Jack - The Biggest Power Grab Yet

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

Trump and the Department of Justice issue letters about the Tik-Tok ban that dangerously expand executive powers.Attorney General Pam Bondi fires three January 6th prosecutors sending another chill through the Justice Department, as the weaponization task force hires a January 6th rioter that threatened police. The Department of Justice coordinated with the Texas Attorney General to kill the Texas Dream Act in under six hours. The Supreme Court clarifies that the stay on blocking deportation to third countries includes Judge Murphy’s remedial order granting due process to the 8 men stuck in Djibouti on their way to South Sudan.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod? Questions from Listeners Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Trump and the Department of Justice issue letters about the TikTok ban that dangerously expand executive powers. Attorney General Pam Bondi fires three January 6th prosecutors, sending another chill through the Justice Department, as the weaponization task force hires a January 6th rioter that threatened police. The Department of Justice coordinated with the Texas Attorney General to kill the Texas Dream Act in under six hours.

And the Supreme Court clarifies that the stay on blocking deportation to third countries includes Judge Murphy's remedial order granting due process to the eight men stuck in Djibouti on their way to South Sudan. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Episode 24 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, July 6, 2025. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Happy Fourth, Allison, being Friday that we're recording on here. We're recording this on the Fourth of July. And Andy, I loved your text to me where I'll be celebrating our free and fair independence. Still hanging by a thread, baby. I'm hanging by my fingernails here.

Yeah. thread, baby. I'm hanging by my fingernails here. Yeah, so you know, it's, it's, it's all about America today and celebrating our history and hoping we can hold on to that. So the Republican budget reconciliation bill passed the House Thursday and was signed into law by the president. And in addition to the over $1 trillion in cuts to earn benefits, the bill explodes the budget for the Department of Homeland Security

and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to over $145 billion. That's billion with a B. Billion with a B. That's about half the Marine Corps budget, just so you know. Wow. And we've talked extensively, you and I, Andy, about the massive reorganization of multiple

agencies including Department of Justice, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the DEA. Whereas of now, according to a directive, by the way, issued by the FBI, one third of their work is now dedicated to the administration's mass deportation initiative. And this week, the Supreme Court was asked to clarify its stay of a preliminary injunction that blocked the administration from sending detainees to third countries. They did it without any explanation. And you know, you'll recall last week, the plaintiffs in the South Sudan case asked the lower court

judge, Judge Murphy, if the Supreme Court's decision affected his order to facilitate cat interviews, Convention Against Torture interviews, on the ground for the eight men in Djibouti. And Judge Murphy ruled that it did not. He even dismissed their motion to clarify as unnecessary. Because my order, my remedial order, to give those people their interviews on the ground in Djibouti is in full effect, right? Mm-hmm, that's what he said.

But then the Supreme Court, of course, with Justices Sotomayor and Jackson dissenting, ruled without explanation that their ruling does include Judge Murphy's remedial order, allowing the government to stop their efforts and send the men on to South Sudan. But then, one of the eight men on the ground in Djibouti filed a habeas claim under seal in DC, claiming that his removal to South Sudan is punitive. Now, that case was assigned to Judge Randolph Moss who quickly issued an administrative administrative stay blocking the Trump administration from moving, transferring, or removing from U.S.

custody the eight men the U.S. wants to send to South Sudan while the stay remains in effect. He then held an emergency hearing Friday where the government accused Fan of circumventing the Supreme Court and attempting to get his case heard before a new judge, since Judge Murphy in Boston had quote, struck out twice with the Supreme Court. The government also argued against jurisdiction, saying these eight men are barred from bringing a habeas claim

to challenge the government's ability to remove people to third countries. Quote, sending people to their death shocks the conscience and that's what the plaintiff is saying in this case, that sending him to South Sudan could result in his death. Are you saying that that's not reviewable by the court? To knowingly send someone to a place where they might be tortured would be an incredibly grave thing for the government to do. Yeah. And so to kind of clarify the claim that was before Judge Murphy in Massachusetts, the one that the Supreme Court said is no more. That claim was about cat, right? The convention against torture interviews. And that's what his remedial order was about. Now this habeas claim is about Eighth Amendment violations. The government sending people to places that

suck punitively, right? Like, so fan, for example, who you mentioned is one of the eight men. Uh, now all of them are joined onto this case. And he's saying, and those plaintiffs are saying that the government, even though they have committed crimes, right? That the government is subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment by sending them

to South Sudan, war-torn South Sudan, where they could be imprisoned, tortured, killed, et cetera. That's right. And so this is a different due process claim. This is now an all-ritz claim, a habeas corpus claim, according to the plaintiffs. And the government was arguing, no, it isn't. You're just trying to get out of having to go to South Sudan, and we're allowed because the Supreme Court said we would.

So this is dilatory. You're just slow. You're trying to truck the courts. And Judge, I just got out of the hearing, well, virtually, with Judge Moss, who said, no, this is a grave concern. This, I'm not reaching the merits today but where i to this is a substantial claim on the merits on the eighth amendment that because the government just declared that they are going to be tortured in south sudan is not enough. I guarantee and that you know but he said that this is so similar to the case that was in Judge Murphy's court. What I'm going to do is under the All Writs Act, I'm going to issue a very brief administrative stay, which I have the power to do, for an hour while you take your case back to Judge

Murphy. It's more, it belongs there. It belongs with Judge Murphy because it's so similar. He knows the case. And so of course the plaintiffs were like, I don't think we have enough time before 7 p.m. Friday night, which is when the plane takes off.

And he's like, well, I can't hear it here. So he sent it back. And that's where we stand in this case right now. I think it's, you know, I talked to Adam Classfeld about this on a Substack Live. You can see it if you want. It's up at militiaroad.com. And he brought up the fact that there are attorneys and judges working on Independence Day to ensure that these eight men, criminal or not, have that their constitutional rights aren't being violated by this. And Judge Moss, by the way, did say that he did not accept the government's argument that this is just them trying to get out of it,

and it's dilatory, and they should have raised it sooner, and they're just trying to play tricks with the court. He said, no, that's, I think this is a good faith effort, you know, and to ensure that their clients get due process, especially on this Eighth Amendment claim, which is different from what the Supreme Court struck down. So, but he's like, I'm not ruling on that. I'm sending it back to Judge Murphy. And that's where we are. Yeah. It's an interesting kind of conflict of legal issues here, because there is a concept in the law that you, when you take a matter up on appeal, you have to include all of the elements that you want to appeal, essentially. Like, you don't appeal one thing and then lose and then take another one out of your pocket and go again. And so because there

has to be an end, right, of finality to judicial determination. So that's kind of what the government will argue here. So one of the, you know, they'll do it in a more aggressive and insulting way, but that's kind of the core of what they'll argue. On the other hand, the defendants, I think, have some grounds to argue that, well, this claim, this Eighth Amendment claim, didn't really exist until the Supreme Court shot down their effort to stop. To get a cat claim, to get a, yeah.

Yeah, their issue on the first appeal was so specific. It was basically, don't we have the right to at least make a claim under the Convention Against Torture when we find out we're being deported to a third party country that we aren't from? And you know, don't we have a right? You couldn't possibly make that claim before the order of detention was returned. But that was their argument. Right. That was the government's argument, but there was a pretty good

counter-argument to that. I'll tell you in a minute when you're done. Yeah. So what they're going to say now is like this eighth amendment situation wasn't really a problem. We couldn't have raised this complaint then because we were basically attacking the process earlier on and the due process question, uh question earlier on. So I don't know. I don't know where this one falls out. We'll obviously find out. But yeah, it's kind of

an interesting collision of opposite principles. Kaitlin Luna Yeah. And what the plaintiffs were arguing against what you were just saying the Department of Justice did is along the lines of what you just said. They said, well, the government has recently claimed that there will be no torture or imprisonment when they get to South Sudan. We've talked to South Sudan and it's cool. And so then the plaintiffs did research on that claim and found that it's only a mere declaration in one of the filings. Right.

And that they don't have any evidence to back that up. They haven't provided any diplomatic back and forth. They haven't said anything. And the plaintiffs cited case law saying that that's not enough. And that's why Judge Moss today took a brief, you know, 50 minute, uh, adjournment was to read that case. And when he returned, he, he said, okay, it isn't enough. And I think that's why he believes this is a good faith argument, but he was concerned about claims crossing, like claim shopping,

taking it to a different court, right? And he said, to avoid that, I'm sending you back to Judge Murphy's court. That's probably the right call on that. I also think that the plaintiffs, the way they teed this up, their argument was that they faced the substantial, like despite the government's claim that they'd received some vapid assurance from the government of South Sudan, that they'd received some vapid assurance from the government of South Sudan that they would either face torture or conditions that were the equivalent to torture. Right? And I think that's where their claim gets much bigger because it's undeniable

that South Sudan is a total violent mess right now. It's literally in the middle of like a civil war. And it's unlikely that these guys are going to be dealt with in any way other than just thrown in a cement prison somewhere. And what happens to them as wards of that state, if that state falls or if where they are held, if that facility is attacked or something during the course of the civil war. So it's a very dangerous place to be by definition, whether the government of South Sudan admits that or not. And so that's kind of... Yeah, and our government could say, let's say they get there, they say, oh they

promised they wouldn't put them in prison and torture them, and then they put them in prison and torture them. Our government says, oh we can't do anything about it now. They're in their custody. Kind of like what their arguments were about the CCO class. Yep, exactly. And that they kind of have a track record of doing this, which didn't really come up during the hearing. But Judge Moss actually put out a couple of hypotheticals

that were interesting. He said, so government, you're telling me that, because they were saying it's what, you know, this decision to send these folks to South Sudan is not reviewable by the courts or by this judge. He said, so you're telling me that if you like, there was evidence that you've got somebody who, whose country of origin is a tropical country and that there is evidence that the government decides to send them to the Arctic Circle to make it really

uncomfortable and horrible for them. You're saying that I can't review that. And the DOJ couldn't answer the question. So... Because it's so obvious the only one answer to that question, but it's not an answer they wanted. So... Right. Yeah. But we'll keep an eye on this. We're not going to have any news until later on on Friday night. So we'll be covering it on next week's episode. But it's an interesting argument.

I think it's interesting that they're making it on the 4th of July. Because one of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence is to be sent overseas and jailed. So... Yeah, there you go. Anyway, I think it's fitting. I mean, none of this is fitting. Don't get me wrong. But I thought it was an interesting thought that Adam Clasfeld had brought up. All right.

We have so much Department of Justice news today, Andy. There's so much going on with restructuring and movements within the Department of Justice and letters that are being written that expand presidential powers and we want to get to all that. So we are going to, but we have to take a quick break first. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay. Next we go to a really troubling story from Charlie Savage of the New York Times. So in today's Times, Charlie states, quote, Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies that they could lawfully violate a statute barring American companies

from supporting TikTok based on a sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws, newly disclosed documents show. Wow. Yeah. In letters to companies like Apple and Google, Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his, quote, constitutional duties. So the law banning the social media app must give way to his quote, core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.

You know what, Andy, I just want to interrupt you really quick because this reminds me of an argument that he's made before in court, where he has said that the reason he, the courts can't review defamation against E. Jean Carroll, for example, was because it is his constitutional duty to take care of that the laws are executed faithfully. And he can't do that if he's not president. And in order to keep being president, he has to be able to defame Eame Eugene Carroll. Do you remember that argument? I don't, but it sounds like the kind of thing he'd come up with. So I can't...

I think that's where he's going. Like, I need to be president. It's a matter of national security that I'm the president. And since I have to stay being the president, you can't take TikTok away from me because TikTok helped elect me president. I think it's a little more basic and maybe craven than that. I think it's he wants, if he kills TikTok in the United States, he loses it as a negotiating element with the Chinese on economic matters. And he wants to be able to keep that as leverage. I think there's

also a self-interest involved. I'm not saying that that's what his motives are. I think that's his legal argument. His motives are something completely different. He also just wants to be able to say that laws are unconstitutional. And TikTok is working for him right now. so like, although he was viciously opposed to it years ago and called for its banning, which is probably what motivated so many Republicans to vote for that law, he's now a big supporter

and trying to negotiate a sale to a US entity. But anyway, we'll get to that in just a second. So the article goes on to say, "'The Letters,' which became public on Thursday via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, portrayed Mr. Trump as having nullified the legal effects of a statute that Congress passed by a large bipartisan majority in 2024 and which the Supreme Court unanimously upheld. And that was this January. Oh my, so he's not only going against a court order by the Supreme Court, which he's promised

not to, only lower courts. And the Supreme Court kind of helped him out by not allowing nationwide injunctions from lower courts, but he's also going against the letter of the law. Why he doesn't just get his shiny new Congress that he has the majority in to pass this law, maybe because he can't get 60 votes. He couldn't squeeze it into the budget reconciliation bill because it would have been ousted on the bird rule. But anyway, this all relates to an executive order Trump signed shortly after being sworn

in that directed the Justice Department to suspend the enforcement of the TikTok ban until April 5th. What's today? It's a little bit later than that. enforcement of the TikTok ban until April 5th. What's today? A little bit later than that. The Department of Justice recently alerted these same tech companies that the ban was extended to June 19th. What's today? Now, Charlie goes on to say, quote, some legal experts consider Mr.

Trump's action and in particular his orders claim, which Ms. Bondi endorsed in her letters, that he has the power to enable companies to lawfully violate the statute to be his starkest power grab. That's what they're saying. Legal experts. This seems to be his starkest power grab. It's sort of subsumed in a TikTok ban statute thing, but this is

a massive, massive power grab. Hugely significant decision here. Yeah. It appears to set a significant new precedent about the potential reach of presidential authority. Quote, there are other things that are more important than TikTok in today's world, but for pure refusal to enforce the law as Article 2 requires, it's just breathtaking. That's Alan Z. Rosenstein, a University of Minnesota law professor who's written about the non-enforcement of the TikTok ban, referring to the part of the constitution

that says presidents must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Yeah, so in her letters, Ms. Bondy said that tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was irrevocably relinquishing any legal claims against them, including under future administrations. The companies, she wrote,

"...committed no violation of the Act and incurred no liability under the Act during the periods that Mr. Trump had declared a suspension of the law." She also told them that they may continue to provide services to TikTok without violating the act and without incurring any legal liability. Essentially, legal experts said, Mr. Trump is claiming a constitutional power to immunize private parties to commit otherwise illegal acts with impunity.

So yes, there are more important things than TikTok and whether it gets banned for sure. But the significance here is that the guy who sits in the chair, who carries the constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws, meaning all of them, are faithfully executed and he oversees the executive branch, which is the branch of government that does that, right? It's law enforcement, regulation, policing the stock market, all that stuff, all those tools and resources that the president has for this purpose to ensure

that the laws are faithfully executed. That guy has now decided that he can say, you know what, this law that Congress passed and that's in effect now, and we know this because the Supreme Court already weighed in and said it is, we're not doing that. I'm just essentially writing that off the books for a small group of people who I want to grant this sort of immunity to. And in this case, the group is tech companies that essentially provide the services that TikTok needs in this country to be available, right?

So it's like, you know, Amazon cloud services and- Apple has it on their app store. All that stuff that, that ByteDance, which is a company that owns TikTok, they need access to US-based servers in order to have a service that people can access all kind of all that kind of like stuff. The act says if you provide that sort of support to tick tock once they've been banned, that you're subject to a fine

that can go up to as much as $5,000 per user per day. There are 100 million users of tick tock in this country. Now that's shocking, but that's a lot of money. So these companies are like, wait a minute, can we still do business with TikTok? We're not even sure. And this is DOJ telling him, you can, it's totally fine, even though Congress says it's illegal. Now I have a question.

How is this different from like a DA or a state attorney general who says, I won't enforce the 1879 abortion ban that's on TikTok? from like a DA or a state attorney general who says, I won't enforce the 1879 abortion ban that's on the books. You know what I mean? That's a really good question. Or like Joe Biden saying, I'm not going to enforce zero tolerance policies

and make family separations happen, for example. Maybe I, although I think that latter one with the Joe Biden and the family separation was an interpretation of the statute, not a straight up defiance of it. How about Barack Obama, who said, infamous, not infamously, maybe famously, that he would not enforce the immigration laws

against the children, against children who were brought to this country by their parents who were brought to this country by their parents who were illegal aliens. Right? Those are the dreamers. That's, that was the whole thing about DACA. Like we're not going to start throwing these kids out of the country. Did they pass the law for DACA giving protection to those kids? Right? I don't think so. Isn't that the whole problem with DACA is that it's not preserved in statute. But in any case, administrations always make decisions around priorities. And so maybe a president comes in and they want to focus

on narcotics trafficking rather than white collar offenses. So they might tell the attorney general to move more resources to drug cases and away from white-collar cases. That is considered well within a president's authority to do, but none of that involves declaring whole cloth the law no longer is in effect. Like Obama didn't say well... Oh, you were right by the way. The DREAM Act never passed, but through executive order, he issued DACA deferred. What he didn't do was say, I am obliterating, effectively obliterating the immigration laws of this country. All he said was like, we're not going to enforce this for now for this reason.

And then they pursued legislation to try to fix that. And many people argued at the time that that was a pretty concerning expansion of executive power. This is several giant steps beyond that. This is telling a private company, you can do whatever you want, you don't have to follow this law, and not only are we not going to prosecute you now, which is a prosecutorial discretion sort of thing, you're not illegal under any theory. What you're doing is not unlawful.

And we are confirming that future administrations could not hold you accountable for this, for violating this law. It's really remarkable. It shows a level of, we talk about all the time, a lack of respect for the law in this administration. And this shows just an outright,

complete and total disregard for it. And what is Congress saying? Nothing. Nothing. Zero. Zero. Once again, you know, we basically have lost one of the three elements of our government. Congress does absolutely nothing.

What can come of this? I mean, would someone need to sue to enforce this law again, through the Supreme Court or to be like, Hey, Supreme Court nudge nudge, wink wink, could you clarify that this can't happen? Or like, I't look like they don't really do that that's something that's referred to as an advisory opinion in the court has never engaged in those but yes somebody could sue somebody could a nonprofit group on behalf of let's say you are a group that represented families who were disturbed by TikTok and its influence on your children, because you'd have to have some standing in there built into the case, you could file a lawsuit basically challenging the government's failure to live up to its responsibility to enforce the law. But again, process, right?

That takes a while, takes a lot of funding. It's going to take a lot of help from the sort of groups that we've seen in the immigration cases and in other cases like step in to try to help people enforce the laws, the standards and the norms of this country against this administration. So we'll see what happens. All right. Well, that's frightening. So thanks. No, I think that's such an important story. And so we wanted to make sure we discussed it here with, I mean, to go to it, to have a Department of Justice that is instructing people to ignore laws is- It's unjustified.

It's unjustified. Good point, Andy. We've got more unjustified stuff that we need to tell you about, but we have to take another quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Our next story comes from our friend Ryan Reilly. We've had him on the Daily Beans before. He writes for NBC News and says, at least three federal prosecutors who worked on cases against January 6th rioters were fired last Friday by the Justice Department. And that's according to more than half a dozen current and former officials familiar with the dismissals. So plenty of sourcing on this story. A copy of one of the dismissal letters seen by NBC News was signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, notifying the recipient that they were, quote, removed from

federal service effective immediately. No reason for the removal was stated in the letter. One of the fired employees has been based overseas. Wow. The Trump administration in late January fired probationary federal prosecutors who worked on January six cases and prosecutors who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into President Donald Trump. The administration also demoted some career prosecutors who worked on the Capitol siege investigation. Probationary workers are either recent hires or people who have recently taken new positions. The firings on Friday though marked the first time that

career prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases and who were past their probationary period of federal employment had been fired. It was also the first time Bondi fired Justice Department lawyers involved in prosecuting January 6 cases. Bondi was confirmed by the Senate in February after the dismissal of the probationary prosecutors. The firings come at a time when the fallout from the January 6 investigation and Trump's subsequent mass pardon of even the most violent rioters continues to loom over employees at

both the Justice Department and the FBI. Numerous current and former officials have told NBC News that the targeting of people who worked on the largest investigation in FBI history have had a chilling effect on the Justice Department workforce and would leave career prosecutors and FBI officials hesitant to pursue cases against any Trump allies for fear of being targeted by the administration. And we actually saw this from people who worked on the Mueller investigation, very hesitant, especially in the FBI, to investigate Trump when Jack Smith and Merrick Garland

were investigating Donald Trump for not just the January 6th case, but also the documents case. That's right, notoriously Steve Dantwonno, then the head of the Washington Field Office, refused to have his agents execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago because he was afraid they would be targeted by Donald Trump. He even blocked a read-in on J.P. Cooney's investigation

into Trump back in like February of 2021, like weeks after the attack on the Capitol, J.P. Cooney at the Department of Justice is like, well, we gotta get on this. We gotta look at the war room. We gotta look at Bannon. We gotta look at the, all the way up to Trump. And D'Antuono refused to brief Merrick Garland on it when Merrick Garland

got to the justice department in March of, of 2021, but then Merrick Garland started his own investigation into Donald Trump and the top of the coup, as they say, uh, that month or the month after, and he called it the investigations unit. And only like six people were in on it because he didn't want anybody to leak it. Right, right. Mr. Monaco and a few others, yeah. Yeah. And so that's when he started his investigation into Donald Trump and what happened on January

6th and the insurrection. Yes. Well, here, one federal law enforcement official called Friday's firings horrifying and noted that both of the prosecutors had been serving in other capacities before the 2024 election. Quote, to fire them without explanation is a slap in the face, not only to them, but to all career DOJ prosecutors, the official said. No one is safe from this administration's whims and impulses, and the public certainly is not served by the continued brain drain of DOJ. We are losing the best among us every day."

Now, interestingly enough, one incredibly aggressive January 6th prosecutor, a guy who by many reports was not only actively driving the agents to bring in more defendants and to bring more cases, but also wanted to move control of the case from the DC US Attorney's Office up to the Southern District of New York. This how deeply invested he was in these cases has not been fired yet. That guy, Emil Beauvais, doesn't appear like he's on the firing list. Gee, I wonder why that is, why is it that he's getting a free pass

on all of his January 6th prosecutorial exposure and experience. He has now been nominated to serve as a circuit court judge. His career is just blowing up and everybody else is getting fired. Really interesting there, huh? That's fascinating. I wonder, yeah, why is that?

I can't put my finger on it. All right, we have another story. This is from the New York Times. A former FBI agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th to kill police officers has now been named as an advisor to the Justice Department task force that Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies. The former agent, Jared L. Wise, is serving as a counselor to Ed Martin.

Yes. The Whacka Dagpa, which is weaponization czar, assistant deputy attorney general, what was PA pardon attorney? There you go. The director of the so-called weaponization working group. That's according to people familiar with the group's activities. So they have a January 6 riotary threatened to kill police now working at the Department of Justice. I was wondering what it would take to get Mr. Martin back into unjustified. And here

we have it. Here we have it. Perfect example. Mr. Martin, a longtime supporter of January 6th defendants, was put in charge of the weaponization group in May after Mr. Trump withdrew his name for a Senate confirmed position as the U.S. attorney in Washington. His nomination faltered in part because of the work he had done as an advocate and defense lawyer for people charged in connection with the Capitol attack. I don't think it was quite that simple though. It wasn't just that he had worked on these cases like a good defense attorney. It was more that he embraced them and the people who were the students, the defendants took jobs from

their relatives, dismissed their cases as the acting U.S. attorney while he was still representing them in those cases? Right. Was the prosecutor and the defender of the same case? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Now, even in a Justice Department that has often been pressed into serving Mr.

Trump's political agenda, the appointment of Mr. Wise to the Weaponization Task Force was a remarkable development. His selection meant that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now responsible for the department's official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable. It remains unclear exactly what role Mr. Wise will play as Mr. Martin's advisor, but one person familiar with the Working Group's activities said that Mr. Martin was proud to have Mr. Wise on his team, adding that there was no better person to serve on the weaponization

task force than someone who had experienced the federal government being weaponized against him. If, quote, we could genetically design an advisor to Mr. Martin, the person said, he would look like Mr. Wise. These people have weird issues with genetics. That's creepy. I feel like there's something creepy about that.

When federal prosecutors initially charged Mr. Wise in May of 2023, they accused him of telling the police outside the Capitol that they were like the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's feared secret police. As violence erupted, his charging documents said, he told other rioters who were attacking law enforcement officers, kill them, kill them, kill them. Now Mr. Wise then raised his arms in celebration after breaching the Capitol in a face mask, according to prosecutors, and then escaped through a window.

The case against him was dismissed on Mr. Trump's first day back in office as a part of the sprawling grant of clemency the president gave to all of the nearly 1,600 people who took part in the Capitol attack. Mr. Trump's act of mercy came at an especially significant moment for Mr. Wise. When his indictment was thrown out. He was in the middle of his criminal trial in the federal district court in Washington. Wow, that's good timing for him. Mr. Wise worked on public corruption and counterterrorism matters at the FBI field offices in Washington and New York. He was briefly detailed to Israel where he worked with the Palestinian Authority and to Libya where he helped agents

investigate the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Mr. Wise left the bureau after his supervisors in New York became unhappy with his work and his career had stalled. Former senior FBI official said. Yeah I want more information on that. Same. I want to see like, how are we talking about here? Yeah, how had he lost their faith? Okay, Mr. Wise later joined the conservative group Project Veritas under the supervision of a former British spy, Richard Seddon, who had been recruited by the security contractor, Eric Prince, to train operatives to infiltrate trade unions, democratic congressional campaigns, and other targets.

So this goes real deep with going back to the Mueller investigation. This story starts to fracture in so many ways it's hard to keep it going. I know. You got Eric Prince now now you're bringing in Richard Seddon. Project Veritas. Good Lord. Now at Project Veritas, according to a former employee with direct knowledge of his employment, Mr. Wise used the code name Ben Ghazi. Awesome.

And trained at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming with other recruits. Remember when we talked about Eric Prince training people up? Yeah. Mr. Wise was among a group of Project Veritas operatives assigned to infiltrate teacher unions in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kentucky. And that's according to former employee,

former employee, Mr. Seddon oversaw that operation. The weaponization working group was created in February, not long after Mr. Trump returned to the White House, purportedly to root out abuses of the criminal justice process by local and federal law enforcement officers. But as its name suggested, the investigative body was also an example of how Justice Department under Mr. Trump's leadership plan to weaponize its expansive powers to investigate and perhaps take legal action against people who had run a foul on the president.

Hmm. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Wow. I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say. It's stunning. And when you first hear that they picked this, who this guy is and the fact that he's been hired by DOJ, it's like, you know, kind of sets you back like, oh my gosh.

But it's also totally predictable. Like he is kind of perfect for them. Like we're in backward times. Yeah. And I figured as soon as, you know, close like right after the election, and, you know, we thought that all these guys were going to be pardoned and probably get jobs in a Trump administration. I mean, we sort of saw that coming, but when it actually happens,

it's just, it shocks the conscience, as Judge Randolph Moss said. Yeah, it really does. It really does. You know, he's not the biggest problem with the weaponization task force. I'd say the biggest problem is that it exists at all maybe second biggest is that ed martin running and then maybe put mr wise in there at number three but. Yeah this is like we've heard very little about the weaponization task force in the last couple of weeks. in the last couple of weeks. And it's something that I think we should really keep a good eye on because this really purports to be the pointy edge of the spear in terms of the administration's commitment to retribution. And that I think is going to be one of the most startling ways that this Justice Department

really shows its illegitimacy. Yeah. And we'll talk about a couple of instances of weaponization of this Justice Department after this quick break. We have one more quick break and then we'll get to listener questions after that. If you have a listener question, by the way, there's a link in the show notes you can click on and submit your question to us and we'll see if we can answer it on the air. All right, everybody, we will be right back after this quick break. Welcome back.

Okay, we have two more stories before we get to listener questions. The first comes from NBC. A top Justice Department official boasted at a private Republican gathering that the Trump administration was able to kill a Texas law that gave undocumented immigrants in-state tuition in six hours by coordinating with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson, according to a recording

obtained by NBC News. On June 4th, the Justice Department sued Texas over the Texas Dream Act, then quickly filed a joint motion with Texas, asking a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and permanently enjoin Texas from enforcing the law, the same day the judge did. Outside organizations sought to invalidate the ruling Tuesday, arguing that the Justice Department and Paxson's office colluded to secure an agreed injunction and engaged in improper legal choreography to obtain their desired outcome. Now, speaking at the Republican Attorneys General Association, RAGA, a day after the quick court victory,

Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kamble, I hope I'm saying that properly, seemed to confirm that, the concerns from outside groups. Quote, so just yesterday we filed, so see we filed this lawsuit in Texas, right? Like I can hear him. I can hear him say it. He said. It's almost got like an organized crime feel to it. So I got a guy. So you're not got Joey the fish. I was talking.

No, so he says, so just yesterday, we had filed a lawsuit against Texas, had a consent decree the same day or consent judgment, and it got granted hours later. That's what Combley told participants. That's according to audio recordings, okay? This is the near say obtained by NBC News. Quote, and what it did was, and see, quote, and what it did was because we were able to

have that line of communication and talk in advance a statute that's been a problem for the state for 24 years, we got rid of it in six hours. A Justice Department spokesman did not dispute that Comblee made those statements and said it was pretty standard for Justice Department lawyers to notify state attorneys general of federal lawsuits ahead of time. Yeah, to notify them, but not to get with them, to get rid of a law that you both hate. To collude with them. Oh my God.

He cited a justice department policy that providing fair warning to state attorneys general before filing lawsuits could resolve matters prior to litigation. That's not what this is. Yeah. And it concerns me because now what if Donald Trump sues the state of Missouri for their law, you know, that the voters elected to have abortion rights in

that state? And if the Republican attorney general is like, yeah, I hate that too. Let's say it's wrong. And then they just get rid of the law. I mean, this is, this is another way, kind of like what we opened the show with another way or not open the show, but in the, in the B block talking about, with the Tik Tok ban, this is another way to circumvent laws of Congress and state laws to wipe out laws that are inconvenient to your policy, right? Like, so it's important to remember here what the normal sides of this are. If the federal government thinks that a state has a law, which they passed, it's a real law, that is contrary to federal law, they would sue them. And in that case, the attorney general of that state would stand up and defend the law of the state and ultimately adversarial right the appellate courts would sort it out.

Here it's like hey we don't we have this law we don't like you sue us and then we'll agree to settle with you for everything that you asked for. I mean it's just a patently corrupt abuse of the process. And it's a way, and if you're a citizen of Texas, and I'm assuming we have a few listeners out there, it's a big state, you should be outraged. Like, this was a law passed by your representatives, and it's now being essentially wiped away based on this political bargain.

That government yet that your governor didn't argue. Exactly. Uphold the law. Just your representative wanted the people you have elected passed the law and now because it's it's inconvenient for whatever, the politicians that are currently in charge. It would be politically horrible for them to overturn this law, for them. But now they don't have to go through that

because the attorney general, they don't have to have any political repercussions. So the law is gone and the citizens of the state are essentially denied their voice, their representation. It's yikes. Yeah. All right. I think we have one more story about weaponization.

Final story today comes from the Times. Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions. The department's effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data, or legal authority. I mean, why would you need that?

According to the people speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation. Hmm. Hmm. Who would... I'm trying to... Who would put together under the umbrella, the secrecy of deliberative process privilege, a legal counsel memo that would tell the president and the attorney general that they can bring these criminal charges?

Would it be the pay dag? I think it would be the pay dag if It certainly wouldn't happen without the pay pay dag's awareness and involvement and approve this is what bar did with the Mueller obstruction charges when they wrote under the secrecy of deliberative process privilege in a weekend before they read the report that Donald Trump didn't commit obstruction of justice because you can't have you can't obstruct something that doesn't exist. You have to have an underlying crime which is wrong on the law but pay dag I think O'Callaghan at the time whipped that up. Who's the pay dag now? That would be one Emile Bovi. Yeah okay so should we expect to see? January 6th prosecutor. We wouldn't even-

Yeah. We wouldn't even- Let's think of, let's always remember him for the wonderful work he did throwing January 6th defendants in jail. That's Emil Bovi. Don't forget the E. Yeah. And don't forget the E.

And I was about to say, oh, maybe we'll see a office of legal counsel memo from Mr. Bovi. No, we won't because they'll say it's deliberative process privilege and we can't see it. And the Supreme Court will probably let them get away with it, even though they did not

when Merrick Garland pried the bar memo out from under the deliberative process privilege thanks to, I believe, Judge Barrell Howell, who was the chief judge of the DC Circuit at the time. Why I can remember those things, but not what I did yesterday is beyond me. That's all right. You don't need what you did yesterday. Yeah.

This is more important. I need to know what Barrel Howell said in 2019. All right. This story goes on to say, such a path could significantly raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, thrusting the Justice Department and the threat story goes on to say such a path could significantly raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, thrusting the Justice Department and the threat of criminalization into the election system in a way that has never been done before. Federal voting laws place some mandates on how elections are conducted and ballots counted, but that work has historically

been managed by the state, the state and local officials. That's in the constitution. The state shall administer the federal elections. Limited involvement or oversight from Washington. Even extremely conservative chief judge on the 11th circuit prior, Judge Prior, said, no, Mr. Meadows, your job is not to oversee federal elections. Have a seat.

That's right. Now, in recent days, senior officials have directed the Justice Department lawyers to examine the ways in which a hypothetical failure by state or local officials to follow security standards for electronic voting could be charged as a crime, appearing to assume a kind of criminally negligent mismanagement of election systems. Already the department has started to contact election officials across the country, asking for information on voting in their states. Now since Trump took office, the department has dropped or halted all of the open voting rights lawsuits

that preceded Mr. Trump's inauguration. The section itself has dwindled from about 30 lawyers at the end of the Biden administration to just a handful part of a broader Exodus. And they're probably up on the 10th floor in the rubber room, right? An Exodus of hundreds of attorneys from the civil rights division. Still multiple former department officials say the department is trying to replenish its ranks. Yeah.

With people like Mr. Wise. Yeah. So let with people like Mr. Wise. Yeah. So let's be perfectly clear about this. This has nothing to do with election security. This is about creating leverage over local election officials. Of course. Many of whom resisted the federal government's efforts at the end of the first Trump term to play ball with producing or acknowledging or creating the impression that there had been fraud in the 2020 election.

Yeah, I'm thinking of all the people who testified before the January 6th committee, Rusty Bowers and then Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel, I can't remember his last name, but you know, deputy to Mr. Raffensperger down there. Gabe, yeah, Gabe something. So, so the next time the president calls and says, I just need you to find me 1181 votes, the person on the other end will say, okay, let me take another look. I'll call you back in five minutes. Because they can be criminally prosecuted. Because nobody wants to go to jail. And like these local officials, like they have a lot of extra resources and no stress. I mean, like, this is a system that's so fragile and it's under such intense pressure now,

we saw that in 2024, that it's not going to take a lot of threats or the existence of potential threats to get some people to make decisions differently the next time. Yeah. And I remember on the Raffensperger call, Donald Trump said, I think that might be illegal and we have to talk to the Department of Justice. And Raffensperger is like, no, it isn't. Go for it. Have a chat with your, with your justice department. But now, we don't have Donahue and Rosen and people willing to quit en masse at the Department of Justice and leave Jeffrey Clark in charge of a graveyard.

We don't have those people in this administration anymore telling the president, no, you can't do that. Now we're going to have a letter from probably a meal Bovey saying, yeah, oh yeah, I went 40 cases by the end of the week or whatever. Wow. Yeah. Right. So that's another way they're going to attack the elections. And we have to, I mean, getting their ducks in a row long in advance. Yeah, they learned their lessons. Yes, yes. And now that they have all the people they need to make sure that they can have these,

you know, a bigger stick instead of a carrot. Yeah. It's frightening. I remember in 2016, like we were so concerned about election security for many, many reasons people are familiar with. And the department, DHS, went out, we started talking about maybe we should turn the, we should start classifying the election system as a critical infrastructure. And that would enable us to give more support, guidance, intelligence, money, whatever it is the states need to, you know, stand

up better security processes. And they went, they were outraged. The state said, no, we don't want this. We don't want the federal help. We don't want your involvement. This is our process. We don't want, we don't want the designation. So ultimately, Jay Johnson, who was secretary at the time, and we kind of walked away from

the idea because it was like met with such like, kind of, you know, kickback. Then of course, in 2020, everyone was convinced and Chris Krebs and his team did a great job of actually making that declaration and providing that sort of support. And having each state really up their game in a way that put us in the place we are now, where the elections are reasonably safe, at least they were the last few. So this thing has really been in play in each of the last couple of cycles, but this is a very dark turn. It is.

All right, everybody, it is time for some listener questions. Again, there is a link in the show notes you can click on to submit your questions. We've got a couple minutes, I think we can maybe get to one or two questions. What do we have this week? All right. So the first one is just a notice that lots of lots of questions came in. People setting me square on my Stephen Miller reference from last week. So apparently the villain I was thinking of comparing him to is somebody named Crang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And so apparently we have lots of TMNT fans out there. So thank you, all of you for that guidance. So yes, I confirmed it and went on the question machine, otherwise known as Google. And that is the guy I was thinking of. He has a little, he has a little head inside of a much bigger person's body. And yeah, so that's it. What did you say at first? It said maybe not, I don't know. I think we were talking about like comparing him to some villain and I was like, for me, he reminds me of this

dude who had like a very small bald head in his stomach. That was like the evil genius, but like had no body of its own. So I had to rely on this big brute's body and that brute really had not much of a head. So that was crying. Go check him out. It's worth it. All right. So that's the first one. First real question comes from Addy. Addy says, Hi, really, really, really hope that's enough realies love your podcast unjustified. Just wanted to say I love the Mueller She Wrote podcast and the new unjustified podcast too. My question was, what and how much do you guys read every day? How much and what do you read in terms of news and what and how much in terms of individual personal reading usually per day?

Do you try to make it consistent or does it change per day? Thanks for all you do. I hope you can answer my question. So do you want to take first step at this? I feel like you're going to be like, I read from two minutes after I wake up in the morning until two minutes after I'm asleep at night. That is true. That is true. I read hundreds and hundreds of pages a day whether it's court filings from Pacer or articles usually from articles that are

sent to me like from Reuters, Associated Press, something from the Newswire. I read what a lot of what the Times writes, certain people at the New York Times. I do not read certain other people or the Post, but whatever is an interesting breaking story. They've got Natasha Bertrand at CNN. I'll read her when she has or somebody there. They have a lot of great folks. Tierney, Hannah over at CNN. Falders, I also read, which I believe she's at ABC.

Ryan Reilly. So it's mostly specific investigative journalists, kind of like how, you know, some people are football fans of one team, and then some people play fantasy football and they're fans of the players. That's kind of how I'm more of that. I'm more of a fantasy news put together. My favorite team of investigative journalists and read their stuff, but I also just get everything straight out of court documents. Most of the stuff I do for the show, when I write up the stuff on Mr. Abrego or Alien Enemies Act DVD, ARP, stuff like that straight out of court filings.

Right. As you might have noticed. By the way, are there any personal non-work reading on top of that? Or does that pretty much take up all your reading bandwidth. Well the only other things i read our books that i'm folks send me for the daily beans to to read and review which are also political nature. I have it now twice a year i'll try to take a vacation and i will read something that is not political. But that is twice a year. All right, there you go. Very work focused reading. I probably don't read quite as much volume as you do a day, although I do pretty much consistently consume news pretty much

all day long. I obviously keep very close track on CNN because that's the stuff, whatever they're covering is something that I could be Asked to go on and comment about Look at their website have it playing in the background depending on what I'm doing Times in the post every day very closely. I'm a big fan of the Atlantic So I usually check them out the Atlantic love the Atlantic and I love one Ellie must all rights for the nation. Yeah. Yep. Yep so all of that and then things letter, you know, things you send me

other people send me articles that I maybe didn't see on my own. I'll pick up that stuff as well. I also read a lot of lawfare. Just security, just security. I also there's a lot of really great sub stacks out there. Joyce advances and Adam class fell. I mean, there's a ton. I'm a religious philatic sub stack reader. I would not be able to, I am. So it's like having a, he's a Georgetown law professor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like taking a, like a free Georgetown law class on, on con law and Supreme court from a master of his craft to be able to read what he puts out on his one first blog. I know I'm so much smarter because

of him. Um, I also try to read non-worky stuff. I've been trying. So I do, I read nonfiction, but that's not work related. Um, I read a lot of stuff about civil rights history. Cause I feel like that's something I totally missed about civil rights history, because I feel like that's something I totally missed in my education, maybe because I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. I don't know. No disrespect to people from Jacksonville. I just, the schools I went to didn't really focus on that. So I've done a lot of that over the last couple of years. I've also started trying to like made an effort to read more fiction to just because I need

the escape. Yeah, I was gonna say, what's your latest fiction read that you're... Oh man, I read this awesome book called Headshot. I just finished it last week. It's about this tournament of teenage girls who are boxers. And it's the like the semifinals up through the finals of this tournament that takes place in Reno, Nevada and it's just an awesome incredibly well written book and

Kind of gives you the lives of these very short and it gives you the lives and the kind of what's happening in the heads of These girls like before and during these fights. It's fascinating Before that the Goldfinch which was a big popular novel a couple years ago I finally got around to reading it. It totally lives up to the hype. It's amazing. Right now I'm reading a book called Woman, Girl, Other by Everisto, I think was her last name.

I can't remember her first name now. It's awesome. That's about these women in the UK, black women in London and kind of their history, each one is told each chapter focuses on a different woman and they kind of go into the history of that person and their current how it's affected them in life and they're all kind of connected in some way. Pretty cool, really well written. Cool. When I read fiction, I mostly stick with like magical realism. Oh yeah.

Like I'm a burp, like a big Murakami fan. Nice. Wind Up Bird Chronicle is one of my recent ones. I'm always late to the party. I have a, I think the habit of buying books and the habit of reading books are two different habits. They definitely are. And I have a giant stack of unread books that I've been meaning to get to.

I'm going to have to check out Goldfinch. Same, same. But great question, Addie. Appreciate your interest. Yeah, I like those kind of off the subject questions. We appreciate it. For sure. All right, everybody.

That is our show. Do you want to do one more? Do you want to do a legal question? I picked this one up, but we really basically covered it during the show. And it was basically, Adrienne said about the people destined for South Sudan. We said that they might be subject to indefinite detention and torture. Is this because they are deported into custody? What normally happens when someone is deported? I assumed they were just flown home and they walked out of the airport free. Um, I guess the only point I was going to make here is like, it's a great question because we don't know the answer. Like there is no, there is

no assurance or guarantee as to what will happen with any of these people when they get to these countries. They might be, you know, they might walk out of the airport. Oftentimes these countries, even if it's somebody who's been accused of a crime here and whose case has been dismissed and we decide to just send them either to their home or someplace else, it's very super unlikely that some other government is gonna be able

to then charge them and jail them for crimes they committed in the United States. But some places they just get thrown in a place like Seacat and you never see or hear from them again. So yeah, it's- That's the concern, right? That's the main concern because there, I have seen some flights being renditioned flights

to Mauritania, for example, and slavery is legal there. And you think that these people know when these planes of US deportees are arriving? I guarantee you they do. How about all the immigrants early on in the administration that were sent to Panama and put up in a hotel held in there against their will, eventually taken out to these camps in the middle of the jungle and just said, okay, you live here now. You know, it's, it's, it's, yeah, who knows, is I guess the answer.

Yeah. And despite the government assuring, making assurances to the court that nothing bad will happen once they land on the ground, I don't think that that guarantee can be made. No. Even if it were a good faith guarantee. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. For sure.

All right. Great questions. Again, click on the link in the show notes if you want to send us your questions and we will see if we can read them on the air. Thank you so much for submitting all of these. We read through all of them and really appreciate you taking the time to send them in. So thank you for that. We're going to be back next week and we'll see where we're at but we should have that decision by Judge Murphy if it gets to him in time before that plane takes off and

we'll update you about that and everything else that happens at the Department of Justice next week. And there's a big hearing on Monday in Judge Sini's courtroom for Mr. Obrego and his updated complaint, his amended complaint. So we'll probably talk about that too. Cool. Any final thoughts, my friend? Yeah, just like, I was a little snarky about this at the beginning, but seriously, it is

Fourth of July. It's a good time to think about what you love about this country and what's worth keeping and fighting for and standing up for and, you know, finding those people in your life who share those same values, whatever their politics are, who are they vote for? It's more important like people who prioritize democracy and human rights and due process and fairness and things like that. So it's always good to think about those things, but particularly on this day when we think about who we are and where we came from. Yeah, and when you think about fairness and due process,

there's really, there are certain people that it does matter who they voted for. Yeah, it does. I'm not... But for me, this is going to just be a day when I spend with my loved ones. Yeah. Yeah. Same, same. Yeah. Because I don't, right now I'm pretty down, especially after the passage of this bill, this budget reconciliation bill. What's going on with the Department of Justice. I'm pretty down about stuff. And but I'm going to resolve

to keep fighting for what I think is right about the idea of the United States. Heck yeah. Same. All right, my friend. We fight on. I will see you next week. Everybody, we will be back in your ears next week for Unjustified. Thanks so much. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at

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