Jack - Patently Unethical

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Attorney General Pam Bondi fires 20 Department of Justice employees who worked on the Trump documents case, and her personal ethics chief, as two-thirds of the unit defending Trump policies have quitKey prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Maurene Comey has been fired, and Senator Wyden tells NBC that FBI agents were instructed to flag mentions of donald trump in the epstein filesThe State Department has quietly posted some of the agreement between the US Government and Salvadoran President Bukele as a deal is finalized to swap the men at CECOT for prisoners in Venezuela.The interim status of Alina Habba as the US Attorney for New Jersey comes to an end as another US attorney clings to his position after being appointed as his own assistant.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod?  Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Attorney General Pam Bondi fires 20 Department of Justice employees that worked on the Trump documents case and her personal ethics chief, all during the same time that two-thirds of the unit defending Trump policies have quit. The key prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Maureen Comey, has been fired. And Senator Ron Wyden tells NBC that FBI agents were instructed to flag mentions of Donald Trump in the Epstein files. The State Department has quietly posted some of the agreement between the U.S.

government and the Salvadoran president Bukele as a deal is finalized to swap the men at Seacat for prisoners in Venezuela. And the interim status of Alina Jaba as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey comes to an end, as another U.S. attorney clings to his position after being appointed as his own assistant. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 26 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, July 20th. I'm Alison Gill.

And I'm Andy McCabe. Okay, so another quiet week here. Not really, but I'm poking back at the listener who is poking me about always saying it's a busy week. Have you? I mean, I can't get over the guy who's been appointed to his own assistant. Do you remember the song, I'm My own grandpa? Like it reminds me of that. As you're reading that line, I'm thinking he has only himself to blame. Where's my lunch?

Damn the assistant. Coffee. I asked for coffee 20 minutes ago and oh yeah, I didn't have time to go get it. We laugh, but humor is important, you know, as we sit here and watch Stephen Colbert be removed. Oh my gosh. That's, that's, that's a heartbreaker. Absolutely. It really, it really is.

It's a, I, and I'm glad that some Democrats in Congress really want to look into this and, and they're calling for some state attorneys general to also investigate whether or not this was a political bribe. So we'll keep an eye on that. But I mean, you know, just the base point that humor is super important to getting through what we're going through right now. No doubt. And in the interest of humor, let's start with the lead story everywhere. The story I've been talking about relentlessly on CNN all week,

the story that every CNN show begins with, the top of every hour, and that is the Epstein-Files saga. President Trump has been complaining that people are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but he's not exactly helping make it go away, is he, with his constant posts on his own social media platform. Just last week, after being contacted by the Wall Street Journal about a story they published two days earlier, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and insisted that the Epstein files

were a Democratic hoax written by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I think he also threw Jim Comey in that pile. Which ended up receiving a ton of blowback from some of his staunchest allies in the right wing media. Yeah. And his own post on his own social media platform got ratioed for posting that. And of course, you know, two days later, that Wall Street Journal story did come out very proud of the Wall Street Journal for not capitulating to Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump threatening to sue them if they published it. And it's this really bawdy,

tawdry birthday letter that Donald Trump had written to Jeffrey Epstein. And we talk about that on a lot of other podcasts. But I'm very glad that Wall Street Journal went ahead and published it. And I guess, you know, Trump even said in a subsequent Truth Social post that he had contacted Rupert Murdoch himself, who is we know is the owner of the Wall Street Journal, that super right or excuse me, super deep state left wing rag, the Wall Street Journal, and Caroline Levitt had contacted, I think Emma Becker, who's high up there at the organization. And they refused. They said, we're going to go ahead and publish it. So now he's threatening to sue them. So discovery should be

fun. Yes. Yeah. But then in the middle of trying to move on from the Epstein topic, the Times reported that Maureen Comey, a career federal prosecutor who worked on the Jeffrey Epstein case, was abruptly fired by the Trump administration. In a farewell letter to her colleagues Thursday, she said not to give into fear, calling it the tool of a tyrant. She went on to say, if a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. That's what she wrote in that email

that was circulated to her colleagues within the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan. And she said, do not let that happen. Yeah, so the Times goes on to say, Ms. Comey is the daughter of James B. Comey, the former FBI director and an adversary of President Trump. She also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, who conspired with Mr. Epstein, and

she was the lead prosecutor in the recent trial of Sean Combs, the hip-hop entrepreneur who was acquitted of the most serious charges he faced earlier this month. Ms. Comey was told of her firing Wednesday in a letter from a Justice Department official in Washington who cited Article 2 of the Constitution, which we all know broadly describes the powers of the president. According to two people with knowledge of the matter, she said in her email that the letter did not give a reason for her termination. Yeah, now the office formerly known as the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has been the focus of Trump's intense ire since his first term. We know

that. It is widely viewed as the nation's premier prosecutor's office. It's often referred to as the sovereign district of New York. Fierings of line prosecutors used to be very rare, Andy, as we know. And in the Southern district, several office veterans could recall only two over the course of nearly four decades. And both prosecutors were terminated for misconduct by the head of the office, not officials in DC.C., and that was only after investigations. But since Mr. Trump took close control of the Justice Department in January, such firings

have become more common. In March, the White House abruptly fired two prosecutors in Los Angeles and Memphis, and more recently it fired more than 20 career employees, including the ethics advisor to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, which we'll talk about more later in the show. Legal experts and veterans of the office have now begun to question the involvement or lack thereof of the interim U.S. attorney, Jay Clayton, in Ms. Comey's firing. Two people with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Clayton had been blindsided by the news. That is amazing that the US attorney did not know

that one of his most senior trial attorneys was going to be fired by Washington. Like they didn't even tell him. Right. But it just doesn't surprise me anymore, really. It's just, I mean, it's, you know, unprecedented and unheard of. I mean, how many times can we use those adjectives? Right. Now, Jessica A. Roth, a former Southern District prosecutor, said the events surrounding Ms. Comey's dismissal had raised questions about Mr. Clayton's leadership in an office once famous for its independence. Quote, if in fact, the directive came straight from the

White House and he was not consulted, that undermines his authority at the U.S. Attorney's Office. That's what Ms. Roth said, who now teaches criminal law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. Ms. Comey's firing came just weeks before Mr. Clayton's 120-day term expires. After that, the judges of the federal court for the Southern District of New York could appoint him to the same post, or they might decline to do so. It is unclear if or how the Justice Department's firing of Ms. Comey might affect the judge's decision.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, she worked as a law clerk for one of the judges, and as a prosecutor, she has appeared before many of them Yeah, that's just really really Interesting in that, you know going back to to Donald Trump saying everyone shut up about the Epstein file. Jeffrey Epstein is old We're the hottest country and stop talking about him, but also more income. You're fired like The whole thing wouldn't draw more scrutiny and create more theories going around the internet? It is the most, one of the worst handled media crises I've ever seen an administration

stumble with. So just to be clear, like his history on this issue, going back years and campaigns, multiple campaigns, was screaming from the rafters about how the entire file should be released over and over and over again. And his most hardcore supporters, many of whom came to their Trump support via QAnon, jumped on that bandwagon. This idea that all these kind of self appointed investigators

out there on the internet, we're gonna get to the bottom of all the democratic politicians who are engaged in pedophilia with Jeffrey Epstein. So it becomes a rallying cry kind of in that hardcore right wing blogosphere. And this continues right up until the beginning of this administration, when he's still asking

for these things, he appoints Dan Bongino and Cash Patel to the two top jobs in the FBI. Both of them have numerous statements on the record on podcasts demanding that this should be done on day one. The entire file gets turned over, turned over, turned over. Vice President Vance, same thing.

Don Jr., same thing, on and on and on. Then they show up, and first you have the Pam Bondi release of the great three ring binders. Bring all the right wing influencers in. Yeah, the phase one disclosure, which everyone walks away, I rate with because it's nothing new. It's all some of the same. There are several hundred documents already.

You could have heard it all on the Miller She Wrote podcast. Yeah, there you go. So, so that tempest in the teapot boils over and Pam Bondi triples down. We're going to do it. We're going to have everybody review the file. I've got the file on my desk. The client list is on my desk. Some version of that it's coming. It's coming. I just have everybody review the file. I've got the file on my desk. The client list is on my desk. Some version of that.

It's coming. It's coming. I just have to review it. And then out of nowhere, a little over a week ago, comes the unsigned memo from DOJ. There will be no more releases of information. No one is going to be charged. Nothing to see here.

Go away. So this 180 degree flip flop sends their own supporters over the edge in terms of the outrage machine. And rightly so. I mean, these people have been demanding this for years. They thought they were so close to getting what they wanted. You know, the whole thing, I mean, I've not been a supporter of the, it's a cover up of Trump's misdeeds with Epstein theory from the beginning, simply because you know me, like I gotta have some evidence and there is no hard evidence of that and the fact that he himself was calling for the stuff to be disclosed for so long, I thought mitigated against that. He would know if there was things he needed to cover

up and he made no effort to do that for such a long time. But now, this series of decisions is unfathomable. That memo. Welcome to the dark side, Andy. We all knew. He's doing one cover-upy thing after another. And I should say, firing Maureen Comey, the only person who has successfully put one of the Epstein offenders in jail,

Glane Maxwell, and was also involved in putting Epstein himself in jail, you fire her? She's a person who knows what's in the files. The whole thing looks like a total setup now. It's unbelievable. Yeah. And I have a little bit of an announcement too. MSW Media, my podcast network, we filed for this. So in the meantime here, Donald Trump has gone on true social saying, all right, fine,

Pam Bondi, I've asked you, I'm asking Pam Bondi to release the grand jury materials with court approval. And now that- That was last night's flip flop. Yeah. And, and I'm looking at that like, Oh, well that seems like a waiver. Uh, so I have joined with national security counselors and Kelly McClanahan, uh, in a, in a filing, uh, to ask for, for these, uh, and to explain why, uh, if they don't release part of them, under what rules they're not releasing part of them.

To kind of, I mean, I guess, sort of paint them in a corner, right? You tell us either why you aren't releasing things or what you are releasing and what made you make this decision now that you've waived your privilege over this. And so we have filed and of course they have 30 days to respond. If they don't, I will file a lawsuit. Kelli McClanahan, National Security Council will file a lawsuit on behalf of MSW Media,

the network where you're hearing this podcast. And I'm interested to see how they respond. And if you, by the way, if you want to support us in this little legal endeavor, you can go to nationalsecuritylaw.org slash donate. So I just want to let everybody know, uh, I am, uh, uh, trying to force the issue here. It's the only way we're ever actually going to learn something because like, like this last night's Truth Social Post,

which said I've authorized her to seek the- Well, I've asked her. I've asked her to unseek the unsealing of grand jury testimony, you know, if the courts allow. I mean, first of all, that's a micro section of the file. That is like a very tiny little piece of this otherwise massive file. Well, it's also the part he knows that the court will probably say no to.

Of course. The guy who just defies all sorts of court's orders will probably accept this one. Yeah, it's going to be only witnesses who testified in the grand jury, which is not always the best witnesses because you don't, the best witnesses who you're going to rely on a trial, you don't send them in front of the grand jury if you don't, the best witnesses who you're gonna rely on at trial, you don't send them in front of the grand jury if you can avoid it. So it's gonna be just a few witnesses

and it's not gonna be grand jury information like phone records and business records, financial records. Those are the sorts of things that would really help you see the network of people connected to Epstein. That sort of information you have to get with a grand jury subpoena. So it is also protected by the court, but that was not included in his direction to Pam Bondi. It was testimony only. And, and let's be serious. We, we wanted the grand jury materials for the Mueller investigation. We still haven't gotten those even though public interest is high. And you didn't get the Watergate grand jury information until 40 plus years

later. Yeah, you're not going to get this. And even if you did, even if they even if they unsealed some piece of it, it would still be redacted to remove every name and all identifying data. So this is just a gambit. He knows that by saying this, he can look a little bit more transparency inclined, but not actually have to let anything go. And he can now forever point to this. It's kind of like,

oh, I'll release my tax records when the audit is finished. Right? This is the same thing. He'll be able to say, hey, this is in the hands of the court. We have to sit back and let the court go through its due process. That's a sacred thing that the courts do. And nothing will happen. The court process is going to take a long time because they'll seek input from everybody who's implicated in those pieces of testimony.

So it's a mess and it gets, it gets worse for him every day. And then he'll be able to blame the courts. Exactly. And go after the courts, which he loves attacking on a daily basis. Yep. All right. In a related story, by the way, from CNBC, FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review the Epstein files and they were told to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump.

That's according to Dick Durbin, also not the most woke deep state senator on the planet. Now Durbin's claim came as the Illinois Democrat sent the Justice Department and the FBI letters asking them to explain what his office called apparent discrepancies regarding the handling of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7th DOJ memo and instructions reported received by FBI personnel. Quote, according to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its information management division, or otherwise known as IMD, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could

then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline, Durbin wrote to Patel. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York field office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses, or properly handle FOIA requests," the letter said. My office was told that these personnel were instructed to, quote, flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned. I thought there were no records, Andy.

I thought they were a hoax. Yeah. I mean, well, it depends on how many times Barack Obama wrote Trump in the records that he was hoaxing up. Right? Yeah. So, Hey, FBI agents 24 seven end of March, take these hundred thousand pages. Look for my name. Let me know where it shows up. Flag them in these fake files that were written by the Democrats, please.

Yeah. This is like, uh, with his name, the lawyer spacing out on the lawyer's name from the documents case, the original one. Uh, can't you just take these back to your hotel room, these documents and get rid of these tonight could you take the flag documents and uh cork rins evan cork rin yeah yeah super special uh i don't think this is going away so anyway uh very interesting and uh what a way to kick off the show all right uh we have more information about department of justice uh and some major firings that are going on. The huge purges of people and some of them are being fired and some of them are quitting and we're going to talk about that. Yep, they're leaving. They're taking their deferred resignation programs or early retirements

and hitting the road. So we're going to talk about all that, but we have to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Andy, let's talk about more firings at the Department of Justice this week. This is from CBS. The ongoing purge of Justice Department officials who investigated Trump and his allies continued this week, with the Justice Department firing more than 20 employees who worked on those investigations. That's according to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to CBS. The firings, one source familiar said, included more than 20 people who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case against Mr. Trump and Smith's investigation into Trump's attempt to overturn the election results in 2020.

There have been at least 35 firings of Justice Department employees who worked for Smith on the two investigations he oversaw, and at least 15 more could be fired, the source said. Sources told CBS that among those fired were paralegals who worked for Smith's office, finance and support staff, and two additional Justice Department prosecutors in North Carolina and Florida. Three other top January six prosecutors were fired in June. The staffers were identified by the Justice Department's so-called weaponization working

group, which Attorney General Pam Bondi established as one of her first priorities after she was confirmed, one source said. Yep, and as the Justice Department began collecting information about the FBI agents who worked on the January 6th investigations and fired career prosecutors who worked on the cases, Bondi said in her directive that the working group would investigate, quote, improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions versus quote, good faith actions by federal employees, simply following orders. Um,

that's all of them. Yeah, of course. And especially paralegals and financial, uh, people like they got assigned to those cases. They didn't raise their hand for that. That's how it is. It is now one of the staffers who had been fired was Patty Hartman who served They got assigned to those cases. They didn't raise their hand for that. That's outrageous. Yeah, no. It is. Now, one of the staffers who had been fired was Patty Hartman, who served as a top public affairs

specialist at the FBI and federal prosecutors' offices. Hartman was fired Monday via letter from the attorney general. She worked on the District of Columbia US Attorney's Office public affairs team that distributed news releases about the more than 1,500 January 6th criminal prosecutions. In an interview with CBS News, Hartman warned of a continuing wave of retribution inside

the agency. Quote, the rules don't exist anymore, Hartman said. There used to be a line, used to be a very distinct separation between the White House and the Department of Justice because one should not interfere with the work of the other. That line is very definitely gone. Yeah. And House Judiciary Dems, by the way, like I said, they've sent a letter to Pam Bondi demanding the Jack Smith report on the classified documents, volume two, along with all mentions of Trump in the Epstein files. So both Senate and House Democrats are first of all on the Epstein files thing. But that request that we talked about last week to

get the information about the classified documents case volume two included also any mention of Trump in the Epstein files. So everybody's kind of... Everybody's looking to flag them. Yeah. Flag the Trumps. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if that weren't enough, Bloomberg Law reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired

her personal ethics advisor, removing the Justice Department's top official responsible for counseling the most senior political appointees, according to two people familiar with the move. Joseph Terrell, a career attorney who'd spent nearly 20 years at the department, received a termination letter from Bondi July 11th that did not state a reason for his immediate removal from federal service.

Similar to notices the Trump administration has sent to dozens of other DOJ civil servants, Bondi cited Article 2 of the Constitution, which concerns presidential powers. Yeah, now Turrell headed the DOJ's ethics office. His portfolio included reviewing and approving financial disclosures, recusals, waivers to conflicts of interest, and advice on travel and gifts for Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other DOJ leaders.

This Turrell fellow also oversaw a team of ethics staffers that provided guidance to employees in all the department's litigation offices, law enforcement agencies, and other branches. Now reached by email Sunday, Terrell declined to comment. He posted the termination letter though, in which his first name is misspelled. Of course. He posted that on LinkedIn on Monday morning. I would like to see these folks speak out a little bit more.

Yeah, for sure. Terrell's removal is separate, but potentially related to the roughly 20 employees involved in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation, according to numerous media reports, who were also fired on July 11th. Terrell advised Smith's office on ethics matters during his criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a sensitive personnel matter. That includes Turrell approving Smith's receipt

of $140,000 in pro bono legal fees from Covington and Burling, which he disclosed upon concluding his investigation. Yeah, I bet that's it. That's his connection to disloyalty and weaponization, I guess. Yeah. I mean, you think, oh, well, she probably fired the ethics advisor because she has no

ethics. But I think it has to be. That was my first thought. Exactly. I was just like screaming to myself. Of course she fired You don't need an ethics attorney when you have no ethics Mm-hmm. It's like I don't need a patent attorney because I'm not an inventor. I have no patents right Exactly, but now that we are aware of his connections to his advice for Jack Smith and his prosecutions of Donald Trump

Along with that hundred and forty thousand in pro bono legal fees, ah, it starts to come together. Now, Terrell served six years as an officer in the US Navy before graduating law school from Michigan State University. He joined the FBI in 2006 before transferring to the Justice Department in 2018. Quote, I look forward to finding ways to continue in my personal calling of service to my country,

he said on his LinkedIn post on Monday. I encourage anyone who's reading this to do the same. Did you know him? I really think I do. I was reading through his LinkedIn stuff. He was a presidential management fellow at the FBI. So it's like a small group of people that get hired every year. They're like usually right out of business school and they get brought in and they rotate through different departments on the administrative side and the idea is like, this is a way that for the FBI to kind of recruit some of the

best and brightest to help us become more efficient and effective on the policy side and administrative kind of, you know, workings of the agency. And I'm pretty sure I did know Joe. I can't picture him right now because I'm getting old and I can picture less and less every day, but his name is very familiar to me and I'm pretty sure I remember who he was. Interesting. His ouster comes several months after Bondi removed or reassigned other career DOJ officials in charge of internal checks on the conduct of the department's workforce. That includes Bradley Weisenheimer, an associate deputy attorney general who made the final

calls on Turrell's ethics decisions, and Jeffrey Ragsdale, who led the professional responsibility office that investigated attorney misconduct. The departure last month of DOJ's longtime Inspector General Michael Horowitz also raised concerns about the about internal oversight going forward. Trump dismissed in February the head of the Office of Government Ethics, of course, in an independent agency that would regularly consult with Terrell's team on conflicts and disclosures of political appointees. So we had a great ethics advisor, senior ethics advisor in the FBI, one of the most rational,

smart, compassionate people who I had the pleasure of working with, a guy named Pat Kelly. Pat sadly passed away about a month ago. And when you're in these positions where you're constantly confronting challenging issues that are new to the organization, I can't possibly overstate the importance and really the luxury that it is to have someone

in that role who is not wedded to this side of the case or that side of the case or anything like that. He doesn't, nobody's paying him the end of the year based on how many informants he recruits. He was just a neutral guy who knows all the pitfalls and the potholes in the road and the things that you should try to avoid. He would come in and counsel people before they left

about how long they had to stay disconnected from the Bureau before they could come back in an external work capacity, things that you could and couldn't say once you left the FBI, how you should honor your pre-publication agreements, things like that. Just the guy who was always able to remind you

of the importance and the sanctity of those things that you were too busy to think about during the 20 years you were working cases and getting things done. Right, like who can I go work for that I wasn't contracted with the government for a certain amount of time? We know when I left the VA, those were all considerations as well.

Like you can't go work for Health Net for a year because we have a Health Net. Ethics, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, I didn't release my interview with the former Secretary of the VA, David Shulkin, until one year after I had been fired from the Department of Veterans Affairs. So it wouldn't even give the appearance that I was making a penny. Right. Off of my job or lack thereof at the department of veterans affairs. Um, those are ethical guidelines, uh, under the first Trump administration, which I just had to put into play myself and with the advice of other legal

counsel that I personally hired also hatch act stuff, uh, because there were no ethics people in the Trump administration that would advise me otherwise. Yeah, I mean, like, when you're coming close to your retirement, and you're actually out there trying to get a new job, and you're having conversations with companies and trying to figure out if they want to hire you or if you want to work for them. At some point in that process, you have to then start recusing from

any investigative matter that could impact that company. And so, these are things that you're not used to thinking about. You've never been in that situation before. So, these ethics advisors are so important. And Pat Kelly did an amazing job for that. We are eternally in his debt, I am for sure. But it also shows you the difference of what we're experiencing now. This is an administration that doesn't care about that sort of thing. Doesn't care about those sorts of rules, regulations, laws, things like the Hatch Act. And so getting rid of the people who make sure that their employees don't run afoul of those rules, that is not a priority in this administration, absolutely.

No, and it's just gonna be a whole different culture going forward without them there. Like you're not gonna have your regular line employee like myself at the Department of Veterans Affairs wondering if I can purchase a plaque for best employee of the month, and what my price limit is on that, or if we can all go in and buy a fridge for the break room and what my price limit is on that,

or if we can all go in and buy a fridge for the break room and how that is broken down. These are things that normal folks who've worked for the government for any amount of time know are extremely important and the ethics surrounding them are also very important and would seek guidance on this. Now it's just a free for all

and I think that that's gonna seriously damage the culture of ethical government work. Yeah. Yep. For sure. Small and big, uh, micro and macro. Now you, you, you mentioned there, the departure of Michael Horowitz. I think we should talk about that for a second.

Yeah. Uh, because the departure of the justice department's long time inspector general has former officials and other lawyers worried that an era of robust independent oversight of law enforcement is ending at the worst possible moment. And, you know, honestly, to say that Michael Horowitz was providing robust independent oversight of law enforcement. Total overshot. We can argue about that. But at least there was somebody there. Horowitz's move after 13 years as the DOJ's top watchdog to serve the same role as the Federal Reserve, he was

going to go to do this at the Federal Reserve, coincides with litigation over Trump's mass inspector general firings at other agencies. His still undetermined successor will face a growing pile of complaints seeking probes into top Justice Department officials and White House efforts to shrink the office's budget by 28%. Currently William M. Blier holds the post in an acting capacity. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Here I am drifting further into the realm of the conspiratorial. Is it a coincidence that now Donald Trump's strategy to get rid of Jerome Powell is to trump up the allegation that there's been some sort of waste, fraud and abuse associated with the work that's being done on the Fed building. And all of a sudden that's where Michael Horowitz

is being reassigned to. That's where you're putting Horowitz, one of two inspectors general that you didn't fire? Yeah, one of two. And a guy who's been very reliable for Trump in the past. Let's just leave it at that. When I heard that he was leaving DOJ, which is like the top of the food chain for

IGs is a very prominent, um, high profile prestigious prestigious position to go to the fed. I was like, that makes no sense at all. That's a huge step down for a guy with a job and an ego the size of Michael Horowitz's. And all of a sudden this week, all of the hatred and antipathy for Jerome Powell is being expressed as outrage about the expensive upgrades that he is overseeing, allegedly having done at the Fed building.

So I don't know, it's a good one to keep an eye on, I think, as we go forward. Yeah, I agree. Meanwhile, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by FBI agents seeking to prevent the Justice Department from disclosing the identities of those who worked on investigations into the January 6th attack against the US Capitol,

ruling that the agents' fears of retaliation were too speculative to warrant intervention. Judge Gia Cobb for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the government's motion to dismiss the case on Thursday, finding the agents and the FBI Agents Association lacked standing to challenge potential disclosure of their identities or First Amendment retaliation claims. While Cobb acknowledged genuine fears driving the lawsuit, noting releasing plaintiffs' identities to the public would put FBI agents at serious risk of danger, the court said the legal precedent required that any threatened harm be, quote, impending rather than a mere possibility. I don't know if she could say that she noted that releasing the identities would put the agents at serious risk of danger. That seems

like certainly impending to me rather than a mere possibility, but hey, I'm not a judge. Yeah, it seems like it. And I mean, you know, we've seen a lot of cases dismissed on speculation saying, well, you know what, come back when it happens. You know, when you have injury, when you have harm. So I think that's probably the law that Judge Cobb here is relying on or the precedent in order to get, you know, a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, et cetera, type of a thing or to have standing to sue. Right. So I don't know. I think it's dangerous to be that reactive as opposed to proactive, but I

guess she had to draw the line somewhere. So thanks for that reporting. And on another quick note about the mass exodus at the Department of Justice, the Guardian is reporting that the U S justice department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to Trump administration policies such as restricting birthright citizenship, slashing funding for Harvard University. That unit has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff. These are the people who have to argue on behalf of the Trump administration. Now, this is according to a list seen by Reuters, by the way. 69 of the roughly 110 lawyers in the federal programs branch have voluntarily left

since Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave. And that's according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers that was reviewed by Reuters. So that speaks volumes and it also kind of bolsters what we've been talking about now for weeks and weeks, Andy, that they have fewer and fewer people showing up in court, sometimes actual full on US attorneys in bond hearings and detention hearings to show up. So I mean, I think it's very interesting to say the least. Yeah, that's right.

We have been talking about this for weeks. I think there's a reality here that people don't realize that this group, we talk about 110 lawyers in this federal programs group. That seems like a lot of lawyers. It's not, because they handle everything for the whole country. This is not like line assistant US attorneys, of which there are many hundreds all over

the country. This is a very specific, smaller group of attorneys. They are skilled and have a lot of experience in this kind of esoteric government regulations world. And this is going to hurt their ability to kind of fight theseic government regulations world. And this is gonna hurt their ability to kind of fight these things in court, which I think from one perspective really just indicates how important it is that you have all these groups

like the ACLU and other groups that are really trying to hold the administration accountable. And they're now kind of overwhelming them resource wise, which is an amazing thing to think about in terms of fighting the US government. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to continue to see US attorneys at the detention hearings for the foreseeable future. Dust off that old court rules book and get back in the courtroom.

Yeah, now that's of course, you know, criminal division, US attorney's office. This is Department of Justice, different unit, but I mean, same theory applies. They're just running out of people who are willing to stand up and tell the court to quote unquote, fuck off as Emil Bovi said, who by the way, had his nomination punched through the Senate Judiciary Committee as Senate Judiciary Democrats got up and walked out. And they are now arguing before the parliamentarian saying that that vote should be voided because they didn't follow the rules of order and allow debate on Emil Bovi's confirmation. So we'll see how that turns out.

We'll talk about it next week. I'm sure we'll have a lot more information. And we also need to talk about some other mix-ups going on, not mix-ups, but shake-ups, I guess I should say, going on at U.S. Attorney's offices, including the guy who's appointed himself his own assistant, my own grandpa. We're gonna talk about that guy right after this quick break.

So stick around, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay. Let's talk about some changes at U.S. attorney's offices. First up from the Times, President Trump's embattled interim U.S. attorney in Albany, New York is back leading the office under an unusual new title, just days after a panel of judges refused to appoint him to lead the office permanently.

According to a letter from the Justice Department's Human Resources Division, a copy of which was obtained by the New York Times, John A. Sarcone III has been named, quote, special attorney to the attorney general. The appointment, the letter says, gives him the powers of a U.S. attorney and is, quote, indefinite. Huh. That seems illegal, especially according to their own arguments that got Jack Smith's documents case dismissed.

Exactly. Sure. Whatever. The move means that Mr. Sarcone is the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, according to a spokesman for the office, as well as its first assistant. He's occupying two positions at once. He is Schrodinger's U.S. attorney. The title of special attorney has historically been granted to officials with particular

expertise to lead a difficult or complex prosecution like that of Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist. It does not appear to have ever been bestowed upon a leader of a U.S. attorney's office. For now, the appointment appears to allow Mr. Sarkone, who has scrapped publicly with journalists and the police, to effectively ignore Monday's decision by the panel of judges to spurn him. Mr. Sarkone declined to comment. Though Mr. Sarkone's situation is unusual, it reflects a presidential administration that has shattered legal norms and continues to appoint lawyers with little prosecutorial experience to run

the U.S. Attorney's offices. I'm thinking of one Ed Martin. Hey, maybe Mr. Sarkone could be the new whack-a-dag-paw when Ed Martin is taken out and put in charge of the US Attorney's Office interim in New Jersey. I like how they call them special attorney and not special counsel because that would have been just too on the nose. I think they wanted to just alter it just a little bit there. Yeah. And it seems like it's a violation of the Vacancy Act. I can't imagine that this is lawful, but in any case. Yeah, and it seems like it's a violation of the Vacancy Act. I can't imagine that this

is lawful, but in any case. Yeah, but what are you going to do? Right? That's right. It's only the Department of Justice. Like, why would they follow the law? Nope. Yeah. The White House does not have sole power to appoint US attorneys, by the way, who must be confirmed by senators, or even keep interim US attorneys in place for more than 120 days. Mr. Sarkozyzy appointment as special attorney appears to be a workaround, one that could potentially allow Mr. Trump to keep his pick in place without approval from Congress or the judiciary.

Quote, I've never heard of this being done. That's what Carl Tobias said, a professor at the University of Richmond, a school of law, that I just imagined him putting his head in his hand like, yep, never heard of this before. Quote, it seems like they're making this up as they go along. Then I just imagine him putting his head in his hand like, yep, never heard of this before. It seems like they're making this up as they go along. Though Mr. Trump is still in the first year of his second term, no US attorneys have been confirmed by the Senate.

Just stop and think about that for a second. None. Zero. In his first term, all 85 of Mr. Trump's nominees for U.S. Attorney were confirmed by the chamber. So far in his second term, he has formally nominated only about a quarter of that number, leaving far more interim officials in place. For Mr. Sarkone, who in March was named interim U.S. Attorney for a period of 120 days, the appointment is another episode in a dizzying erratic tenure

I don't think you ever want to hear somebody describe your job performance as dizzying and erratic, but here you go Last week he claimed to a local television outlet that the panel of judges had appointed him to lead the office in a permanent capacity Unfortunately, the judges issued a statement hours later that they had not done that Unfortunately, the judges issued a statement hours later that they had not done that. The lie detector test determined that was a lie. Yay, I'm the winner. I'm the winner. No, you're not. We haven't even had the contest yet. You did not win. Oh, okay. Nope. Now, last month, Mr. Sarkone inserted himself into America's culture war over immigration when he claimed that an undocumented immigrant had tried to kill him outside a hotel in downtown Albany. In a Fox News interview, Mr. Sarkone claimed that, quote, a maniac with a knife who was speaking in a foreign language had approached him outside of his hotel.

Mr. Sarkone then called the personal phone number of the Albany County Sheriff to explain what happened. After the man, Saul Morales-Garcia, was arrested, Mr. Sarkone said to Fox News, the sheriff told him that he could only be charged with menacing. Now in protest, Mr. Sarkone impressed upon the sheriff that Mr. Morales-Garcia had threatened his life. Mr. Morales-Garcia, who's 40, was then charged with attempted murder. Yikes. But there's more. Surveillance footage released by investigators

showed Mr. Sarkony ambling outside the hotel and smoking a cigar when Mr. Morales Garcia walked toward him, brandishing an object. Mr. Morales Garcia, contrary to the accounts of Mr. Sarkony and the US Attorney's Office, did not come close to Mr. Sarkony. The Albany County District Attorney's Office later dropped the charge against Mr. Morales Garcia after reviewing the footage.

He pleaded guilty to second degree menacing this month. After that in Broglieo, the Albany Times Union reported that the address that Mr. Sarcone had listed in a police affidavit as his residence in the city was in fact a boarded up building. Maybe he actually lives there. You could kick one of those pieces of plywood in a little bit, kind of sneak in on the side there, and maybe sleep in a refrigerator box. I doubt that's what was going on. In response, the paper reported Mr. Sarcone instructed his staff members to remove the Times Union from his office's distribution

list. That'll teach him. Yeah, there you go. And the New Jersey Globe also in other US attorney news has reported that Alina Habba told her staff just this past Thursday that her tenure as a federal prosecutor could come to an end on Tuesday when she hits her 120 day limit for appointments made by the US Attorney General. But she hopes to continue in her role beyond that as she faces the uncertainties of meeting federal judges of a meeting of federal judges on Monday. So I maybe maybe she'll just be appointed her own assistant. Now, an individual with direct knowledge of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity said earlier this morning that Habba had said she expected to depart next Tuesday.

The New Jersey Globe first reported the judicial meeting and the possibility of a choice between two potential candidates, both registered Republicans, first assistant US attorney Desiree Grace and former US District Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman. The judges could also opt to appoint Haba, whose nomination by President Donald Trump has stalled in the US Senate, where Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim have said they will not sign off on her. If the judges take no action, Grace would become acting U.S. attorney until either a vote of the judges or the Senate confirms President Donald Trump's nominee. Trump nominated Haba for a full term as U.S. attorney on July 1,

but New Jersey's two U.S. Senate Democratic U.S. senators, Kim and Booker have indicated they do not support that. Also to be determined, will a new US attorney continue the prosecution of Representative LaMonica MacGyver? Well, I'm going to put my money on her being appointed her own assistant, a special attorney. I think that might happen. Either that or Ed Martin will go and she'll become whack a Dagpa. Well, they're all special in their own way, but I, yeah, I don't know.

She seems to be laying the groundwork here for a ignominious departure. So that's why I feel like maybe she's got some inside information we don't have access to. The whole process is kind of weird. Like there's these other two people that judges could pick. Like they just get to like pick from their own slate or something. I've never really understood how this works, but it's all part of the federal law that sets the rules for how different political level appointed confirmed possessions get to be filled on an interim basis and how long that can go and it all gets very detailed.

Yeah, the vacancies act, right? Yeah. And it was completely defied during Trump's first term. And that's why none of these revolving doors at US Attorney's offices should come as a surprise. When talking about his cabinet in 2019, Trump was in no hurry to find permanent replacements for the quarter of his cabinet that served in acting capacities because the president said the situation gives him more flexibility.

Quote, I like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting. So now we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great cabinet. And honestly, I think he gets this idea from Putin. Now, according to the Brookings Institution, which is a Washington think tank in the first two years of Trump's first term, there was a 65% turnover rate among senior

level advisors. So when you apply that to the US attorneys, he's kind of learned his lesson. I can violate the vacancies act and who's going to stop me? Article 2, right? That's what he's claiming. And the acting thing is so obvious. Yes, it's the impermanence of it, the ability to toss them out. That's good for him. But even better is they are vulnerable. They're more vulnerable to they have to do whatever he requests. There is no independence here whatsoever because they're just literally day to day hanging on the job by their fingernails.

So that's what he prefers. He'd like everyone around him to be completely vulnerable to his whims at all times. Yeah, agreed. All right, we have a couple more stories before we get to listener questions. If you do have a question for us, you can click the link in the show notes and send your questions to us. We'll answer them on the air. And we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right

back. We'll give you a brief update on Mr. Kilmar Obrego and a couple of other things and also get to those questions. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Before we get into these last couple of stories, we do have some breaking news, Andy. We have some breaking news that we can respond to in real time here as we're recording the Unjustified podcast. This is Friday, it's early afternoon on the West Coast, late afternoon there on the East Coast. And according to court documents, Donald Trump has filed his libel lawsuit against Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters. And this is the, you know, where he said he, where he threatened he was going to sue the Wall Street Journal for the Epstein story that they dropped on

Thursday night. And Andy, I'll give you a one guess what district he filed this lawsuit in. Northern District of Texas. No, so close. Which one? Southern District of Florida. Oh, how did I miss that? Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. And in case you're wondering,

that is where Judge Eileen Cannon holds court. And gosh, I hope he draws Middlebrooks. Oh man, Northern District of Texas was a good guess, right? That's been the go-to for all the crazy, you know, a lot of the judge picking forum shopping stuff that's been going on from the administration ends up there. But not this time. They're like, this is really important. We got to go back.

We got to go back home. I should have given you two guesses because there's really only two. Yeah. That it could be. All right. So we'll keep an eye on this Wall Street Journal. I'm very excited about, I tell you what, do you remember when Manafort showed up in court with gout in a wheelchair? He couldn't come to the hearings. He couldn't be deposed because of his illness. I think that maybe this very first time in the history of Donald Trump where he and the White House and his press secretary admit that he's got some sort of an illness in

CVI, maybe we might see, I'm sorry, I can't be deposed. It's my CVI. So I don't know, but you know, this guy does take a lot of advice from Mr. Manafort and who knows what this is about. It's just very peculiar timing, but I don't wanna get too conspiracy laden about this diagnosis.

It is different though, being a plaintiff in civil court. You know, he's going to try to dodge the depositions and all of discovery and all that stuff, but you don't get the same sort of, you know, you wave a lot of those protections by being the person who instigates the lawsuit, right? So he's not going to be able to say, I, you know, I have absolute immunity, I can't be deposed. Then you can drop the suit. And man, one thing about this Wall Street Journal story

is we only got a description of the drawing of the naked woman on Trump's 50th birthday card to Epstein. If this goes to court, we're gonna see it. It's gonna be in evidence. I wanna see the handwriting analysis. They're going to have to make them. They'll get a subpoena that forces them to sit down and draw naked ladies for like an hour and a half and they'll be comparing them. Oh, boy. Oh, geez. All right. So we'll follow that lawsuit. Also a couple of other quick updates on Mr. Abrego and Seacoat before we get to

listen to questions. You'll recall last week we shared that the New York Times had reported there were two botched deals underway between the US government and Venezuela. One for a potential prisoner swap with the men the government told the court they didn't have custody over in Seacoat and one for oil licensing, right? Yes. Well, this week, the United States has arranged for El Salvador to transfer those Venezuelan deportees to Caracas.

The planes, I'm watching them, they're in the air. And exchange for the release of 10 individuals held by the Venezuelan government. That's five US citizens and five permanent residents, and that's according to two U.S. officials quoted by Reuters. The detainees in question are those taken earlier this year to El Salvador's maximum security C-coat facility. Neither the U.S. State Department, the White House, nor the DHS have commented on the reported prisoner swap. While U.S US authorities have repeatedly maintained that they don't have jurisdiction

over the deported individuals, a report from the New York Times published on July 8th revealed that high-level Trump officials had been actively negotiating to use these detainees as leverage. Moreover, El Salvador seemed to confirm that the US can decide over the fate of the detainees. A court filing presented by lawyers representing four migrant families includes a Salvadoran

government response to a United Nations inquiry that states, quote, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these people lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities, referring to the United States. The filing presented to the United Nations included in litigation brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward. El Salvador said out loud what everyone knew. The United States is in charge of the Venezuelans shipped off in the middle of the night back in March, said ACLU attorney Lee Gellert.

Yeah. Now, despite the failure of initial negotiations, the deal now underway appears to reflect the administration's continued use for the detainees for diplomatic purposes, contradicting earlier legal positions, i.e. they lied to the court. The Venezuelan government has consistently condemned the detentions in El Salvador as violations of international law, while families and legal advocates argue many of those have no ties to criminal activity and were not afforded due process.

And on July 15th, Andy, the State Department quietly declassified and posted the diplomatic notes exchanged between the United States and El Salvador relating to the Seacote detainees and the deal that they made. Now, one of the documents published says what we have long imagined. And by the way, what Bukele said on social media. In response to your diplomatic note regarding the transfer of two individuals identified as members of the terrorist organization MS-13, Cesar Antonio Lopez Larios and Cesar Alisio Soto Amaya, as well as individuals designated by the U.S. as

members of the foreign terrorist organization Tren de Aragua, we wish to communicate the following. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of El Salvador reaffirms its commitment to assist the United States in combating terrorism and promoting peace and freedom across our nations while upholding human rights. That's interesting. In this context, we respectfully agree to the transfer of the two individuals mentioned above who are members of MS-13. Remember how I said I bet there's a MS-13 leader swap? Yep, there it is. And express our readiness to accommodate 300 members of the foreign terrorist organization Trend Air ARAGWA currently detained by the United States.

The Republic of El Salvador confirms it will house these individuals for one year pending further decisions on their long-term disposition. So there you go. There you go. Yeah. a deal in which El Salvador desperately wanted Lopez Larios and Sordo Maya back. And we know, we've all heard the reporting on this. It's a long story, but basically the allegation is that the Bukele government conspired with MS-13 and specifically these individuals,

Lopez Larios, who is one of the original, the founding members of MS-13 and on their internal kind of like board of directors, conspired with these people to do certain things to help Bukele get elected, right? They brought down the violence in and around El Salvador. They, you know, got essentially got out the vote, changed the conditions on the ground to make it look like the Bukele administration was doing a better job fighting crime. And in fact, what

they were doing is basically corrupt deals with the criminals themselves. And these guys end up getting arrested the United States, Bukele desperately wants them back. So the deal here is you get these two back, but you have to take 300 Venezuelans who are alleged to be members of Trende Ragua. Now the second part of the deal is let's send those people back to Venezuela so we can get our Americans back from the Venezuelans.

Yep. So any hope that these men in Seacoat were going to be returned to the United States seems to be dashed. Yeah, they're now in the hands of the government of Venezuela, which is a damn sight less cooperative with the United States than Bukele who seems to be willing to do anything.

Yeah. And this of course will impact the JGG case with in front of Judge Boasberg who had granted putative class status to everyone stuck at Seacote to get them due process. Yeah. So this seems like another defiance of a court order. Although Judge Boesberg's contempt stuff had been paused, I'm not sure about the rest of it. Yeah, I don't have to see how they, how they tee this one up. I don't see Boasberg as being the type of guy that's just gonna let this go.

Right. He could initiate an entirely new contempt proceeding around these developments. I agree. But we'll have to see. There's a lot to work with there. But you know, my heart is now sad. I'm thinking of Andre, the gay stylist who was mistakenly

sent there. Right. Mota, uh, at 70% of them had never committed a crime. Most of them didn't have any connections to Trendy Aragwa and none of them got due process. And the court has not yet determined whether Trump's use of the alien enemies act is even legal. And let's think about it in terms of that argument, right? So that argument is founded on this conclusion that we're essentially at war with Venezuela. They are invading us through Trende Aragua. Like they are a hostile nation,

and that's what gives the government the right to rely on the Alien Enemies Act. Can they still make that argument now that they are actively engaged in prisoner swaps and doing deals together? They've already done it. They're already there. And this is the way of this administration. Do it before the court tells you you can't. Which just leaves you with contempt for violation of court orders, which is kind of toothless since Pam Bondi runs the Marshals and decides whether or not criminal contempt charges

will be filed. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. All right. Very sad news. So we will keep an eye on that. We'll keep an eye on Boasberg's docket to see what happens with that.

Cause you're right, I don't think he'll go quietly, Judge Boasberg that is. All right, and with that, let's get to some listener questions. What do we have this week, Andy? So we have two quick ones here that are both kind of, kind of pointing at the same subject, something you're going to be very familiar with.

First one comes to us from Aaron. Aaron says, so many questions in so little time. Could Jack Smith publish his full report online himself and then just bugger off to Europe? Would he break laws by doing that? Short answer, yes. He would be. It's a very easy. Short answer, yes. He would be very easily arrested by the charged, at least by the Trump administration if he

did that. Right? For sure. They'd love nothing better than to have an excuse to go chasing him down. Yeah. And I doubt he even has a copy. Yeah. If he's smart, he doesn't.

And we know he's smart. He's also not that guy. Like Jack Smith did his job. The attorney general, he turned over his reports. The attorney general made his own decisions about what would be released and what wouldn't. Of course, the court weighed in about that in the Southern District of Florida. And he's not going to, he's not going to violate those, those decisions because he's not that guy. He is the law and order guy.

And thank God, right? That's why we respect him. So you don't think he'd be like Comey and snag a copy and take it with him and put him in his safe? I really don't. I really don't. In fact, he's probably like, get this crap away from me. He probably doesn't even have... He took all his own stuff and threw it away.

Like papers, his tax returns. But I imagine he tried to maybe do something to preserve it, at least somewhere. Well, I know that he filed a copy of it on Judge Eileen Cannon's docket, right? Yeah. So it exists there. Those are official steps. So it's preserved. Unless she's destroyed it. Like in his house, in his laptop or in his safe, that's just a time bomb. That's like, how much do you think Donald Trump would love to send an FBI search team

to Jack Smith's house? Like, come on. I know, but part of me is like, go Ellsberg on this, right? Oh man. That's easy to say when it's not in your house. You got friends with a Higgs? I mean, if someone has worried about these things, I'm telling you, it's like not fun. Yeah. All right. What do we have now? All right. So the next one comes to us from E. McGann and it says, with more prosecutors who worked for Jack Smith being fired, why the silence on Jack Smith himself? Can you give us an update as to what

Jack Smith is up to? Okay well first no because I don't call Jack Smith he doesn't call me haven't heard from that guy for years actually I've never heard from never met him but again like we should not be surprised that Jack Smith is quiet. Jack Smith came in to do a specific job. He did that job as well as he could under very tough circumstances. Now that job is gone. So he goes away.

He goes back to his own private life. I don't think Jack Smith ever got involved in any of this because he wanted to save the world from Donald Trump or force a political, you know, a political condition, anything like that. He did it because the Attorney General asked him to do it. It was a tough investigation, the kind of thing that's right up his alley. And that's it. When it's over, like the, you know, like the cowboy in the Western film, he walks off into the sunset.

And I don't think we're gonna hear from him again. If all goes well for him, we will not hear from him again. Yeah, I mean, I have a personal wish in my heart that he's working with attorneys trying to figure out how he can speak. Because he would only do it during the investigations through speaking indictments, right? That's one way that you can talk. And there's really no other way. And he's going to he's a rule following guy. I maybe he's back at the Hague, not quite sure. But

I haven't been following what he's up to. But it would be against policy heavily against policy for him to comment on this, because Donald Trump wasn't convicted of these crimes. And it's unconstitutional to accuse anyone of a crime if you're a prosecutor without actually indicting them and giving them their rights under the constitution to defend themselves and address their accusers, right? In a court of law. Yeah. So, yeah, that's where I think he probably lands on this. I think that's right. And I would add one more thing. Yeah. He also adds to that.

Like he knows that he is a very attractive subject of investigation. I'm not saying he's under investigation now, but that could come at any moment. You look at what's happening right now with Jim Comey and John Brennan, that could be Jack Smith next week. And going out and speaking publicly, they would love nothing better than to have him

say something and then be able to claim some sort of inconsistency with something he'd said prior to that, and they'd be investigating him for a thousand and one. So like he has to be incredibly careful, uh, simply for his own safety and for his own kind of, uh, legal wellbeing. Yeah. Agreed. But great questions. Nonetheless, because I'm me more than anybody else. And I'm sure you too, Andy, we would love it if we could see volume two of the documents case. I think it's important and there's a massive public interest. I'm just not sure how to get it out while still maintaining the integrity

of Department of Justice policy and the rules of criminal procedure. So yeah, well, it's kind of where we are. A different president could decide, as we have seen with the Epstein files, you know what, release this, this and this, release these reports. So someday that might happen. Kind of up to us, right? Yeah. Well, thank you. If you do have questions for us, you can send them to us by clicking, clicking the link, clinking, clinking the link in the show notes and sending, sending your questions to us by filling out that form. Thank you so much everybody. And we will be back in your ears next week. Do you have any final thoughts on anything that went down this week, Andy? I'm just going to go clink the link and that's it.

That's my final thought. Clink the link. I love it. For sure. All right, everybody, we will see you the next time we see you, which is going to be Sunday, July 27th. A lot is going to happen between now and then. I'll keep an eye on Boesberg's docket. I'll see if I can find out where Jack Smith

is. We're pals. We go way back. He gave me a head nod. He gave me a sup at court one time. So we're super close. I'm kidding, but I'll see if I can find more information on his whereabouts these days. And we'll see you next time. I've been Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at

Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds. And the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com.