Jack - The Mar-A-Lago Limbo (feat. David Priess)

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

S3E17 - Joining us this week is David Priess (Former CIA)! Plus, Jordan has the latest on the NRA, Jaleesa updates us on Maria Butina, and AG breaks down the rest of the Mueller and Trump news from the week. Enjoy! 

They might be giants that have been on the road for too long. Too long. And they might be giants aren't even sorry. Not even sorry. And audiences like the shows too much. Too much. And now they might be giants that are playing their breakthrough album, all of it.

And they still have time for other songs. They're fooling around. Who can stop? They might be giants and their liberal rocket gender. Who? No one. This had to stay forward with somebody else's money. Thanks to Noom for supporting Mola She Wrote, sticking to a weight loss plan can be hard.

Noom is designed for results. It's out with the old habits and in with the new. Sign up for your trial today at NoomNOM.com-AG. Hi, I'm Scott DuWorkin from the Democratic Coalition and your listing of Mola, she wrote. So, to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is.

I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time, a tree, in that campaign. And I didn't have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

So, it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red hairing. Like all members of the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist. APPLAUSE Hello, and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host, A.G. And with me, as always, is Julie Sejansson. Hello and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host A.G. and with me as always is Julie Sejanson.

Hello. And Jordan Coburn. Guys, we won the People's Voice Webby for Best News and Politics podcast. And we can't thank you enough for voting. We'll all be headed to New York to attend the festivities with some diehard fans on May 13th, May 12th, May 13th. We need a five-word acceptance speech. So my first instinct is put some beans on it. Makes sense. Because it doesn't make sense.

True. Also, if I may say this, we had some reviews saying, I don't know what they're talking about with the beans. So maybe we could do a quick recap really quick. Oh yeah, sure. First of all, probably around episode 24, Dallas, McLaughlin came on to talk about where that phrase came from. Basically, about a year ago, I was looking for a catch phrase. Like, Mato has watched this space, right? Or I wanted to say, put a pin in this, or just remember this. Kind of to punctuate what was happening at the time. And so, I was trying all different catch phrases. I went to the hive mind. I went

to Twitter. I was like, what should be my catch phrase? Which would be my catch phrase? So I started to remember a bit that our friend Dallas McLaughlin did as a comic. He got up, this is a long time ago, when the blue collar comedy tour was really big, and they had the getter done catch phrase. And so Dallas had this thing where he was saying, all I need is a catchphrase. And I'll just, I'll be famous beyond compare. Worldwide, I just need a catchphrase. So he was testing out catchphrases,

but meaningless hilarious catchphrases. That's some medium salsa or something like that. And the final one was, but some beans on it. And I just thought that that was hilarious and meaningless and made no sense. And so we decided to adopt it. Right. The idea was that we were trying to find something that was kind of silly and we could just make fun of it.

But it took on like a world of its own. People really embraced it. There were some bean haters. I don't know what you want to call them. Bean haters. But overwhelmingly it was an embrace. So thank you guys for yes handing us on that one. Yeah, that was, so that's where that comes from.

So now if we say we're going to put some beans on something, it's kind of like we're betting on it. Or if we have a theory, because we like to definitely keep our theories separate from our facts. And so that's when we say we have beans, somebody said they're from outer space. They're so out there. So there were space beans and then super space beans. And said they're from outer space. They're so out there.

So they were space beans and then super space beans and it just kind of took on a life of its own. So that's where put some beans on it comes from. The oranges story. The oranges of beans. That's so good one. And so that's what we were kind of thinking of as our five word speech because it's our catch phrase.

But it absolutely is meaningless and people would be like, what the hell? Right, but it means something to us now. Actually, I think that's why we probably should do it is because it's an inside joke that the world could hear a say and maybe wonder, like, oh, what's that about? And then it would just be so weird. Because some of these five word speeches are weird. People get up on pogo sticks and with weird hats

and things and just say five random things and five random words. But then other times people have really meaningful messages and I'm like, should we go with a meaningful message? But anyway, if you have any ideas, there's a crowdsourcing day for the five word speech on Twitter Thursday May 9th. So look out for that. If you have any ideas about what we should say in five words or how we should say it,

like, should we wear costumes or bring beans to throw at people? I don't know. Would you have any ideas? Email us at helloatmolorsheetroad.com and thanks again so much for the win. That's all you guys. Yeah, that's incredible. I'm blown away. People's voice.

We are now writing and recording our official page by page review of the Mueller report. It will be probably a ten-part series because it's really, it's pretty extensive the review that we're doing. It'll be the culmination of all the work we've done. We'll be reviewing the report in context, discussing all the intricacies and connecting dots based on the hundreds of hours of research we've done. We've actually written about 2500 pages of script, which is five times longer than the actual Mueller report. We'll be releasing these early and add free for patrons and to the public in very short order. So keep your eyes out for those episodes on our main feed. If you're not a patron, you can become one for three bucks

at patreon.com slash mullichy.roat. And that will automatically enroll you to be a patron for our new daily news show called The Daily Beans. We've got, they might be giants composing the music. We have some of the best comedy writers and justice experts in the business. I think you'll really enjoy it and we just need, we just actually released a sample episode to the public so you can check that out for free right now. In our feed, tell us what you think.

Alright, before we dip into the news, it's time for my favorite segment, Corrections! It's time to stand! It's time for me to say I'm sorry! Uh, Father Jeff. Shut the fuck up! Alright guys, during the free will and a vagina episode of the Daily Beans, it was pointed out to us regarding Trump refusing to allow Stephen Miller to testify to Congress that the EOP, or Executive Office of the President, has a lot of precedent not allowing White

House staff to testify. So it's actually pretty normal. I think what's more concerning, however, is the pattern, the overall pattern of obstruction, and we'll be covering that. I'll be talking about that later in hot notes. That's concerning to me, regardless of the administration. Yeah, it is. I agree, too.

But there are some past examples of this in the Bush and Obama administrations we'll be going over. And how long those took in court to resolve. You're not going to be happy about it. For folks who work in Congress or with Congress, the Intel committees in the House and the Senate are called the HIPSE and the SISI or HPSCI House permanent select committee on intelligence and the SISI is the Senate select committee on intelligence. Not sure what this was a correction of Because that's what I call these at work. I mean, you know, I work with with you know the a lot of these groups in

Congress and we call them the hipsy and the sissy. Yeah, maybe it was any liberation Yeah, I just I never used those terms on the show because I aren't well known like if I'm like oh the hipsy today Everybody blame what the fuck you talking about? But it's good to know so you if you want to talk like you you're an insider you can you know calm the hippie and the sissy um... senator boosman is pronounced boosman and moron is pronounced moron though I quite prefer boosman and moron this reminds me of my childhood doctor whose name is dr. doucheman and it was clearly spelled Dushman but he preferred to be called Dushman. That's great. Oh okay. Yeah that's his

choice. Yeah that was his preference. Yeah interesting. Yeah when I worked in the hotel industry if anyone's name was Weiner we called him Weiner until they corrected. Out of respect. Yeah. Hey Mr. Weiner it's Weiner. Okay just you know cool. Better safe. Yeah. There so. There was a, another person I worked with, Dick Lipschitz, that's a really, really horrible name. I've always loved Lipschitz though. And we had a, we had a Cardiac, you've always loved it. The name, yeah.

Yeah, okay. Not so much, but. And we had a Cardiac surgeon named Dr. Morrissey, and I was like, he literally tears your heart out. And so that was kind of funny. But, yeah, names are weird. But yeah, I like Boosman and Moron. They're from Senators from Virginia and Kansas, respectively, I believe.

We might get another correction on that. But they're both Republicans and so Boosman and Moran got it. Elizabeth Warren's 50 million plus tax is a wealth tax, not an income tax. It's a tax on holdings like a property tax is a tax on your house. Currently, if you have like a hundred million dollars just chilling in the bank like you do, you only pay taxes on the interest or capital gains you earn from that money. Warren's plan would tax the full hundred million at 2%. It sounds fair. I think so too. So wealth tax, not income tax. And then finally, the letter that yells at you in Harry Potter is called a howler, not a screamer.

That's right. And we were like, I forget what it's called, it's not that, but you know, let us know. And one of our Ravenclaw fans sent us a note. We got a few. Howler got it. I love it. The segment, most of our corrections these days are all about Harry Potter lore. You have a theme here.

It's pronunciation. It's pronunciation and Harry Potter. Yeah, I'm digging it. I like it. So, any other things we get wrong? Just let us know. Email us. Hello at mullershearote.com.

We'll get it right. Right now, though, we've got a whole ton of news to get to. So let's jump in with just the facts. All right. So, the Cutter Investment Authority is back in the news. If you remember that's the group that helped sell off Roussal. And was it Roussal? No, it was Ross Neft. And also bailed out the Kushner Devil Building at 666 Fifth Avenue. The Devil's mermaid probably lives. Much to their own. She used to tank

there. Yeah, she does. Like in splash. Beep beep. A big fish tank just. You're a boutonuts woman you're in. Yeah. That's the indictment aquarium. Yeah.

I like that. Yeah. And so they help bail out the cushioner building. Much to their own surprise, apparently. They came out and said, oh, we had no idea. We invested billions. I think it was $1.3 billion. They'll do it your bank tune, huh? Yeah, singing the old do it your bank tunes. They put out a statement that they had no idea.

They were so heavily invested and tried to distance themselves from Kushner because they, you know, they are saying that they want to invest $35 to $45 billion in the United States in the coming five years or so. But this week, we found out that the current investment authority has teamed up with a US real estate group called Crown, and they just bought a crapload of New York's most iconic properties in Times Square and along Fifth Avenue, including some retail space on the ground floor of the Devil Building. Not sure they're going to claim they had no idea this time, right?

They haven't made the purchase yet. But Vornado said it would use $290 million of the 1.3 billion in cash paid by Crown and the Qataris to pay off alone for $666 Fifth Avenue, according to a filing with US securities regulators. What's interesting is the market sucks. It's really soft right now. Retailers in the area have said sales have tumbled,

like Tiffany, their Crown Jewel store. Yeah, fancy. A crown of jewel store, fine jewelry on both sides. Yes. And so it just seems odd to buy retail space in an area that's down 24% year over year from last year. So just, I don't know, weird, but I'm sure they have no idea. Right.

And to come ahead of it and claim that they didn't know they were so involved with Kushner in the first place, only to continue that practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I'm telling you now, um, QIA, I'm telling you right now, nice. You're buying a alley hoop moment for a yode. Yeah, you're buying a bunch of Kushner stuff just so you know, uh, if you didn't, if you didn't know, so don't act shocked. Maria Boutna, or the Devil's Mermaid, as Jordan Cosser, was sentenced this week and Julie, so you have that story for us later in hot notes. Oh yeah. During the first full week of the Mueller report being out, the redacted Mueller report, most of it, at least 13% of it's redacted, about Giuliani

and Trump have been hitting their lube the truth to her pretty hard. In an interview with Jake Tapper, Giuliani said, quote, there's nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians. It depends on where it came from. You're assuming that the giving of the information is a campaign contribution. Read the report carefully. The report says we can't conclude that because the law

is pretty much against that. People get information from this person that person so that's his wise words and all of that is completely wrong. You know he reminds me of the old six flags guy you know the little dance is different on the bus and the commercials oh yeah oh yeah I think I was so much more happier that I was gonna say yeah he's not nearly as much as I'm a second yeah he's like that yeah anti-six flags guy yeah that guy brought joy he did yeah yeah this guy brings Yeah, he's not nearly as much as I'm a second. Yeah, I think that the, yeah, and time. Six Flags guy. Yeah, that guy brought joy.

He did, yeah, yeah. This guy brings Loub. Although I do feel like I can imagine Giuliani just dancing on his own, like, it's like a psychotic person, yeah. Just like, oh yeah, I'm doing a great job. Like in his heels and his bedroom at night. Did he?

Yeah, go rooting. Jumping over, grieving his career. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty much what's happening. Yeah, so that. Jumping over your career. Yeah, that's pretty much what's happening. Yeah, so that's all wrong. In fact, it is illegal to take anything of value from a foreign entity in a campaign, and it does not depend on where it comes from. I don't even know what he meant by that, but it doesn't matter where it fucking comes

from. If it's foreign stuff handed over to you, that's illegal if it has value. I'm wondering if he's thinking about a sange not being charged with the dissemination of stolen documents because it sounds like he's making the same argument that a sange supporters would make about him by saying a media outlet can distribute stolen documents under the First Amendment, which is a fine argument, but it's not the case here. He then says Mueller did not conclude Trump committed a crime by accepting stolen documents because the law is pretty much against that.

What does that mean? I don't know, but it's not what the report says. The report says they were unable to assign a value to the stolen documents and that's pretty much the only reason it didn't rise to the level of an illicit criminality. That in Don Jr. was too dumb to establish mens rea. If that, so much of this, if it all went in front of a jury, the outcome would be different, I think though. Because they're declining to make a, you know, official stance on it right now.

But if that went in front of any sort of sensical person, it would be like, clearly that has value. And some, at least that's what I would like to believe. Yeah, even if it's just a technical but the purpose. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, like the actual material values themselves and then also just as a clear cool gain they get from that information. Penny for your thoughts.

Toners very expensive. And then Jake Tapper said to Giuliani, but you're saying there's nothing wrong with that to which Rudy replied, there's no crime. We're going to get into morality. That's not what prosecutors look at. Morality. So, Trump and his supporters' defense here is that any behavior is pretty much okay

as long as it doesn't rise to the level of illicit criminality beyond a reasonable doubt. You'd think that the same group of people who want to lock Hillary up for using a private server would apply the same values to their candidate, but doesn't seem so. Yeah, right. Then Trump tweeted this week that he's fully denying he told Don McGand to fire Robert

Mueller. I'm not sure if he's looming up his base for a possible McGand testimony to Congress, but he's now flat out denying Mueller's findings, even though at one point claimed Mueller fully exonerated him, which he did not. Also this week, Hillary wrote a big op-ed in the New York Times about how to respond to the Mueller report, basically weighing in on the impeachment argument. She opened with a statement that the definitive conclusion of the Mueller report was that our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, and our sovereignty and security violated,

and that it documents a serious crime, the Mueller report documents a serious crime against the American people. She calls the impeachment debate a false choice between immediate impeachment or nothing. I guess she doesn't listen to Mueller, she wrote. But I suppose it could be fair to characterize the debate in those terms. She acknowledges that this is personal for her, and she might not be the right messenger, but she's not an impeachment advocate. I could see her coming off as disingenuous if she was screaming impeachment, but she's

not. So she's actually airing on the side of caution, I guess. Week. She advocates for patriotism, not reflexive partisanship. She calls the Mueller Report a roadmap and we always knew it would be. David Pris and I actually talk about that later in the show in the interview, so stick around for that.

Whether you're an impeachment advocate or not, you should agree that the report is a roadmap for Congress and the American people. Hillary thinks there should be substantive hearings that build on the Mueller report and fill in its gaps rather than going straight to an up and down vote for impeachment. She says in 1998, the Republicans rushed to judgment and that was a mistake then and it was a mistake now but i disagree she doesn't she doesn't go on to say why it was a mistake i don't think the nineteen ninety eight impeachment of clinton was a mistake it was the execution of justice in the duties of congress under the constitution

bill clinton that's so funny her and she's bringing up she brings that up as them that's a weird example weird as op ed do that's really weird example. That's a fucking weird ass op-ed dude. That's a really weird, conflict of interest, right? Yeah, I don't like it. That's why I'm like, maybe I'm not the messenger blowjob. Maybe it's his wife that's a little weird for me to, you know, bring up.

But Bill Clinton obstructed justice by lying about a blowjob. He was impeached but not removed, probably because he only lied about a blowjob. Had he not been impeached, it would have sent a message that lying to Congress, even if it's just about a blowjob is okay, and that the president's above the law. So basically Hillary calls for hearings about the Mueller report to inform the public and

a 9-11 commission style independent investigation, all while calling for the Democrats to stay focused on a sensible agenda for 2020. That's her little dig it, you know, don't be too progressive. Right. And I do agree with most of that, I personally think the public hearing should be part of an official impeachment inquiry to establish a judiciary Proceeding for getting those grand jury materials under rule 6e But more importantly to send the message that if you fuck shit up like this we will impeach you because no one is above the law So we all want the same stuff. We just call it different things

But I did speak to Renato Marriotti from the on topic podcast and Harry Lippmann from Talking Feds who have both told me that opening an impeachment inquiry is not required to establish the judicial proceeding to get the grand jury materials. And it assured me that if there are just public hearings into the Mueller report, the House Judiciary will be able to get the grand jury materials. Thanks. So that's kind of a correction of sorts. But now we're just down to holding presidents accountable for their actions as a reason

to officially open an impeachment inquiry. But I'm certainly not for an immediate up or down vote on impeachment. I don't think most of us are. I could be wrong, but I think we need to hold hearings to inform the public and see if we can get a 20 GOP Senate swing to vote to remove him. Even then, I don't see impeachment as harming Democrats in this case. Yeah. I agree.

I need to read the full out bed, obviously, because my initial reactions are negative. Yeah. I take here. Right. But that's, um, so she's saying, we don't want to move too quickly because then it could come off as looking politicized as it did in 98. That's what she's saying. With basically, but no, my, yeah, I think what she's saying. With basically. But no, mine.

I think what she's saying is in 98, it was a mistake to impeach. And she's inferring that the Democrats suffered backlash in the following election, but they really didn't. She's inferring that it's somehow politically damaged Democrats, but I don't see that as being true. And a little, but I mean, he was not for a election. True. And so, and a little bit of me, he wasn't for a election.

And a Democrat technically won in 2000, Al Gore technically beat Bush. He certainly won the popular vote. And then it all came down to a Florida Supreme Court decision, which is where his brother was, not in the court, but you know, got out of the state. So it just seems odd to me that she made the assertion that it would be politically damaging to Democrats but didn't say why she thought that right exactly I think it's like kind of irresponsible of her to come out and say that yeah although although she wouldn't being who she is she wouldn't be able to come out and just say impeach the motherfucker

right because she's the one who lost to him in the election. So I don't know if this is something she really wanted people to know about or if she's making a measured declaration on her own. Right. I think why did she write it? Both. I still think back to when Hillary, and I know it's a separate issue sort of, I'll try to make sense of it, but when she called, like, black men super predators, like she jumped on the train, and I don't think that she is a racist. I don't get personal vibes, but she did go with like what she jumped on the train and I don't think that she is a racist, I don't get personal vibes,

but she did go with like what she thought was the flow of the times. And I think she might still be like that, you know? She has a whole fair weather. Doing that her whole life in politics. Fair weather politician. And that's why I first, for someone like Warren, you know,

I think a woman could win, but someone who stands their ground and like really has strong core values, you know? Yeah, although I will say when I read the op-ed and so we don't go to on this slam and Hillary here, that when I was reading it and the way she wrote it and just her ability to write and communicate really made me sad that this election was stolen from her. Yeah, she's still a brilliant woman and was highly qualified.

And it made me think of how different it would be, how much more we'd be showing up our elections in 2020 against the Russians, how much more we would have responded to the actual attack on us. It was a fucking attack. Yeah, absolutely right. Had she been elected. Definitely. I voted for the record and I would do it again if she were on the ticket. Yeah, I will say that I prefer someone with more, I guess passion.

A little less moderate. Definitely. Exactly. And I think we should be able to take up that space where we're criticizing someone even though we're not damning them as a whole. For sure, for sure. Podcast Branch. Yeah.

Agree, agree. Podcast Branch. But I like your point. Check some mouth really, really going. Because I mean, going into 2020, I want to be able to have open and honest discussions about platforms for the Democrats without bullshit. Oh, he, you know, whatever he or she did, the DNA thing or the booted judge not being gay enough or, you know gay enough or you know, Biden, you know, being a little creepy sometimes

with his touches or whatever it is, whatever, you know, not progressive enough, not this, not that great. But if you're gonna tear somebody apart, just keep in mind that you might have to bring that ex back to dinner at your house. You're gonna have to, whoever wins is gonna have to get everybody behind them. And if you come out, now, I mean,

if somebody, if one of the candidates fucked a child, and you know, okay, deal breaker, for sure. Buy, yeah, yeah. Or like people like Howard Schultz, who's just, he's not running on the damn ticket, but get the fuck down. That, you know, but for the most part, we just have to remember that who the person that you're coming out and spewing hate against might be the nominee.

And now you've got to reconcile voting for that person. So just don't don't get all up on your hate ladders. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so that was Hillary's op-ed. You should read it. Is she gonna announce later? Do you think she's not running? Yeah, I think she's done you don't think there's any chance that she'll come out later in the Nounce I'll put beans on zero chance Hillary's running zero chance you think yeah, that'd be pretty funny

I mean talk about a sabotage right dude that'd be such an epic fucking comeback though I don't discourage her as much as I used to. I just think that she's done so much and she put on her all in and I would not blame her for saying fuck you guys. Oh, yeah. There would be, I think there would be a lot of people that would vote for her just to stick it to Trump.

Absolutely. Just because it's her, like the biggest fucking Hillary Clinton. I mean, she's still a fucking badass, like dedicated public servant who is a woman and is strong as shit So yeah totally what is she's the VP for for Harris? Warren that would be Warren or what yeah to like bring the moderate group in be crazy or the independence in Yeah, but you know in America there can't be two women. Oh, God the periods would sync up. We die We be a female country. No, the terror.

Like we have two black guys on the show. It's a black show now. Well, I thought they were supposed to be one white guy at least. Yeah, I don't know. When I read it, I was like, damn it. I wish you fucking would have won. That would have been outstanding. And she did, but you know, brilliant mind. Yeah, yeah, much props to her. I apologize if I come off as aggressive about it. I do like her.

No, we should be able to say like nuanced opinions. And I guarantee you we're going to get an email from someone that's going to be like, I can't listen to you guys anymore because you just shit on Hillary for 10 minutes or whatever. I don't think we did. I think we did either, but that's how people hear it. Because like, they're so true. They're confirmation bias. Yeah, they instantly hear it. Everything shuts down. The walls't think we did either, but that's how people hear it because they're so triggered. They're confirmation bias.

Yeah. They instantly hear it. Everything shuts down. The walls come up and they say, fuck you. Yeah. But yeah, she's a little too moderate for me. That's just me. But it's like I said, if she does a comeback

and comes in and wins the nomination, I'll vote for her again. Hell yeah. I did it in 2016. I'll vote for her again in 2020. I'll vote for whoever wins the goddamn nomination. Yes. Exactly. Fuck, it's not hard, you guys.

And the little evolution before, no one's forcing you. But why are you, why is your vote all yours and so fucking holy? Like, there are so many people who will could die under a Trump presidency and you're willing to throw your vote away, fuck them. Because if you wanted a $16 hour minimum wage instead of 15, fuck off. Seriously.

Sorry. No, no, no, really, fuck off. I almost was like, no, you don't have to fuck off, but no, you should. We're keeping it real today. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. I don't think any. So I'd say that point. Because that's the way the vote, it sucks that our system is like that, but not voting isn't gonna fix the system. You're just gonna lose a seat at the table to even discuss it. Right.

Here's how it works. There's gonna be two candidates, unless there's a third party candidate too, one of them's gonna win, and that's how fucking works. You're sitting at home, not voting, sitting on your hands or writing in Bugs Money, isn't gonna fix our two-party system. Right.

The only people that would disagree with you are the one who's talking about right now. Yeah. And they do. They disagree hard. And I understand you're frustrated with the two-party system. I think we should have ranked choice voting. I think that the whole system needs to be reformed. We need to get rid of the Electoral College.

We need to stop gerrymandering. We have to have one person, one vote. I get it. We should have a parliamentary thing where the percentages of the vote that you get for your party is how many percentages of people are sat in the Congress in the House of Representatives. We should have that. We don't. And it sucks, but I'm not going to vote doesn't fix that. All it does is it helps elect Trump. And then you get no say at all for another four years and people die. So just putting that out there. You can disagree. Send us an email.

Hello, I'm Mollarshi wrote. Send us to Cricut Media. Sorry, no, don't say that. Send it to Hillary Ronn. No, just put it in a shit sandwich, I'll read it. I won't. Yeah, I know. Would you read that?

I do appreciate all the opinions. Okay, let's see, moving on. We learned Monday that Bill Barr has received an ethics waiver for Emmett T. Flood to not have to recuse himself from overseeing the investigation of one MDB by the FBI in the Department of Justice. One MDB is the Malaysian fund that Jolo stole billions of dollars from and laundered it with the help of Elliott Brody and Prasma Shell from the Fuji's. It's the same fund that the cutters were going to... No, no, the QIA and ice cube is a different case. Right.

But yeah, the foodies are involved in this. Bar was an attorney with the firm Kirkland and Ellis. It sounds like the Costco law firm Kirkland and Ellis. Look at that. Now I got my law degree at Costco. In Bosco. Right next to the Optometry Office. And so, and Kirkland and Ellis now represents Goldman Sachs in the 1MDB case.

And he used to work for them. Bark out of waiver on April 16th, just like last week. And Emmett T. Flood also gave an ethics waiver last November that allowed Brian Benchkowski to participate in the investigation, despite also having worked for Kirkland and Ellis. The waiver could give Bark a peek into the Eastern District of New York investigation involving the Trump Victory Committee, a super PAC dedicated to re-electing Trump in 2020. Ronaldo Marriotti says that given Barr's highly questionable handling of the Mueller report rollout,

there are appearance issues raised whenever he supervises an investigation involving Trump. As we previously reported, Kirkland and Ellis also represented Alpha Bank, headed up by Yermen Khan, the father of Vandersworn, who was indicted by Mueller for funneling pro-Russian Ukrainian money into the Trump inaugural. And as you'll remember, Alpha Bank servers were communicating directly with the server and Trump tower in early 2015. So Barr shouldn't have been allowed to provide oversight for the Mueller investigation at

all, let alone be given a redaction pen and the ability to make decisions on obstruction of justice in that case. It's so nuts that he's done this and now he has an ethics waiver, which is just a weird thing to me. That hall pass, yeah. Like why, you know, at least don't call it an ethics waiver, call it an oversight waiver because you're just like you do everything else. You're just making it sound like you your unethical bullshit is fine. Yeah, yeah, by us.

Yeah, way too on the nose of a name for my liking. Totally. Yeah, but that's exactly what you do. Somebody's this old administration is an ethics wafer. The New York Times reported this week that Department of Homeland Security former Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Kirstian with a J and Nielsen was warned by chief of Stack Mick Mulvaney. I feel like, do you guys ever watch the anime acts?

I feel like King should be in there like totally Insane, Mick Mulvaney, Hal Yes. Citizen Cainy, Dana Delaney, and I'm any of that. Every time I see Mick Mulvaney, I want to put that in that song. But anyway, Kirsten Nielsen was warned by Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, I want to put that in that song. But anyway, Kirsten Neilsen was warned by chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney not to brief Trump on possible Russian interference in the 2020 election, despite her concern. She had a legitimate concern

that the Russians would attempt to interfere. According to a source, Mulvaney said, quote, wasn't a great subject and should be kept below the president's level. So, no, right? Hell? Like, what? Like a solid-ish limbo. and should be kept below the president's level. Hmm. So... No, right? Hell? Like, what's the status?

What's the limbo? What's the limbo? Can you go? Duh, duh, duh, duh. The status limbo keep it below the president's level. Look at a Congo line going, guys. Yeah, duh, duh, duh, duh. Hey, this is my logo.

Yeah, after the world's ending, it's my fault. Yeah, the Mar-. Hey, this is my log of the world ending. That's the moral log of limbo. Uh, yeah. So that's not a great subject could be kept below should be kept below the president's level. Apparently, Nielsen wanted to organize a cabinet meeting just to discuss a strategy for preventing additional Russian meddling in 2020 and three senior administration officials in one former administration official described to the Times, New York Times, Nielsen's frustration at the lack of progress and what she considered to be a serious security issue. In a related story, the FBI will meet with Senator Rick Scott and Governor DeSantis of Florida, DeClanthus,

in the coming weeks to discuss suspicion that Russians hacked at least one county in Florida during the 2016 election election if you recall both scott and a santa's denied that any hacking took place not in our backyard nothing weird ever happens in florida not on my watch uh... but mullers reports is otherwise uh... so now this uh... uh... the two scroats here are pissed uh... santa and Rick Scott, they're pissed.

We'll call them Scroots now. It's the Pussies, right? Yeah, yeah, the Scroots. Cool banan because they're sensitive. Yeah, it is, right? Yeah. The Scroots. So they're pissed that they've been kept out of the loop.

It's your state. What the fuck kept out of the loop? No. And last week, Scott wrote a letter to Christopher Rae asking for any information the FBI has on Mueller's findings When incumbent Florida Senator Democrat Bill Nelson made a similar statement last year Rick Scott demanded proof calling Nelson irresponsible and State officials say they basically don't believe Mueller and could not verify the information with the FBI

Yeah, Scott and DeSantis probably also had chiefs of staff that were telling people to keep it below their belts Yeah totally. I wonder if it's not Mulvaney was theirs Santa Santa's probably also had chiefs of staff that were telling people to keep it below their belts. Totally. I wonder if the Colvaney was theirs. It kind of makes you wonder how Scott and Santa's won their elections. I don't think they want you to know that counties were hacked. Let's see, this week a lot of stuff went down with the National Rifle Association. This week in Jordan, you will have that for us in hot notes. Oh yeah, they're imploding and it's so sweet.

Sweet to us. Sorry, I had like a stroke moment. Oh, it's okay. Reading the inner a**, definitely. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But as Eddie as her says, I think the gun helps. And Elliot, you can't just walk up to someone

and go, boo, boo, bang, bang, bang, and expect much to happen, you know. Yeah, the gun helps. I think Chris Rock has a bit or something about like someone trying to go in with a knife and like do like a mass, a mass murder situation I was like see how far they get. Yeah, he also has a bit about how, who made bullets really expensive to be harder for like poor people to make crimes. He's like man, I'll pop a cap in your ass as soon as my check comes in. I got you like a $5,000 bullet. You're a dead man in two weeks. Yeah.

Cooling off period by charging up $7,000 for a bullet. So funny. So the NRI news is really, it's the bright spot and otherwise, Dismawik. Definitely. Elliott Brody was back in the news Thursday. When the Daily Beast reported that a former business associate of Brody and Republican fundraiser,

named Lisa Korbatoff has spoken with the FBI about his business dealings and his participation in the Trump inaugural fund. According to an individual familiar with the case, she is expected to be further interviewed by prosecutors from Justice's Department Washington headquarters in the upcoming months. She is the first of Broiti's former business associates known to have spoken with the FBI, though at least one of his allies and also form a deputy finance chair for the RNC, Steve Wynn, is cooperating with investigators as they scrutinize Brody.

Did she come forward on her own or did they send out to the investigator send out feelers or something and people around him? None say, but she's cooperating. I'm assuming that came to her. Yeah. One of the prosecutors in the case is also looking into his work with one MDB, which we were

just talking about with Jolo, where Brody was apparently offered about $75 million if he could somehow get the president to shut down the investigation into one MDB. So put some beans on an obstruction of justice indictment for Elliott Brody. He's the guy who paid a Playboy Playmate $1.6 million to get an abortion and keep her quiet. That's the one where we all thought he was taking a bullet for Trump who we thought was actually the culprit. But there's no proof of that. Still got some loose beans on that.

Yeah. Robin. Robin. $1.6 million. I guess now for Republicans we've been pigeonholed into putting value on a human life. Yeah. So just to use their own thing against them. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. To be clear. I'm very pretrace. And speaking of paying women to touch her man parts, Robert Kraft popped up on our Radars this week when I learned that his lawyer in the Cindy Yang case is William Burke. That's the same lawyer used by Priebus, Bannon, and Don McGahn in the Mueller investigation. And it appears prosecutors are going after the women in this case. While Kraft is charged with only two counts of soliciting prostitution, four women have been arrested in the case and are being charged with dozens of counts

of prostitution, renting a space for prostitution, driving funds from prostitution and running a house of prostitution. Assistant state attorney Greg Cretos, Criedos, he has decided not to investigate human trafficking in this case and appears to be going hard after the women. Earlier, he offered craft a deal that said he'd get no jail time if he just said he did it. And craft refused, lowering up with Burke. And I bet good money he'll get a sweetheart deal just like Epstein got from current labor secretary Alex Acosta,

which was also a Florida case. He was US attorney, though. And he's still working in the Trump administration despite having been found to have broken the law during that case by not telling Epstein's victims about the deal he was making with Epstein as the law requires. What a cool dude. Guys, those are the facts. We'll be right back with hot notes about the NRA, Maria Bhutna, and Trump's determination to block all congressional inquiries since the Mueller report dropped. Hey guys, this is AG and I want to tell you about NUME. We're at the end of April now, and if this were any other year, I would have abandoned my resolutions to be healthier by now.

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Again, that's NUME.com and jumpstart your health plan today. So Renato, do you still have your own podcast? Yeah, it's complicated. What's so complicated about a podcast? That's the name of the podcast, remember? Oh! Will you still be exploring topics that help us understand the week's news? You bet, but we'll have a new name because we're gonna be working together to explore complicated issues that are dominating the news.

Working together? Yeah, you're hosting it with me, remember? Oh, right. Wait, does that mean our podcast is going to have a steam op segment? Let's not get carried away. But we'll discuss hot new legal topics. So check out our new episode, coming soon to everywhere you get podcasts as well as YouTube.

All right welcome back hot notes. All right guys, in Hot Notes today, Jordan has some really great stuff about the NRA, but first, Jolisa, what's going on with Bhutan? Yes, so on Friday, beans did come true. Maria Bhutan, aka the Devil's Mermaid, thank you Jordan, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on conspiracy charges, so basically prosecutors got exactly what they wanted. And as far as the defense's argument that Bootna was just a naive for an exchange college student whose only crime was loving Russia too much, well, the judge was not buying that.

And Bootna may be the most adorable Russian spy you've ever seen, but she's still a Russian spy nonetheless. And what she did is, she organized a trip in 2015 where senior NRA officials party in Moscow, probably where all that blackmail material came from, and she also hosted friendship dinners between Russians and Republicans, which sounds deceptively cute. They're like, do they make bracelets for each other? Yeah. The little safety pins with bees.

Right. The little talk, like, I don't know. It seems really cute. At at one point she even suggested that Russians had an influence over who Trump picked for Secretary of State and she did it without going through the proper State Department checkpoints Which is obviously bad for national security, but Bootna's lawyers were like nah bro She's just a normal college student who likes to take selfies with her public guns and guns Your honor. She was only doing it for the gram. I risk my case kidding But yeah, this judge was not having it and Bo butina she'll do a total of 18 months in jail However, she'll also get credit for the nine months. She's already served and after that

She'll be deported back under the sea. I mean Russia and here my butina being so maybe instead of wishing for human legs She should have just kept her tail and wish for a time machine because that way she could choose to not be a Russians by Never have to pretend to love Paul Erickson and find her real Prince Eric and live happily ever after singing a low song with Sebastian and Flonda. Yes, I didn't see the movie but I did some research. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so lucky. You're talking about it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's very elaborate little mermaid. You got to bat your eyes. I'm sure your lips

lay in these. Something. Yeah. I'm all for it. So yeah, basically, Bootness Facts, Poons really upset about it and Justice was served. So, hell yeah. Cool. And there was something about Barr didn't want it to go. Oh. Or wanted her to go. Yeah, yeah.

He was like, he was trying to get her to stick around or not to, basically to deport her immediately and he was pushing for time served. Which is really interesting. Maybe he's because he's Trump's guy and Putin's clearly outraged by all of this they're trying to get her back to Russia ASAP instead of having to do nine more months and also information yeah and they don't want the Congress to be able to call her to testify good point because if she's here they can do that and they should yeah hear me Nadler shift do it totally yeah well

interesting Bootna. If you missed our little musical, you can check out our Devil's Mermaid, Daily Beans that we put out yesterday. We should check it out. Yeah, that was a good one. That was a really funny discussion. All right, speaking of the Devil's Mermaid,

somethings as the NRA is coming apart at the seams and I a little of it. Yeah,, they really are so a few things happen this week with them So first off their president Oliver North has effectively been forced out of reelection This means that his term is gonna end on Monday and he's no longer gonna be the leader of this melting Witch of an organization. They are not they are not having a good time right now. On Thursday, NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre accused North of trying to remove LaPierre from the NRA by means of extortion and threatening to release damaging information about LaPierre and its finances

as among other things too. There's some sexual harassment allegations against one of the staff members in the NRA apparently that he was threatening to release. So North of Mexico, the head of the NRA harassed someone sexually. Well, I don't think it was against LaPierre. I think it was just against another staff member. Someone at the NRA sort of harassed somebody sexually. Yeah, exactly. So North Effectively wrote a resignation letter, even though he's

not being nominated anyway. So I don't know how much of a resignation that is. It's kind of like, bye guys, I'm leaving. They're like, yeah, we know. They'll let Dolathe Oozzi hit you all the way out, but it's nice have a good life, but in the letter North said the NRA needs to establish a committee to look over their finances because their finances constitute a clear crisis And need to be dealt with if the organization is to continue he says and North is also worried that they might lose their nonprofit-profit status. Which also could be red taxes. Right, they're worried that they might get found out because we know that they are not a non-profit.

They're on to us. Yes. As is the case of many non-profits because it's shit's foot. Did you hear that the Church of Satan got non-profit exempt status? Yeah. And they've come out and said, no, we're going to pay our taxes. Oh my God, that's such an alpha move. Because state pays taxes. I did.

I'll say much or spongebob. Oh my gosh. I love that. I love the devil. Yeah. Yeah, and so one of the financial decisions that North brings up in the letter is when apparently a lot of here spent $200,000 on wardrobe purchases

and charged them to a vendor. And what is it with these criminals and excessive spending on threads? And they still look like shit. Yes, all these white collar criminals keep going down and it count of their lizard jackets. It's a suit. Like how?

What the, yeah, I know. Yeah, save a lizard, ride It's a suit. Like how? What the? Yeah, I know. Yeah, save a lizard, ride a cowboy. Yeah. That's going to see in prison in a Republican. The reform. Yeah. High-tech nano-republicans. Yeah. Yeah. So the NRA also claimed an update to a lawsuit against, okay, so this is, there's a lot of shit going on. One of the things though that seems to be at the center of this is there's a lawsuit that the NRA is bringing against one of their advertising vendors named Akramin McQueen. And the lawsuit that they're bringing is that number one, they are basically saying,

like they don't think that they got charged appropriately from this vendor and they're also saying that North double dipped by taking salary from this firm For work that he was doing with them and then also from the NRA Okay, so they're suing North back or at least they're suing the advertising agency back and trying to slam North in it Right and just so everybody knows all of North was Part of the cover up and they're during a wrong contra. He testified i was on the left to remember him testifying in his uniform uh... and he pretty much just said i don't recall eight hundred times uh... that that's the all over north we're talking about here and so if you've ever dreamed of getting to see all over north testified a congress again

your dreams may come true yeah i'm too young it's like one of those means like if she's too young to remember all over North Tessifying she's too young for you But you don't like me at my all over North you can't have me at my wrong contra I wanted to be like oh what is all of her twist testifying about but like I see one of that one I have some old They're in such disarray Also just a live fact check myself. They're not, all of her north is not being sued himself.

It's against sacrament McQueen. But he's, but they're calling him out for that. Yeah, exactly. All right. And then shortly after all of this north stuff went down, the NRA's longtime attorney, Steve Hart was suspended. So that's another big piece of institution. And our attorney was suspended?

Yeah, one of a really long time attorney, Steve Hart, yeah. Like by hooks. But what does that mean? Like suspended in the air? Oh. Suspended from being their counsel. That's awesome. What do you do?

Yeah, I don't know. Nice. Yeah. You're an ethical man. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm sure he's totally above board. It's probably sexually harassed people. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, one would, I mean, my beans would be on, there's obviously a major riff happening within the NRA right now because there's a differing in directions and how they should cover their ass as they're all sort of imploding I think. So it's kind of just all of this shit happening and going everywhere. Do you, that much heated tension with guns? Like, I don't want to know. Yeah, I got to go down. Yeah, and like with this lawsuit against Akram and McQueen, I don't want to know. Yeah, I got to go down. Yeah, and like with this lawsuit against Acrema McQueen, I don't know how much of it was originated

with the purpose of getting North, or if it was like something that just kind of came about from it, and they're really milking it because this guy also tried to extort their CEO, which came first. Did this lawsuit come and then North said, you know what, I'm going to tell everybody about your bullshit finances. Who knows what came first?

Right. Yeah, definitely. I'll have more beans on this as it develops. But then hours after all this drama happened, the New York AG, Latisha James, officially opened up an official probe, officially opened up an official probe into the NRA and their finances. We don't have a lot of details on that as of now, but we do know that she was talking about being very committed to holding them accountable and making

sure they're being transparent and they're non-profit status. So it can be assumed that what she's doing is trying to basically look into whether or not they are non-profit. I don't think she believes that they are, and she wants to get down to the bottom of it. And apparently, it's looking like this lawsuit that we were talking about came about from the NRA anticipating her looking into them. Oh wow. And so they were trying to look into all their finances. They saw that something was going on with North and this company potentially.

And so that's where that lawsuit ultimately came from. Interesting. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And that all comes on the heels of Gifford's organization with crew, the citizens for responsibility in ethics in Washington, suing the FEC to about the fact that they aren't going fast enough or looking hard enough at the fact that the NRA made

10,000 times the about, look, 9,000000 something times the amount you're allowed to donate to Trump by using a series of shell companies and named after probably home depot paint chips. Yeah. Sally, shell companies by the C-sharp. Yeah, so hopefully, Literature James can pull that all together

into one nice big fat, delicious investigation in New York State that buyer can't oversee. Yeah. Blocker. Put that in your pipe and smoking. Put that in your gun and fire it. Nice. Thank you Jordan. Yeah. Yeah. With the chicken in the ink, I'm not like maybe it could be like which came first, the chicken shit or the ink. I don't know. Do we like all over North? No, he's an asshole. I don't think anyone likes all over North. don't think so. Even his kids, probably. Yeah, we'll find out. Yeah, he was weird. Although a lot of people would say he came out later and was like a patriot or whatever.

I can see that. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Weeks, sauce. And I think that, you know, with the NRA going down, this might be a good time to bring up

the shooting that happened in our basically backyard here in San Diego in Poway at a synagogue. Very, very troubling, very sad, and that, I mean, it's pretty fresh. It's still all over the news. We're very close to it too. Yeah, we're also processing it for sure, but they did come out with the identity of the one victim her name was Lori Gilbert Kay. She actually was shot while protecting the rabbi. Yeah, she took a bullet with the rabbi who still got his fingers shot, I think, or us one or many, if not all. Yeah, it definitely injured, but alive and got shot in the hand.

Yeah, yeah. And continued, I think, his sermon or continued to help keep everyone calm in the room from reports that I've been hearing. But yeah, and I'm not going to name the guy, the shooter, but he is a white supremacist. Yeah, no doubt this is a hate crime, and it's at the point where, you know, we wake up and we see these headlines and we're like, really, again, and it's just insanity. It's like the fact that the NRA is even fighting for their guns to, I guess, okay, some people want to protect themselves, but I mean the idea of being base and fear when you see these people that weren't doing anything that they shouldn't have to protect themselves and they're

being killed. Why can't you just see that it's probably worth giving up a little bit of the not just your gun itself, but like just the AR 15 style guns sure that definitely but just some of the You know the ways that it's accessible like if you have yours and you're good then fine What are you worried about you know and I've said it before and I'll say it again If you need an AR 15 for protection at home you suck at shooting and you probably think of a different hobby Mm-hmm because you suck at shooting and you probably think of a different hobby. Because you suck at aiming.

Yes. I can get it done with a 40. If you, you know, like, I actually turned my block and when a couple of shootings ago, I was like, I can't fucking deal with this. I don't want anybody to have guns. I'm giving my gun up so I hand it over to the show. Yeah.

And I'm honestly, I would want a gun in my own home, like some of them protect myself, but I wouldn't want to do anything that could contribute to Things like this and and so yeah, we can take away like the semi automatic weapons or just make it harder for people to get these things Like I'm all for it like but they're so like Adam and about how that's not what they think we should do and we shouldn't discuss it You know and a gun control conversation because they're not really like what the fuck. Well, for some reason they feel like their second amendment rights cannot and should not

be limited, but they are. That's why you're not allowed to have a fully automatic weapon. That's why you're not allowed to have nuclear weapons. That's why you're not allowed to have short-guided shoulder rocket launchers. RPGs I think they're called. Rocket propelled grenades. Right. There's a reason that there are some limits on this. And if you think that you and your shotgun are going to rise up against our government's

tanks, you're wrong. That's not what the well-regulated militia means. And it's also not 1776 anymore. So there is room, constitutionally, and there's precedent and law that says that these things can be limited and I think we need to limit them. We have to have universal background checks. I mean, we're preaching the choir here. Of course, echo chamber, but I mean, it's it's what I believe in and I wish that we could just convince the people that are in charge, you know, yeah, I think to what really hit me is that it happened in California, which we've already had horrifying shootings happening in California too, but there's something about the proximity.

You can, like, as soon as I heard the news, I just started crying hysterically, because it's like, you can feel that empathically, that it happens literally in our backyard. Yeah. And it's so terrifying, because we know this reality. We live in such a bubble of like love and progressiveness and and just like good people Mm-hmm, and then for that to just so quickly slam you in the face That's these people are 20 minutes away 30 seconds away

Yeah, it's just so fucking horrible. Yeah, and on the last day I pass over So it's obviously so targeted and then did you see Trump's interview when he was walking out and they caught him and his Getting on a helicopter interview that he always does and he said like of course, he's like, oh, this is horrible It looks like it's being investigated as a hate crime hard to believe hard to believe and I know he said he's not saying that like I don't believe it. Oh, but saying like it's hard happened.. And I know he's not saying that, like, I don't believe it. Oh, but saying like, it's hard. It's hard to believe that this happened. Yes, he's kind of, his language is the one

that promotes this kind of thing. Exactly. It allows, gives it space. Exactly, but the other thing is that it's not hard to believe at all. So him saying that is so incredibly tone deaf, number one, and number two comes off as, in another sense, potentially just incredibly disrespectful,

you know, saying something like that. And then immediately after, he says that, the next sentence, he's like, I'm on my way to go to a rally, people have been lined up for over a day to see me. It's just like so fucking awful. Yeah, I feel like we're living in a dream and I know a lot of people have said this to, but it's like moments like this, I feel like it really

just doesn't make any sense that our president would react that way. There's a really big problem going on and I can't figure out it's like this huge shift in like like the echo chamber ideology like I believe that this is a good choir to preach to, but the other guys, they're also preaching to themselves and I don't agree with what they're preaching. So it's like we're in a scary time,

we're very divided and people are dying every weekend. It's like every day, I mean, you know, all the time, but like these massive hate crimes, like this is insane. Yeah, I don't know what to say, yeah. Yeah, no human life isn't worth you being able to have an AR-15. Not at all. Sorry what to say. Yeah. Yeah. No human life isn't worth you being able to have an AR 15 not at all Sorry, not sorry. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for that Reporting on the NRI I I'm hoping they're in their death throws

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, shout out to all of the activists who have like persevered through gun violence and those who have it in our allies and everything because Absolutely makes a difference. They're under such intense scrutiny right now that they only are facing ultimately I think because of Parkland and and all the other guns struting survivors and allies that have come out so Yes, absolutely All right, I'm gonna pivot here Kind of because this week Trump said some other crazy shit including calling Mueller's investigation an attempted coup and then pivoting to defend his statements about there being good people on both sides after the white power rally in Charlottesville saying you know

there were good folks defending the statue of Robert E. Lee and then Trump called him one of the great generals you might not like it but Robert E. Lee was And then Trump called him one of the great generals. You might not like it, but Robert E. Lee was one of the great generals. And he's somebody who staged an actual coup to overthrow the United States government during the Civil War. Another general that comes to mind this week from the Confederacy is General Jackson. Nicknamed Stonewall Jackson because he beat back an onslaught of Union soldiers during the first battle of Bull Run. And now Trump, who praises Confederate generals while calling investigations into himself, attempted coups, could easily earn the same nickname.

Since the redacted Mueller report came out a week ago, Trump has vowed to block every single request for information, witnesses, witness testimony, and subpoenas coming from Congress in what Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chair of the House Oversight Committee called a massive, unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction. Just this week, Carl Klein, the guy who's handing out security clearances for Trump like candy, defied a congressional subpoena by failing to appear at a hearing to discuss the security clearance concerns. And in a little side note, we all in the government got a note that

Trump is taking security clearance background investigations out of the Office of Personnel Management and putting it to the DOD. It's ridiculous. Militaryizing them. And this is, incidentally, where Klein now works. So he's basically trying to remove opposition to him awarding security clear says to people exactly uh... and there is no secretary of defense to put him in check either also this week trump sued the house oversight committee and Elijah Cummings

personally in a bit to block their subpoena for trumps financial records and the white house has written a few letters to the treasury to block the congressional request for trumps tax returns from the irs Elijah Cummings has since postponed the friendly subpoena to Maysars tax firm for Trump's financials, though Deutsche Bank has handed over multiple documents in the New York State investigation in Trump's finances. And so the Maysars friendly subpoena basically Elijah Cummings has said, or it might have been Nadler, he's like, we'll just let the courts hash this out, right? And speaking of the IRS, we found out this just let the courts hash this out, right?

And speaking of the IRS, we found out this week that the Commissioner of the IRS, Charles Reddig, Trump installed guy, earns as much of a million dollars in rental income from Trump-branded properties he co-owns. And the IRS has already missed two deadlines to hand over tax returns to the Houseways and Means Committee under current law. Though now 18 states are working on legislation to require a presidential and vice presidential candidate to release their taxes to be able to appear on the election ballot. That would be cool.

Yeah. None of those have passed yet, but they're in the works. The White House also blocked Stephen Miller from testifying about Trump's immigration policy. On Wednesday, the Justice Department said John Gore would defy a subpoena to testify on Thursday about the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census. And White House lawyers indicated they would tell Don McGann and other former officials not to comply with subpoenas for their testimony. All told, the events of this week indicate Trump's unwillingness to comply with congressional

requests, and this could all be seen as obstruction of justice. It is in fact one of the articles of impeachment for Nixon. It was about this exact thing, defying congressional inquiries to hand over documents and get witness testimony and tapes and shit like that. But as we've discussed Trump could be pushing the Dems toward impeachment on purpose as he might see this as his best worst option. And get this just in today from the Washington Post. The House and main justice are in an apparent standoff over the terms of Barr's planned testimony before the House Judiciary and Senate Judiciary this week indicating the hearings might not take place at all. A senior Democratic aide has said that if Barr refuses to testify, he may face a subpoena.

Barr is set to testify in the Senate Judiciary on Wednesday of this week and the House Judiciary on Thursday about the Mueller report. But the Department of Justice has objected to Democrats' proposal of permitting extended questioning, including by the committee's lawyers, and Barr is threatening to withdraw his testimony over it. Justice Department officials have said that their position is that Barr agreed to appear before Congress, so the members are the ones who should do the questioning, not their fancy lawyers. Not like what Christine Blasegh Ford faced from their little question or lady.

In addition to extended questioning, requests requested by the committee because of Barr's propensity for filibustering each five minute block of questions. Democrats also wanted to reserve the right to vote to have Barr participate in a closed door session following his public testimony to address questions about redacted portions of the Mueller report. But Barr's team objected to that as well and threatened that he would back out. One of the AIDS said, quote, the Khutsba of telling us how the hearing is going to be structured and then threatening to walk goes directly to our working thesis that Barr is interested in carrying water for the president

but not interested in providing answers to the public. So what happens of all these requests that are being denied and defied, go through the court system, even if it's quick, and Congress wins in court, let's say the House Dems win. It's conceivable that Trump could continue not to comply. First a court fight could grind on for years. For example, during the Obama administration, the Obama administration balked

at a criminal contempt citation passed by the House Republicans against Eric Holder. At the time, Holder was withholding documents during the House investigation into fast and furious. That was a probe alleging that weapons had been turned over to Mexican drug cartel leaders and a botched staying operation. After two years of fighting it in the court,

so Judge eventually denied the house's attempt to hold holder and contempt. But if the Democrats follow through with the court battles, the house must ask the Department of Justice to enforce compliance if they win. And that's not likely to happen. Because Trump is just ignoring. Yeah, he has that in his pocket.

The Dems could try to impeach bar, but they would need a two-thirds in the Turtle Dick Mitch McConnell Senate to accomplish that. No way. And it's unlikely considering Mitch's involvement in taking over $7 million in pro-Russian money during the 2016 election, not to mention the Zillion Dollar Illuminum plant being built in his home state of Kentucky funded in part by the Russian aluminum country. 65.

The Russian aluminum company owned by Oleg Darapaska, who McConnell voted to lift sanctions on, despite the Russians sweeping and systematic interference in our 2016 election. No conflict of interest there. The clear remedies here, guys, are public hearings, whether you call it an impeachment inquiry or a public hearing, a probably failed impeachment attempt, which I don't think would harm Democrats at all.

In fact, it might drive Trump's own nuts. He just goes off the deep end. And we just have to vote them all out in 2020. We have to put a blue Senate, we have to flip the Senate. Yeah, 32 Senate seats are up for reelection in 2020. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of those are deep red, but hell, I can't, I'm just in a deep red. Yeah, county, yeah.

We importante to vote and everybody get behind the dumb candidate and vote down the ticket show up Yeah, do what you can very important because what this news is essentially saying is that This could take years the congressional investigations and even if they win bar could ignore it. Yeah, yeah It might do as much as we can put our eggs in multiple baskets here. Yeah, that's why I'm really rooting for Tis James in New York. She's amazing. And all the other state attorneys general who were investigating these things.

Stay on it, definitely. Yeah. Keep doing the thing. With the Eric Holder thing, I understand not wanting to essentially comply with a very obviously partisan request for him to come before them. I get that, but just to not invoke any sort of a double standard, I feel like that's kind of a bad precedent to set to not do that. You know, because I guess if you're, I don't know, I get it.

I get why that happened under the Obama administration, but then I'm very honest. I guess, but why not just show up and testify? Exactly, even though I know it's bullshit and it's kind of like the whole not negotiating with a terrorist kind of thing. Right, it's still better than not showing up. Imagine if Hillary didn't show up for the Benghazi.

That's what I was thinking when when Hillary had to testify about her emails for 11 hours. Yep. Like we know it was down, we know it was towards different. What is it? Defied, but if she didn't, it would emails for 11 hours. Yep. Like we know it was down. We know it was torched for her. Defied. But if she didn't, it would have been way worse.

Definitely. And if she just says, no, not coming. Yeah. I don't like it. Yeah, it's a good parallel. Yep. Yeah, good point. I thought of that.

I was like, oh, can you even imagine if Hillary was like, nah. Yeah, I'd love to see some movies come out of this where like alternate realities where Trump wasn't elected or Hillary won. Like all kinds of different things. Like an aglorious bastard's for it. Yeah, I'd love to see some movies come out of this where like alternate realities where Trump wasn't elected or Hillary one Like all kinds of different things like an aglorious bastards. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I'll make them I don't know. Well, he's that Maria Boot in a time machine. Oh, yeah. Nice callback All right guys, you ready for sabotage. Yes Alright, so a crazy story came out in the Washington Post Friday about pretty much outlining Rosenstein's role in the Mueller investigation.

We get some clarity on kind of how Rosenstein operates. The headline reads, how Rosenstein tried to malify Trump, protect Mueller, and save his job. This comes on the heels of a speech he gave Thursday night, where he hammered some rule of law themes, including the importance of government existing to serve the people, and that everyone is entitled to the protections of the rule of law. So one read of this Washington Post article, according to Joyce Vance, is that Rosenstein was doing everything he could to let Mueller finish, but there's a there's a more sinister

possibility that Rosenstein did something that no prosecutor should ever do, saying that he was on the team of the subject of the investigation. Also very odd that Rosenstein quoted Donald Trump Thursday night in his speech when he was trying to get like in the rule of law. Like Donald Trump says this about the rule of law and you're like what? The way I read it is the same way John Hylman reads it. He says Rosenstein survived by kissing Donald Trump's ass And someone else said Rosenstein's weakness is his weakness. I love that one. I do too Was he trying to protect Mueller or trying to make himself more central to the investigation or just sort of sticking his dick

Where it didn't belong, which happens a lot in the Trump administration. Oh yeah. Yeah, and it shows that he's willing to do some wilding and appropriate shit. Quote on multiple occasions, Rosenstein assured Trump he was not a target. He told him he was being treated unfairly. And now he's standing behind bar, signing off on everything he has said. And he's citing Trump on the rule of law and Criticizing the Obama administration and the media

He's moved from Snoop Dag to full-blown Trump's sick affant in my opinion. I Don't want to come Snoop Dag anymore. I think he's just a masochist apparently when he was called into the chief of staff's office After after the whole reporting came out about McCabe's contemporaneous notes that he said he was going to wear a wire, which McCabe still stands behind and told several officials about, then chief of staff wanted to talk to Rosenstein after that reporting came out and apparently Rosenstein was teary-eyed, getting ready to go into that meeting like, What up? What's Groot? Yes. Yeah, totally. Sorry. No, I just, the band. Oh, yeah. Scroots. Yeah, I think he's like some combination of like a

Lily-Livered Chameleon and also someone that is still a piece of shit. Yeah. Because again, sometimes we forget that these people are still kind of POS I mean a lizard is that the thing? Yeah, okay Because he looked like he wanted to change like blend into the background during the press conference, but it wasn't working He definitely had chameleon eyes Yeah, come pull it off better. Yeah, I didn't blink for like 28 seconds or something Everyone's like having like personal staring contests with those in-stine life. I was just staring back at him.

I was like, dude, what is this? Like, what is life? It was almost like, yeah, what is life? It was almost like when the human dildo testified, Matthew fucking Whitaker, and it's just barrels of sweat to have his fucking head. They all have nervous tics, for sure. Laughing.

Well, that'd be me. I'd be cackling. I've been told I sound like a stone hyena. I don't laugh. Oh, yeah, it's the worst one I've nervous. Oh, thanks guys. Your laugh is gold. I'm gonna bring you to shows just to see you laugh. Seriously, it's a best feeling in the world. We can hear Julie's laughing. It's like the most supportive, sound egg laugh. That is so sweet. That's a good laugh. You are. It's a cradling laugh. Yes, but yeah, I feel like I feel like he basically is is so incredibly unprofessional and so unable to just get through that position with any sort of string of consistency

in that one. I mean, I get wanting to protect the muller pro, but but but but but but but the Trump. But telling Trump, he's not a target, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, You know, it's just that that's not the way you go about that. I mean, I guess in the end like maybe history might look back and say Hey, you know, you subjugated yourself like a prone-ass chicken To protect the Mueller report great job or it could be looked back upon like you were a self-serving A hole who said really inappropriate things to the president You know, it's kind of a both I'm not sure though, but this kind of this article, you should check it out, shut a lot of light onto. I feel like a homie's been criticized for more.

And I know they both have done consequential things, but what I'm a keep, sorry, I love my cave. What Rosenstein is doing right now is really bad. Like it's having huge consequences, covering all of this up. And so I feel like he should get the, I guess, scrutiny that he deserves. Like people seem to be kind of offensive about it. I feel like if you really gave a shit about justice, he would have resigned

and protest when bar came out and did his bullshit dance. Absolutely. I would have, if I cared about the rule of law or what the Department of Justice would end up looking like or becoming, if I gave a shit about the Wezz of Wall ofelfth. I would have been like the fuck out. I'd been like, peace, I'm, you're a dick. Right. You look like the Easter Bunny standing next to Trump. And the heat is, oh my God, with the glasses. Yeah, she reminds me of a more like word vomiting Paul Ryan.

Mm-hmm. Oh, Paul Ryan. Like an adult Paul Ryan? Yeah, yeah, an adult. Well, because Paul Ryan would just an adult Paul Ryan. Yeah. Yeah, an adult Paul. Well, because Paul Ryan would just, I mean, like, you wouldn't really catch him so much in saying sentiments that were aligned with complete opposite side as a spectrum. He more so just wouldn't stand up for things that were obviously a violation of ethics and he worked with the public and party much, but he could just not work up the courage.

Yeah. If you can imagine a more spineless Paul Ryan. Yeah, yeah, you've got so buff, so small little Rosenstein. Right. And one that just like speaks without thinking. Mm-hmm. Many scenarios. You don't say those things in a vacuum. Everyone's documenting them and remembering exactly what the idiot. I'd rather a scrawny guy with a backbone than a butt piece of shit. Yeah. Try you dude like, should I wear a wire? And then whenever one finds out, I didn't see that. Trump is the man, I love Trump.

Yeah, I get that these things are hard and shit's fucked up. So get out then. Yeah, that's too cool because I used to be with the Occupy Occupy movement and I had a protest sign that was just, shit's fucked up and bullshit. Yeah, shit's fucked up and bullshit. Exactly, just took me back just now. Yeah. I like it, that's a good sign. Shit's fucked up and bullshit. Yeah. It's fucked up and bullshit. Exactly. Just took me back just now. Yeah. I like it. That's a good sign.

Shit's fucked up and bullshit. Totally. I do. I like it. Remind me of a sign I made to take to a baseball game. Back when I'm so curious. It's totally nothing to do with anything. But the Padres were in the World Series. And we had seats on the first baseline.

And I took a big bed sheet, you know, because we're on the edge over the, you know, you could, like unfurl your bed sheet. Yeah. And we had a player named Ken Kimmonity. And everybody had a huge massive crush on this guy. He crushed the ball, dude. He hit so hard.

And he was just home run after home run. And so I put up this sign that said, Ken Ken Bowben, banana fan of home run. That's awesome. I'm sure he appreciates it. He's having a notice of Jesus. No idea. I'm waiting to get on TV or anything. Well, nice thought. Best sign in the whole damn ballpark.

I love it. Yeah. We should make more signs and protest together, guys. Yeah, I'll just call Ken Bowben, banana fan of home run, and we'll take it down to the science March for science Yeah, yeah, I'll take my protest time to the baseball game. It should fuck down Someone's gonna steal baseball. He's reading that Okay, it was way too big to steal bases. I was gonna say I don't know how baseball works that sounded like something that sounded like baseball Baseball season means hot dog season

All right, I love hot dogs. Um, are you guys ready for the fancy indictment leak? Yes I'm gonna be a tight it. Oh, it is gonna be okay I'm gonna Dick and I They can't it's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't help that. I'm gonna be excited All right, it's time for the fantasy indictment league. I can't hold down. I'm gonna be excited All right, it's time for the fantasy indictment league. I get to pick first and my first election is Felix Sater Oh, that's a good one. You're sticking to it. Yeah, yeah, I am. I'm gonna be on there until it happens Yeah, I'm gonna do Brady

Brody yes nice. He's got a lot of shit people looking into him. Oh, definitely these days his kid is trying to find him It's gonna be hotness. Oh, definitely. These days his key to trying to find them. It's going to be hotness. Yeah. I'm going to do um... Erickson. Paul. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think Boutinus probably forked over some beans. Yeah, I think so too. I'm expecting indictments to come that are that are actually related to the molar probe. Yeah, there will be more or what's stemmed from it. Yes. Actually related to the muller prove. Yeah, there will be more or what is stemmed from it. Yes The muller babies I'm gonna go with Corsi Bring it back

I will take the NRA Yes nice noise I'm gonna do Trump inaugural oh Good one. I'll go Sange. Oh Yeah, what the hell Oh, I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of He could be brought up on charges. That's what beans are for. Yeah. I will take Weiselberg.

Mm-hmm, okay. I will take WikiLeaks. Good, good one. I'm gonna go with AMI. Oh, yeah. Brittany Kaiser. Okay. She's a Cambridge Analytica, former CEO,

one of the many. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna take... Ooh. Cushner. Cush, all right. That's super beans. I'm gonna take... Oh... Cushner. Cush, alright. That's super beans. I hate that guy.

More like just hope. I'm selecting pecker. I'm gonna take a rando, it's been a minute. Oh, rando? Yeah, you never know. There's a lot of redactions. Yeah, there could be further Russian indictments. Yeah.

In indicative, and we're gonna go over that and our deep dive in the Mueller report sweet good one can I do Carro Klein you can I'm gonna do him okay nice all right then where we at that's everything actually that's all of it yet damn It's so many more All right guys That is sabotage fantasy indictment league you guys right now We have an amazing interview.

I talked to David Priest. Let's check it out. Joining us today for the interview is the Chief Operating Officer of Law Fair, former CIA, Mueller Daily Briefer, and the author of How to Get Rid of a President. Please welcome back, David Priest. David, how are you? Hi, Jay.

It's good to be back again. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I know. It's really great to have you back. And this is especially at this very kind of pivotal point in time considering everything that you know and you know all your areas of expertise. You've been a busy one for those of us who are actually reading through the report and trying to to analyze it and everything so you forgive me. I'm a little sleep deprived and I may not be as coherent as I have been before. As am I, friend, so I am with you on that.

And really great piece you wrote this week for Law Fair called What Muller Got Right. And I was hoping you could go over the key points of that with us. Oh, sure. And this is something that I had the honor of co-writing with General Michael Hayden, who as you recall, had a stroke last fall and has been largely out of the public discourse since then and has only weighed in a couple of times beyond a thank you tweet. And he was back in it, had the chance to chat with him this weekend and put some thoughts together. And so we came up with this. Basically, we were responding to people that were out

there whom we respected. We often agree with on aspects of the Mueller probe and investigation overall like Shamlin Wu at CNN and Paul Rosenzweig at the Arstreet Institute who are saying things about how Mueller dropped the ball here and he did not complete his job and in Paul's words he chose not even to characterize the president's actions and And in so doing, put the presidency over the country. In fact, General Hayden and I disagree with that. We think that Bob Mueller did precisely what he should have done and precisely what the country needed.

He played it straight. He did not give Trump or Trump's allies any reason to say that he was show boating or going beyond his mandate. Can you imagine the furor if Bob Mueller had violated Department of Justice policy, for example, and gone against the standing guidance of not inditing a sitting president and tried to put in the report that we need to indict a man who can't even follow the instructions of the agency

for which he works. Bob Mueller was working for the Department of Justice in this. He was not freelancing. That would have been fodder for the cries of witch hunt that have thankfully largely not stuck in with a lot of people up to this time. So we basically wrote that based on our very different experiences, but both intense experiences with Mueller back in the day, that this is what we expected him to do. We thought that he would stick to his mission. I think you and I have talked about that before on the pod. And we actually think it's a good thing because the things he chose not to do

ended up being good to make sure that this voluminous information gets to Congress as they decide whether to open impeachment hearings and ultimately whether to impeach and possibly remove the president. Yeah, absolutely. And you and I did speak about this. We talked about him staying in his lane and how important that was. And it's precisely what is keeping everyone from yelling stay in your lane. So Trump can call him names and use his ad hominem attacks, but he has not been able to rightfully call the scope of this out of bounds

And in fact, I think his hands are tied because he was not found to be criminally liable for the coordination or conspiracy part of this report Yeah, it's hurt me and I will say I respect the opinion of people who disagree on the very narrow difference here of people who say He should have used more words in his report to characterize the president's actions to offer his prosecutorial opinion even if he couldn't indict. I understand the point and General Hayden and I appreciate the point. Our counterpoint to that is that if he knew that he was not going to be able to indict, which is how he interpreted his mission then

He wanted to make sure that he used the opportunity of explaining his prosecution and declination decisions To get information to those who needed it now according to the regulations He's writing this or the statute. He's writing this for the Attorney General of the United States Bob Mueller did not want to become a political actor. That's the whole reason that for two years he has not been counter-punching the president's barbs or tweeting back when the president tweets something nasty about him and his team. He wanted not to be a political actor, but my experience with him and General Haydons are that he understands the political game, even if he doesn't want to be in it, such that he knew that it would be virtually impossible

for the Attorney General not to send a version of this report redacted to Congress and perhaps to the public as he did. Thus, instead of choosing a minimalist route where he merely explained the prosecutions and declinations with a sentence or two of explanation, which he easily could have done. He offered more than 400 pages of explanation of material knowing, or at least having high confidence, that

Congress would get this information to either begin or to supplement whatever they were doing with other hearings. To me, that's a good choice. And that showed that the very narrow lane he had to navigate between underperforming and going so far as to give ammunition to critics. He actually navigated that fairly well. Yeah, agreed. And you and I had said before that we were expecting this to not be a conclusory work product. And because that's kind of how Ken starred played it. He kind of came out and said, here are all my conclusions. And after speaking to you, I think the very first time you came on the podcast, we were talking about how you briefed him for over a year and what kind of man you view

as, and that he would be extremely conservative within the law and the rules and the policy, and that he would be extremely conservative within the law and the rules and the policy and that he would keep his scope narrow and he wouldn't be conclusive and we were actually looking forward to that and I actually think what we ended up getting like you said wasn't just declinations and prosecutions or you know or etc. you know who he decided to indict and who he didn't and why. Because like you said, this could have been a 10, 15, 20 page report. It's 400 pages. It's got an entire roadmap without conclusions for Congress to move forward on. And I think that that helps keep his case bulletproof. And there was a very good reason for that,

which is the perceived overreach. And that's debatable, but the perceived overreach of Ken Star as independent council. Well, there's a reason why the independent council statutes lapsed, because they were seen as flawed by having no incentive for someone not to overreach and not to reach grain conclusions. So the whole reason that we have this special counsel guidance is because of what happened then. So it would have been unlikely, both by work experience and personality with former director Mueller, but also based on him following his band date, that it would have been very odd for him to, I think, push the boundaries. Again, I do understand the argument that maybe it wasn't pushing the boundaries to offer

a characterization of the president's behavior in a way that would be more firm. Where General Hayden and I came down on this is that the special counsel found a way to get hundreds of pages of information from a very intense investigation to the institution that is charged with considering the only act that can take place during a president's term, which is impeachment. Unlike him, the political actor here is the House of Representatives, and it is a political act, not a strictly criminal act, which was Mueller's turf.

That seemed to us a better use of this report to the Attorney General and ultimately to Congress than Mueller scratching his head and searching for the perfect words to characterize the president's actions. Anyone who reads this report from beginning to end and actually analyzes it, it characterizes the president's actions just fine without having Mueller try to put words on it himself. Yeah, you're exactly right and I couldn't agree more because any kind of characterization or treading into a characterization would be perceived as political and and Mueller is a political 100% yes, and of course this goes into the whole area of well, where did Jim Comey go with the this goes into the whole area of, well, where did Jim Comey go with the 2016 issues in terms of announcing the investigation, talking to Congress, going back to Congress, reopening an investigation, and then giving a statement about someone he was not charging. Well, given

the whole backlash to that, it would surprise me, again, not only based on my experience with him, but it would surprise me based on the fact that Mueller would do anything to try to be an actor in this drama instead of somebody bringing the facts as objectively as could be obtained, presented as objectively as could be presented to the American people through the Congress of the United States. I think he checked that box. I think he answered the nation's call. He did what he was tasked to do. Yeah, I still want to see that very late Inspector General report on the FBI New

York failed office, but we'll, you know, we'll get to that point. And then that's a good point, A.G. is there's other information here. We have focused on the Mueller report. I know you haven't. You've been looking at all the investigations and many other things, but we, the American people, have perhaps unfairly elevated Robert Mueller to this position of Savior, the night writing in on the white stallion to save the Republic. And yes, his investigation was important, his investigation was limited to criminal activity in this particular area, but this is not the end. We've got other investigations going, and frankly, since the release of the Mueller report, we've got the president and others at the White House doing things that actually put him

in deeper water, because if you remember, the third article of impeachment against Richard Nixon was contempt of Congress that was the charge against Nixon because he was not providing papers and other things based on congressional subpoenas. Well, if the White House reaction now to the aftermath of the Mueller report is, the Mueller report is all there is. We're not going to respond to any congressional requests for hearings, for materials, for appearances. He's essentially rewriting Nixon's third article of impeachment by not allowing Congress to do its constitutional duty to investigate a president's fitness for office. This is taking it to a new level and that technically has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation.

That has to do with what the president is doing and saying since the report was released. Yes, which makes me wonder if he's not trying to push for impeachment because he might see it as his only Best of the worst options. It's a possibility. We I hate trying to guess motives and I've tried not to do that with With director Muller even though my language may have lapsed here and there. I don't know what's in his mind I don't know what's in his heart. I also don't know what's in the mind and heart of Donald Trump in terms of any strategy or if it's just instinctual reaction, just kind of a reflexive response to things rather than a careful thought out strategy. But yes, it is possible that he not only does not fear impeachment hearings, but he welcomes them because he has bought into the narrative of impeachment hearings if they are not likely to result in removal or a political benefit to the accused.

I'm revisiting that myself. I'll be writing about it shortly, but I'm not so sure, even I believe that coming out of the Clinton impeachment experience, but I'm not sure it obtains in this case, and I'm not sure the facts on the ground support it at all. Impeachment is a dynamic that creates its own reality and is not just based on the reality that people saw before beginning the impeachment. Right. You've seen one impeachment.

You've seen one impeachment. Yeah. I mean, and it's hard to extrapolate from the others because the impeachment of Andrew Johnson back in the 1860s was very peculiar. For example, they did not pass articles of impeachment right away. They simply took a vote to impeach the president and then later on, scratch their heads and said, oh, we should probably write up why we're impeaching him. And it was not the rigorous kind of impeachment process that we are expecting today. That is one of the articles of impeachment was essentially

Andrew Johnson is saying bad things about Congress when he's speaking publicly. I mean, can you imagine if that were an article of impeachment? Most presidents sense would have been impeached. That is not a good one to extrapolate from. The Nixon one is a very good one to extrapolate from because the court issues at stake and the three articles of impeachment passed by the Judiciary Committee were on obstruction of justice, abuse of power, contempt of Congress. All of those are live right now. Those are possibilities. The Clinton experience gives us a little bit more because the Nixon experience got cut off by resignation. But with two cases, you've got to be very careful about the analogy you draw and how far you extend it. We can definitely learn from them.

If I didn't believe we couldn't learn from history, I wouldn't have written two books on the history of the presidency. But I do think we have to be wary about making political judgments. Yeah. And based on all the incredible information in your book, which is called How to Get Writer of a President, I wanted to ask you, because you just sort of touched on it about where you're at and I'm on the fence as well. I'm right now leaning toward opening an impeachment inquiry because I feel and this is important. It's outlined in your book, Robert Reich, just put out a thing about it. There's a lot of steps involved in impeachment

and inquiry is simply the very beginning of it and just because you open an impeachment inquiry doesn't mean you have to file articles of impeachment. And so I'm kind of wondering where you stand on this with the open, you know, doing just investigations that are non-impeachment versus maybe opening an impeachment inquiry. Sure. My colleagues at Law Fair have written an article on this a couple of days ago, Susan Hennessy and Quintajuracic wrote an article on what they call the necessity of Congress opening up an impeachment inquiry. Again, not to prejudge whether they actually adopt articles of impeachment and then vote on them, but simply because there is enough material here that it is the constitutional duty and the sole constitutional duty of the House of Representatives

as opposed to any other body to consider impeachment. No one else can do that but the House. Therefore, with the material that is now out in public view, it would be irresponsible of them, not only for this case, but also as a precedent for future cases not to consider impeachment. I subscribe to that point of view. but also as a precedent for future cases, not to consider impeachment. I subscribe to that point of view. I think there's a lot of value there.

Of course, it crashes up against the perception of the political wins, which is the political wins are blowing in favor of an impeachment. Right now, if there were an impeachment vote in the house, I'm convinced it would pass. The Democrats have the majority. There are even some Republicans who are probably very uncomfortable with what they see

in the president's activity, having nothing to do with any of the other cases that are still pending and anything else the president does outside of what is characterized in the redacted Mueller report. But because the Senate looks unlikely to convict right now, people perceive the political winds as saying, whoa, you don't want to impeach and not remove because that would give the president a victory and he'd ever rallying cry for 2020. Well, President Ardee has rallying cries for 2020. I don't anticipate that many people would be moved by a rigorous, careful, thoughtful process that investigated these issues and then decided if the president needed to be impeached and removed. I think if it's done correctly, I think the American people would show respect

for that. We have to remember that after the Clinton impeachment, which was done much less carefully, and did not have the same high level of raw material that is right now out there against this president, the myth out there, and this has been reinforced by the media over time, is that the Republicans were shalacked afterwards, that the Republicans were punished severely because they pursued an impeachment they should not have pursued in the first place.

And while it's true that some of the house impeachment managers, the people who took it to the Senate, when they argued for the impeachment to result in removal. Some of them did lose their seats in subsequent elections. That's counterbalanced by someone like Lindsey Graham, who was helping to lead the effort and ended up becoming senator because of it. But in subsequent elections, such as 2000, the Republicans, I think, lost one or two seats out of 220 some in that election. The presidency went to a Republican. In the next few elections, Republicans would gain those seats back and re-win the presidency. That does not sound

like the public punishing all Republicans because of the failed impeachment effort or the impeachment effort that resulted in a failed conviction. I just don't buy it. So to me, there's an argument to be made that political obstacle as people see it to pursuing impeachment hearings in the first place, much less voting on the impeachment articles, is based on a false analogy, which in turn is based on some false information about what actually happened. Right. And the backlash against Republicans after Clinton or the lack thereof is the stick part of it, the carrot part of it. We have a little bit of a window into that because when bar came out on March 24th and said,

no collusion, no obstruction, president's awesome. He, the president Trump on the positive side gained zero. I thought he was going to get a huge bump in his approval rating. He gained zero. Yeah. For me, that points out something interesting. And I have not done the full political analysis on this, but look at the numbers. The president, no other president has had these consistently low approval numbers, that is job performance approval numbers for this long in his presidency.

It hasn't happened. Most presidents have had at least some time where they've been up in what, 50s, 60s, et cetera. Trump has never done that. I don't think he's ever exceeded 50. It was very briefly, but he's generally been in the, what, 36, 37 to mid-40s range for the vast majority of his presidency. But even with scandal after scandal,

even with information coming out about obstruction and collusion and conspiracies and all of this, he has never sunk down dramatically. So I heard someone characterize it, and I regret that I can't remember who, but they simply called it the fact that this president has a very high bottom, that is, he's not going to drop probably down to where Nixon eventually did and other presidents have

But he also has a very low ceiling that is he's he's not gonna move up much either impeachment probably Won't move that too much if everything we've seen in the last couple of years Hasn't moved it that much yeah, and it sounds like we're on the same page, David, because I think regardless of whether or not opening an impeachment inquiry will get you the grand jury materials or if Nadler can get them without doing it,

I think that the main point is, is that if we do not take action, that we're basically telling all future presidents and our enemies that you can steal our elections and or at least attempt to and we aren't going to take action. That is one of the many dangers and I like the fact that I can't even count them now, but I like the fact that in the last few days we've seen many people coming out making that point and not in a political sense, but making the point of in terms of defending the country against foreign threats number one

and in terms of the precedent it sets for future behavior of the president number two, that impeachment hearings make sense. You can put the political overlay on it all you want, but those are bigger issues and those need to be put out there. Now, we also need to recognize some people made a very similar argument back in the Clinton administration saying the President committed perjury, the President tried to obstruct justice. These were things that happened and we can't allow that to happen. Okay. I respect that point of view. The fact that he did it about a personal affair and the fact that that may not have been what

the founders meant by high crimes and misdemeanors, those are very legitimate counterarguments, but they do not dismiss the original argument that the president did things that he probably would have been at least investigated for, probably indicted, maybe convicted for if he were a private citizen. Those are true facts on the ground. The true irony here in the hypocrisy is some of the people who argued that most convincingly back in the 1990s. Are the ones who are not saying a word today when it's the exact same principles at stake that's what's worrisome for the democracy when partisanship. Trump's what's best for the country in terms of those core principles of separation of powers agreed all right well thanks so. You are the CEO of Lawfare, former CIA daily briefer of Robert Mueller and author of How to Get rid of a President. David Priest, thanks

for joining us today. Always a pleasure. Thank you. All right, guys, that's our show this week. We just released a free episode of the Daily Beans Pilots. You guys can check that out. It's on your feed, if you like. Thanks again to everyone who voted for us to win the webby. We're excited to go to New York and give our five word speech. Help out with that. That hello at mullershearout.com. If you have any ideas for that, if we should be on Pogo's Dix or what we should be wearing.

Or if you have any corrections, obviously, from this episode, same email, helloatmullershearout.com. Or you can use the contact form on our website at mullershearout.com as well. Any final thoughts, guys? Yes. If you haven't left us an iTunes review, could you pretty please if you feel so compelled to do so, go do that. That would be amazing.

Oh yeah, we just got one star. We have so many bad ones. Yeah, the top ring now. We got Muller Report dropped. A lot of non-muller shirt listeners came through to check us out and they were like, this is bullshit. Yeah, they called us cackling hens. hens yeah yeah some of them just want me and Jordan to like just disappear yeah I'll give you hens yeah chicken nice but no we'll be super awesome because our overall rating dropped from a 5 to a 4.5 so if you could get that shit out can I direct those one star weiner holes that come in. Uh, yeah. So let's see, I know this week's new, this week's news was a little grim, uh,

but we have a lot to look forward to in 2020. It's absolutely essential. It's fucking essential that we vote in numbers too big to manipulate and that we all get behind the dem candidate. No matter how much you hate them, I promise they're not worse than Trump. Oh, yeah. Patrons look for the first episode of our 10 probably a 10 part series on the Mueller report. Tomorrow, probably.

If you're a patron, if you're not, you can become one for $3 at patreon.com slash muller she wrote. Speaking of, some patrons are saying we're not popping up in their player feed anymore. And it seems like the best way to handle that, the fix is to reinstall your player app and drop your premium RSS feed from the original email you got into the player again. Correct. I have a theory too as to why this is happening. Patrons making a lot of changes in their interface on the payment aspect of it and also possibly with these passwords and stuff. So yeah just go ahead and try to reset everything and if that isn't work, send us an email but

it seems to be working for a lot of people. Yeah people are just uninstalling reinstalling the apps dropping their original RSS, premium RSS feed into their player. I think it's probably some sort of like you said, like a software update from Patreon, or something like that. For sure, yeah. Everybody off their feed and you just have to read.

They send some emails, yeah, to creators. We do it. That does seem to fix the problem, but yes, we are putting out a full review of the Muller Report on this feed to the public once we record them all, but patrons, you get them ad free and early. So look for the first one probably tomorrow.

And so that's it, unless you guys have anything else you want to say? No, just thanks again for the webby being amazing fans. I love the tweets, I live form, wake up and just, yeah, it makes my day, so thank you guys. Yeah, thank you for being with us. I'm listening. Yeah, pod Kat's here, he's convo-lessing.

He's a little high still, he's on pain meds. Right, but he's also grateful. He's convo lessing. He's a little high still. He's been on he's on pain meds. Right, but he's also grateful. He's wearing his cats pajamas and he jumped up today hungry a f and he ate a whole can of food. He's using his litter box. He's pretty he's pretty much back to normal except for his super high. Yeah, and he's got to entertain normal to me. He's got

Molly eyes for sure. But and he's got a massive incision in the has to be a little careful But other than that, thanks so much to you guys for donating to his go-fun me He belongs to all of us now. He's a cat cat of the people and we all belong to him. Yes, which is how cats operate So it's very true Anyway guys, please take care of one another love each other other, and take care of yourself. I've been AG. I've been Jolissa Johnson. I've been Jordan Coburn.

And this is Mollershi Road. Mollershi Road is produced and engineered by AG with editing and logo designed by Jolissa Johnson. Our marketing consultant and social media manager is Sarah Least Diner and our subscriber and communications director is Jordan Coburn. Fact checking in research by AG and research assistance by Jolissa Johnson and Jordan Coburn. Our merchandising managers are Sarah Least Diner and Sarah Hershberger Valencia. Our web design and branding are by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios and our website is mullersherote.com.

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