Jack - The Florida Inquisition

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

The U.S. Justice Department has ​requested to interview FBI officials who were involved in the 2022 search of Donald Trump's ‌Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Justice Department lawyers file a flurry of briefs in opposition to Jim Comey’s pre-trial motions in the seashells case. A federal judge has granted Don Lemon and Georgia Fort’s motion to review grand jury materials behind closed doors. The Justice Department is asking the court to reinstate the charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia that had previously been dismissed for vindictive prosecution. Plus listener questions. Do you have questions for the pod or something for HITMEINTHEHEADWITHABAT? 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 U.S. Justice Department has requested to interview FBI officials who were involved in the 2022 search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Justice Department lawyers have filed a flurry of briefs in opposition to Jim Comey's pretrial motions in the Seychelles case. A federal judge has granted Don Lemon and Georgia Forts motion to review grand jury materials behind closed doors. And the Justice Department is asking the court to reinstate the charges against Kilmar Abrago-Garcia that had previously been dismissed for vindictive prosecution.

This is unjustified. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 83 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, August 23rd. We are plowing through the end of summer here. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. What's up, Andy? Hey, I just wanted to bring this up before we get into this long, long glugnast.

We have so much news to get to, but something else just popped up in my feed. Ed Martin, our Wackadagpa, our weaponization, sir, associate deputy attorney, general pardon attorney, is leaving the administration. What? Yeah. Say it ain't so. Are we losing one of our favoritest characters on the pod here? Oh, he'll still be around. Apparently he's going to go help interfere in the elections on behalf of Donald Trump.

apparently. So that's in the private sector doing that. That's really failing up for old Ed, you know, I mean, like that's really probably where he belonged from the very beginning, like supporting election lies and things like that. So good luck, Ed. Hope that works out for you. Actually, I more hope it works out for us that it doesn't work out for you. But I'm just trying to be nice. Yeah, that is very thoughtful of you. For real. So, okay, jumping back in with the massive amount of stuff we have to cover this week. We should probably just really start with it because this is going to be like, this is going to be like something at Orange Theory or something.

We're going to have like a pace here, just like ripping through one story after another. High intensity interval news is what we're doing today. Exactly. Some hit news. Oh, yeah. Okay. So let's start with some reporting about the Justice Department this week. The first story comes from the New York Times.

Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed Attorney General, refused to say on Sunday that he would always act independently of the White House control, but claimed during an interview that President Trump has never demanded that he prosecute specific people. I can't even read that without laughing. Mr. Blanche displaying greater ease in fielding a variety of pointed questions than his predecessor, Pam Bondi. it's not hard to show more ease than she did, but okay, very low bar. He sought to balance his loyalty to the president and a commitment to the even-handed administration of justice during an appearance on NBCM meet the press. I'm sure his commitment to the what? Even-handed administration of justice. Did he actually say that?

Come on. I think this is just the way the Times is putting it out there. Here's a quote. There's a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigating any case and act independently of the White House. That's what Mr. Blant said when pressed to pledge his independence by the show's host Kristen Welker. He said, no, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that, he said. There's an extraordinary false narrative that the president wakes up every morning and calls me and says, Todd, go prosecute X or Y. He's. He's a does not do that. He's never done that. He will never do that. Really? Because our entire show today suggests that he does that. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, he did exactly that in a truth social posting directed at Todd Blanche's predecessor, where he demanded that cases be initiated and, you know, concluded essentially against Jim Comey, Adam Schiff, all the others. Like, so Todd, we actually know we have proof that he does do that, has done that. And so I don't think it's crazy to conclude that he

will do it to Todd as well. So next excellent example is our next story, also from the Times. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago has spent the past year investigating a Democratic fundraising firm once co-owned by Lauren Mershahn, the daughter of Judge Juan Mershawn, who presided over President Trump's hush money trial in. New York, according to court filings and people familiar with the inquiry. Now, last August, the U.S. Attorney, you'll remember this name, Andrew S. Boutros of the Northern District of Illinois, directed Authentic Campaigns, Inc. to turn over a broad range of internal communications with clients. They included Vice President Kamala Harris, former

President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Governor Kathy Hochel of New York, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York and the Democratic National Committee, according to a grand jury subpoena reviewed by the New York Times. Oh, but no one called him up and told him to go after anyone in particular, not Harris or Biden or Hockel or Jeffries or the DNC. I'm sure that was just his idea to start subpoenaing the records and communications of all those New Yorkers. Mm-hmm. Now, this fundraising firm's legal team, which included Preet Barrara, the former top federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York, sought to limit the request, the subpoenas. Prosecutors eventually modified the subpoena, narrowing it to focus on one $468 payment from Ms. Harris's

presidential campaign and emails between Ms. Mershahn and her father, and that's according to people with knowledge of the inquiry who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing legal matter. It's not clear where the investigation stands. No follow-up subpoenas have been issued to individuals, including Ms. Mershahn, suggesting the prosecutors might not actively be working to charge anyone. You could also say they don't have any evidence to charge anyone. There's no predication to investigate this firm for, oh my gosh, there must have been some massive corrupt deal that included a payment of $468. So do you have any other examples of the president not calling up Todd Blanche and not telling him to prosecute ex-execute? or why?

I can come up with one or two. Here's one for you. In fact, how about this story from CBS? The Justice Department asked the federal appeals court on Monday to reinstate the criminal charges against Kilmar Abrago Garcia, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported by the Trump administration last year. And they requested this by asking the court to reverse a lower court order that found the prosecution of Arbrego Garcia to be vindictive in nature.

In May, a federal judge in Tennessee dismissed a criminal indictment against Abrago Garcia who had been accused by federal prosecutors of smuggling immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The judge found that the Justice Department prosecuted Obrigo Garcia in retaliation for his efforts to challenge his wrongful deportation to El Salvador last year. Yep, yep, very rare to get a dismissal on vindictive prosecution grounds, but he got it. Yeah. And in a statement to CBS News, Abrago Garcia's defense team called the Justice Department's news release flat wrong, saying that, quote, the indictment and prosecution of Abrago Garcia was in fact vindictive. The evidence before the district court established just that.

And the proof was clear, notwithstanding the DOJ's refusal to call the actual decision makers, including Attorney General Todd Blanche, to testify under oath. But sure, Mr. Attorney General, you don't call Trump to tell him who to prosecute. He doesn't call you to tell you who to prosecute. prosecute 100%. Yeah, no, no, there's no kinds of, no directions like that coming out of the White House from Trump or anybody else that works for him ever. I'm sure. That's right. Yes. Okay. And, okay, we have an immigration-related story from CBS as well, where the Justice Department on Friday issued a legal opinion giving the U.S. military broader powers to detain migrants accused of trespassing in areas that the Department of Defense controls as a part of President

Trump's crackdown at the southern border. The opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concerns large swaths of land near the U.S.-Mexico border that the second Trump administration has designated as, quote, national defense areas for the purpose of deterring illegal immigration. While the military is generally prohibited from enforcing laws on domestic soil under the longstanding Posse Cometatus Act, the zones have allowed soldiers to detainees. migrants accused of entering the national defense areas, which are closed to civilians. The arrangement has allowed the Justice Department to prosecute those arrested in the zones

for trespassing on military land. In its opinion on Friday, the Justice Department said military personnel can arrest individuals who leave national defense areas before they can be apprehended for trespassing. Man, this just reminds me of that ring around the Berlin Wall called no man's land. You are now leaving the American sector. And what's to stop them from inching those national defense areas up into the middle of the country? I mean, yeah. And are you going to stop every rancher who drives his cattle down there?

Are you going to stop them from going in and recovering their livestock or whatever it is? Are you going to stop people, you know, white American citizens predominantly from driving up to the rivers and bodies of water and things that are contained in these areas? and using them for recreation? No. No. Not at all. Of course not. Quote, in some, we conclude that the use of military personnel to arrest trespassers just outside of an NDA, not inside, but just outside of an NDA,

would not violate the Possecomitatis Act, given the express statutory authorization and the military purpose of a commander's traditional protective power. That's Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bill Hyde in his OLC opinion. And I got to tell you, they aren't just saying inside our national defense areas, we can arrest people just outside of the national defense areas. And that's where I'm like, well, just how far outside. Yeah.

Okay. Now, of course, this is just a OLC opinion. It's not been litigated. But the Trump administration has so far set up six national defense areas along the southern border. There are NDAs in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. But Friday's opinion said the military has suggested it may designate. additional zones in the future in Kansas and Minneapolis and Ohio. I'm just making a matter of that.

In the defense area otherwise known as California. Yeah, right. There are currently 8,000 troops right now acting as law enforcement at the southern border. Yeah, this is really crazy. I mean, so military troops have the ability to detain people who are inside national defense areas because like that's what they do, right? if you go rolling up to a military base or a fort or something like that, there's MPs at the gate and if you enter illegally, they can detain you. This, the significance of this policy memo

is exactly what you're pointing to. They're saying, yeah, in addition to doing that, you can now pick them up outside that area on the assumption that they were going to trespass or they maybe had already trespassed. It's a really significant. expansion of their existing authority. Yeah, with the good old, really, you know, specific legal term, just outside an NDA. Yeah, exactly. Just outside. A couple miles.

Whatever. Okay. In another story for this segment from Democracy Docket, we have the Trump administration plans to deploy approximately 1,000 Department of Justice election monitors across the country in November. Assistant Attorney General Harmi Dillon said, on Monday. DoJ has not yet released its final list of jurisdictions where the monitors will be sent. Dylan said the department is considering jurisdictions with potential language or disability access

problems and also places where DOJ believes there might be voter fraud. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. There it is. Yeah, if you think that Todd Blanche is sending out DOJ election monitors to ensure people are able to vote, I have a bridge to sell you. Yeah. But, yeah, this is going to be Detroit, DeKalb County, Fulton County. This is going to be swing states where there are probably predominantly black voters. Yep.

It'll be that kind of thing. 100%. Yeah. And there's also an interesting thing that I'm probably going to write up here in the near future where, you know, in order for ICE to deploy somewhere, They actually have to do some logistical things and file some publicly facing paperwork like requests for quotes. Like if they want to have access to or rent a parking lot in a specific area. And we have some really amazing ice watchers who are looking at these documents and noticing where they're at. And I think it's going to be interesting once that information comes out.

Excellent. Next up from Reuters, the Justice Department is requested to interview FBI officials who were involved in the 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as part of a probe examining past investigations of the president. It's according to four sources. Now, the request came from investigators working with Joe DeGeneva, a Trump ally who began overseeing the Florida-based investigation earlier this year. The investigation has been seeking to establish that Trump was the victim of a massive grand criminal conspiracy against his rights. This is the one where he really wants somebody to go down for Russia. So what they're trying to do, and they've shopped this to four different jurisdictions, and they've conveniently landed in Eileen Cannons, what they're trying to do with the U.S. attorney down there, his name is Kenyones, I believe, is to start with somebody like ex-CIA chief John Brennan and create some sort of massive conspiracy that also includes the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search, and the reason they're doing that, trying to rope that in is so that the statute of limitations isn't an issue. Because if you're trying to criminally investigate a bunch of people for investigating you in 2016 and 2017, that five-year

statute of limitations has long since expired. So by trying to tie the Mar-a-Lago search into the grand conspiracy, they're hoping to overcome one of a thousand problems with this investigation. Yes, that is why it is called by case watchers and some case targets. The grand conspiracy case is, of course, the one that I have received subpoenas in, so I do not discuss what's happening down there because it wouldn't be right for me to wait. on it, but you are doing a fine job. Thank you. And you were long gone by the time the Mara Lago before, you know, by the time Merrick Garland forced to the Mara Lago search through some people who didn't necessarily

want to do it. And it's interesting. They're interviewing FBI agents who executed that search because they, when we covered this on the Jack podcast, when we, you know, covered the investigations of former special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case, didn't do a very bang-up job of search in Mar-a-Lago. They didn't open doors that were locked. They didn't bother, you know, they didn't wear their FBI windbreakers. They, you know, gave a little bit of a warning to Trump's lawyers before they showed up to search the premises. So it'll be interesting to see what comes out of this, if anything.

And as we learned from Carol Lennox's book. you know, the drop down, you know, the absolute full-on knife fight that they had between the FBI and DOJ, the FBI dragging their feet and not dragging their feet, flat out refusing to actually pursue a search warrant and go down there and search the place. Of course, they ended up losing that fight. But yeah, really, really remarkable stories embedded in this whole thing. So we'll see where it ends up. Yeah, and there's a ton we don't know about it. because Merrick Garland was less than vocal about what he was doing. But he was the one who eventually forced that rate because he initially wanted to do it.

But then some people at the FBI were like, well, just give him a subpoena. So they gave him a subpoena. And then they violated that subpoena. And then they had evidence that there were things that weren't subject to the subpoena that were still in the property. And that's when Merrick Garland was like, look, we can't wait anymore. We've got to go down there. And the FBI's like, well, let's call them first and let's not wear jackets and let's not open locked closets. Let's ask real nice and accept whatever they say.

Yeah. All right. So that is our rapid fire round of Department of Justice Stories for the A block. We've got tons more to get to. We're going to talk about the seashells case. I can't believe that's a sentence I'm saying with words. And we're talking about the Seashells case after this. Stick around.

We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. As I said, before the break, we have an update on the Jim Comey Seychelles case for you. As you know, Jim Comey's legal team filed a bunch of pretrial motions back on July 28th, just like hundreds of pages of motions. A motion to dismiss the criminal case against him for, you know, sharing a photo of seashells on a beach that spelled out 8647. Well, this week, the government filed their oppositions to those motions.

so I thought we'd go over them one by one. First, Department of Justice filed a motion to oppose the disclosure of grand jury materials. As you know, this Justice Department has a pretty horrific track record of grand jury malfeasance. And in their motion, or in the opposition, I should say, they actually argue that there's a strong presumption of regularity here that cuts against releasing the grand jury material. It's a very fascinating argument given the presumption of regularity has been completely decimated. Yeah, that's rich. Okay, so Comey had cited his multiple motions to dismiss, including for vindictive and selective prosecution, back up the need for the Justice Department to either release the grand jury tapes and transcripts or to have the judge review them in camera, which is, of course,

behind closed doors and chambers. But the DOJ argues that, quote, neither his vindictive and selective prosecution arguments, nor his First Amendment, or true threat defense, that his Instagram post did not constitute a true threat, provides sufficient basis to disclose the grand jury materials. In fact, the government maintains that 86 means, quote, to kill. But do they cite Merriam-Webster or the American Heritage Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary? No. They are citing to substantiate this purported definition of 86, they are citing, and we're not kidding here, a Wikipedia reference to the second entry, not the first definition, but the second definition in Cassell's Dictionary of Slang.

Ah. Ah, yes. Like trusted legal source. Like Black's Law Dictionary or, you know, gross anatomy, all the tomes of academia, that are widely accepted in courts around the globe. There is always Kassell's Dictionary of slang. Yeah, and what's funny, too, is elsewhere in the filing and others, DOJ refutes Comey's motion to dismiss on vindictive prosecution grounds

because it doesn't meet the actual malice standard, but actual malice is a defamation standard, not a vindictive prosecution standard. So I don't know where, why they're using actual malice. Regardless, they conclude, quote, the court should deny Comey's motion for disclosure of grand jury proceedings

or in the alternative, limit any relief to an in-camera review and further restrict any publication of any grand jury information if it's shared with the defendant, respectfully submitted this 18th day of August, 2026. Yeah, I think the standard is actual vindictiveness. Like, you have to show objective evidence

to prove that you've been charged for some vindictive purpose. It reminds me of the Alice's restaurant song. Malice. Malice. Who the fuck is malice? Like, why are you bringing up actual malice in a vindictive case? Anyway. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Next is the government's opposition to Comey's motion to dismiss on vindictive and selective prosecution grounds. And this is wild.

So Comey has pointed out that countless people have used the term 86. and have not been prosecuted. Now, DOJ says, quote, Comey's selective prosecution claim fails for largely the same reasons and because Comey cannot show that others similarly situated were not prosecuted.

Hold on a second, but he did show that countless people have used the same thing and not got prosecuted. Okay, whatever. Whether or not a statement is a true threat, is a true threat, depends heavily on context, and here the context is unique. Among other reasons, at nearly the same

time as the post in question, Comey published a novel where the antagonist successfully persuades his followers to kill his political rivals by communicating coded messages online. Meaningless to say, Comey does not and could not point to similar evidence in any comparator case, let alone a threat against the sitting president of the United States. So hold on a second. He wrote a book, a fiction book about a... We're trying to establish what this slang term means and what Comey meant by it when he used the number 86

in his display of shells or saw one that was already on the beach and took a picture of it, whatever. And he points out that like many, many people said, you know, whatever, 86, Biden, 86, whoever, thousands of times publicly on social media, didn't get prosecuted. And that's not good enough for them. But they're going to go to this. But he wrote a book, which is fiction, about a guy who posted a message and convinced people to kill someone.

And that's somehow a comparison. That's the context that's so unique, this can't possibly be vindictive. Well, Andy, the second entry in Kassel's Dictionary of Samp. slang clearly says. I mean, oh my God. Yeah, all right. Then DOJ brings up the actual malice standard again, again, which that's not a standard for vindictive or selective prosecution. But in that section, the government says this. Although Comey has cobbled together a 77-page collection of every public statement

Trump has ever made regarding Comey spanning back nearly a decade, those statements are irrelevant to the analysis. Even if they weren't, they don't show the sort of animus that legally relevant here. He's got 77 pages of animus. And they're like, that's, that's, that's not legally relevant. Some cobbled together gobbledygook. I mean, 77 pages of actual vindictiveness. He's a dirty cop. He should go to jail. We're going to put him in jail. He's a dirty cop. I mean, how that's not, how could that be any, how, I mean, there's no way that's not relevant? What could be more relevant than that? Right. Now next is the Justice Department's opposition to Comey's motion to dismiss for what's called lack of a true threat. Here, the DOJ argues

this way. The court can easily deny defendant James B. Comey Jr.'s motion to dismiss for purported lack of a true threat. Easily, easily deny it. At this stage, the issue presented is not whether Comey's 8647 post constituted a true threat against the president, though the United States maintains that did. Rather, the issue presented is who should answer the true threats question in the first instance. Now, Comey seeks to take that question away from the jury before the government presents any evidence or even allegations setting forth its theory of the case given the conventional short form indictment. No authority supports his attempt to shortcut these proceedings. Yeah. I don't, I mean, what he's alleging is a violation of his constitutional right.

is First Amendment rights. And judges assess constitutional violations all the time at the beginning of a case, right? It'd be the same thing as if you made a motion that you were illegally searched. Yeah. Like that doesn't have to go to the jury. Right. A judge can dismiss a case if it fails to state an offense or as a matter of law if the indictment doesn't meet the elements of the crime. That's a matter of law.

That's a judge matter, not a jury matter. Exactly. So DOJ is just wrong here. Yeah. So next, the government filed an opposition to Comey's motion to suppress evidence and motion for what's called a Franks hearing. A Franks hearing is a court proceeding where a judge decides if a police officer lied or acted recklessly to get a search warrant. It's named after the Supreme Court case, Franks v. Delaware. And basically, it lets a defense lawyer challenge the truth of the police paperwork used to search a home or a person.

Now, a trial court is obligated to conduct a Franks hearing only if the defendant makes a preliminary showing that, one, the affiant knowingly and intentionally or with reckless disregard for the truth included a false statement in the warrant affidavit, and two, that the allegedly false statement was necessary to a finding of probable cause. Right, right, right. I'm thinking of that old FISA warrant where everybody on the right freaked out that Chris Steele's dossier was part of it, but it was like a thousand page thing and it was determined that the FISA warrant would have been approved without it.

But in certain cases here, like a search warrant, if you've got a police officer lying about like, oh, well, that guy who owns that house is a drug dealer and they're not. And that's like one of the, main reasons you're going in there, then yeah, you need a Franks hearing to figure out what's going on. Yeah. Or if you're just like, oh, yeah, we're looking for this guy and he lives in this house, but you never really do any surveillance. You don't ever put him in the house. You don't ever

confirm that he actually lives there. Turns out he sold the house to someone else and someone else lives there. Then you went in and made your entry and somebody got hurt. Like that would be recklessly disregarding the truth. You included something that wasn't. By the way, something that wasn't true because you were reckless. And by the way, there was never a Franks hearing for The Search in Mar-A-Lago. Now, you'll recall, Comey filed that motion for a Franks hearing because he's alleging that the agents who applied for the warrants against him actually misled the judges, the magistrate judges, as to the fundamental facts of the case, including that Comey knew

86 meant to kill because he prosecuted mob cases and the mob uses 86 to mean, kill. So quote, here's something from Comey's initial motion for a Franks hearing. He says, the government spent months pouring over records of Mr. Comey's government service and interviewing people who worked on organized crime cases more than 30 years ago. Those efforts, which preceded the government's applications for these warrants, failed to find any evidence proving that Comey learned that 86 means kill in the organized crime context because it does not. And this is also something that goes toward getting the grand jury materials. What on earth did you tell the grand jury?

Yeah. Yeah, it makes that motion supremely important here. He wants to see, his team wants to see what sort of statements and testimony were provided of grand jury because it backs up this, it could back up this allegation that agents who did all this work, who looked at all of the transcripts from all of his cases and ran all these searches through their own computer systems. It never came up with a single instance that put Jim Comey and a mobster's use of the number 86 as slang for killing.

They didn't come up with anything about that. But yet they must have gone in and said something to the grand jury or to the judge to get the search warrant that indicated that that in fact had happened or was true. Yeah. In fact, I think there's a witness. that Comey brings up witness for, who apparently told the grand jury, yeah, Comey totally knew 86 meant to kill, but like based on nothing. And so not only does that go to a Franks hearing, but it also goes to getting the grand jury materials.

Right. So the government's opposition to Comey's motion for the Franks hearing says, quote, the government simply presented facts and some, quote, rational investigative deductions to the magistrate who was free to accept or reject any. interpretation as probative. The agent did not say anything untrue or inaccurately mislead the magistrate. That's not true according to what he's stating in his motion. Like if you made that comment after you done all this research and found no evidence of it, then, you know, you aren't just, that's not a rational investigative deduction. To continue to conclude the same thing, even after you've gone out and done all this work and found no evidence of that whatsoever.

Right. And so I think there's plenty of reason at least to look at it in camera, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that opens the can of worms right there. Whatever kind of nonsense went on will get in front of the judge at that point. And that is certainly maybe the first way or the first big way that this case could really turn around. And just so everyone knows the judge in this case is Judge Louise Flanagan, a G.W. Bush

appointee. All right. So that's the judge who's going to look at these motions and make determinations about what should be looked at in camera, if anything, if grand jury materials should be handed over, whether there's vindictive or selective prosecution, whether there's a failure to state a claim, you know, or a crime or, you know, a true threat. And she'll decide whether that's a matter of law or something for fact finders like jurors to decide. That's all going to be up to her in these pretrial motion stages. Yep. All right.

Well, we've got a couple of updates on vandals. Vandals in the Capitol. They're everywhere. They're vandalizing everything. We've got a couple of cases with Judge Janine Piro. And we have an update on Debbie Hearn. somebody named Ferris, and we're going to talk about that after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. Okay, we have a couple of updates on Donald Trump's War on Vandals in the District of Columbia. First, the government is asking the court to dismiss the indictment against Davy Hearn without prejudice so they can possibly bring the charges again down the road because you never know when your job might be in trouble. If you're, oh, I don't know, a box of wine type of gal, you need to bring that case back just to pump a little. life back into your current position. Okay, so they write, at the outset, it should be noted that the government sought this indictment in good faith after the Department of Interior provided evidence, albeit incomplete, that there was vandalism to the reflecting pool. However, based on newly received Brady materials from DOI, the government could not sustain its burden that the defendant's actions

cause further damage to the liner beyond the condition that Bay 4 was already in. Accordingly, consistent with both its evidence, its burden of proof, and its ethical obligations, the government was required to move to dismiss the case pursuant to Rule 48. This, however, does not suggest that there was no vandalism to other areas of the reflecting pool.

Ah, Davy Hearn, you scamp, you're violating all over the place that we have no evidence of. So get this. They say at the time the indictment was returned, the USAODC, that's the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C., was not aware of or in possession of any of the extensive documentation of installation issues compiled by DOI from the start of this installation process.

And unbeknown to USAODC at the time, I usually say unbeknownst, but unbeknown, was the June 11th, 2026 email from, the National Park Service engineer documenting peeling of the lining within days after the completion of its installation. That was more than a week before they arrested her. Should the case be represented to a new grand jury based on newly discovered evidence, any re-indictment of the case wouldn't constitute harassment. Rather, it would be a prosecution supported by probable cause. How was that possibly unbeknown? Like literally the entire world

known that that stuff was peeling off five minutes after it peeled off. Yeah, we'd be known. I don't know where she is unbeknown. Every camera in D.C. was focused on that reflecting cool for a while, but okay. So as Adam Klausfeld put it, prosecutors say that the, quote, late-breaking documents they received sabotaged their ability to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, but also absurdly claimed that newly discovered evidence could rehabilitate the claim. claims later. I mean,

that's what they're saying. That's what Piro is saying. Next up, we have a story from NBC. A judge on Monday ordered the release of a Kentucky woman who was accused of, you heard it, vandalism at the World War II Memorial in Washington last week,

court records show. U.S. attorney Janine Piro, the top federal prosecutor in Washington, criticized the order that led to the release of the woman, Alyssa Ferris, age 41, who was taken into custody last week and charged with two felony counts. Yeah. Now, this vandal actually did the vandalizing.

Okay. Court documents showed Ferris agreed to conditions of her release, including surrendering her passport, not leaving the continental United States unless approved by the court. But the Justice Department urged a reconsideration of the release order and said the woman was a risk of flight and that Ferris should be held in pretrial detention. The only problem is, Ferris turned herself in within hours of the vandalism. And that is an insurmountable thing to try to say they are a serious flight risk. Yeah. The World War II Memorial was vandalized with bubbly soap. So she poured soap in the thing.

And she did a little graffiti last Thursday. The fountain bubbled over with suds and the words, clean hands, dirty money were painted on one surface, splattering the area with red and green paint. So here's Janine Piro, ferociously arguing in court that against the Bail Reform Act, that this woman should be held in pretrial detention for spray painting and putting bubbles in a fountain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but pretrial detention is reserved for people who are actual flight risks, like, I don't know, Andrew Tate or, you know, something like that.

Somebody with a bunch of passports and the means to travel, you know, because they were like, She was looking at bus tickets to Virginia, which is five minutes away. She was looking on her phone on how to get to Toledo because that's where her parents live. Yeah. And that's not a flight risk. And then if you can't establish a flight risk, it has to be because they're a violent criminal or their danger to the community or something like that. And so, I don't know, Virginia and Piero to be in there arguing vociferously for pretrial detention for a vandal. It's pretty autocratic stuff.

It's not going to work either. As you put it, there's two factors for pretrial detention. It's risk of flight and danger to the community. And they're both kind of considered at the same time. So you could theoretically be, have no risk of flight. Like you don't even have a passport, you got no money, whatever, but you're so dangerous, that alone can get you detained. And the opposite is also possible. Usually it's a mixture of the two.

Here, you can't just assume that someone, that there is a risk of flight simply because someone's been charged. There has to be these other factors that lead to it. Like they've fled before and they have their own private jet and 16 passports or whatever. Here, she completely obliterates those presumptions by turning herself in. They probably had no idea who she was, right? There's no indication from the reporting I've read that they had, you know, they were closing in on her or some sort of manhunt for the bubble vandal. So without her voluntarily showing up and saying, I did it, here's my soap bottle. This case doesn't even get off the ground.

And Piero's like, we have videos she posted on social media. We know she did this. And the judge is like, yeah, everybody knows she did it. She turned herself in. How's that? That was not helping your flight. So the judge was like, look, go back to Ohio, report to the Northern District there and stay with your family. And that's the end.

Yeah, exactly. I mean. And Pira's freaking out about it. You know, come on. She's got to freak out over it. She let the other, she let the other vandal get away, that dastardly Davey Hearn. And it almost cost her a job. So she's bringing a hammer down.

She specifically, yes, has to freak out about it. Nobody else would. Everyone would be like, yeah, please. Those bubbles are slippery. No, we should definitely use taxpayer dollars to house this violent criminal flight risk in our, whatever. Just ridiculous. I'll jail anybody. I don't care.

I'll bring all the bubbles. I, do somebody say bubbly? Oh, my God. Maybe it was no more to Lindsey Graham in his bubble wand. You don't know. Do you know what a gift you've just got to? to our listeners by including this story in today's. Because they mourn the day that there are no more Genie Piro stories.

I get every week. The questions include just desperate pleas to keep reporting on Janine Piro even after she gets fired. So I feel like we've hit the mark today. Don't worry. Don't worry, everyone. There will always be Janine Piro. It'll come out here and there.

All right. We've got, I mean, this whole show, to be fair, has kind of been hit me in the head. with a bat, but we have the actual Hit Me in the Head with a Bat segment after this last break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back. It's time to hit me in the head with a bat. Hit me in the head with a bat. Today's installment is related to the city's church case. Hit me in the head with a bat. This is the one with Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and several other people who were indicted in Minnesota for protesting or covering protests as journalists in the city's church in Minnesota. And our story today comes from MPR. That's Minnesota Public Radio. Okay. A U.S. District Judge has ordered the federal government to turn over all grand jury materials for her review in the case of 38 people facing conspiracy charges for the anti-ice protest at St. Paul Church in January. Independent journalists, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon and Twin Cities' local Georgia Fort, are charged with conspiracy.

City's church was targeted by protesters on January 18th because the church's pastor, David Easterwood, helped lead the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office in St. Paul during the government's surge into Minnesota this winter. Defendants had argued it was likely the federal government grossly misrepresented the facts and misstated the law to grand jurors in order to secure an indictment. Grand jury proceedings are generally secret, but the Justice Department's actions have been more scrutinized since a The federal judge in Chicago uncovered prosecutorial misconduct in a case involving anti-ice activists, which led to charges being dropped. Yeah, that's the Broadview Six case with Kat Abugazale and the rest. Yep. Defendants in the church conspiracy case challenged a June ruling by U.S. magistrate judge Douglas Miko

that denied a motion to disclose all grand jury materials involved in the indictments. Miko ruled in July that he'll look at some grand jury. jury materials in camera to decide whether prosecutors misled jurors, but he limited what would be examined. All right. So Miko was a magistrate judge. That's right. But Judge Laura Provenzino wrote in an order, she's the district judge, wrote in an order released Tuesday that the court will examine all grand jury materials in order to rule on the defendant's objections to Miko's denial. She'll be looking at more materials than Miko has agreed to examine. Provenzino will examine prosecutors' presentation to grand jurors at hearings in January and February. She said in the order that the

material should also include any introductions, legal instructions, witness testimony, and answers to questions by jurors. And I'm assuming she's doing this to head DOJ off at the past, who in the past has withheld some of those grand jury documents like introductions and legal instructions. I said, well, you didn't specifically ask for those, Your Honor. So she's listed everything here. Provenzino has set a deadline of August 25th for the government to send her the grand jury materials. That's two days from now, right? Tuesday. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's all means all, right? Good for her. She overruled the magistrate judge here. And so Don Lemon at all filed a motion to the district judge to say, we object to the magistrate judge's narrowing or, you know, of what should be looked at. And I think that that's good because there were several defects in what we know that was presented to the grand jury and what was in the indictment and then what was removed from the criminal complaint, including that Lemon and Georgia Fort were chanting that, you know, and then that turned out to be false after video evidence was proven. So they are now like rightfully saying, what did you tell the grand jury? How is this a conspiracy? And this district judge has agreed with Lemon at all and is going to examine everything. and she was, again, very clear. You have to include the introductions.

You have to include the description of the law. You have to include all these things and hand it all over by this coming Tuesday. Nice. Nice. The tide continues to turn. All right. So listener questions. It's time for we.

I think we actually have a little extra time for listener questions today. So maybe we could take one or two. And if you have a question, there's a link in the show notes that you could click on and that will take you to a forum where you can submit your questions to us. Andy, what do we have this week for questions? What we have this week is actually the first one's a comment, which I thought was interesting. And then the second one is a question, and it's going to provoke a little bit of a discussion, I think.

So I'm glad we have some time. Okay. So the comment comes to us from Margie, who is in Dallas. Margie says, hi, I'm the listener who suggested, hit me in the head with a bat for your segment on the presumption of regularity. Yay, Margie. She says it's not original. Years ago, someone suggested this as a name for a new golden retriever puppy. Very apt.

Thanks for calmly sharing your expert knowledge. You make me think everything will be all right in the end. Well, Margie, did you end up naming the golden retriever puppy? Hit me in the head with a bat? I hope so. I hope so dearly. I, of course. Because we could use a mascot.

Yeah. I mean, I have a golden retriever. He's no puppy. 12 in December. All dogs are puppies. That's true. I call him my pup. He definitely fits the golden retriever. It's just, you know, sometimes life just gets too confusing for them. And, you know, that's okay. They don't mind there. Orange cats and orange dogs. It's just goobers. That golden retriever energy, it's a beautiful thing. So thank you, Margie for the name and for the great comment. Appreciate it. Okay. So here. So here.

Here's the question. This is an interesting one. And it's based on a story that we covered last week about the Southern Poverty Law Center employee who was like running their intelligence collection program and recruiting and paying sources, which is the, which is kind of at the center of all this stuff. She was living with one of the moles that Southern Poverty Law Center was paying. That's correct. And she's now been indicted essentially for fraud. So this comes to us from Hillary's number one fan. And she says, or he says, in response to the indictment of the SPLC employee, is this a relevant analogy? It's like saying if I am the campaign manager for a political campaign and I hire some employees to do work for the campaign and they do the work and receive their paychecks and then one of them decides to take everyone out to dinner on a Friday night to celebrate a victory and then pays out of their own paycheck that they earned, if I as the campaign manager attend. that dinner, does that mean I embezzled funds from the campaign? So, no, it doesn't. That's a slightly different situation because you're talking about you paid, it wasn't

even you personally. It's the organization, the campaign pays its employees through an established kind of, you know, payment system. those earnings are declared to the government, la, la, la, la. Once they reach the employee's bank account, the employee can do whatever they want with them. This is not the same situation.

This is a person who was running this program of recruiting informants, and as a part of that, she was paying informants with money from the organization. She then, I guess, it is alleged she had a relationship with one of them, begin cohabitating with that person.

As a part of that cohabitation, they shared a bank account which she had access to and could take money out of. So she was paying the money into that account for the work that that person was doing and also had access to that money for her own personal use.

That's a different scenario than the one I think that Hillary is describing. The one that I thought of was, do you remember when they were investigating, not investigating, but questioning Fawny Willis and Nathan Wade in Fawley County. And Fonnie Willis was giving money to Nathan Wade and then having dinners and going on vacation with him while he was in her employ.

Right. And that I thought was kind of a closer scenario to this. And they didn't indict Fonnie Willis because none of this, I think, is against the law. But they went after her for the same kind of idea. Yeah. So there's different things happening here. And the Fawney Willis case is a great example. What they were driving out with Fawney Willis was her relationship with the subordinate attorney who she hired to do the prosecution was biased because of her personal relationship. Right. And so that in that situation, the injection of kind of bias into that, into the investigation and the ultimate prosecution of Trump was they tried to turn that into like, look, this whole thing wasn't legitimate from the beginning. Well, and that's what the judges found in that case, right?

Yeah. That it was the relationship, not the money part of it. Per se, right. And to be clear, in the SPLC situation, it's entirely possible if the government has gone way overboard in trying to make this look like an embezzlement. Right. Now, you don't, you know, getting into a personal relationship with an employee, especially in a kind of, it's a much more fraught situation here when this is just some person who's not an employee, he's not officially legally affiliated with the organization anyway, just receiving who knows how much money for all kinds of different purposes. Getting in a relationship in that situation is probably not the best judgment. Your organization might have policies. against it, which if they found out you were doing it, maybe that could get you fired, but it still doesn't get you to a crime.

Right. Exactly. So I don't, I don't, I'm not laying this out to say it's, it's a different situation because I believe this prosecution is, is strong. I do not. Right. But it is a little bit different. She then goes on to say, what if I'm the manager at a public's grocery store and I pay a bunch of employees? And then at some point, me and one of the employees become romantically involved and start dating and the employee and myself move in together or share living expenses does that mean i'm now embezzling money from publics no it doesn't but because

there are different power relationships here there's an HR issue yeah exactly most companies would say you can't do this you can't one of you can't work here anymore and that's how i see you know that's how i see this southern poverty law center thing this is an HR issue. Yeah. Not a legal issue. Right. Just like their first indictment against the organization for using donor funds to even collect

this kind of information from extremists was ridiculous. Like they're not under any obligation to report to donors the specifics of how they're spending this money. Once it's given to them, it's theirs to spend in any lawful way they want. Yeah. Plus, this is an organization that's worked side by side with law enforcement for decades. Of course. You think somebody in law enforcement,

if they were breaking the law, would have done something before Donald Trump, who hates the Southern Poverty Law Center because they track his voters is a problem. That's when it became a problem. So we're going to see what happens and follow this investigation. But those are really, really great examples,

Hillary's number one fan, and appreciate you sending them in because you're right. It sparks an interesting discussion about where you cross the line from... Yeah. Where do you go from, like... Unethical, possible.

unethical conduct to illegal conduct. Yeah. Maybe when does kind of a not good idea turn into you're going down for a felony? Like this is two very different results. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your questions. Everybody, if you have questions, like I said, there's a link in the show notes.

You can click on and deliver to us and we will read them all and choose the ones we can. And then at some point, I'm sure we'll sit down and have a full episode of questions. you all love those as well. And we'll keep you posted on when that might happen. So anyway, look, we did it in under an hour. We got through 9,000 stories, 40,000 filings. And from your expert show preparation and writing and research. So thank you for that once again.

No problem. It's always my pleasure to do this. And so although I tell you what, that Comey thing, boy, going through all those motions, They've written hundreds of pages over seashells, man. I'm just sitting there and I'm like 32-page motion to dismiss for a vindictive. 42-page motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for lack of threat. 40-page motion for we need to have a Frank's hearing and we need to have some of this evidence given back or not used fruit of the poison tree. like just the motion practice in this case.

And it makes sense because this is a high profile case. And Comey's lawyers are not slouches. Oh, my God. They're the opposite. These guys totally know what they're doing. I've worked with them extensively years ago in New York on organized crime cases and some terrorism cases. And this is class of the field right here sort of stuff.

And they're just doing it. You know, they don't, I, I'm sure that they're in this thing for the, for the cause, not for the, for the, for the, for the high profile case and, and all those sorts of things that come with it. They are very close, you know, Pat Fitzgerald and Jim Comey, very close, very good friends for many, many, many years. Yeah, well, I, I would expect somebody who led the FBI to probably know a couple of good lawyers. Maybe not now. It comes with the turf. Yeah.

Maybe not now. I don't know that I would necessarily want to get my hands on Kosh Patel's legal Roll-A-Dex. The dude who files all this defamation cases for him and is like 0-50? No. Yeah, that guy. Not him. Oh, goodness.

All right, everybody. We're going to be back next week with more. I guarantee you, we're never at a loss for things to talk about with this Justice Department. So we really appreciate you listening to Unjustified. Andy, do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here? No, no, I just, you know, I'll buckle in for next week. I say that every time, but we just keep climbing a bigger hill each week.

And it's a thrill to do it. So it's good to be. Oh, yeah. The malfeasance will blow your hair back like a Maxel tape commercial. You're going deep in the references today. I love it. The Max-El. A new song came out today by ministry about the Donald Trump administration.

And so I was just taken back to the 80s and mixtapes all of a sudden. Yeah. Heck yeah. That's my jam. I saw a car because I'm constantly looking at cars on the internet and I saw this black appropriate year 9-11. I was like, oh my God,

it's the, it's the max L ad cards. It's like the old eight and like probably an 88 turbo or something like that. Yeah. Those maxill ads. You love a Porsche. I do. I do.

I can't help myself. It's a disease. I can't get rid of it. What's better than that? Not much, my friend. All right, everybody. We'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening. 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 Hawkey 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 MSWMedia.com.

Thank you.