Jack - Mass Resignations

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

The Department of Justice faces mass resignations from the Civil Rights Division and the Minneapolis US Attorney’s office over the handling of the killing of Renee Nicole Good.Judge Engelmayer asks the parties for briefing on whether he has jurisdiction to appoint a special master, and whether Congressmen Khanna and Massie have standing to ask for one.Jack Smith has agreed to testify publicly this week as experts debunk claims that he infringed on Donald Trump’s free speech.President Trump is becoming disillusioned with Attorney General Pam Bondi and wants to create an office within the Justice Department that reports directly to the White House.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod? Thank you, Shopify!Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/unjust Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe 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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MSW Media. The Department of Justice faces mass resignations from the Civil Rights Division and the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney's Office over the handling of the killing of Renee Nicole Good. Judge Engelmeyer in the Southern District of New York asks the parties for briefing on whether he has jurisdiction to appoint a special master and whether the congressmen have standing to ask for one. Jack Smith has agreed to testify publicly this week as Experts debunk claims that he infringed on Donald Trump's free speech.

And President Trump is becoming disillusioned with Attorney General Pam Bondi and wants to create an office within the Justice Department that reports directly to the White House. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 52 of Unjustified, which happens to be airing the week of my 52nd birthday. What? Week of 52's here on Unjustified. It's Sunday, January 18th, 2026. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe and an early happy birthday to you, Allison. Man, I didn't know we were having this 5252 thing happening. That must be a sign of good luck in the universe. All this stuff is going to turn around now, I think, because of that.

But it's been a long game. I mean, I had planned this since we started the Jack podcast to coincide directly with my 52nd birthday, knowing that Donald Trump would win the election. I did this whole thing on purpose. You are like an evil genius. That is impressive. Well, in any other timeline, in any other planet and any other universe, the amount of resignations that happened this week at the Department of Justice would be an above-the-fold front-page news, basically running all day, every day on cable news.

But as it stands, it's just a blip on the radar. So we're going to make sure that we cover it here in detail. on unjustified. So let's start with some reporting from the Guardian. A wave of federal prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington, D.C., have resigned in protest over the Justice Department's decision not to hold a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed U.S. citizen by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis. Yes, six lawyers from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota quit on Tuesday over the Department's. reluctance to investigate the shooter of Renee Nicole Good. That's according to the New York Times. Among them is Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command at the office that led the large-scale

fraud inquiry last year that led in part to the Trump administration sending a surge of immigration agents to the state. And Andy, I'm not quite sure why you would send armed militia members to investigate white-collar fraud. But okay, Thompson and his colleagues, according to the Times, were upset at senior Justice Department officials demanding a criminal inquiry into any ties between good and her widow, Becca, and activist groups. So they weren't just refusing to investigate the shooting. They were actually proactively investigating the victims and also the refusal of the FBI to allow state investigators to join its investigation of the shooting. Separately, four leaders of a crucial division in the U.S. Justice Department have also resigned. The

lawyers left the Civil Rights Division, which has a criminal investigations unit that is responsible for investigating the use of force by police officers. According to MS Now, citing three people it said were briefed about the departures. The resignations follow a decision by Harmeet Dillon, the Trump administration-aligned Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, not to investigate the 7 January killing of good by Jonathan Ross, an immigration and customs enforcement agent. Dylan told the unit the week before that it would not be involved in any investigation. Reuters reported one source as saying, because of course, Alison, you are the source of the unit that is put together for the express purpose of investigating law enforcement use of force.

And so, of course, you would not investigate this use of force. Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't. Well, I mean, it does, considering the timeline we're in. and the planet we live on. That's right. On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, former personal attorney to Donald Trump, said in a statement, quote, there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation. The statement, first reported by CNN, did not elaborate on how the department had reached that conclusion that no investigation was warranted. A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the resignations in a statement to the guardian, but denied they were related to the Minneapolis shooting. Okay. Quote, although we take a

typically don't comment on personnel matters, we can confirm that the criminal section leadership gave notice to depart the Civil Rights Division and requested to participate in the Department of Justice's early retirement program well before the events in Minnesota. That's what he said. Any suggestion to the contrary is false. Okay. Yeah. Although we typically don't comment on personnel matters, we will comment now in a way that defends us and makes the other people look bad. Allow us to lie right now. Oh, my God. Yeah. The FBI, which seized total control of the investigation after freezing out local officials,

is looking into goods, quote, possible connections to activist groups, according to the New York Times. A succession of Trump administration officials, including the president himself, have portrayed good without presenting any evidence as a domestic terrorist or a paid agitator, while video of her confrontation with Ross appears to show her true. trying to steer her vehicle away from him when she was shot three times in the face. Multiple career prosecutors in Dillon's office offered to lead an inquiry into the shooting, but were told not to do so. CBS News reported on Friday.

Yeah, there's some additional video that is, it has been out, but now they're kind of pointing to this in the original angle before the closer angle came up and before Jonathan Ross's cell phone video came out, when Renee Good was waving the cars around her, you can actually hear her tell the officers, I'm pulling out. Yeah. So that's going to be interesting.

I got to give a shout out here. The New York Times with their video investigations crew, which is amazing. They're really next level on the work that they do with this sort of evidence. They had a piece that came out on Friday morning, and it sinks many of these different videos. together and just walks you through on a like fraction of a second basis. Fascinating piece, highly recommended. But yeah, when you when you really get down in the nitty gritty, the actual

what these videos show is very different than what we've heard from federal officials in the last week or so. Yeah. And some more good news coming out from the Times. Becca and Nicole's family, Renee Nicole's family, excuse me, have hired the same law firm that represented. the family of George Floyd when they filed their civil suit against him. So I'm very glad that they have that kind of representation. Yeah, for real. The resignations are the latest in a flow of departures

from the Civil Rights Division since Trump began his second term. In May, the Guardian reported the more than 250 attorneys had left had been reassigned or accepted a deferred resignation offer since January. That's about a 70% reduction at the Civil Rights Division. Dylan, a former Republican official in California and an election denier who promoted the big lie that Trump's 2020 election defeat was fraudulent, was confirmed by the Senate in April. She worked quickly to realign the division's priorities away from its longstanding work tackling discrimination and protecting the rights of marginalized groups and towards Trump's political goals, including exposing voter fraud, which is rare and focusing on anti-transgender issues. Quote, I don't think it's an overstatement to see this as the end of the division.

as we've known it. That's what a civil rights division attorney told the Guardian back then at the time. Subsequently, in September, the online news outlet notice reported that only two lawyers remained out of 36 at the Justice Department's public integrity unit assigned to investigations of corrupt politicians and law enforcement. Quote, investigating officials to determine if they broke the law, defied policy, failed to de-escalate, and resorted to deadly force without basis, is one of the civil rights division's most solemn duties, Kristen Clark, who led the division in the Biden administration, told MS now. Yeah, the FBI investigation into goods alleged links to activist groups,

protesting ICE activities in Minneapolis and elsewhere, meanwhile, aligns with the White House messaging seeking to blame the victim for her death and absolve ICE of responsibility. In the days since goods killing, numerous Trump administration officials, including J.D. Vance and Christy Noem have repeatedly alleged without evidence that she was engaging in domestic terrorism and that Ross, Jonathan Ross, was forced to shoot to save his own life and the lives of others. Noam said Good had been stalking officers. Family members say Good, a mother of three children, had just dropped her six-year-old son off at school.

and videos shows her waving ice officials past her car, despite the insistence of Vance and others, that she was deliberately blocking traffic and impeding their work. This is classic terrorism, Vance said. Now, hold on a second. I spent decades of my life involved in, to some degree, involved in every single terrorism prosecution in the United States.

over, let's say, a 10-year period. This has nothing to do with terrorism. And J.D. Vance, he knows that. But if he actually believes what he said here, this guy has absolutely no idea. But again, I think he does. He knows full well that this is an absolute false statement. Okay. Sorry for that rant.

Officials in Minneapolis have contradicted the administration's assertions and condemned its rush to judgment before an investigation had taken place. So this is from MS now. We're going to shift gears from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota and Maine Justice. But the Justice Department also fired the number two official at the Eastern District of Virginia this week after he declined to lead the controversial prosecution of Jim Comey, and that's according to multiple people briefed on the matter who spoke anonymously. His name is Robert McBride, he's 64, the justice prosecutor and former Navy lawyer.

He was brought into the prominent satellite office of the Justice Department to serve as the first assistant to U.S. attorney, which I put in air quotes, Lindsay Halligan, and took a more prominent role as her status was, quote, in question, and after a judge ruled in late November, that she was not legally appointed to run the office. So he was the number two guy. McBride, a prosecutor and former supervisor in a U.S. attorney's office in Kentucky, had been asked in recent days to run the Comey case and told top justice officials he felt it would be difficult to do. I'm sorry, difficult to do that and also run the office, according to people. Howigan had also recently learned that McBride held private meetings with federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a source familiar with McBride's removal. And Allison, I've seen reporting that suggests pretty strongly

that the purpose of those meetings was basically lobbying for the job of U.S. attorney. So the man brought into backup, Haligan was kind of, at least the allegation is kind of politically maneuvering himself for the top gig. Right, because as we know, it's the court that appoints after the 120-day interim U.S. attorney has served. Yeah. Boy, yeah, it would be real difficult to run the Comey case since it's dead. I don't even know what, like, I guess to handle the appeal because I think they've given up trying to go back to a grand jury, at least they have for Letitia James. But to be asked to run the Comey case, like to run the appeal that the Trump administration has filed with the circuit court to challenge the disqualification of Lindsay Halligan. I mean, yeah, it's going to be difficult to run the Comey case because it sucks.

I don't even, I don't. We'd, congratulations, Mr. McBride. We've decided we would like you to be the sole owner and completely responsible for this stinking bag of dog poo. Yeah, yeah. Go, go to it. I think I'm good. All right, you're fired. Yeah, I got a lot of problems with this.

So I got to tell you, I think there's a, I don't know McBride, but there's a lot of bad signs. here. Like to come up with this nonsensical answer of, well, it'd be hard to do that and run the office. Like, that's not the right answer. The right answer under these circumstances would be, no, I'm not doing that because there's no case there. And it's not consistent with the law and my own personal values. Like, stand up, tell the truth. If you get fired for it, I mean, you're only the latest U.S. attorney getting fired in the Eastern District. And then the political kind of machinations in the background. Also, I don't know, put all this together and doesn't seem like anybody's cloaking themselves in glory with this story. No, certainly not. But that kind of, you know, going back to

Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney's Office and the Civil Rights Division, that kind of mass resignation, like we said at the top of the block, would be nonstop above the fold breaking news. That's a huge amount of people. That's almost a dozen people leaving. because not only was the FBI refusing to help investigate, help local prosecutors, not only were they not doing a civil rights investigation into a shooting of an unarmed citizen, which is just something you automatically do in the civil rights division, no matter what the outcome is, but also because they decided that they were going to go after Becca and Renee Nicole Good, to investigate their ties to the woke Marxist Antifa mob that is doing.

doing nothing but exercising their First Amendment rights by alerting their neighbors to the to the presence of ICE in their neighborhoods. So, I mean, this is all, you know, we're going to keep an eye on this story. We're going to keep an eye on whatever civil lawsuit and wrong, maybe wrongful death suit comes out of this from the law firm that handled George Floyd's case. I think he was awarded $27 million his family in that case. And I'm also wondering, I'm curious, and maybe you know the answer to this. But, I mean, we've never seen the FBI. withhold evidence from local prosecutors like this, but perhaps maybe discovery or subpoenas in the civil case

could help get some of that evidence for local prosecutors. But if DOJ isn't willing to give it up, they'll just say, no, you can't have it. Yeah, there's, you know, and I mean, look, in the past, when things go wrong and relationships fall apart, And the state authorities and federal authorities pursue a similar prosecution or prosecution of the same subject for different stuff at the same time. You sometimes see this like, well, we're not going to share our evidence with you. You know, we want to go first.

No, we want to go first. That sort of thing happens. But this feels like a deliberate blocking attempt. Like they had to do this essentially to ensure that the state authorities wouldn't uncover facts and build a case that was inconvenient with the federal government's theory. about how they're pursuing immigration enforcement. So as for the civil case, being able to kind of call for access to that evidence, the Trump card here, pardon the pun, is that the- We are having an ongoing investigation and we can't do anything.

Exactly. And, you know, evidence in a criminal investigation is sacrosanct, right? If the government says that's what they're doing, you kind of can't break through that wall. I was like Jack Smith saying to, you know, I didn't have any contact with Fannie Willis or Chris Mays or anything. I didn't, we weren't giving our evidence over to them. We were in the middle of an active investigation. That was a legitimate reason and a legitimate active investigation. It's like this is more like when the Southern District of New York under Trump refused to give information over to the Manhattan District Attorney in the Hush Money case in the election interference case and sat on that investigation until Trump.

Trump was out of office, hoping that they could get the statute of limitations to expire. But for the governor of New York, expanding the statute of limitations because of COVID, we wouldn't have had that case at all because Southern District or New York was just going to sit on it. Yeah. So, yeah, catch and kill, but for investigations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically. All right. We have more news to get to, but we have to take a quick break.

so everyone stick around. We'll be right back. January is the best time for a new start. We all have ideas and skills, a product concept, or even a service we could offer. And taking action is what turns your dream into your new future. January is short, but there's a lot you can do before February gets here. And the most powerful move to make it all happen in 2026 is to start your business with Shopify. When my business hit a rough patch, I was losing time, missing details. I even began considering scaling back a little bit. switching to Shopify, though, that was the turning point. It made my business feel more manageable and under control. What I love about Shopify is that no matter how big you want to grow, it gives you

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everything from the same dashboard. If it works for Thrive Cosmetics, it can work for you. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash unjust. Again, go to Shopify.com slash unjust. That's Shopify.com slash unjust. Here's to your first this new year with Shopify by your side. Hey, everybody, welcome back. All right, this next story, Andy, it blew my mind. It's another above the fold front page should be 24-hour news cycle stuff, but it's not. It didn't get much news coverage at all. all, in fact, especially a revelation buried in paragraph 18 of the Wall Street Journal article.

But here's how it begins. President Trump has complained to AIDS repeatedly in recent weeks about Attorney General Pam Bondi, describing her as weak and ineffective when it comes to enforcing his agenda. That's according to administration officials and other people familiar with the complaints. This month, Trump has talked with allies about how he could appoint special counsels at the Justice department because he's so frustrated with what he sees is the slow progress of its work. That's according to people familiar. So he needs some of them unconstitutional special counsels? Yeah, the things that he thinks are illegal.

I guess. Okay. Chief among his grievances is what he sees as Bondi's failure to quickly and effectively prosecute the investigators who had pursued him for years, including former FBI director James Comey and New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, the officials and others familiar with his complaints said. Both criminal cases were dismissed in November by a judge who said the Trump aide who secured the indictment had been improperly appointed to her post. Trump has wanted to see the cases continue quickly. I don't think he understands that she's not a legitimate U.S.

attorney. Does he know that he has terrible lawyers? I mean, he's got to get the idea by now, right? Probably not, since he hasn't ended up in jail for anything when you think about it. But a Justice Department investigation into another of Trump's antagonist, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, became public on Sunday night. Powell, who Trump has publicly berated and pressured to lower interest rates, disclosed that the Justice Department was pursuing a criminal investigation over his testimony last summer about the Central Bank's building renovation project. Trump also complained frequently that Pam Bondi's hand. of the Federal Bureau of Investigations files on Epstein has created months and months of political

and personal headaches for him. That's his fault. He has also heard from conservative activists and influencers criticizing Bondi and collected similar social media posts that he has asked other aides about, the officials said. And Trump has expressed frustration that the Justice Department hasn't done more to pursue those he claims helped steal the 2020 election, which he lost. Some of the people familiar with the complaint said. At times, Trump has complained to Bondi directly about his frustrations with the department officials said. Of course.

Remember when there was video of him like screaming at Bill Barr in the Oval Office? Because he wouldn't investigate election fraud or whatever. And Bill Barr's like, I'm out of this. You're crazy. Now, Bondi has grown concerned in the past month about Trump's complaints, according to people who are in touch with her. A spokesman for Bondi said she's been focusing on executing Trump's directive to make America safe again. Late Friday, the Fed received grand jury subpoenas, the Federal Reserve,

grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department that threatened a criminal indictment. The Bondi spokesperson said she had, quote, instructed her U.S. attorneys to prioritize investigating any abuses of taxpayer dollars, unquote. Well, here's paragraph 18, the one you mentioned earlier. Vance on Thursday also unveiled an unusual arrangement the creation of a high-ranking Justice Department post to investigate fraud that would be run by the White House and answerable to Trump instead of Bondi. Bondi thanked Vance in a post on social media.

She worked with the White House on the position, the department official said, and she and Vance chose it over the appointment of a special counsel. Wow. Yeah. I mean, talk about, rolling over and giving up any semblance of independence that you have as Attorney General. I cannot think of another Attorney General of either political party who would ever have agreed to such a

travesty of the White House actually literally running a piece of the Justice Department directly. Like, fold the tent, Pam. Like, go home. You're not needed here. It's horrible. Yeah. Particularly in light of... Republicans, especially in Congress, having a fit about Bill Clinton running into Loretta Lynch on a tarmac in Phoenix in 2016 for five minutes. Yeah. They dragged Loretta Lynch in and questioned her for eight hours on that. This is unscrupulous destroys the independence. It's stunning.

It's, you know, blah. They flipped out over that close of a connection between the ones. White House and the Department of Justice. I mean, more recently, they screamed for four years about, oh, Merritt Garland is taking direction from Joe Biden about investigating Donald Trump and prosecuting Donald Trump and inventing cases against Trump, like the fact that he had hundreds of classified documents at his private residence in Florida when he wasn't president. I mean, that was some sort of, you know, the allegations of, you know, the allegations of

White House control over Justice Department actions. Well, how silly does that seem now? They're going to have their own department, their own DOJ employees working out of the West Wing. Yeah, and if I'm Jack Smith, Jack Smith, if you're listening, who's going to publicly testify this week, and we'll talk about that in a second.

And Jim Jordan or any of his staff or any of the other Republicans on the House Judiciary Panel ask me about whether or not Joe Biden told me to investigate Trump or whether or not Merrick Garland met with the White House, or do you remember there were some sort of communication between the DOJ and the White House about these investigations, but it didn't have anything to do with the actual investigation itself? If I'm Jack Smith, I'm saying, didn't you just set up a department inside the Department of Justice, a unit inside the Department of Justice that's answerable only to the president?

You certainly can't have any problem. No, we didn't. But how can you do this? but it seems like if we did, you'd be perfectly fine with it, right? Yeah. I mean, didn't you... Hmm. Hmm.

And, oh, and by the way, is the reason you didn't appoint to special counsels because you think they're unconstitutional? Just curious. Yeah. Unbelievable. That's sort of, like, that's in paragraph 18, Andy. The fact that they buried the lead like that. Yeah. This whole article, if I were to write a headline for it, I would be like, we have confirmation from inside the Trump administration that they're weaponizing the DOJ.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. They're not, it hasn't been weaponized enough, apparently. So they're just going to take the weapon in their own hands. Yes. So Mr. Smith, when you go to Washington, just talk about that. Just keep asking them questions about their special unit run by the White House inside the department. All right, we've got more to get to, but we have to take another quick break. So everybody stick around.

We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, last week, we discussed the letter sent to Judge Engelmeyer. in the Southern District of New York, who presided over the Gillane Maxwell case and the DOJ's request for release of the Maxwell Grand Jury testimony. The letter was sent by representatives Massey and Kana

and requested the judge appoint a special master and or monitor over the release of the Epstein files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Yes, yes. And if you recall, I had questions, we had questions about what would give Judge Engelmeier jurisdiction to appoint a special master over the DOJ files writ large, since that's not before him in this particular case.

This is the Maxwell case, right? This is about the protective order over the Maxwell grand jury stuff and the discovery in the Maxwell case and whether that needs to be released under the Transparency Act. But here's a clip from last week's episode of Unjustified. It'll be interesting to see if Judge Engelmeier believes that he has. jurisdiction to have the special master look after that law as well as what was supposed to be released in his courtroom specifically. It'll be interesting to see if he agrees. I didn't, I went through the letter. I didn't see any citations of other similar cases where a special

master was appointed by a judge to oversee a law and something that was going on in his courtroom. So I'm very interested to see if Engelmeyer has jurisdiction to appoint a special master to oversee the release of the Epstein files pursuant to the act. I think I think it's an interesting legal question. So Andy, like I said, we were wondering whether Engelmeier presiding over the Maxwell Grand Jury transcript could extend his authority over the entirety of the Transparency Act. And it seems as though Judge Engelmeyer is wondering the same thing. Yeah, yeah, for real. It's like, how does he go from being the trial judge on the Galane Maxwell case to being an independent judge in the Southern District of New York,

basically running an inquiry as to the administration's adherence to a new law? So in response to the letter, the letter motion filed by representatives, Kana and Massey, Judge Engelmeyer has issued the following order. The order says, The court directs the government to respond by letter publicly filed on the docket. The government's response should address the issues implicated by the representative's motion. These include, but need not be limited to, one, whether the representatives have standing to participate in this criminal case,

including to raise issues concerning DOJ's compliance with the act that have not been raised in this matter, by any party or victim. And two, whether the court, by virtue of its supervision of the protective order in this case or otherwise, has the authority to rule upon or take action to bring about DOJ's compliance with the act. Yeah. Now, the government's response, Pamela Joe's response, is due Friday, as we record this, January 16th. Should defendant Galane Maxwell wish to be heard on this matter, any letter from, or on behalf of her is also due today, January 16th, as we record this, should the representatives

wish to file a reply, that reply is due Tuesday, January 20th. So Engelmeyer and the Department of Justice have been discussing through letter briefings and orders what parts of the Maxwell case must be published pursuant to the act. And I guess that makes sense to me for them to discuss what he has purview over. On January 15th, though, the DOJ sent Engelmeier a letter updating him. on the broader release of everything, like an update, a status of their compliance with the DOJ or with the Transparency Act in its entirety. So I was kind of trying to look for where that stemmed from. Yes. And the DOJ wrote to the court on January 5th, quote, while not all of the materials under review are covered by this court's prior orders,

the government writes to advise the court as to how it intends to address its obligatory under the court's prior orders in the context of how it is handling the review and publication processes more generally. So now, basically, Engelmeyer is asking, as we did last week, what gives him the authority to oversee the larger production of files under the law? So it makes perfect sense that he has the authority to make decisions about, let's say, the release of the grand jury materials in the Maxwell case, because those are materials that were all collected and for evidence in her trial or relevant to that underlying criminal prosecution that was officially before him.

But how he goes to being like the authority over everything that's released under the Epstein Transparency Act, I don't see it personally, but that's just my opinion. Yeah. And Andy, I have just looked at the docket. I've checked the docket and the government has responded. Pam Bondi has responded in a letter brief to Judge Engelmeyer and basically is arguing the same kind of questions that we had and that Judge Engelmeyer had. They're sort of locking onto that and they're saying that let me see if I can read a little bit of this to you. Representatives Kana and Massey's motion for leave runs afoul of these rules seeking entry into a long closed criminal case.

The representatives explicitly try to create a new issue by moving the court to appoint a special master an independent monitor for the purpose of compelling the DOJ to make mandatory production under the act. The supposed need for this oversight is an issue that neither party has raised, nor could they, as the narrow issues before this court has been how the protective order can be modified to allow the government to proceed under the act, as opposed to enforcement of the act itself. So that's generally they should, you know, Pam Bondi is saying that Massey and Kana's believe to be amici, Keri in this case should be denied. And they're

sort of relying on the arguments that we raised in our questions and that the judge raised in his as well. So it'll be interesting to see how on January 20th, Kana and Massey respond to this. Because in their initial letter asking for a special master they didn't cite any case law or anything like that to show why they would have standing or why this judge would have authorization. And, you know, we talked about this last week. I'm all for their, they're showing a lot of spunk here and they're trying to get creative. But the source of the problem is that they are not in a position to force the department to comply with the law, right? That's Congress's job. That's what Congress should be doing. But Congress is run by

Republicans right now. Republicans are not interested in this issue at all, and they certainly aren't interested in poking DOJ to release more material. So they're just ignoring it. They're allowing their own law to be ignored by the Department of Justice. Unfortunately, there's no clear remedy for a couple of congressmen who are actually trying to do their jobs here. It's not like this, not like the request for the special master in the Moralago case, right? If you remember, I know you remember, Trump filed a federal lawsuit in the same district to raise the issue of the of the appointment of a special master, which notoriously ended up in front of Eileen Cannon, who agreed to it, which you shouldn't have.

But at least he was the subject of the underlying investigation, right? It wasn't even a prosecution yet. It was still just an investigation, but it was his stuff. They had taken his stuff. So he had some standing, right, to get in front of the. the judge. He shouldn't have prevailed, but of course, it's wacky world down there and he did at least initially. Well, he ultimately didn't. Right. 11th Circuit was like, get out of here. Exactly. I think what needs to happen here is perhaps the survivors, the Epstein survivors,

need to file a lawsuit and say we have imminent harm because not only are they not releasing the files as they're supposed to under the act, but they're also not redacting our names properly and protecting our privacy. So we have a reprimable harm. And then you've got a, a case before a judge that you can possibly ask to appoint a special master for. So I tend to think that Judge Engelmeyer will deny Massey and Conn. As much as I would love to see a special master in this case, I think they will deny. Sure. I think he'll deny the special master appointment because he just doesn't have authority and I don't

think that the congressman have standing. But we'll see. I agree with you. Yeah. And I think that the path that you just laid out there makes perfect legal sense to me. But unfortunately, once again, we're putting like all of the responsibility to do the right thing here back on the shoulders of the victims, which like is the worst possible result. But anyway, here we're. Yeah.

I'm not even sure Congress could sue for compliance of the act. I'm not even sure they would have standing to sue. But we'll see. We'll see what ends up happening. I thought initially that if they didn't comply, it could trigger a lawsuit from Congress. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. And we'll keep you posted.

All right. We've got one more story. We've got a letter to the editor of the Washington Post who wrongly had their editorial board claim that Jack Smith was trouncing all over Trump's First Amendment rights when he brought a case against him for the January 6th and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Randall Eliasson has written a letter to the editor. We're going to touch on that and go over Jack Smith's public testimony this week. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back.

Our last block today is a letter from Randall Eli. a lawyer. I believe we've had him on the Daily Beans before. And he's written a letter to the editorial board at the Washington Post about special counsel Jack Smith. It says, the January 10th editorial, quote, Jack Smith would have blown a hole in the First Amendment, unquote, was wrong to claim that Smith's prosecution of Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election would have violated Trump's free speech rights. Now, the editorial board wrote, quote, the indictment accused Trump of lying so pervasively about the election that he committed criminal fraud. But the indictment explicitly acknowledged Trump was free to lie about the election and could not be prosecuted for lies alone.

Those lies were tools that Trump used in furtherance of alleged criminal conspiracies to defraud the government, obstruct a congressional proceeding, and deprive citizens of their right to vote. Those crimes involve speaking. But speech in furtherance of criminal law, activity is not constitutionally protected. The board failed to acknowledge that the trial judge ruled the indictment, quote, properly alleges Trump's statements were made in furtherance of a criminal scheme and thus did not violate the First Amendment. Yeah, when I read that editorial from The Washington Post, I was like, do they know, did they read the indictment? Do they know what they're talking about? I thought the same thing. Who is on the editorial board today?

Yeah. Uncle Frank? My uncle Frank? I don't understand. The board also criticized Smith's fraud theory, claiming that fraud, quote, almost always involves dissembling for money, not political advantage. But the Supreme Court has long recognized that a conspiracy to defraud the government does not require monetary loss. The board further faulted Smith for seeking a gag order after Trump repeatedly attacked witnesses, prosecutors, and criminal in the criminal process. But although it tweaked to their order slightly, the appeals court agreed that limiting Trump's speech was justified. The judge in Trump's New York prosecution also found that a gag order was necessary.

Trump is trying to rewrite the history of January 6, 2021. It's disappointing to see the post bolster that effort by casting him as the victim of a prosecutor who did not respect the Constitution. So, signed Randall Eliasson. Great letter. Well, Jack Smith will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee this Thursday, January 22nd. And Jack Smith's new law firm is now all. up and running. Tim Heffy.

We talked about this. Yeah. Right. Tim Heifie, Jack Smith, David Harbaugh, and Tom Windham have spent much

of their careers in public service committed to protecting and defending the rule of law. Their new full service firm, Hefey, Smith, Harbaugh,

and Wyndham, H-S-H-W, remains faithful to that core value. The firm's advice to clients will be guided by the same principles that have characterized

the partner's government's service. Clear-eyed assessment of the facts and honest application of the relevant law. That foundation will underpin their comprehensive client service, which will include thorough investigations, zealous advocacy and litigation, and candid strategic advice and counsel, resulting in improved policy and process for clients. Quote, I am both privileged

and excited to open the doors of our firm with my fellow partners, Smith said. Our goal is to practice law at the highest level and to do so consistent with our values and longstanding commitment to public service. Interesting. Very interesting. So will he hang up that shingle when asked to be the attorney general in 2029? That's your dreams creeping into the prediction again. I am going, whoever our candidate ends up being, I will write a letter every day.

I don't care how long it takes. Please appoint Jack Smith. Attorney General, please. So anyway, that's cool. So they're doing a full service law firm. Yeah. Case you need a lawyer. But I think they're doing white.

I frequently do, so I'll keep that in mind. You do? I got more lawyers than Bayer makes little white pills. That's what my grandparents used to say. Anyway, yeah, have a few lawyers. Yeah, cool. Well, now maybe you could hire them. Private attorneys for hire.

That's a cool. That's a cool law firm. All of those people, by the way, just incredible people that worked on the investigations into Donald Trump. I think it's really interesting. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that guys like this who have like big names, well-known attorneys, long distinguished careers at the Justice Department,

you know, before the DOJ went off the cliff. Typically, these people like this would go directly into the biggest, most influential firms in Washington and New York. And making this decision is a very different path, you know. And I wonder if part of it is motivated a little bit by what they saw as the, from some of those big distinguished firms really buckling under the pressure of the Trump administration early on in 2025. In a small firm with your friends, you have the ability to make, let's just say, more agile decisions. And you're not under the same pressure from shareholders, other partners, stuff like that. So yeah, they're not going to make the kind of money they would have made.

Had they gone into some one of those big firms, but they likely do great work and feel good about it at the same time. Very cool. Very legal and very cool. Yeah. Thank you so much for that little story. All right, it's time for listener questions. We've got a few minutes here to answer a couple. If you have a question, there's a link in the show notes that will take you to a form. You can fill out to submit your questions to me and Andy. So what do we have this week? Yeah, two interesting ones this week. First one comes to us from Gary. Gary says, starts by saying, my name is Gary, which is a good start. He said, I really enjoy your podcast. I've been listening since you started with Jack.

My question is, don't the ICE agents have the requirement to read the Miranda rights to the people they arrest? That's a really good question, Gary. And I think you're hitting on a theme that a lot of people would assume is true that they are required to, but it's not quite. that simple. So the requirement to read Miranda rights attaches or becomes necessary when you have someone in what we refer to as custodial interrogation. So as an FBI agent, if I, if I stop someone on the street and I started asking them questions and they can turn around and walk away whenever they want, I don't have to read Miranda rights because they're not in my custody. On the other hand, if I bring someone into custody and I am not subjecting them to interrogation, I don't have to read the rights, right? You have to have both of those things, custody and interrogation. In this case,

if ICE agents, let's say they actually do what they're saying they're doing, which we all know that this is not the extent of what's happening right now, but just for hypothetical sake, let's say they have the name of a person who they know is here illegally and they go out to detain that person to put them in deportation proceedings. Well, that's detention, for sure, but there might not be any interrogation. They might just take that person, bring them back to the lockup,

send the notice to the court, get them in front of the jury, you know what I mean, like and process them for the deportation, and you might not ever be at a point where it's legally necessary to provide Miranda warnings. And yet, flip side of it is if you violate,

if you have to provide them and you don't, the penalty for law enforcement for doing that is whatever evidence you've recovered in the course of that interrogation is then forbidden to be used in a criminal prosecution. Again, here, these ICE detentions are really for deportation. They're not for criminal prosecution. So that sort of, you know, penalty doesn't apply either. So it's not so clear.

If you're going to bring them back and question them and subject them to interrogation, then yes. But if you're not going to be questioning them, probably not. Yeah, and I think the question arises from folks who are filming or protesting or, you know, and the ICE agents now have in their back pocket, they keep quoting Title 18 U.S. Code 111 at people, you know, whoever forcibly impedes law enforcement. Forcibly being the key word there.

Sandwich Guy was, they tried to indict sandwich guy with 111. The federal jury said no. And so I think the question here, is if you're detained for filming, are you being, you know, for violating Code, you know, Title 18, Code 111, U.S. Code 111, that seems like if they're trying to arrest you for committing a crime,

that they would need to Mirandize you. Well, again, like, detaining you on the, just holding you on the street for some temporary period is not going to be enough to implicate Miranda. You really have to be taken back to, you know, the precinct or the headquarters, whatever it is, questioned and that's when you have to you have to get the Miranda rights. It's the questioning that

triggers Mirandizing. Yeah, it's custodial interrogation. You have to have both of those factors before Miranda is implicated. But there is a great, there's a lot of questions floating around right now about people, whether or not random citizens who are out there observing, videotaping, protesting lawfully and nonviolently, are they obligated to follow the orders of ICE agents? One of the, ICE officers. ICE officer comes up to you and says, you know, get off the sidewalk or open your car door or something like that. Are you obligated to do that? And there's not, I wish I could tell you that no, you're not or yes, you are. It's not that clear, though.

It all comes down to whether, what the ICE agents are doing and are they doing something that is within the purview of their federal authority? So like in a Renee Good situation, if they were, all they were trying to do is move her out of the way, that's like a traffic enforcement issue. And federal agents don't have that sort of local authority. So the order they give you in the course of them trying to like, you know, pursue some sort of traffic offense is not really lawful. So you may not have to follow it. But these are all like esoteric legal questions that are impossible to answer and understand

in the heat of the moment. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for that. I didn't know that. Appreciate that. I think we got time for one more.

All right, we got one more here. And this is a little bit out of left field, but I thought also an interesting, raises some interesting legal questions. So this comes to us from Brent from British Columbia. Brent says, hello from Canada. I, like many Canadians, enjoy your podcast and the insights you provide on affairs related to your nation's struggle with democracy

and the rule of law. Boy, sad hearing someone else say that. He's not wrong, of course, but it's sad realizing that our current struggles are being perceived by our closest neighbor. He says, I don't think I would ever have imagined the crumbling of both as we've seen. My question relates to Trump's recent threats against Greenland. If Trump were to order a military attack or invasion against these peace-loving people, would such an order be considered unconstitutional and lawful if it lacked congressional approval and defied long-serving, stabilizing international treaties.

Please continue to offer a voice of reason and clarity, and that's Brett from BC. That's a really interesting question. And I guess what jumps out to me, Allison, here is, would such an order be considered unconstitutional and unlawful? It's hard to understand in that hypothetical. how and who is making that determination of unlawful. So if a president decides to order the troops into battle, that's not something that's before a court or even the Supreme Court, right?

It's just the president's authority to do that, and he issues the order, and typically the military follows that order. Now, there might be individuals in the military who determine in a personal way that that's unlawful, and therefore they're not going to do it. but, you know, that's not going to stop that sort of invasion from happening. What that conjures up is a situation much like we had in Vietnam. There were many, many Americans who thought what we were doing in Vietnam was unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, and many of them refused to comply with the draft

or, you know, military service and things like that. And so you could see a situation like that developing here if Trump took military action in Greenland. It's certainly possible that we could have that same level. of unrest and protest here in the United States. But it's, I don't believe that it would stop a determined Donald Trump and his bootlick of a defense secretary from executing that order. Right.

And, you know, the question of, do you need congressional authority to declare war? Yes, you do. But as we've seen, and history is replete with examples. of getting around that. Yeah, absolutely. That separation of powers by saying it's a police action instead of an invasion, for example,

or having the CIA do the covert ops. CIA actions don't need congressional approval. I don't think it's constitutional, at least in the spirit of the Constitution, to go in and send in troops to seize sovereign nation, especially a NATO ally. but we are not really held to international laws like that.

Donald Trump has long ignored treaties and will continue to do so. So I think it comes down to what is the vehicle to contest it. We just had the Senate. We had Holly and another senator, I can't remember which one, Young maybe, who had voted. to advance a war powers resolution to prevent continued invasion of Venezuela. They flipped on the actual vote,

and J.D. Vance came in and broke the tie, blocking the war powers resolution to prevent Trump from having any additional activity, military activity in Venezuela. So a lot of it has to do with Congress, but, you know, like you said earlier in the show, Congress is run right now by Republicans. And so they seem to continue to kowtow to Trump's agenda.

So it'll be interesting and horrifying to see what Donald Trump does with Greenland. Yeah, for sure. And you're right. Presidents for decades and decades and decades have been pushing the envelope on this and accruing more and more power for the presidency in the process. I mean, the Constitution certainly gives the president the authority to order the military into a conflict. Now, it doesn't have the ability

to declare war, but he can send, we can, there's a lot of military action, aggressive, destructive, warlike military action that a president can embark upon without ever getting authorization from Congress.

Now, it's the War Powers Act and all kinds of, you know, laws that were meant to push back on that. So those things are debated, but it has happened. Time and time and time again. We just saw it, whatever, too. weeks ago in Venezuela. There's no war declared there, and Trump sent in, you know, everything that he

did there and literally plucked the president out of the country and opposed the government. So could that happen in Greenland? Yeah, it could. I think it would be a horrible, horrible decision, terrible for NATO, terrible for the world, the destruction of the alliance that's basically kept peace in the world since World War II. I mean, it's just, you know, but this is the guy that's running the country right now. This is kind of what we're stuck with. So keep an eye on that, Brent. We share your concerns about what's happening here.

And, you know, that's one of the reasons why we gather every week to talk about them right here on Unjustified. Yeah, indeed. And it'll be interesting to see with the upcoming continuing resolution battle, the shutdown of the government, another potential government shutdown, what the Democrats end up demanding in order to fund this government, whether it's to defund ICE operations or defund Department of Defense operations with regard to Venezuela or Greenland or nothing. Maybe they'll just fund the government along with it.

I don't know. But that is something to also consider. Because we haven't had a budget in decades, we have to keep doing this continuing resolution, and dance and every time Republicans are in charge, they like to threaten government shutdown. So we'll see what ends up happening there. Thank you all so much for your questions.

Again, if you have questions, you can send them to us by clicking on the link in the show notes and sending them to us. And we'll see if we can read them on the air. And then every once in a while, as you know, we'll have bonus Q&A episodes that are nothing but us answering your questions. So we'll do our best to get to all of them. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here today, my friend? No, just, you know, at the end of another head spinning week,

I know people are really, really reeling right now over what's happened in Minnesota. There's two shootings we've had up there in the last couple of weeks. And it's really hitting people hard. And, you know, in one way, I mean, I think it's good that so many people are engaged in this and are getting out and letting their voices be heard. But please, please be careful. protest, engage in First Amendment protected activity. Let people know what you think.

But when you physically start to interact with these agents, that's when you start to put yourself at risk. And that's a decision everybody has to make for themselves. But that's when you physically, literally start to become very vulnerable. and we have seen now time and time again that many of these agents are not going to hold back at all. What Todd Blanche did this week by saying that there's nothing here to investigate essentially gave that agent Ross a preemptive pardon

for having having to deal with any accountability whatsoever. And I can tell you right now, every ICE agent, everybody working on the immigration issues out there on the streets every day doing this, every one of them saw and heard that perfectly clear. What they heard was green light. We got your back. Do whatever you have to do. Do whatever you want to do.

There will be no consequences. So I'm really worried about what we'll see going forward. Yes, definitely peaceful protests, please. Because Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are itching to invoke the Insurrection Act since the Supreme Court shut down their authority to deploy the National Guard under authority, Title X, U.S. Code 12406. They are itching to do it. They would have done. it had they thought that what happened with Renee Nicole Good was a Reichstag fire enough to do it,

they don't. They don't think that because I think they would have invoked the Insurrection Act by now. They're just waiting for something to give them, to give them the justification to do that. So please be safe, be careful, definitely exercise. And be peaceful. Yeah. Be peaceful. Thank you so much, everybody. We will see you next week on Unjustified.

I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hawkey 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.