Jack - McCabe Subpoenaed

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

The judge reviewing the legality of Lindsay Halligan's appointment in the Comey and James cases said that a chunk of the grand jury transcripts and recordings are missing.The Department of Justice WCADAGPA Ed Martin announced pardons for all the co-conspirators and electors in the 2020 fraudulent elector scheme.The Continuing Resolution to fund the government includes a provision allowing the 8 Senators whose phone records were subpoenaed by Jack Smith to seek at least $500K in damages from the government.A criminal investigation into Russian Intelligence Community Assessment from 2016 has resulted in over 30 subpoenas for records including Pete Strzok, John Brennan, and yes, Andrew McCabe.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod?  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 judge reviewing the legality of Lindsay Halligan's appointment in the Comey and James cases said that a chunk of the grand jury transcripts and recordings are missing. The Department of Justice Wackadagpah, Ed Martin, announced pardons for all the co-conspirators and electors in the 2020 fraudulent electors scheme. The continuing resolution to fund the government, includes a provision allowing the eight senators whose phone records were subpoenaed by Jack Smith to seek at least $500,000 in damages from the government.

And a criminal investigation into Russian intelligence community assessments from 2016 has resulted in over 30 subpoenas for records, including to Pete Strach, John Brennan, and yes, Andrew McCabe. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to Unjustified. it's Sunday, November 16th, 2025. I'm Allison Gill. Hey, Andy. How's your day? Hey, Allison. As you know, I am Andy McCabe. And I don't know, my day's gone all right. The week's been a little rocky, but in some ways, but it also feels very familiar in other ways. As you mentioned in your intro just there, one of the big stories this week has been the investigation being run by, now, I guess, the Southern District of Florida, these attorneys' office for the Southern District of Florida, into something having to do with the work that we did in 2016.

That's been in the news a lot because some people have received subpoenas in that investigation. And unfortunately, one of those people is me. So that's the part of this that feels very familiar. It's like 2016 all over again, 2017 and 2018. 2019, 2019, 2020, it's just, you know, I'll say one thing for this group of people. They just really, they're really focused on this. They just won't let it go. It's like one of their favorite things ever.

It's evergreen for some people. And so here we are again, going down this road again. So, but because I've been subpoenaed in the investigation, Allison, you and I talked about this, but I wanted to let our audience know. I now am not going to speak about this investigation on our podcast or really anywhere else. I'm not going to talk about it on CNN or any place else that I might show up. So if you see me in the grocery store, don't ask me about this one because it just would be stupid for me to do that. So I'm going to take a very kind of typical line, listen to good advice, and just not comment on this.

this investigation, which is kind of unfortunate because I have a lot to say about it, but I will not. I'm going to leave that up to you, though. I know that you will cover it well as I sit here and kind of hold my water, as it were. Yeah, probably for the best. I did announce that you had received a subpoena earlier in the week when I was able to confirm that with you. That's probably going to start coming out more widely now, so look for that. I have not received a subpoena, just so everybody knows, even though I've hosted podcasts with you and Pete Struck and have interviewed multiple people who probably were hit with subpoenas this week. But I'm going to go ahead and do this reporting.

And as much as I would love to ask you questions about your subpoena and what was in it, we're going to leave that up to other people who might want to talk about it. So let me just read some of this reporting to you. This is from Thrush, Foyer, and Savage at the New York Times. Bar-right influencers have been hinting in recent weeks that they've finally found a venue, Miami, and a federal prosecutor, Jason Redding-Kinjones, to pursue long-promised charges of a grand conspiracy against Trump's adversaries. Their theory of the case, still unsupported by evidence, a cabal of Democrats and deep-state

operatives possibly led by former President Barack Obama has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a years-long plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office. But that narrative, which has been promoted in general terms by Trump and taken root online, has emerged in a nascent but widening federal investigation. Last week, Mr. Redding Cignones, the Trump appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, issued more than two dozen subpoenas, including two officials who took part in the inquiry into ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. That's according to people with direct knowledge.

Among them, James Clapper, Pete Struck, Lisa Page, John Brennan. And as we can now report, Andy McCabe, the investigation in Florida appears to, wonder what judge they're looking for. Anyway, the investigation in Florida appears to focus for now on January, on a January 2017 intelligence community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly the role played by John Brennan, former CIA director, in drafting the document. The investigation started earlier this year after criminal referrals to the Justice Department by top Trump intelligence officials.

It was assigned to David Metcalf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who was given special authority to scrutinize and possibly prosecute Mr. Brennan, that's according to four people. Familiar with the matter. Mr. Metcalf in Pennsylvania there is a veteran prosecutor who held senior Justice Department positions during the first Trump administration, and he was given a relatively narrow mandate in his authorization, limited to examining Mr. Brennan's work on the intelligence assessment in 2017. However, like many career professionals of the Department of Justice, he struggled

to advance a case that was regarded as weak by current and former department officials. Actually, it was deemed unchargeable by former officials because they never charged it, even though they investigated it multiple times. Now, it's not clear if Metcalf believed a prosecution of Brennan was viable, but he never got a chance to complete his work. This fall, senior justice department officials transferred that investigation to Mr. Redding Cignonas. Some of the people who have reviewed the subpoenas said that the subpoenas did not mention specific crimes being investigated. And this is interesting just to break in here. And I know you can't comment, Andy, but you and I have covered multiple subpoenas over the many, many years. And usually they list, search

warrants and subpoenas list statutes, Title 18, you know, U.S. Code section, whatever, for what they're investigating. But none of that appears. No crimes, no statutes appear on these subpoenas. Efforts to bring charges against Mr. Brennan or others involved in the Russia inquiry are almost certain to run into serious hurdles. Yeah. Two previous investigations, one by Justice Department Inspector General and the other by Special Counsel John Durham,

have already scrutinized the actions of law enforcement and intelligence officials and found no evidence to support charges against high-level officials like Mr. Brennan. The statute of limitations is also an issue. Conspiracy theorists have floated theories about how prosecutors could accept extend the statute of limitations? All this happened in 2017. That is eight years ago.

But conspiracy theorists claim, with no evidence, that the August 22 search of Mara Lago, during which the FBI found reams of highly sensitive classified documents, is somehow connected to the Russia investigation. In their efforts to connect the Mara Lago search to the Russia inquiry and other investigations into Trump, Trump aligned influencers and right-wing media figures have seized on an internal FBI memo made public last week in the case of Mr. Comey. The document dated from July recorded the opening of an investigation into the discovery of Trump-related records three months earlier inside room 9582 at the Bureau's Washington headquarters, a space designed for the storage of highly sensitive materials.

The records found in so-called burn bags and presumably intended for destruction include printouts of investigative. records and at least one page of handwritten notes, including materials related to the Russia inquiry, Mr. Durham's investigation, and the Mar-a-Lago search. So, I guess, documents next to each other connect the conspiracy, the search of Mar-a-Lago with the Russia investigation. They were next to each other in the burnbags, and I remember when Kosh Patel was like, look at this, they're trying to destroy Russia evidence. It's like, no, that's just normal burnbag stuff.

If you print out electronic documents, you get rid of them. Anyway, pretty incredible stuff. And I'm sorry, my friend, that you are once again being dragged into this. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for covering this. I think it's important that we do cover it. It's certainly relevant to our focus here and following the misadventures of this Justice Department.

So we'll continue to do that. And I appreciate you carrying the load on this story. It is harder than I thought it would be to sit here and bring a comment, but I'm going to continue doing that. I will say, of course, you are the first person, really the only person that I have confirmed this to. And I have received numerous, numerous inquiries from different people in the media. And I've just kind of ignored all that. But, yeah, you got it here first. And I'm glad that our listeners are going to be able to stay up to date on it.

Well, 50 bucks. There's at a bunch of mainstream media outlets put it out and don't mention the fact that I reported it. I'm not betting you that. I don't want to lose 50 bucks. Come on. I'm going to need my 50 bucks. Maybe I should just start tagging them now in that blue sky post I put out. There you go.

Earlier this week. Just a heads up before you say exclusives. Just put it out there. Put it out there. Just take your claim. Well, this will hold together, I'm sure, as well as the Comey case and the Letitia James case. And now Eric Swalwell has been referred to the Department of Justice by Bill Pulte for criminal mortgage fraud. Oh, for God's sakes.

I'm sure this case. I mean, it's going to be real hard when you have discovery from like, perhaps certain aspects of Durham's report that we didn't get to see. So, my friend, I'm a little bit jealous because you actually, in discovery, could get John Durham's grand jury materials or other reports, and you might find out why, what crime Donald Trump committed in Italy to prompt Bill Barr to make John Durham a special counsel. Well, you never know. Inside every cloud is a silver lining.

inside every inside every subpoenas of your job. I don't know. Like 99% of your job, only you get to know about it. That's not for sharing. Anyway, everybody, we are going to talk more about these cases

that are coming apart at the seams against Letitia James and Jim Comey. But we have to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. If you're looking at your phone bill and it's a real pain, start saying yes to saying no. Mint Mobile says no contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, and no BS. So make the switch to get premium wireless for $15 a month with easy activation, free shipping, and coverage that just works.

Keep your phone number, keep your phone, keep your contacts, and stop paying for nonsense everywhere. So thanks a bunch to Mint Mobile for sponsoring today's episode. Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash unjust. MintMobil is a smart way to cut your wireless bill without cutting quality. Instead of paying inflated monthly charges or getting hit with hidden fees and surprise overages, you get premium wireless starting at just $15 a month. Every plan includes high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network, so coverage is dependable and fast.

You can bring your own phone too. Keep your phone number, transfer all your contacts very easily. It's everything you need from a wireless provider. It's simple, it's affordable, and it's refreshingly honest. So say goodbye to overpriced wireless and hello to Mint Mobile. One of our show producers recently signed up with Mint Mobile using an old Android phone he had in a drawer.

And within days, a SIM card arrived at his door and he followed the clear instructions and now he's got a second phone line up and running for just $15 a month. He says the call quality and data speeds are noticeably better than his last carrier. And he's so glad he made the switch. So if you're ready to say yes to saying no,

make the switch at mintmobile.com slash unjust. That's mintmobile.com slash unjust. Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time, new customer offer for three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. Seamint Mobile for details. Welcome back. Okay, let's talk about the latest in the case against Jim Comey and Letitia James.

So this week, there was a hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia in front of a federal judge from South Carolina, Judge Cameron Curie. Judge Curie was brought up to the EDVA to hear arguments about the appointment. of Lindsey Halligan. Politico reports Judge Curie expressed deep skepticism Thursday about whether a federal prosecutor handpicked by President Donald Trump to bring criminal cases against his political rivals was legally appointed to the role. She said she'd issue a ruling by Thanksgiving. Deeply skeptical. Judge Kerry seemed to tip her hand in her first question. Andy, Thursday, asking if Comey's defense attorneys had seen the declination memo. related to the case.

That alluded to news reports that career prosecutors in the United States Attorney's Office prepared a detailed analysis of the potential charges and concluded they were too flimsy to pursue. Comey's lawyers revealed that they had not yet seen that declination memo but hoped to obtain it during the discovery process before trial. Man, I hope we get some of this stuff before the case is dismissed. Now, that's going to paper in a real way. They knew what was happening and they wrote all that stuff now. I want to sticking it to her, man.

Yeah. Now, Curie, one of two judges, by the way, who have reviewed the grand jury transcripts related to the indictments, revealed little about the grand jury proceedings but said they confirmed that Ms. Halligan was there by herself without any other government attorneys in the room.

Oof. That's strike two on this story. Okay. Curie seemed particularly concerned that a portion of the grand jury proceedings that led to Comey's indictment was, quote, missing, leaving certain aspects of Halligan's interactions with the grand jury unreviewable.

Curie said that it appeared at about 4.28 p.m. on the day the indictment was returned in September, there was no court reporter in the room to transcribe the proceedings, leaving no record of the final minutes of the grand jury session. Last week, when we covered Comey's filing about alleged grand jury misconduct, we learned that Halligan kept the grand jury there until 640. 7 p.m. So when Politico says the final minutes, it appears they may be missing the final 140 minutes. Yeah. It was only 18 minutes for Nixon.

Halligan's setting new records right and left. I mean, and the fact that she's in there by herself, first time ever in front of a grand jury, zero experience and no one to back her up. not a witness, not another person who can say, no, she did this or she didn't do that. It's just a bad situation. Yeah. And Andy, this is like the third time the judge has tried to pry these grand jury recordings and transcripts out of the hands of the Department of Justice. I mean, the first time is, you know, just when they were like, just give us the stuff. And all they gave, they didn't.

And then the judge was like, we need the grand jury materials because, you know, the DOJ was fighting having to hand over any. So then the second time, they handed over just the tainted FBI guys transcripts of his interview at the grand jury. And then the judge was like, look, I'm assessing whether or not Lindsay Halligan was appointed lawfully. I need all the other parts too. I need Lindsay Halligan's presentation to the grand jury.

And they're like, okay. And they hand it over, but it stops at 4.28 p.m. Like how many times? Yeah. I mean, there's not a number of times that you're allowed to try. to produce what the court has requested. It's one time. This is how it's normally supposed to work.

And if you remember last week's excuse was, oh, the transcription service screwed it up. Like, it's the classic, blame the dog, you know, my dog ate the homework sort of thing. Well, now it appears the court reporter left at 4.27 p.m. Yeah. The only thing I could think is that they were sent home for the day, but then after the no bill was returned.

But then Lindsay Halligan kept, everybody another couple hours and to not know what she told them especially when Comey is alleging that maybe she kept them there until then unless they returned a true bill this without that having that on the record that's you know makes everything I mean they can't defend the DOJ can't defend themselves here no no that's absolutely right they can't I mean there's no record to prove that her interactions were lawful and acceptable and standard, and she deserves no presumption of regularity, right? Right.

So this story goes on to say Justice Department attorney Henry Whitaker urged Judge Curie to treat questions about Halligan's appointment as mostly a paperwork error at most and emphasized that Pam Bondi had reviewed. the grand jury materials and agreed to retroactively ratify Halligan's actions, even if her initial appointment was deemed invalid. But the judge was like, oh, she reviewed the grand jury materials? The judge was like, there's a missing component of the grand jury transcript called into question. It's calls into question the sufficiency of Pam Bondi's review. Quote, it became obvious to me that the attorney general could not have reviewed those portions of the transcript presented by Ms. Halligan.

The judge also questioned why Bondi signed a statement saying she'd reviewed Halligan's actions before the grand jury when the transcripts of some of that presentation do not exist. She couldn't have reviewed them, said Judge Curry. I mean, unless you've got them and you're just not giving them to us. Like maybe they took a break at 427 and the court reporter actually did come back, but they didn't hand over that last one hour and 40 minute. I don't know what the truth is and no one can know if the DOJ is acting like they don't exist. Or maybe Halligan dismissed the transcriber. Right. Right?

Get out of here. Like kind of Trump style. I don't want the translator for my meeting with Putin. Right. I don't want anyone taking notes. Like, I don't know. I'm totally speculating and that may be unfair. But this is why this is a problem.

You can't know. It's unreviewable. And it's not supposed to be unreviewable. Defendant who brings a motion like this has the right to have the judge consider what took place in that room. And that right is being denied because of whatever led to Halligan not having the records she's supposed to have for that grand jury presentation. Yeah. And you can't go off the record and do procedural stuff. Like you can't just be like, all right, let's continue with trying to get a.

new true bill on these two counts off the record. Like you can't. It's not a podcast for gosh sakes. It's the grand jury. You can't just stop recording and fix the cough or the sneeze. You got to keep going. Somebody interview this transcription person. Somebody find the court reporter. Their name is on it and ask them what happened at the end of that. That's what I want to see. I want to see that court reporter in a chair raising their right hand and telling everybody in the court what happened at 440 not if they ever want to get another gig in the EDVA again I guess so I'll hire you I could do a go fund me for you all right the DOJ argued that Bondi had reviewed the quote material facts of Halligan's grand jury presentation which

showed that quote the grand jury made a decision based on the facts in the law close quote well how could she have reviewed that if you don't actually have what she put in front of the grand jury because there's no record of it i don't know i'm confused here a justice department spokesperson suggested curie's concerns about missing components of the transcript were unfounded there is no missing time that time period refers to when the jurors were deliberating behind closed doors which would not be included in the transcription this isn't a story that's a pretty typical response for them attorney for Comey and James said it's not possible for the Justice Department to retroactively empower a prosecutor who acted without legitimacy to secure an indictment. James's lawyer, Abby Lowell, said that such a ruling would mean that private citizens like Steve Bannon or Elon Musk could secure a grand jury indictment only to have it blessed later by the Justice Department. To which Pam Bondi replied, yeah sure why not right right uh this is a head-turning moment by the way because i'm in my back of my head i'm like well what about jack smith's appointment yes right right here here and now i deem him

credibly appointed like right but this this came up wittaker said from the justice department said the justice department actually takes issue with one aspect of judge eileen cannon's ruling last year Jack Smith's prosecution of Trump on charges related to classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. DOJ said Cannon went too far when she questioned the Attorney General's appointment power in a way

that he said could undercut the authority of most of the lawyers working at DOJ headquarters. You think? Isn't Todd Blanche your boss? Didn't he argue in multiple motions? Of course. Okay.

I love that line. Whitaker said the Justice Department takes issue with one aspect of U.S. district. That's the whole aspect. We think what she did was illegal, but we like the result. So we're being very careful in what we object to. We only object to the illegal part, but not the whole thing. Because the whole thing is the aspect we don't like is how she came to her conclusion. The conclusion we love. So DOJ said, we do disagree with that. The issue could have relevance for Halligan's appoint. since Bondi's recent order claims to retroactively appoint Halligan as a DOJ prosecutor under several alternative statutes if her interim U.S. attorney appointment is deemed invalid. And those statutes are the one that gave Merrick Garland the power to appoint Jack Smith. Yeah. I hate it when that happens. Oh, bummer. So some other things that happened in the Comey case,

Department of Justice filed its response to his motions for the literal truth, Bronston defense and fundamental ambiguity of the charges, you know, claiming Ted Cruz's the DOJ says Ted Cruz's questions were totally clear and 100% precise, but they failed to explain how. They just left it at that. They talked about communications between Comey and Dan Richmond that happened in October of 2016. This is the crux of the DOJ's case. This is at the center of their indictment, these communications.

But as Anna Bauer has pointed out, Richmond was no longer at the FBI. So that takes away from the precise argument of Ted Cruz's and Chuck Grassley's questions about, did you give authority to anyone at the FBI to be an anonymous source? Right. Also, they tried to, Eddie, they tried to shoehorn the Clinton plan, you know, the one based on Russian intelligence that Durham said was fabricated. Fabricated by the Russians, yeah. They tried to shoehorn that in there with no apparent connection to the actual charges because that was the one count that got him a no bill on the first indictment of Comey as they were trying to bring in that Clinton plan, which is just, it's Russian propaganda, but they're trying to shoehorn it into their filings now so that they can, I don't know, just have a megaphone to talk about it. Would love to see John Durham have to take the stand as a defense witness in this trial.

come on that's my that's my that's my bing I'm putting that on my bingo card if it goes to trial that's something I want to see yeah the government also filed a response to the motion to disclose the grand jury information so they oppose it saying that he hasn't comie hasn't met his burden to see the grand jury information and besides we gave it to the two judges in camera to review even though they still haven't given all of it to them they also argued against having to submit a bill particulars, which is like, if this does go forward, you have to tell us what we're charged with here so we can defend ourselves. How do you argue against that? How in the world do you argue against that? The indictment was the vaguest thing I've ever seen, on its face, had no facts

in it. And they're going to stand there in front of a judge and say, we don't have to give them any facts. We just want to go to trial. Yeah. That's just insane. It is. Comey asked to move the December 9th motions hearing to December 3rd, 4th, or 5th, because Pat Fitzgerald or one of his lawyers is going to be on trial, doing another trial on December 9th.

And separately, Anna Bauer reports that a watchdog group has asked the Florida and Virginia state bars to investigate Lindsay Halligan, alleging she violated ethics rules when pursuing criminal cases against Jim Comey and Letitia James. She says,

Anna Bauer says, in a 17-page complaint filed on Tuesday, the nonprofit campaign for accountability said Halligan may have committed multiple violations of legal ethics, including by pursuing cases unsupported by probable cause. I love this for her. Yeah, the outcome of this hearing will have a big impact on those investigations if they go forward because it'll essentially, she could end up in this case getting a finding from this judge that there was no probable cause. That could be bad.

There's also a hearing, a motions hearing this week on November 19th. And our friend Adam Klassfeld from All Rise News, and I'm sure Anna Bauer as well will be there reporting on it. All right. We have news about our friendly Wacadagpa. That's the weaponization czar associate deputy attorney general pardon attorney, Ed Martin. But we have to take a quick break.

Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. This week, with the help of the whack-a-dagpaw, Ed Martin, Trump issued fake partons for fake electors. Well, they're actually real pardons, but they don't do much besides, well, we'll talk about that in a minute. But NBC is reporting, President Trump has pardoned Rudy Giuliani and scores of others accused of involvement in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This happened on late Sunday. Ed Martin posted a proclamation on Twitter, which is how all government proclamations are community, which says Giuliani and scores of others will be pardoned for alleged activities linked to the 2020 election. Martin was replying to his own Twitter message from May in which he said no MAGA left behind. The list of 77 people also includes other high-profile Trump allies, including attorneys Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and Kenneth Cheesebro, and Trump's chief of staff in 2020, Mark Meadows. The pardon is written in

broad language that exonerates, quote, all citizens accused of election interference. The pardons are largely symbolic, as none of the people listed were actually convicted of federal crimes, which the presidential pardon covers. Several of those pardoned had already had their charges dropped by state court. So, of course, the pardon does not do anything for you on state charges, but most people who had them have had those cases dismissed anyway. So there's really very little effect here. Yeah, and the pardons relate to, additionally, any conduct relating to efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 presidential election.

The notice, which says it was signed by Trump, November 7, adds that the pardon does not extend to the president himself. So, interesting. Again, useless pardons in the legal sense, but this seems like a pardon. bat signal to future election criminals that Trump has your back. If you break the law to help him steal an election, he'll pardon you, whether you've, you know, attacked the Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election results, whether you want to attack the Capitol again, or whether you participate in some sort of an election scheme to try to overturn or interfere in election

results. As long as you're trying to do it in his favor. Well, of course. Yeah. So if you're planning on really stepping up for the other side in 2028, yeah, probably no pardon for you. Likely prison time. Yeah. And by the way, late Thursday night, the Nevada Supreme Court revived the state case against the Trump 2020 fake electors. There's just six electors charged in that case. None of the other folks in Nevada in that case are charged. But that's a ruling that it turned General Ford was correct to bring the case in Clark County. Because the six electors said that it shouldn't have had a venue challenge to it. I see.

That case is now revived. State crimes, not pardonable. And Fulton County, that case is revived, but probably not for long because Scandalakis has assigned it to himself. So in Georgia, if you think a long time ago, Fannie Willis was rightly disqualified from investigating and prosecuting Georgia Senator Bert Jones. And the reason she was disqualified is because she held a political fundraiser for his opponent. And when she had to recuse herself from that case, Scandalakis said, I'll find someone else to take it over. And he let it sit until the very last possible minute and then said, I can't find anybody. I'll take it over.

And then he just ended the case. So we have the same situation here. He hasn't ended the case as of this recording, but I don't think it's long for this world. But we'll keep an eye on it. Definitely. Definitely. And more benefits for those who assisted Trump with his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. Now, this story comes from the Times.

They say a spending package expected to be approved as part of a deal to reopen the government would create a wide legal avenue for senators to. to sue for as much as half a million dollars each when federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them. The provision tucked into a measure to fund the legislative branch appears to immediately allow for eight GOP senators to sue the government

over their phone records being seized in the course of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Now, I should point out, AG, this is not a right that any other citizen enjoys. You don't have the right to sue for half a million dollars if the government, in the course of a legally predicated, authorized investigation, gets a subpoena, a grand jury subpoena, to look at your phone records. You don't have the right to be notified of that right away. the government can hide that from you for a year or more if they continue to request that sort of

non-disclosure from the service. So once again, our ruling class is walking away with creating for themselves another, yet another legal right and a way to use your money to pay them in a way that you could not ever do as a citizen of this country. Yeah, this is a thing called Balevins. And if you've worked for you. for the government and tried to sue them. You know exactly what Blevins is. It severely curtails your rights as a citizen to sue the government. Yep.

So we've been wanting a fix for Blevins for a long time. This ain't it. Yeah. Strangely, they didn't take that up in the bill to reopen the government. All right. Interesting. Now, this provision would make it a violation of law to not notify a senator if their phone records or other metadata were taken from a service provider,

like a phone company. There are some exceptions, such as 60-day delays and notification if the senator is considered the target of an investigation, which is BS, because a lot of these phone records are just to confirm witness testimony. These people generally aren't targets. And 60 days is not enough time to run an investigation, especially into a political person. Right. So this 60-day delay is supposed to, is there way.

It is a fig leaf to make it look like they're trying to be responsible and not completely, proactively gut the ability of the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate politicians. We are creating a legal, we're creating a ruling class in this country that is beyond the law. Yeah. And one that will allow these eight senators who, some of which participated in trying to overturn the 2020 election, a payday with our tax dollars. Yeah, sure. Why not?

The language of the bill says, any senator whose Senate data or the Senate data of whose Senate office has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, access, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States

or of any federal department or agency. So, yeah, you're exactly right. It's creating a ruling class that's above the law to join Donald Trump in his immunity. Exactly. Because the provision is retroactive to 2022, it would appear to make eligible the eight lawmakers whose phone records were subpoenaed by investigators for Mr. Smith as he examined efforts by Donald J. Trump to obstruct the results of the 2020 presidential election. Each violation

would be worth at least $500,000 in any legal claim, according to the bill language. The bill would also sharply limit the way the government could resist such a claim, taking away any government claims of qualified or sovereign immunity to fight a lawsuit over the issue. So there is a way to file these federal tort claims against the government now, but the government typically can defend those by saying, no, sovereign immunity or qualified immunity sets in, basically if the agent who did the thing that you're complaining about was acting within the scope of their duties in a officially authorized or lawful manner, then your claim will be denied.

And once it's denied, you can then sue in federal court, but those lawsuits typically don't go anywhere. But in this special place, this special little half a million dollar bonus that's been created for senators is going to restrict the government's ability to defend against such as nonsensical claim. And so therefore, it's like an instant payday.

Yep. And the Republican senators who were subpoenaed part of Jack Smith's investigation, Lindsay Graham, Marsha Blackburn, Josh Hawley, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Loomis, and of there was a representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania who also had his phone record subpoenaed, but would not be eligible because he's a member of the house. It was unclear which Republican lawmaker added this language, by the way, but my money's on Lindsey Graham. He's been really mad about being investigated and having, you know, being unmasked when he's talking to Russians. He's real mad about that. So that's where my money is, but we don't have any

proof. That's right. Now, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, accused Republicans of hiding a provision in the funding bill that would give millions of taxpayer dollars, quote, to a handful of Republican senators who helped Trump try to overthrow the government. Well stated, Senator Wyden. Mr. Wyden said in a statement that every American should have the right to be told if the government spies on them, but added that this bill takes reasonable protection against government surveillance and wraps it in an unacceptable giveaway of your tax dollars to Republican senators. Yep, well said. There you go.

Oh, by the way. I don't agree with Ron Wyden on everything. He's a real anti-surveillance guy. And as you know, I did a lot of surveillance in my career. I feel like some of it is very necessary to keep us safe. So like, full stop. Like, you know, we can have principal differences. over those sorts of things but man he's right about this he's calling this out for what it is so

good for you yeah and something else i figured i'd tell you in case you hadn't heard uh mike flyn is in talks with the department of justice to settle for 50 million dollars for his wrongful prosecution oh my god why did i not file a claim i feel like everybody's got claims now i should have a claim sorry man maybe it tells me it's going nowhere yeah maybe next time uh maybe next time uh maybe Maybe you got a claim. There's always a next time, isn't there? Well, you know, who knows with this government? But all right, we have a final story from the Wall Street Journal.

And it's just about some of the stuff, some of the problems that Kosh Patel has been facing as the director of the FBI. But we're going to take one last quick break. And we're also going to get some listener questions. Stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, our final story comes from the Wall Street Journal. In his nine months on the job,

Cash Patel has drawn flack from his bosses in the Justice Department and from his underlings at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he has fired dozens of agents deemed hostile to Donald Trump or hostile to conservative ideals. Patel hit the news for taking an FBI plane to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend, a country western singer performed and then

to her home in Nashville. I can't believe I just read that. I know. Sorry. A former FBI agent, Kyle Serafen, publicized the trip and called the taxpayer-funded travel in the middle of a shutdown,

pathetic. Yeah. After that, Patel visited a Texas hunting resort called Boondoggle Ranch. That's quite a flight record. That is a bad look. It's just the name.

is so ridiculous. Okay, sorry. No, that's all right. That's according to people familiar with the trip, which wasn't publicly previously reported until the Wall Street Journal did. Patel's travel has frustrated Justice Department officials who complained to the White House about it and the White House itself, which has told cabinet officials months ago in writing to limit their travel, particularly if it's overseas or unrelated to Trump's agenda. That's according to administration officials. Details about Patel's trips to visit his girlfriend and an August trip to Scotland have been passed around the White House in recent days. FBI director, Kash Patel, is required by law to take the Bureau's private plane instead of commercial flights in order to have access to secure communications.

If the travel is personal, the director is required to reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial flight, typically far less than the actual cost of the private jet use. can we do a timeout here just for background um so all fbi directors have been required to travel on uh on government aircrafts and this is a post 9-11 thing congress signed this law after 9-11 and it's so the fbi director has access to classified communications while he's traveling and it makes sense but it also puts them in the position where it's hard for them to travel they can't travel personally, in any travel that requires a flight without doing that. Now, what they all have done, Mueller, Comey, Ray, myself while I was in there for a few minutes, they just try to limit their personal travel. There is a way to avoid saddling the government with obscenely expensive

travel for your personal enjoyment. That is, don't do it. Oh, that's a weird concept. Yeah. And when you do you have to pay them back it's kind of weird what you do is you go on like a travel planning website or something you find on it yeah the cost of the commercial you know the commercial cost of the flight that you would have taken if you were just flying as a private citizen now of course that's not even a that's a tiny fraction of what it costs the government to run the plane and take it to wherever you're going but it's just the principle of thing you need to pay a reasonable amount for the travel that you're doing but apparently he's doing absolutely nothing So back to the story, Patel has defended his travel, dismissing his critics as, quote, clickbait haters, which is something I don't even understand because I guess Patel is saying he's clickbait?

Yeah. I don't know. Whatever. I don't get it. A spokesman for the Bureau said the director has taken only about a dozen personal trips. Okay, so a dozen and my count is 12, right? All right. So put a pin in that.

A dozen personal trips since assuming the role in February. and had taken steps to cut down on travel costs, though there's no indication here of what those steps might have been. In a written statement, Patel said the Bureau has achieved historic success on violent crime and drug trafficking, which the last time I checked was actually just a part of his job. Quote, thankfully, Americans can see through Wall Street Journal Hot Garbage. This FBI has never been stronger, he said. Patel's presence at the Bureau has been something of a culture shock for a

buttoned-up workforce, used to wearing suits and ties. Instead, Patel has appeared at events in hooded sweatshirts, jeans, or hunting vests, and often speaks colloquially, calling agents, quote, cops, and telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the job of the FBI director was, quote, effin wild. Oh, okay. He also handed out an oversized commemorative coin to colleagues, resembling the logo of the Punisher, the Marvel character, who came to embody. a general distrust in the U.S. justice system.

That's him. Okay. The coin also has a larger number nine on it, a reference to him as the FBI's ninth director. Patel's supporter say he's trying to present himself as a down-to-earth, accessible guy, accessible to the workforce. And that's, Andy, that's like when your friend

describes the blind date that they're setting you up on as somebody having a good personality. I just, the, the whole punisher thing just throws me for a loop like do you do you read the punisher i don't think they do no no of course not there's no like logic here from it for johnny clickbait okay so here's where the math comes in okay go with me on this uh back to the story the justice department's g550 took nine trips to las vegas where patel lived before running the fbi and seven others to nashville according to a Wall Street Journal review of flight records.

Okay, so 9 plus 7 is 16, which I think is more than 12, which is what it doesn't is, right? 9 plus 7 is 12. 9 plus 7 is 12. All right, I must have been wrong about that. It's everyone knows that. It's beautiful number 12, 9 plus 7. It's the new FBI math. I've read greatly, men called me with tears in their eyes to say it's 12.

That's right. Sir, it's just 12. Okay. On a late Friday, he took the FBI private jet to State College, Pennsylvania, for a real American freestyle wrestling event where his girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins, was performing the national anthem. The next day, the same FBI plane traveled to Nashville. Okay, so that would be two more, which by my count would make it 17 or 18, but I guess it's still just 12, right? Okay. That Sunday, the jet landed in San Angelo, Texas, where Patel visited the boondoggle ranch, appropriately named, owned by the family of a Republican donor and friend of Patel's C.R. Bubba Salisbury, Jr. The plane stayed in-salisbury, Jr. Heck yeah. Maybe that's the Bubba that was in the Epstein files. I digress. I mean, who knows. The plane stayed in San Angelo until Wednesday, the government was shut down and much of the FBI workforce was working, but not getting paid.

Okay, so that's actually two more, which brings us to 20 by my count, but I guess I'm wrong again. It's still just 12 despite all these extra flights. Now, you know, when you talk about reducing your personal vacation, 18 trips in nine months, actually less than that, fewer than nine months, because I don't think he got there until a little bit later. That seems like a lot of personal travel to me. You know, sometimes I feel like I travel a lot. Private Citizen, you know, Joe Normal here, I don't come anywhere near his numbers. And as FBI director, I mean, I'll be honest, most FBI directors, I've known a bunch of work closely with all of them. They work. They work five days a week. And then they also work on the weekend. Chris Ray moved to D.C. And this beautiful historic house in Atlanta probably still does. Move to D.C. bought a place in D.C. right near headquarters. his wife moved up his kids are like grown kind of they were out already but uh he isn't you're not a big fan of dc but he basically lived there uh while he was director combe of course he moved as well he moved he was living in connecticut when he got the job sold his house

packed up everything moved to uh northern virginia you know very close to dc commuted there uh muller i'm trying to think i think he was in san francisco before he became director back after right after 9-11. So, like, they knew they were going to have to do this job that's hard and has to be done basically every day. Not this guy. He has a very different view of those responsibilities. Yep. Yeah. Now the story says Patel's travel has become a source of gossip within the Bureau, despite that his firings in particular have riled the broader workforce. In his confirmation hearing, Patel said he had no interest in going backward and would not punish agents just because they participated in politically charged investigations.

who wouldn't fire anybody for that. Patel, though, has fired 30 agents, at least. And that's 30 more than none. 30 more than none, yeah, for sure. All of whom did things Trump allies disapprove of. Some took a knee during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, another implemented government policy denying religious exemptions for the COVID vaccine. A third one had a gay pride flag in the office.

The FBI declined to comment on the firings, but several others also worked on the investigations, as we know, that led to Trump's indictment. and related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, dubbed internally as Arctic Frosts. So there we go. The day after returning from his October hunting trip to San Angelo, Texas at the boondoggle ranch with his good friend, Baba, Patel forced out the head of the San Antonio field office, Aaron Tapp.

Tapp was a 22-year agent and an expert in financial crimes whose job had been to work with the FBI lawyers to make sure department policies were followed when, opening sensitive cases, including Arctic Frost. The firings have sparked some confusion. Two of the ousted Arctic Frost agents were told they would be retained after the Trump appointed top federal prosecutor in Washington, Janine Piro, privately said that they were needed for active cases, people familiar with the matter said. Patel overruled her and fired them again.

Yeah, so that he fired him and then she brought him back and then they fired him again. That's right. On Halloween, Patel also fired Stephen Palmer, 27-year agent, who ran the FBI's critical incident response group, the unit that responds to high-risk situations like child abductions and hostages. It also oversees the agency's use of its government planes. Weird. Palmer and other officials had tried to explain to Patel's staff that the more he used the plane for personal travel, the less it could be used for other bureau stuff. That's according to people familiar. An FBI official said Palmer's ouster was not related at all. to the plane issue, and said, Patel regularly consults his advisors on how to allocate resources.

Yeah, the plane, at least when I was there, was used a lot for things like, oh, I don't know, taking an investigative team to someplace that you can't fly commercial into, like Somalia or Iraq and Afghanistan. First time I ever flew on it, it was to go to Iraq and then Afghanistan right after that. So often it flies to places where we have to return dangerous, violent fugitives back to the United States. And it's generally not a good idea to put those people on commercial flights with regular full-paying citizens. But none of that stuff can happen if they're busy taking the director to a wrestling match where his girlfriend is singing the national anthem. Trump has complained in recent months that he believed. if Patel wasn't moving fast enough with some of the firings and about Patel's media appearances,

including on the Joe Rogan experience, which Trump believed were not helpful, according to the officials familiar with the complaints. Trump also had been upset with Patel over his handling of the review of the investigation into deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which had consumed the White House earlier this year, the officials said. Bondi had accused FBI leadership of, quote, trying to destroy her by leaking information. information about internal discord, the journal previously reported. Other administration officials who tried to repair the ties concluded the issue had spiraled largely because the Justice Department and the FBI had mishandled it. So there you go. Well, I don't think the Jeffrey Epstein thing

is going away. Although today, Donald Trump announced he's opening an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell's co-conspirators. And Pam Bondi has assigned a special prosecutor to this. I don't think she's appointed a special counsel. I think she's just assigned, you know, how they kind of assign people to do things. Yep. Like how they assigned Quignonez to do the case against Brennan at all. So he's open that investigation.

I think it's so that he could say, oh, the DOJ can't release the Epstein files now. We have an open and ongoing investigation. But we also learned through Jamie Raskin this week that there was an open and ongoing investigation in the Southern District of New York. They had interviewed up to 50 of the survivors and that that investigation was ongoing as of January 2025. But when Trump got into power, that investigation was ended. He ended it in July. So it's weird to open an investigation that you went and closed. Yeah.

But I think, you know, he wants to open it where he has control over it so we can sit on it and do nothing and use it as an excuse not to release the Epstein files from the Department of Justice. Just my guess. Well, that's a perfect segue into what was going to be our second question, but I'll make it first now today as we go into questions. And of course, as always, questions, the end of every show. Occasionally, we're going to do special episodes where we have nothing but questions. and you can just go to the show notes and you'll find the link there where you can post your question

if you want to hear your question read and answered on the air. We try to do that as often as we can. Okay, so the second one comes from Leslie who sends it in from Paris, France. Thank you, Leslie. She says, can Trump declare that the Epstein files

are classified to block their release following the discharge petition? Really interesting question. Thank you, Leslie. And I guess kind of the first answer is, yeah, he can. The president is the ultimate authority over how government information is handled. And the president has the authority to classify anything he wants. Would the Epstein files qualify for some sort of classification designation if a normal

original classification authority was doing it? No, they don't fit any of the category. of information that are presumptively classified. But again, the president has wide latitude, he can declare something classified. The problem he confronts here would confront by doing that is they're very clearly not typically classified sort of information. People would see right through that.

And his biggest problem with the files is going to be political, not legal. So the position we're in right now is the discharge petition which Congress has voted on or has the votes to pass that, that we've already kind of passed that. That's the first hurdle. The discharge petition just requires the Speaker of the House

to bring the matter to a vote, a substantive vote. So Mike Johnson indicated that he's going to do that this week in just a couple of days. So we'll get, that'll be Congress voting to require, it's basically like passing a law

that says that the files must be. be released. Then that bill has to go across to the other side of the Hill and be voted on by the Senate. It is not clear that the Senate would pass it. They might not. There's differences of opinion on that. If they do pass it, then it has to go to Donald Trump for final signature. Now, Trump could sign it, and then the files must, it would be a law that the final files must come out, or he could veto it. So the question becomes, a similar kind of thing, right? Like, can he really veto it? I mean, he could, but boy, will that look absolutely horrible? That's like a legacy changing decision. Now he has an excuse. Now he's

an excuse to veto it. Exactly. So he can say, look, I'm looking into this. I want to bring these creeps to justice. I'm open and I've opened an investigation, even though I recently closed one for the same thing. But I've opened an investigation. And so I have to veto this because you can't release records that pertain to an open and ongoing investigation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're just kind of creating another opportunity to obfuscate. But I would tell you, from my perspective, and I was really kind of not hanging on every development in the story from the very beginning, saying like, look, there's never been a credible allegation against him. He hasn't really been identified by, you know, victims that I was aware of at that time. And we don't, so far, we have not actually seen any evidence that he was engaged in any wrongdoing. But the more they act in this way, it just becomes impossible to believe that they're not trying to hide something. What they're trying to hide, I don't know, but I've never seen a more poorly handled public relations disaster. Yeah, it's pretty bad.

I wanted to bring up, speaking of classified documents, a quick correction that was sent to me, separately. And Andy, this has to do with when you said all classified information is automatically national defense information when we were talking about SISA. And the correction comes from national security law. Classification, all classified information is not automatically national defense information. Classification is generally an indicator of being NDI because to legally be NDI for the purposes of the Espionage Act, which does not actually define the term, and the only real definition comes from case law as information related to the national defense, which is completely unhelpful. The information has to be closely held, as in the lunch

menu at the commissary cafe may be related to national defense, but it's not NDI if anyone can walk in and see it. Right. So classification is generally treated as an indicator that something is closely held, but because information can be classified due to the harm it would either cause to defense or foreign relations, you can have NDI that's not classified and classified information that has nothing to do with defense, national defense. One of the best examples is a FOIA case where a white paper on a pending trade deal with France was deemed to be properly classified because if it were released, the French would learn what we would be willing to accept. And so our foreign relations would be harmed because they'd insist on us paying a few more cents per widget than we might have otherwise been able to negotiate.

And two Espionage Act cases actually fell apart because the government put all of its eggs in the it was classified basket and didn't emphasize the difference. So thank you very much for that correction. I think it's important that, you know, we talk about those nuances and those differences. But somebody sent that in, thought I'd bring it up. I think that's really well put, and they are correct. It's hard sometimes in the abstract sense to imagine a document that's been classified but is not related to the national defense. I think probably the majority of classified documents are.

But I think that example of like foreign relations matters, so like, for instance, like some State Department employee who is memorializing in a cable, the context, of a conversation that an ambassador had with an official in a foreign country, like, that would absolutely be classified and it's typically classified at the secret level, but it might not be about national defense information. It might be about economic data or whatever. So I think that's a really good example, and I appreciate them sending in in. Yeah, cool. Well, thank you everyone for your questions and corrections. If you have any, there's a link in the show notes, and you can send them in.

And we, as always, really appreciate you listening to Unjustified. I'm glad sometimes we can break a little bit of news for you. We usually are just kind of going over the things that happened last week. But thank you so much for listening to us and supporting independent media. And do you have any final thoughts today on, you know, gestures broadly, Andrew? No, I think we covered it. But then you never know where this stuff is going to go. Holy cow.

Every week I say like, oh, I'm probably have another busy week next week. And then seven days later, I'm like, man, I didn't imagine this was going to happen. So, yeah, feeling like we had another one of those and probably many more to come. So stay tuned. Many more to come. And that next one comes next week. We'll see you then. Thanks so much for listening to Unjustified.

I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with a 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 podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.