Jack - The Jeff Sessions (feat. Seth Abramson & David Priess)

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

Ep #54 - Joining us this week is David Priess (Fmr. CIA Officer, Author "How To Get Rid of a President") and Seth Abramson (Author "Proof of Collusion")! Plus, Jaleesa covers the latest GOP attempt to protect Mueller in the Senate and AG breaks down the Wednesday morning massacre! Enjoy!

Season 4 of How We Win Is Here For the past four years, we've been making history in critical elections all over the country. And last year, we made history again by expanding our majority in the Senate, eating election denying Republicans and crucial state house races, and fighting back a non-existent red wave. But the Maga Republicans who plotted and pardoned the attempted overthrow of our government now control the house. Thanks to gerrymandered maps and repressive anti-voter laws. And the chaotic spectacle we've already seen shows us just how far they will go to

seize power, dismantle our government, and take away our freedoms. So, the official podcast of the persistence is back with season four. There's so much more important work ahead of us to fight for equity, justice, and our very democracy itself. We'll take you behind the lines and inside the rooms where it happens, with strategy and inspiration from progressive change makers all over the country. And we'll dig deep into the weekly news that matters most and what you can do about it, with messaging and communications expert,

co-founder of Way to Win, and our new co-host, Jennifer Fernandez-Ancona. So join Steve and I every Wednesday for your weekly dose of inspiration, action and hope. I'm Steve Pearson. And I'm Jennifer Fernandez-Ancona. And this is How We Win. Thanks to Third Love for supporting Mueller, she wrote.

Third Love knows there's a perfect broth for everyone, so right now they're offering our listeners 15% off their entire first order. Go to thirdlove.com-ag now to find your perfect fitting bra and get 15% off your order. That's thirdlove.com-ag. And thanks to CentBird, a luxury perfume subscription service for supporting Muller She Wrote. Go to centBird.com slash AG and use code AG. Check out for 50% off your first month. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs.

That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time, a two in that campaign, and I didn't have and I have communications at the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for having nothing to do with Putin? I've never spoken to him.

I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. So it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.

Like all members of the oldest professional capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller She Wrote and welcome to the aftermath of the blue wave. Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies. Do I see? That's right, we now have Democratic control of the House of Representatives, and thanks to all who joined us for our election night live coverage and our broadcast that we had last Tuesday. It was a great show.

It was a great time. I appreciate everyone for coming out. We had tons of fun. Dems have won back 30 seats and counting. A ton of governorships, and we might have only lost a couple of Senate seats. We're still waiting for results in some key races and when it's all said and done, we could take back as many as 40 in the House. So thanks to young people, you showed up over 30% nearly doubling your normal turnout

in presidential elections for a midterm. Winning the House was bigly important for the Mueller investigation, and I know he didn't say bigly, he said big league but whatever uh... and anyway that yeah the the Mueller investigation now has a lot of protections and i'll go over that a little bit later in just the facts uh... joining me always is jolissa johnson hello and jordan coburn is out this week

good evening santiago i'm veronica horning stone tits magees on vacation also joining us today to talk about his new book, Proof of Collusion, How Trump Betrayed America Is Twitter Nocturdomis, Seth Abramson. And we also have David Prius, former CIA officer, that used to brief Mueller on a daily basis. He's also got a new book out called How to Get Rid of a President, History's Guide to Removing Unpopular Unable or Unfit Chief Executives. Maybe a little good timing.

Oh, yeah. His part. A lot happened this week, you guys. We had the midterm elections, the firing of Jeff Sessions, the installation of Matthew fucking Whitaker, as Attorney General, the subsequent protests that followed,

the Andrew Miller hearings in the DC Appellate Court, new reporting about Trump being involved in the inquirer pay off schemes, Manafort not cooperating in his ex-sun and law being indicted, the potential for a Mormon prophecy being fulfilled is still good to go, and the introduction of legislation to protect Mueller. And Jalice is gonna go over the that,

the legislation to protect Mueller, what the GOP is doing, how they're involved, and I'm gonna be covering the wednesday morning massacre it's going to be a packed show so uh... let's read the beans and jump in with just the facts alright we're starting on twos day while we were voting uh... we found out rubla of love was arrested in monaco and questioned in an ongoing corruption probe if you remember rubla of love rubla Rob Lovlev, Robocop,

I call him Robocop, he was a guy that bought a Florida mansion from Trump for 95 million and turned around, parcel it out and sold it shortly thereafter, well, most of it for half the money, which screams money laundering. Robocop has been under scrutiny by Mueller for the mansion transaction, which is just one of many Trump business transactions

he was looking into. It's important to note, it's important to note, jam on it. Jam on it. Okay, sorry. It's important to note that Trump's finances were not only called a red line by Trump, but by his family, and also by the guy Trump just made the attorney general now overseeing the Mueller probe, but we'll get into that later. Then Tuesday we had a historic blue wave election in which we took back 30 seats in the house

and counting. As we predicted here on Mueller she wrote, we did not take the Senate. However, Mitt Romney did win his seat bid in Utah, and if you've been listening for a while, we came up with a theory about a year ago called the Romney 9. I had said if we took back the House, we could get the votes to impeach, but we would need two-thirds in the Senate, which would require a Republican lead, a Republican to lead a contingency of his caucus in the conviction of Trump, the removal, right? Because there's two steps to impeachment. You impeach them in the house, then you have a trial in the Senate, you convict them, you remove the president. And that would require 67 votes. So we decided Romney could be that guy,

and we dubbed those nines because Romney hates Trump, right, after he got snubbed for Secretary of State and when Russia kind of installed Rex Tillerson, you know, with his friendship medal. Yeah, we decided Romney could be that guy. And we dubbed those nine senators the Romney 9, which is now, after this race, more like the Romney 19, depending on how Florida and Arizona pan out in their Senate races. But as it turns out, that would not only help get Trump impeached, but it would fulfill a Mormon prophecy. One of our listeners, and ex Mormon, told us about something called the White Horse Prophecy, in which a Mormon guy comes to DC riding on a shiny white horse out of the west with, you know, while the Constitution is hanging by a thread and he saves

the democracy from certain deaths. So with the election of Mitt Romney, those White Horse beans are still in play. Nice. Keep-keep-keep-keep-posted on posted on Joseph Smith Mormon prophecies as we continue our podcast. Hard-hitting journalism. Oh yeah, let's have questions. We tackle the issues. But the dems taking the house means more to the muller probe than just that, right?

The massive shift in power provides crucial protection for muller against political forces that might try to quash Mueller's findings. First, impeachment becomes possible because the Constitution only requires a simple majority which we now have in the House. But that aside, what's more important is that Mueller is allowed to finish his investigation and get his findings to the public or at least to the Dems in the House. And the fact that we took the House provides Mueller with counterbalancing protections, right? First, if Mueller files his report with the new AG, and that AG refuses to release the report to Congress, that automatically triggers a report to Congress

where he will be required to tell Congress he doesn't want to release the report. And now with Dems in the majority, anyone blocking any part of that report would come under intense scrutiny from the House to release the findings, not to mention the public. And beyond that, the House Dems now holds subpoena power and could compel the production of evidence in public hearings. Once they take the gavils, they could even call Mueller to testify in public to tell them

everything he's found. That would be incredible. So there is no stop in the Mueller investigation. I don't care what you think, Donald Trump. And joining us today to discuss the future of Donald Trump is former CIA officer manager daily intelligence briefer and frequent writer and speaker on the presidency and national security affairs. He has a new book out extraordinarily

timely, by the way, called How to Get Rid of a President, History's Guide to Removing Unpopular, Unable, or Unfit Chief Executives. Please welcome back, Friend of the Podcast, David Priests. David, how are you? I am good and well. Hi, G. How are you? I'm doing good. It's been quite a week, as you know. I don't know how things are over in DC. What's the temperature like? It is absolutely frigid. Or are you asking about the air temperature? I was being figurative. Yeah, it's a strange climate right now because there's a lot of agitation. There's a lot of uncertainty. And most of it is surrounding so what's he going

to do next? Because the press conference that we saw this week and some of the tweets coming out show that this is not going to be taken as a slap across the wrist as a lot of midterms are, this is going to be taken as an opportunity to amp things up even further. And so there's a, you know, even more uncertainty than before. Yeah, I think those of us who've been into this kind of expected that. We sort of knew he'd be cleaning house after the election. We kind of predicted this and but there's a lot of people who weren't expecting it. And so I imagine things could be a bit on edge. Everywhere here, the good news is to follow up on what we've discussed a couple of times before on the show is the national security professionals and others in the government

in Washington as I assume where you are and elsewhere. People are putting their heads down and they're doing the job. And that's the important part is the job of the people is getting done. It's just the question about the man at the top, but it's not a question of absolute chaos and energy going on. No social security checks are still getting mailed. Terrorist threats are still being investigated. Diplomacy at the working level is still getting done. It's just being done despite that uncertainty at the very top.

Yeah, and despite the very top, your book, How to Get Rid of a President, is coming out right when we might actually have the ability to get rid of the president. When and why did you start this research and what research did you do? Yeah, it actually goes back to what I did before I started working for the U.S. government in national security. I went to graduate school and got my PhD in political science.

And this is really a return to that, is looking back because the last couple of years, we've had a president who is perceived as widely unpopular, some judge him to be unable to fulfill the duties of the office. Many people find him unfit for the office. We've had cases of that before,

and there are many methods that we've used to get rid of presidents in history. We spend a whole lot of time focusing on how we elect presidents. We spend a whole lot of time focusing on how we manage presidents, or how presidents do their jobs. But it was surprising to me that there hadn't been somebody who took a systematic, exhaustive

historical look at all the ways that we have to get rid of a president. And what are the ways of doing that and how they stacked up in history so that we can learn from the mistakes and the successes of the past. So I took a look at that. So it's not just a book about impeachment. There have been several quick hit books out on that topic, but it takes a look at all of those methods to inform us now about what has worked and what hasn't worked before. That's great, but I think maybe one of the problems we've had with researching that is a lot of it,

at least tied up in Watergate, has been under seal. And we didn't get that Jaworsky report, which many are calling a legal president or a road map for how to handle this investigation. That didn't come out until a week and a half ago, I think. So, you know, now we have even more of a legal leg to stand on. That certainly helps. Now, the issue there isn't really a legal issue. It's a matter of approach. That is, the approach Jaworski took was give a assessment or give a fact and then back it up with the evidence in a list format. Very different than the Ken Star approach of the exhaustive truth telling commission format of his report. That relates to one very small specific aspect

of those investigations, which in turn are a much smaller percentage of the overall history of the United States when it comes to presidents who behave badly. So yes, that moves us forward in a small way on a small part of this issue. The rest of it is all out there, but I don't know about you, but I certainly, until I researched this book, didn't know the stories of John Tyler and Andrew Johnson and Millard Phil Moore. I, these were names that I may have memorized once as a kid when I had to, but I didn't

know their stories. Going back, I realized history is echoing. A lot of the things we're seeing, a lot of the discourse that's seeing, a lot of the discourse that's going on can borrow from the past, and maybe we can learn something about some of these methods that we'll talk about. Yeah, and I think that's just because of the more recent, at least historically speaking, thing about Watergate is kind of where everybody turns. And so that, you know, that's why that kind of that Jaworsky report is helpful. But as you said, it's only one small aspect of a giant sea of possibilities. And I think that, right, you're right, the Ken Star report was very kind of skewed and conclusory.

And it wasn't what Jaworsky did. And I think the best word I've heard to describe Jaworsky's roadmap or his report was elegant. It was an elegant solution to a problem. To one problem, that one of many problems we face right now. Well, sure, and because the Nixon case is one of the closer parallels in history to what we're doing now,

there's no perfect parallel to this unprecedented president, but it's one of the closest parallels we have. Any insight we have is useful. There's another insight that's useful. It's not in my book, but it relates to what we've talked about before, which is, does Mueller see himself more in the Ken Star? I'm in charge of a truth-telling commission, seeing his charge as getting every single fact uncovered, even if it's not related to the prosecution of crimes. Or does he see himself more like a Jaworski

who is by the book, do what needs to be done, present the facts to, in this case, the House of Representatives, because, and constitutionally, it ain't the special prosecutor's job to do an impeachment hearing and assessment. It's the job of the House. So is it more like Jaworski to arm the House of Representatives or to arm anyone else with what they need to make choices? My experience with Mueller suggests

he's much more closer to the latter than the former. He's not exceeding his mandate for the sake of what he sees as a wider societal role. That's not his own constitution. I think the Jororsky Roadmap provides a much closer parallel for what he's likely to do. Yeah, definitely and you and you spent a lot of time with Muller and briefing him and getting to know him and we've always kind of seen him based on what you and I've talked about and other things that I've read about him in his life that he seems to be more about kind of just getting getting the truth out there and kind of just getting the truth out there and packaging it all up in a way that's, you know, not so, not so Ken Stari, I guess, is the best way to put it. He's definitely more about justice as a whole, and I feel I'm with you, and that he kind of

feels like the responsibility or honor or privilege of removing a president belongs to the people, not him. Yeah, and in that way, he might actually echo something that Jim Comey said in Jim Comey and Bob Mueller are not best friends, despite what the president and others say. There's no photos of them hugging and kissing all over? No, no, no, I don't even think, I don't even think the Russians have such video. But to me, there's definitely something that Jim Comey has that I think is shared

and maybe it has to do something with the FBI ethic. Despite some very strong disagreements about some decisions Jim Comey made and why he made them in 2016. When he gave an interview to ABC in April 2018, I do cite this in the book. He actually argues against impeaching and removing the president because he said, I quote, that would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they are duty-bound to do directly. So he definitely has the impression of

you have to rely on existing institutions as much as possible. And in this case, we have an institution for getting rid of a president. It's what the founders intended, and it is the best way to remove a president period. You go to the polling place in four years and you say you're fired. That is the best way unless there's actual constitutional harm unless there's go to the polling place in four years and you say, you're fired. That is the best way unless there's actual constitutional harm unless there's damage to the republic or a fundamentally unfit president. And we have different methods for achieving those. But honestly, director Comey nailed it. He said, absent a clear end present danger, we have a good method for ejecting a president. And it's called getting your ass out and voting. Well, someone would consider that on the far end of the spectrum

and somewhere in the middle being impeachment because while impeachment is less direct, we do actually elect the people who would do that. Right on. And that's why we have a spectrum of options and I'll just quickly walk through these. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about some of the methods for removing a president and not just that I want you to go through those methods, but I also want you to talk about what you think are the likeliest that we could run into in the next two years. Yeah, let me walk quickly through each of the methods and then we'll come back to racking and stacking them now. Voting presidents out obviously is one and this is normal.

10 of the first 41 presidents were voted out when they were on the ballot for re-election. That's almost 25%. So it clearly happens. The oddity in history is that it hasn't happened lately. The most recent one was Bush 41. We're going back now decades. So that's one, but sometimes it doesn't even get to that. If waiting for the next election seems too long, some presidents, starting with George Washington, who were eligible to run again, self-selected out, they removed themselves. Others wanted to stay on the job, and Trump presumably does, but they got rejected by their own parties. That is, they sought their

re-nomination and they didn't get it. The most recent... Oh, meaning he would lose in the primary. Absolutely. Yeah, the most recent example of that, and people have been primary. You might remember George Bush 41 was primaryed hard by Pet Buchanan, and that may have had something to do with why he was weakened in the election. The general election itself, Lyndon Johnson famously took himself out of the running for a re-election in 1968 to supposedly focus on winning the Warren Vietnam. Instead, as I tell the story in the book, he was quietly plotting behind the scenes to re-enter the race as a hero to answer the party's call at a fractured convention.

Johnson wasn't at the convention. He was at his ranch in Texas, but he had conveniently brought two speechwriters and had an aircraft ready to take off for Chicago at a moment's notice. But Johnson refused to signal openly to the delegates. He wanted to run. So, they didn't take the first step, which in turn kept him from saying anything, so that call never came. But you can certainly see a president being rejected by his own party.

Now that's an interesting one in this case, because Donald Trump ain't a Republican. He hijacked the Republican party, and he's brought people along with him. But it is possible to imagine a strong, moderate Republican challenge to him. Seems weird in today's environment when everybody seems to have just followed along in his co-tails, but there are already people talking about challenging him from the center of the party. That's a possibility, and history tells us this happens pretty often. Now there are other methods that don't require the party. One method of removing a president is removal in place, effectively infringing the president's

legal duties. And this has happened from enemies and allies alike. There are cases going back, they tried against George Washington to do this. They certainly succeeded against a lot of his successors. But even the president's own men have done it. Richard Nixon had his own chief of staff and national security advisor taking on some of the prerogatives of the president's authority

for themselves. And you and I saw just a matter of weeks ago, the reporting the New York Times op-ed from anonymous claiming to be part of a group plotting behind the president's back to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting the president's misguided impulses and then Bob Woodward's book Fear describing similar conduct by officials working in the White House like Gary

Cohn stealing letters off of Trump's desk. That's that's not removing the president from office but that certainly is taking away something that the founders intended which was executive power without being sabotaged from within. A couple of methods will skip over pretty quickly here, but the diabolical ones. One is preemptive removal whereby a major party candidate who's eminently qualified, looks destined for victory, is kept out of the office by extraordinary means. Some people say that was Hillary Clinton in 2016 with some Russian help keeping her out of office. Certainly it happened to men like Henry

Clay back in the 19th century. The other one that is off the table is assassination. I covered in the book because it has happened and several other presidents came really close to getting killed in office. But removing the president by force, it's a theft of the rights of the voters or the representatives. It's an insult to the sacrifices of all the Americans who have served in the military or worked in a government office or participated in elections. So we got to rule that one out, no matter what. So we get to the constitutional methods.

And the constitutional methods are impeachment in the event of an unfit president or declaring the president unable to fulfill the duties of the office, basically an incapacitated president in which case the 25th Amendment kicks in. And those are the ones that are most likely to see some action in the next couple of years. Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is there might not be one method, but maybe a combination like checking the president, like the anonymous op-ed from New York Times or with the majority and one of both houses of Congress or perhaps impeachment without conviction.

You'd need two thirds in the Senate, maybe a likely eventuality with Comi's preferred method, which is voting him out, unless of course course, he resigns based on a jubworsky type report that has a ton of indy double felonies in it. It seems like there's no one clear message, but what's important and why your book is important is we need to look at history to see which methods in combination or on their own work best. One of the best parallels for this seems odd on its surface, but Andrew Johnson became president upon the assassination and death of Abraham Lincoln.

And Andrew Johnson was fundamentally unfit for the office. He was a racist asshat who should never have been in the job in the first place. But for the Civil War, Lincoln wanted to have a national union ticket of Republicans and Democrats coming together. And Andrew Johnson was the only prominent Democrat he could get to do it, because most of the rest had either gone to the Confederacy or did not want to align in that way.

But he became president, and he was just fundamentally unfit for the job. He was a horrible person in almost every way you can imagine. Well what happened? In that case, you had Congress restrict the powers of the presidency. They even passed an act called the Ten Year of Office Act, which was later ruled unconstitutional, but that limited the president's ability to remove cabinet officials and replace them. It ended up leading to Johnson's impeachment, and he came one vote in the Senate short of removal. But in that case, the act of impeachment itself led Johnson to back off.

He had to agree with some senators under the table to stop doing some of his more heinous activity in the occupied Confederacy in order to not get convicted. And therefore, impeachment, in a sense, worked. It did not remove him from office. But the act of impeachment got the president to behave better. In the case of Nixon, Nixon, resigning, I don't treat as a separate way of removing a president. Because the president isn't just going to resign on a whim.

The president is going to resign for a reason. Richard Nixon resigned because of impeachment. Richard Nixon was effectively an impeached president, and he preempted his removal by the Senate, by going ahead and resigning before the House could vote, and the Senate could vote. So an impeachment by itself can be a very powerful thing. The wrong lesson we have learned historically, and I interviewed some constitutional scholars for this book, from the Clinton case, the idea was Clinton was impeached for perjury obstruction of justice, but they didn't affect constitutional crimes, that is, they were more on a personal matter. So he was not convicted in the Senate. Well,

the political take that came from that is, if you get impeached, but not removed, you win. And Clinton's approval ratings actually went up during that process. That's the wrong lesson to learn historically. Impeachment is supposed to be a very strong signal, a slap across the face of the president saying, cut this out, this is not going to work, and we are going to restrict you. The one element that's missing now is we're just not seeing the Congress restricting the president. You would think constitutionally, regardless of party, the last two years would have seen more restrictions put on this president's behavior.

Maybe now with a democratic house, we will start to see some of that. Yeah, and speaking of that lesson, presumably, if he's impeached but not removed And again, this is kind of a different scenario because like you said Clinton was more personal and this is more legal I don't know that it would necessarily improve his ratings But the the problem here and I think that this is the problem Nixon was facing was that if you fail to resign, you might fail to secure a pardon from the vice president. If you're voted out instead and you wait until 2020, which some, a lot of people argue he might have the perclivity to do, you could lose that, that pardon. And, and, you know, also not to mention the state crimes that he's facing with the AG in New York, et

cetera. Sure. Yeah. The case in Nixon is really interesting because at the time, this is one of those cases where the hindsight of a few years changes things. When Ford issued the pardon of Nixon, it was a disaster. It essentially ruined Ford's chances for re-election. He came really close, but the pardon of Nixon really hurt him because it was seen as, oh, okay. So Nixon resigned and then he got off on these charges and he's never going to see justice.

History has turned a bit in the last few decades. Now the general consensus is that would have torn the country apart on the heels of Vietnam tearing the country apart in a way that would have maybe been unrecoverable, that Ford, for good reasons, nope, quid pro quo, Ford actually did something in the best interest of the country even though it hurt him politically. Now can we see a parallel here? Man, I don't know. It sure doesn't seem like this president would resign.

A couple of years ago, I would have said that. The most likely thing was that the president facing something like an impeachment would essentially take his ball, leave, say, I'm taking my ball and going home. I'm not playing this game anymore. I did as much as I could against the system, and this just proves how corrupt the establishment is and how they're taking your country away from you. Now, he seems to be digging in his heels in a way, and maybe the Kavanaugh hearing had something to do with this. Any previous president facing a nomination like the Kavanaugh hearing and seeing what happened with Brett Kavanaugh in that hearing out of shame would have said, yeah, we're pulling the nomination. Instead, the lesson that Trump may have learned is, you know what, if I dig my

heels in on something that bad, I win anyway. So he might not resign the office in the face of an impeachment and removal vote. He might actually take it down to the wire. That's something we haven't seen. Yeah, and he's shown that again in his reaction to the blue wave on Tuesday where most presidents in the past have, you know, when Bush fired Rumsfeld in response to the blue wave after after, you know, in the two years after he got, he won the president, or, you know, he was there that, that, you know, he was like, oh, well, I'm going to do this, the people have spoken, I'm going to respond to the people, whereas Trump, as you said, tends to dig his heels in and not go anywhere. And that's, he's just got all these signposts so far showing that he's not the resigning type.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen there because assuming that what would push us into an impeachment scenario would be evidence of crimes, whether it's something having to do with conspiracy, with the information warfare that happened in the 2016 election, or something else. That's the kind of thing that would push us in that direction. Well, in that case, yes, of course, then you could imagine someone thinking, if not the president, who lives in the eternal now, who may not be able to think that strategically forward. But you could imagine someone around him thinking, sir, if you read it and avoid all the trouble

that would come with fighting this, you are more likely to get a pardon for some or all of these crimes. That becomes an interesting calculation then, because clearly, if it were strong enough that it would push even some Republicans to vote for impeachment and removal, then it definitely would be strong enough to have a likely criminal element to it.

I don't know how that would play out. Nixon, for all of his problems, was somebody who actually did like the United States of America in many ways. And he resigned the office knowing this ain't going to go anywhere good for me, but it ain't going to be good for the country either. I'm not sure the same calculus goes on in this president's head. I'm not sure anyone knows. Yeah, it is hard to know. And David, I really, really enjoyed your book. I think that the parallels you make throughout history and not just Nixon, but Johnson and Lincoln are really important to

understanding what's going on now and all of the different methods we have for removal or for removing a president. And speaking of Lincoln, it should be of note that he lost a Senate bid in 1858 and then won the presidency two years later in 1860. And here we have rising star Bet, O'Rourke. So we have some just interesting parallels to go through about, you know, to talk about throughout history. So I find your book to be very important to understanding the processes that could go forward in the next couple of years. So I really appreciate your book and I really appreciate the information that you shared in it. Well, thanks. I hope that your listeners get the same thing out of reading it that I got out of writing it,

which is a much better appreciation just through these fun vignettes of bad presidents of the fact that honestly, we've been here before, we've had some real catastrophes up to it, including a no kidding civil war. We've been through some really bad times with some really bad leaders. And we have always collectively found a way not only to get through it, not only to survive, but to thrive. And we may be in a bad place now, but remember, it's always darkest before the dawn.

And if we've gotten through this before, we've got to have some faith that we're going to get through this again. Absolutely. You have to get through this again. Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. Everybody, you heard it here. Knowing your history is very important. So please get your hands on how to get rid of a president available wherever books are sold. David Priests, it's always a pleasure speaking to you.

Thank you. So come up so much for coming on Mueller. She wrote you bet. A G talked to you again soon. It's always a pleasure to have David on the pod. So such a smart dude. Oh yeah. I, he's just, got the best insights and best scenes.

So level headed. Yeah, beans. CIA beans all day. Then Wednesday morning you guys, as we predicted, Trump fired sessions and installed Matthew fucking Whitaker as the new attorney general, completely shitting all over the normal justice department line of succession and I'll be going over that later in the show. And I've been hearing a lot of pundits call it secession. It's not secession, it's not secession, it's secession, not to be a grammar dick but

I'm a grammar dick. Then there you go. The firing, the firing of sessions on the other hand triggered national protests nearly one thousand cities supporting the muller probe and validating our existence is a podcast so thank you america the protest was so great to see just everyone out there supporting oh yeah i was out there was beautiful yes and uh... the protest were part of a

coordinated effort by liberal groups who have been planning a rapid response to protect muller for months in case of the, you know, a Saturday night massacre or what I'm calling the Wednesday morning massacre. The group, the group's website is called Nobody is Above the Law and they said, quote, Donald Trump has installed a crony to oversee the special counsel's Trump Russia investigation crossing a red line set to protect the investigation. So that was a really, it's just great to see it. There were a lot of Mueller signs out there

to Moshy Road signs. Yeah. It was pretty cool. Thursday, Rupert Murdoch met with Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill, and Fox News has not tweeted since. And I'm trying to figure out why. Like I'm here ringing my hands together. Like, what is it to what did they talk about?

Because Capitol Hill's empty right now, but McConnell was there meeting with Rupert Murdoch. And I wonder, what the heck did they talk about because capital Hill is empty right now But Maconald was there meeting with Burt Murdock and I wonder you know, what the heck did they talk about? Maybe maybe Fox is under investigation since Hannity and judge Janine Pirro stumped for Trump in one of his rallies before the election That would make sense. Yeah, and Fox News has said we don't support that. We don't condone that Because we're fair and balanced. Yeah. Yeah Sure you are it seems like damage control for sure. One way or another. It does, but they've been quiet.

And I haven't looked today. But as of, it had been 24 hours since they tweeted as of yesterday. It's a long time for them. Yeah. So I'm wondering what's going on there. Then Friday, senators, coons, and flake pushed a measure in Congress to protect Mueller. And Jelisa is going to cover that for us in hot nets. Also Friday, a bomb report came out in the Wall Street Journal.

It confirmed something we kind of already knew, if you're an MSW listener, that Trump played a central role in the Hush Money Paiosta Stormy Daniels in Kate McDougall. We already knew this from Cohen's criminal charges and his new 80-page criminal referral that came out. And his guilty plea, saying that Trump was one, he was the one who ordered Cohen to make those illegal payoffs to Stormy Daniels, to Kate McDougall. The news here is that, according to interviews with three dozen people who have direct knowledge of the events, Trump directly intervened to suppress stories about his alleged sexual encounters with women.

Mueller junkies already know, however, that Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case that Cohen pleaded guilty to. And a lot of people, a lot of right-wingers like to try to say, well, John Edwards paid off the mistress and he wasn't found guilty. And that's because he did it a year before and they couldn't get the intent, right? But now apparently there are three dozen people at least who are saying that Trump specifically did this to intervene and protect the election, protect his campaign.

And that goes directly to intent, corrupt intent, which is the hardest part of these kinds of things to prove. And if there are tapes, as we know, Cohen has already released one, there could be several more. So this alone is enough to indict the president. And while the Department of Justice is a policy stating that a sitting president cannot be undided or tried, we now know, thanks to the Jaworski report released last week, giving a road map to how the Grand jury can get its findings to the House Judiciary Committee

that Mueller could outline all the charges he could be indicted on, which could lead to his resignation. So just to go into a little bit about Jaworski report last week, we reported on this if you didn't listen to the pod, I highly recommend getting into that so you can kind of get a feel for what the Jaworski report was. It's 44 years old. It's been sealed. It wasn't released until a couple of weeks ago or a week and a half ago. And it basically gives an outline as to how the grand jury got its findings on Nixon to

Congress, the roadmap, the roadmap. And that gives Mueller a legal precedent. And a kind of a attempt to follow because we have that and we have the star report under Clinton and the star report was more skewed and more conclusory and we've already talked about that but the the elegance is a word I've heard to describe the Jaworski report the elegance of the Jaworski report is that it's here's the facts here's all of the things weky report, is that it's, here's the facts,

here's all of the things we could indict them on, here's everything else we found, do with it what you will, and usually grand jury stuff like that is not, it's secret, you have to keep it secret. But now there is legal precedent where the judge had allowed that to go to the House Judiciary Committee,

specifically the House Judiciary Committee, which is why it's so great that we won back the house. So we can look forward to that. Finally, anyone who's been listening knows about Andrew Miller. Basically, Andrew Miller is one of the Roger Stonehenge crew. He's a house painter, but he served as Stone's scheduler. He coordinated his schedule. He refused to appear before Mueller's grand jury. He then had to hold himself in contempt that he could appeal the appointment of Mueller

and challenge the special counsel's constitutionality before the Supreme Court or the DC Appellate Court, assuming they were assuming it would go up to the Supreme Court. An oral arguments began in that case this Thursday, but something amazing happened on Friday. The court ordered both sides to write a brief on the impact that the installation of Matthew Whitaker would have on the Mueller probe. And as we know, Miller was questioning whether or not Mueller should have ever been appointed, but Trump in a grand gesture of stupidity installed an attorney general And the person who appointed Mueller is no longer in charge of the Mueller probe

So the court decided it probably can't rule on the appointment of Mueller if the guy who appointed him is no longer in charge of him So this could lead to the court getting to decide if the appointment of Matthew fucking Whitaker is even legal And we'll get into that discussion when we get into hot notes, so put some beans on it. Oh yeah. We'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies, this is AG. I'm joined here with Teresa Johnson. Hello.

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Mueller junkies 15% off your first order. That's huge. So go to thirdlove.com slash AG, get 15% off your first purchase. That's thirdlove.com slash AG for 15% off today. You'll be glad you did All right welcome back Hot notes Welcome back everybody. Thanks for listening

Welcome back everybody thanks for listening. Incidentally, if you want ad free episodes you can become a patron at patreon.com slash mullishy wrote you'll get all sorts of other content and thank you gifts. So check it out patreon.com slash mullishy wrote today I'm going to cover Matthew fucking Whitaker. But first Jolise has some reporting on how the GOP is working to help protect Mueller. What do you got? Oh, yeah. So on Friday, Politico published an article by Burgess Everett called Summon GOP clamor to protect Mueller. And that's small,

but mighty groupies referring to includes Republican Senators Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, and Chris Coons. I don't trust Susan Collins in. I know. I have some reservations about all of them, but but this article is pretty interesting. Kind of brings it together. Yeah. And she's probably coming around now because she saw what happened in the election in Maine. Yeah. Yeah. I have some reservations about all of them, but this article's pretty interesting, kind of brings it together, yeah. Yeah, and she's probably coming around now because she saw what happened in the election in Maine.

Yeah, like that Cohen effect. Yeah, they're not just to see, they're just saving their ass in the name of justice. Right, and we were telling her, like your ass could be in trouble if you don't do these certain things. Yeah, so she might have listened. And now the writings on the wall after the elections.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, good point. So this comes as a direct response to Jeff Sessions being fired by Trump on Wednesday, and these three Republicans are trying to pass legislation to protect Mueller and his investigation from political interference. And since Matthew F. Whitaker is now acting AG, these three have stepped up for a practically lost cause because legislation protecting Mueller is not going to pass in the Senate. This is Trump's Senate and they know it. But that's why I personally commend them for doing this.

It's more about speaking out. It seems and taking a stand than actually, you know, getting it done. So Susan Collins said that she's concerned that Whitaker will intervene in the probe and possibly try to shut it down from within. She said, quote, I believe that we should bring to the Senate floor legislation that would put restrictions on the ability of President Donald Trump to fire the special counsel. Also, that Senate debate and passage of this bill would send a powerful message that Mueller must be able to complete his work unimpeded.

So, essentially, this bill would ensure that no special counsel can be fired just because, and in the event that a special counsel is fired for a seemingly political reason, the termination will immediately go under judicial review. So the bill would also only allow Senate approved officials to have authority to fire a special counsel at all, that of course would disqualify Whitaker, so that's another check on the president. And naturally this bill has people speaking out on both sides. Mitch McConnell even came out of his shell on Friday. Turtle shell?

Yeah, he pumped his little head out. Absolutely. He asked for a chin and then retreated. He should have done that. So basically, he reiterated that he doesn't believe the bill is needed. Despite the fact that such as being fired as clearly a game changer, he said, quote, it's not necessary. The molar investigation is not under threat. I am a Russian pawn. Okay, he didn't see the last one. You get my point though. You improv to the last line? Exactly, a little bit of freestyle on that.

So in an interview, Senator Koons emphasized the Senate's need for independence from the president saying, quote, the risk that the president is going to do something sudden and risk a constitutional crisis is a reason enough to pass the bill. It's also worth mentioning that funding for about a quarter of the government expires on December 7th.

So Democrats had a handful of moderate Republicans that are insisting that funding for the Mueller investigation continue and it should be included. So even the House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has proposed a bill to protect Mueller's funding, though that could risk a government shutdown. But still the House Democrats see the Mueller-related bills as high priorities when they retake the chamber in January. But in the meantime, many people are obviously worried that Trump will try to impede on the investigation before that deadline.

And Senator Lindsey Graham crackers said, I like the fact that Graham crackers probably didn't start off sounding so racist, but now that I think more about it, that cracker reference just really sinks in for me. It's just me probably, but that's it. That's a nice double meaning. Definitely, definitely. So he says that he has no doubt the investigation will be allowed to finish and that quote, Whitaker is not going to do anything crazy.

But I feel like we've all heard this story before, you know? Trump's not going to actually build a wall. He's not going to actually ban Muslims. He's not going to actually fire Jeff Sackley. Exactly. He's not going to actually fire co- exactly actually fire comings not actually everything's going to be fine yeah yeah we know how this story ends to

broken record so trumple stop at nothing to protect his own interest in fact on friday the hill published not a call by tall axel rod called trumblast flake for pushing measure to protect muller and we all know trumple flake have never been friends but trumpt took their few to a whole new level this weekend when he tweeted, Jeff Flakey doesn't want to protect the non-synate confirmed special counsel. He wants to protect his future after being unelectable in Arizona for the crime of doing a terrible

job, a weak and ineffective guy. Flakey is the best he could come up with. You know, we've all called Jeff Flakey. Come on, Trump. I thought you were the best, you know, improv, insult. That's not cheap. That's cheap. Even for I've done that tweet. So it's just like leftovers in my opinion. Yeah. For the guy who brought you lion-ted crew. Yeah. Come on. Cricket Hillary. That's out everywhere.

You know, you you inspire a crooked media. Come on, Trump. Oh, by the way, Trump, the not Trump triumph the comic dog. Yeah. Went out to a, to Beto and Cruz rallies. Why? And he started this chant at the Ted Cruz rally, saying, Lion of the Senate, Lion of the Senate, like, you know, how we always called Kennedy

the Lion of the Senate, the King of the Lion of the Senate. Now, he was trying to start a chance saying that Ted Cruz is now going to be the Lion of the Senate. Yeah, yeah. And so he got all of Ted Cruz's supporters saying Lion of the Senate, Lion of the Senate, and then and then he morphed it into Lion Ted Cruz. Lion Ted Cruz and everyone's chanting this and then one of the Republican ladies goes, hey wait a minute, it sounds like you're calling him Lion Ted. And he's trying to say, no. and lie and tend. And I was like, no. It's really funny if you get a chance to watch that clip. That backfire quickly. You're just like, no, she's sick. I love it trolling in real time. So this tweet came two days after Trump took credit for Fliggs retirement saying at a White House.

The Flaky tweet? Exactly. Yeah. Saying at a White House press briefing, I retired him. I'm very proud of it. I did the country a great service. This fucking guy Blake responded though and an interview on Morning Joe. He said quote, the bottom line is that if I were to run a campaign that I could be proud of and where I didn't have to cozy up to the president in his positions or his behavior I could not win a Republican primary and that's the bottom line. So things are definitely heating up between Trump and these last few moderate Republicans. They're doing their best to check his self-proclaimed powers, but we all know these bills aren't actually going to move anywhere. It's falling on to us. You know, it's falling on to Mueller and the people to hear what these senators are saying

and respond accordingly. So they may not have much power in the Senate chamber, but we've got a whole lot of power in the street. So I feel like we just keep marching, and that's pretty much my hot note. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. Well, thank you, Jalisa, for that.

So you went to the San Diego Protect Muller. I did. I went with Anchrag and some other people from the Muller Junkeys San Diego scene. The nobody is a local law rally with some Muller Junkeys. I heard over 1,000 people were there. It was huge. Was it fun? How long did it go? What'd you guys do? You know it was there for probably an hour and a half and we just stood around like these people speaking You know with their megaphone and their banners and Mike Levin came out actually nice one by the way

Yeah, as he spoke looking smooth real swing But yeah people were just like holding their signs and just, you know, cheering every time they heard something they loved. They're just a lot of speeches happening. And just hearing that the people that organized it, nobody's about the law, I guess, is the organization name. Yeah. And so they've been doing this prepping for this. Their speeches were so well written. And so many young people, so many different ethnicities, you know, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans discussing, you know, the caravan and the truth. And, you know, behind Trump's race's race his ads like what was actually happening in those videos like they weren't actually climbing to

come into America. He put out, he put out an ad that was so racist that Fox News wouldn't even air it. You know you've gone too far when Fox News is like, yeah, that's kind of wrong. Yeah, yeah, Hitler would be like, man, that's too far. Come on, man. Yeah, so I really enjoyed hearing from the people. Yeah. Yeah.

That's looked like a lot of fun. And that's cool that Mike Levin was there. I know Jordan and I went knocking on doors up here in North County from the moment. Yeah. And the overwhelming support for him was just it was really gratifying to see. So I'm super glad that he won that seat.

I was unable to go to the march. I just had a medical procedure. I thought I'd be able to walk out of, but apparently I've got nothing on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who felt a little discomfort at home after she fell at her office this week, drove to the hospital, found out she broke three ribs to which she said, fuck it, break them all, and then went right back to work. She's incredible. I love her. I love her so much. What about us? I'm so glad that she's doing well. I'm sure she listens. Ruth, miss your honor. Um, they're Hines. Thank you for everything that you've done.

Yes. It's her and Beyonce. Tracer. Yeah. They're right up there with royalty. Oh no. And didn't we have rumors that Marilyn Manson removed a few ribs? So he gets to suck his own. Yeah, you know that was before memes, you know, so I wonder if how I could

Yeah, yeah, cuz that would definitely be a meme right now It was one of those rumors that everyone no one could disprove so everyone's like that's pretty good It sounds like Marilyn. Yeah, so he could donate ribs He should do to to RBG. Yeah, and then yeah, then she would be one of the beautiful people. Nice reference, there age. Thank you. Just came right off top of my head. But speaking of the Supreme Court, it might not be long before the constitutionality of

Matthew fucking Whitaker makes its way through the court system. As we all know, Trump fired sessions, as expected, the morning after the election, also not surprising, he made an end run around normal justice department succession and put Matthew fucking Whitaker, MFW, in charge of the entire department. That's catching on, by the way, people on Twitter who don't know who we are, calling him Matthew fucking Whitaker. We reported on this in episodes 48, 50, and 51. Here's a clip from episode 51. Check out these beans. We're not only do we predict Whitaker,

but that Trump would slow roll the written answers to Mueller's questions until after the election so he could fire sessions and replace them. Check this out. There's nothing stopping Trump from slow rolling those answers to those questions to buy time to fire everyone at the top of the DOJ so we can replace him with Brian Bunchkowski and Matthew F. Whitaker. So the appointment of Whitaker was a surprise but not a surprise because it completely

ignores the normal succession in the Department of Justice. Usually the deputy AG who is Rod Rosenstein would take the top job he would sit in until because he's a confirmed guy, right? And a lot of, by the Senate, a lot of experts argued on the news that the appointment of Matthew Whitaker is illegal, including Kellyanne Conway's husband, George Conway, who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, opining that Whitaker's appointment is unconstitutional because he's never been confirmed by the Senate. And that's one of the tenets of the system of checks and balances

and the constitution that would have otherwise prevent a president from doing exactly what Trump just did, appointing a loyalist to serve him instead of the public. Yeah. So you should check out that op-ed if you get a chance. That's George Conway, the third. Oh, nice. Anyone who's the third third I'm immediately suspect but

But yeah, he's so he wrote that op-ed. He's like it's unconstitutional. It's against the law So there's one thing that we have that there's the one issue with the Matthew fucking Whitaker appointment And the minute Trump appointed Whitaker we started learning all sorts of shit about what he said about the Mueller investigation Stuff we already knew and stuff we reported on here on the pod. But also in OpEd, he wrote, Whitaker wrote about Mueller, saying Mueller's gone too far, and he called it a witch hunt. And countless other comments on CNN and Fox about the investigation being a witch hunt, being a hoax.

He's also been heard saying he will not recuse himself despite the overt appearance of bias. Everybody flipped out when they found struck's personal text and said, fire that guy and Mueller immediately fired him and everybody was like, it's not good enough. Hang him. Hang him high at noon. But here we have a guy who's got obvious bias and they're like,

it's fine. Yeah, the hypocrisy is so obvious. And it's I'm getting tired of pointing out hypocrisy is actually, but it's not just bias that could be his undoing. Apparently, the FBI is currently investigating a fraudulent patent business that Whitaker used to sit on the board of directors for that ended up owing the SEC Securities and Exchange Commission $26 million in restitution for ripping off inventors, including disabled veterans and sending physically threatening emails to the complainants.

The FBI is investigating that company, and now he oversees the FBI. This is crazy. That's a huge conflict of interest. The biggest. Overlook the bias, okay, fine. You know, sure, he's not biased. The appearance of bias is fine.

There's actually no DOJ policies that says if there's an appearance of bias, you have to recuse, it's just highly recommended. It's what normal fucking people do, not Matthew fucking Whitaker. But now he's in charge of the FBI that's investigating a company he used to sit on the board for. Big giant conflict of interest. Going even further, Vox reported on Friday that Whitaker is a two-faced son of a bitch. Oh. I paraphrase it. Remember back in the good old days when Trump was trying to get Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel

to investigate Clinton and his other political enemies? Well, back then, Matthew F. Whitaker was Sessions' chief of staff. He has been pretty much this whole time. And while he was advising Sessions and Rosenstein not to open the investigation out of one side of his mouth, he was secretly advising Trump on how to pressure Sessions and Rosenstein to investigate his political adversaries out of the other side of his mouth. So he was simultaneously counseling

the White House on how the President could successfully pressure the Justice Department to give in to Trump's demands making himself guilty of obstruction of justice. Third big conflict of interest. Yeah. And as Friday went on, you guys, the groundswell of opposition to the appointment of Matthew Foggin-Wittaker just got louder and louder and louder over this hand-picked attorney general. Then we found out Friday night that FSFP, which is free speech-free people, submitted a formal request to institute a

Quo Waronto proceeding versus Matthew fucking Whitaker on the grounds that he quote usurps intrudes or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office of the United States. Unquote. Quo Waronto proceeding or a QW proceeding is a prerequisite to a QW lawsuit. And Quoaranto is a prerogative writ requiring the person to whom it's directed to show what authority they have for exercising a right, power, or franchise they claim to hold. And it was just a matter of time before someone filed a suit. And now they have. So that came up pretty quickly within a day and a half. And the legality of Whitaker's appointment could also come up in Andrew Miller's case,

as I mentioned before, Andrew Miller's appeal began oral arguments Thursday right after Trump removed sessions and installed Whitaker. But Trump should have waited until Miller's case, Miller, not Miller. Miller's case was argued because the Trump camp was hoping Miller, that's Stone's scheduler and House Painter extraordinaire, was hoping he could successfully argue the constitutionality of the appointment of Mueller, saying Rosenstein, who appointing him and oversees him has a conflict of interest. But instead of waiting, Trump pulled sessions, put Matthew Fuckin-Wittaker in charge of the Mueller probe. So right in the middle of court, the judge basically said,

well, how can you argue and non-paraphrasing? How can you argue the constitutionality of the appointment and oversight of the Mueller investigation if the guy who appointed and oversaw him is no longer in that position? So I'm going to need you both to write a brief about how the appointment of Whitaker affects your case. So in a case that Trump was hoping to question the constitutionality of Mueller's appointment, they could end up questioning the constitutionality of Whitaker's appointment. It is fucking poetic justice, and it's another glaring example of why Trump shouldn't bother going up against Mueller.

He's not smart enough. Yeah, he's mad. He's mad for sure. Oh, it's true. Mmm, I love it. Mmm, I know. And I think it was so hilarious where Trump's like, look, Andrew Miller, you're going to hold yourself in contempt, you're going to fight this in court, and we're it was so hilarious where Trump's like look, Andrew Miller, you're gonna hold yourself in contempt You're gonna fight this in court and we're gonna get him out because it's unconstitutional that he was appointed and in that case

They have to turn around and investigate the constitutionality of his appointment to AG Matthew fucking what it is It's just sweet sweet Justice it is I love it. Oh Grudge tugs But the news that don't Google that. But the news about Whitaker kept coming on Friday, late Friday, the New York Times, the failing New York Times, broke a story that Don McGann had interviewed Matthew fucking Whitaker in July of 2017 to join, that's two months after Mueller was appointed, to join Trump's

legal team to be the attack dog against the Mueller investigation. Now a lot of people thought Trump made Whitaker AG to fire Mueller, but my first thought was that he was installed to get briefed on the Mueller investigation so he could run back to Trump and tell him everything Mueller is investigating. Trump wants the dirt on himself. He wants the details of the investigation. After all, it's well known that Whitaker was Trump's eyes and ears when he was Sessions's chief of staff at the Justice Department. That's what he was known as. Trump's eyes and ears. Everyone

was like, oh, fuck that guy. It's like this weird bald drone run around. But with this new reporting that Trump wanted McGann, Trump wanted McGann to interview Whitaker, to be the White House attack dog against the Mueller probe means that Mueller knows everything about Whitaker and he has for a while. Because McGann has been cooperating with the special counsel for months now, hours and hours, dozens of hours talking to special counsel. And there's no doubt he told Mueller about Whitaker. Mueller isn't going to tell Whitaker anything.

But I'm sure he is going to add his appointment to the giant pile of obstructions of justice. Well, I don't know what the plural, the collective noun of obstructions of justice is. Caffefe. A Caffefe of justice of obstructions. That's right. We decided it was a Caffefe of obstructions. But the other reason I thought Whitaker was appointed was to squeeze the budget.

You were talking about that earlier, Julie said. Squeeze the budget for the Mueller investigation, and they're talking about this new budget to fund the government. But the budget and funding the government are two kind of different things. The Mueller budget was fully funded at the end of the fiscal year, which for the government begins October 1st. So Rosenstein funded Mueller before the election a couple months ago, well-passed, and so the Mueller investigation will be funded well-passed the expiration of Whitaker's temporary

appointment. He can only serve 200 and some days because of the Vacancies Act. If he lasts that long because of all the lawsuits there there, and I'm willing to bet his appointment will be found unconstitutional either by the quote around to a lawsuit, just filed challenging it or by special counsel and the judge and the Andrew Miller appeal. Or Trump himself might just remove him because during a press conference on his way to Paris where he refused to go to the veteran cemetery to honor veterans on Veterans Day because

it was raining. But let's be fair, he doesn't know how to work on umbrella. Trump told reporters before he got on the plane, he doesn't know who Matt Whitaker is, which is a telltale sign that he's lying and trying to distance himself because he's going, he knows he's going to be removed. Either way, he'll be out soon. So put some beans on that. And we can do overrunners on how long he's going to last. I was talking to one of our guests, David Priese, he thought he would be out yesterday. That's how significant his conflicts of interest are. Something else mentioned in the New York Times article that I thought was interesting is that Whitaker is close to Sam Clovis and

even shared his campaign for Iowa Treasurer in 2014. And Clovis, as you know, is a witness in the Mueller probe, which is another glaring conflict of interest. So he worked on his Clovis' campaign and he's a witness in an investigation he's supposed to be overseeing. Yeah. And CNN reported just this morning, Saturday morning,

by the way, we record Saturdays, that Whitaker has been angling for Sessions' job, Sessions' job, for months, when he would sit in for Sessions in White House meetings. And Rosenstein and others huddled with Sessions just this week to try to get him to hold off on the resignation. But Sessions apparently realized too late that Whitaker wanted his job, even though we reported on him a month ago, Jeff, he should have listened. Hefe, were you not listening to Muller She wrote?

But it all boils down to this. Let this be a lesson to anyone thinking about working for the Trump White House. You might as well just walk into special counsel's office with your hands in the air, get down your knees because your entire life is about to get a body cavity search. Okay, they don't call it a probe for nothing. We'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies, this is AG and I wanted to tell you about my new favorite subscription service.

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[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Are you ready for the fantasy indictment league? Yeah. ["The Fantasy Endictment League"] ["The Fantasy Endictment League"] ["The Fantasy Endictment League"] Okay, I thought for sure Stone was gonna be indicted this week. Either as you've been indicted Tuesday night before midnight, after the polls closed. A lot of people are betting on AM.

New York, but California polls are open way too long and Mueller doesn't want to interfere, so I get it. And the rumor mill was going nuts this week with the eminent arrest of Don Jr. on Friday. Did you hear those rumors? Oh, it is nonstop. Yeah. People are like, who's your source? What's your source? I'm like, I can't tell you, I'm a source. But we've heard it too, you know, but I was thinking that Mueller might want to wait for the Andrew Miller appeal and the Whitaker lawsuits to be settled you know, just so he has a solid case or he might be waiting for the Dems to take over the House in January. Who knows? But then again, there could be appeals to his constitutionality and to perpetuity. So who knows what what he's got

up his sleeve. But that being said, I'm sticking with the big guns. I'm sticking with Don junior Stone, Ivanka, Eric, and a rando. I'm going for a rando. What about you? Okay. So I've got all the kids junior Ivanka, Eric, Kush, I'm not for. This is where I okay okay, I wanna do stone. Yeah, I'm gonna do stone. I wanted a rando, but I think those are just like. So instead of the rando, you're gonna do kush. Exactly, yeah, I normally keep kush on there actually, so yeah, yeah.

Kush is a good, but exactly. But, you know, based on some conversation we had earlier, I'm thinking kush is a big target. Definitely. And the kids are actually smaller targets than cush Yeah, yeah, I feel like when the kids get it that'll just knock all them off for me and then yeah, I push would be next I imagine I don't think he'll be before them. Yeah, I was Seth Abramson in that I think that stone and junior are are gonna be used to roll Cush and senior Mm-hmm, but you know it's a matter of how quickly, too, right after it happens.

I wonder if he would do it back to back. Yeah, because I would be huge. He could have another year of investigating collusion. Oh! Abstruction's pretty much wrapped up, but we really don't know where he is. All I know is this is an extremely complicated case. If he read proof of collusion or if he read David Priest's book, you understand how hard this is to sum up in a paragraph. We wouldn't need a podcast if it wasn't so complex. Exactly. Are you ready for sabotage?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, this is a good one, you guys. Friday, we learned that Manifort is being a little ship box. According to ABC News, talks between Mueller and Manifort have started breaking down since his cooperation agreement according to sources familiar with the matter. Prosecutors have been asking Manifort for a ton of information. They've been asking dozens of questions in more than 10 meetings since September, but

apparently, Mueller is not getting what he wants, and the consequences for Manafort not fully cooperating could be dire for him. Don't forget that Mueller never charged Manafort in crimes of collusion, and we've been putting beans on Manafort facing superseding indictments for crimes of collusion. For months, I've got like 10 clues, all sorts of obvious clues that you make a board game out of it. You know, right? The game of life. Your life sucks. Life.

The game of life in prison. There you go. The cooperation agreement remains intact for now, but sources of told ABC News that there's definitely frustration over Manafort's level of cooperation. We already know that Papadopolis was also an uncooperative dick, but has not, as as of yet faced any additional charges. And just to put extra beans on the Manafort news, Manafort's ex-Son-in-law was indicted

this week for yet another real estate scam in Los Angeles. And knowing that, I'd like to take out my rando and add Manafort on my team. So I would have Stone, Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Superseeding Enditements for Manafort. I like that. And his ex-Son-in-law's name is Yo-Hi, by the way. Yo-Hi. Yeah. That sounds like a pickup line.

Sounds like a good rapper name. Yo-Hi. You know, I'm kind of getting your number, I don't know. How are you? Yo-Hi. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it.

Manafort, I wonder if he thought of that name for his son or if his wife was like, it's a son-in-law. Oh, son and law. That's there you go. That's right, he had no control. Yeah, that's not his first name. Oh, last name, okay, okay. That paint a whole different picture then. So now, do you wanna keep all the kids?

Kushner, Jr. Ivanka, Eric and Stone, or do you wanna replace somebody with Manafort? Yeah, let's really replaceable in life and in the league. Let's take him off. Okay. And then I'm gonna put Manafort in his place. All right, for this week. You're taking an Eric off. Eric. Now, I'm a Paman for it in his place. For this week. You're taking an Eric off.

Eric. Now I'm, I'm just gonna advise you. Okay. As an advisor. I would leave Eric on because I think the kids are gonna be used to roll Kushner. I would take Kushner off. I think Kushner might not be undyped

in the real world. That makes sense. Pushing it back that way. Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to miss and form you. If Kushner isn't died, I don't want you to be like, damn it, AJ. Well, I like to win.

I like that logic you got. I'm gonna go ahead and do that. Yeah, I you if Kushner isn't died and I don't want you to be like, damn it, AJ. Well, I like to win. I like that logic you got. I'm gonna go ahead and do that. Yeah, I'm taking Kushner off. Okay. Yeah, and then I'm just for this, just to see what Maniford does in the next few weeks. You trust me. I trust you with everything, AJ.

Interesting. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That sounds sinister. All right, guys, it's time for Q&A. All right, and joining us today for Q&A is the author of Proof of Collusion and Friend of the Podcast. Please welcome Seth Abramson. Seth congrats on the book and welcome to Mullershi Road.

Thank you for having me. Anytime. We love having you on. I call you the Twitter no-stardomest now, just so you know. That's your nickname for us here at Mullershi Road. So can you tell us how this book came to being, how it came together and when you started it? Sure, well I started researching Trump Russia collusion. I would say December of 2016. I was writing articles for the Huffington Post. My particular focus at the time was on Eric Prince. And after the inauguration, as I think public attention for the Trump Russia collusion question grew exponentially, I think people forget that in late 2016, there were still very few people,

I mean, there was something, I don't mean to say I was the only one, there were many people, but the mainstream media had not really taken a lot of attention to the Trump Russia collusion question. But in 2017, that changed, and so I also stepped up my research and my writing on the question. And really beginning in the summer of 2017, I found that there were people who were reading me online who were suggesting that the material I was producing was not really getting to the audience that it could get to because it was on social media. And a lot of people don't use social media. And so they suggested, well, why don't you take everything that you're doing and put it between two covers? At the time, so much was going on in my life, so much was going on really with the Trump Russia story

that I didn't feel able to do that. But ultimately, I made the decision a little bit earlier this year to finally put everything together into a book. So the research to answer your question has been about two years and the writing began in the middle of this year. Yeah, you started well before we did. We didn't pick it up until gosh, probably the end of 2017. And that's kind of when it started getting a lot of legs in the news. As you said, people were telling you, hey, people aren't going to be getting this, where they ought to be getting this. So this is really an incredible book. I chewed through it. It's really amazing.

And you just mentioned Eric Prince. He's in, he shows up in there a lot. And you say he was kind of what kicked off your research? That's right. He was acting very oddly in October and early November of 2016. He gave an interview with Brightpart in which he appeared to be about 120 hours, or actually even 96 hours before the 2016 election,

spreading Russia conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, specifically theories relating to what is now known as Pizzagate. And so he was drawing a lot of my attention at that point. So was Rudy Giuliani in terms of the statements that he was making about pressuring the FBI or the FBI, I should say, pressuring James Comey to reopen the Clinton investigation and Rudy Giuliani having advanced knowledge of that in October.

And this was happening at a time that David Corn had in late October revealed the steel dossier's existence. And so there seemed to be a confluence between the steel dossier and some of the strange things that were happening surrounding the Trump campaign and it's spreading of bizarre propaganda in October of 2016. And that's really how I got interested

and involved in the question. But of course, after the steel dossier dropped in January of 2017, everything changed substantially. And what I did was really turn my feed into a public open investigation that started from the presumption that much of the steel dossier was accurate. And I found, and we all have found, as we've gone forward, that that turned out to be the case. Yeah, I still think to this day, and correct me, if I wrong, nothing in it has been refuted or disproven.

That's correct. And a lot that is in it has been proven correct. And there's then another category of information that has not yet been conclusively proven correct. But in fact, there is much evidence to suggest it will be conclusively proven as correct. And then there are some pieces of information that are simply unverifiable just by the nature of the information, but nothing in it contrary to the claims of Trump and his

allies has been disproven. The one claim they made was that the Michael Cohen trip to Prague in 2016 did not actually happen. And of course, now we know that Robert Mueller has 2016 did not actually happen. And of course, now we know that Robert Mueller has evidence that it did happen. So that was the one thing they were hanging their hat on to say it wasn't an accurate dossier. And that now has disappeared as well. Yeah, I wondered that reporting come out again. Can you remind the listeners?

I believe it was a spring of this year that it was reported that Mueller had evidence that there was a trip to Prague by Michael Cohen. But I will say that as proof of collusion discusses, there's another trip that was made by Michael Cohen right before the RNC in the Republican National Convention in 2016 that is incredibly suspicious. He claimed he was taking an Italian vacation right before the Republican National Convention. And we have a lot of evidence to suggest that while he did go to Europe, he was not in fact on vacation and all of that information is in the book.

So I think in fact, Michael Cohen made multiple trips to European capital cities in the summer of 2016 and my guess is that Robert Mueller has all of that evidence. Yeah, and I think it's interesting that you say, I'm going back to what you were talking about with Eric Prince and pizza gate And the people who basically you know propagated that idea pizza gate to remind everyone was that Hillary Clinton was running a child

sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor and Yet that got traction somehow, but those same people completely dispute Anything that Muller's come up with. And I think that that's why your book is so important. Well, some, you know, we get online a lot, non-social media, we get, oh, prove it, where's your proof, where's your proof. And you can't just hand one of these folks a book.

So, it's kind of tough to, you know, my answer is often read this book or listen to this podcast from episode one or follow these people on Twitter. But there's just too much. There's not, and I think that maybe the reason that it took so long to catch on is that there just aren't any really good tight sound bites in this whole thing because it's just so convoluted and complex. That's right. This is the most complex and far-ranging federal criminal investigation of any of our lifetimes. And unfortunately, it's happening in the digital era when everything needs to be a sound bite.

People want an easy explanation for the case for collusion. They want it to be one sentence. They want there to be one piece of evidence that is a movie-style reveal. The way I sometimes put it is that people want a story of someone opening a door and seeing Donald Trump sitting at a computer hacking into the DOD with Vladimir Putin on his lap. And unfortunately, that's not how reality works. That's not how federal criminal investigations work or federal cases. But in fact, when you look at this case, as you said, comprehensively, when you look at it as an attorney or as an investigator,

there is a mountain of evidence of collusion in this case. And anyone who wants to take the time to review it, rather than just looking for sound bites, is going to find pretty quickly that this is an incredibly powerful case for collusion. Yeah, and that's something a lot of people don't understand is that you do have to look at these cases as a whole and all of their, you know, that's how investigations work. And I think just a lot of people that's been lost on.

But it goes all the way back to, you know, Mueller investigating Goddy or, you know, any of these major, the FIFA scandal with Struck, these, any of these major investigations are just extremely complex. And you can't, you know, your book, how many citations did you have in the end? It was over 2,000. So there are over 1,600 end notes, which include inside of them around 2,000 citations. Yes, and thank you also for putting your index online. It's very comprehensive. Anything I want to look up, I can just go to proofofcollusionindex.com and grab who I'm looking for, what I'm looking for, what site I'm looking for, or any of that information.

So that's extremely helpful. So that's a great companion to this book. Well, that's what we were hoping. By putting it online, it gives people, first of all, people who do not have the book some sense of what is inside it, and what they can find if they do read it, which, of course, I hope that they will, but those who have the book can use it as a research guide

because one of the things that I felt from the moment I started doing this research but also putting it together in proof of collusion is that there is a lot of crowdsourcing that can happen here. I have every expectation that people who read this book will see some connections between even what's in the book already, that I have not necessarily illuminated, that then can be the basis for further research and discussion. That is how investigation works. One clue leads to

another, one connection leads to another, and so the hope is that the index can be a research and investigative guide as well as a reference guide. Yes. And this investigation is a living thing. It's always changing. And your book provides an excellent foundation and kind of a groundwork for understanding all of it. Someone you mentioned in your book a couple times,

I think at least as early as page 21, is the Russian that bought Trump's Florida mansion, and he was arrested this week in Monaco. Do you think, Rob Lovlev, I believe, is how you pronounce his name? Do you think he could be extradited from Monaco? Well, I think that's difficult to say. I certainly think that Mueller has significant evidence just because so much of the evidence

that's surrounding that particular transaction is public. That there was a suspicious real estate deal between Donald Trump and this Russian businessman that led to Donald Trump making tens of millions of dollars in a very short period of time in a transaction that really made no sense whatsoever. Donald Trump couldn't find a buyer for this property. He had no offers for it. He had poured money into it, renovating it, and suddenly out of nowhere, this Russian businessman pays him basically exactly his asking price even though there are no other offers. And when he buys it, he immediately tears down all the property that Donald Trump has put

on it, divides it into three parcels, and then sets about selling it. His attempts to sell it, which are still not complete years later, show that his profit off the deal is going to be marginal compared to Donald Trump's. The reason this becomes interesting is that this Russian businessman, his plane, quote unquote, met with Donald Trump's plane twice in the 10 days before the 2016 election. And the attendees and those who work for this particular Russian businessman have not been willing to deny that he was on the plane the two times that this plane met with a plane that we know Donald Trump was on.

Both men claim that they don't know each other, but we now have this guy being arrested in Monaco in a public corruption case. And if there was money laundering happening and if that money laundering led to special access to Donald Trump to help shape his policy, which of course was the unilateral dropping of sanctions on Russia, that is something that's going to be absolutely significant to Mueller for money laundering charges or rico charges involving the Trump organization.

And so I think they would like to extra-die him, but I'm not sure we have enough information yet about that case to know whether Mueller can do that yet, or whether he's simply going to send agents to Monaco to try to question this guy. Yeah, I guess we'll find out eventually, but with everything you've discussed in your book, what do you think Mueller's way forward is now, and given everything that's happened this week, and how does the new democratically controlled House play a role? Well, the first thing that I would say is that I think that we're getting far too many over the last year erroneous reports that Robert Mueller is just about finished with his

work. And we got another one just recently from CNN. Virtually all of these reports have come from Trump's attorneys trying to spread their wishful thinking into the jet stream of American media. Some of them come from people who represent witnesses who have testified before the Gran jury, Robert Mueller's Gran jury. Those attorneys would have no basis to know whether the case is near its closure. They only have a window into their clients and what their client was questioned about. And of course, most of those clients are Trump allies. So again, spreading a story that Mueller

has almost done is putting out into the jet stream essentially propaganda that the Trump camp wants to be out there. What I think we're seeing is that in fact Robert Mueller has a long way to go and he is building his case in exactly the way you would expect, inditing and convicting and getting cooperation deals with lower level figures with the goal of having them flip on people higher up. Right now what we're told is that Donald Trump Jr. is on the verge of indictment, even Donald Trump Jr.

Now believes that, the Trump camp and the White House believes that, and he would be indicted presumably for lies that he told to Congress, though, of course, there could be other charges that stem from soliciting illegal financial contributions to the Trump campaign in 2016. Roger Stone, we are told, is on the verge of indictment. I believe at least a dozen associates of Roger Stone have now testified before the grand jury.

We have emails that suggest that have released and released to the public that Roger Stone had advanced knowledge of the WikiLeaks releases in October of 2016. So I think you'll see those indictments and you'll see an attempt to flip those individuals, certainly Stone, a much better chance of flipping than Trump Jr. And I think the ultimate goal at this point is Donald Trump senior, Jared Kushner, Eric Prince, and Steve Bannon appear to be the top targets, but a lot of people are going to have to flip to sort of get there, and so that's where he's headed. What I think the new Congress can do is finally get some of these people under oath, who should

have been under oath and on television and being asked some hard questions a long time ago, and I believe, and I've always said, that that public testimony can aid Robert Mueller. And I don't think, in fact, it is necessarily destructive to Mueller's case because if these people say something different under oath to Congress than they said to Mueller, that's new charges that Mueller can bring for lying to Congress. And also, it can reveal exactly which areas these people are hiding information on. So I think the new Congress will be able to assist Mueller in many ways. Okay, so you think he's got a ways to go on Donald Trump's senior, but I think what's

weighing on everyone's mind this week is the news that law enforcement officials have said that Trump would be facing the same felonies as Cohen if he weren't the president. And we recently learned about the Jaworsky report that allowed the grand jury evidence in the Nixon case to be handed over to the House Judiciary Committee. And I was going to ask if Whitaker can block that, but it sounds like Whitaker probably won't be around long enough to affect any, um, influence, uh, or anything on, on the Mueller investigation. What do you, what do you say about that?

Well, let me clarify a few things. Number one, I should say that Robert Mueller is investigating, of course, both obstruction and collusion as well as probably some other issues that have potential criminality behind them. I do think he's probably close to done if not done with his obstruction investigation, though the firing of Jeff Sessions frankly opens up

an entirely new chapter in that investigation. It's the collusion investigation that I think he has a ways to go with and where Donald Trump ultimately will face additional criminal liability. As you said, you can not try a sitting president. There's some who think you can indict a sitting president and then try them once they are removed from office or once their term has ended. But in terms of the new Congress and what they can do with a potential report from Robert Mueller, one of the things they've said they will do

besides trying to protect Mueller's job through a new law is call Robert Mueller to testify in public hearings on television regarding his findings. Should he either be fired or should his report be scuttled? I think that should that happen, you will see a significant court battle that will go all the way up to the Supreme Court between the White House, which will claim some sort of executive privilege regarding the information collected by Robert Mueller and the the coms, which will want that information to come to the public. But I am one of

those people who believes that one way or another, whether it's a leak, whether it's a public hearing, whether it's an officially published document, we will get a full accounting of Robert Mueller's findings. This is too important a case for anyone to imagine that we're going to go years and years and years never knowing what happened. That's just not in my cards. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. And I think that a lot of that has to do with kind of the mo of Robert Mueller, which is not just to put, you know, put a have his head down and do his job and do his investigation, but also the entirety of justice, which is that the American people know what he thinks they should know. And that's been apparent in his work since his first thesis in his master's program back in college was he he he tends to view justice instead of these

I mean he's by the book, but he he views it as a whole and I think that that's kind of where we're going as well And yeah, and if I can add to that because I know you were also asking about the SDNY case involving Michael Cohen and campaign finance laws and of course the former mistresses of Donald Trump. One of the things that I would say in that case is that Donald Trump obviously can still be prosecuted for cases that are at the state level. The SDNY case of course is not at the state level.

But I think we should all keep in mind that as you just indicated what was recently discovered was an 80-page speaking indictment that was going to be filed in a co-incase before he pled. And that suggests two things. Number one, there's significant evidence out there of other crimes committed by Donald Trump that are separate from obstruction of justice and collusion in the Russian investigation. And I think it also indicates that there is a willingness and desire on the part of federal prosecutors to get as much information out into the public through their indictments, not just through a future report as they can. And that's why we got so much information about the Russian propaganda campaign

about the Russian hacking campaign. And I think that if there are indictments of Donald Trump Jr., Roger Stone, perhaps Eric Prince, Jared Kushner, you will see speaking indictments that give the public an enormous body of information and evidence about the prosecutions of those individuals and possibly unindicted co-conspirators like Donald Trump. Yeah, you're right. We're not just guessing on that. I mean, he's about the speaking indictment. We saw it with Bhutina. We saw it with the indictment of the Russians. The other Russians, you know, that were involved in the hacking, the DNC and the DEE TRIPLE C. We saw it in the Cohen case, which isn't Mueller, but is the other prosecutorial SDNY. So they definitely, yeah, they, they, I think getting as much information out as they can through the indictments because they don't have to do that in an indictment, right? They can just say, here's the charges,

the end, but they, they lay it all out for us. Absolutely. I mean, I've seen criminal indictments that are a page and a half or two pages and essentially just lay out the offence with the basic particulars of time and place and who the defendants are. The indictments that not just Robert Mueller has issued, but as you said, the butchini case which is not Mueller, but another federal agency, or another federal prosecutor, I should say, all of them have been committed. Across the board, everyone investigating cases relating to Donald Trump has clearly had a commitment to speaking indictments that are substantially longer in the case of AD pages, as many as we might say 20 times longer than you might expect from a federal indictment. Now, how long do you think, before I let you go, how long do you think the collusion piece is going to take him?

And I know you're just, that would just be conjecture But I'm wondering if you think it'll go past Whittaker's appointment or into you know January when the Dems take control again. Are we talking months another year? The reason that I have said that I think we are talking months and possibly another year I want to be very specific about why I say that The reason is that Trump has said one thing that is accurate, which is that the finances of the Trump organization are incredibly complex. I believe that we're going to find that the use of shell companies and foreign cutouts

to move money around and to launder money over a period of many, many years is not only present in the Mueller investigation and critical to it, but something that will require an enormous amount of paperwork and ongoing investigation. That's the first thing. But the second thing I would say, and I've written about this on my Twitter feed, is that the collusion question is no longer what we thought it was a year ago. We thought it was simply collusion between Trump and Russia. And what we are finding and what we find particularly stemming from that August 3rd 2016 meeting that Eric Prince set up at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., George Nader, who is an emissary from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Joel Zamol and Israeli business intel guy with Israeli government connections is that what we see here,

in fact, is collusion between a number of countries that wanted Donald Trump's foreign policy to be the dropping of sanctions on Russia so that Russia would cease its support for Iran in the Middle East. And that is why this is going to take so long, because Mueller is not just chasing down leads in the U.S. not just in Russia, but we have reports now from the spring of this year that he's chasing down leads in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Greece, many countries. Italy, I mean, hungry, you could go on and on and on. This is truly an international investigation. And the evidence we have, the fact that he spent 50 hours talking to Cohen, 50 hours talking to Maniford or his agents did suggest that there is so much left to be learned here and investigated here.

So on the collusion question, I do believe we have many months to go. Well, we know you'll be around for it. You'll be keeping us surprised on Twitter, and we'll be here for it as well. So everybody make sure to follow Seth Abramson on Twitter and get his book Proof of Collusion wherever books are sold. Seth Abramson, thank you so much for coming on Muller Sheer Road today. Thank you for having me. All right, everyone, thank you again for joining us this week.

And thank you for joining us at Election Night Live. Congratulations on the blue wave. Thank you, young people. If you know people who aren't listening to Muller Sheer Road yet, let them know about the pod, because things are going to start heating up in the coming weeks. And we are the quintessential podcast for all things Mueller. Subscribe and rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

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