comment to her, she could be a very impactful witness. First of all, there's no indication that she has any problems, witness problems, like prior criminal convictions or fraud convictions or anything like that. She's probably a pretty upstanding person, even just to get the job in the White House and work there and everything else. She's also a deep and Trump world person. So she worked for him in the Oval, she worked for him at Mar-a-Lago. It will be very hard for them to impeach her testimony after she testifies against him

It's gonna be hard for her lawyers to get up there and paint her as some Lying Person with no credibility person who can't believe yeah, because she works for him very recently So you know, it's like, if she's so bad, why did you take her with you tomorrow, Lago? I mean, it just, it doesn't, it's kind of like the Susie Wiles problem, right? She's still working for him on his campaign.

So how are you gonna attack her as some person who shouldn't be believed? Really? You believe her enough to put your campaign in her hand. So, so there's that. And then finally, the most important thing with her is this is direct testimony. This isn't like, you know, Yusiel Tavara saying that Delevere told him that Trump told Delevere that he wanted, you know, the servers deleted. This is what Trump said to her after he found out that she was going to be interviewed

by the FBI. So that context is perfect. It's a direct statement. It could be tough. This is going to be a tough one for them. Yeah. And it seems to go toward the totality of the evidence of a pattern of obstructive behavior. I think that that, you know, because that,

the superseding indictment for the, you know, trying to delete the surveillance footage of trying to obstruct justice that way, you could have all kinds of number of witnesses come in and she could be one of them to show this obstructive behavior. What is he like? Yeah, he said this to me.

That is why it's not unheard of that he told Dale Lavera to tell Nata to get this done. Like I think it sort of would not even, me. That is why it's not unheard of that he told Dale Lavera to tell Nata to get this done. Like I think it sort of would not even why it doesn't have to be its own standalone indictment. Its evidence toward his behavior is obstructed behavior. Yeah, it's almost better that it's not the source of an individual charge because then you run into more complicated hearsay problems in getting the testimony in here because it's not a charge, you're not offering

it to prove the truth of the matter asserted. So I think you have a little bit more latitude to get it in as evidence of planning and tent, you know, that sort of stuff, those, some of those things that make up some of the exceptions of the hearsay rule. But yeah, it's a good one. Let me ask you another question. This is the whole thing about writing to-do lists on the back of classified documents. That can go towards showing his complete disregard

for the importance of classified information, but couldn't also kind of be a defense like that shows that I thought they were mine and unimportant. Like does that go to his state of mind at all? I mean, it just seems odd to treat a classified document that maybe you don't need it. At first I was like, oh, he's recycling.

That's good, could a planet. But, you know, what are your thoughts on that? Because I feel like it could go, well, I'm always thinking like a defense attorney to like what would my defense be against this? And I'd be like, look, it just goes to show that I didn't think these were classified because I had to classified them because I took them in their mind or whatever. Do you know what I'm saying?

I see your point, but here's why it's not, it doesn't work that way for him because those things that that that sort of state of mind that you're writing the notes on the classified note cards could could support. Those things aren't actually in the in and of themselves legal defenses. actually in the end of themselves legal defenses. So yes, it is more evidence of how wildly irresponsible he was with classified materials as if you needed any more that. But here it is, there's some more. Like you said, he could argue, well, see, I really thought they were mine. Well, they're not yours. As a matter of law, they are not yours. It's like him saying, Oh, but I have the Presidential Records Act. It lets me do all this. No, it actually doesn't. So, you know, evidence, got it. Supporting his belief that the Presidential Records Act let him do this. It doesn't really have any, I don't see that it has any legal weight. It's kind of like any I stole from the

bank who's minted in the United States. So it's totally legal. Yeah. Right. It's kind of like Kenny I stole from the bank who's minted in the United States. So it's totally legal. Yeah, right. It's like him using, there was the story that he used the classified cover sheets to like cover up the clock radio in his bedroom because it was too bright for him or something like. No, sorry. I mean, it's a fascinating little anecdote, but it doesn't get you off the hook.

It doesn't have some quote-unquote presidential shit, like laying around that he could like a mage of hat he could put over his alarm clock. Right. Remember that when they offered the Georgia electors like swag bags of Trump crap? Yeah. There was also like golf, golf shirts in the boxes

with the documents. She's one of those. It's covered right up. Yeah. Do a better job anyway. There we go. Perfect transition, because one of those. Cover it right up. Do a better job anyway. There we go. Perfect transition because one of our questions this week is from Doug F and he said the new information

that we got about Trump writing the to-do lists on the back of the classified materials, could this be the closest thing to get Trump's Clinton socks defense, right? So by putting messages on classified documents, he could try to claim that the to-do list side is his personal side and the classified side was somehow different.

So that's kind of your point, what you're just driving at and what we've talking about. I don't think it works that way, Doug. I don't think it's- Explain how the socks case came about and what and the relevance. Explain how they're kind of, how's he tying those together?

Yeah, so the socks case was Clinton had been interviewed as a part of some sort of presidential history project. I may get some of the details on this, not perfect, but he was interviewed and he had tapes of those interviews which he supposedly kept in his socks drawer, I think. That's where the name comes from. And there was some sort of a dispute over whether those transcripts or those tapes

constituted presidential records that had to go to the archives. And it was litigated and ultimately determined that they did not, that that was personal material, that was his. And so they didn't have to go. So Trump has- Was there classified stuff on the B side? No, no, it was no classified angle to it at all. It was simply one of these what constitutes a presidential record and therefore has to be given to the archives.

And Trump has pointed to that many, many times, as have some of his supporters. Oh, because I wrote personal notes on something, it makes it a personal record. See, Clinton did the same thing. He did, he took stuff and the court said it was his and it was fine. Why is it not fine for me?

So very different factual circumstances and different situations illegally. So it's not really a defense for him. That doesn't stop him and other people from constantly saying it. But nevertheless, no socks here, Doug. That's the bottom line. I thought they were talking about Clinton's cat.

I, it is, it's confusing. And I'm pretty sure that these things were found in the sock drawer, but I don't know, maybe I dreamt that. So I, I tell, if you're really curious, hit Wikipedia up on the whole socks case. Now it's the sock drawer. I'm just cat focused, I think.

I could be it too. All right, so we have one more question. And this one comes to us from Donna from California. Donna starts out, hi, Allison and Andy, love the show and the weekly wrap up to keep all this stuff straight It's a lot and I appreciate you both. Well, we appreciate you as well Donna So Donna says it's on another kind of Big issue from this week

Donna says does the Trump meet the press interview? Admission that he was relying only on himself to make decisions admission that he was relying only on himself to make decisions, thus knocking out the defensive counsel strategy, actually help attorneys like Cheesebro and Eastman in Georgia as unindicted co-conspirators in Jack's case. It seems like a weakened Trump's case and strengthens the others. It's a really interesting question because I've heard so much talk about the Kristen Welker, Meet the Press interview of Trump and this comment he made about, the others. So really interesting question because I've heard so much talk about the Kristen

Welker, Meet the Press interview of Trump and this comment he made about, he made all the decisions himself, but I haven't heard this side of it. So many people are focused on what Donna mentions, which is Trump making these very definitive statements that, no, no, no, I looked at the election results. I thought there was fraud. I decided to pursue all these things. It kind of backs him into a corner in which he can't really rely on, hey, I just did all this stuff because my attorneys told me to, that's the defensive counsel or the reliance on counsel defense.

I do think it undermines his ability to use that defense a little bit. I think there will be many other statements that undermine it as well. So I don't see it as being quite the shocker that everyone else does. But her question seems to go at, does this let cheesebro and Eastman off the hook? Right? Because they can then say, well, see, we weren't really advising him us telling him about the Wisconsin memo and the fake electors scheme and all this other stuff. He wasn't following our direction anyway,

according to his own statement. That's an interesting look. But ultimately, the evidence here is going to undermine that as any sort of a defense for cheesebro and Eastman. We have the Wisconsin memo. We have the other memos that that cheesebro wrote. We have witnesses who will testify as to Eastman coming up with the theory of the fake electors. We know where and when they presented these things to Trump and the Oval Office and the course of these crazy meetings. We know the comments that Eastman made to other people like Vice President's Council about

them, how the Supreme Court would never support this, things like that. So all that stuff, I think, you know, those dudes are still deep in the grease. I don't think Trump's statement saves them. You know, those dudes are still deep in the grease. I don't think Trump's statement saves them. Yeah, I know. And if I'm a defendant in a Rico case for like the mob, and I'm the one who told the boss to use a gun, and you know, maybe Mickey to fish, told him to, you know, use acid and dissolve them in a barrel, and the boss chooses the barrel. And I'm not off the hook for my participation in

the thing. So yeah, but that's a really interesting way to approach it. I hadn't thought of that before. And then, you know, the other thing, I think, what's going to prevent him from using a defensive counsel or, you know, relying on counsel defense more than these statements is the fact that I think he would have to be put on the stand. Yes. To answer questions about it, I think that's the big preventive thing. I don't think they're going to use defense accounts. Honestly, I mean, that would be a huge risk. Oh, oh, please.

That's all I'm saying. There are so many moments that I've had that thought, like even this whole, well, I truly believed it. Therefore, it wasn't illegal what I was saying. I really believed that the election was stolen. And I think he is gonna go, he's gonna hit that theme. How do you get that in front of the jury unless he's sitting to the stand and says it? Like, you know, you could have other people testify,

you know, do you think the president believed these stories of election fraud? And you might get that in, although you might not see how the prosecutors react. But it's, it's not, if you're hoping that that defense saves your bacon, you got to present it. The trial jury's going to write here. You see it, say it. So yeah, this will be interesting. Who knows? But I mean, you know, it can be used as a, again, that whole totality of the evidence, type of scenario, I think, you know, because we've seen Jack Smith, we've seen Robert Mueller use tons of public statements and declarations and things set in an interview. You know, I'm thinking of the Lester Holt interviewolt interview. I had to fire Komi to get rid of that Russia thing or whatever.

Now it's gone. That can all be sort of brought in, not as the smoking gun as it were, but definitely as put it on the pile. You layer it on and that stuff, those are the words of the defendant. It's a prior statement. You're getting it in through recordings or whatever, but it's very, very impactful to jurors to hear the defendant saying things

that are consistent with what he's been charged with doing bad news to the folks. Yeah, like the audio of him saying, oh, this is really classified. I'm not the president, so I can't declassified anymore. I mean, that's just like kiss it good night. You're gonna hear that. I guarantee it.

You're gonna hear that. It'll definitely be there. Well, thanks so much for your questions. If you have any questions, there's a link in the show notes description for you to fill out form and send them to us. So please do that. We look forward to them and we do love answering your questions. And there's such good thoughtful questions. I'm always impressed with the level of detail and thought by our listeners and how they come at these things from different points of view that I hadn't thought of. Totally, totally.

And it's so helpful when we're getting ready to do the show. And even there are so many questions, great ones that we just can't get to on the air, but I find them really helpful to see the way people are thinking about these things and the issues they raise, oftentimes the things that hadn't occurred to me and it helps with the discussion on the show a lot. So even if you didn't hear your name and your question read out, you're still helping us pull this together. So thank you.

For real. All right. We'll be back next week. Who knows what can happen between now and then? We'll see. We'll see. But we will definitely cover it. And thanks again to Brian Greer for our under seal segment.

That was very helpful. So we can understand some of the inner workings of classified document trials and prosecutions because this is all new territory for me, but it is well traveled for him. So we appreciate him. He is the man. And he's going to be making him very busy as we get

into the next few months. So I'm lucky to have him. Yes, we are. Everybody will see you next week. Guy, Ben Allyson Gil. And I'm Andy McCabe. 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