Jack - Permanent Record (feat. Uncle Blazer)

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

This week on Mueller, She Wrote (our second to last of 2019), we're catching you up on Rick Gates' sentencing, impeachment, the state of the union and more! Also, wishing a very happy holiday break to all of our awesome listeners. You guys make all of this work so worth it.

Hey, it's Kimberly Host of The Start Me Up Podcast. If you like your politics with some loose talk and salty language, you're going to love my show. I interview the coolest people like Mary Trump, Kathy Griffin, and DNC Chair Jamie Harrison. The Start Me Up Podcast has an easy-going, casual style and a strong emphasis on left-leaning politics. We also have Frank discussions about sex

and more than a few spirited rants. Just visit patreon.com slash start me up or wherever you get your podcasts and start listening today. Thanks to Beta Brand for supporting Mola She Wrote. Beta Brand has the pants to match your style. They have boot cuts, straight legs, skinny cropped, premium denim, six button and wide leg pants and dozens of colors, patterns and cuts. Go to Beta Brand dot com slash AG and get 20% off your dress pant yoga pants. And thanks to Noom for supporting Mueller, she wrote, sticking to a weight loss plan can be hard. Noom is designed for results. It's out with the old habits and with the

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their personalized collection at Everlane.com slash AG. Plus, you'll get free shipping on your first order. 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 the opposition 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, and I 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.

Hello, and welcome to Muller She Road. I'm your host host A.G. and with me today is Amanda Reader. Hello, I'm good. Good. Happy Solstice? Yeah. Speaking of the Solstice, every year I posted a beautiful drawing of a book under the moon, Silvery Moon, that says Happy Winter You Solstice, You Thieving Christian Bastards. It's a joke, right? Well, Facebook pulled it down immediately and said I needed to be nicer. And I just sort of sat there awestruck after having watched Maddo's Story Friday night. I don't know if you watched or not, but it was about the epic times and how they successfully created tens of thousands of bot accounts. Facebook has so far removed 900.

They would use artificial photos made to look like real Americans and then develop a following by being a fan of something benign like horses or NASCAR or cooking or gardening or whatever the fuck. And then once they infiltrated enough on Facebook and got enough followers, they'd become politically activated and they would start posting pro-Trump lies. And since Facebook doesn't care about political lies that aim to undo Western democracy, they defend keeping those posts alive but take down my solstice jokes. So fuck that. Truly unbelievable and doesn't bring me comfort about the security of the 2020 election,

but there we are. So we do have a great show for you today. Uncle Blazer is back with us. He's back on Twitter and he's joining us for the interview to discuss a handful of court filings in the five big Trump cases working their way through the courts right now. There are three with the Supreme Court, two mazers cases and a Deutsche Bank case, and two are with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals,

and those are the cases that are relevant. And they're really relevant now because of Pelosi's seemingly new strategy, which I think she had planned all along, to withhold the articles of impeachment until the Senate agrees to a fair trial that includes witnesses. And if we get tax returns and molar materials and began testimony before such a time, this could really change the face of the articles of impeachment, not the ones that have already been voted on and passed, but new articles of impeachment. It could change that dramatically.

We're already seeing new documents from the Office of Management and Budget. We'll get into that today as well. We have so much news, but before we jump in, we have a few corrections. It's time to stay, it's time for me to say I'm sorry. Oh, I made a mistake. Oh. All right, John DeGrazia. He says, I'm a retired teacher and I very much missed listening to Bright Women Every Day. Your podcast feels much of the void. I'm sure people have written

regarding replacing a vice president. It's laid out clearly in the 25th Amendment. If there's a vacancy, the president nominates a new VP who must be confirmed by a majority of vote in both parties. I think you mean both houses. Yes, Nancy could prevent president pens from having a VP and then assuming the presidency should Pence go down. I'm eagerly awaiting your first live podcast. I'm here in Eugene. I'm assuming Oregon. Yes, Seattle's beautiful in Portland is edgy, but we're delightful. You would fit right in. Thank you. I go to Oregon. Yeah, and honestly, I don't know that the Democrats would like block the nomination of another

vice president. That would definitely be overturning the will of the people. At least the electoral college will of the people. That would be politically bad, but I mean, seriously, anything goes right now. So I mean, who knows? Or off script. We are. We're way, way off script.

Steve Calland said, I know you were just quoting GOP talking points, but I think it's important to make it clear Ukraine is absolutely not the third most corrupt country in the world that honor belongs to South Sudan per the most recent transparency international report. That's at www.transparency.org slash CPI 2018. Ukraine is ranked 120th out of 180. Thank you. I guess the 60th most corrupt country doesn't quite have the same ring. Thank you. And Alex Schaeffer, your voice is immensely important and has kept me sane.

Part of your bit about the succession and the highly unlikely event of Trump's removal is not quite correct. Pence would become Potus, a point in UVP, however, the new VP needs simple majority vote confirmation by both House and Senate. Yes. So if the House sat on it, for example, if Pelosi were like McConnell until Pence went down, Pelosi would indeed become president. I just learned this myself, but it's, even the Robert Reich wasn't technically right. It's a bit misleading to conclude Pelosi couldn't become voters. I know she could, instead of saying there's a 99.99% chance she will not. And again, from the first correction there, I think it saying there's a 99.99% chance she will not. And again, from the first

correction there, I think it's because it would be politically bad for the Democrats to not do that. Now, however, we do have Mitch McConnell unwilling to appoint a judge, but can we turn around and do the same thing? Like trying not to go as low is turn about fair play, being, you know, breaking norms and rules. And, you know, some people say desperate times, call for desperate measures, but, you know, I'm also of the elk that the systems are important. So yeah, we'll see. If you've noticed a bit of an echo in here today, we are recording sort of on the fly, on the road, on the road, Zs out of town. So I think you'll be okay with it. It's, but it, I mean, we do have a little echo here.

We're at Casa Reader. But it's, you know, beautiful home. It just doesn't have all that weird studio foam everywhere. So, and you know, you've heard us recording hotel rooms. You're fine. I love you. And airplane bathrooms.

And airplane bathrooms? That was the best sound quality. Love that one. Any podcast. Bring it up all the time. I've recorded on Twitter. Yeah, it's going to go down like remember the one time. And Madeline Gray, I love a muller she wrote and the daily beans references to Austin Powers, Mean Girls and Clueless. Not so much a screw up as a strong caveat that no one got no one get carried away with Christianity today coming out for 45s removal from office. The truth is the

cultivation of the white evangelical crystal fascists has been too long in motion and Christianity today has a low circulation even among that crowd. Yes correct. Thank you. And she says by the way, academic Chrissy Strupe at C underscore Strupe on Twitter is a specialist in American Evangelicism and Russian history who would be a fantastic guest. So we'll reach out to her. Thank you. Andy Lopada, this is more than an FYI than a correction.

You've been wondering on the show whether Giuliani was registered under phara. Apparently, phara registrations are online and searchable. Cludy Ready's name comes up in a few documents and there's some links here. But as far as I can tell, he's not actually registered himself. All right, cool, thanks for looking that up. I didn't know that was, oh, just Google it, okay. Oh, guys, so those are corrections. If you have any, please go to mullishirout.com,

click contact and select corrections, build a complement sandwich, and we'll get it right eventually. And if you want more corrections, we're working on some new stuff for patrons in the new year, including video of us recording in the studio, special Q&A and corrections episodes that are ad-free, just for patrons, a lot of more bonus content, some book review content. That's in addition to the newsletter, my research notes, pre-sale tickets for live events,

private meet and greets, ad-free episodes of our sister podcast, The Daily Beans, plus a ton of thank-you gifts. And it all, for as little as three bucks a month. The contributions go toward fair pay, healthcare, and 401k benefit plans for our staff, even the part-timers. So please help us out, and thanks for supporting women in podcasting. We do have a lot of news to get to today, so let's jump in with just the facts. Alright, let's start out with the big impeachment news from the week, which is Trump was impeached. Followed by Nancy Pelosi's

badass strategy to wait to select House impeachment managers, thereby holding up the articles of impeachment. In case you missed it, as I said, Donald J. Trump was impeached this week in two articles, including abuse of power for the Ukraine extortion and inviting a foreign government to interfere in our 2020 elections and Article 2, obstruction of Congress, because he is refused to turn over a single document and won't allow anyone with really, really good juice to testify. I mean, yelling on Twitter for Pelosi to wait to send the articles to the full house for a vote because I wanted to wait for the courts to litigate the McGann testimony. Oh, dog squeaky toys. That's awesome. We're leaving it in. Because pod dogs are everything.

You hear a bark or a squeaky toy. Yeah, me. That's her. That's his comfort piggy. So I've wanted her to withhold these articles. I want to wait till we get the tax stuff and the McGand testimony and the more grand jury materials, Mazar's and Deutsche Bank stuff.

And I'll talk more in depth about this strategy later in the show with Uncle Blazer during the interview. So stick around for that because we, you know, he and I have been going back and forth on Twitter about this for a while. And, you know, we had initially thought that maybe they would vote in the judiciary and not send them to the full house, but she had a trick up her sleeve.

She got it through the full house. She passed them, she impeached them, and now she's just not going to hire house managers for impeachment to, which is what triggers the articles being sent over to the Senate. And the White House and Trump are now saying, well, I wasn't impeached then. What, sorry, you were. And streetbooks will show. Yeah. I think so. I think so, buddy. The gavel came down. So sorry. And if you don't agree with that, I know you all do that you're who are listing, but if somebody says, no, just point them to the Constitution where it says the house has

the sole discretion of impeachment, has nothing to do with the Senate. Impeachment happens in the house and the house only. I wish that Trump supporters would get a tiny constitution in their stockings for this Christmas. That would be so great. That would be nice. Fire Trump supporting relative a tiny version of the Constitution. Yeah. It makes them feel more Republican, make it out of plastic. And of course this week we got to see

Trump's reaction to the impeachment, which was totally even keeled level headed and fabulous and very legal and very cool. No, he wrote a six page first before he was impeached, he wrote this batch six page single space letter. And I want to go over a few things in the letter. First, he says, this impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse. That is not true. The Constitution, as I said, has the sole power to impeach officials.

So it is constitutional. Then he says, everyone, you included, knows what's really happening. You're chosen candidate lost the election in 2016 in an electoral college landslide, 306 to 227. That an electoral college landslide 306 to 227. That is false. He won 304 to 227. And then he lists a diatribe of his so-called accomplishments, which is he's trying to say because I've done so well I shouldn't be impeached. But one of his accomplishments is a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings.

That's a hundred percent false. The number of apprehended at the border has doubled since 2016. Then he said, you forced our nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from Foreign Spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy. That is false. It is not illegal to contract with a foreign person or foreign entity for services, including conducting opposition research in a US campaign so long as the services are paid for at the market rate. You can't extort them to do it, you have to pay them money. That's just how it goes. And as we all know, the Republicans were paying a fusion GPS first before the DNC got a hold of it. And also putting the nation through turmoil over an illegally purchased

I don't know if we read the Inspector General report but the opening of Crossfire hurricane and the Russian investigation Had nothing to do with the steel dossier. They didn't get the FBI didn't get the steel dossier until after that was open Talked to pop a dot ran his mouth. So you can talk to him about that shit He also accused the FBI of placing spies in his campaign, which is false, as we know from the Inspector General Report. Then he goes on to talk about the whistleblower saying, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of a phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call. That is false. And we know that because the whistleblower account matches the reconstructed transcript that Trump released

himself. It matches. This letter reminds me of like a middle school letter between like fighting 16 year old girls. You know what I mean? You know when you're fighting when you're in middle school and it's like the worst thing you can possibly imagine and everyone's really over emotional and like writes ridiculous notes to each other about it. It feels like that. Yes, that is exactly what it's like. You're so right. They fold up a little flap letter, tucking in. But then my favorite part of the letter,

Trump says, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record. I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record. So that letter was just before he was impeached. And then while he was being impeached, he was on the stage at his Maga clan rally, where as we know, I'm sure you've all heard, he insinuated Rep John Dingle, a recently deceased

war hero from the state he was in, was in hell. So yeah, he's taking it, Trump's taking this really well, this impeachment. And withholding the articles is just going to make it more mad. I like this strategy. I don't know how long she'll hold them. well this impeachment and withholding the articles is just going to make it more mad. I like this strategy. I don't know how long she'll hold them. A week, a couple of days, forever. I really have no idea. Until his head pops off? Yeah, pretty much. From rage. And related to impeachment, Trump is now battling new sanctions on Russia, the Congress wants. And we learn that he threatened a government shutdown if Dems didn't remove language from the NDAA that's just passed

it funded the government that would require Trump to release future Ukraine aid without delaying it. He's like, nope, you got to take that out or I won't sign it and we're going to shut the government down for the holidays and thousands of families will go without paychecks. And of course, there's the bombshell story that it was putting himself that advised Trump on what to do with regards to Ukraine when they asked him what how do you come up with this Ukraine plan. He's like, Putin told me. So all roads lead to Putin. And we got some emails from the office of management and budget in a FOIA request. And this is big. This is a late Friday night dump of a FOIA request emails that show Mike Duffy from the office of

management and budget had ordered the Pentagon to withhold the Ukraine aid just 90 minutes after the July 25 call. Duffy is one of the four witnesses that Schumer is demanding as part of his Fair and Peachment Trial Initiative. That's what I'm calling it. He's the Trump pick that replaced Mark Sandey, who did testify in closed depositions. From the article here, quote, based on guidance I have received and in light of the administration's plan to review assistance to Ukraine, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative,

please hold off on any additional DOD obligations of these funds pending direction for that process. So now they're saying, this is Duffy saying, based on the guidance and in light of the administration's plan, and also said due to the sensitive nature of this request. So, there's nothing sensitive about, like, it should be public. If you're withholding aid because you're concerned about corruption, which is what Obama and the Biden and Biden did in the Biden.

The Biden. What they did with the EU in concert with everybody in the EU, and the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, they all made this effort to say, look, we're going to send you this aid, but you need to stop corruption. You need to battle corruption in your country. That's not a sensitive issue. That is a public policy. And if you have a good public policy, make it.

The reason he didn't is because it's not a good public policy. It's a crime. But my favorite thing this week is just that two days after she impeached his ass, Pelosi invited Trump to give the state of the union address. I saw that. Via a letter. What a bitch move. It's so good though. Have you read the letter? It's super short. No, I haven't. But it throws a lot of shade. Like, it's so much shade wrapped into just a few paragraphs here. Let me get it up here because you need to hear it.

She's been the queen of shade the last few weeks. Yeah. Yeah, I've been about it. I wavered on my Nancy for a couple months there. I was like, I don't know Nancy. Are you leading us in the right direction? But now I'm like, yes. I know.

Nancy, take the wheel. I know. And we've gone from, you know, the squad, you know, the year of the squad, to the year of the speaker. For women, basically. Yeah, absolutely. No matter what. Where's this letters? This it? Okay, so here's what she wrote this time. She said, in

their great wisdom, our founders crafted a constitution based on a system of separation of powers, three co-equal branches acting as checks on each other to ensure that balance of powers. The constitution calls for the president to from time to time, give the Congress information of the state of the Union. In the spirit of respecting our Constitution, I invite you to deliver your state of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, February 4, 2020 in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. So, last year it was,

I invite you to give your state of the Union on the House Chamber floor. This year, it's in the spirit of the Constitution and because of checks and balances and the powers, the, you know, and separation of powers and all this other stuff and in the spirit of respecting our Constitution. Oh my god, she's just so shady. She's like, if I fucking have to. Yeah, pretty much. All right, we have a lot more news, so we'll be right back after the break. Stay with us. Hey everybody, thanks to Beta Brand for supporting Muller She Wrote. Beta Brand makes my absolute favorite pair of pants ever. The most comfortable pants I've ever worn, the dress pant yoga pants.

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a g. You'll be glad you did. Alright everybody welcome back. We have an update on our favorite, you know, treasonous bastard Michael Flynn. Oh, I was like, which one? Our favorite one. Ah, yes. The one that the judge actually said, have you guys looked into treason for this guy?

That the him? All the way back to Monday of last week, Judge Sullivan rejected Flynn's attacks against the FBI in the Department of Justice and finally set a long delayed sentencing date for him. And that's gonna be January 28th, which is right close to my birthday and I'm so happy about this. As we know, rewind from a year ago, December 18th, 2018, Sullivan was not kind to Flynn in

his hearing and said he needed to cooperate more. And he basically insinuated, you do not want me to sentence you today because your cooperation is weak, it's weak, sauce, bro. And so he, and that's when he asked the prosecutors if they thought about charging with treason. So Flynn went forth to try to cooperate more and was about to testify in the B. Jan Kean case. That's his co-conspirator in lobby and on behalf of Turkey. But then Flynn decided to fire his lawyers and hire this Fox News contributor named Sidney Powell. And she's a nut job. And she talked him into considering a withdrawal of his guilty plea.

And Flynn then went from star witness in the B. Jean-Key on trial to unindicted co-conspirator, which is not a thing that you want to be in a trial. And so he was a co-conspirator lobbying on behalf of Turkey, but then Flynn decided to fire his lawyers, like I said, and then all everything went to shit. And he became the unindicted co-conspirator from from cooperating witness to

motherfucker. Well, bomb. So he did not testify in the B. Jean-Key on trial. And then Sidney Powell filed for a couple of hundred Brady violations. Brady violations are saying, you the prosecution, the Mueller team didn't turn over 500 pieces of evidence that would exonerate Flynn, ex-culpatory evidence. You have to do that under the Brady rule. And Mueller had done that a couple of times, especially in the Manafort and Gates

case, where Gates gave him this new piece of information about Manafort. And Mueller had to say to the courts, hey, I found something that could be ex-culpatory for Manifort. Gates just told us this. Something about the transfer of the polling data back and forth. So, you know, that was... and the judge decided it was not ex-culpatory, but Mueller is no stranger to Brady violations and ex-culpatory evidence. And here's Sidney Powell, Flynn's lawyer saying, there's like 500 things. And now, so he, he, he was going to be sentenced, like I said, this year, December 18th. But the judge wanted to wait until the IG report came out because the IG report was

covering if the FBI had any misconduct in opening the investigation or planted spies or framed anybody in the first place, right? Which confirmed no. Yes. That's exactly what it said. It said no, there was none of that, no spies, no frame job. How it's like that. How it's like that. And now that it has, the judge thrashed Flynn for his accusations that the FBI framed

him and even accused Flynn's lawyer of plagiarism, saying she cut whole cloth a paragraph from a Supreme Court decision without citing it, and said that you could be in severe violation of legal ethics rules, so that could be being looked into. So January 28th, in this latest hearing, the judge completely unimpressed with Flynn's New Case, New Lawyers, and the way he he's going has now scheduled it for January 28th. So we'll keep you posted. Also this week Durham, that's the dude Barr appointed to investigate the oranges. The Mueller investigation is now scrutinizing the former CIA director John Brennan's role

in the Russian interference investigation by seeking his communication records, emails, phone calls. As we all know, earlier in the year, Trump gave Bar the keys to the kingdom by allowing him to declassify anything he wants, enforcing all agencies to comply with his requests. He's clearly and blatantly going after Trump's political enemies, which is an abuse of power and abuse of his office. Nixon did this. He was almost impeached for it, but he resigned first, because he's smart. But Durham wants to know what Brennan told officials like Comey, the communications with maybe FBI, about the Christel dossier. And I don't understand why since the dossier had nothing to do with the origins across

Fire Hurricane. As you know, the FBI did not have it in their possession in July when they opened the investigation. But it shows Trump's continued efforts to discredit the dossier and to discredit his political enemies, anyone who investigated him. And so far, none of this has been, uh, has any real, I don't know, fact. There's no art, art, articular factual basis, art, awful, yes, to even look into this. And the dossier, none of it's been disproven. So still to this day, but, and a lot of it's been disproven. So still to this day, but and a lot of it's been corroborated. But we're wasting money investigating the FBI in the CIA. Yes. Cool. Absolutely. The real witch hunt, but they've already used the word witch hunt, so we can't

use it anymore. We just have to go, you're dumb. So it seems that the IG was lit. That's what you do. If you're planning on doing a witch hunt, you call what the other person's doing a witch hunt. It's called reflexive control. It's an active measure. It's a Russian thing. Yeah. And then when then the other person can't say witch hunt, you call what the other person is doing a witch hunt. It's called Reflexive Control. It's an active measure. It's a Russian thing. And then when then the other person can't say witch hunt because you've already said that. You've claimed that word and like fake news. That's theirs. Collusion is theirs. Hopes. So it seems the IG was looking into the FBI's conduct. The Inspector General with the report that just came out. They were looking at the FBI's conduct and the FISC and the FISA warrant on Carter Page found it to be fine. There were 17 errors made in the renewal application for the Carter Page FISA, but still didn't

have any impact on the investigation either way. Nothing that was, I don't think they gathered anything, and if they did gather anything, nothing they gathered was used in the investigation. And then now it seems like Durham is looking into other agencies, like the NSA and the CIA looking into Brennan, and wherever Trump has political enemies in all those other places. Most of his enemies are the FBI, but Right, and Durham works under bar at the Department of Justice. Yep. He's hired him as a special investigator to do this, to look into this. He's also the one looking into criminal charges for the one guy who altered the email and the FISA, a renewal application for Carter Page. He's looking into criminal charges for him. I don't think they'll find him. I don't think they'll be able to bring him.

But we'll see. And finally, from the Associated Press, a Trump advisor told influential, which, you know, I would say wealthy, but all Republicans are influential Republicans in Wisconsin that the GOP has traditionally relied on voter suppression to win battleground states. So this coupled with the citizenship question on the 2020 census where they admitted to racial gerrymandering to win elections, it's, and oh, and by the way, the Trump administration came forth with indigitional 2000 documents they were supposed to turn over in that case, and they didn't, and that just could be bad news for them. But anyway, so that, you know, they admit that they rely on voter suppression in battleground states, and it's

clear that the GOP can only win when they cheat. So here from the AP, traditionally, quote, traditionally, it's always been Republicans suppressing votes in places. Let's start protecting our voters. We know who they we know where they are. Let's start playing offense. That's what you're going to see in 2020. It's going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better funded program. So that's creepy. Yeah, it's they really do rely on Dairymandering and Bullshit rules like your signature has to exactly match. Yeah, or your name if anything doesn't match in your You know 800 character voter registration card. You're purged from the roles this this week. They're purging 300,000 from And like they're purging millions of voters. I think North Carolina and Alabama

They're purging millions of voters. I think North Carolina and Alabama It's just it's absolutely unbelievable and now we have them admitting it And so they've admitted the Jeremy the race the racist gerrymandering now they're admitting the voter suppression and in in Key battleground states mostly the Midwest and I think that's why you you Joe Ellen I were talking a little bit earlier about Amy Klobuchar and how she just kept mentioning she was from the Midwest. And I think it's because Trump won in Midwest states by only 77,000 votes in his landslide. I like Amy Klobuchar, but her stick about being from it's a little exhausting. I'm from the Midwest. I understand that. Well, there's a lot of, I do like, there's a lot of more moderate Democrat,

Democratic voters in the flyover states that feel a little left out, a little steamrolled by the Coastal elite. Yeah, it is true, but that doesn't give you like cart blanche to know exactly what everyone wants. No, it doesn't, but that's who she's going after. Yeah, yeah, true. And it is an important block in 2020,

but it's not the only block. Yeah, exactly. In fact, it's like the number six block of people we need. Yeah. In important blocks of voters. Mm-hmm. We'll be right back after this brief message. We have an awesome sponsor, but we have hot notes coming up

and the fantasy indictment leaks that stay with us. Hey everybody, this segment of Mueller She Grows Brought to you by NUME. It is hard to stick to a diet plan, especially around the holidays. I tried not to OD on gravy and mashed potatoes and stuffing. Joel, you can attest to that. We're here in Joel's house.

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Go to policygenius.com to get quotes and apply in minutes. You can do the whole thing on your phone right now. That's policygenus.com, the easy way to compare and buy life insurance. Alright, welcome back. Hot notes. Alright everybody, this week Jordan's out, she'll be back after the holidays. She's on invocation. So we wish her well, but I'm just going to do some hot notes today. We have Amy Berman this week, Judge Jackson, if you're nasty, sentenced Rick Gates finally. It's been years. And she let us know in the courtroom just how much he cooperated in the extent of the Russian interference. And I'm going to give

you what she said here because she was like in the middle of sentencing him and then she was like, ah, you know what? Let me digress for a second. She said, quote, before I go further to discuss the nature and extend of his cooperation, I think it's necessary to digress a moment to mention the substance of some of that cooperation. Mr. Gates provided information, not hearsay, but information based on his personal knowledge, meetings he attended, conversations in which he was a participant, and information that was verified with contemporaneous records of numerous, undeniable contacts and communications between individuals associated with the presidential

campaign and individuals associated with Russia and Ukraine. One cannot possibly maintain that this was all ex-Sculptory information. It included first-hand information about confidential campaign polling data being transmitted at the direction of the head of the campaign to one of those individuals to be shared with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. It included first-hand information about a meeting with the campaign concerning a meeting with Russians for the sole stated purpose of providing information that could be used against Hillary Clinton. That's the famous Trump Tower meeting.

And it included firsthand information about claims made by an individual close to the campaign to be in contact with WikiLeaks concerning the release of emails obtained with the DNC computers that were hacked. She's talking about Stone now because she's presided over the Stone Manifor and Gates cases. So she knows all this. She's presided over the Stone Manifort and Gates cases. Yeah. So she knows all this. Gates' information alone, she said,

warranted, indeed, demanded further investigation from the standpoint of our national security, the integrity of our elections, and the enforcement of our criminal laws. Not all witnesses with knowledge did cooperate, and not everyone who cooperated testified truthfully, and many communications were lost to investigators because they were deleted, destroyed, or were conducted on an encrypted platform and not saved.

But Gates debriefing, she says, his multiple incriminatory bits of evidence on matters of grave and international importance or reminder that there was an ample basis for the decision makers at the highest level of the United States Department of Justice, the United States Department of Justice of this administration to authorize and pursue a law enforcement investigation and to whether there was any coordination between the campaign and the known foreign interference in the election, as well as info whether there had been any attempt to obstruct the investigation and leave no stone unturned no matter what the prosecutors determined they had evidence to prove at the end of that investigation. For those reasons, Gates decision to be honest about what he did not was an important public service. Oh, no, wait, sorry,

that can't be right. No need for an edit. I'll just read it again. But for those reasons, Gates decision to be honest about what he did know was an important public service under the difficult circumstances So that's why he only got 45 days. Yeah, touch Jackson. She's so bad ass. God. Oh, she basically just laid it all out She's like I'm just Jackson. I've seen what Maniford did. I've seen what Stone did and I've seen what Trump the Trump campaign did And I've seen what Gates did and without his Honest and for a threat cooperation because everyone else was lying and deleting and destroying and hiding evidence, he has been so important to our national security.

All you need is one guy to corroborate, right? I mean, not all you need is one guy, but his evidence and his cooperation was so necessary and is bringing everyone else down. And he'll tell you where all the documents are. Yeah. And her best line, I thought of the hearing was politics, don't corrupt people, people corrupt politics.

Isn't that good? That's a good one. That's a shirt. I was just gonna say that, that's a shirt. It's totally a shirt. It's totally a shirt. So she gave him 45 days and he can choose if he wants to do that on the weekends.

Just show up on the weekends and do his 45 days. It's hard to be rich in wine. I think it's longer than 45 days. Dude. Sorry, I mean to share that with anyone. Now you know. And three years probation, he has that as well. To have to do like community service, Ella, Felicity Huffman. I would love for him to have to pick up trash on the side of the 405 or something, but that's probably not gonna happen. Or 75, I don't know what freeways they have in DC.

Side of the metro station, there you go. All right, are you ready for sabotage? I am still in for Wama Getten. I'm out. Last night we were in the car. Yeah, sad times. Were you listening to serious Christmas music? Yes, we were.

That is Wama Getten roulette. If you are brave enough. It was an accident. I turned it on the radio and there it was. I was like, ah, fuck. Shame, shame. I know. on the radio and there it was. I was like, ah, fuck, shame, shame. I know. And also this week in sabotage,

and I'm sad Jordan's not here, because this is a story from way back before you joined us. Mandy, we have an update on Jolo. Jolo. Jolo, the Malaysian guy who stole billions of dollars from one MDB fund, which is a Malaysian fund, and laundered it with the help of two Goldman Sachs bankers. Well Goldman Sachs is about to reach a settlement for their involvement in the scheme, and it looks like it could be two billion dollars

for ignoring money laundering red flags and pocketing 600 million from the scheme. One of the bankers Tim Liesner pleaded guilty to stealing more than $200 million from one MDB and agreed to a lifetime ban from securities. He's now cooperating with investigators to look for more indictments. That's what the sabotage is about because guess how many Trump associates worked with Jolo? How many? We have Chris Christie, you know him. We have Mark Casowitz, a Trump attorney who helped Kushner get a loan from Deutsche Bank.

We have Bobby Birchfield, an ethics advisor for Trump, such a funny job title. We have Ed Rogers, who is a Republican lobbyist, and the big one, Elliot Brody. This was what the fuck moment of 2018, because Joe Loh met Elliot Brody through Prosmischel, one of the founding members of the Fuji's. Yeah, I know.

Oh, God. What a weird world we live in. I know. And if you've been listening to Mullah Shiro for a long time now, then you know when Leonardo DiCaprio got dragged into this ice cubes, been a part of it. And now... Wait, I have context of that. I need to listen to old episodes clearly. So Jolo is now close to the former criminal Malaysian Prime Minister Nudgee Brazak, who was arrested last year on Koalala and Porra for embezzling from the same fund as Jolo is now close to the former criminal Malaysian Prime Minister Nudgee Brazak, who was arrested last year on Kuala Lumpur for imbezzling from the same fund as Jolo. And the $2 billion fine would be one of the largest levied by the Justice Department. So that's sabotaged.

Did you see $200 billion fine? $2 billion. What the fuck? $2 billion fine. Largest levied by the... one of the largest levied by the Justice Department. So that... think about those guys when you're coming into the fantasy indictment, like, you're gonna play it with me this week. Are you ready for the fantasy indictment, Lee? I am.

I'm gonna be a candidate! No, it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna! I'm gonna! I'm gonna! I'm gonna be a pilot! I'm gonna be a pilot! Hold it!

It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down. I'm gonna be a pilot! Alright, so I went first last week. Jordan and not here, that means she's forfeited and seniority gives me the first pick, according to the rules

that I've just made up. So I am gonna go with a Parnas plea deal, and now you're gonna play this week. All righty, I'm gonna have Giuliani then. Nice, I'm gonna go with Elliot Brody, he's just, he's gotta go down sometime soon. I'm gonna go with Elliott Brody. He's just he's got to go down sometime soon. I'm gonna go with Trump and I girl. Good good one. I'll do Fruiman super seating Okay

I'm gonna go with You're the rando Ukrainian. Oh nice with, hmm, with a rando Ukrainian. Oh, nice. Noise. Mm-hmm. Ukrainian connected, right? Yes, a rando US. Yes, someone who is connected to Ukraine.

Yeah, got it. How many do have left? You have two left. I'm gonna go where I was gonna do a kajal, but he's already been indicted and I didn't get points for him I took him off the same week. I took Nader off and they both got indicted But that time for donating to Hillary Clinton's campaign. That's funny I'll go with the pecker

Pecker I'm gonna do beg just to annoy Jordan. Oh, Berg. Oh, Jordan. Ha, ha, ha. Because she's not here. Devery. Uh, finally, I will do, um, American media ink. They don't normally, I mean, it's pretty rare that they indict a entity, but sometimes it happens.

Usually they indict like Weiselberg. They'll do Weiselberg instead of the Trump organization, or they'll do the executives like David Pecker instead of AMI or the little lawyers, I think Dylan Howard is the AMI lawyer, but sometimes they indict the actual, yeah, because you pick Barric instead of Ed, but also Trump and I girl, they're connected. They're connected. Hmm, who should I do for my last one? Ooh. I know.

Um, could you Gisling? Oh, that is a good one. That means that Gisling. I, that is a good one. Um, I'm, I know it's really morbid because she's like a fucking terrible person who's done a lot of fucked up shit, but I'm like endlessly fascinated with her. Yeah, it's a fascinating story. Yeah.

It really is. And I don't think there's anything morally wrong with being fascinated by it because like when I was younger when I was in college, I was way into studying serial killers. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen killing Eve? No. Okay.

You should watch that. Is that good? Yeah, serial killer being obsessed with female serial killers. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. So like Eileen Vernos, I'm trying to think of how many female serial killers there are, but it's a female serial killer obsessed with female serial killers. It's a, well, it's an investigator who works for MI6 who's obsessed with a particular, she's obsessed with female serial killers, but she gets put on the case of one and then

they get obsessed with each other. It's, you'd like it. You should watch it. Killing Eve. Yeah. Who's in it? Sandra O. I love her. Yeah, she's rad.

She's from sideways. She's so great. Yeah, I know. All right, everybody, we have a very important interview after this break. You're gonna want to hear it. It's Uncle Blazer. He's back on Twitter and he's back on our show.

And we are going to talk about, I think three or four different court filings that hit in the five big Trump cases and the five big Trump cases and they're working their way through to this two and through the Supreme Court right now in case you need a refresher are the Mazar's case filed by oversight committee. The Mazar's case filed by Sive Anson Manhattan District Attorney, the Deutsche Bank and Capital One case filed by the House of Representatives and I just couple committees in the House, I think, finance and oversight. And then the other two are Mueller related, the McGann testimony, Sapena case, and the

Mueller Grandjury Materials case. The two Mueller Grandjury material and McGann cases, they're going to be heard January 3rd and DC Court of Appeals, DC District quarter of appeals. The other three have been picked up by SCOTUS and will be heard in March with decisions to come out June July timeframe. They're they're at latest usually. That's would be the latest. So we're going to go over all the nuts and bolts of that with Uncle Blazer right after this stick around Hey everybody, it's HG. I hate overpaying for clothes, especially, you know, the wardrobe basics that I like black tanks I wear a lot of those black t-shirts and black skirts fit and flare stuff But especially the high-end stuff that's been marked up astronomically that really bugs me

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Hey, thanks for having me. No problem, thanks for being here. Alright, so we have a lot to talk about as I'm sure thousands were thinking of you when Nancy Pelosi announced after the impeachment vote passing both articles in the Full House of Representatives that she intended to wait to see what the senate trial rules would look like before she decided to hold votes for the house managers and the vote for house managers is effectively the tool that sends the articles to the senate. Now you've been talking about this for a while and mainstream media republicans and many Democrats were

all saying that the Senate trial would be fast and immediate. She would send them right over. But we were talking about this with you about waiting a minute. So let's talk a little bit about this plan and how you see it playing out. What did you think of that? Did you see that announcement? What was going through your mind at that point? Yeah, well, you know, what I've been thinking for a few months is that they should just wait and not vote at the full House of Representatives. Instead, vote in the Judiciary Committee and then hold the articles in the Judiciary Committee

as sort of a clearinghouse, let the six investigations that are going on, or at least the six investigative committees, come up with everything they have submitted to the Judiciary Committee votes, the Judiciary Committee then just holds everything until it's all ready and then submitted to the House for a vote. So I think when I saw that the articles were going to a full of the house, I was getting nervous. I'll admit it.

I've been pretty staunch in saying that there's no way the case would be sent to the Senate unless it was an ironclad case. And the reason I've been saying that is because that's what answer was he's been saying yeah and we kind of thought that a full house vote would be the thing that would trigger the articles being sent to the senate at least i was operating off that assumption i was definitely operating under that assumption as well and i mean i'm not an expert on uh... the

internal rules of the house and the senate but my understanding had been that once a vote had taken place, that the articles would sort of automatically flow over to the Senate, or at least I also had this sort of background concern that somehow McConnell would just take the case and say, I don't care whether you've given it to me or not, I'm taking it. But I didn't really take into account the fact that the house is the one who presents the case. And so until they're ready to present the case, you can't really try it. And I think that the give-away

was when the House Democrats invited Larry Tribe to come and sit in on one of their strategy sessions, and that happened over the weekend of December 7th. And when Tribe came back from that meeting, he immediately took the Twitter and started talking about this plan that he had come up with, that what if you just vote on the articles of impeachment and hold them and don't send the case over and when I saw that I Will say when I saw that I knew that was the plan Immediately when I saw that that tweet by him and I'll tell you why because tribe has been Extremely hard on policy for months on Twitter. He has been all over her

for months on Twitter. He has been all over her, you know, complaining about every step she's taking and questioning every single thing she's done. All of a sudden he starts floating this idea, and then he starts offering, you know, unquestioning support of the House Democratic team and of policy after having attended a strategy session with them. And I realized this is what happened. They had this plan, this is what they wanted to do, and they called in the country's foremost constitutional law expert to make sure they were right and that they could do it. I do not believe this was tribe's plan. I believe that this was the House Democrats plan. They brought him in to fly speck it and make sure they hadn't missed

anything, and that McConnell wouldn't be able to pull the case out from under them. And he approved the plan and immediately took the Twitter announcing it, and I knew that was it. I thought it was what they were going to do. And when tribe was on board that it would work, I mean, he's the man when it comes to the Constitution. I think all of us agree on that. And, you know, he was pretty confident that this would work. And so I became pretty confident it would work too. And I think it's a great plan. Yeah. And I think we're still speculating that the ultimate goal of this plan is to hold the articles until we get these court rulings in the Mueller Grand jury materials case and all that.

The five cases that you and I have been talking about pretty much nonstop for the last three or four weeks because a lot of stuff has gone pretty fast with those cases. We did get... Do you still think that is the ultimate goal here is to wait until we at least have some of those things litigated? I think that we're going to default to that. And the reason I think that is because there's simply no way McConnell is going to agree to a fair trial.

If McConnell were to next week say, okay, fine, we'll give you your witnesses, we'll compel the document production that you're requiring and we'll have a fair trial. Then I think that the House would send the case over to the Senate. The problem is that would be extremely bad for Trump. I mean, those documents are going to have incredibly incriminating. I mean, we're talking about all the emails sent among all of the different Trump cabinet members and various officials throughout the government. We know that that documentary evidence is going to be terrible for Trump.

We also know that testimony from people like Mulvaney and Bolton are going to be terrible and Pompeo are gonna be terrible for Trump. So there's no way they can agree to a fair trial if what fair trial means is turnover all the documentary evidence and all the witnesses. So it really strengthens the hand of the Democratic Party because what they say is, no, no, no, we're holding up the articles of impeachment until you agree to a fair trial knowing full well that the GOP simply can't agree to a fair trial, knowing full well that the GOP simply can't agree to a fair trial. And so in effect, what happens is,

you're never gonna have the articles go over to the Senate until they agree to a fair trial, they're never going to agree to a fair trial. And so therefore you bought yourself all the time you need to complete your investigations, make a case that's absolutely overwhelming, even without any further evidence on Ukraine you know once you get his tax returns and you get the Deutsche Bank documents

and you get the red dot um... unredacted muller report and grand jury materials you get my gandah come in and testify before the house i mean then the the house of cards has really fallen and then you can send the case over to the senate, and the Senate really has no choice at that point, but to, well, I suppose they could still quit Trump, but they're gonna do it in the face

of overwhelming evidence of criminality and compromise to foreign powers. Which strengthens us holding them to account in 2020 totally. And and before we get to these filings this week, you had also brought something up on Twitter about what Turley had said during the, you know, when we had the four scholars come in and testify in that hearing about him saying, you know, that didn't to wait for litigation. Can you tell us a little bit about that because I know that that's been on your mind? Yes.

So, Teryley really had a beef with the way the House Democrats were running the process and said, listen, you guys should go to court and fight to get the witnesses and the documents. You're rushing and you're compiling a case that's not complete and you really should complete your case. And the flaw in that argument or what that argument reveals anyways is that, okay, well, if you believe that we can't actually compel the witnesses to testify and we can't compel Trump

to turn over the documents. Then you wouldn't be telling us that we should go through with this fighting court in order to complete the case. So necessarily, that argument means that you that that truly must believe that the House Democrats would actually win if they were to pursue their their those cases in court, that they would be able to compel people like Mulvaney and Pompeo and Bolton to testify and they would be able to compel Trump to turn over the documents that he's withholding. And so in essence, what Professor Turley is conceding is that Trump is obstructing the

investigation because if your position is, your case isn't complete, you need to complete it. And the way to do that is to go to court, then you're saying that Trump is obstructing the investigation by not complying with lawful demands for witnesses and documents. And so I am troubled by that argument. It's disingenuous at best. And the harder he pushes against, the first article of impeachment, the harder it rebounds against him on the second article of impeachment,

because you're conceding obstruction of Congress. But that's a problem with the entire GOP argument here. They say that the House hasn't done enough, that the House hasn't, you know, it's everything's here say and, you know, have all the witnesses. Well, Trump is letting them have the witnesses. So to the extent that there is, you know,

an incomplete record here, that's of Trump's making and is due to Trump's obstruction of the investigation. But one thing though, to Turley's argument and to Trump's argument or the GOP argument, the Dems haven't filed to litigate, compelling the testimony of Mulvaney and Bolton and, you know, Duffy and all these folks, Blair. They've only litigating the Mueller, molar grand jury and McGahn obstruction stuff. So why didn't the Dems, if their idea was to kind of withhold this and let this litigate, why didn't they file for the compelling of the testimony and documents in Ukraine and

they only did it in the Mueller case. I think it was a strategic choice in that they wanted to end up exactly where they have ended up, which is they had enough evidence to make their case and to demonstrate clearly abusive power and obstruction of Congress. And so there was no need to get any more evidence. And so rather than going

and getting that evidence they essentially gave the GOP enough rope to hang themselves to complain about the lack of evidence so that they could then impeach Trump and say, well if you guys think that we don't have enough evidence then you need to have a trial that includes all of that evidence and so we're not sending you the case until you agree to have that trial that gets all that evidence. Yeah. What the House Dems didn't want to do was wait and not impeach Trump and fight for months in court and all the while Trump skates and he's an un impeached president.

They had what they needed. They had the trans, well, call it a transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky where Trump asks for a favor and shows very clear evidence of abuse of power, extortion and bribery as well, which are embedded in that abuse of power count. And so they had what they needed to impeach him and exert this leverage that then buys them time to complete their investigations. None of this, I refuse to believe that any of this was accidental.

The Democrats have been incredibly strategic every step of the way. And I believe that they did this very intentionally. And I don't mean that in any nefarious way. I think they just, real, I think they would have preferred to get the witness testimony and the documentary evidence had Trump agreed to provide it. Once Trump made clear that he was going to fight that and it was going to take three to six months in court to fight and get that evidence, they said, well, we've got enough.

We're going to just impeach him, and then we'll turn it over to the Senate and tell them, you guys agreed to have a fair trial, or Trump can just sit there stewing in his impeachment. Yeah, and you don't want to weaken your case, Ukraine case, by filing for these additional witnesses and documents when you do have enough evidence in front of you to impeach. And then you can always reserve the testimony and documentation of Pompeo and Mulvaney and vote and Defi and Blair and Bolton. You can always use that as the fair trial leverage.

So that's, I think, probably how they split that up. I think that's right. But meanwhile, they haven't dropped the McGahn case. No. And they definitely still want to get McGahn in the door. Yeah. And so let's talk about the McGahn case and the Mueller Grand jury materials cases.

We got a few filings in this week in both of those cases. And these are arguments for expedited results. As far as, you know, we're still, these are still part of impeachment to show totality of evidence, or they're in their own category of impeachment investigation, because when Nadler filed for the grand jury materials and the McGann stuff, that was sort of done, well, it wasn't sort of, it was explicitly done under Article 1 powers of impeachment on its own. And so, and then there was a couple of Trump filings to to moot the cases based on impeachment being done. And in another case to dismiss based on jurisdictional reasons. So can you explain

to us what's going on in these filings? Yeah, I think the the first thing to note is that the impeachment inquiry is not over. The House has not taken any steps to end its impeachment inquiry. The fact that it voted on articles of impeachment does not in and of itself end the impeachment inquiry. And the House is already on record in court saying the impeachment inquiry continues. That was in a filing made earlier this week. Right. And they even explicitly said, despite any Senate trial outcome,

the impeachment inquiry continues. That's right, and I think that the first thing I looked for was trying to get an understanding of why there were no molar-related counts, including the articles of impeachment that were put forward in the House. And what I heard coming out of the mouths of the leadership in the Democratic caucus in the House was two things. One, those cases are subject of ongoing litigation. And number two, we haven't gotten the evidence that we want to make our case. And what I took that to mean was they were not willing to just take the redacted

Mueller report and say, we're going to rest on this and we're going to say that Trump obstructed justice. They want to do their own inquiry into those materials and have their own hearings and come to their own conclusion on the evidentiary record that Trump obstructed justice, whether or not he obstructed justice, they want to draw that conclusion themselves. In order to do that, they've got to get McGahn to come in and testify before them. And they've got to get the unredacted Mueller report. We don't know what's behind those blackouts in the Mueller report. Right. Because if you don't do that, if you don't take those steps, then the Republicans have the talking point that you used a thinly sourced redacted report that fell flat

blah, blah, blah. And that, you know, is, and we did see this in court filings and we heard it out of the mouths of leadership we have to do these investigations ourselves. Oh, that's right. I mean, absolutely the GOP would have would have stomped on the floor and and cried that the house didn't do the inquiry itself that it just relied on the on the Mueller report and and a redacted Mueller report at that. You know, so it's the same old game that they play. They withhold the evidence and then they say,

how dare you proceed without all the evidence? Well, just give us all the evidence. We've asked for it and you're refusing to give it to us and they say, well, then go fight it out in court and that's a long drawn out process that takes months. Well, luckily on the Mueller grand jury materials and then the McGahn case, those cases were filed in July. So they're already both at the circuit court level and are going to be, you know, they're capable of being resolved within the next few months. I mean, I think both of

those cases will get, they're both being heard on January 3rd and we will hear, we will get rulings on those promptly because they're in the context of an impeachment inquiry and they should go to this Supreme Court this term just like the financial cases. But taking a step back to the the mootness question, there's basically two fights going on in court right now. The first is the DOJ is trying to say that the House is no longer in an impeachment inquiry. I think that's just gonna fall flat because it's just factually incorrect.

The House has been very clear that their impeachment inquiry continues. They've already represented that to the court. They determined their own rules and the court is, I find it very hard to believe that the court would side with DOJ on that and conclude that the impeachment inquiry is over merely because some articles of impeachment were voted on that have absolutely nothing to do with the Mueller grand jury materials or the McGann case.

Yeah, and a little bit beyond that too, they're not only saying it's its own separate impeachment inquiry with Mueller and McGann, or you know and McGann and the Muller materials, but they also do relate to this particular impeachment in the Ukraine scheme because they show a pattern of behavior. So it's sort of they're applying it to this and as its own impeachment investigation, or at least under a larger umbrella of impeachment investigation. So that's, I think that's their argument to expedite these January 3rd DC Circuit appeals court cases. You're right.

It's twofold. It's both to support their own inquiry and to support the case that they're sending to the Senate now. And then the other argument that's going on right now is a jurisdictional question where DOJ is taking the position that the courts don't have the ability to resolve these kinds of disputes between the executive and legislative branches and that the legislative branch should be left to its own devices to use either inherent contempt or the power of the purse to try to compel the executive branch to

do what it wants to do. Which is a counter to the GOP argument that this should be litigated in court. That's exactly right. I mean, it's whack-a-mall, right? You know, they say, they say, well, if you want the evidence, you've got to go get it in court, and then they say, oh, and you also can't go to court. So, it's disingenuous. It's contrary to precedent.

It has gotten a little bit of traction with the court and the hearing in the Mueller Grand Jury Material case. One of the judges, sort of the swing judge on the panel, Judge Griffith indicated that he was interested in this argument that this is interesting, maybe the courts shouldn't get involved when the dispute is between the executive and legislative branch. I don't know whether he'd actually thought that through and was familiar with the precedent on that question.

He's a pretty seasoned judge, so I imagine he has some idea of what the president says, but they would have to buck an awful lot of very strong president indicating that the courts in fact do have this jurisdiction in order to come out and rule that they don't. And even if they were to reach that conclusion, that's clearly erroneous. And so if it goes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court should rule against that. The problem is, so this is the fear, I think. The fear is we get a bad ruling on that jurisdictional question from the Circuit Court. That issue goes up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court doesn't rule on the merits

and only rules on the jurisdictional issue sends the case back down to the Circuit Court to consider the merits of the case and we find ourselves killing months and months of process where rather than reaching the merits we get hung up on a jurisdictional question that gets sent back down to the lower court. I don't think that that's where we're going to come out. I think given that we're in the context of an impeachment inquiry, I think even if the court were to reach, if the circuit court were to reach that conclusion, they would probably issue rulings in the alternative, like was done in the in the Vance case in the circuit court, where the court said,

you know, here's how we're ruling on this jurisdictional issue, but we're also going to reach the merits of the question. And so that the Supreme Court can review both. So I don't think we'll find ourselves in worst case scenario land, but that is a fear. Yeah, I can imagine. Because I mean, I sort of take this, you know, Griffith being interested in the jurisdictional question as just covering all of his bases so that

it's not questioned in the Supreme Court and just, you know, to check all the boxes before it gets sent up, which it will because that's the whole tactic is to delay and appeal. So there was also a couple of minute orders issued this week in the McGann and a pair of them, one for the McGann case, one for the Mueller Grand Jury Materials case, where the judge said, I need briefings from y'all by December 23rd, which is Monday, I believe, as to how you see this impeachment vote affecting these cases. And as you know, I'm assuming that the government is going to say it doesn't and Trump is going to say it does. And then they'll just still hear those cases on January 3rd. I mean, that wouldn't

change the January 3rd set for merits arguments. I mean, I suppose the court could could reach the conclusion that, okay, we're no longer in impeachment inquiry. So we'll let you go forward with this case, but we're going to now put it on the back burner and it's no longer going to be considered urgent and, you know, we're not going to hurry anymore. As I said a minute ago, I just don't see any way the court can conclude that the house is not in an impeachment inquiry anymore when the house says it's in an impeachment inquiry. Only the house determines its own rules, that's right in the Constitution. And so I don't see how the court can tell the house that it's not in an impeachment inquiry

when it says that it is in one and it has voted On to say that it is in one it never voted to say that it wasn't in one anymore So so I I think the parties will brief that issue and I think that's one that the court just can't get wrong They're gonna have to conclude that the impeachment inquiry continues Yeah, and so then all odds being even and let's say this all happens and they all get all five get hurt in this term Do you see Pelosi holding the articles until we get resolution in these cases considering we might not get the rulings until June or July? In less at some point between now and then McConnell agrees to have a fair hearing

Yeah, I think that the I do not think that the House is going to send the case to the Senate for a sham trial where there won't be any witnesses called and there won't be any documentary evidence presented. And so it that gives them the leverage to hold the case as long as they need to either leverage to hold the case as long as they need to either compel McConnell to come to the table and agree to a reasonable trial or to allow them to complete their investigation and present the ironclad case that will seal Trump's doom. And I think that they have the all of the leverage they need to get this thing done.

And if it needs to go until June, it will go until June. Okay. So there's kind of two paths here, both are wins for Democrats. Either we get the fair trial and fair trial assume I'm assuming means we get our witnesses. Or we get this documentation and the articles get beefed up. And there's another resolution or they're added to the articles or something and then that gets sent over to the senate and good luck trying to equit him at that point is that sort of the two paths that we see i think that's exactly right

i think that i think that's where we are and i think we're going to stay in this holding pattern for some time some number of months uh... until until the damn breaks one way or the other. And do you see any downsides in holding off until a fair trial? I mean, I know the Republicans are going to cry foul and I think their new argument is that the president actually has not been impeached because technically until they send it to the Senate, the impeachment isn't real. I don't know.

It's a some Laura Ingram thing. I mean, they're going to they're gonna win and cry, either we're too slow or we've rushed it or it's not real or et cetera, no due process, there's always gonna be an argument. So that aside, are there any other downsides in holding off until a fair trial or we get this other documentation?

No, I think that I read a thread by Seth Abramsson on Twitter a couple of hours ago where I think he summarized this pretty nicely how this negotiation is likely to play out. And I think he's right that the wild card here is what the media does. And if the media runs wild with reporting saying, the Democrats aren't sending the case over to the Senate, and they're being so unfair, and this is terrible what they're doing to Trump.

That's going to create a lot of pressure on the Democrats. And so I think, you know, we as the electorate need to be aware of that kind of pressure being placed by the media and not fall for it. I think is what we can do is not fall for that argument from the media who may get a little feverish and really want this Senate trial to happen and start really pushing for a Senate trial on whatever terms McConnell wants. Which the media would want because of the ratings yeah they want that because of the ratings and they also just tend to fall for

for you know trump's propaganda and i hate to say it but the you know he's really conditioned the meet the media now to be you know a for a bit of him and to you know be fair and balanced which means present his propaganda as if it is news.

And so I do fear that the mainstream media will begin to, they'll just, they put out headlines that say, repeat things that Trump is saying that aren't true. And because they feel like they need to report on what he says, even though it's not true, and you create this propaganda machine that's sponsored by mainstream media, repeating Trump's lies. And hopefully we don't fall into that cycle again. Hopefully we've learned our lesson and we don't have a repeat of the Mueller report with, wild reports of total exoneration and no collusion, no obstruction, just because Trump says so.

I hope we've learned that lesson, and we'll see. Yeah, and I promise we'll do our part as a member of the media to not villainize this process. And listeners, you can do your part. Call your rep over the break. Go to their offices. Show up. Call your senators and say, you support the withholding of these articles until a fair trial is set. And I think if we get our voices up, get loud enough about it, I think maybe we can overcome that.

That what are the other estate, the media, the fourth branch of the government. All right, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you talking to us. And it's good to have you back on Twitter. Thanks, HG. Happy Holidays. You too. Happy Holidays. Everybody, Uncle Blazer. Thanks for being on Mueller. She wrote. You got it. All right. That's our show. Thank you guys so much for everything for your support all year. It's been a wonderful, wonderful, interesting fire hose shit shown of a news year. And here we are. The president's been impeached. We've been, we've had our eyes on this for a while. And so I hope that you're, see it for the big picture

that it is that the arc of justice or the arc of the universe as long would it bends towards justice. We do get to these things. It just takes a minute and we appreciate your patience with us and we hope that we've helped get you through that at least a little bit in some sense. And not just us, but the whole community

that we've created of listeners that support each other and are just so wonderful and kind and compassionate and there for the fight and engaged and and and and and and and and willing to also set their own boundaries and take take breaks when they need to which is what we're going to be doing the next two weeks. You will get content on the daily beans every day. I've put out one of my favorite interviews so you will be hearing from me and you'll be hearing from them. Do you have any final thoughts? No, just I said this in the newsletter yesterday to our patrons, but for those of you who are not patrons, I just want to let you know that rest and joy are also forms of resistance. And so you should take some time to do that if you have the privilege to be able to do so. The best revenge is live in your best life. Yeah, just, you know, it's been an exhausting fucking year. So just like take care of yourself.

And you know, one correction we also got, which we didn't include, they said, hey, age of you and you do your sign-up and you say take care of the planet, it should be take care of the human species, as opposed to, you know, taking care of the planet. Do you know what I'm a little, I'm a little, I'm a side with the planet on this one. You know what I mean? But yes. But well that was to take care of each other. Yeah yeah. I take care of all species when I when I talk about the planet. We should take care of everything. The flora, the fauna, the merry weather. Sorry I couldn't help it. Bipity Bopity Boo. Please everyone take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. I've

been AG. I've been AG. I've been Amanda Reader. And this is Muller She Wrote. Muller She Wrote is executive produced and directed by AG and Jordan Coburn with engineering and editing by Mackenzie Mazell and Starburn's industries. Our marketing manager, production and social media direction is by Amanda Reader, fact checking your research by A.G. Jordan Coburn and Amanda Reader, and our knowledgeable listeners. Our web design and branding are by Joao Reader with Moxie Design Studios, and our website is mullershyrob.com.

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