Jack - Harass, Coerce, and Retaliate

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

A federal judge throws out Justice Department subpoenas of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey calling them “blatantly unlawful.” The full DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel will hear arguments over Judge Boasberg’s contempt inquiry into CECOT deportations. Former IRS officials call for a Miami judge to scrutinize Trump's “breathtakingly improper” immunity from tax audits as part of the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization slush fund settlement. The Director of National Intelligence commissioned two reports on voting machine accuracy that show no votes were flipped in 2020 but the White House is blocking their release. Plus listener questions. Do you have questions for the pod or something for HITMEINTHEHEADWITHABAT?  Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/ Follow AGMueller, She Wrote SubstackMueller She Wrote on Blueskyhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodMore from Andrew McCabeThe Real McCabe on [e-mail] on BlueskyThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump This Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at https://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you Subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MSW Media. A federal judge throws out Justice Department subpoenas of Minnesota Governor Tim Walts and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, calling them blatantly unlawful. The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel will hear arguments over Judge Bozberg's contempt inquiry into the Seacoat deportations. Former IRS officials call for a Miami judge to scrutinize Trump's breathtakingly improper immunity from tax audits as a part of the Justice Department's anti-weaponization slush fund settlement. And the Director of National Intelligence commissioned two reports on voting machine accuracy that show no votes were flipped in 2020, but the White House is blocking their release. This is Unjustified.

Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 75 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, June 28, 26. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McKeel. Cape. First, Allison, man, huge thanks to everyone who came out to the big gala last Saturday in Shytown. That was so fun to be with everyone to have, so we do a couple of gala's MSW Media every year for our patrons where you can come out and enjoy some, you know, buffet. I think we had tacos this time and a couple of open bars so you could have cocktails or mocktails, whatever you prefer. And we had some entertainment. We had Dana Goldberg and TIG Nataro this time around. And so we'll be having more gala. I think we're going to be having an election night watch party where you can come and watch the results live with us in San Diego on November 3rd. And if you want to become a patron, you would not only get these episodes of Unjustified early and ad free. You also get the daily beans early and ad free. You get beans talk early. You probably get a cool coffee mode. or a t-shirt or something. Swag.

Swag. And you get the invites to these fun parties that we throw a couple of times a year. And it was just a wonderful time. And I want to thank all the patrons for coming out. If you want to become a patron, like I said, patreon.com slash muller she wrote. Yes, I still use that old. Come on. It's a classic.

It's a classic. It is a classic. It blows me away. Every time we have one of these things, you meet people who come into it from all over the country. people from, many from California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan. Canada. Yeah, it is incredible. And they're super fun.

You get to talk to everybody, take pictures. It's good times. Yeah, it was really fun. So thanks to everybody who came out. And thanks for supporting independent media. All our content is free. But if you were able to kick in and support us, we love you for it. Thank you.

Also, some breaking news. And this bold me over, Katie Fang's lawsuit. to get at the Epstein files against Todd Blanche, Judge Emmett Sullivan has granted her preliminary injunction, saying she has standing, that she, that he has jurisdiction. The court has Article III jurisdiction to hear it. She has Article III standing to bring the case.

And that Todd Blanche now has until July 2nd to hand over five key things that have been withheld or redacted from the Epstein files, or to explain why he's withholding them under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. And I'm going to be talking today, Sunday, at noon Pacific 3 p.m. Eastern with Katie Fang, live on the Midas Touch Network. So I'm very much looking forward to that conversation. This is a novel legal theory that a journalist can't do her job and is being financially harmed by the withholding of these documents. And congratulations to Katie Fang.

That is awesome. That's a big one. And, you know, this kind of thing that could open up a floodgate of other journalists. taking a similar tact. So good for her. That'll be a great interview. Yeah. And I'm super excited because this ruling is kind of creating new law in this preliminary injunction. So it's fascinating. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about standing. We'll kind of get into the legal weeds a little bit and talk about those five things that Todd Blanche now has to hand over. So three chairs for independent journalists, right? Nice. Well done. Well done. All right. Let's dive in here. First up.

This one, Andy, kind of flew under the radar this week, but it's extremely important, given all that's going on at the office of the Director of National Intelligence, with Gabbard leaving and Bill Pulte taking over after Trump withdrew J. Clayton for consideration as his nominee until the Senate passes the Save Act or whatever. And also, you know, to cover voting rights and things that are happening with voting leading up to the midterm elections and beyond. So this is from Reuters. White House officials have four months blocked the release of a U.S. government report that outlines what it describes as significant vulnerabilities in the nation's voting machines ahead of the November midterms, according to three sources familiar with the matter. But, Andy, if you're trying to prove that there are significant concerns with voting machines, why on earth would you block the release of this report? Well, I'm obsessed with this story. And partially because there's some real unknown. here, but it does, I feel like this is one of those peel the curtain back moments where we see, like, despite the common incompetence that we see from people in this administration, there's a,

there's a deeper current going on here. So when we get to the end of it, I want to know what you're, what you think the play is here, because I have my own ideas on that. Yeah, well, I think it will become evident as we get into the weeds of this story. The report that the White House is blocking, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, when Tulsi Gabbard was there, concludes that voting machines could be further safeguarded by, for example, updating their software, which is something we've kind of always known. It does not say the vulnerabilities have led to votes flipping, but it examines security gaps in how the machines are used during U.S. elections. Some White House officials have argued that the report could undermine voter confidence.

That's amazing to me that they're making that argument. Okay, whatever. Let's let you go. particularly among Republicans. Others have said they do not believe the report goes far enough in supporting President Donald Trump's false claims, false claims, that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, three sources said.

Well, there you have it. There you have it. Some Democrats said privately they worried that Gabbard's probe into voting machines would be used by the administration to push states to use paper ballots. Now, several court cases were, filed by Trump's lawyers failed to prove voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. I said several. He said failed to prove voter fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

Okay. Apparently, so did this report. And I say these because we're about to add another report. Hang on. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who launched an investigation into the voting machines and searched for evidence to support Trump's false election fraud claims. oh, she stepped down this past Friday. Stepping in as interim director is the mortgage guy, federal housing regulator Bill Pulte.

Now, Trump has said he wants Pulte to investigate rigged elections during his time at ODNI. Now, it's unclear what Pulte plans to do with this report. He's been briefed on efforts by the agency to investigate flaws in voting machines, including the unreleased report, according to two of the sources. So he's been briefed on this report that says no votes reflipped. and that sure they could use some software updates, but there was no fraud in the 2020 election. So he's been briefed on this report.

I'm guessing he likes some parts of it better than other parts. But anyway, Democrats and some analysts warn of possible interference by the Trump administration in the midterm elections, which analysts expect to deliver losses for Republicans. Officials inside ODNI and experts who advise the agency advocated in meetings with the White House officials that the administration begin fixing the flaws late last year and time to complete the process, which requires extensive coordination

with states before the midterms. Now, why would Donald Trump not want to fix something before the midterm elections? Sheesh, I don't know. What value would there be to maintaining some vulnerabilities after and through and after the elections? Good question. Vulnerabilities that didn't show that any votes were changed. But vulnerabilities nonetheless, vulnerabilities that have existed with these voting machines for a decade at least.

Correct. Asked about the delay or the block, I should say, of releasing the report, White House spokesperson Davis Engel said in a statement that the administration continues to offer assistance to state and local election officials, including through the FBI and the SISA, CISA, to ensure the security and integrity of all machines used in American elections. bra-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-a. CISA, by the way, is a cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. The same agency that said that there was absolutely no interference in the 2020 election and that it was the most secure election in history. Soon after that, that guy was fired. Chris Criss was no more and is now the subject of an executive order. So that's what you get for telling the truth. Sorry, Chris. Yep. Yeah. ODI and I spokesperson Olivia Coleman said Gabbard has, quote, taken actions within her authorities to support the president's directive

to secure our elections, which includes identifying vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure. Palti did not respond to a request for comment. Some of the vulnerable... Because he doesn't know what Sissus stands for, probably. He responded to the request for comment by saying, what security clearance do I have? And where is the restroom? Yeah. Okay. Some of the vulnerabilities detailed.

in the ODNI report have long been known to prior administrations, said one former senior Biden administration official and two of the other sources. The vulnerabilities include machines running outdated software and having the ability to connect to the internet, which hackers could exploit. All of the sources said they were unaware of any evidence of vote manipulation. I said all of the sources said they were unaware of any evidence of vote manipulation in U.S. elections, ever, period. The report is part of the administration's broader effort to investigate potential fraud in U.S. elections following Trump's signing of an executive order in February 2025 that aims to give the federal government greater control over U.S. elections.

Under the U.S. Constitution, however, states have authority over how elections are conducted. Yeah, and this week we saw a few federal judges shutting down his mail-in ballot executive order and his voter role BS. First Circuit Court of Appeals actually said, no, you can't have voter rolls. There were before that nine district courts who turned them down. They're 0 for nine at the DOJ to get those voter rolls because exactly that. States have authority over how elections are conducted, not the executive. Now, senior officials at the FBI and the Justice Department have spoken publicly

about their probes into potential voter fraud across the country. The report, which draws on data from open source and classified intelligence, would be the first to detail the administration's work on voting machines. It's one of, Andy, two reports that the ODNI commissioned on voting machine flaws. So there's two reports. The other report, which is also unpublished, was written last year by a government contractor called Mojave Research, which studied voting machines that Tulsi Gabbard seized from Puerto Rico. I mean...

Okay, great. They did a study and turned out a report, which we'll hear more about in a second, but based on looking at machines that were probably never supposed to look at. Yeah. Now, both reports have been referenced in White House meetings, in which officials debated whether there was enough evidence to prove Trump's claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Oh, the Mojave report found no evidence the machines had been hacked, said two other sources.

So they've had meetings about this in the White House for the last eight, six, seven, eight months, two reports, no hacking, no vulnerability. I mean, you know, you could update the software and maybe not connected to the internet with stuff we've known for a decade. Nothing new in these reports about any voter fraud. And for some reason, Donald Trump doesn't want to release these reports. And so what was the debate? Officials debated whether there was enough evidence. Here's how the debate went. Do we have any evidence of the fraud that the boss keeps saying happened?

No. Have we done any studies? Yes, two. Okay, what did they say? No fraud. Okay, where does the debate go from there? If there were, if there was, if there had been evidence of fraud in these two studies from outside contractors, they'd have been published immediately.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, the report goes on. ODI has briefed the White House on its findings over the last six months, but never received authorization to publish them two of the sources familiar with the matter said. The report says many states are using outdated systems, the three sources familiar with the matter said. The intelligence agency used information from previously issued reports by SISA, the government cyber systems watchdog, that referenced hacking conferences in which, which the agency found some voting machines could be attacked through insecure hardware. Mm-hmm. And all you got to do is update the software, button them up, right? Yeah. Boy, then that would be like, oh, our elections are going to be secure this time because these systems are all air-gapped. They're not supposed to be even able to be connected to the Internet,

but you still have to update them periodically as vulnerabilities become apparent. Same way you do your phone or any other device these days. and you do that by having the technician come and use like an external hard driver or a thumb driver or something like that. But they have to make sure they're not introducing a vulnerability into the system. So it's not like something you can have like the IT guy down the hall do. But this has all been known for, as you said, decades. We've known about this. And what do you want to bat?

Donald Trump was like, well, the president doesn't have any authority to dictate to the states on elections. So they would have to do this themselves. But you better give me your voter rolls. Anyway, just. And don't fix the vulnerabilities. Yes. I love a vulnerability. I've always said that.

Everybody says, me and vulnerable, we're so close. Tremendous vulnerabilities. Tremendous. Like nobody's ever seen the vulnerabilities. Very strong. Very strongly saying. All right. So OD and I in the White House have also not published the Mojave report, obviously.

Mojave's contract also was terminated in October. They fired this. these guys after they found no vote of fraud. The software and coding vulnerabilities identified in the report that led to the company's recommendation that the administration implement a remediation plan that would force states to update their software systems. Two sources said that plan has not been implemented. Of course not.

Of course not. And I have to tell you, Andy, the first thing that came to my mind when I read this new report this week about these two studies and investigations into voting machines, First thing that popped into my head is you remember, we learned this through the Jack Smith investigation right after the 2020 election. Donald Trump paid one company called Serend, something like something about, you know, I'll think of the name of it in a second. But the other one was Berkeley Research. And the first one is like simply smart. Isn't it cyber ninjas?

No, cyber ninjas was the recount people. Okay. No. These were two companies. He paid $750,000 each. of our taxpayer money, $1.5 million total, to go out and find voter fraud. They both came back, published their reports to the White House and said there was no voter fraud. They both found none, and he hid those reports.

And Jack Smith used that fact as evidence in his case, that he knew that there was no voter fraud. And so now we have four reports paid for by the taxpayers, commissioned Donald Trump, that have found no voter fraud in the 2020 election. And how many reports do we know of that came in the opposite way that came in saying, yes, we've proved there was fraud in the election? That would be, let me count him. None. Unless you count Mike Lindell, the Pillow Man's report.

No. I don't count on him for that. That's for sure. Yeah. So this is so crazy to me because in 2016, when we were in the middle of like, oh my God, what are the Russians doing? It looks like they're trying to influence the election. What should we do about it? We had conversations about how we could help states improve their voting, the security of their voting systems. And the way that we could do it was to declare the elections

to be critical infrastructure. And that would give DHS the ability to send funds, just money to the states give them extra money to you know to harden their systems update their software whatever so we tried to do that j j johnson was the secretary and the states went nuts they said no we're not taking your money we don't want your money we don't want your help this is ours we do the voting thing we're not taking direction or money or support or or orders from you it's really remarkable i've never seen a situation like that then of course we had an election where we documented numerous states that were penetrated by the Russians on election night. Not voting machines, but they're voting back-end structure.

Sometimes they're, you know, where their databases were with the voter information and stuff like that. No evidence of flipping votes at all, but they were definitely working hard to try to get there. So in 2020, that's when SISA really took over. they got through the declaration of critical infrastructure, and the states at that point, having seen what happened in 16, we're like, we'll take the money now. And that's why Chris Krebs could say, we did a lot getting ready for this and it worked.

There's no evidence of fraud. But all of that history is just like swept under the rug because it does not go along with the narrative. Donald J. Trump's desire to have fraud. But he might get it now because that's my question. What's the play? So you just sit around. and you let these things simmer in their not great state

of having vulnerabilities that you know about. So you can keep that in your back pocket. For sure. So you lose too many states, too many Senate seats, too many House seats. Then you can pull that card out and use it as fraud, fraud, fraud,

election doesn't get certified. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Oh, look at this report. These two reports we commissioned that said that there were vulnerabilities of voting machines.

That's enough for us to, throw these results out and nobody ever did anything about it nobody ever thought no one told me um that's why i think this reporting is so crucial that we know these reports exist they're blocking them because they don't go far enough and but they're sitting on them so that they can use the vulnerabilities issue that we have again known about for decades to question the results of holding it for a rainy day yeah man all right well we'll keep an eye on that and all things voting and all things elections. But, you know, the Pulte has, according to, I think some reports from ABC Times, MS now, has started to fire. He's gone into the ODNI and he's starting to fire. The report was he wants to fire hundreds of people. We don't know yet how many people he's firing, but he has started firing people.

And I'm guessing there are people who agree that there were no vote flips in 2020 or no. voter fraud in 2020. So I think he's cleaning a house there. He wants to get rid of anybody who knows about these reports and others like it. Talsy's gone. And so Donald Trump even nominated Jay Clayton, who, by the way, is also a terrible selection for the director of national intelligence. But some Republicans were like, well, at least he's not an idiot like Bill Pulte. And Trump withdrew that nomination in order to, he said, nope, if you hate Bill Pulte that much, I'm going to leave him right where he is until you pass the save act. Which, I don't think that's going to happen.

Yeah, Pulte, I mean, Clayton is definitely the Pam Bondi of this era, right? Pam Bondi, who also was obviously not a good pick for A.G., but she seemed like a superstar compared to Matt Gates. Yeah, and that's the same kind of dynamic you're playing with now. It leads you to wonder sometimes if they just do that on purpose. Let's put somebody terrible and then we'll come in with a person we really want and they'll sail right through. Yep. Yep.

I talked about that on another show because just like you said, oh, Pam Bondi's not that bad. Could have been Matt Gates, right? The best thing she had going for was that she wasn't Matt Gates. Of course, neither are any of the rest of us, but I digress. She had all kinds of issues about potential corruption issues and things that she had. done that favored Trump in her prior position. Yes, but none of that stuff was even discussed at her hearing because they were so glad she wasn't him.

Yeah. Now, get this. Just a few minutes ago on, as we record this on Friday, June 26th, Steve Hilton, by the way, who came in second place in the California governor primary election, the Republican who's been endorsed by Trump, who now will have to back away. from Trump if he wants any chance of winning in California. Good luck with that. It's just on CNN now.

Steve Hilton on Trump's claims of a rigged election in California says, honestly, I have no idea about those conversations. I haven't spoken to the president or the U.S. attorney. We had teams looking at everything and we didn't see anything that would give us cause for concern. I don't know whether the resources of the Justice Department will turn anything up, but we don't see anything that was a problem. So there is Steve Hilton once, and he might get his endorsement yanked by Donald Trump for just saying that just now on CNN, but he doesn't see any issue with the California election. Like Pratt, Spencer Pratt, was making claims in L.A. when he came in a very distant third to a progressive and Democrat and Karen Bass.

So that's where we are. I knew we would start seeing Steve Hilton slowly back away from Donald Trump, like Homer Simpson into the shrubbery. He's doing the Michael Jackson sliding backwards in his tennis. Bye, right? I'm glad you did it because I cannot hit that note. It's telling you it's not a chance. Oh, man. All right.

Hey, we've got some updates for you on the $1.776 billion slush fund that I'm suing to stop along with a few other people. and we're going to get to those updates as soon as we take this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. We have a $1.8 billion slush fund and tax immunity update for you. This is from ABC 4 in Washington. A federal judge ruled last Thursday that a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization settlement fund can move forward after the Justice

Department and Todd Blanche declined to provide a sworn declaration that the fund has been abandoned permanently. U.S. District Judge Leone of Brinkima, am I saying that properly? Judge Brinkuma? Yep, that's right. Of Alexandria, Virginia had extended a court order block on the fund earlier this month and gave Attorney General Todd Blanche an opportunity to submit a short written declaration under penalty of perjury, ding, ding, ding, stating that the administration would not revive the fund. Instead, Brinkuma said in her order that Blanche's refusal to rescind the May 18 memo establishing the fund, combined with President Donald Trump's continued interest in compensating alleged victims of the government, quote, all support the conclusion that this

civil action is not moot. That means it's not gone, despite what you've heard. It's hiding, but it is not gone. The Justice Department must file its response to the lawsuit by July 17. The fund stems from a settlement of Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Trump himself would not receive any money under the settlement, though the DOJ said he would receive a formal apology. Yeah, and $100 million forgiveness on tax audit liability. Now, the plaintiffs challenging the fund argue that the government cannot legally divert taxpayer money into what they describe as a slush fund for compensating Trump's assets. allies. Even before the administration said it was abandoning the fund, the Department of Justice never formed the five-member commission and no claims were accepted and no money was distributed.

Department of Justice lawyers have argued that Blanche's public statements are sufficient to dismiss lawsuits challenging the fund. No, they aren't. No. But Brinkima rejected that argument. Quote, the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the fund not going forward is particularly concerning because of the president's consistent support for the fund and acting attorney general blanche's acknowledgement that the fund remains quote important she wrote brinkama also pointed to blanche's refusal to formally rescind the may 18th memo quote although acting attorney general blanche reiterated several times during his testimony that the fund was not going forward when asked whether or not

he would quote issue a new memo in writing rescinding the may 18 memo he replied i'm not committing to putting anything in writing and i said it over and over again she wrote wow i don't even there's so much there that she acknowledged she is publicly stating that the department has refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representation that's your lying We know you're lying. Yeah. And I have to tell you that we will have a hit me in the head with a bat in the D block of this show. But this whole show is really an entire episode.

That's out. It's been out since minute one. Because all of these things are about judges not trusting what the Trump administration is doing. So presumption of regularity done so. Now, check this out. Because ABC is all. also reporting that a group of former officials with the IRS and the Department of Justice are asking a federal judge to scrutinize the controversial deal that granted Trump and his family

sweeping immunity from past tax audits. They allege this is an amicus brief in the Miami court where those 35 federal judges former wanted to reopen the case to see if there was a fraud on the court is another amicus brief filed by former IRS and DOJ agents saying, hey, what's going on with these past tax audits? They allege that the deal to resolve Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax documents in exchange for immunity from past audits is, quote, unprecedented and breathtakingly improper.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams reopened the case last month after a group of 35 former federal judges alleged that the settlement, which included both the immunity and the DOJ's now scuttled 1.8. billion-dollar anti-weaponization fund was deceptive and a, quote, fraud on the court. In an amicus brief filed Monday, the former officials argued that the audit provision was unlawful and should be scrutinized. Quote, the president of the United States is obligated to pay taxes he owes, just like every other American.

What a novel concept. I love these guys. If the immunity order is allowed to stand, it will enshrine two separate tax codes, one for President Trump and his family and his affiliates and another for every other American, the group of former officials wrote. It opens the door for President Trump and future presidents to avoid scrutiny of their taxes while in office and absolve themselves and favored individuals of wrongdoing. Yeah. Meanwhile, while sicking the IRS on other people, do you know anything about that

to have like really extensive audits done on their taxes? Yeah, there's a, some. Something they like to call in the IRS the autopsy. It would be terrible. Some thought, you know, purported enemy of Trump was targeted with such an invasive audit. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, that happened to me as well. And you know what?

I never got a letter from the IRS saying it was over. They told me they were going to send one. And then someone in the New York Times wrote a big story about it. And I never heard from them again. So technically, the whole thing could be still open to this day. Yeah, you never know. Now, the group, by the way, this group of folks, which includes former IRS commissioner, a former IRS commissioner, a former chief of the DOJ's tax division,

an ex-assistant attorney general, and a former national taxpayer advocate, alleged that the immunity agreement violates provisions of the tax code designed to prevent officials from interfering with audits, as well as the domestic emoluments clause. Oh, there that is. is. There's that thing again. They also argued that acting attorney general Todd Blanch, the only official to sign on to the tax audit addendum, by the way, actually lacks the authority to resolve audits because the matters were never referred to the DOJ in the first place.

Good point. For potential prosecution. I hadn't thought of that. Like, what gives you the authority at the DOJ to do this? Quote, acting AG Blanche settled a weak, time-barred, unauthorized disclosure claim to give President Trump a vastly disproportionate gift. of total immunity from tax and non-tax liability, the lawsuit says. While the Department of Justice walked back their plans to create the controversial fund, which could have compensated January 6 defendants who assaulted law enforcement officers at the Capitol, the audit provision remained intact, despite the political blowback. Last week, Blanche also refused to sign a declaration vowing to never pursue an anti-weaponization fund.

this immunity order sends the regrettable and dangerous message that powerful people can wield their influence not only to avoid having their tax returns reviewed at all, but to place themselves above the laws that govern every other American, the group's amicus brief said. Yeah. Now, something interesting that's happening in Congress. Jamie Raskin is trying to force a vote about the tax immunity issue and the slush fund via discharge petition. And there have been over a dozen discharge petitions in this Congress, which is pretty unheard of.

And that means you go around, get signatures from enough people, you force Mike Johnson to bring it to it. Put it up. Yeah. Floor for a vote because he wants to get people who are running for office in this midterm year on the record as to whether or not they support, you know, getting rid of this slush funding, getting rid of the tax immunity. And what did Mike Johnson do?

We're going home early. Everybody, we're going off a campaign. early. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. Everybody exits to the back and the side. Don't trampling people on the way out. Stop looking at me. Stop looking at me. Go. Don't look. Don't look. Don't look. So, of course, there's no confirmation that that's why he's sending people home. But he's done this before. When the House almost voted on a war powers resolution against Donald Trump, he sent everybody home early, remember? Pretty sad when you're the Speaker of the House and the only strategy you have for many different problems is send them all home. Get out of here. Go away. have a vote. It's embarrassing. Run away. You've completely accepted the fact that the body that you run does nothing anymore.

And now you're just like, okay, just go. Just don't even come here. No, we don't want you to say no. We don't want another discharge petition against this. I mean, it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. But anyway, I just think it's super fascinating, first of all, that they're reviving that case in Miami with Judge Williams. and that now they not only have 35 former federal judges, but a bunch of former federal IRS or former IRS and DOJ folks with a different amicus brief talking about the tax immunity. Because the other thing is just a general, this is a fraud on the court.

Trump colluded with the IRS and Todd Blanche to gin up a lawsuit, close it without providing any settlement documents. Yeah. And then calling this a settlement and gifting himself this immunity and possibly this slush fund, which like you, you said, and which we covered in the A block, or not in the A block, but a few minutes ago in the first story, Dodd Blanche is refusing to put into writing. Yeah, and that is absolutely, I was going to say inexplicable. It's not inexplicable. It's, it's unprecedented,

and he knows it. He knows it. Everything in litigation is ultimately memorialized in writing. Yeah, and if you're going to say that there's no more slush fund, why are you so afraid to put it in writing under penalty of perjury. Right. What's the problem, Todd? I mean, and he's never even given a reason for not putting something in writing, which was great that the judge held his feet to the fire and said, I'm ordering you to submit an affidavit. And now he's just refused to. So she really brought this conflict to an unavoidable head. Like, you can't look away from this. There is something untoward going on here. We don't know what it is yet because they haven't disclosed what their true plan is that they're going to create some other fund funded out of some other pot of money to get it away

from Congress's oversight authority or something. But yeah, you know that's coming because Todd Blanche is he's full of crap. I mean, like that's really what it comes down to. And he's not even good at it. Well, that's some other fund thing that you just mentioned. Jamie Raskin plugged that hole in his legislation. It's not just the $1.776 billion slush fund. set up from the Treasury Judgment Fund. He also stipulates that no one who assaulted police officers on January 6th can be paid from the Treasury Judgment Fund ever. So if somebody tries to file a tort act claim, they cannot be paid if you assaulted cops

on January 6th. And he wants a commitment from everyone in Congress up or down on how they feel about that. That you agree, right. Yeah. So he's trying to plug that federal federal. federal tort claims act, I think it's called. He's trying to plug that hole as well. And I high-five him for that because you don't want to let them get around it and award these folks money from the fund that the slush fund would have come out of.

Right. Even if they have a try different tax. So thank you so much, Jamie Raskin. Everybody, we have an update for you. Do you remember all those months and months and months ago when Judge Bowsberg wanted to start a contempt proceeding against the Department of Justice? for failing to turn the planes around when he ordered them to. And Emil Bovi, who now sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, told the DOJ lawyers to tell the courts to fuck off.

And we got the Arez-Rivenny whistleblower report and all that stuff. And then it was stuck in the Court of Appeals. Well, we have an update on Bozberg's contempt proceedings. And we're going to talk about that. After this break, stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, next is an update.

in Judge Bozberg's contempt proceeding against the Justice Department. From ABC, we have the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has agreed to hear arguments over a federal judge's attempt to hold the Trump administration in contempt for the deportation of more than 100 Venezuelans to El Salvador's Seacoat mega-prison last year. The court will hear the appeal en banc to be considered by the entire bench on September 29th. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Why en banc? Because a divided panel of judges on the same court in April halted the criminal contempt inquiry into former DHS Secretary Christine Ome and other officials for their roles in the deportations after U.S. District Judge Jim Bozberg concluded,

quote, probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt. Now, the Trump administration in March 2025 invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime authority used to remove non-citizens with little to no due process to deport two plane loads of alleged migrant Trenda-Aragua gang members to the Seacoat Megaprizen in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Trendera-Aragua is a hybrid criminal state that is invading the United States. Bozberg issued a temporary restraining order in order that the planes be turned around, but the Justice Department attorneys said his oral instruction,

directing the flight to be returned were defective, and the deportations proceeded as planned. The Venezuelan nationals were ultimately released to their home country from Seacoat Prison in a prisoner swap last July. Yeah, so en banc, excellent. So now the full panel is going to, I think personally, unfreeze this and let the contempt go forward. But there is also the Supreme Court.

Yeah. Right? Who has said in arguments in other cases about deportations, even though they said they have to return Abrago Garcia, that there has to be deference shown in regard to national security interests, which is I'm sure what Todd Blanche and the Trump administration are going to argue to the Supreme Court when they ask for a shadow docket stay of the contempt proceedings. So we're going to follow it all for you. But again, those hearings, those oral arguments are going to be in September. Yeah, that's close. You know, I think you're right about kind of looking down the road where this, how the Supreme Court will think about this if it ends up in front of them. The problem for the government, though, is there's a very basic issue at play here. And it is simply that the judge made an order. order and the government said, no, we're not doing. They just did the exact opposite. There's

nothing, there's no national security, if there was a legitimate national security reason why they could not comply with the order, they should have filed an immediate emergency motion for reconsideration, gone in front of the judge, maybe in camera, and talked him through what that was. He's a reasonable guy. I mean, they all are. But that didn't happen here. They just said, they just didn't do it. Now, we have other evidence. It indicates those conversations like the one that you mentioned with Emil Beauvais, where he basically said, you know, instructed his subordinate attorneys working immigration matters to disregard court orders. How much weight, you know, the judge, the judges will put on that, I don't know. But it's a very simple issue here.

And I think any judge should be kind of motivated by it. Because like if the government is allowed to start ignoring court orders, then that's it. It's done. The whole system falls apart. Right. But, Andy, guess what other oral arguments we're going to get in September? September 29th, Boseberg contempt. September 23rd, volume 2 of Jack Smith's final report in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

So September's hot month, hot month coming up in September. And, of course, you can count on us to cover both here on Unjustified. Heck yeah. All right. one more story about and this is like I mean like I said the whole show has been Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. Everybody knows Todd Blanche is a liar but this one is like really like a really big bat

and we're gonna talk about that after this. Really good one. After this break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Everybody welcome back. Today's installment of Hit Me in the Head with a really big bat comes from Kyle Cheney at Politico. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat.

A federal judge has thrown out Justice Department grand jury subpoenas aimed at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his allies, calling them the subpoenas, an abusive and retaliatory process to punish Walls based on his refusal to assist Trump's immigration crackdown. In a blistering ruling, U.S. were running out of adjectives in the hit me in the head with a bat segment, by the way. issued by district judge Patrick Schiltz, who said there was, quote, no doubt that the subpoenas

were issued to damage walls. Part of what he said was a pattern of the Trump administration's efforts to use criminal process to punish the president's adversaries. Quote, initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action, particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand jury process. That's what Schultz wrote in a 29-page ruling that was too hot to touch released June 17th, but unsealed just this past Monday. Wow. The George W. Bush appointed Chief Judge said Trump's repeated attacks and promises of retribution against Waltz, a Democrat, and other Minnesota officials, establishes beyond reasonable

dispute that the grand jury subpoenas issued at the height of ISIS Operation Metro Surge were a part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials in Minnesota to assist the Trump administration in its enforcement of immigration laws. The federal government is barred by the Constitution from forcing states to enforce federal laws, Schiltz added. Moreover, Schultz linked the subpoenas to what he called, quote, the Trump administration's well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the president's political and personal adversaries. Wow. Mm-hmm.

Schiltz pointed to the recent investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell in which another federal judge similarly quashed subpoenas on the grounds that they were retaliatory. That's when, by the way, Janine Piro got, like, lost her mind and said, I should get to investigate anything I want. I can bring all the crimes. I don't care about no true bills and all that other stuff, which is completely against federal criminal rules of procedure, but whatever. Yeah. Well, that's Jeannie. Yeah. Janine?

Jeannie, I don't know. Box of wine, we call her. Exactly. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for. comment, Walls celebrated the decision as a victory for the rule of law and democracy. The ruling rejects six grand jury subpoenas, six that federal prosecutors targeted at Walls, the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Minnesota Attorney General, and commissioners of Hennepin County and Ramsey County. The subpoenas were issued at the height, like you said,

of Operation Metro Surge, in which thousands of federal agents descended on the Twin Cities to enforce Trump's mass deportation agenda. The enforcement surge led to tense protests by local residents, two of whom Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal agents during confrontations on the street. Their deaths drew national attention to the administration's crackdown and presaged a sharp decline in public support for his immigration agenda. That's when it kind of all sort of really, really going downhill. And this is when they got together in the situation room and decided, you know, rather than invoke the Insurrection Act like J.D. Vance wanted and Stephen Miller wanted, which we covered last week, Like, that's when they decided, oh, maybe we should just get rid of Gnome and Bovino and put Tom Holman, the Kava Bag guy in there. Schilts said the subpoenas were extraordinarily broad and sought materials related to constitutionally protected conduct.

And he said DOJ's effort to connect those materials to any potential criminal activity were strained at best. Two examples, the department cited of potential criminal activity supporting the subpoenas, he noted. were for policy advocacy by two members of the Minneapolis City Council, which was not among the subpoenaed recipients. Even if those officials were among those subpoenaed, Schiltz said, the connection between them and any possible criminal conduct is so remote as to be spurious. The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to non-existent,

only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate, the judge concluded. Ouchy. Yeah, these are actually, I mean, these sound like mild words. These are really strong words, especially from a G.W. Bush appointee, especially from a chief judge. Though Schultz issued the ruling last week, he said he delayed release until Monday to allow the Justice Department to appeal. But court dockets reflect no appeal has been filed in the five days. following Schultz's decision. Schultz said he opted to unseal most of the material in the case

because the Justice Department itself was apparently responsible for initial disclosures about the grand jury proceedings and subpoenas. So you waived your privilege. You're burnt, right? You know, I think, and this is kind of consistent with some of the revelations we're all hearing from the Maggie Haberman Jonathan Swan book that's, they've been talking about a lot in the last two weeks. but they actually quote him, and I can't remember who he was ranting about in this conversation, but basically saying, like, I don't care that the prosecution will fail.

I don't care that this lawsuit won't work. I just want them to be miserable. And, like, this is a perfect example of that. Like, I'm sure he was told, there's really not much to go on here, and whoever, you know, filed that objection was similarly fired or just ignored. So now you get this adverse ruling. The judge gives them time to it.

They knew that they're not going to appeal because they had nothing to begin with. The whole thing is just like performative torture. Yeah. And that is why it's this week's installment of Hit Me in the Head with a really big bat because pretty much every story, as I said, in today's episode, goes at the heart of the distrust that has been sown in the Department of Justice. That's right. All right.

It is time for listener questions. We have about five minutes left. And if you have a question, by the way, there's a link in the show notes. You can click on and submit your question. And Andy and I will pick a few and read them as time permits. What do we have today, Andy? All right. So this first one comes to us from KT.

And I picked it because we have been getting a fair number of questions. People are really frustrated. Well, I'm sure entertained by hit me in the head with the bat, but also frustrated about how prosecutors seem to be abusing grand jury. and conducting themselves in, you know, not meeting the standards of what the grand juries require. And so a lot of that frustration seems to lead to questions where people are, or want to know, like, why doesn't the judge, why don't judges get involved, they kind of take over the function

from the grand jury or kind of police it more closely? So KT's question is kind of like that. She says, since Trump's Justice Department often files cases with minimal evidence that they are able to conceal when they present the case to the grand jury, could judges ask to see discovery to determine if the case is frivolous or not supported by the entirety of the evidence? It seems as if Trump's cases either cannot generate indictments or the cases are closed when discovery is required to be submitted. So in the criminal process... We've seen this happen a couple of times, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, Andy, but if you can

show that there may have been some grand jury malfeasance. You can file a motion to release the grand jury material, probably not to the defense, but at least to the judge in camera, who can then look at it like they did in the Broadview Six case, for example. And that led the DOJ to drop the charges before the judge could do it herself. And then there's also situations where you can sort of, I think you have to have, I think you have to show a likelihood that something, there were shenanigans in the grand jury room. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. So basically, there's no like consistent role for a judge to insert themselves into the grand jury process. The grand jury has the authority to vote for an indictment. And as we know that that threshold is super low, it's simply a probable cause. It's not beyond a

reasonable doubt. And so that's why, historically, most 99% of cases that get brought in front of grand juries, an indictment is returned. But now we're, of course, seeing that number plummet, particularly in some places like D.C. There is no standard way that judges review the decision of grand juries or go in and review the evidence that prosecutor submitted. It's really just a thing between the prosecution and the grand jury. The way it happens is when you get one of these situations like you referred to where a defendant has reason to believe something untoward went on. And there's a few things that they can do, but it has to be initiated by the defendant by filing a motion to dismiss the indictment or by filing a motion to the judge that some sort of improper conduct has taken place. And what you would

do with both of those motions is you're basically asking the judge to get involved. You're asking the judge to review the transcripts and ensure that corners weren't cut and that sort of thing. So it is, while it may seem weird that that's not a normal feature of the system, the fact that we're seeing it so often it's happening in multiple cases that we know about is just like this is a landmark change. Like this does not happen because those records of what happens in the grand jury are so secret. They're so sacrosanct. But now you have judges or time and time again are not stepping away from just sticking themselves in there and saying, I want to read the transcripts. And lordy, lordy, what they're finding. Yeah. And ever since we found out what we found out in the Comey grand jury room. And then we found out what we found out in the Broadview Six grand jury room with the sidebars in the elevators with grand jurors. And then dismissing people who were voting on a, you know, for no true bill, get to put people in seeds who might vote yes and trying three times to get it.

Once that all came to light, now we're seeing so many cases. Like, for example, the Minnesota 15. Yeah. the Don Lemon case with Georgia Fort and the city's church case in the Twin Cities. Now saying, Judge, we think we really need to look at these grand jury materials because look at all these other shenanigans that have been happening. And so we will continue to follow that. But this goes right along with the whole idea of the loss of presumption of regularity within the Department of Justice. if you cannot trust that the Department of Justice is conducting itself properly in a grand jury room,

I think it leads to all sorts of other issues with all these cases that we're seeing come to light. And we may even see it in the Prairieland, the Prairieland case with the extensive sentencing in the Northern District of Texas, I believe, if there's some sort of an appeal and they're able to unearth the grand jury materials in that case. We don't know, but it seems like if the floodgates are open because of the distrust in the Department of Justice. Those sentences alone, I think, call for some serious appeal action because, like, I've never seen people get 70-year sentences, 90-year sentences for being part of a group that doesn't exist. I mean, it's crazy what happened there. Those numbers are insane. Yeah, and served consecutively.

and with the terror enhancement and wrapping it up into a conspiracy where even a person who was there who didn't know the group or might have been handing out literature is responsible for the person who shot in my view in self-defense against the ice officer who had drawn on him in the shoulder. Now, if you shoot at an ice officer or any police officer hit him in the shoulder, should there be some sort of punishment? Yes. Is it a grand conspiracy that scoops up everybody who was protesting that day? Absolutely not. Should those sentences be served consecutively? Absolutely not. Should a domestic terror enhancement be applied to Antifa? No, it shouldn't. You know, like those are the things that are going to come out on appeal. But I wouldn't be surprised if they want to dig into the grand jury material as well. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. We'll watch it closely. Great question. Thank you all so much for sending your questions in. Again, there's a link in the show notes to submit your questions and we'll be back out at next week. And, you know, it's going to, I think as these weeks and weeks go on, Andy, where it's not going to be a hit me in the head with a bat segment. That's just going to be the whole show going forward from now. It's falling apart. It is. Wheels are coming off the wagon. And Todd Blanche is going to have to answer for all of these things mid-July when he has to testify. and confirmation hearings to become the permanent attorney general of the United States. Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right.

Well, thank you so much, my friend. Thanks, everybody for listening. Again, if you want to become a patron, get invited to our gals, get premium feeds with no ads, get the shows early. You can do that at patreon.com slash Mueller, she wrote. Any final thoughts before we get out of here today, my friend? No, we're winding into the big holiday weekend. So it should be all kinds of craziness for the next few days.

But we'll be right back here next week to talk you through it all. Certainly will. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hawke with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds, and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcast dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com. You know,

Thank you.