Jack - Mueller Goes To Paper (feat. Andrew McCabe)

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

S3E18 - Joining us this week is Andrew McCabe (Former Deputy Director of the FBI)! Plus, Jordan goes over AG Barr’s testimony to the Senate, Jaleesa updates us on Roger Stone, and AG breaks down the amazing letter we got from Mueller regarding Barr. Enjoy!  

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubels. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a bi-weekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Thanks to Sage Lee Naturals for supporting Mollershy Road. Sage Lee Naturals has superior standards for quality and ensures all their CBD products are completely THC-free.

Sage Lee Naturals has me feeling like my best self. Get 20% off your first order at sageleynatrals.com slash AG. And thanks to Beta Brand for supporting Mueller She Wrote, who says comfy can't be work appropriate. Beta Brand wants you to look good and feel good even at the office. Go to betabrand.com slash AG all lower case and get 20% off your dress pant yoga pants today. This is Seth Abramson.

I'm the author of Proof of Collusion, and you're listening to Mueller, she wrote. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities.

I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign. And I didn't have, not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

So it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring. Like all members of the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist. Thank you. Hello and welcome to Mueller, she wrote, I'm your host A.G. and with me as always, are Jelisa Johnson. Hello.

And Jordan Coburn. What an amazing week you guys. I got to spend some time with the McCabes, the Macbabs, in Salt Lake City. We got some incredible news this week. Mueller breaks his silence with a letter confirming our suspicions about Barr, which we didn't initially have, but then had, and then no one believed us, and now we're right. We have a ton of updates on some old baddies, including Eric Prince, George Poppodopoulos, and Roger Stone, as well as a full interview with Andrew McCabe at the end of the episode, where we talk about

Comey's decision to reopen the Clinton investigation 11 days before the 2016 election, Mueller's letter and the steps leading up to the Trump investigation along with the appointment of Robert Mueller, special counsel. Good staff. I know. I asked him all the good stuff. The only thing I didn't ask him on it, I should have his why Komi took Miguel Avićoff of the top 10 most wanted FBI list. I failed to ask him that.

He probably wouldn't have known the answer, had been able to tell me anyway. So I could just go ahead and probably safely say, he wouldn't have been able to tell me that. For everyone concerned about my emergency Friday, everything is okay. Thank you for all your emails and kind messages. PodCat is fine.

It had nothing to do with PodCat. I'm fine. We're all fine. There was an issue with a family member, but everything's gonna be okay. I just wanted to lay with podcast. I'm fine. We're all fine. There was an issue with a family member, but everything's going to be okay. I just wanted to lay your concerns. So thank you for having them. We are coming to Minneapolis, June 14th, Minnesota. Tickets are going quickly. So grab them by heading to mullershearote.com. We're also nailing down dates for Chicago San Francisco, Denver, Portland, and Philly. And we will be here in San Diego to Comedy Palace.

Sunday, May 19th, I believe, as part of the San Diego Comedy Festival. We'll keep you posted on those shows and dates as we get confirmations. And for information on the San Diego show, head to the San Diego Comedy Festival website. I'm sure it's on there. And we are headed to the webbies this weekend.

And this Thursday, May 9th is the Twitter crowd sourcing day for our five word acceptance speech. So please follow us on Twitter at Mollershee Road. You can participate in that. Help us put together our five word speech. I'm still leaning on puts and beans on it. I mean, that's a crowd favorite. It's like definitely a front runner.

Yeah, but we've gotten suggestions for a vote. Blue, no matter who. We've gotten a vote in numbers too big to manipulate, although that's six words we have to figure out how to pull it down to five words and you can't use contractions. Can you impeach the mother fucker now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, but you can't use like trumps.

It has to be Trump is. I see, I see. Unless it's a possessive, it's a yeah, contractions. Oh, that's right, yeah. Schoolhouse Rock Tommy, that I forgot. Yeah. To. Unless it's a possessive, so yeah, it's contractions. Oh, that's right. Yeah, schoolhouse rock timing that I forget. Yeah. They take this very seriously. They do.

They're very serious on the five words. Finally, we're going to release part two of our probably ten part series on the Mueller report, and probably tomorrow for patrons. So check that out. Once we have them all, we'll release them as a full series to the public. But if you want them early, head to patreon.com slash Mueller, she wrote, once a patron, you're automatically a patron for the daily beans, our new daily news pod coming out soon. So you'll get those episodes ad free as well as ad free main episodes.

Plus the entire archive of book reviews and bonus content, our newsletter, my personal show notes. Did the catches go to the restroom? Yes. He did. All right. Yeah. We were what we were gearing up for that. Right, but he buried the pee like a very polite podcast. Yeah. We were what we were gearing up for that right, but he buried the P like a very polite Cat. Yeah, he tripped coming out of the box that was what that noise was

Yes, if you're just too to get we have post surgery pod cat with us in the room that needs to be quarantine for the rest of the house We'll have an interview with him later in the show. He's convalescing. He's doing well. His stitches come out Wednesday your birthday, Jordan. Yes, right. And A.G's husband's birthday. Yeah. Yeah. The cat's like, Trump, I piss on the hat. That's his commentary on his presidency. That's his P. If you stick around, he might poop for us later. So, you know, you never know. Yeah. We could get lucky. That's right. All know. Yeah, we could get lucky All right, and he get anyways with all that out of the way guys. It's time for my favorite new segment corrections All right guys during one of our daily episodes it appeared I was using the word tacit to mean express. And it's actually the opposite. A tacit agreement is like a wink and a nod,

or it's an understood or implied agreement without being stated, which is not enough to convict on conspiracy cases, but is probably what happened in the Russian coordination efforts between the Trump campaign, Trump allies, and members of the Russian coordination efforts between the Trump campaign, Trump allies, and members of the Russian government. So yeah, I was saying it has to be a tacit agreement. No, that's not correct. It has to be an explicit or express agreement.

I was using the word tacit incorrectly. Good to know. I had also said that the Church of Satan was now tax exempt, but will pay taxes. But in fact, it's the satanic temple that has been granted tax exempt status, and they will likely not pay taxes. Oh, man. Yeah. But the Church of Satan was like, we're not tax exempt or paying taxes.

So, Church of Satan, apparently, a for-profit organization. Do it. Well, they're Satan, so. Let's see. C. Thomas Hall was not on Allie McBealale nor was Patrick Dempsey who was actually Dr. McDreamy aka dear Christopher shepherd MD from graze anatomy. It is Patrick Dempsey that was in can't buy me love in 1987. Oh okay. So I got the Dempsey and can't buy me love thing right but I got I got a hot white guys mixed up. I was mostly absent for the 90s. So, I didn't know too much about Ali McBealer.

Tyler Blair for you. So I wanted to told us the actor who plays hide in that 70s show is an alleged abuser, sexual assaulter. He was fired from his role on the show The Ranch, produced by Ashton Kutcher, when Netflix learned of these allegations. Now, he was never charged with a crime, but he's a Scientologist.

Oh God, dammit it apparently the church of Scientology had filed over 50 affidavits from Scientologists who denied the women's account oh so they didn't I okay that's how's that problem then yeah if you're gonna believe like the sanity of anyone's testimony it should be a Scientologist for sure for sure yeah uh do they nope they have to act with them status uh Eric Holder was a not held in contempt for refusing to appear before Congress. He was held in contempt for recommending Obama assert executive privilege and not turn over subpoena department of justice documents as he viewed the subpoena as overly broad and it would upset the balance between the executive and legislative branches.

That's not that's very different from what bar is doing. Great. But also something that could very much play out in the coming days. Oh yeah, easily. Yeah, I'm sure we'll hear more about it from Trump allies We better a colder because they bring up all the relevant stuff Um, all right all whales are mammals My first instinct was correct. I just think my brain had a hard time being comfortable saying all of something is something

You didn't want to generalize without knowing for sure Yeah, there are always exceptions, but no exceptions when it comes to whales. Dolphins and purposes are not whales, but they're all mammals. I don't know. Now we've got that straight. Thank you, all of our marine biologist listeners.

All right, guys, thank you again for helping us be better. If you have any corrections, do not hesitate to send them to helloatmolarshirote.com. Using the Fluff Stab Fluff method of feedback, also known as the shitsandwich, which is say something nice, then give the feedback, then end with something nice. We're much more receptive to that. Yeah, we like that. And with corrections out of the way, let's get to the week's Mueller news with just the facts. All right, so as we know a couple of weeks ago, Congress issued a friendly subpoena for

Mayzar's tax firm to hand over Trump's financial documents in response to Cohen testifying that Trump had inflated his assets for loan applications. And Trump sued to block the release of these documents. And Congress agreed to postpone their subpoena to allow the courts to decide to adjudicate that. Well, this week in response to a Deutsche Bank and Capital One subpoena, Trump, his kids and his org sued to block those banks from handing over financial documents that would include parts of his business and personal tax returns. The lawsuit was first

reported by the New York Times and was filed in the Southern District of New York in response to the subpoenas from the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. In this case, just like in the Deutsche Bank and Capital One case, the House is postponed, or sorry, in the Capital One and Deutsche Bank, just like the Maysars case, the House is postponed, the friendly subpoenas, until the court weighs in. The court date in this case is set for May 22nd and the Maysars court date is May 14th, so they're coming up pretty fast. Yeah, good, Because I know that's all of Trump's tactic is to just delay. Yeah.

That's exactly right. He's just delaying it. We have beans on Trump losing both of these cases and as he's citing presidential harassment, which isn't a thing. But this week in California legislation, we passed a bill. It would require anyone running for President and Vice

President to release five years of tax returns or they don't get to appear on the ballot. I have a suggestion to you for Trump saying all this presidential harassment stuff. Let's just call it like locker room subpoenas. You should understand that, right? It's just locker room subpoenas. Yeah, yeah, let's do. Just grab them by the pussy. Move along.

Pusa? So this vote in the California legislature ran along party lines with all 10 Republicans voting no, who I'm sure have wonderfully clean tax returns. Your call to action this week is to call Governor Gavin Newsom's office and tell him to sign the bill. His phone number is a area code 916 445 2841. That's 916 445 2841. Call him up and say sign that tax release bill.

Because it's awesome. I like transparency. Also this week, Adam Schiff has hired the ex director of the FBI Financial Crime section, Patrick Fowent, to bring his significant expertise to the Senate Intelligence Committee's efforts to scrutinize Trump's financial dealings. According to Schiff, the investigations pertain to any credible allegations of leverage by the Russians, the Saudis, or anyone else, he just says, or anyone else. According to Frank Faglussi, a former, he's the former assistant director of the counterintelligence division at the FBI, the fact that he hired someone at the former senior executive service level from within the FBI's financial crime section denotes an effort to apply significant resources to examining and analyzing the financial findings.

And he says, quote, by the time you get to the head of the financial crime section, you would have substantial white-collar crime and global financial crime experience, both at the street level and the supervisory level, and his role at headquarters would have had him overseeing the bulk of all financial crime cases in the FBI. Fowl started at the FBI in 1992 and he worked on Ken Stars probe, Bill Clinton, having called Monica Lewinsky's lawyer on behalf, on her behalf while Star was questioning her. Wow. Yeah.

So that's that guy. Apparently, I don't know why the financial crimes expert was... Yeah, I was going to say, how does that relate? Yeah, just an interesting little fact there. Monica Lewinsky is going is gonna be at the webbies. She won a webby. Oh nice Yeah, yeah for being Monica for being Monica nice. Yeah, cool But I hope we get to run into her and meet her But yeah, probably my guess is he wasn't head of the financial crimes unit at the time he did that yeah He light was probably later on in his career. I think he left the FBI in 2017

Correct me if I'm wrong. There are a couple of significant Roger Stone updates this week. And Jelisa will cover those later in hot notes. Oh yeah. Politico has a story out this week about Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, calling for a boost in election security for the 2020 election after the release of the Mueller report.

Make sense, right? Schumer wrote this letter to his dem colleagues, his democratic colleagues, throwing some pretty heavy shade at the Trump administration for not adequately responding to the attack on our democracy. Shumar is asking for a classified briefing from the Trump administration, including the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI Cyber Command Unit, detailing what steps they are taking currently to protect the integrity of the 2020 elections. This comes on the heels of reports last week that we talked about indicating that former

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was told by Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney not to bring up election security with the president. Not a good topic to talk to the president about. In addition to the briefing, Schumer wants legislation to secure the elections. He wants additional funding for state and local election officials, which Mitch McConnell blocked in 2016. And he wants new sanctions against Putin. All sounds fair.

Yeah. That's not unreasonable. I thought I'm with him. Then Wednesday, Attorney General Bill Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Jordan has those highlights later in the show. Crazy. Another investigation was opened into the Trump organization this week, this time by New York Attorney General Latisha James, and she's not fucking around.

I don't think she'd have any reservations in Diting, a sitting president. I don't know about you, but I have no proof of that. It's just a feeling after hearing her speak about the rule of law and how no one's above it. Yeah. And she's made it like a super big point that she intends on fully investigating him wherever is necessary. So I can't imagine that comes with a caveat

of refusing to indict him. Yeah, I don't find anything. Yeah, I don't, as a state attorney general, I don't think she is obligated to follow the Department of Justice Policy guidelines on not indigning a sitting president, but I don't know. And even if she was, I feel like she doesn't give a fuck. Yeah, she's pretty badass.

Yeah, and I'm with you on that. Anyway, we learned this week that she has interviewed more than two dozen undocumented immigrants who claim they were underpaid or not paid at all while working extra hours at the Trump National Golf Club West Chester at Briar Cliff Manor. This new investigation, Mariah Cliff Manor. This new investigation is based on reports suggesting that Trump organization managers systematically

cheated workers because they knew they were undocumented. They couldn't do anything about it. I imagine that will be a high threshold to prove, however, that the Trump org supervisors had corrupt intent when they were underpaying or not paying workers knowing they didn't have any recourse because they're here illegally. That could be a really tough thing to prove. I think you would need that one email or that one memo that said we're doing a pre-document.

I do want a pre-document. Yeah, at least it'll give Trump and his team a headache, you know what? I mean, just something, some kind of consequence. Some else to sue to block. Exactly. Yeah, proving they knew they were undocumented and allowing them to work there. Anyhow, is central to proving that case? Many of the undocumented workers cooperating with New York Attorney General are some of the 18 workers Trump fired last year after reports revealed the extent

of undocumented labor at Trump's properties. The Trump organization's response is that migrant workers are lying and submitted fake identification to obtain employment. Yeah. In a related case, a federal judge this week has allowed a lawsuit filed by congressional Democrats against Trump's private business for violation of the

emoluments clause to move forward. The emoluments clause is that pesky rule that just allows a president from benefiting personally from the office of the presidency. It's why previous presidents, you know, they open blind trusts so that they aren't in charge of their own businesses or they sell their businesses off like Jimmy Carter. It's why previous presidents, you know, they open blind trusts so that they aren't in charge of their own businesses or they sell their businesses off like Jimmy Carter. So his peanuts are a favorite key little example. Yeah. Him and his peanuts. Yeah. I think there was an old anecdote that Ben Franklin had a picture frame that was given to him by King George, I think, and he had to give it back or ask Congress for permission to keep it. And some, I'm sorry, go ahead. I don't think that that's a real story, but it's just cute.

Yeah, something, a real story about Carter is that he, you know, built houses, right, with him, it's halved half for humanity. And someone posted a meme like a, like a real president building like a real, you know, walls, like just like, it's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Actually building things. Yeah.

So this decision came down from the US district Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan, who adopted a very broad definition of the emoluments clause. And it could set the stage for congressional Democrats to begin seeking documentation from the Trump organization. The Department of Justice will likely appeal the lawsuit, but in his nearly 50-page opinion, Sullivan denied Trump's motion to dismiss the case, and rejected Trump's narrow definition of emoluments, finding it, quote, unpersuasive and inconsistent. This is one of two landmark cases against Trump for emoluments.

The other was filed in Maryland by the attorney's general in DC in Maryland, but the Justice Department successfully temporarily blocked subpoenas for financial records related to Trump's DC hotel in that case. This lawsuit brought by over 200 Democrats, alleged Trump has received payments for hotel rooms and events from foreign governments, as well as licensing fees paid by foreign governments for his show the apprentice and intellectual property rights in China. Hmm. Goddamn, dude.

William Barr is going to need to like do some doctor shit And just deflect all these things coming from like all around Definitely Bapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapap So yeah, maybe Bannon can help him out with that. Yeah, he's a bad guy. He's still curious about that, not to. Yeah, the acid-filled hot tub, Bannon's hot tub. I'm party-gone wrong or something. Hot tub, cremation. Totally. We think this case is the first time federal judges have interpreted the emoluments clause and applied its restrictions to a sitting president. So it's pretty historic.

And if the name Emmett Sullivan sounds familiar, it should, because he's the judge handling the case Against Michael Flint. So if you remember when Michael Flynn was at that sentencing hearing a while back and the judge was like Has anyone thought about treason? And the government was like We talked about that later, bro. Yeah, and then and then he's like you know Michael Flynn's like yeah I'm ready to be sentenced in the judges. Like, all right, are you? Because you don't want me to do this today. Right.

Because I just read everything under those redacted bars. You don't want me to, you should go forth and try to cooperate more. He's like, no, we're ready. And he's like, dude, really? Are you sure? He did a solid really just like constantly asking him. Yeah, I think he asked him five times.

It was what was reported, at least what I've think from what I remember seeing on Mato. But yeah, that's the same judge. So he read Trump's motion to dismiss and went and you're full of shit. That's like when your friend is like, slap me in the face, just do it, just do it. Are you sure? I really don't want to do this.

And the new pen slap, and they never forgive you. Yeah, just sit on the curb and you're like, gotta go. Right? Also this week, the Washington Post got a hold of a letter written by Bob Mueller to bill bar about his handling of the investigation findings. And I'll go over that in hot notes. And we have an update on popodopolis. In New York Times report Thursday, we learned that in September of 2016, the FBI sent an informant who went by the name, Osir to meet with Papadopoulos to discuss foreign policy issues.

This is five months after he drunk bragged to the Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, and two months after Australia called up and told us about it. This is an after because July 30th is when the investigation into the four dudes was opened up, the counterintelligence investigation into pop it up, page, Flynn, and Manafort was open. Right. So when you, later on in the show with the interview with McCabe, he's going to go over that timeline, that's sort of where you can plug this in is after he drunk bragged, after pop it up, drunk bragged, after they opened the investigation, then September, they sent

this informant out. Got it. This is a previously unreported detail in the counterintelligence investigation, which has become a political talking point of Trump allies who say the FBI spied on the Trump campaign. But the decision to employ Ms. Turk is indicative of the level of alarm within the FBI when they were trying to determine the scope of Russia's attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. Ms. Turk was deployed to London to help oversee the operation and work alongside longtime FBI informant

and Cambridge professor Stefan Halper. She was there to provide an extra layer of oversight and gather information for any prosecution that might have emerged from the case. The operation, the total operation, didn't yield any fruitful intelligence, but the FBI calls these activities legal and carefully considered under the extraordinary circumstances.

Remember, there would have been no investigation. Had we not gotten several pieces of evidence that Trump, the Trump campaign, was working with the Russians to interfere in the election. The operation has been under investigation by the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who is set to release his findings this month, May or June. That's that. This should give Trump more reason to talk about how he was spied on. Right, but spied on for good reason, you know, legally spying on someone. Well, that and I think this is too complex for his base to understand. So I don't think he's

going to touch it. There's been a few things that have happened over the past two years where we're like, oh my god, Trump's going to run with this. And he hasn't. Yeah. Because he doesn't really point to specific instances, more so just words or phrases, he can repeat right over and over again anyway. So just throw this under the umbrella of the term spying that he puts on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you can't boil it down to a two word marketing brand, he won't put it in.

Yeah. He won't put it in a spy gate. Oh, yeah. It was what it was. It's good example. Now I think they've they've switched over to it's done. I've heard them repeat that over and over again with the Mueller investigation and trying to block all the congressional oversight saying it's done. It's done. We're not going to,

it's done. That's their new thing. I hope it backfires. So you'll hear a lot of probably Twitter bots and it's done. Get over it. Poor Gates, man. They really get like a bad rep and all this white color crams. Everything's gate. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Spy gate. Why is that? Because water gate, the name of the business, it's literally just that. Just because of that. Yeah. It's just like a spin-off. Yeah. Because water gate was the name of the hotel. The Colt White. That's so interesting what that means that we hang on to that. I'm trying to think of an example, like in another case where we do this.

And I'm sure there are some, but I'm just blanking. But yeah, like, he's collective human, like, yeah, like linguistically, what threshold does something have to rise to before we would associate it with that specifically? Oh, right. And it's funny that the Republicans are using the gate suffix to defend themselves when it was Republicans during Watergate who were guilty. That's so funny. Times have changed.

Yeah. Crimes. So it's just, it's a weird thing for anyone to use, but that is how significant the Watergate scandal was. Yeah, yeah. It is responsible for naming all future gates after that. Yeah, it was a live then Um

Crazy time. I know. I know. Well, you've got like we're you got it now You got your own Yeah, but I wish I could experience both of them so I could like compare the two, you know Yeah, what are you I love talking to people that were around here like Joe wine banks when she was on our show Yeah, totally All right Also this Thursday attorney general bill bar was set to appear before the House Judiciary Committee.

But he had threatened not to show up if that committee was going to move forward with having a lawyer question him at the end for 30 minutes instead of just the members at five minutes each. So Thursday came and bar didn't show up. But Steve Cohen, a representative from Tennessee, was there with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a ceramic statue of a chicken,

which he perched at the table in front of buyer's empty seat. I thought this was hilarious, though we did get several emails chastising us for laughing at the joke, citing that our democracy isn't serious trouble, and this is not the time for chicken shenanigans. Do they know what we do? Yes, but I'm not the podcast for them then. But guys, humor is important in any democracy. Comedy speaks truth to power.

And we aren't in any word shape then we would have been head Cohen not made the joke. Yeah, if we don't laugh at the chickens, we're chickens. In fact, exactly, it drew attention and scrutiny to the fact that Barr decided not to show up for questioning. I mean, think about it. That story might have come and gone without note had he not placed a chicken there.

So my hat's off to him for capitalizing on hilarity and shining a light on the attorney generals failure to show up and answer questions Yeah, definitely it was really cute though when he would go on all like the new shows and he'd bring the chicken with him Like he was really dragging out the bit But it's such a dad or grandpa joke like just having a little chicken in his hand. Yeah, they didn't milk it Yeah, top of Congress totally and then someone said, what's the message you're trying to bring? He's like, well, the message is that bar is a chicken. It's pretty fucking clear. If you missed it, what's funny is Fox News

had a different take with their frequent guests, I think in their hosts on some Fox show, Diamond and Silk, who called this Dunkin' Is. Racially insensitive. Okay, these ladies. These ladies. These ladies. Wait, to white people?

Yeah, the white guy who brought chicken to make fun of the white guy is the... These two black women. Diamond and silk, they're, I guess, related. They're either sisters or just friends. Yeah, are they? I didn't know. Okay, I didn't know them then, but I see them pop up.

They're really right in this wave. Like, maybe this is a chance they believe what they're saying, but I get the vibe that they are just like, kind of what Tommy Lauren is doing, just like just riding this wave of radicalization and they're being like the token black people for Fox News and they're just milking it really. You're saying the fried chicken is sensitive

because I have no idea how. Because of its association with like the stereotypes of black people in America. Well, if that's the connection, I didn't explain it, but that was the inference to me. But no black people were involved in it. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

Like their trolls, their professional trolls, they must know what they're doing. I don't think they're stupid. I think they're shameless. That's the question. Yeah. Our diamond and silk people like that, Tommy Laren, Jacob Will,

do these people actually, Roger Stone, fully believe what they're doing, or are they just capitalizing off of? They're just cashing checks, because you give enough money to the wrong person and they will make these decisions. And the reason I think that that's the truth is because that's what they accuse us of.

And Republicans tend to, at least in the Roger Stone theory of Roger Stone theory of how to be a troll, they deny and then attack you for doing what they do. Totally. Yeah, because they know it's plausible, because they're doing it. So when they call it grifters riding the wave of Mueller to do whatever, it's probably they're doing the exact same thing. Exactly.

And I think even if we are technically riding the wave of Muller Yes, his names and our title we talk about him. It's for different reasons than why they do their things like it's you know For whatever benefits we get from this. I do feel like it's connected to a higher purpose and for them It's purely selfish in my opinion All of our money goes back into the show it goes to our getting health care for everybody it goes to you Yeah, we're not balling on a control, you know? But these guys, I mean, they're millionaires and if you earn it and you do right by people no shame in that, but I mean, coming from Roger Stone, it's like, I'm going to talk about

this later too, I got the whole hot note on him, it's just hypocrisy at its finest. Yeah, these Fox News people are method actors and crisis actors. Yeah, the method actors, the method is madness and that's all they fucking do. It's just really go to the bit. Yeah, they get money from it. So I think that it's for sure you have to start at some level of a conservative, right, to do that.

Of course, but there's no goddamn way that they believe all that should be. Right. Like Alex Jones doesn't either. He admitted it. Yeah, he called himself a performance artist. Yeah. Oh, yeah, when he got sued. Even before then, I think, right?

Or maybe not, but I think. And kicked off of something. I think he was just at that point telling the truth. Like some of them lighted cover their asses, but that's something I truly believed from him. Like it seemed genuine. He's like, I'm not doing this because I believe I'm doing this for money.

I'm like, oh, wow, a little honesty there. Yeah, so you just have to wonder. It's very strange. But yeah, Jesus Christ. Yeah, so Diamond and Silk, racially insensitive with Cohen and his bucket of chicken. No, they didn't have anything to say about Steve King's disparaging remarks when he compared himself suffering to that. Oh, Jesus Christ. No, yeah. I can't make this shit up, you guys. It's probably in their contract not to say bad things about white people a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. Super dumb. Also this week we got to see a scathing letter that the White House lawyer Emmett T. Flood wrote to Bill Barr on April 19th. So this is just a couple weeks ago. In that letter, Flood slammed Bob Mueller's report calling it deeply flawed and said that Trump's decision to let advisors cooperate with the Mueller probe does not extend to congressional oversight investigations. But it's obvious to me that Trump waived executive privilege when he allowed the advisors to cooperate fully with the Mueller investigation. This letter is an indication that Trump is going to assert executive privilege at every

turn, which we had concluded months ago when we reported Trump hired a team of 17 lawyers whose sole purpose was going to be claiming executive privilege about pretty much every oversight matter that came up. Flood's letter said that the Mueller report itself suffers from an extraordinary legal defect because he didn't render a judgment on whether or not to prosecute president. But we all know that had Mueller drawn those conclusions, Trump allies in the Department of Justice

would be citing the policy that disallows a sitting president to be indicted. No win scenario. The scariest part of this letter is that it provides a potential justification for an investigation into the investigation. Specifically leaks about conversations between Flynn and Kisley, saying that government officials engage in a campaign of illegal leaks against the president. Whole area is coming from the party of Devon Nunez.

Yeah, illegal leaks too. Gets me every time. I just still waiting for that PP tape, man. Who's going to leak the P tape? Finally, we have a lot of deadlines coming up this week. You should be aware of tomorrow. Monday Cohen is set to report to prison. So put some beans on Lanny Davis, pulling some kind of last minute rabid out of his hat. As of this recording, they haven't, but we should look for it.

Also Monday, you know, you know, how he did this last. Well, I can you do not go to prison because I'm helping. She's going to be like a freaking cat gonna tub just completely on the doorways like no. It's also a pussy. Oh, there I go again. Puss up. Yeah, push up. There we go. Let's see here.

Also Monday is the deadline for Steve. I don't call him Steve and Steve Manuchin. He set this deadline for himself to respond to the House Wayne's ways and means committees demand for Trump's tax returns, May 6th, he said. And that's a law, I don't know how he's going to avoid it. But Monday is also the deadline for Jerry Nathler to get the full under-dacted copy of the Mueller report he asked for the second time. And keep in mind, all these set and reset deadlines are the legal means to set up an exhaustion of due process so that when these cases are litigated in court,

the Democrats can say they tried everything. Remember, Jason, when you did the report on, I think, serving a subpoena to Kushner? Oh, yeah, we tried to get it. Oh, actually, Kushner was the one that we tried to, they tried to go to all his different properties. Yeah, yeah. Right, and the reason they do that is so that when they go to court and say, you know, we exalt,

we did our due diligence. Right. We did everything we could. And that's an important thing to establish in these cases. It takes time, too. And I understand everyone's kind of impatient to get this shit done. But we have to sort of set up this idea that we have tried everything. The Democrats have tried gone to the ends of the earth to get

what they need to do their investigation. That way when the judge sees it, they go, yeah, you did try everything. Yeah, their case is there for it. I have to force you to force them to hand this stuff over. Hold on. So sorry about it taking time. That's just how it goes. Tuesday is the deadline to hand over documents in a White House subpoena. And Trump said he blocked that subpoena, but we haven't heard anything yet. And I think those are the McGahn documents and of course May 14th is the court hearing for May's ours friendly subpoena and May 22nd is the court hearing for Deutsche Bank in capital one friendly subpoenas So we'll keep keep you posted on those and speaking of White House Democrats a late breaking story today from Ross Story and MSNBC indicates that Amarosa, Maginot Newman, former advisor to Trump and co-star of the apprentice alleges the White House likely destroyed five boxes of emails that

were supposed to go to Mueller's team. Now, boxes of emails, yeah, like printed out. Sounds strange. No, we know from Mueller in his report in the limitations section in volume one that Mueller was unable to obtain a lot of documentary and witness testimony because of a wholly uncooperative White House basically. Well, Amaro is a told Reverend Al Sharpton this weekend, I think it's important to realize that very early on in the administration we got letters directing us to preserve all information related to the Mueller investigation, all investigations, any information, any emails, and any correspondence, any text messages. We had a clear directive to preserve those documents, preserve the emails, preserve the text

messages. So I thought it was very interesting that after my discussion with General Kelly in the situation room, when I went to take my things, I was instructed that I had to leave seven boxes of documents that came from the campaign, the inauguration, the transition, and that they wouldn't allow me to get them. What's very curious to me is that as I stated, it was seven boxes of documents, but they only referred to two, which leads me to believe they've destroyed the other five. Now, I don't know how much credibility I give to Amorose here, but it does fall in line with what the Mueller report stated in his findings about not getting all the evidence he needed

So I'm I'm not gonna put beans on this, but it wouldn't it would also wouldn't surprise me Right, I'm sorry. I'm confused. So how is it not backed up on a disc or something somewhere? That's the thing Files is that did they print them out delete them electronically and shred them in which case why would you print them out? And then we just wanted to kill the trees. They just wanted to get that in their own. Just kill trees in their fair time. While we're here, let's just kill the earth faster. And then we know that the transition emails were all gotten by Muller through the GSA.

I remember when Giuliani put that lawyer in the GSA General Services Administration, that's the agency that's responsible for all of the presidential transition emails. Right, not the gay straight alliance. Right, not the gay straight alliance. And then that lawyer died and they forgot so Mueller just went in and asked for the stuff and they gave it to him and Trump was like no! Right, so are you dude? He did the cracks, that corpse.

Totally did. What a dick. That's the only reason Trump cried his funeral. Oh, he didn't even go. No, he wouldn't. If he didn't even go. No, he wouldn't. If he didn't, he'd have invited no one once many more. It's a fucking drunk aunt that fucks everything up. That's why he didn't know the guy died.

It was not invited. That's right. Yeah. God, that's terrible. Anyway, guys, those are just the facts. We'll be right back with hot notes. Hey, guys, as you all know, I battle with secondary anxiety from PTSD. And for a long time, I was looking for something other than facts will be right back with hot notes. to promote a state of balance in the mind and in the body, and now you can try it and get 20% off your first order by visiting sagelynatrals.com slash AEG. CBD can be found in everyday plants like broccoli and kale, but it's most abundant in hemp, and sagely natural extracts

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All right, welcome back today. Jordan, you're going to go over attorney general bars testimony to the Senate. What a wonderful time. What a day it was. But first, Julie, so you have an update on Roger Stone? A couple of them, actually. I do, yes. So on Friday, we learned that a series of Roger Stone briefs were filed by the

US Attorney for DC, Jesse Liu, along with two other attorneys who used to work on Mueller's team, Adam Jed and Aaron Zalinsky, basically the Justice League. So these guys filed the briefs to respond to Stone's ridiculous efforts to one, have his indictment dismissed. Two, demand access to the full Mueller report. Three, his claim that he was basically being profiled and for his argument that Mueller's appointment was inappropriate. He's being profiled. Right.

Like for his head shape. Yeah, I'm personally offended by that one. And he's won a talk because as we reported, Stone was charged in January with obstructing the House Intelligence Committee's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. So when it comes to being inappropriate, don't go through and roger stones in the glass house.

Not to mention, he was also charged with making five fall statements to the committee in one count of witness tampering. Of course, Stone has pleaded not guilty to these charges. He even referenced Barr's 19-page bullshit memo supporting his argument that the case should be dismissed. But Mueller's team said Stone Miss Stone Missed Represident bars Mimo. In other words, he got them fucked up. In response, these federal prosecutors argued in the filings that Mueller does not need to prove conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign in order to prove

that Roger Stone obstructed Congress's investigation. Okay, so that's still their whole defense is that if there's no underlying crime, you can't obstruct justice. Exactly. Specifically, they said, quote, to establish the defendant's guilt of the crimes which with which he is charged The government is not required to prove the existence of a conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere in the US presidential election And while the statement completely contradicts Rudy Giuliani's tweet from last week to be fair even Giuliani contradicts Giuliani's tweet from last week to be fair, even Giuliani contradicts Giuliani, so I'm sure he'll understand. And just in case he missed it, Rudy tweeted from his bad boy cave, that quote, an obstruction case where there is no proof of an underlying crime as questionable, if you add to it nothing actually obstructed it, there's no case.

And then he went back into his cocoon. Prosecutors also said quote, while the Department of Justice is... It's like I'm not... Right, slime all over. Yeah. Right. Slime, I'm too ready to eat. And then crawl back into his cave. I can just see it now. Transforming into my finance.

And then, spun the web out of his butthole and crawl back is. Nice. And, and prosecutors also say, quote, while the Department of Justice's position is that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would impermissibly undermine the capacity of Justice's position is that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would, and permissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch

to perform its constitutionally assigned functions, it also takes the position that a criminal investigation during the president's term is permissible, which is a pretty big deal. They're basically saying that if the Constitution prevented the president from being investigated while in office, then the government would not be able to properly preserve evidence while the memories and documents are still fresh and available. They also mentioned that without investigation, how could the president even be formally cleared of any wrongdoing?

Furthermore. This is so simple, guys. It really is. Trump and his campaign did actually conspire with the Russians. They just couldn't find the evidence because it was either deleted or they would plug the stuff or they lied, or they destroyed boxes of emails. And so there was actually an underlying crime, just not enough evidence to prove it.

Yeah. And so there was reason for Trump to want to obstruct justice. If there wasn't, he wouldn't have said, oh my god, my presidency is over. So I'm fucked. Exactly. That's motive right there. That is what is that called guilty consciousness of guilt? So it's super basic and totally obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Yeah, totally legal, totally cool. Totally legal, totally cool. Furthermore, prosecutors argued that Stone was mistaken because, quote, the investigation was not specific to the president and the indictment itself related to Stone's behavior not Trump's. They even cited the Nixon investigation as a reference, they said, quote, merely investigating a president, his campaign or others who worked with them raises no such difficulties. Prosecutors also argued against Stone's efforts to transfer his case from his current judge,

Amy Berman Jackson, or Judge Jackson of Unasty, and as we know, she was also the judge for the Manafort case where he ended up in jail. So, what's up, Roger? You scared maybe a little bit. And while Stone claims that his case has not related to Manafort's trial, the prosecutors disagree, obviously. They say that because Stone's false statements to the Congressional Committee were regarding a Russian intelligence officer who was suspected to be the guy in charge of the whole hacking operation, then yeah, maybe his case is related to the Russia case after all. And prosecutors also argue that Stone should not receive access to the full unreliable report

because it isn't evidence in his case. Not to mention, they've already given his legal team all the evidence he needs. However, Stone's request to see the full report is still to be determined by the federal court. Yeah, why does he need to see it? He sees a little shit. And Jackson denied twice when asked if he could be like removed from or not you know you know D related to the Russian and I mean no man come on yeah yeah yeah I'd

like what would he even do with that underdaction information and show Trump if he hasn't seen it already yeah but there's I don't know I think if anyone if it's there's no good reason for him to get it I want it I mean I think everyone wouldn would want it. I mean, I think everyone would want it, but like, what makes you think you deserve it? Right? He's not asking. He thinks he deserves everything. I get why he would want it as just like the trolley carnival

citizen man that he was before, but right. Carnival citizen man. Nice. Him and Juliana could do like a whole six flash commercial. I'm telling you. Yeah, he's going to get the report and like loan himself into a candidate and shoot himself over the restaurant. Totally. Yeah, it's the whole world flash commercial. I'm telling you. Yeah, he's gonna get the report and like loan himself into a candidate and shoot himself over the rush. Totally.

Yeah, it's due to the whole world of favors. I'm keeping this here forever. Yeah, and he just had a gag order. So it's like, why are you asking for like more information? You can't even trust it with like the information was given to you already. Like, yeah, exactly. And it's like, yeah, that's I guess what I was gonna say

is now the state that he exists in right now. There's no way in hell he would ever you or should ever even think about doing anything with any information Exactly the thin thin like veil of morals Well, just yeah, I mean his inability to shut up. Oh, yeah, yeah freedom is on such thin ice right now It's like I was pushing it go anywhere's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it.

He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it.

He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it.

He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's pushing it. He's I'm already fun going to prison. My is well be famous. My is well be able to get a book deal out of it. My is well be able to et cetera, et cetera. Et cetera. Can you publish your book from prison? Oh yeah, yeah. Most people do, right? I guess not most. But those that can do. I sure did.

No. Okay. That's what you're looking at a freestyle. It's like wool. It's like these guys who just don't give a shit about the law. He's under investigation for his shirt fire intelligence bullshit. Yeah. He's writing book from prison for sure. Oh, yeah. Um, and he needs a he needs a ghost

writer because I don't think I can read. Um, ghost writer for Roger Stone and Jacob Wool. That's great. How do you do? Do they give this is gonna sound fucked up? But do they like allow you that much access to paper and freedom? If you're rich in time, if you're rich in white and and you're straight in a white color jail. Hell yeah, I'm sure. Oh yeah. Think about Epstein.

He didn't even have to fucking spend the day there. Right, exactly. It's like boarding school for rich white guys. Yeah. Yeah. Discipline to them. Not really. Oh, no, not at all.

And everyone there has parents, I didn't love them also. And I think this does speak a lot about the lack of deterrence for committing white collar crime because the punishments are so lame. Yeah, slap on the wrist. You get the sweet, sweet hotel jail or maybe even not, you can totally sell your entire country

out, sell it the entire democracy. You'll get seven years. And I guess for someone like them that is oppression, like being in a jail, even though we see it as like a slap on the wrist. But yeah, some of them must know that they're definitely getting off easy either that or they're like well They're gonna seize all my assets so I go to jail. It's a nice jail I don't have to pay rent. I can work out. I have some hot meals probably watch cable

Yeah, right my book get back out make a million dollars. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just don't get a second tattoo in there You can complete the whole like Nixon tattoo make the whole body Trump right into the Nixon Trump yeah stickin book Nice yeah, I'm some dick twilight wine. Yeah, man. It's a good life big dick twilight They get the real stuff though those privilege fucks. Yeah, yeah, probably Mm-hmm. All right. Well, thanks for that update. Um, god damn it Roger Stone. You're so weird a memoir a Memoir that's my book god damn it Roger Stone, you're so weird. That's a memoir. That's my book. Goddamn it Roger Stone, you're so weird.

You're so weird. My daughter is easy. And then the subtitle is, how Roger Stone is so goddamn weird. It's creepy. Why not, man, why not? All right Jordan, let's talk about Bill Barr's testimony shall we? Because this was a fascinating day. Yeah, really, really, really big day. Probably one of the biggest days in the

Malar investigation in a long time, right? Or a couple weeks, I guess. It's been a fast-moving one. It's been a fast-moving one. It's been 84 years. A couple weeks is a long time in this thing. It really is. Yeah, but the fixer general, William Barr, he testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in what was pretty much the biggest puppet show. He's put on for Congress so far, I think

His ass must be very sore from having Trump's hand up it for so many hours It was insane if you missed it the purpose of his testimony was to discuss Mueller's Russia probe and its findings As well as bars rolling out of those findings to Congress to public and ultimately Trump himself There were a lot of peak stupid moments in the hearing So I'm just going to cover some highlights. But first off, this hearing was an extra big deal because it came on the heels of the revelation that Mueller himself had sent a letter to Barr, complaining that Barr, quote, did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of the special counsel's findings when he released that four-page moment. Also, the quote ended somewhere in the middle of that sentence.

when he released that four-page memo, also the quote ended somewhere in the middle of that sentence. But what he released that four-page memo on March 24th, announcing that the president was innocent basically. Before the full report was released, we all know this very well. We also learned that Mueller followed the letter, well, Mueller did not follow up. Bar said that he called Mueller after he got the letter and they had a conversation in which Mueller

expressed his concern explicitly that the media was now mischaracterizing his offices findings in that it was creating public confusion, essentially, about all of the office's work. So Bar defended his actions to the committee. Right? He goes on the whole time. That's basically what he was doing. He was defending himself and defending Trump. to the committee, right? He goes on the whole time.

That's basically what he was doing. He was defending himself and defending Trump. He was saying it was up to him what was to be done with the special counsel's findings after Mueller handed it over to him and that the letter seemed a bit snooty, he says. Yeah, and the thing that also got me was when he said once the report was done, it was handed over to me.

It was my baby. That's right. It's very gross. Yes, very gross. And I also, I particularly hate that he said, once the report was done, it was handed over to me, it was my baby. That's right. It's very gross. Yes, very gross. And I also, I particularly hate that he said, Snippy, I think that's just so incredibly disrespectful. That's such a, and it was probably written by one of his staffers or something like that.

Like, first of all, first of all, why are you insulting his staffers? And second of all, yeah, I think Bob Mueller is anything but Snippy. Exactly. He's been nothing but fair to his puppet master. And also, this is like Bob Mueller you're talking about, not fucking Regina George.

So don't say some shit like Snippy. Like you didn't lose it, we're going colluding. Yeah, exactly. And like stop acting victimized, right? And keep your shit talking to your lunch table with McDonald Trump. Nice. Whoa.

You can't sit with us. Can't wear pink on Wednesdays. Jazz, we're on fire, man. Thank you, Jordan. What ultimately transpired? It was even go here. Yeah. Mean girls forever.

Yeah. The most quote, the most quote of all time. My husband just finally watched it. Really? And you can imagine, like my old ex punk rock, former Reagan Republican, beardy, you know, the original hipster husband. And we're generally hipster- So your husband?

Dying laughing at Mean Girls and he's like, why have I never seen this? I had no idea what's so funny. It's so funny. My girlfriend just saw the Matrix for the first time. Some people just relate. That's like 20 years. Well, you think Mean Girls, I'm not gonna watch that.

It's a chicks flick, but it's not. It's more relatable now than ever. It's polar and fake. Oh my God. Have you seen a little video of Mean Girls when Regina's throwing the Burnbook pages out and someone put the Mueller report? And it just made it seem like everyone else

like scrambling around her and chaos was like Sarah Sanders and bar crying on the steps. I gotta send you that link. Oh my God. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Good shit. Bill Bill bars like coach car Exactly step away from the young girls or Trump or broke any of those guys

Oh, yeah, so racist diamond and silk hey, you know what? I'm gonna eat my chicken over here But so Are we done with me girls? I think it might happen more, but you know, okay, I don't want to cut any trans thought here. But so what ultimately transpired in this hearing was basically two separate hearings, right? One for the Dems to try to get answers on why Bar World the report out like he did and why he didn't heed Mueller's request to release the summaries to the public. And then the other hearing, which is the one for the Republicans, who wanted to play those broken records about the origins of the Russia probe and the handling

of the Hillary investigation, the oranges, the oranges of the investigation. So that was a big preface to all of these highlights. I'm just just gonna go down the line here from the hearing. So number one, bar. A.G. just put the little pop Phillips around her face. It was like, you've been drinking. Have you, or is that the whole bottle was yours? There's an empty bottle here too. That's for a few days.

Oh, okay, good, good. You're in a onesie, you're feeling loose tonight. Yes, well, I love it. I have my coffee. Yeah, we're in my onesie. It's Sunday. It's Sunday. It's Sunday, one Z, I love it. I have my coffee. Yeah, where am I onesie? It's Sunday. It's Sunday.

Sunday, onesie. I dig it. Doesn't rhyme. It's good. I'm not writing pants. That's right. It's a no pants party. Yes, yes.

That's what she wrote. Yeah. You're the only one who wants to pants today. That's true. That's backwards. Yeah. That's backwards day. You can't sit with us.

That's good. I love it. So. So highlight. highlight, here we go. Number one, Bar really leaned into his use of the word spying and doubled down on that characterization of the probe into the Trump campaign. It's not pejorative. It's not pejorative. Yeah, claiming that it wasn't supposed to be taken in any sort of a negative way and

it wasn't to, you know, insinuate anything nefarious. He was just, but still, wouldn't back down from using that word. That is. Did you notice how he used another word to describe his word that probably Trump supporters wouldn't understand? So he comes out and says it on his,

he used the word spying. It's not pejorative. And then Trump's words like, yeah, wait, what? He used another word to, and I feel like that's disguising what he actually did. Because if he came out and said it's not a negative word, people might go, hey, kind of is a negative connotation, but if he's not purgeordive, they can go, yeah, turn to general says it's not purgeord. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, cat Williams has a joke about this where he says they use the term insurgent to confuse civilians. Like, we killed about, you know, a thousand insurgents are like, oh, that's fine. I don't have any insurgent to confuse civilians. Like, we killed about 1,000 insurgents. They're like, oh, that's fine. I don't have any insurgent friends. You know? Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, totally. I also feel like it's one of those things where, like, if you're saying something offensive, you know, and someone, and you, like, you personally can't understand why it's offensive, but other people are like, hey, Braille, that's offensive. Just don't say it. Unless you have some sort of a personal stake

in using that word, which he does, then you should have no reason to not use that word offensive. Just don't say it unless you have some sort of a personal stake in using that word, which he does, then you should have no reason to not use that word anymore. Exactly. And obviously he does have reason to. So yeah, don't buy his bullshit. Obviously. He's over arcing theme of his existence. Okay.

Number two, highlight. He defended his decision to roll out that March 24th letter saying that he didn't believe the report show. Trump had done anything that would amount to obstruction. So he's not backing up from that obviously. Saying it was great. Great decision. All mine.

All my own. I'll be not directed by anyone else to do that. Number three, Bar said that since Trump found the probe to be unfair, there was no corrupt motive in Trump trying to fire Mueller, which would, in, you know, so many words, absolve Trump essentially of doing anything that was, again, nefarious. But we know that that is also bullshit. So still can't do that. And that is yet to be determined or at

least yet to be enforced. But Congress get on that shit because that's not okay. And number four. So he says, stop trying to make spying happen. It's not gonna happen. We should have a segment called Congress get on that shit. Get on that shit. This song could be get down on it. No, it's not gonna work. It's too to near. Yeah, no worries. Sorry guys Okay, fourth highlight. He says that he sees no conflict between Trump fully cooperating with Mueller and the shit that he tried to pull with Cory Lewandowski He says that those things can exist and apparently not to be related to each other. As a reminder, the thing that he did with Cordley Mdowski, this is when Trump asked a private citizen at the time to go and limit the scope essentially, or I should say the time frame in which Mueller was to

investigate Trump and Trump. Oh, that's right. By telling you said to tell him to go tell. He can only investigate. You can only investigate the future. Yeah. Yes. I'm from the future. Yes. In the year 2000.

Yes. And then obviously, Cory Lewedasski doesn't do that because anyone with a brain on their head would not. And also, he's a private citizen and has zero fucking authority to do that anyway. Seriously. And he told Mueller has zero fucking authority to do that anyway. Seriously. And he told Mueller, I was asked to do that. That's the only way Mueller could have known that unless he got notes from Annie Donaldson

or Preb as the mole or something. Preb as the mole. Someone should do a sketch and be SNL where like Trump gets a peanut from the future. That would be great. Yeah, yeah. Born. Yeah, porn. But so, yeah, bar, bar saying, acknowledging the fact that that stuff happened, but that that does not constitute trying to get in the way of Mueller's investigation, which I can.

What is then? What would be obstruction of justice? I don't know. Or does he think that it is obstruction of justice for regular people, but not the president? That's what I was gonna say. It's like, as long as he's president, I don't think he believes he can obstruct, I think,

or a coffee or a game for him. Or what he could be saying, and he has said this, is that there's no underlying crime that you can't obstruct justice. So I don't know if it's that, or if a president can't obstruct justice or both. Like if he thinks he's unfairly being investigated, then the investigation is like, make believe. Right. Because he did say that, right? And his testimony, he said, look,

the president felt he was being falsely accused. He's allowed to try to stop those kinds of investigations. Right. Yeah. Because this is even worse. This isn't even about like his own decisions on whether or not he abstracted justice. This is just him saying that this is taking two facts or not facts because one of them is blatantly untrue. One of them being that he fully cooperated. The other being that he did not cooperate. And regardless of whatever judgment

he's making on those actions, he's saying that those two can exist together in an unusually exclusive way and they just cannot. Because you just can't acknowledge that both of those things are conflict by their own nature, empirically. They can't be together and be true at the same time. Fucking idiot. I love that. I love the fury, Jordan. empirically they can't be together and be true at the same time fucking I love that I love the fury Jordan

So then logic you pissed off about some logic shit. Yes, it's just so it's so I use okay, I took a Philosophy like logic class just like an intro one when in college that all it was like a symbolic logic class, just like an intro one in college, that all, it was like a symbolic logic class where it just, you know, like teaches you, it's very similar to geometry and proofs and stuff. Just like you can't have these two things, you just can't exist at the same time, or this is a stromand argument, or this is a, you know, yeah, they teach you all those term, all that terminology and yes, for what you can't logically say and call yourself logical. Right, right. And that class was like so fascinating to me because it essentially gives a like mathematical you know, components to statements and arguments.

Right, like somebody on Twitter had said to me to prove that the report, the Mueller report, proved to him, show where and show where in the report that it it doesn't say Trump didn't collude and I go that Proof is the entire report if you're asking me to tell you that the report doesn't say something I can't show you where in the report. It doesn't say that right you just have to have the whole report I'm like how about you show me where in the report it says He there was no collusion right and he's like, no, no, that's not up to me. I'm like, technically, if you're trying to show me the report says something or then you have to show me where it says it, I can't show you where it doesn't say it. It's kind of like trying to prove God doesn't

exist. Yes. Right. It's the same logical fallacy where, and he's like, I win. And then he retweeted my tweet. And he's like, look, everyone, she can't tell me where it doesn't say this in the report. And I'm like, God. It says, read the whole report. It's not in there. There you go. And yes. That kind of...

Exactly. Oh my God. Why can't you understand? Yes. And that's what I found to be so fascinating about that whole idea of like the symbolic logic or whatever. But basically, just if everyone could speak that language and everyone could just look at it, you can literally prove how statements are untrue, and it's so frustrating that you can use language

like he does and like other people do to manipulate the truth out of what's right in front of your face. Yeah, Ash Rangapa calls it reflexive control. It's actually a Russian active measures trick. Oh. It's why they started to bring up the word collusion in the first place. So that because collusion's not a legal term,

at the end they could say there was no collusion. And we're all like, yeah, yeah, you're correct. They're, that there was, that's not a legal term. Right, they plotted this. They knew what they were not a legal term. Right. They plotted this. They knew what they were getting into. Absolutely. Yeah. All right.

Number five. So Barr also said that he couldn't recall if he discussed any of the ongoing cases stemming from the Mueller probe with the White House, which my phone I just realized auto corrected to the whore house. Nice. Keeping it real auto correct. Amazing. Okay. Keeping it real, auto correct. Amazing. Okay, number six.

Kamala Harris had an amazing moment where she'd try to learn the crap out of Barzass and got Bar to confirm that he did not read the underlying evidence of the Mueller report. Yeah, so she's like, so your letter concluded that the evidence doesn't show he obstructed justice and that's what you based your decision of no obstruction on but now you're telling me you didn't even see the underlying evidence. So how can you possibly say the evidence shows something when you haven't seen the evidence? He's like, yeah, because he said that he was just going off of what Mueller had told him and he was essentially just kind of taken what he

said and reiterating it on the other side. He was blessed. That's how it goes. The US attorney turns in the stuff to me and then I make the statement. And she's like, you didn't think it was important in this particular case, the one against the president of the United States, a hugely historical thing that you might want to look at an underlying evidence to make your decision on whether or not he obstructed justice. I don't need to. He was just broadcasting his incompetence basically yeah, and also to say that he was just

basically, you know recharacterizing something that Mueller had already said is a lie because Mueller did not make a judgment on him right so he went and made one on his own without looking at the evidence. He's like mumbling, you know, just a knowing to even listen to him. And then so Kamala has sent a letter to the IG, the Inspector General, to open up an investigation into whether Trump has asked the Department of Justice to investigate his political enemies, which is also a question that Barca didn't answer. So she had a really awesome day.

enemies, which is also a question that Bar could not answer. So she had a really awesome day. And was calling for his immediate resignation after that hearing. As was Pelosi. I think Pelosi came out of people. Yeah. Okay, number eight. I only got two more. So Bar said that he doesn't think Mueller handed off the obstruction decision to Congress. He made that explicitly clear. He doesn't think that that's the role of Congress and that's not what Mueller intended their role to be. That's literally what he said in the report. Or after he gets out of office, other prosecutors can do this. It's Congress or that. Yep. Like, okay. Yep. And final big highlights that I thought was worth noting is when bar was asked for the notes that he took on his phone call with Mueller. Barger's follow-up question. No. Yep. That was

literally the quote. No. Right, because Blue with I was questioning whether or not Mueller was actually blaming the media for the mischaracterization of bars for page memo and his subsequent letters after that and And and so he said this phone call was it memorialized but in and bar was like yes It's like can we may we see those notes? No, no, why not? Why should you have them? Yep, why should you have like how I am taking mother fucking oversight of your ass? That is why I should have them I love that they're doing these hearings despite the fact that like bar and his team are giving them anything because it still shows how like much of an asshole They are like it shows like the highest leaders of the land are just straight-up dicks. Trump supporters still thought bar one that whole thing

No, of course she barged take apart everybody today But moderate And it has cleaned up with after people that tune out the news maybe tuning into this will be like Oh, that's that bar guy. I don't like him. He didn't say right with me. Like, hopefully those people will read it that way. Yeah, independence.

Yeah. And then the final cherry on top of all of this was, of course, when bar now, so he would not show up to the House Judiciary Committee meeting the next day, that was scheduled. But hey, I get it. You know, it's like being the president's punching bag is tough and he needs a rest day before he goes back for another beating. So I can't blame him. Yeah, I mean, I can blame him a lot. So can sit up and solve it. Yeah, it's actually natural. Yeah, to get their organic plug. Yeah. Yeah. That's about it. So much more to come there because he's

not cooperating and Congress isn't having any of that shit. So we're going to see a lot of efforts to get him in there and to get Muller in there and we'll be hearing more. Yes indeed. Thank you, Jordan. Yes. So I'm gonna talk about this bar letter. We got some massive massive news this week when Washington Post, the Washington Post, got a hold of a letter that Robert Muller wrote to Bill Barr and the reason this is so incredible is that Muller was so troubled by Barr's handling of his findings that he felt it necessary to memorialize it in a letter or two letters actually. And Andrew McCabe and I will speak about this

a little bit later during the interview. It's called going to paper, but not only is this letter a referendum on the mischaracterization of Barr's summary of Mueller's findings, but it's a most we've heard from Mueller at one time. So let's go over this letter, which we will also include in our weekly newsletter for patrons. I got a picture of it for you. So this letter is dated March 27th. Written received March 28th, and whoever received it spelled received wrong. The letter opens, quote, I previously sent you a letter

dated March 25th,, 2019 that enclosed the introduction and executive summaries for each volume of the Special Counsel's report marked with redactions to remove any information that could potentially be protected by the federal rule of criminal procedure 6E, that's grand jury material, that concerned declination decisions or that related to a charged case. We also had marked an additional two sentences for review and have now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly. So

First off, we learned that this is actually Mueller's second letter to bar. Yeah, because the first line is yeah, I wrote you that letter March 25th. Well, I'm writing to you again saying those other two sentences are fine to release. He's following up. This is a second letter thorough. Right due diligence. He then straight up requests the bar released the enclosed redacted summaries to Congress and the public. Just, I'm requesting you release these. The letter goes on to say, as we stated in our March 5th meeting and reiterated to the department early on the afternoon of March 24th, the introductions and

executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarized this office's work and conclusions. The summary letter the department sent to Congress and released to the public late on the afternoon of March 24th, that's Bars' letter, did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work

and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the department on the morning of March 25th. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. There's threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel to assure full public confidence

in the outcome of the investigations. So he's now saying, your letter fucked shit up. And at threatens to undermine one of the central purposes of my appointment in the first place So he's developing these issues Putting them down on paper. So now we know they met March 5th Which is shortly after bar was appointed Confirmed we know they spoke March 24th and then they communicated about it again the morning of March 25th

Which is probably that first letter that he referred to that we haven't seen a letter continues Why we understand that the department is reviewing the full report to determine what is appropriate for public release, a process that our office is working with you to complete, the process need not delay the release of the enclosed materials. Release at this time would alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation. It would also accord with the standard for public release of notifications to Congress cited in your letter, quote, the attorney general may determine that public release of

congressional notifications would be in the public interest, unquote. So now he's using what Barr said to develop to deter, you know, to kind of lay out the groundwork of why he should release the enclosed materials. Also. Just poking holes in his entire argument, basically. Yeah, and laying his foundation for any future litigation that might arise from this. Nowhere does he mention the media, mischaracterization, which is Barr's whole thing. He said, Mueller, you know, was upset about the media's mischaracterization, not mine, but there's not mentioned in here at all.

Yeah, passing the bug. So now we have multiple occasions during which Mueller has asked Barr to release his summaries, including the meeting March 5th, and then again on March 24th before Barr issued his letter, then in a release, after the release on March 25th in the morning, then during a phone call, Bar testified to on March 25th. And again, in this letter on March 27th, all five times Bar ignored him and wrote his own misleading summary and then blamed the press several times

for mischaracterizing the findings. As you, like I said, you could see Mueller didn't mention the media in this letter at all. Bar testified that he asked Mueller on the phone if his letter was inaccurate, and he said Mueller said no. But accuracy and context are not the same thing. So sure, it's technically not inaccurate, right? But it's certainly misleading.

And as Mueller said, it fails to capture the substance and conclusions properly. What's extraordinary here is that weeks after he got all five, maybe more, requests from Mueller to release his summaries because Barr's letter missed the mark. Barr was asked in front of Congress if he knew what Mueller thought of his letter. And he said he didn't know. He was asked twice. And in a Dem Caucus meeting after his testimony this week, Pelosi pointed at Charlie Christ who asked him that question and said, he lied to you. And that was when Pelosi came out and declared that he committed a crime and should resign. Barton tends for Pelosi. Yeah, she's really a measured person.

After Bart's testimony this week, Lindsey Graham said he's not going to have McGann or Mueller testify, but then changed his mind, writing a letter to Mueller, asking if he felt bar misrepresented their phone conversation. Barr testified that Mueller said his letter was not inaccurate and that he blamed the media for the mischaracterization and Graham has told Mueller to please inform the committee if he'd like to provide testimony regarding any misrepresentation by Barr on the substance of that phone call. Do you think he will?

Maybe, or we could get the notes, or you could read his letter. It's pretty clear who he blames. So Graham doesn't want Mueller to testify, but he's giving him a chance to respond to that small part of his testimony, of Barr's testimony. I'm sure that Mueller will be testifying either in the House or the Senate in short order. In fact, I got news today. May 15th is the tentative date that they've set up for him to testify in the House. Okay, good, good.

And that the I'ds of May. And it is technically the I'ds. I'd fallen March, May, September. It is the I'ds of May. When do you think Barr would want to get in there before Mueller does then? You'd think, but no. He's completely lying. He can't even lube the truth at this point.

He's all out of lube. He's all out of lube. No, he wants to wait. Sorry, that you're going to go inside there. I was doing airs play. Maybe he wants to wait for Mueller to go in there and then he knows what he can mean. He needs to like, you know, negate. Yeah. And before we got that information that they agreed on in May 15th, we knew Mueller still technically works for the Department of Justice and has been available to testify but the Department of Justice has been slow-rolling Congress on setting a date,

which is possibly more interference and delay tactics used by Barr to keep his false narrative out there as long as possible. That's what they're pushing back the truth as long as possible so that this message of it's done and I'm innocent can sink in has time to cook, you know. And now Senate Dems in addition to Kamala Harris, are calling for an Inspector General investigation, like you said, into whether the White House has asked the Department of Justice to open any investigation into Trump's political opponents. Jordan, you talked about that.

In addition to that, Senate Dems are also calling for an IG investigation into Bars handling of the release of the Mueller report. This comes after the House asking for all the communications between Barr and Mueller. Remember, that was a while back. And I'm confident we will get to the bond with this, but is it too late, right? That first release of Barr's letter may have shut the door on reality for a lot of folks who either wanted to hear Trump was innocent or weren't invested enough to question Barr's interpretation of Mueller's findings. So we might be out here just trying to get at the truth for truth's sake alone, which is reason enough for me, so I'll continue to do it. Anyway, that's the amazing letter we got from Muller and stick around because we're

going to come right back here with the fantasy indictment league in sabotage, but then we have the interview with Andy McCabe and when we talk a little bit about Muller going to paper, so we'll be right back. Hey Muller junkies, this is A.G. here to sing the praises of Beta Brand, who says work appropriate can't be comfortable? Beta Brand wants you to look good and feel good even at the office. For a long time, I was hoping someone would make business casual feel like F-Lasierware. And now Beta Brand has the dress pant yoga pant, made a four-way stretch fabric that's

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All right guys, this week Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral for Eric Prince in a letter to Bill Barr, which is probably going to go nowhere. Schiff has said that in light of inconsistencies between Prince's testimony and what is in the Mueller report, he's making an official criminal referral for Prince for lying to Congress and therefore impairing the ability to investigate Russian influence in the 2016 election. Schiff pointed out six different times that there were discrepancies related to his efforts to set up a back channel between the Trump transition team and Russia. Prince's lawyer Matthew Schwartz says that Prince fully cooperated with Mueller and there's

nothing new for the Department of Justice to consider nor is there any reason to question the special counsel's decision to credit Prince and rely on him in drafting his reports. That's something we don't know is what the proffer session for Prince was like and if he helped Mueller and Mueller let him off the hook for lying or why Mueller didn't charge Prince with lying. Right. How bomb was that proffer? Yeah. Yeah. And it's probably in one of those one redacted 12 cases that were referred unless he didn't lie to Mueller and just to Congress, you know, and that's what makes up it for the discrepancies. And this is a conjecture, but I'm pretty sure a shift in Mueller communicate and that Mueller would have told shift if Prince wasn't charged because of his cooperation. I don't think shift would have made a referral after talking to Mueller about this.

For example, he has yet to refer Don Jr. or Kushner for a line to Congress, which both did, saying he's not prepared to move forward with those yet, but that the Prince crimes are ripe. So make the necessary adjustments to your fantasy indictment draft, and speaking of that, it is time to play the fantasy indictment league. Ooh. I'm gonna be a dite-it! No, it is gonna be a dite-it! Cite, dick! A dite-it!

Cite, a dite-it! Oh, they can't, it's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down, I'm gonna be a dite! Alright, Julie, so you get to pick first this week. Ooh, well, of course, Eric, Prince. No! You dick!

Alright, Jordan. Okay, uh, Trevor All right, Jordan. Okay, Trump and I, girl. Good one. I'm gonna go feel like Sater. Okay. Assange. All right. WikiLeaks.

Nice. Trump Organization. Yes. Okay. Weiselberg. Weiselberg for you. All right. Um. Carleline? Cool, of course. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right, let me see. Junior. Okay. Going high for the wild car. I know.

I'm selecting Pecker. Nice. Oh, I think I already had Pecker. Am I wrong? You have Weiselberg. Oh, okay, okay, great. Sorry. I'm terrible at organizing. I will go with, I think it's my last one too. Did you say am I yet? As usually you go to I'm gonna do am I yeah nice Paul Erickson. Okay. Oh good one. All right. I'm gonna wrap it up with a a critical plea deal. Yeah. I was thinking that and I don't know what I didn't.

That happens. Nice, nice. I'll post that up on my Facebook group. I believe so. I could be wrong. I thought it was five. I have five for me. So, and I was the first one. Okay. Yeah, yeah. If not, we can update it later. I'm pretty sure we're good. I'm bad at math, but you know, yeah, I think I picked five. Awesome. They might be giants that have been on the road for too long. Too long. And they might be giants aren't even sorry.

Not even sorry. And audiences like the shows too much, too much. And now they might be giants who are playing their breakthrough album, all of it. And they still have time for other songs. They're fooling around. Who can stop? They might be giants and their liberal rocket gender. No one. Disadvantaged paid for with somebody else's money. So Renato, do you still have your own podcast? Yeah, it's complicated. What's so complicated about a podcast? That's the name of the podcast, remember?

Oh! Will you still be exploring topics that help us understand the week's news? You bet, but we'll have a new name because we're going to be working together to explore complicated issues that are done in the news. Working together? Yeah, your host is to it with me, remember? Oh, right. Wait.

Does that mean our podcast is going to have a steam op segment? Let's not get carried away. But we'll discuss hot new legal topics, so check out our new episode. Coming soon to everywhere you get podcasts podcasts as well as YouTube. All right guys time for the interview. Joining us today for the interview is former acting director of the FBI, an author of the threat, how the FBI protects America in the age of Trump and terror. Andrew McCabe, Andrew, welcome to Mueller's, you wrote. Thanks so much for having me. This is, it's really my honor to speak to you today.

And it was also my honor this week to attend one of your book signing events. And during your talk, you had asked us to imagine ourselves as investigators and then ran through a timeline, a chronology of events that led to the opening of the investigation into Trump. And I found that timeline to be very helpful and very interesting. And I was hoping that you could run through it with us. Yeah, sure. I'd love to. So I think it's helpful also because there's been so much reporting that's been, I think, inaccurate and kind of misrepresented. What we knew at that moment when we decided to expand the Russia inquiry and push for the appointment of a special council.

So as I said the other night, I think it's helpful just to put yourself in the shoes of the investigators, which was myself and the small team that was working on the Russia case. And we were all surprised by the firing of Jim Comey. So on that night of May 9th, 2017, I was called over to the Attorney General's office and informed that Jim had been fired. When we sat down to try to put that in context, we knew if you go back in time to 2014,

kind of the fall of 2014 and through 2015, we had been spending a lot of time looking at Russian cyber activity. So during that period, I think it's been reported and is fairly well known. The Russian intelligence services were very aggressively trying to penetrate and hack into numerous organizations in our country, many of which are located in DC. So these are academic institutions, political think tanks, and some government institutions as well. So we knew from the fall of 2014 that the Russian intelligence services were being very active in cyberspace and targeting entities that were engaged in some level in American

political activity. In the spring of 2016, George Papadopoulos, and a now well-known event, made a curious comment to a foreign diplomat, and basically indicated that he was working on the campaign and that they were aware that the Russians had dirt or, you know, negative information about Hillary Clinton. We didn't know that at the time, but he made those statements back in May of 2016. So then as we go deeper into the summer of 2016 and the election is underway, what do we find out? Well, we discover that those same Russian intelligence services have now also been directing their hacking activity at the Democratic National Committee and the

D-Triple C, both of the kind of major organizations engaged at that point and supporting Hillary Clinton as the Democratic, one of the eventual nominee for the Democratic Party. So we knew that the Russians had kind of expanded their cyber activity and were directing it specifically at those two institutions. A little bit later in the summer, sure enough, the material that they stole during those directed hacks was released in the form of the Gusefer 2.0 releases and the releases that came out through Wiccivic. So here you have those Russian intelligence agencies sharing the information they've stolen from political entities and apparently for the purpose of damaging Hillary Clinton's candidacy for the presidency. They also released the emails from John Podesta,

same thing. Then in July of 2016, the comments that George Papadopoulos made to the foreign diplomat were reported to the FBI. So in July, with that deep knowledge of Russian cyber activity, the apparent goals of the Russians to impact the election and now having someone inside the campaign, telepharen diplomat, that the campaign was aware that Russian, the Russians had this material. We were in a position then to open the Russia case.

So in July 30th, we opened that umbrella case and within it, we open individual cases on four people. How do we pick those four people? Well, it's pretty simple. If you have a suspicion, if you have reason to believe that the campaign might be coordinating with the Russian government or most serious foreign adversary, we simply step back and said,

well, what people who we know are connected to the campaign also have established ties to Russia. And that's how, of course, we came up with those first four individuals, George Papadopoulos, for obvious reasons. General Mike Flynn, who had had some high profile interactions with Vladimir Putin, Carter Page, who is someone known to us for a long time to have had interactions with Russian intelligence, and also Paul Manafort.

Then in the fall of 2016, we received for the first time the steel information. So that information collected by Chris Steele, who was a known reliable source to the FBI, that is provided to us after the Russia case had been opened. We didn't know quite what to make of this deal information. He'd given us, as I said, solid and reliable information at the past, so it came kind of from a well-known source. But the information itself was broad and controversial and alleged all sorts of things we set about

the kind of meticulous process of trying to vet that information that we received from Kristiil. So that's pretty much where we are in the fall of 2016. Then in December of 2016, after the election, we were asked by President Obama to conduct kind of an assessment of what we thought about Russian activity involved in the 2016 election. And of course, the results of that are well known. We produce the intelligence community assessments, joint product between CIA, the FBI, and the NSA, in which we concluded with high confidence that the Russians had certainly meddled in the campaign. They had done so first and foremost, but the purpose of trying to sow division and kind of distraction in our democratic process. Second, they did it

to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of getting elected because they particularly did not like the prospect of Clinton presidency. And third, they did it to assist to help Donald Trump get elected. So that gets us to January. At this point, we start to have some very concerning odd interactions between President Trump and Jim Comey. First, the President engages in a series of references publicly to the Russia investigation that very clearly indicate to us he is not happy about what we're doing. He consistently refers to the investigation as a witch hunt or a hoax or a sham. So again, as investigators, we take that as a sign that the president does not want us to

be doing what we're doing. That is investigating Russian influence on the campaign. Next he requests a pledge of personal loyalty from director Comey and a well-known and off-repeated incident that took place during a dinner between the two. Following that he actually asks director Comey to discontinue the Flynn investigation. The investigation into Mike Flynn, which is a part of our Russia case, he asks that we drop it completely. And that was really a watershed moment for me and for others.

I think one that indicated to us that the president's odd statements were more than just kind of, you know, the statements of someone who was unsophisticated and doesn't know how the FBI works. Right. You're starting to get inclinations now that these little hiccups of obstruction here and there where, and this is all kind of adding up into sort of a seeming pattern, right?

That's right, that's right. So he's clearly doesn't want to investigate in Russia, has now asked us to stop part of that investigation, and then he repeatedly asks Director Comey to kind of make a public announcement to tell the world that he's not in fact under investigation. So those are all the things that bring us to May of 2017, right, so all this really well substantiated malign cyber activity by the Russians, clearly for the purpose of helping President Trump, then this

odd behavior on the part of the President and kind of, President Trump, then this odd behavior on the part of the president and kind of, you know, throwing a wet blanket on the investigation, asking us to drop the Flynn investigation, pushing Director Comey for loyalty. On that background, on May 9th, he of course, fires Director Comey. And in the days that follow, he does additional strange things. Like, first first he pushes me to embrace this false narrative that director komi was fired because people in the FBI didn't like him. Clearly not true and not something that i was willing to support. He then tells the russians in the oval office that he's fired the director and that firing him has

relieved a lot of pressure on the president and the administration from the Russia investigation. A very strange thing to say to our adversary in the Oval Office, right? And then, of course, he makes the comments to Lester Holt that he was thinking about Russia when he fired director Komi. So with that incredibly dense background all of that information we then look at what is our responsibility now what is it that we are supposed to do as the investigators right we're not the prosecutors we don't take anyone to trial we don't convict anyone we don't throw people in jail we simply decide what throw people in jail, we simply decide what gets investigated. And are we at the point here where we should open an investigation on the president?

And that's kind of, yeah, where it ended up and where it all led to. And I guess one of my first thoughts would be that letter that Rod Rosenstein wrote to justify the firing of Comey and that apparently Rod Rosenstein didn to justify the firing of Comey, and that apparently Rod Rosenstein didn't realize his letter was going to be used in that capacity. But I was always curious as to why, as a potential witness for obstruction of justice, he was allowed to oversee the investigation in the first place. Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And it's not one that I can answer because I have the same concerns about why Rod made

that decision. You know, recusal is an interesting thing. It's basically as an official in the government, if certainly as an investigator or prosecutor, you confronted with these situations frequently. You have an ethical, you have an ethical obligation to kind of review the facts, sometimes seek guidance from your ethics advisors and your conflict advisors, but ultimately the decision is up to you. It's like nobody can really force you to recuse. It really has to be something that you decide. In this case, you know,

Rod had played a major role in the firing of director Comey, which in and of itself might have been the most significant obstructive act by the president. It's been of course now detailed. And the Mueller report and referred to as a potential active obstruction.

So having played a role in that act, I was always odd to me that Rod did not step aside from an investigation in which he would be considered at least a witness if nothing else. But speaking of the Mueller report, something that really struck a chord with me in your book was when you talked about going to paper, which is usually you don't put things down in writing unless it's very critical. And so I was hoping you

could share with us your reaction to Mueller going to paper in his letters. Now we know I think there's two letters. We've only seen one, two attorney general Bill Barr, objecting to his characterization of his findings and what kind of an enormous thing that is for him to go to paper like that. Yeah, going to paper, I know this is kind of one of those things that people who are not in government will kind of dismiss as being goofy or it's like war between bureaucrats or something, but it is actually pretty significant. You are obligated to maintain records of the documents that you do create and exchange with each other. So everyone is aware that like sending

an official letter is establishing an indelible record about a decision or an issue. And so you really only do that when you want to make your position perfectly clear in a very strong way and one that you want people to be able to refer to later. So it's not, you know, if you, you might be mad at someone else and call them up and have a heated discussion with them and try to work out some sort of an agreement that happens all the time, you really only go to paper and send the letter when you're expressing a strong opinion and you want others to be able to refer to it later. So I can only imagine that those are the sort of considerations that director Muller and

his staff fought about and went through when they wrote that letter. Director Muller is an incredibly careful kind of judicious guy. He doesn't, he's not the kind of guy that slairs off, you know, and reacts emotionally and things like that. So I read the letter. I was struck by how strongly he kind of establishes his position. So it's my guess, and this is speculation here, but that he felt very strongly about the things that he explains in that letter, and he wanted to do it in a way that ultimately the world let's see. So I take it very seriously. Yeah, that's kind of what we thought about it as well, especially after your characterization of the whole idea of going to paper in the first place, which we learned from your book.

And while I've got you, I wanted to ask you, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, why you think, and this is an old thing, it's an old subject, but we've got a, we've got a battle over the Komi going on with the listeners of our podcasts. Some people believe Komi should not have reopened the Hillary email investigation just days before the election and possibly lost her the election. And others think he might have been forced into it because of potential leaks that could have come out of the New York field office. And I was just wondering if you could maybe go over quickly with us if you're able to. The timeline of events that led to that decision to reopen the case. And if you agree with it.

Yeah, you know, I can tell you a little bit about when I know a G I I obviously well, maybe it's not obvious. Let's just say I wasn't there for the ultimate decision to notify Congress about the fact that we'd essentially re-open the case. I was traveling at the time. I had basically set up the meetings that led to that decision point, but essentially what happened was at the beginning, end of September, beginning of October, we learned from our New York field office that they had taken into custody

the infamous Wiener laptop. So it was a laptop used by Anthony Wiener that included a large number of emails that might have been Hillary Clinton's copies of some of Hillary Clinton's emails. So we found out about that in the beginning of October. I had some, I'd given some direction to some of my subordinate leaders to do whatever was necessary to find out what we had. That really kind of dragged on not much progress was made during during the course of October. So it's not until the very

last week in October that it comes back to me that we're still kind of spinning our wheels in terms of finding out exactly what's on that laptop. So I told Jim, I had told him when I found out about the laptop a few weeks earlier, and I brought it back to him and said that he needed to have a meeting with the team. So that meeting took place on Thursday. I want to say like

October 26th or 27th. I may not have the date right. And that's the, that was the conversation that ultimately led to Jim making the decision that he needed to notify Congress. I was not a part of those conversations because at the same time people were concerned about a separate issue that might cause me to recuse from being involved in any further decisions on the Clinton email case. So, while that was pending, Jim told me he didn't want me to participate in a decision. I didn't agree with the way that he was looking at the issue. I felt like it would be premature to notify

Congress before we knew exactly what we had. I knew that there was probably a good chance that most of that material were simply duplicates of the emails that we'd already looked at. And so from my perspective, I thought that was a reasonable risk to take, that we should at least do the preliminary work to find out how much of that stuff was actually new. Jim, as we all know, felt very, ultimately felt differently about it, and decided he had to notify Congress

before we took any kind of affirmative acts. I cannot tell you exactly what was going through his head at the time. Jim has explained it in his own way that he felt like it was two very, you know, tough options and he picked the one that he thought was the least bad. But I think it's undeniable that the revelation, the public revelation of the work that we were doing there certainly had an impact on the results of the election. Yeah, and I guess that's why I don't really understand the whole idea of a deep, deep state

can, or, you know, conspiracy where if, if you guys were really, really truly wanted to not have Trump win the election, you could have revealed that he was under investigation and not, uh, reopen the Hillary case. It kind of flies in the face of the idea that it was all a big conspiracy to take down Trump. Yeah, you're absolutely right. That's just a convenient and kind of inflammatory political talking point, but has no basis in reality whatsoever. If you look at the decisions we made through that summer into the fall right up to the election, they were hard choices. They were kind of unprecedented things. We tried

to do everything we could to avoid stepping into the election. Unfortunately, we weren't always successful, but to suggest that there was some overarching like political conspiracy behind the decision we made, it's just absolutely false. I'll refer conspiracy behind the decision we made, just absolutely false. I'll refer back to the decision we made in May, ultimately, to open the case on the president. I walked through that whole timeline of everything we knew at that point. Our authority says, when you have an articulable factual basis to indicate that a crime may have been committed or that a threat to national security might exist, that's the threshold that says, okay, now you need

to conduct an investigation. That's the decision we made. It wasn't because it was political, we liked Trump, we didn't like Trump, we were trying to overthrow the government. It had nothing to do with any of that. It was simply acknowledging what is our obligation as the country's investigators at this time. And we certainly had ample facts to believe that a threat to national security might exist. Yeah. And you had said you're obligated to open that investigation at that time, you know, under those circumstances. And if you don't, if you do not open that investigation, then you're acting in a political way.

Sure. Yeah, exactly right. So if we had decided, you know what, we have all these facts and all this information, it's clearly met the threshold, but let's not do it because it's the president. I mean, that would have been making a political decision. And those are the sorts of decisions that nobody wants the FBI to make. We are supposed to investigate people from, you know, regardless of political party, regardless of social status, social status, position, anything like that. Everyone is the same in front of the law to us.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I appreciate your take on that. But before I let you go, you're currently under criminal investigation. And so I know that you're raising money for your legal defense fund. Your amazing sister-in-law is helping out with that, who I was lucky enough to meet this week. And I think this is your legal defense fund, very, your current criminal investigation. I think our listeners would be happy to contribute if they could. Could you tell them where they can do that? Yeah, EG, I'm sad to say that you're right. After we're now a year in to the criminal investigation of the DOJ IG's referral of my report

over to the US Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia. And so they are conducting an investigation. We've interacted with them numerous times and tried to be as cooperative as we can, not sure how much longer that's gonna take, but it's been, as you can imagine, enormously stressful, you know, financially and psychologically and everything else. We do have a legal defense fund set up, and you can find it at mkabediffence.org.

That's mccabdfense.org. Yeah, of course, anytime. And thank you again, so much for spending time with us today. We really appreciate it, answering my questions, best to your ability. There wasn't a lot of redacted materials, so I thank you for that. But everyone check out the New York Times best seller,

the threat, out now wherever books are sold. We've covered in our MSW book club, and you can check those out, those episodes out if you're a patron. We'll be releasing them to the public soon. Everyone former acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, A.G. very much for the great interview, but also for the incredible work that you guys did with the book club. Well, you wrote a great book, so thank you for that. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Have a good day. All right, guys, that's our show. Thank so thank you for that. Thanks for doing this, I appreciate it. Have a good day.

All right guys, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. If you know anyone that needs more information about the Mueller investigation, don't hesitate to send them our way. If you get a moment, please, please head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and give us a rating. It really helps us out. We'll be at the webby's next week.

I think we'll get to record something for you guys at a studio in New York. Yeah, we've got some arrangements or options, so we'll keep everybody posted with that. We'll get you something Sunday night, for sure, no matter what. Yeah, someone offered one of our patrons that's coming to hang out with us, actually, is the one that has a studio.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna hang with some patrons. Oh, at the webby's? Oh, great, cool, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Yeah, we'll get to record something. We will be playing it by ear. Either way, we'll have something for you. Like I said, next Sunday night. Thank you again for your kind words and support.

Any final thoughts, guys? Um, I don't have any, I know Jalisa had something. Oh, yeah, I have two. Uh, first one, um, shout out to Clayton and who I, and you guys probably saw, like all his pictures. Yeah, yeah, he's just one of our like really Cool patrons such as the quick shout out But also one of our patrons and get friend of the pot George Woodward passed away

Unfortunately and in the private Facebook group one of his friends Kate said I know if he can find a way to make it work He'll be haunting all those colluding conspiring fuckers or at least messing with her electronics So this episode is dedicated to George, right? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Really good spirit, so. Thank you, George. Yes.

And definitely. Thoughts out to his family, much love. Yes, yes. Everybody, please be kind to yourself. Self-care, very important. Take care of each other. And we will see you soon. I've been AG.

I've been to Lisa Johnson. I've been Jordan Coburn. And this is Muller She Wrote. Muller She Wrote is produced and engineered by AG with editing and logo design by Jelisa Johnson. Our marketing consultant and social media manager is Sarah Least Diner and our subscriber and communications director is Jordan Coburn. Fact checking and research by AG and research assistants by Jelisa Johnson and Jordan Coburn. Zach checking in research by AG and Research Assistance by Jolissa Johnson and Jordan Coburn.

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