Jack - Polygraphs

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

The FBI is investigating the Atlantic reporter who wrote a detailed story of Director Kash Patel’s alleged heavy drinking and erratic behavior. Patel even ordered polygraphs for nearly two dozen staff members looking for leaks. A second federal judge has blocked the Department of Justice from accessing data seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. Former Special Counsel Jack Smith spoke at a private event last month saying Trump has corrupted the Justice Department, and that it’s become difficult to track the number of times judges have accused DOJ officials of dishonesty or lack of candor. A federal judge rules that the government can keep the ballots seized from election offices in Fulton County, Georgia.  Plus listener questions. Do you have questions for the pod or something for HITMEINTHEHEADWITHABAT?  Go to  HomeServe.com  to find the plan that’s right for you. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/ Follow AGMueller, She Wrote SubstackMueller She Wrote on Blueskyhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodMore from Andrew McCabeThe Real McCabe on [e-mail] on BlueskyThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump This Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at https://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you Subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MSW Media. The FBI is investigating the Atlantic reporter who wrote a detailed story of director Cash Patel's alleged heavy drinking and erratic behavior. And Patel ordered polygraphs for nearly two dozen staff members looking for leaks. A second federal judge has blocked the Department of Justice from accessing data seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. Former Special Counsel Jack Smith. spoke at a private event last month, saying Trump has corrupted the Justice Department, and then it's become difficult to track the number of times judges have accused DOJ officials of dishonesty or lack of candor.

And a federal judge has ruled that the government can keep the ballots that it seized from election offices in Fulton County, Georgia. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 68 of Unjustified. It's Sunday, May 10th, 2026. Happy Mother's Day. I'm Allison Gill. And I am Andy McCabe. Allison, we've got a ton to go over today. So I'm going to dive right in. We have a brief update on the FBI seizure of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia. Now, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Justice Department does not have to return the ballots to the state.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulay ruled Wednesday that despite flaws in the Justice Department's basis for the search warrants and its execution of the search itself, Fulton County fell short of a stringent standard to demand the return of the seized materials. Yep, he said, quote, the seizure in this case was certainly not perfect. That's what the Trump appointed judge concluded. But Fulton County officials, quote, did not establish that their rights were callously disregarded. It's an extremely high standard to get your stuff back. after it seized by the government. Last month, the Justice Department requested the names of every election worker involved in Fulton County's 2020 election operation, including poll workers and employees, according to court records, a move that election officials warned could exacerbate fear and distrust among voters and election workers.

And, Andy, first thing that comes to my mind when I read that and understand what they're trying to do there is Ruby Freeman and Seamus. Yeah, for real, for real. I, it's almost, it's hard for me to understand how that search warrant or the subpoena requesting the poll worker and employee data doesn't get quashed for being overbroad, right? They haven't even articulated a specific crime that they're investigating. And here they are demanding, you know, the personally identifying information for thousands of employees.

I got to think a judge is going to look at that and say, sorry, this is ridiculous. But we'll see. I imagine there'll be a motion to quash that. And, you know, coming from this same election commission that tried to get their ballots back, we'll see. We'll update you on that. All right. Next up, we have from MS Now. The FBI has launched a criminal leak investigation focusing on an Atlantic magazine journalist who wrote a deeply unflattering account last month of Director Cash Patel's work habits,

two people familiar with the matter told MS now. The sources said the so-called insider threat investigation is highly unusual because it did not stem from a disclosure of classified information and because it's focused on leaks to a reporter. Now, the agents involved are part of an insider threat unit based in Huntsville, Alabama. The source added. Yeah, anybody who's worked for the government has taken the annual insider threats training module. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It doesn't change much year to year. I have to say that. It doesn't. Now, typically, leak investigations look into government officials who may have disclosed state secrets or classified documents. That's what insider threat means, right? Journalists who receive and publish such information have typically only been involved as potential witnesses. Now, the journalist, Sarah Fitzpatrick, cited two dozen anonymous sources in a detailed story reporting that Patel's alcohol consumption and erratic behavior had caused deep concerns. concern among FBI officials. Patel was known to drink to the point of intoxication, she reported, adding that on occasion his security detail had trouble waking him in the morning.

Patel immediately sued the Atlantic, saying the story contained falsehoods and claiming that he had been defamed. The magazine and Fitzpatrick stood by her reporting, saying that they had received additional corroboration after the story was published. An investigation could be used by FBI agents to obtain her phone records, run her name, and information through FBI databases, and examine her social media contacts. It was not known what investigative steps agents have taken in the case. There is deep concern about this approach among some of the FBI agents assigned to the matter, said the sources, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about a sensitive matter. Yeah, and here's a quote from the story. They know they are not supposed to do this, said one source.

but if they don't go forward, they could lose their jobs. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Now, the Justice Department has had a very high bar to subpoena reporters or to seek to obtain their phone records and criminal investigations and historically has sought to get such testimony or records only when there's a leak of classified information. And investigators have already exhausted all other means to find the person or people who illegally released such sensitive material.

Do you think Kosh Patel is going to try to classify his drinking? Classified as out of control, maybe. Allegedly. Okay. During President Joe Biden's administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland went further to protect journalists sources. His actions came in the wake of early 2021 discoveries that the Justice Department in the first Trump presidency had secretly obtained records of journalists at the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times when probing who had disclosed government secrets related to the investigation of, you got it, Russian interference in the 2016

election and other national security matters, because that investigation is like the center of everything forever. So here we go. In July 2021, Garland issued a directive that prohibited federal prosecutors from seizing journalist records when they were engaged in normal news gathering, other than in extraordinary circumstances. That included when reporters were suspected of working for agents of a foreign power or terrorist organizations or in situations that posed imminent risk to human life. Makes sense. Now, Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, repealed the Garland policy in April of 2025 within three months of her taking office and dramatically lowered the standards for prosecutors and seeking such records. We went over these when she first took her job as the Attorney General.

Bondi's revisions, however, recognized that demanding reporters' testimony and records through subpoenas and search warrants was a technique, quote, to be deployed as a last resort. So even she said that. Now, last month, the New York Times reported that the FBI began investigating one of its reporters for violating stalking laws after she wrote a story about an FBI security detail assigned to Patel's girlfriend. The FBI, told the Times that while it found the reporter's process aggressive, it was not going to pursue a case. The FBI also launched an internal inquiry after former NBC news contributor Frank Figuzi made comments about Patel's alleged socializing and work habits last year on Morning Joe. Two sources

familiar with the matter told MS now. Patel's lawsuit against Figluzzi has been thrown out by a judge who ruled that Fagluse's comments amounted to hyperbole only. Yeah. And so we know Kosh Patel has sued the Atlantic and Sarah Fitzpatrick for $250 million in damages over the reporting of his alleged drinking and, you know, drinking to intoxication, et cetera. So that was kind of where we were. And I didn't know that it would go any further than that until this. week, this report that you just, that we just talked about from MS now, said that there's actually a criminal investigation into Sarah Fitzpatrick in the Atlantic on top of his civil suit.

Yeah. Now, there's some artful kind of distinctions here. So I'm sure you also saw, I saw it was reported in the Times that the FBI was asked about this yesterday and they flat out denied it. They said there is no such investigation and that Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick is not under investigation. Now, keep in mind, allegedly, the group that's conducting this inquiry, whatever it is, is the insider threat task force, which used to be in headquarters, but it's one of those things, I guess, that they've moved out to Huntsville in an effort to kind of distribute the workforce and get people out of D.C., whatever.

That group was convened years ago. We created that division when I was deputy for the purpose of doing investigations of insider threats, people who might pose a threat to other workers, people who might be, you know, taking information and using it improperly or not traditional full-blown espionage investigations, but just like monitoring like all the sorts of different problems that you can have with on-board employees. You combine that with the fact that they're saying that the reporter is not under investigation. And my hunch here is that they are actually looking for the people in the organization who are talking to Fitzpatrick.

So that gives them the wiggle room to say, well, Fitzpatrick's not under investigation. We're looking for insiders who are leaking proprietary information. Again, this is- That makes sense when we're about to get to another story about something else Sarah Fitzpatrick reported on regarding potential insider threats. Because, you know, Andy, I remember that training. You remember that training. You have to walk through this thing where basically you're looking for signs in your fellow-impleasure. employees. Like they're in debt. They speak poorly about the government. They're having relationship

problems. They're acting out in odd ways. And if you see something, you're supposed to say something to the insider, insider threat folks. Of course. Just in case they seem like somebody who might want to grab some classified information and give it to a reporter, not even a, you know, a spy or anything. Could be a friend. People who are exhibiting what are considered to be vulnerabilities. They might be vulnerable to pitches from foreign agents, from anyone, right? They might be compromised because they drink too much and they can't get up in the morning. Right. Or they're in debt.

They're way over their head financially. So they might be susceptible to like pitches for money, that sort of thing. But it's important to make the distinction that criminal investigations don't typically get launched until you know you've lost classified or information or national defense information. An employee leaking non-classified information to a reporter, when you're a leader in the organization, it's annoying. It's something that you don't want to happen. It's a violation of policy, but it is not a crime per se, right, if the information is not classified. So this is, but this is the gloves off policy that this administration has put in. They obliterated the Garland rules.

and now sweeping up reporters' information in these investigations, even when you're only ostensibly going after your own people, your own employees, that's all fair play now. That was not the thing during Garland, or I should say during Eric Holder, who created the guidelines on media investigations before Garland. You could not touch, couldn't get a subpoena, you couldn't invest, you couldn't touch even as a witness

a reporter in any investigation when that reporter had done nothing more than common news gathering activity. But those days are over. Yeah, they clearly are. And so Andy, just four hours after MS Now, Carol Lennox and Kandallan came out with the report that we just talked about, about Sarah Fitzpatrick being possibly investigated. The Atlantic came out with another bombshell story about Kosh Patel written by Sarah Fitzpatrick. And we're going to go over that right after this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. You insure your car, you think about your health, you probably even protect your phone, but your home is one of the biggest investments you'll ever make. And when something breaks, the cost can hit hard and fast,

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Terms apply on covered repairs. Hey, everybody, welcome back. So, Andy, as I said, just four hours after MS Now reported that Sarah Fitzpatrick was under possible investigation by Patel's FBI, she released this story in the Atlantic. One of Jay Edgar Hoover's greatest reforms at the FBI was his embrace of fingerprinting. During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring his name.

The men who succeeded him as FBI director were more discreet and judicious, mindful of the cult of personality that had developed around Hoover, and they generally avoided giving out branded swag. But then came Kosh Patel. President Trump's FBI director has a great deal of affection

for swag. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded and is still operating nearly 15 months into his term includes beanies, t-shirts, orange camo hoodies, trucker caps, government gangsters playing cards, which are on sale for $10, and a fight with cash punisher scarf because nothing says lethal punisher type combatant warrior like a scarf, apparently. Right. And these people have clearly never read The Punisher, but yes. Exactly, exactly. Although I am curious as to what card I am in the government gangster deck.

But anyway, one thing not for sale is liquor, because liquor is something Patel gives away for free. That's right. Sarah Fitzpatrick says, last month, I reported that FBI personnel were alarmed by what they said was erratic behavior and excessive drinking by Patel. The FBI director has denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit against the Atlantic and me. After my story appeared, I heard from people in Patel's orbit and people he has met at public functions who told me that it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized, branded bourbon. The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky Distillery Woodford Reserve, and they're engraved with the words Kash Patel, FBI director, as well as a rendering of an FBI shield. Surrounding the shield is a band of text featuring Patel's director title and his favorite spelling of his first name with a dollar sign.

An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number nine, presumably a reference to Patel's place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750 milliliter bottles bear Patel's signature with a number nine there as well. One such bottle popped up on an online online auction site shortly after my story appeared and the Atlantic later purchased it. The person who sold it to us did not want to be named but said that the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas. Of course it was. Okay, Patel has distributed his self-branded bottles while on official business,

including during at least one FBI event. He and his team have transported the whiskey using a DOJ plane, including when he was went to Milan during the Olympics in February. One of the bottles was left behind in a locker room, according to a person who was there. And then she says in parentheses, I reviewed a photograph of the bottle. On the same trip, Patel was filmed drinking beer with the gold medal winning U.S. men's hockey team, behavior that officials said did not sit well with the teetototaling president. Patel defended himself at the time, saying he was just celebrating with his, quote, friends on a hockey team. Patel's use of

the DOJ aircraft to transport cases of alcohol has been the subject of discussion among FBI staff. Hmm. I'm going to ask you about that, transporting alcohol on the FBI plane. Yeah. The FBI says, quote, the bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived. Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules. Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself. Andy, is this a long and storied tradition at the FBI giving out bottles of bourbon? And also, does paying for a gift yourself exempt you from the rules for giving gifts within the government? Uh, no.

You were almost like Butthead right there That's what I was going for No No No Definitely not Yeah

Yeah Okay People Now I feel like we should just do this whole section And beavis and butthead I can be like Andy Is it legal

I can buy a gift yourself Oh my God It goes so off the rails at this point. All right. Get it back together. Back on track here. Back on track. So people in the FBI retire or they get promoted and they leave their position, go to a new office, whatever.

And often when that happens, there's a little party. You've been to 100 of these through your time and government service, right? I've been to at least 100. It's because we're not the private sector. We don't go to no boo for lunch in mojitos or something. That doesn't happen. You go to the conference room and some, you know, people pitch in and bike. cake or bagels if it's in the morning. And sometimes you're given gifts by the people that you

used to supervise or maybe teams that you worked with or whatever. And it's usually like challenge coins, like mounted in the frame of a picture or something like that. So some commemorative, usually patriotic thing. Several years ago, like companies started like getting in on this. People were like buy swag. Like a popular one was the Louisville slugger. You could get a Louisville slugger with like the person's name engraved in it and the FBI seal. like that. Alcohol? No. Have I ever been given a bottle of alcohol in my 21 years at the FBI? I think maybe once or twice by like a colleague who I knew personally. And for a time, there were Woodford Reserve bottles that they would sell people that had the FBI seal on them. So that's as close as I can

possibly get. But that's, none of that is what we're talking about here. We're talking about the director of the FBI. Louis Free instituted what is known by every human being in the FBI is the bright line policy. It happened after a terrible tragedy in which I don't remember whether it was an FBI agent or a guest who was at an FBI event who had gotten overserved and got a terrible car accident on the way home. You cannot drink alcohol, consume alcohol or serve alcohol on FBI property anywhere at any time ever. With one limited exception, you can get authorization under super rare circumstances. It has to come from the director himself. So that's how serious the FBI takes use of alcohol and the

abuse of alcohol, even by agents who are technically have to be responsive to duty 24-7, 365 days a year. If you get the call in the middle of the night to come in and you can't go in because you've had too much to drink, that's a disciplinary matter. If you get pulled over on duty or off-duty and you are accused, not convicted, but accused of an alcohol-related violation. motor vehicle violation, it's like mandatory 60 days suspension and then I think you lose your driving privilege for like six months or a year or something.

And if you don't have your driving privilege, you also lose your availability pay because you're not available. So it's very serious in the Bureau. And the director is like personally responsible for like holding that line. And now you have a director that travels around in the FBI jet with cases of bourbon

and hands them out to people in the public. It's terrible. It's terrible. terrible example by a guy who has horrible judgment. And again, it reinforces this idea that, like, the world is different for him than it is for everybody else in the FBI, which is awful. Yeah, really bad for morale, too. For sure. So several current and former FBI employees, including multiple senior leaders, told me, this is Ms. Fitzpatrick speaking in her article, that the director regularly handing out his own personally branded bourbon,

including to civilians outside the bureau, was unheard of. Current and former agents also told me that they were concerned by Patel's gifts of personalized bourbon. The FBI has traditionally had a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off-duty. But that standard is bending under Patel's leadership, one former agent told me. Quote, it's so weird and uncomfortable, this person said. former agent described the bottles as, quote, demoralizing because they suggest one set of standards for the director and another for the rest of the bureau. This person said he believes

that many agents would worry that if the director offers you a bottle and, quote, you aren't on board receiving it. Enthusistically, you are getting polygraphed for loyalty. The fear of retribution has deterred some staff from reporting their concerns to supervisors or through channels reserve for whistleblowers. Yeah, and it goes on to say that in March, Patel and his team brought at least one case of bourbon to the FBI's training facility in Quantico, Virginia for a training seminar where ultimate fighting championship athletes provided mixed martial arts instruction to aspiring FBI agents and senior staff. At one point, at least one bottle went missing, which caused the director to, quote, lose his mind, according to clients of Kurt

Susdak. That's a retired agent who has assisted FBI agents, including whistleblowers, with legal issues. Suzdak, am I saying that right? Do you know this person? Yeah, I think I remember it as Sweezdack, but I might be wrong. Soxedac told me, this is Sarah Fitzpatrick, Sweezdaq told Fitzpatrick that multiple agents contacted him for legal guidance after Patel began threatening to polygraph and prosecute his staff over the missing bottle. Quote, it turned into a shit show. Sweez-Dak said. Other attorneys told me they received similar calls from FBI employees regarding concerns about Patel's bottles. He was trying to polygraph people for a missing bottle of liquor he

brought to Quantico for MMA fighting. Yeah. Got it. I mean, I can't believe that sentence even exists in the world. I mean, like, what? Yeah. A spokesperson for Woodford Reserve said she did not have information about who had ordered the bottles or when. Quote, consumers who purchased Woodford Reserve occasionally have images and messages engraved on the bottle. Elizabeth Conway, the director of external communications for the distillery's parent company, told me these engravings occur after the point of purchase. Okay. So Woodford's not doing the engraving. Right.

So anybody's trying to boycott Woodford? No, it's not Woodford's problem. All right. So he brought up polygraphing here, and I think that's interesting because it was brought up in the MS Now article about Kosh, Patel, you know, and the polygraphs and whatnot. But now this story came out after the investigating into Sarah Fitzpatrick and then Sarah Fitzpatrick dropping this bourbon bomb on all of us, now there's another story from MS Now that came out

just after that. And it's interesting that Sarah Fitzpatrick reported that some agents felt like they'd been polygraph for loyalty. Yeah. So the day after the bourbon bottle story was published, MS now hit us with this. FBI Director Kosh Patel has ordered the polygrafing of more than two dozen former and current members of his security detail and other staff and has been described as in panic mode to save his job and find leakers among his team according to two people briefed on the development. And Andy, this fits with your theory that because it's the insider threat thing that now he's polygraphing his security detail. And you and I talked about this on the breakdown on the Midas Touch Network, that who could be leaking this?

I was like, who could be leaking this? And who would know that Patel was hard to wake up in the morning? Who would know that they tried to get a battering ram to go into his house? Who would know these things when you were like security? Or who would know how he conducted himself at nightclubs on off hours? It's really, that's who it would be. Because you said, hey, as director, you got this massive security detail that goes with you everywhere. And there's a real understanding of loyalty.

and we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, yeah. The story says Patel has walled himself off from some senior bureau leaders this week in the wake of multiple media reports that raised red flags about his leadership, according to three people familiar with his recent actions. Two of the people told MS now that the director ordered the polygraphing this week of the former and current security detail members, as well as several IT staff, information technology staff.

The director also has avoided meeting this week with some key operational leaders of the Bureau. the people said, raising concern inside the FBI about the Tell's ability to stay abreast of pressing threats and investigations in order to make the best decisions. The FBI director demanded the polygraph examinations to determine if any members of the team that accompanies him on all of his travels or staff who have access to sensitive details about his decisions have communicated with reporters, according to the people, who asked to speak anonymously due to the threat of retribution. Yeah, together the broad polygraphing of staff and Patel's recent retreat from some team members paints a picture of a director increasingly fearful that more bad media reports will lead President Trump to replace him. Trump and senior White House aides have been frustrated by the bad headlines that Patel's conduct and decisions have generated. This sounds a lot to me like Carol Enig and Kandelenian have more tea, but they can't spill it yet. Oh, for sure. like where his job is right now,

but they still have to hold on to that. So we'll keep an eye on that. But the story goes on to say that in late November of last year, MS Now was first to report that Trump and the White House advisors were privately discussing removing Patel from his job. So the fact that they just throw that line in there, like they know something and they can't report it yet. That's my feeling on this, but I don't know.

MS Now reported in February that Patel had decided to fly to Milan, Italy, on the government jet to watch the U.S. men's ice hockey team in the final games of the Olympics. At the time, a spokesperson for Patel said in an on-the-record statement that the Italy travel was a business trip, and Patel was attending several security and partner meetings. Yeah. Of course, videos emerged shortly after Team America won the gold medal,

showing Patel in the team's locker room, joining a victory celebration by chugging beer, spraying alcohol in the air, jumping up and down and cheering. The image has infuriated the president, according to sources who spoke to MS now at the time. And he told Patel he did not like the optics of a director drinking while claiming to be on a government business trip. Or while being the FBI director, whether you're on a business trip or not, Andy. I mean, shouldn't you just not be doing that, doing that? Don't you have to be available and on your game 24-7 if you're going to be the director of the FBI?

It is beneath you as the director of the FBI. You cannot, yeah, you have to be ready to make crucial decisions and to convey incredibly sensitive information, maybe to the president of the United States at any moment of any day. So that's the first concern. But beyond that, it's also beneath you. You are expected to exhibit a level of judgment and decorum and respect for others and conduct yourself in a way that commands respect. not in a way that people are like making memes of you doing the bro dance, spraying beers on the ceiling in the locker room. Like that is just not consistent with what the nation expects from its FBI director and it's way off what FBI people are looking for in a leader. Yeah.

I didn't expect better behavior from this particular cabinet. No. And I mean, this is why when this guy was nominated, many people, myself included, said, this is a mistake. He does not have the background. He doesn't have the qualifications. He has no leadership experience whatsoever. And then pet on top of that, all the horrible things he'd said about the FBI and its people for years and years, the lies, the nonsense, the closing down headquarters and turning it into a museum of the deep state, all that stuff that's offensive to people who dedicated.

their lives and risk their lives working in the FBI. And here we are. These are the chickens that were going to come home to roost and now they're here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we'll keep an eye on this. I've got my head of lettuce next to my photo of Kosh Patel to see who lasts longer. I'm not sure he's wrong for his job. But we'll see.

All right, I want to focus now on some of the judges that are blocking Patel's FBI from getting into reporters' devices, namely Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post. but we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, our next story comes from the Washington Post. The Justice Department will remain blocked from examining electronics devices seized from a Washington Post reporter, a federal judge in Virginia, ruled on Monday. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Anthony Tranga marks the second time a court in the Eastern District of Virginia has rejected efforts by the Justice Department to sift through a phone, computers,

and other devices belonging to Washington Post reporter Hannah Natinson. The FBI seized her belongings in January during an investigation of a government contractor who's accused of leaking classified material. Yeah, the Trump administration had appealed a previous ruling from a magistrate judge who found that the court, not the Justice Department, should be the one to go through the devices

for information that may be pertinent to the leak investigation and then give that to investigators. The appeal pinged the litigation to Trenka who was appointed by G.W. Bush, Trengo once again batted down each of the government's arguments in his ruling, saying that the prolonged seizure of the devices is preventing a journalist from doing her job. And that's allowing the court to conduct the search, allowing the court to conduct a search,

does not impinge on investigators' abilities to do their work. Quote, the government's seizure of the entirety of Natinson's work product, including her active stories, her notes on future investigations, and her background and confidential source material fundamentally affects Natinson's ability to publish in the areas she was investigating, Trango wrote. The federal government executed the search of Natanson's home in Virginia on January 14. They seized two computers, a recorder, a Garmin watch, a phone, and a portable hard drive.

Law enforcement officials said the search was carried out as part of their investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugonez, a systems administrator with a top-sense. secret clearance who is indicted in Maryland in January on charges of unlawfully obtaining and sharing classified materials. President Donald Trump has referred to Perez Ligones as, quote, the leaker of classified information regarding U.S. actions in Venezuela. All right. So that's one story. Here's another story about Perez Lungones. And this is from Politico. They report that a federal judge has ordered him released. U.S. District Judge Michael Maddox called the alleged leaks by Aurelio Porez Lungones extremely grave, but said the dangers posed by releasing the Navy

veteran could be mitigated by putting him on home detention and location monitoring while barring him from using any internet-connected devices. Justice Department prosecutors urged that Perez Lugones, who has been in jail since his arrest in January, be kept in pretrial detention because of the possibility he could disclose additional classified information to Washington Post reporter Hannah Natinson, whom he is accused of sharing national security secrets with. Perez Ligonay's arrest triggered a controversial search of Natinson's home in Virginia and the seizure of her phones and computers. The magistrate judge who approved that search warrant, William Porter, was aware that

Natinson was a journalist. However, he has complained that prosecutors did not inform him about a federal law that restricts search warrants for records held by reporters or news organizations. Following protests by Natinson and the post that the search threatened the privacy of her communication with more than 1,000 sources and effectively cut her off from them, Porter suspended the FBI's access to the devices seized from her home. He has said he will sift through the records to search for those related to Perez Ligonese. Prosecutors asked a federal district judge in Virginia to block that plan, but the judge is not yet ruled on that request. But they did because this story came before what Tranga did soon. Yeah, exactly.

So he said, nope, I'm going to go through him. Now, about two weeks after his arrest, Perez Lagones was indicted on five charges of unauthorized transmission of national defense information and one count of retaining national defense information. He has pled not guilty. That's far fewer retentions of national defense information than Donald Trump was charged with, by the way. I wasn't going to say it, but I'm glad. you did. I mean, come on, right? You kidding me? Did anyone ask that Donald Trump be detained pretrial? Yeah, but did Perez Lugonez flood his, drain his pool and try to flood the server room of him? That's what I'm saying. I mean, like, geez, if anybody should have been detained,

I think it was the big guy. But anyways, everybody was trying to do that. Now, at the hearing on Monday, McLean, I think that's a prosecutor, was more specific about the documents. Perez Lugonez is accused of sharing with Natinson. But defense attorney, Courtney Fran, Frantic said there's no evidence that her client has a historical rollodex of classified information in his head. Quote, Mr. Perez-Logonos has lost his job. He's lost his clearance. He doesn't have any access to any classified system.

That's what the defense attorney said. Now, Maddox, who's a Biden appointee, said the prosecution's suggestions that Perez-Logonis could disclose classified information if he recalls were too speculative to amount to the, quote, clear and convincing evidence standard needed to block his release. Quote, there is no evidence that Mr. Perez-Logones

has ever disclosed historical secrets, the judge said. Maddox set the trial in the case for February 22nd. Ah, next year. Oh, boy. Yeah, so this is a good example of what we were talking about before.

Like, in the past, you would absolutely, if you had reason to believe that this contractor with a T.S. clearance who was sharing information with a reporter, you would definitely open a criminal investigation

based on the espionage act into the contractor. But in doing that investigation, you could not subpoena the records of the reporter because that would be a violation of the holder rules and later even a bigger violation of the Garland rules. But those rules do not apply anymore. It is all reporters are fair game to get swept up into these inquiries. And once the government has that information, it really, there's a, you know, they're not

barred from reviews. viewing it and if they see other leads going in other directions and going that way as well. So it's really a significant thing. But this judge is barring the government from going through the devices. And my concern is, are they going to, have they already gone through them? Because if they do and they find something else and they go down that trail and then bring some sort of an indictment against Hannah Natanson or Sarah Fitzpatrick, that is going to be probably tossed right TF out of court because it's fruit of the poisonous tree because they were

told they couldn't search the phones. For sure. Look, in my experience, no, I would not worry about that, right? Back in the day, you would never, if a judge said, like, the stuff that you took, you cannot touch it. It must be, like, partitioned off in the system and be inaccessible to anyone until we resolve what's happening with it. You would obey those rules, like, absolutely, like they came from on high from you wouldn't even breathe near it like you know like nobody wants to get in that kind of trouble but now i mean you know a doj in which uh emil bovay instructs attorneys to tell judges to fuck off like i don't know would i feel comfortable saying don't worry about it allison that couldn't possibly happen no i would not feel comfortable about saying that right

and somebody who bent over backwards to ensure that uh someone who who had retained classified information, got a fair shake, was Special Counsel Jack Smith. That's right. And as it turns out, he spoke at an event on April 20th. And it appears that I think the New York Times got a hold of what he had to say. And there's not much new there, but he did bring up the lack of candor and the destruction of the presumption of regularity for this Department of Justice and how it's been super corrupted. and that is where we're going to start our next segment after this break with Hit Me on the Head with a Bat.

So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. It's time for Hit Me in the Head with a Bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. And this week, we learned that Jack Smith weighed in on the presumption of regularity while speaking at the Cosmos Club in D.C. last month. New York Times obtained a video. And during a speech, Jack Smith said, the Justice Department has been corrupted by Trump loyalists. He claimed were demolishing its credibility and seeking to undermine the rule of law.

Jack Smith said it has become, quote, difficult to track the number of times federal judges had accused the Justice Department officials of dishonesty or lack of candor since Trump returned to office. I hear it unjustified, we couldn't agree more, which is why we created this segment. That is absolutely right. Slightly unrelated fact, I spoke at the Cosmos Club once a couple of years ago. What is the Cosmos Club? I mean, I had no idea.

I was like, I got the invitation. I was like, some kind of like space thing? But it is definitely not that. It's like this super old, very elegant kind of like Tony, you know, Washington aristocracy sort of private club in this beautiful old mansion. And yeah, it's just like super fancy. Like the heritage club in trading places? Yes, yeah, probably like the ballroom is like all kinds of things on the ceiling and sculptures and like just turbo fancy. There is something rotten at the heritage club.

There is a thief. And you're sitting here among us. You're not quite a cosmos man, are you? I introduce head of security, Clarence Beaks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They gave me a green blazer. No, they didn't. I made that part up.

Nice. Yeah, it was very nice. They were very nice people and a lovely dinner. And so, yeah, cool place. But anyways, let's jump back into hitting ourselves in the head with a bat because today's example comes from Politico. Okay, a federal judge said on Monday that the Trump administration had put her security at risk by posting a, quote, patently false allegation that she knowingly released an ICE detainee with an international warrant for murder. This story knocked me off my chair when I read it a couple days ago. Justice Department attorney Kevin Bolin profusely apologized to Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge Melissa DeBose for the press release posted last week by the Department of Homeland Security, which Boland acknowledged, quote, simply was not true. Oh, Bolin said that he didn't tell the judge about the foreign arrest warrant because immigration and customs enforcement, officials instructed him not to the officials, Boland said, were concerned that law enforcement in the Dominican Republic, where the warrant was issued, had not signed off on sharing that information. But Dubose noted that the Trump administration itself had publicly disclosed the existence of the warrant in a press release earlier last month. She also noted that the April 30th release

slamming her, quote, activist Biden judge releases violent criminal illegal alien wanted for murder still remains online. It did at least as of last Monday. Right. Quote, the April 30th, completely erroneous and dangerous press release is still on their website. The judge complained, saying it puts people at risk. It's a threat to judicial security. I'm not trying to make this political, the Biden appointee added. And went on to say, it's also very important that the public has the facts. As long as this particular post is out there, it's setting up a false narrative.

DeBose appeared particularly aggrieved that boldly. Bolin knew about the arrest warrant and intentionally withheld that information from her, although she later said that she believes that ICE is primarily responsible for what she called misconduct. She noted that if there was a legitimate concern about confidentiality, Boland could have simply have filed something under seal to alert the judge. DeBose said at the hearing Monday that she is considering whether to hold officials from DHS or DOJ in contempt of court for their handling of the situation. Quote, there was a serious breakdown in the ethical codes here, the judge said.

She deferred until Tuesday a discussion of whether the immigrant Brian Rafael Gomez should be taken back into custody. So this is like so offensive. The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether or not to release the guy. There is no more relevant fact to that decision than the fact that there's an existing warrant for murder out over him. and they intentionally did not disclose that to the court. That alone, if it stopped right there, it's a horrible story, terrible decision on their part and a huge mistake. But it doesn't stop there.

She then, of course, releases the guy because she didn't know he was a wanted murderer or an alleged murderer. And then they go on social media and castigate her for it. Do you think that was the purpose of withholding that information so that she would release him and then they could go on social media and say she released a murderer? Who knows? Is it possible?

It's absolutely possible. Because it's Boll and knew and didn't say anything. And ICE knew and DHS knew because it was in a press release earlier in the month. Honestly, Alison, I would have to give that at least 50-50, right?

It is possible that one part of DHS is saying, oh, no, no, the foreign government hasn't given us, you know, permission to reveal that. in court. And that gets to Bolin. And that's why he holds onto it. Still, terrible decision by him. He should have said, tough, you know what, I have to tell her. We'll tell her under seal. It'll be fine. Yeah. You would file under seal saying, hey, there's a warrant. This guy's a murderer. We can't

release that information to the public filing this under seal. Ask for permission to file a thing under seal. And then this judge would then not release this person. She could just have postponed the whole thing. She said, well, she could have said, well, I don't feel comfortable making the decision at this time. I'm going to postpone it for 30 days. He's to remain in custody. And I want, you know, come back to me with a report, you know, two, five days before the hearing, something like that. You don't even have to do that. You can just sit and wait for your, to make your decision. You don't have to, if you're a judge, you don't have to tell people why you're taking so long to make a decision unless there's some sort of deadline. You can just sit on it,

like the immunity ruling. And then, yeah. It's so hard to get over this trauma. Yeah, so, yeah, this one is just awful. It's awful on like two totally different levels. I'm really impressed with her control. I can't believe she didn't sanction Bolin and everybody he works for like that day. Right. This is outrageous. And the result is they lured her into releasing an alleged murderer who's apparently

still out there. at least as of this report. Like, oh, jeez. We'll keep a follow-up of that. But Jack Smith was absolutely right when he talked to the Cosmos Club and said, look, why can't even? It's hard to keep track of how many times they've lied to the court. Yeah.

I think people are really, the media anyway, is really indexing on his use of the word corrupt in describing the current DOJ. I think it's absolutely the right term. They have corrupted the department by basically, basically eviscerating things like it's independence from the White House. It's turning it into the personal law firm of Trump and the sons. Failing to follow court orders.

Failing to meet deadlines ordered by the court. Let's just, it's, it's, I'm never in my life, I never would have been mad. Have you told me all these things, even just a couple years ago? I said, no way, that couldn't happen. But here we are. Now, Silver lining, Jack Smith said he does believe it can be repaired. I do as well. I do. Not under this regime, for sure. No, right. We have to do a couple things first. Right. Yeah. And I think that this idea of going back to the way it was is also not realistic, but that doesn't mean we can't get to a better place than we're in right now.

And he also brought that up. He said, there are things I would change, first of all, namely the fact that we don't talk about what we do at the Department of Justice as much as we should. Right. while, you know, staying in our lanes about making sure that we aren't, you know, trying things in the court of public opinion or giving away open investigation stuff. But, you know, early on in the investigation of January 6th, nobody came out and said, we're looking into it all the way up to the top. You know, nobody said, this is urgent for us. We've put together a team. Nobody said they were just doing that all behind the scenes quietly. And meanwhile, the rest of the American people are like, are you taking this seriously?

because we don't know. Right. And so he addressed that. Jack Smith addressed that. And I really want him to be the attorney general in 2029. I think there's also a lot of things that we all took for granted for many, many years, these norms like the White House contacts policy. And there's many, many other examples that we really need to think about taking those things and turning them into law. Codifying them. We've seen that the problem with norms is that they are no longer respected. when we are led by unrespectable people. We've got to fix the Supreme Court

before we start passing laws. We don't want them to gut. But yes, that's a discussion for another time. It's a lot to do. It's a lot to do. All right. So we go to questions. Let's go to listener questions,

which sounds a lot like, according to what you've written here, about the questions we've got. There's a lot of comedy going on today. It was like a comedy storm in the question, you know, in the question headquarters today. I couldn't believe it.

It was like one after another. Very funny stuff out there. I couldn't, obviously, I couldn't go through all of them, but we'll save some for another day. But, man, I have two here that I thought really deserved a shout out. So this first one, very quick. It's just, it comes from Ian. Ian says, hey, peeps, I need to know, is it wrong to call Trump's advisors the liquor cabinet? No.

No, no, Ian. That is not wrong. Protected First Amendment speech, sir. It's hyperbole. It's a word of the book. It's a metaphor. It's hyperbole. Okay.

The next one came to someone who prefers to remain anonymous, which is cool. And I don't know. Maybe this is just something that's all over social media and everybody has seen and I'm just seeing it for the first time. So I think it's hilarious. But I don't care. I'm a dad. I'm in my late 50s. I see jokes that I think are funny.

And other people don't. It's just what I do. Okay. So it says, if you've kept up with the news this past year, you might be familiar with the acronym Taco. Trump always chickens out. Perhaps you've even heard of the more recent acronym, Nacho, which stands for,

not a chance Hormuz opens. But there are plenty more Trump acronyms where those came from. Here are a few. And I'm not going to read all these else because it's just a lot. But I'll read a few. And you'll get the kind of Mexican cuisine kind of theme here because we're staying with the theme.

Tamale. Trump always makes America look embarrassing. Torto. Trump only rarely thinks ahead. Fahida, which is a good one for this podcast. Fahita stands for forget about jurisprudence if Trump's around. Trump's around. Fiesta. Finalizing Iran Entente seems totally aspirational.

I feel like that one went a little too highbrow with the Entente, but I like it. I like a Corona with Lyme. Come on, Republicans. Obtain nuts already. Wallowing in Trump's horrendous leadership is manifestly evil. Oh, geez. Corn enchilada? Clearly Obama realized

neutralizing enemy navigational choke point, Hermuz is impossible. It looked at deal alternatives. Tableside guac. Trump, authoritarian bully, leading economic slowdown is decidedly expensive gassing up a car.

Who doesn't love chicken casadias? Closing Hormuz is causing kerfuffle. Every negotiation quickly unravels. Economic situation awful. Donald is laughably lousy American sovereign. Love it. Love it. Quickly unravels. I think tortilla is good for our show. Trump, obviously, Russian, toady, intentionally limiting liberty abroad. Tollia jello shots. What's tequila jello shots? Well, tequila jellos shots is a good place to wrap this up because it's Trump escalations,

questionable under international law and jail evidently looks like only solution, Hague or tribunal somewhere. I wish we were on the Rome Treaty. I really do. That could be like a CNN story intro from like 1985 or something. That's pretty great. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

We lost the BuzzFeed listicles when they went newsy and now, you know, we've got to create them ourselves. Totally, totally. So thank you for sending that one. one in. Nice contribution to the theme here. All right. So now we go into, we got two questions, and they're both pretty quick. All right. First one comes from Jorge. Jorge says, thank you wonderful people for making the law understandable and keeping in the forefront of the defense of our democracy. My inquiries today are concerning a topic that has been in the news a bit lately, the supposed general

pardons that Trump might give all his accomplices before leaving office. Here's the question. Can the president pardon people when they haven't been accused or convicted of a crime? And if this is possible, can he pardon a person for a crime that person might commit in the future? Oh, I know this one. Two good ones. Hit us. What's the answer? Yes, you can pardon people if they haven't been charged for stuff. You can do that if you put it in your pardon. But you can't pardon people for future crimes. Exactly. Mundo. Well, well done. Best law student in the country for sure. You cannot,

I'm cutting myself on the back right now. That's right. It's graduation season. You might as well. You can issue a pardon for any uncharged acts, really any acts at all that took place in the past. So on his way out the door, he could say, I'm pardoning you, Cash Patel, for anything,

any decision you might have made or action you may have taken from the time you were sworn in as FBI director until the end of this administration. You can do something like that. But you can't say, hey. here you go, free pass for anything you might do in the future. It's retrospective only, but it can be for uncharged stuff. Yep. All right, so here we go.

And that's important because the president is in failing health, right? I actually had to Google a couple months ago. Have there ever been in the history of the United States deathbed partons by the president of the United States? Good question. No. Wow. The answer is no. Hmm.

But stick around. Stick around. You never know. I mean, like, really? Like, maybe they all have the pardons and they just have to fill in the date. Like, I don't know. Here's your blank pardon.

The line where you put the statutes in there or something. Interesting. Don't even need to put those crimes in there. You can just put for anything that you've done up until this particular point. Sounds like a DOJ subpoena. Send me your documents. For what?

Just everything. Send them all today. Whatever you got. whatever you got. Okay. This one comes to us from Shelby. She says, hey, AG and Andy, thanks for all you both do to clarify the cluster F that is Trump's DOJ. I have a quick thought on Comey's 8647 C-Shelf case. Isn't telling the judge, isn't it telling that the judge didn't have any special circumstances for Comey's release until the trial? If this was a real threat to the president of the United States, You would think he would be denied bond or made to surrender his passport or have special circumstances.

Therefore, he can just walk out of the courtroom. It's clear that the DOJ does not consider this a viable threat, just a thought. I think that's a great point. I have been saying on TV a couple times, like the fact that they let him wander around for a year after the threat appeared and made no effort to arrest him after interviewing him twice and then letting him wander around for a year, pretty much tells you they didn't think there was much of a threat here, but you're adding another dimension to that, which is like even the judge doesn't think that. He's not on a bracelet as far as I'm aware.

He's not on a home monitor. Did the D.O.J. ask for anything like that? I don't think so. I remember you and I talked about the fact that the DOJ put out a warrant and really wanted to, like, you know, arrest him and have a perp walk and a mugshot. And they didn't get that because the court allowed him to turn himself in. But I'm wondering if the DOJ,

filed any kind of a motion for pretrial detention. I don't remember seeing anything like that. I think we would have seen that by now. It would have been on the record. You can't really do that in a sealed way. So I think we would have seen it. And yeah, I think this speaks pretty loudly to the falsehood that Jim Comey represents some sort of threat to Donald Trump or really anyone else. I mean, like, come on.

It's insane. But, yeah. They're probably going to argue that Combe. me specifically wasn't the threat, but that he shared the photo and could incite other people to become a threat, kind of like how Trump does all the time. Yeah, but incitement's not a crime, as we know. Also, I think that Todd Blanche has really, this week, really painted himself into a corner on this thing by saying on the Sunday shows last weekend that, oh, yeah, this

investigation has been going on for a year. we have basically saying we have developed other evidence that supports this case. It's not just the seashell picture. And I'm like, what would that possibly be? Patel, in his wisdom, got up to the microphone and told everyone that some of the evidence presented to the grand jury, which by the way you're not allowed to talk about, is the fact that Comey has some sort of consciousness of guilt because he deleted the post and apologized for it. That's the evidence. A case did not get any better.

No, not at all. But the fact that Kosh Patel's telling the world what was presented to the grand jury is a nail in the coffin to this case from the jump. Yeah. Yeah. And now Blanche has set people's expectations. Like, okay, maybe they come up with some communications that Comey had with some co-conspirator. Hey, when I put the seashells on the sand, that's your message to go do it. You got to do.

That might be evidence. but I mean, come on, that's, there's no indication that that's here. And if that had happened, if they had discovered that at any point in the last year, they would have snatched him up and his co-conspirators. So like, it just doesn't, the facts and the timing do not hold this thing up. No, but they're going to get him on, they're trying to get him now on releasing classified information with Richmond. Yes, I've heard that. I don't know where that case is.

presentations is up like yesterday. So I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. Who knows? But honestly, this is just Todd Blanche auditioning for the attorney general job that he's willing to go after. It's the reason his predecessor got fired. And so he's not going to make that mistake.

He's going to take as many swings as he possibly can as pathetic as they may be. Yep. Agreed. Thank you for the questions. So thoughtful today. I love all the acronyms as well. And if you have a listener question, we've got a link in the show notes that you can click on and that will take you to a form you can fill out to submit your

questions to us so we really appreciate it all right we've gone over our hour uh we had so much to get to i mean it's just bam bam bam bam back to back patel stories coming out um and we you know we had to cover all of those plus the leak investigations judges saying you can't go through journalist phones i'll do it and i'll let you know if there's anything tied to this lagone's guy just a lot of really important information. And I would like to spend a little more time talking about what Jack Smith said at the Cosmos Club. But it wasn't much different from what we've heard from him in the Weissman interview, for example, or when he spoke at the event that you were at, you know.

Right. But, you know, we're going to keep our eye on the Department of Justice like we have been since January 20th, 20, 25. And I imagine there will be plenty to talk about next week. For sure. I'd like to see Jack Smith really get out there in a pronounced way. and do some, like, media interviews. Instead of these...

Like some unjustified podcast interviews? That would be great. He could start here anytime he wants. But, I mean, these private events that then invariably get leaked, which I'm sure he knows that's going to happen, it's like, go all in. You know, he feels very strongly about this. I think there's a way to put those ideas out there more effectively. I mean, I'm happy that he's out there talking and he's adroit.

advocating for the department and his former colleagues. And I totally support that. But like, yeah, come on, dude, the world is waiting for you. Come on out. Especially if in your last, since in your last speech, you said, Department of Justice needs to talk more. We need to communicate more. I know he's not in the Justice Department now.

But also, you've got to think about the fact that he is under criminal investigation right now. He is. He is. And it might be being just cautious, maybe as lawyers are. I get that. I get that. But, you know, like. Do you understand how that feels?

Very well. My life since 2018, but you know, I mean, and I'm reckless and dumb, so it doesn't stop me at all. But yeah, you know, I get it. People see that differently. But if you want to take the cautious, the cautious approach is like, don't say anything. Like in the middle, I'm going to say something, but only at these few events that are private, but it all gets out anyway, kind of undermines the caution part. Kind of. Whatever. Yeah. But also, it depends on. Brendan's out there. He's on TV all the time and he doesn't, he doesn't hold himself back. That guy is a fighter.

But also he doesn't know who's going to get elected in 2028 and he might want to be the attorney general and he doesn't want to. Yeah, maybe. Like, like if we elect somebody who for some reason is like, I like a quiet attorney general. Not me, man. I'm burning them all down. I don't care. Yeah, that's not who I'm going to vote for in the primary, by the way. So this is like, we need a timid attorney general.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. I can tell you the attorney general candidate pool will not come down to me and Jack Smith. All right. It's just not going to be the way it's going to go. But that's right. Maybe him, but not me. You never know. You never know.

All right, everybody. We're going to see you next week. Thanks so much for listening. Again, link in the show notes if you want to submit your questions. And I hope everybody has a happy and safe weekend and a happy. Mother's Day as well to all who can and are able to celebrate. Awesome. Same.

And happy Mother's Day to my mom and happy Mother's Day to the greatest mother I've ever seen my wonderful wife, Jill. Happy Mother's Day, Jill. Happy Mother's Day. Andy's mom. Happy Mother's Day. Yes. Allison's mom.

To all the mothers and daughters and daughters. Well, I guess it doesn't have to be daughters. You know what I'm saying. Have a good safe weekend. I'll be back next week with Andy. here. I'm Allison Gill. 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 Hawke with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcast

dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMMedia. com.