Jack - "This Job Sucks"

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

The Department of Justice is buckling under the weight of immigration cases causing a DOJ lawyer in Minneapolis to ask a judge to hold her in contempt just so she can get some sleep.Former January 6th prosecutors have drafted a memo advising Congress on how to investigate DHS use of force and the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.The Trump Administration plans to ramp up its retribution against political foes as the Weaponization Czar Ed Martin is removed for leaking grand jury material.Tusli Gabbard joins FBI agents on a call with Trump after the FBI seized voting machines and ballots from a Georgia Election Office, and we learn that Gabbard seized voting machines in Puerto Rico last spring while investigating Nicolas Maduro for foreign election interference.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod? Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump Questions for the pod?https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ We would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MSW Media. The Department of Justice is buckling under the weight of immigration cases, causing a DOJ lawyer in Minneapolis to ask a judge to hold her in contempt just so she could get some sleep. Former January 6th prosecutors have drafted a memo advising Congress on how to investigate the Department of Homeland Security's use of force and the murders of Alex Pretty and Renee Good. The Trump administration plans to ramp up its retribution against political foes. As the weaponizations are, Ed Martin is removed for leaking grand jury material. And Tulsi Gabbert joins FBI agents on a call with Donald Trump after the FBI seized

voting machines in ballots from a Georgia election office. And we learn that Gabbard seized voting machines in Puerto Rico last spring while investigating Nicholas Maduro for foreign election interference. This is unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 55 of Unjustified. I wish this was episode 172 of Jack, but it's episode 55 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, February 8th, 2026. I'm Alison. And I'm Andy McCabe. Allison, we have so much Justice Department news to get to today. It's hard to know where to start. But something absolutely insane happened this week during a habeas petition hearing in Minneapolis. So last week we talked about Judge Schlitz, threatening contempt for ICE Chief Todd Lyons for failing to follow a court order to release a man from detention. Okay, so after ICE released him, Judge Schlitz noted that by his count, ICE had ignored over 90. Okay, not nine, not 19, but 90, 90 court orders across 74 cases, pointing out the state of emergency in the courts caused by Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. Minneapolis. Yeah, and he went on to say, that's not even a full count. That's just what a bunch of

incredibly busy judges could come up with off the top of their heads. And as if to illustrate the overwhelming number of cases, Department of Justice lawyers are dealing with, Fox 9 in Minneapolis reported a federal judge in Minnesota, Judge Jerry Blackwell, demanded to know why immigration and customs enforcement is not complying with court orders and failing to immediately release immigrants who are being wrongfully detained as part of Operation Metro Surge. A government attorney responded that the federal government system sucks. Can't argue with that one. Her name is Julie Lee.

She's an attorney working on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office, and that's what she admitted in court Tuesday, that the government is overwhelmed by the number of legal challenges coming out of Operation Metro Surge. Quote, I am here to make sure the agency understands how important it is to comply with court orders, said Lee, who became visibly emotional during the court hearing. While Lee said that procedures are being implemented to ensure ICE complies with court orders moving forward,

she admitted it has been like pulling teeth and has required nonstop work in an already depleted office. Quote, I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep, she said. The system sucks. This job sucks. I'm trying with every breath to get you what I need. The judge then said, some of this is of your own making because of noncompliance with orders. Blackwell further expressed a frustration that people with no criminal records are being wrongfully detained, even after judges have ordered their immediate release. He said there are too many detainees and too many cases in the ongoing immigration operation that is clearly outpacing logistics.

Yeah, and then Lee volunteered to help the U.S. Attorney's Office last month. as habeas petitions started to flood into federal court. She previously worked as an attorney for ICE in immigration court. The ICE has its own court policies and procedures and was not prepared to argue cases in federal court. And that's according to Lee. Quote, we have no guidance or direction on what we need to do, she said. According to Ryan Riley at NBC,

Lee was assigned 88 federal cases in less than a month per a court docket search. Sixteen of those cases had action on their dockets the day she broke down in court. And according to Scott McFarlane at CBS, another eight prosecutors are leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota. And that's in addition to the six that left after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Predey. Yeah, and four of these prosecutors are ones who spearheaded the $250 million Minnesota fraud case. They will not be in court at the next trial because they've all left the U.S. attorney's office. in the District of Minnesota in recent days, along with more than a dozen others in a growing

wave of resignations. The departures have left the already diminished office with as few as, get this, Andy, 17 AUSA's assistant U.S. attorneys. And that's according to sources inside the office. That's down from 70 during the Biden administration. Wow. Quote, the mass exodus we're seeing in Minnesota is alarming, said Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection, a Washington, D.C. based organization of former Justice Department employees. She said, we should all pay attention to why some of the state's top federal prosecutors chose to leave. It had nothing to do with political disagreement. Rather, this administration asked them to violate their legal and ethical responsibilities, and they believe the exit was their only option, Young said.

The loss of institutional knowledge and expertise will destabilize the U.S. Attorney's Office, leaving Minnesota safety and rights less protected. Yeah, and another person who spoke on the condition of anonymity I read from, I think it was Scott McFarland who reported on this, said that crimes are slipping through the cracks because in Minnesota, because the U.S. Attorney's Office is flooded with habeas petitions of people who need to be released. They're not following court orders over at ICE. And that all sort of led to Lee, like breaking down and, like, breaking down and

front of the judge and saying, look, just it sucks. The system sucks. Hold me in contempt so I can get some sleep. And I mean, have you ever seen anything? I mean, obviously not, right? No. No, of course not. I mean, but this is just insane. She, of course, has already been fired. They threw her out of the office, like, I guess canceled her TDI and sent her back to her original job in D.C. And when she got there, they fired her officially. I wanted to also shed a little bit of light on One of the comments she made, I think this is an important distinction. So, like, ICE litigators, they work in immigration courts, which are not the normal federal courts, right? You're not standing in front of a federal court judge who was nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

You are in front of an administrative judge. It's just an employee, essentially, of the Justice Department. So habeas petitions have to be filed in federal courts. So if you've been illegally detained in the immigration system, You don't file a habeas petition in the immigration system. You go and actually file a lawsuit essentially in federal court. And the purpose of that suit is to get you in front of a judge to have a judge adjudicate whether your detention is lawful.

So that's why there's kind of, now you got Julie Lee. She's just one example, but she's been thrown into federal court. She doesn't even normally work there. That's what she's talking about when she says we don't have the guidance. We don't know what we're doing here. Might also shed some light on why they're violating. so many court orders. Like the whole thing just like doesn't connect because they've never,

ever done this on this scale before. Yeah. It's, um, you know, she, she had a lot to say about it as well because she is Vietnamese. And she's like, look, look at me. I'm not white. And so, you know, this is obviously hitting me in different ways. Then, uh, then it would hit somebody else. I hadn't heard that she had been fired once she was retired.

turn to immigration court. So again, add that to the six the week before, the eight this week, the four people from the fraud case, dozens of people down to 17 from 70. And then you move her out back to immigration court. And, you know, Trump has fired tons of immigration judges as well as in that system under the executive branch. Now, she wasn't a judge, but they're also hanging on by a thread. And so when you have habeas petitions that deal with immigration, those two sides just aren't talking to each other. And the Department of Justice is woefully unprepared

and just doesn't have the infrastructure to deal with it. And that led to her saying, just, my cousin Vinnie, hold me in contempt so that I can get some sleep tonight. Yeah. And just to be clear, like, I've never had a situation like this, fortunately. As an example, in 2015, we had a really massive crime wave happening in different cities, but particularly in Chicago. And like the way that you address that on a temporary level just to knock the crime rate down to get out in front of what's happening is by surging U.S. attorneys into that city.

Because what you need to do in that moment is like you need to fully prosecute more like gun cases. So you surge a bunch of attorneys in there and it literally can have like a very. a perceptible, quantifiable impact on lowering the crime rate. So now think about being in Minnesota. You just lost what? I can't do that math, but 80% of that office or something. I mean, like, you're going to see it in an elevated crime rate. It's almost, it's almost unavoidable.

Yeah, and I have to wonder if it's by design. Yeah, maybe. Might be. You get an elevated crime rate in Minneapolis, and all of a sudden the Trump administration, just crime is out of control. We've got to send the national cart. So, you know, this is not a very tough on crime president.

But, you know, you couldn't say that about somebody who pardons 1,500 violent criminals, at least 150 of which assaulted police officers on Gene U.S. Many of which are recidivists. So we'll keep our eye on it. And also, you know, you got to think that with the 700 or so police force locally there in Minneapolis. They're also tied up on a lot of this immigration stuff. And are, so I imagine the local crime off DA and a state attorney general also kind of stretched pretty thin at this point. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Just another impact. Yeah, it's a ripple effect, right? Everything that happens

impacts everything else. All right. We have some more news regarding the murders of Alex Prattie and Renegad, but we have to take a quick break. So, everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. Like I said, before the break, we have more news regarding the investigations into the murders of Alex Pretty and Renee Good. This is from Scott McFarland at CBS, a half dozen former U.S. Capitol insurrection prosecutors. Okay, these are DOJ guys who helped prosecute to January 6th case, men and women, who helped lead the largest criminal prosecution in American history for all intents and purposes. They have actually crafted a strategy memo to prompt Congress to investigate potential misconduct by federal immigration agents.

Now, it's a four-page memo. It was obtained by CBS last Sunday, and it details a series of investigative recommendations for congressional committees to probe allegations of excessive force and other violations by ICE and Customs and Border Protection in Minneapolis. The group of prosecutors recommends congressional investigators use some of the same tools and techniques that they employed, that the Justice Department employed between 2021 and 2025 when they investigated the Capitol siege, during which more than 140 police officers were injured and more than 1,500 defendants were arrested. The recommendations were shared with ranking members of the House Homeland Security Committee,

the House Judiciary Committee, and the Oversight Committee in the wake of the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretty in Minneapolis. The Justice Department declined to open investigation of the agent who shot and killed Good while they were criticized for equivocating about an investigation into Preddy's killing. Former prosecutors, each of whom departed the Justice Department in 2025 after President Trump's inauguration, recommended that Congress hire a group of former FBI and Homeland Security agents who are familiar with the use of force policies. So we have like shadow agents, shadow DOJ people, shadow FBI people, shadow DHS people coming together. to help Congress investigate this use of force stuff.

Yeah, well, maybe to help one half of Congress investigate. Excuse me, yes, a little less than half. The prosecutor's memo comes amid concerns that the Trump administration is not vigorously pursuing leads in the Minneapolis killings and other related allegations of misconduct involving federal immigration enforcement personnel. Quote, the Department of Justice has no apparent interest in investigating CBP and ICE crimes,

so it will fall to Congress. to do a comprehensive national investigation into these agencies' misconduct. That's Brendan Ballou, well-known. We talked about him a lot during the January 6th investigations. It's one of the six former prosecutors who issued the memo. Quote, by preserving evidence now, Congress can tee up prosecutions in the future, which in turn will discourage CBP and ICE misconduct in the present, meaning when we flip the house, ladies and gentlemen.

So that's interesting. I think this is really fascinating that groups of former federal employees in FBI, Department of Homeland Security, I know a group of Department of Homeland Security lawyers came out and wrote an op-ed for the New York Times saying, no, you need a judicial warrant

to go into people's homes. But they're getting together and former, you know, prosecutors of the DOJ are getting together and saying, we should, we don't work there anymore, but that doesn't mean we can't. mean we can't advise Congress on how to conduct these investigations since we know Department of Justice won't do it. Yeah. No, I think it's a really interesting idea. I applaud the fact that they're

getting creative about like what can we actually do in this moment. And yeah, there is, you know, if the midterms go their way, there's an opportunity to get something done investigatively, you know, while any potential crimes are still well within their statute of limitations. The problem is then getting the current Department of Justice to do something about it. You know, you can do the investigation. You can kind of build a case, but like actually picking up a case and bringing it into court, obviously not going to happen until the entire thing gets turned over potentially in 2028 and you get a new DOJ at the beginning of 29.

So it's a lot of work, but certainly it's an interesting idea. That might help people who are trying to decide. who to vote for in 2028. Like if they do a, we flip the house, we do a full investigation. We've got a lot of really damning evidence and we want to make a referral. You say, hey, vote for a Democrat so we can make this referral, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how they, what, how Congress responds, what they do. But I think this is a great idea. Yeah, totally. Look, we saw with the Jan 6 committee, we saw the effect that that sort of a thorough investigation can have on federal prosecutors sometimes. So you never know. Yeah. And in a related story, we have an update on the judge that ordered the federal government to preserve evidence in the killing of Alex Preti.

So this is from Politico. Federal agents in Minnesota appear to have mishandled the firearm they grabbed from Alex Preti's waistband during last month's fatal struggle, a judge declared on Monday. But U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrude, am I pronouncing that correctly, A.G? I haven't heard his name pronounced, so yes. All right. We'll go with Tostrude. Found that the apparent error, as well as inflammatory statements by the White House and Trump administration officials, was not enough to justify his continued supervision of the handling of evidence from the scene of Preddy's death in Minneapolis on January 24th. Boo. Boo. In an 18-page ruling.

Boo the judge. Bo the judge. Toastrude, in his 18-page ruling, said that he would lift his own restraining order that he granted last week, after state and local officials raised alarm, that the Department of Homeland Security personnel mail failed to safeguard crucial evidence from the crime scene. Quote, though the record is not one-sided, the greater weight of the evidence shows that the defendants, that's the government, is not likely to destroy or improperly alter evidence related to Mr. Pretti's shoot. during the life of this case, and other relevant considerations do not on balance favor a continuing preservation order. So he's a Trump appointed judge. He issued a temporary restraint where we talked about it last week. Like, hey, if you're going to try to get evidence, like get a warrant to get evidence from the federal government preservation order is first. So he's now lifting this temporary restraining order saying it's the record's not one-sided,

but he's actually giving the presumption of, regularity to the federal government that they won't destroy or screw with evidence. I think this is interesting. Yeah. So while the judge agreed to allow federal officials to continue their investigation without restriction from the court, he coupled that conclusion with a sharp criticism of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem over their public comments painting Pretty as someone with the intention of killing federal law enforcement

agents. Quote, these statements are troubling, Toastrood wrote. They reflect not a genuine interest in learning the truth, but snap judgments informed by speculation and motivated by political partisanship. Well, then keep the thing in place. Right? I mean, these statements are troubling. They're worse than troubling, Judge. I mean, I applaud your sense of decorum, but geez, Louise, these statements are bat, shite crazy. I mean. I know. Totally unfair. Toastred said some evidence was probably damage or lost in the initial hours of the investigation

when state officials were initially denied access to the shooting scene by the feds, who later retreated, leaving the area unsecured. But he attributed any compromises to the volatile crowd that forced agents from the scene. I disagree with that characterization of what happened. He said that that's what it was, rather than failures by federal agents or breaches of investigative protocol. Oh, so they're just incompetent, scared idiots, not, you know, criminally minded people who want to destroy evidence. Okay, all right, great. He said, the record here shows the loss or spolation more likely resulted from exigent circumstances,

not from the defendant's substandard evidence gathering or preservation activities. So I disagree with him. This will be appealed, I'm sure. I don't know if you can appeal. I guess it's if you're, if he's denying a preliminary injunction, I guess that could be appealed. We'll see. We'll keep an eye on it for you though.

Yeah, I don't know, man. This is the kind of orders that district court judges have enormous kind of say, right? It's not the kind of thing that an appellate court would typically go back in and re-judge this judge's view of the facts. So there's that. The other thing is it feels a little bit. it like the failure of, I think it was Roecona and Thomas Massey, who filed this in Southern district? Yeah, the judge appoint a special master.

Right. And the judge basically said, nice try, but I don't really have any standing to get involved in this thing, right? Because the case was not in front of him. He didn't have something to, essentially something to litigate. That's kind of what this has always felt like to me. Yeah, but they're basically trying to. and they have standing.

He didn't dismiss it on those things. He just feels that we should trust the government here. I get that. But there's a similarity in that. Like what the plaintiffs were trying to do here is basically get this judge to perform oversight of the DOJ. And courts are reluctant to do that, right? There's Congress supposed to be doing that. There's other means of doing that, none of which work at the moment.

But so you see the judiciary kind of like digging in their heels a little bit like saying, yeah, this looks a little strange, but no, we're not going in. Well, we'll keep an eye on it and see, see what happens. I mean, we still don't have any understanding that the feds are handing over any evidence to, you know, the local prosecutors in Minneapolis for either of these cases. and I haven't heard anything since Todd Blanche said that the Civil Rights Division would open an investigation into Preti's murder, but we still don't have a lot of details on that. But once we get them, we'll let you know. All right, we have some interesting stuff going on with our Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. And we're going to speak about that after this quick break. Stick around.

We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, next up, we told you last week that Tulsi Gabbard was present, during an FBI raid of Fulton County, Georgia election offices, and now we have more information on that. So from the Times, we have, by any measure, the FBI's search of an election center in Fulton County, Georgia last week, was extraordinary.

Agents seized truckloads of 2020 ballots, as President Trump harnessed the levers of government to not only buttress his false claims of widespread voter fraud, but also to try to build a criminal case, against those he believe wronged him. Behind closed doors, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, met with some of the same FBI agents, members of the Bureau's field office in Atlanta, which is conducting the election inquiry, three people with knowledge of the meeting said.

They could not say why, Miss Gabbard, who also appeared on-site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows, given that her role overseeing the nation's intelligence agencies does not include, include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work. Oh, weird. So what occurred during that meeting was even further outside the bounds of normal law enforcement procedure. Ms. Gabbard used her cell phone to call Donald Trump, who didn't pick up initially but called her right back shortly after. And the president addressed to the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions, as well as praising and thanking them for their

work on the inquiry. That's bonkers. I mean, yes. Andy, do you have, I mean, how many, who among us? How many times have you done a search and the president gives you a call and says, great job on that search. Did you find anything? How did it go with the DNI there with you? I mean, it happens all the time, right? Good job, kiddo. No, that didn't happen really ever. In fact, There was a couple of insanely weird, unprecedented times when the then president, same guy, reached out and called the director of the FBI. We were like, oh my God, he called the director. Like, that was crazy to us. We thought like, this is nuts, man.

He's not supposed to talk to us about investigations and stuff. And yet he did. So like this is like reaching, I don't know, down past the director, past every leader in the entire organization. down to the men and women who are on the ground doing the work. Like, if you wanted to create a better scenario for, like, unlawful command interference sort of thing, like politically biasing the work of agents who are supposed to be unbiased in apolitical in the course of an investigation, like, this was it. This is the perfect example of that.

And I suspect we'll hear that later in some kind of litigation that comes out of this. Yeah, although, honestly, I don't think this investigation. is intended to get a conviction. I think it's just intended to, you know, give him a pretext for seizing voting machines. Yeah. But I mean, if Jack Smith goes back to Congress and they hammer him again on, did he talk to Joe Biden? Did Joe Biden coordinate this? If I'm Jack Smith, my answer would be like, oh, like when President Trump called the FBI agents after seizing ballots in Georgia, like that?

No, no, I never had that kind of a phone call. He never called us. No one called us. We were not called. And they did not send the DNI over to accompany us on any of our jobs or work. Yeah, no. Joe Biden didn't send Avril Haynes down to Mar-a-Lago with us. And we didn't talk to him on the phone that day.

Did you imagine how insane people would have got? I mean, we would have seen Republican heads exploding all over. Capitol Hill. They would have a real reason to impeach him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Did Joe Biden anyway? Just incredible. And here, let's go over this timeline about why Tulsi was there and the ever-moving goalposts from this administration. This is from your colleagues at CNN. When CNN asked Trump last Thursday why Gabbard was there in Georgia, Trump suggested he was well apprised of the situation and that his spy chief was playing a very key role. But later that day, Deputy Attorney General

Todd Blanche sought to put more distance between Gabbard and the investigation. When asked about the situation at a press conference, and the press conference was about the Epstein files, by the way, but when asked about this situation, Blanche appeared somewhat testy about the subject. She happened to be present in Atlanta, he said, initially making it sound like a coincidence. She was down there for a hawks game and, you know, it's just close.

She went down to Georgia. She was looking for a soul to steal. And she was just. happened to be there at this FBI right. Oh my God. She happened to be present in Atlanta. I mean, John Wilkes Booth happened to go to the theater that night.

I know, I know. He was just here. Okay, but soon after Blanche's Fox interview, and by the way, is there ever a moment when Blanche doesn't look testy? I feel like that was not necessary in the article. But, okay. But soon after Blanche's Fox interview, Gabbard on Monday night posted a letter to congressional Democrats that indicated that she was quite involved in the matter.

Gabbard in her letter said that her, quote, presence was requested by the president of the United States. Dude. Oh, my God, she ratted me out. Okay, White House Press Secretary, I can't even get through this. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt later said that Trump had, quote, tapped Gabbard to, quote, oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections and said she is, quote, working directly alongside the FBI director. Oh, even better. Okay. Okay.

Can we talk about gang, get your story straight hour? Oh, it gets worse. It gets worse, Andy. So despite Gabbard saying Trump had requested her presence. suggesting he was playing a role in that investigation, the president at an interview Wednesday spun a different tale. Of course you did. I'm not involved in it.

That's what Trump told NBC. But they're inspecting and checking the ballots. But the next morning, that was Wednesday. Thursday at the National Prayer breakfast, Trump said Gabbard's presence was owed to a whole new person. Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi said. That's story number four. That's explanation four. If you haven't had one you like yet, we're prepared to give you another one.

Yes, he said, quote, Gabbard took a lot of heat because she went at Pam's insistence, Pam. She went in, she looked at votes that want to be checked out from Georgia. The media said, why is she doing it? Right, Pam? Right, Pam? And he looked over at Pam, because Pam wanted her to do it. And you know why? Because Pam is smart.

So now it's Bondi. All right? Oh, my God. And how many votes want to be checked out? Do votes have a want? I mean, I don't understand. I don't know, but it's probably close to 11,780. She went in and she looked at the votes.

She changed a few. 11,000 to be clear. Oh, my God. Gabbard's office clarified later Thursday that both Trump and Bondi were involved in sending Gabbard. It seems like, Gabbard's office. Gabbard is like, nope, Trump made me do it. Like, she seems like she's. I don't know if she's long for her job.

She keeps trying to pull Trump into this. What have we learned here, kids? Do not be criming with Tulsi Gabbard because she is going to put you in the grease like immediamente. Dear. Her office went on to say, quote, there's no contradiction. Gabbard's spokeswoman Olivia Coleman told CNN, quote, as the president said, he asked for Director Gabbard to be there.

Attorney General Bondi also asked for her to be there. Two things can be true at the same time. Not exactly the way this is played out, but okay. But Trump also said he had nothing to do with it, and he didn't know what anyone was talking about the day before. All things can be true at the same time, even though they're totally contradictory. Just go with it.

Yikes. And they actually posted that statement on Twitter as well, because that's the official communications. But then that post on Twitter disappeared. The one that says there's no controversy. prediction. And so did Olivia Coleman. No, I made that out. That's a joke. But the post disappeared from Twitter and Gabbard's office wouldn't say why. And then when Caroline Levitt was asked at a White House briefing the same day, whether Trump had asked for Gabbard to be there, she avoided the

question, citing Trump's NBC interview. And then on Friday, Bondi likewise declined to confirm the Gabbard claim about Bondi's role, saying only she was there, we're inseparable, that's all I can say. Hold on a second. Does that mean Bondi was there too? Because if you're inseparable, you have to be in the same place at the same time.

It's like, remember when Jim Jordan was asked if he talked to the president on January 6th? Yes. And he was like, well, I don't know. I talk to the president all the time. Don't you talk to the president all the time? I'm in charge of a lot of stuff. I talk to the president all the time.

Talk to him every day. I don't know if I talk to him on the 6th. maybe I talked to him on six. I don't know if I talked to him. Why do you keep asking me if I talked to him? Like this is what it is like trying to nail this down. And this is six different stories that we get according to this fact check by your colleagues over at CNN. It just keeps changing.

And that right in and of itself, Andy, isn't, can't that kind of thing be used in evidence as evidence that they're kind of like consciousness of guilt? Like in my case, when I talk about my wrongful termination case, the fact that they kept changing the reason as something that I can introduce is evidence. And so that seems like that would be the case here. But again, Trump doesn't care if this gets to conviction or even trial. Yeah, it's not going to be evidence of anything. It's evidence of incompetence. And honestly, in these dark days, the strong evidence of incompetence is really one of the most hopeful things I've come across. time because you feel like they're trying they're planning on doing so many things that are illegal

unconstitutional abusive but their odds of success are low because they are so wildly incompetent so i'm i'm just going to keep hope alive with that um yeah of course we also learned from roiders that gabbard was seized voting machines in porto rico last spring as a part of an investigation into whether Venezuela and Maduro had interfered in the 2020 elections. So here we are again. Who was it last week that was saying, I wonder if they're going to make

Maduro confess to some sort of weird collection interference. And all of a sudden, this week we get this story from Reuters that she sees voting machines and tabulators in Puerto Rico, who by the way can't vote for president, and was

actively investigating whether Maduro had interfered in the 2020 foreign interference. And that's, you know, I said last week when we first learned about this, that's why she's there in Georgia. She's trying to falsify, fabricate some sort of foreign election interference. Trump's been trying to do it since before January 6th so that he could justify the Pentagon going in and getting voting machines. Yeah, sending thousands of agents down there to snatch that guy

in the middle of the night is looking, is starting to look so obvious. Right? At the time, we're like, what's the deal? Like, we are not being attacked by Venezuela, despite what you heard earlier last year. We are not being invaded by Venezuelans. And why are we doing this? Why are we provoking this kind of conflict?

Well, I mean, the oil, certainly a part of it. But you got to think that there's some sort of master plan around here that required the presence of Maduro in a U.S. jail. Okay. And I'm going to just add a couple of points here. I know I should grab my tinfoil hat for this, but what if this was orchestrated? You know, Maduro is the Putin of the Americas, and Putin wants to completely delegitimize our elections. He would love nothing more. And what if that pardon of the drug traffic, notorious drug trafficker, former president of Honduras,

was kind of like a signal to Maduro, hey, do this? and, you know, we got you. I feel like now he's in custody. Like, it's just everything seems like all roads to me, at least, you know, but I started my whole podcast and career with the Mueller investigation. But it seems to me that all roads lead to Putin, whether it's the Epstein files, whether it's this election stuff, trying to seize voting machines,

trying to destabilize Western civilization as we know it, massive election interference. But it's going to be, I'm very interested to see, what happens with Maduro in the coming weeks. Yeah, I mean, if you think of, like, I don't know the answer to that. But if you think about it, what could be a more effective way of destabilizing and interfering with U.S. elections than by motivating the U.S., the United States president, to do it himself? So, yeah, I don't know.

I, but, and whatever, let's leave the speculation there, but let's look at what we know. And what we do know is this administration has earned our skepticism. They lie about things all the time. They lie about things that we all see with our own eyes. They falsify photographs of people they've arrested and then, pushed them out as official Washington, you know, I'm sorry, White House statements. Like the president, according to the New York Times, enriched himself to the tune of $1.4 billion in his first year in office. So deception and corruption is so rampant that you can't help

but speculating about why they're doing the things that they're doing. They have earned this sort of speculation that they're capable of coming up with. any cockamamie corrupt false scheme. Yeah, agreed. And something else, by the way, involving Tulsi Gabbard, one quick last note here. There is now a whistleblower report

that was made last May. And it sat there. Tulsi Gabbard didn't send it to Congress for eight months. Okay. She's supposed to do it within 21 days. 21 days is the law. the law, but anyway.

Yeah, and this kind of reminded me of the Zelensky thing. And there's a lot of similarities with the Zelensky call, right? First of all, apparently, Gabbard is being accused of stashing this in a classified manner, using classification to keep eyes off of it and not disseminate it to the proper agency she's supposed to disseminate it to. And then this didn't get sent to Congress in a timely fashion. And with the Zelensky call, that was stashed in a code word classified system by a guy named Eisenberg. He's in charge of redacting the Epstein files, by the way.

And also the DNI at the time, Joseph Maguire, took almost a month, three weeks, a little over three weeks, between three and four weeks, to transmit it to Congress by law. and everybody was like, I can't believe he delayed it by, you know, a week. Like, it can't believe it took a month to get this to Congress. This sat there for eight months. And just like with the Zelensky call, they have redacted a bunch of it when it finally did get transmitted to Congress saying that executive privilege, which means it involves Donald Trump. Right.

And so we don't know what the underlying classification, classified information is. there was also a count that one of the intelligence agencies didn't make a criminal referral to department of justice as they were supposed to by law. And I think we're going to learn a lot more about this particular whistleblower complaint in the coming days and weeks. But I do want to draw everybody's attention that today, Sunday at noon on the Midas Touch Network, noon Pacific time, I will be sitting down for about a 45-minute interview with the attorney of this whistleblower from whistleblower. his name is Andrew Bukai. He was also the lawyer who represented the whistleblower in the Zelensky matter. So if you want to check that out, I'll also be sharing it over on Substack at Muller She Wrote.com,

but it'll be on the Midas Touch Network at noon today, Pacific Time. But that's fascinating. It's like everything old is new again, Andy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sure is. Sure is. Yeah.

All right. We've got one more quick story about our favorite whack-a-dagpa, Ed Martin. But we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back before we get to listener questions at the end of this segment. And by the way, if you have a question, there's a link in the show notes. You can click on that link and submit a question for Andy and me. And before we get to that, Andy, the whack-a-dagpa, the weaponization czar, associate deputy attorney general pardon attorney, is no more.

Ed Martin is just the paw. He's just the pardon attorney now. It's been relegated. He's been relegated to an office outside Maine Justice. It's just the plain old pardon attorney, just one job now. Wow. According to CNN, a Justice Department review found that Ed Martin improperly handled grand jury materials that were part of an investigation targeting Trump's political enemies

that that's at least two sources familiar who spoke to CNN said. It was at least part of the reason that Martin was pushed out of the department. Department of Justice headquarters. The review, which was overseen by Todd Blanche's office, focused on whether grand jury material gathered in the mortgage fraud inquiry into Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James had been illegally shared with people not authorized to possess that information. That's according to multiple people briefed on the matter. Ed Martin broke the rules. Andy, can you believe it? When confronted, Ed Martin said, What's grand jury material?

Like, I mean, are we surprised by this development? No, my gosh. The department found that Martin had shared the secret grand jury material in the shift case. One of the sources said. The person said Martin initially denied sharing the material with unauthorized people when asked by the department leaders, but then emails soon surfaced showing that Martin had, in fact, shared the grand jury material. That folks is called lack of candor.

That's what I was fired for, allegedly. Of course, I was actually fired for opening the case on Trump, but let's put that aside. Yeah, I'm wondering if you got fired for that or if he got fired for, like, we don't care if you share a grand jury material. Just tell us about it. Like, oh my God. A second person told CNN, a finding of misconduct gave the deputy attorney general, testy Todd, a reason to further ostracize Martin. Martin was removed as the head of the so-called weaponization working group on the first day of 2026, and he was relocated out of the department headquarters to a building across town that houses the pardon attorney, Martin's one remaining role. Oh, cute.

Isn't the real pardon attorney? Isn't the real pardon attorney Trump? I mean, you know, it's like that's where the pardons go to happen now. So I don't know that Martin will be too busy. Now, speaking of the weaponization working group, Trump's mad that it's not doing enough. The Justice Department, this is from CNN too. Justice Department officials are expected to meet tomorrow, Monday, to discuss how to re-energize the probes that are considered a top priority for Trump, reviewing the actions of officials who have investigated him, according to a source familiar with the plan. How do we bring crimes where there's no crimes? Let's have a meeting. almost immediately after Pam Bondi stepped into her role as Attorney General last year, she established the weaponization working group to weaponize the Department of Justice.

No, I'm kidding. But yes. To review law enforcement actions. That's not actually a joke. That's actually true. She did it to review law enforcement actions taken under the Biden administration for any examples of what she described as politicized justice. She said the group would focus on investigations into Trump conducted by Jack Smith and his staff, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and any improper

investigations into the January 6th attack on the Capitol. But a year later, the group has not produced anything publicly, nor have they gotten any indictments, I think, save John Bolton, I think, is the only indictment that's still out there. Which had nothing to do with anything. That case started under Biden. And, you know, they have succeeded in harassing Schiff and Letitia James, but it's of these made-up mortgage fraud charges. Or not, Schiff hasn't been charged yet, but that's allegedly what he's being investigated for.

Lisa Cook, Leticia James, Jim Comey, they're investigating Brennan, you and everybody surrounding that to a whole intelligence community assessment. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so in recent weeks, Trump has been pressuring Justice Department officials for results in these and other investigations,

recently admonishing a group of U.S. attorneys for failing to deliver on cases he once brought. The weaponization working group is now expected to start meeting daily with the goal of producing results in the next two months. Wow, these guys are

setting high goals there. That's according to a person familiar with the plan. Those are going to be quick meetings. You're going to go around the table. Like, get out anything, got anything? No, no, nothing. All right, see you tomorrow.

Grand jury? No, no, no. Any convictions yet? How do those convictions happen? I mean, unbelievable. Now, the group's efforts are unrelated to the DOJ's individual prosecutions of Trump's political adversaries, according to the group. In addition to now dismissed indictments against Jim Comey and Letitia James, federal prosecutors under Bondi have also brought an indictment against Trump's ex-national security advisor John Bolton and opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and ex-CII director John Brennan and others. Those apparently are not what they're focusing on. They're focusing more on the Jack Smith, January 6th.

This is a weaponization working group, right? They're mostly looking at the investigations of Trump. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. All right. Looks like we have time for maybe a question or two. Again, if you have a question, you can click on the link in the show notes.

Andy, what do we have today? So we have two. And you're going to notice a theme here. I pick questions because I'm trying to bring the joy back a little bit. It was a very somber show last week, in which I almost lost my mind. But I got such great, there's so many good questions this week. And I went with two that I thought were really, I don't know, they're a little bit different. You'll see.

Okay, so the first one comes to us from Kay, who is from Scotland. She says, I love you both so much. My question is, can the president earn any amount of money with no questions asked? Now, Trump made a show of handing over business to his sons during the first term, but he's now openly earning tons of money and promoting his products like cryptocurrency where any foreign government can be involved. Another important, okay, so that's her main question, but then she goes on to say, another important question is, when you appear on CNN via video link, Andy, are you wearing

pajama bottoms? So which one would you like me to answer first? Well, the second part first, and I can add to that when I did my, when I did my PhD oral, you know how you have to do that. Defense of your thesis or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I was on vacation in Hawaii at the time and I was wearing a blazer on top. It was via Zoom. But on bottom, I had my bikini bottoms and tutu and high heels.

So I did that on purpose because I just, I was. wanted to make a thing out of, you know, not, you can't see what's down here. So I, I had fun with that. How about you? So the answer to the pajama question is, hell yeah. And especially the early morning, the morning show hits. Yeah, there's some pajama action going on there. Like, not during the day, because I do like get my act together and put on real clothes at some point. But yeah, the pajamas have had a little bit of TV time, you know, you haven't seen it. I hope not. I don't typically get up. But yeah, it's business on top and party on the bottom with these video links from home. Also, here's another secret revealed, even in the studio hits, I'm always wearing jeans and sneakers. Because

early on, I went on Wolf's show once, and I don't know, you I'm sure know this Allison, but the furniture in these sets it's not like real furnisher made it a virgin company they just make it like somewhere in the building and it's like kind of slapped together a little bit rough yeah and so I was sitting I had this new suit on and I was sitting on set with Wolf and as I got up to leave this jagged piece of metal on the desk like ripped a massive hole in my pants I was so torched I was like I'm never wearing suit pants in here again so I always wear jeans and sneakers and it doesn't really matter because you don't really ever see that side. So yeah, a little bit of, that's the behind the look of the TV stuff. All right. So now to the real question, can the president earn any amount of money with no questions asked? Well, can he know he shouldn't? Because they have this thing called the emoluments clause. It basically says, the president cannot accept anything, any kind of benefit or payment from a foreign government.

in his first term, he was actually sued over that by, I think, the state of Maryland. There had one case, and I think there was another one. Both of them fell apart for one reason or another, and I'm not an expert on what happened in those cases. But having dodged that problem and been granted, like, immunity for everything in the whole universe by the Supreme Court, he's now just doing it. And nobody's calling him on it. There's no, I don't think there's any Amoluments Clause litigation.

going right now. And as I mentioned earlier, New York Times says, you know, he's ranked, he raked in a $1.4 billion last year. A lot of that off the crypto stuff. It did include the $400 million airplane that the government of the Emirates, United Arab Emirates has given to him in which he's going to take with him when he leaves. Cutter, I'm sorry. Yeah. He's going to take that with him when he leaves. Where he's got the bank account, slush fund holding all the Venezuelan oil money. Well, you know, that's just how it goes. Which Putin and Trump are probably going to give to Maduro after he admits that there was foreign election interference and he gets a pardon. I'm, I've, that's not confirmed.

He gets a share and four rides on the plane per annum. And this maga hat from my collection and some Trump stakes that I found. You may bring three friends, but that's all. Next to classified documents in my bathroom. That's right. No smoking and diet cooks only. All right. So that's that one.

You're ready for, do we have time for one more? We do have time for one more. All right, another quick one. First, this comes to us from Will. And Will says, first, thank you for the work and dedication. I've been on board since Mueller, she wrote.

This week was extra heavy with the news. Souls lost to ice. Journalists arrested. Voting offices and machines confiscated. It all feels like a wild episode of the show scandal. My question is, do you have a silly story to tell about your time at the FBI? It's not a great question asking someone to be funny, but I do need to disassociate a little by changing the vibe to a fun buddy cop movie.

So I thought about this as I was picking questions, and I gave it a solid like 15 or 20 seconds, and it came up with a very short one. So I'll give you this one as a young agent in New York, working on the Russian Northeast S squad. I go out one cold and cloudy afternoon with about, I don't know, maybe 10 people from my squad, maybe eight, eight, me plus eight, something like that. And we were going, we had an arrest warrant for a guy who lived in this big apartment building

in Brooklyn. Was it eight or 10? No wonder you got fired for lacking candor, Andy. My God, you can't even tell the right. It's just kidding. That's just lack of memory because I'm old. I don't know. It was like a handful.

So like, you know, a bunch of tough guys. We come wheeling up to the front of the building. It was just kind of like, you know, drive our cars up and leave them like on the sidewalk. We'll jump out of our cars. We've got raid jackets on and, you know, vests and hats and stuff. We didn't have like camouflage and everything like you see in Minnesota because it was, I guess, a simpler time. Yeah, we're just wearing like jeans and like, you know. But carrying some pretty big guns.

Everybody's got like a shoulder weapon and all this kind of stuff and sidearms. and we got like zip ties and everything you need for an arrest. We go running up to the front of this place. And the guy's like on the fourth floor or something. It's a walk up or the elevator's not working. I don't know. We end up having to run up the stairs. Now we're pretty gasped by the time we get to the hallway.

He's all the way down to the end of the hall. You have to run up. You try to be all the time. You're running up four flights of stairs. It reminds me of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, massive stage, right? And Axel Rose is running out to the middle of the stage where the microphone is. But like he forgets he's a million years old. So he's like,

No, no, no, no, no, the knees. Like totally winded by the time he gets out. I mean, you know, it's a high note. It's hard to hit them, though. So we get up to hall, we run it down the hall. The guy's his door is like not on the long walls of the hall. It's like at the end. It's just like his door.

And then, you know, like, so it's a real funnel. So we're all stacked in there. Like maybe four guys on one side, four on the other. And we're like looking at each other. We're so close. And there's just the door in between us. And we're like, all right, who's got the ram? You know, you get the big ram that you got to hit the door with to get it open.

And we're all looking at each other. We're like, you got it. No, I thought you had it. I told you to get it. It's in your car. I thought it was in my car. No, right. forgot it.

It's like, fuck. So now we've got to wait. We send somebody back to the car. So a guy's got to run down the hall, down the stairs, out across the lawn, get in the car, get the ram. Now he's got to run back in the front door, up the stairs with the ram. We were waiting and waiting. Fortunately, the guy didn't come out. So we come, he gets there.

Now we get the ram. All right. Now this is it. It's for real. Bam, bam. We're slamming and, you know, you got a knocking and out. So you pound on the door. And you're like, you know, whatever.

Joe Smith, come out with their hands up. Do you say FBI? or whatever. Of course. You have to identify. FBI, we have a warrant for your ass. Open the door. Open the door. And so the guy starts yelling at us from the other side of the door. This is not a good thing because you're thinking like, you know, maybe he's just like loading his machine gun and going to try to kill us all through the door. And we're like, get this door open now. Get this door. He's like, I can't. So finally, like, hit it with the ram. So the biggest guy on our team is guy named

Gary, he hits the door, doesn't even budge. Hits him. it again, no budge, hits it again. Now, he's sweating like a pig and he finally, the guy is like, stop, stop, don't break my door, don't break my door. And the door blows open, four or five long guns pointing in his face and we're like, put your hands up. And he puts his hair in the air and none of us has blocked the door. So it just swings back and closes it right in our face. Like, damn. we should have planned this better. We're like, oh my God. Then we're like, all right, open the door again.

He said, dude is like, wait, wait, I can't believe we haven't seen this. I can't believe we haven't seen this gag in like a, you know. Oh, my God. It was right out of just a moronic comedy. And he opens the door that time. We were like, okay, could you hold the door and doesn't close on us again? Right. After that, everything was very toned down.

and normal. But yeah, every now and then, you know, it's hijinks out there in the scary world. In the mean streets. Well, thank you for that story. And thank you everyone for sending your questions in. We have so many great questions. We might have another questions episode pretty soon where we just exclusively answer your questions. And you can submit one by clicking a link in the show notes. So thank you so much for listening to Unjustified. We really appreciate it. If you get a chance, check out my interview with the whistleblower attorney from whistleblower aide. His name is Andrew Bukai. That's on the Midas Touch Network Sunday, today at noon Pacific time. Well, well before the Super Bowl starts. So there'll be plenty of time

to catch that. And if you miss it, you can always follow up and watch it over at Mullersheiro.com. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here today, my friend? No, hold on. You know what? Watch the Super Bowl after you see the interview and have a great weekend. Give your brain a rest from all this insanity. We'll keep track of it and we'll bring it back to you next week. We sure will. Go Hawks. Or you know what? I just hope Bad Bunny wins the Super Bowl. I think I thought would be the best. Heck yeah. I'm totally rooting for that guy. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week on Unjustified. I'm Aljustified. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hawkey

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