Jack - Top Secret Confetti (feat. Pete Strzok)

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

This week: US intelligence officials accuse Zero Hedge of amplifying Kremlin propaganda; Manafort is writing a book and Andrew Weissman wants to make sure he doesn’t profit from it; plus the Fantasy Indictment League, and a conversation with Peter Strzok about the top secret documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Pete Strzok:https://twitter.com/petestrzokFollow AG on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill https://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://dailybeans.supercast.tech/Orhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansPromo Codes Subscribe to SpyTalk: https://link.chtbl.com/SpyTalk Subscribe to Frangela: The Final Word https://link.chtbl.com/frangela-the-final-word

When is the last time you didn't feel enough? If you relate to that question, check out the podcast authentically us. This is where we talk about what it means to be authentic and everything that you do in every space that you occupy. Join us on this journey. Hey all, this is Glenn Kirschner and you you're listening to Mueller 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 or two in that campaign, and I didn't have and I 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 herring. Like all members of the oldest professional capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller Sheerot. I'm the host formerly known as AG. And today we have a very special episode as news has just broken that the National Archives

has confirmed to Congress that there were classified national security documents among the 15 boxes of items stolen from the White House by Donald Trump. I will read that letter from the Archivist responding to congressional inquiry. Then I'll be joined by basically my co-host these days, the author of Compromised and former FBI chief of counter-SBNosh who led the investigation into Hillary's use of a private email server. The one and only Pete's truck. I'm looking forward to that discussion. First I have a couple of brief stories for you ahead of that interview, including a potential snag for Manafort's book deal by the Mueller investigation head of team Manafort himself, Andrew Weissman, who is back from his months of radio silence.

And we also have US intelligence officials accusing a right-wing new site of spreading Russian propaganda. Surely not no. Then, of course, we'll wrap up with the fantasy indictment, League. So let's get to those stories first with just the facts. First up from Andrew Weissman writing for Just Security news that Paul Manafort has written a book scheduled to be published this summer is not surprising. He had texted about doing so during the Mueller investigation. And as a result, the government anticipated as much when Manafort pled guilty before the

honorable Amy Berman Jackson. In September 2018, shortly before his second trial, the month before he had been found guilty of various felonies by a jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. He was convicted. A lot of people forget that. The agreement he entered into with a government allowed him to write anything he wanted, but provided he couldn't profit from it. And that's a provision that the government uses when defendants in high-profile matters might seek to profit from their crimes. Right?

Judge Jackson specifically noted the provision before accepting Manafort's guilty, but she pointed it out. She says, just remember, you keep in mind, here's the provision. Your client agrees not to accept renumeration or remuneration or compensation of any sort, directly or indirectly, from the dissemin compensation of any sort, directly or indirectly from the dissemination through any means, including but not limited to books, articles, speeches, blogs, podcasts, and interviews, however disseminated regarding the conduct of encompassed by the statement or the offense or the investigation by the office or prosecution of any criminal or

civil case against him. You can't make money from a book or a podcast or a blog or anything like it. Now, Weisman says there's a few legal issues. One is whether the pardon covers this. Does that void this provision of the plea agreement? Weisman says, no, surely not no. The plea agreement is a contract between the Department of Justice and Manafort, which can be specifically enforced. The pardon did not purport to address this provision.

It wasn't in the pardon. Any more than the forfeitures Manafort agreed to in this agreement, which the Department of Justice is still going after kind of. Second issue is whether Manafort has been paid directly or indirectly by his publisher or any other party, because without that, there's no violation of the plea agreement. If he's not doing it, if he's, because without that, there's no violation to the plea agreement. If he's not doing it, if he's not getting any money, there you go. Now, this issue is one that the Department of Justice can readily resolve through a phone

call to the publisher, according to Weisman. And that brings us to his third point, whether the department will take any action. It has discretion not to, in the same way it chose not to seek to enforce the full forfeiture provision set out in the plea agreement. But the issues that may have animated that forfeiture decision are different than those at issue here, whether defendant should be permitted to profit from crimes. The department can seek enforcement of this provision of the plea agreement and discourage or attach any payments. The department has another harsher remedy other than

specific performance. If Manifort breaches the plea agreement, he can be prosecuted for the crimes for which he was not pardoned. The pardon was very narrow. Weissman says, and only covered crimes Manifort was convicted and sentenced for, leaving a host of other criminal charges, leads to which Weissman explained in his book, Where Law Ends, Inside the Muller Investigation, That Kalimnik Stuff. That was chargeable. And the court has already found that Manafort breached his plea agreement when he lied to the government after he pled guilty.

So this is just an additional breach and justification for government action. Now, Weissman says, as an aside, it appears from the detailed description of his book that Manafort is borrowing a page from Flynn and is now saying he's not guilty of the crimes for which he pleaded guilty to under that oath, yet he took in front of the court, but that would amount to an admission of perjury and intentional false statements. Since Maniford told the special counsel's office in the court, he had in fact committed those crimes. So, interesting side note.

Thanks to Andrew Weisman, glad you're back in the court, he had in fact committed those crimes. So interesting side note. Thanks to Andrew Weisman, glad you're back in the spotlight. Well, maybe not in the spotlight, but at least put in stuff out there. And another story, US intelligence officials on Tuesday of this past week accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians

have taken direction from Russian spies. The officials said zero hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, you guys, 1.2 million, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence. The officials did not say whether they thought

zero hedge knew of any of the links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia. The officials briefed the associated press on the condition of anonymity, and it was the latest effort by President Joe Biden's administration to release US intelligence findings about Russian activity involving Ukraine as part of a concerted push to expose and influence the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin's US officials previously accused Putin of planting a false flag operation to create a pretext to invade Ukraine and detailed what they believe are final stage Russian preparations for an invasion. Officials describe for the first time what they say are direct communications between

Russian spies and the editors or directors of these media outlets. They didn't release the records of those comms. Some of those articles are listed, listed are being written by people affiliated with the Strategic Culture Foundation. SVR. The Biden administration sanctioned the foundation last year for allegedly taking part in Russia's interference in the 2020 election. U.S. intelligence officials alleged the foundation's leaders ultimately take direction from the SVR. So it's not the SVR, but they take direction from them. And that's the Russian foreign intelligence service, by the way. Recent articles listed as authored by the foundation and published by zero hedge include headlines such as NATO sliding towards war against Russia in Ukraine. towards war against Russia in Ukraine. Americans need a conspiracy theory.

They can all agree on. And the theater of absurd Pentagon demands Russia explain troops on Russian soil. So all this background noise you're hearing that NATO and Biden are starting a war. All of that is coming from Russia. It's being backed by the Republican Party and right wing pundits in the United States. All right. Now, on to that letter that the archive sent to Congress, responding to their questions about those 15 boxes of stuff that Trump stole from Mar-Lago. February 18th is dated 2022 from the honorable Karen or two, the honorable Karen Maloney, chairwoman of oversight and

reform. And it says, do you remember, Madam Chairwoman, I write in response to your letter of February 9th, right? Nine days ago, in which you asked a number of questions regarding the 15 boxes of stuff. First question, you said you asked, did the archives ask the representatives of the former president about missing records prior to the 15 boxes being identified. If so, what information was provided? And the answer, archives had ongoing communications with the representatives of former president

Trump throughout 2021, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes to the national archives in January of 2022. It doesn't really answer the question, but okay. Has national archives conducted an inventory of the contents of the boxes? Answer. We are in the process of inventorying the contents of the boxes. Number three, Carolyn Elone says, please provide detailed description of the contents of the recovered boxes, including any inventory prepared by the National Archives of the contents of the boxes.

So give us the contents. Give us the inventory. If an inventory has not yet been completed, please provide an estimate of when it will be completed. And the answer, our archive staff are in the process of inventory in the contents of the box, as we expect to be complete by February 25th. Because the records in the boxes are subject to the Presidential Records Act,

any request for information regarding the content of the records will need to be made in accordance with Section 205 to C of the Presidential Records Act. Number four, the contents of the boxes of records recovered by the archives undergoing a review to determine if they contain classified information. If so, who's conducting that review? And has any classified information been found? The archives has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes. Now, a few other questions here.

I'm going to go over them. And what does that mean? National security information. Classified national security. What does that mean? And who would know better than Pete Struck? We're going to talk to him right after this break. Stay with us.

When's the last time you didn't fill enough? Pete struck. We're going to talk to him right after this break. Stay with us. When's the last time you didn't fill enough? If you relate to this question, you want to check out our podcast Authentically us. Yes guys our podcast authentically us to what we talk about what it means to be authentic and everything that you do in Every space that you occupy Tony and I created this podcast, the creative space to talk about just who we are, our experiences and just things that we are going through. Yes, so come join us with the journey as we figure out what it means to be all-thinetic together. And today I am joined by the author of the book Compromised, which if you haven't purchased and read you must.

Pete Strach, Pete, hello. Hey, how are you? I'm doing well. I had a whole thing planned out. We were going to talk about new Mueller report releases. And then all of a sudden this drops, which was stuff that we were assuming, but now it's been officially, I guess, confirmed, and a letter from the National Archivist, David Ferriero, to Congress, because as we know, Maloney wrote and said and asked a bunch of questions.

And now he's responded. And one of those responses, if I'm looking at the letter here is number four, she asked are the contents of the boxes, records recovered by the National Archives. And this is the 15 boxes that down at Mar-a-Lago that you and I discussed last week, undergoing a review to determine if they contain classified information. And if so, who's conducting that review and has any classified information been found? And the answer is, the National Archives has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes.

And that's a little bit of a different term of art than what they were saying earlier. Some were just classified, some even marked top secret. Can you explain what classified national security information is? Yes, the national security information is a term of art. It's something that's defined in a couple of executive orders.

I looked up one. I mean, the most recent one is 13292, but that's amending executive order 12958, but essentially, and it relates, there's another one, I think, related to the Atomic Energy Act. But it's essentially something that the government, in this case, is an executive order. So the president is ordering this that any information that requires protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to indicate its classified status. So your listeners may recall, and I think we talked

in a previous conversation about the idea of national defense information. And that is a term that shows up in Title 18, which is the US criminal code. And if you're going to charge somebody with espionage or unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, most of those statutes refer to the term national defense information. So this is slightly different from that. This is not something you're going to see in the federal criminal code, but it is very much something that kind of in the administrative processes of the United

States government, the president who sets kind of classification policy administrative processes of the United States government, the president who sets kind of classification policy, and in this case issues executive borders, to at least which apply to this saying, national security information, that term, if you hear it, is information again, that the phrase of the definition is information which requires protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to indicate its classified status. So again, a little bit of a couple of nuances in there that not only is it in need of protection, but also that it is marked. So in this case, reading that answer, this is not just something where the president might have jotted down notes

from a meeting. And it wasn't for those in the government who have seen classified information. Typically you have like at the header and footer of every page, you'll have the classification, the highest level of classification of the document and then you'll have what are called portion marks so that each paragraph or section or title within the document itself will have an individual classification because you might have one paragraph which is classified top secret you might have a title which is under like a header in the middle of it which is unclassified then you might have another you know paragraph which is only at the secret level so the markings like that

are things that would be defined by national security information so when you read this read that answer to be defined by national security information. So when you read this, read that answer to be, this is information that was appropriately determined by executive order to require protection by being classified, and two that it was marked as such. So, you know, it would have things on it stating the classification. And why that's important, it's important for a couple of reasons. One is that, you know that it clearly demonstrates that there isn't, in all likelihood, much of a question about whether or not it's classified, but the primary reason that's important is it becomes much harder for somebody to say,

oh, it was my notes, I didn't know if they're classified, I didn't even think about it, I was throwing everything in a box. Well, if somebody's putting things in a box and you come across this document that says, top secret on the top and on the bottom and you get little T.S.s in front of all these paragraphs, It's much harder for somebody to claim, oh I had no idea that this was classified because it's clearly marked as such. So again, that's when national security

information, two things, executive order determines that it needs protection to protect the national defense and two that it's marked as classified. And why would you need to claim that you didn't know? I mean, you're saying it's harder to claim, you know, that you didn't know. I would claim to law enforcement, claim to your boss, because I know, you know, if I walked out of Department of Veterans Affairs

with something marked like that and went home, even if it's not national defense security and falls under criminal code, I would certainly be fired. But what do you do to a former president who's doing this? I mean, how is that? I mean, aside from what we spoke about last week, that the Department of Justice, which NARA also confirmed they have been in contact with regarding this information, aside from

them going in and conducting an investigation as to who has had access to these records. Or if, you know, like we talked about, Russia has a couple of people working in house keeping. And that Mar-a-Lago is a national security problem. And it has been for quite a while. How, what do you do there? But like, is this just sort of an administrative type of a hatch act thing? Or it's like, well, my bad, I was president, and it's not against the law, but it's bad, sure, and I apologize.

And maybe Komi can come out and make an announcement that I had it. But what else could go on here with the Department of Justice besides that national security sweep? Well, I think that question is exactly the reason you have to have an FBI investigation. I mean, all these things, there are a hundred different, there are many, many different permutations of how this might, you know, kind of lead out from whatever the facts may be, but at the end of the day, you can't

make a determination about what should or shouldn't be done, what did or didn't happen. If you don't first go in and ask those questions, and the way you do that is through an investigation. So, if I were still in the FBI, if I were investigating, I find this out. I mean, there are any number of questions that immediately pop into mind. And their two big buckets, one is, is there a violation of criminal law? Did somebody do something that violates 18 USC-793

or 1924 or 15 USC-78? There are a bunch of different statutes that potentially could apply when somebody unlawfully retains classified information. The second big bucket is from a counterintelligence perspective. What, if any of this information was compromised, you know, this is at a minimum, this is a spill, this is, you know, as prior media reporting indicates, it sounds like top secret, a CI material, there was one maintained in an unauthorized way. This is, you know, is prior media reporting indicates it sounds like top secret, a CI material.

There was one maintained in an unauthorized way. And that points to all those concerns that she just mentioned about, well, you know, it's one thing if Trump had access to it, but did he keep it out, you know, in the kitchen, you know, by the ballroom at Mar-a-Laga where everybody was coming and going and could go in it, you know, who might have seen it, who might have been trying to get it. What was the people who packed it up, did Trump pack it up, did other people pack it up? Did they just, were they just grabbing documents that he was pointing at, or did he say, go into my bedroom and just put everything that's in there in a box?

You know, when it was there, was it unpacked, was it still in a box? If it was unpacked, who unpacked it, who else had access to it? Did anybody read it? Did he talk about it? But there are, there are all these scores and scores and scores of questions, which are very logical questions that the FBI does day in day out when you investigate things like that. But at the end of the day, the answers to those questions are going to inform what you

do about it. So I mean, there are things that give me some concern. I mean, one of it that really stood out to me and I think it was in the Washington Post, some of their reporting, that indicated that as some of the stuff was going up to the archives, Trump himself didn't want anybody else around him, didn't want anybody looking at it, that he was telling people to stay away. Well, if that's true, the question is, why are you doing that? I mean, to the extent that if you are, for most crimes, our criminal code, in most cases, relies on something called santa your state

of mind, your knowledge that what you were doing was wrong, that it was illegal or that you shouldn't be doing it because there are ways you can inadvertently do something and ignorance is not a defense but certainly when it comes to charging federal crimes you want to be able to show that somebody knew better that they were deliberately trying to hide something or obscure something. So all these questions about what was said to who as it was being packed up, whether or not it was marked. It sounds like it was marked. But if somebody is just packing up some of his scribbling on a notepad, it's very easy

for me if I was told to go into a room and pack everything up and I say, hey, I just grabbed every notepad and piece of paper on the table. I didn't see anything. That is a very, you know, that is a reasonable explanation that points to a non-criminal behavior. But if it is, you know, I went in there and I saw this and it said top secret on the top and the bottom and I got worried and I asked Trump, hey, should we be taking in the, he said, shut up, just put it in the box. That all of a sudden then pushes into a big

behavior that is potentially, you know, there's some criminal liability there. Again, without diving too deep into rabbit hole, it becomes difficult because at the time this is being packed up, presumably he was still the president of the United States. He had the ability to declassify whatever he wanted, the whole debate about, you know, even if he could do that, some of his kind of random rantings on Twitter and in other statements where he was going to declassify everything that the Department of Justice and the White House has argued in the past administration didn't constitute declassification orders. It gets very complicated, but all those complicated questions are at the end of this process. What needs to happen now is a thorough investigation to sit there

and gather information about what this information is, the scope of the information that was classified, how it was handled, how it was packed, how it was moved out of the White House, what was done with it, and then we can talk about it. If you want, there are all these other things in the letter talking about people who are using messaging systems and potentially email, which were not ever forwarded into official and government record keeping system. So whether that's, you know, personal iMessage accounts or WhatsApp or proton mail or whatever the case may be that they found information in that material, there was never placed into a US government record system. So it was not ever was never placed into a US government record system. So it was not ever texted into or email-forted

into an official US government account. And the fact that this material was being found in these boxes, then begs the question of, okay, he turned over 15 boxes, but what the hell else is still done at Mar-a-Lago? So again, a bunch of questions, it's completely normal, a couple of bunch of questions. And that's why you do an investigation.

And that's why that FBI and DOJ have to investigate this in my opinion. Yeah. And I guess another question of mine is why they haven't already. I mean, what it seems like is that the National Archives was working on this to get the boxes back and they didn't know there was classified information in these boxes until they started going through them. And that's when they contacted the Department of Justice, although in the Washington Post article, they said, we had threatened Donald Trump that we were going to go to Congress or the Department of Justice if he didn't hand over these

boxes. And so I guess my number one question is why the history cops over at National Archives back in May when they realized these boxes were down there didn't directly go to the FBI and say, there's boxes of stuff missing down at Mar-a-Lago. We don't know what's in them. Maybe you guys should do something about this. Instead, they tried to negotiate for almost a year to try to get these things back.

And only now are discovering this. And meanwhile, we've had eight months, nine months of potential problems of people having access to those documents. I don't understand why they didn't immediately call the FBI I think it depends and that's I'm sure a question that I'm gonna get asked I would hope that somebody in congress said a minimum would ask the the archivist You know, why did this take so long? It may well be you know at the beginning They assumed it was the big no-map where he took the shark being extended the path in the Georgia or whatever he did to play weatherman and Putin soccer ball.

And they assumed it was just things like that that should not have been taken down to Mar-a-Lago. And then at some point later in the process is when they saw that there was in fact classified information. Now, I don't know that. I mean, that is a noble answer. I think at some point, whenever it was first reported, the question as well, we heard about what was it, two, two, three weeks ago, I mean, time blurs together

in Trump world. But at least I think several weeks ago, when there's a first reporting that there's classified. So some people might say, well, what? And if they open the case right then, all this time has passed. Well, if there's stuff in that material that is damning or very, very inculpatory, Trump's had eight

months plus to destroy it. So I think from DOJ's perspective, I can understand because this is so politically fraught, I don't think they get around it. I think there has to be an investigation. I think, of course, Trump is going to scream bloody murder that he's being targeted politically and call for everybody's execution like he did did with, uh, stuff just recently. Yeah, well, it's I used to be proud that it was like, it was like four of us. And I could say Trump asked for my execution.

And now it's just anybody can get into that club now. So it's not, it's not as exclusive anymore. But, you know, I, so I don't, I think it is reasonable that the department would say to the archives, hey, take a beat. We hear that, you know, you've got, you've seen something do us a favor. Can you kind of, you've got all 15 boxes in your possession. Can you kind of go through it all and catalog and figure out, you know, come to us and say,

you know, instead of a phone call, you know, written down a post in that we've got two documents that look like this, you know, write a nice letter that kind of lists everything out, and that then DOJ can take that and say, all right, based on the totality of this, we need to open an investigation. Again, what a criminal in what should happen, and I think it's pretty clear, but I don't know what will happen, a two-pronged investigation, one, to determine whether or not any national security laws were broken, and two, a counterintelligence investigation to understand whether or not any of this information was compromised, whether any sources, methods were placed in jeopardy. So I, again, I expect if that hasn't happened, it will.

I, I think it will, it will not be long before the public will know it because Trump will scream about it. I am very curious to see how, in most cases, the FBI pun hearing that, that there was classified when we very quickly say, okay, and we'd, again, this is hard and fast history. It is what we did with David Petraeus. It's what we did with John Deutsch.

It's what we did with Sandy Berger. It's what we did with Hillary Clinton. When you find out that there's classified there, you immediately go, in this case, to the attorneys of the person, because everybody's represented, and say, hey, we have reason to believe that there's classified. We need to get all of these things.

We need to see the other boxes, get access. We need to get access to the computers where the case may be where that classified was. And very quickly get, because typically, attorneys are good, and they say, all right, well, and if you have to, they usually, if they're good attorneys don't need to be told, because we'll go get a search warrant if you don't voluntarily turn it over. In Trump's case, he may need to be told that. And in Trump's case, he may put up a stink, and I don't,

I'm certain the department is not, because he's a president, a past president, it's not the same as somebody who is a retired four-star president, a past president, it's not the same as somebody who is a retired four star general or a retired director central intelligence or a former secretary of state. It is a different, it is a different type of person which entails additional legal analysis of what is or isn't required, but whatever that analysis is, and I would hope that that has already been going on by a really big brain Detonies and OLC and elsewhere to get very quickly to Trump and say in the first instance Okay, what else do you have do you have more classified and then all the questions that are going to come out of that to

To things you need to do to answer those questions that we talked about earlier right because he is a citizen But that doesn't mean there aren't additional legal Considerations that have to be made if you're gonna knock on Mar-a-Lago's door at 5 in the morning and go in to look for classified stuff. So yeah, I totally understand that and that can take some time. And I wanted to ask you one more question before I let you go. And this has to do with meadows. Because in number eight in this letter from the National Archives, the Maloney asked,

is NARA aware of presidential records that Trump destroyed or attempted to destroy without the approval of the archives? Please provide detailed descriptions of such records and the actions taken by a former president Trump to destroy or attempt to destroy them. And any actions NARA has taken to recover or preserve the documents. And the answer is they learned in June of 2018, like all of us did, that the National Archives learned that he was tearing stuff up and pat a burn bag and all that and taped and there were staff trying to tape stuff back together. So they sent a letter to the deputy council to the president saying, asking for information

about the extent of the problem and the council said they would address the matter. And then it says here, after the end of the Trump administration, NARA learned that additional paper records had been torn up and taped back together, et cetera. And then there's also something in here about social media. And that's in number five. Social media, NARA has identified certain social media records that were not captured. And NARA has also learned that some White House staff conducted official business using non-official electronic messaging accounts that were not copied and forwarded, as they're

supposed to under the PRA, the Presidential Records Act. And Meadows immediately came to mind, and the reason he came to mind is because he's being investigated right now for criminal contempt of Congress, for scourting a subpoena. And my question to you is, is an FBI sort of investigatory question. Could it be taking so long? If you're investigating him just for this misdemeanor for Corners criminal contempt, and you find out he's been, he's got a signal app and has been not handing over archives, can you then start investigating that too? Or is that some sort of fourth amendment problem? Do you have to get a warrant to go into those records again?

Like they just did with Kojah and George Nader, they had to get an additional warrant to go into a thumb drive. They already had in their possession. Or could that be what's taking so long? Can you just tack on an investigation like that? Or are they only supposed to look at this criminal contempt thing separately? I think you can, I mean, there's a lot wrapped up in that question. I don't think that you need, if the information is in the holdings of the archives, I don't

know that there's a requirement to go get a search warrant to look at it. I think there's an ability, if it is a record that you don't, it's a government record you don't, a government typically, typically doesn't serve warrants on itself to get that. So I think there's some ability, if Metos has that information, that it is in the holdings of the archives to be able to take a look at it. I think the reason, one of the reasons I've got this. So I think there's some ability if Meadows has that information that it is in the holdings of the archives to be able to take a look at it. I think the reason one of the reasons I assumed that Meadows is taking much longer than to say Bannon did was that Meadows was, Bannon was a private citizen. And so Bannon's claims and the legal question of whether or not he was, the privilege extended

to Bannon as a private citizen in his communications with the president is a very different question of whether or not privilege of the president's chief of staff attaches. And I think that's one of several things, potentially that DOJ is trying to figure out before the issue open a case and then from that choose to indict or not indict Metta's for contempt. But going to that, I think certainly Metta's is there. Again, I think most people have read public information that indicating that he and Jared and Avaco were using WhatsApp.

They were using Signal. They were using potentially I message and other systems to communicate, none of which, from the way I read five, the same way you do, none of that was getting captured by US government systems. And so that differs somewhat from, you know, Secretary Clinton, because one of the things she told us was like, look, I, you know, yes, I was using the system, but, A, it was things that my predecessors, like Colin Powell did and others and Condoleezza Rice, potentially, because the State Department IT systems are so bad.

And then two, people I were talking to were in the State Department. So even if I was using this private server, the people that I was emailing at that State.gov account that was being captured by the State Record Keeping System. So from this and reading number five, there's the sounds like this entire little ecosystem of people within the White House who were talking amongst themselves and with others. You know, one interesting thing that you say, again, that I don't know, true or not, that you know, cushion was using private, you know, what's happened, other systems to talk with foreign leaders and foreign officials, which is a whole

another disaster from a counterintelligence perspective. But, you know, at the point being just the sheer, it's all projection. It's a projection of grift, right? I mean, everything that they were accusing Clinton of, everything they were saying about, you know, sloppy, mishandling, and lock-rupp. It was things time and time and time again that they were doing themselves. So that's the thing. And then just to go back to the first part of your question, the last, you didn't read the best part of question number eight at the very end, which says, although White House staffed during the Trump administration recovered and taped together some of the Tornow records, a number of other Tornow records that were transferred had not been reconstructed by the White House. So I take

it, I mean, was that fucking box as a confetti that they opened up and it's on these little, stubby trump finger torn up, pieces of paper just in the big like, you know, packing material, I don't, I have visions when I read that, you know, I'm sadly old enough to remember the I'm sadly old enough to remember the, after the Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and they had gone through and attempted to shred a bunch of stuff. They brought in and published these photographs and rooms full of, they get a lot of people who had been carpet-rug manufacturers, makers, weavers, artisans. To take on these little bits of shredded paper and they would sit there and turn around and match them up and they were able to reconstruct these shredded documents. So I have this vision of a new, you know, branch and them bring in like modular trailers or something in park them outside of the archives and put a bunch of people in there with all the little trump confetti trying to piece together all these documents that apparently still have not been reconstructed that are sitting there. So that would be a slide.

Let's get Quantico classes to do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure now there are ways, there are better ways to do it. I would imagine, you know, you can, I can imagine an enterprise and computer scientist given the ability we have to scan things and kind of go through the permutations of fitting things back together

that might be a job more easily done in an automated fashion than a manual one. But I liked in vision, again, just trailers on the mall by the archives is the tourist walk by. And this can be the, those are the Trump confetti trailers and everybody can take the picture in front while they eat their little place cream sandwich from the street vendor. Yeah, I also think it's interesting that they say in this letter, we told them, and we told the council and the White House council deputies said that they told them and they were informed that this was against the presidential records act. And so that, that to me shows that they knew it was against the law, whether there's

mal intent there or not. I don't know if that's a different separate thing, but just knowing that it's illegal, because he's, he's skated on not knowing a bunch of stuff was illegal. And we've learned that from these new unredacted bits of the Mueller report, and the fact that Don Jr. couldn't be indicted for what happened at Trump Tower that day to dumb to crime. We said, but I can't help but wonder if by telling them and them being alerted. And in that nine-page subpoena from the one six committee to Ivanka, they attached that letter, that memo, the same thing that they sent to the

I say, you can't destroy presidential records and everything you do for the government has to be turned in. And that was a nine page letter. It was much longer and much more involved than anyone else's. And so I thought that that was telling, quite telling that, hey, we want everyone to know and we want you to know, we told you. Yeah, and they're not going to be able to avoid it.

They are not going to be able to credibly claim they did not know they needed to maintain this. And there's another data point. I think it was American oversight. Maybe but in any case, a nonprofit who had sued, I think, the FOIA, but had asked for records and they had gone to a judge. I don't want to say this was December of last year, maybe, but a rather of 19.

And as for an injunction to the White House, essentially saying, hey, we want, we're worried that documents are being destroyed. We want an injunction to preserve them. And DOJ countered that argument saying, no, they've been put on notice. They know they're not to destroy them. And so the court, you know, they didn't get their emergency injunction from the court, based on their representations of DOJ that everybody at the White House had been informed of the fact that they were supposed to maintain these records.

So they're all these. And that's a court filing by Career DOJ attorney, which I'm sure was a, you know, they're reading this and that was probably not the proudest moment of their lives, is they look at what they were representing before federal judge that, you know, this thing wasn't needed because the White House is going to play by the rules. So, you know, again, like everything else, you work for the, you know, representing the government doing the Trump administration at your own peril, but there's a lot of stuff out there that any claim that they didn't know they were not supposed to do. This is going to, It's BS and it's going to fall flat.

Does that take care of if there are criminal charges or if they even begin to look at that, which of course they'd have to open an investigation first to even begin to probe? Does that cover the malicious intent or the thing that Hillary didn't have? It goes a long way. I mean, I think the strongest argument that I've seen to the contrary is, you know, in Cohen's set up, that was just a Trump thing. That was like his little, you know, instead of a fidget spinner because he was, you know, acting like a five-year-old child. He needed something to occupy his nervous energy.

And so he would instead of like, you know, eating a crayon, he would take a piece of paper and rip it up just because that's sort of what he did to soothe himself. So, you know, the argument would be, oh, this isn't me trying to get rid of something that I knew I should maintain. This is just something because it's what I do. Now I think that again, I'm being told time and time. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's like right, right. I just, you know, grew up murdering animals and people. And so that's just kind

of my thing. So I don't, I don't, it's, right, I don't, I don't think it will cover him. I think it does in terms of demonstrating intent and knowledge that that was wrong. It obviously goes a long way. And then again, the other thing is, everyone just think from tearing it up, all the every single take your pick of whichever dozen campaign events you want

where Trump is encouraging the crowd to chant lock her up because she mishandling emails and she did all these things wrong and she should have done better and she destroyed emails and she used bleach on them and all the shit that he said again and again and again and still I mean I think there was a locker-up champ that went whenever that last BS event he went to a few months ago it is hard to sit there and say oh you didn't know it was wrong well what what are you saying she should be locked up for? There's just

no, you can't square that circle. There's a video of him quoting the Presidential Records Act with regards to Hillary. I mean, there's yes. And there's a since deleted tweet. That's the other thing I'm disappointed about now with like him being off of Twitter is like, if I want to retweet some nonsense that he threw out there back in the day, I have to go find somebody screen capture of it or recreated tweet of the Trumpism. But there's a tweet for everything. So it will be hard for him to argue that he didn't know he should have preserved these records that he didn't know it was wrong to destroy them. I think that is going to be an easier element of all of this. Well, we are out of time. Maybe next time we'll talk about the Mueller report, Roger Stone,

didn't get indicted stuff because it's kind of, I don't know, I think it's interesting. I'm dying to know if there were arguments within the Mueller team about that, although I probably probably can't talk about that. But it just seemed, it seemed chargeable to me, but I'm not a lawyer. And the FBI just investigates, and it's up to the department, it's up to the frontline prosecutors whether or not they're gonna bring,

or Mueller himself, whether or not they're gonna bring charges for these things. But, man, that sure seemed like crimes to me. One tease to that before you go. And I will say, I do think they're, you know, I can't talk about obviously the internal sort of discussions that went on. But I think when you look at people like Stone and Flynn, they were obviously they were charged and they were convicted. And I think there's always a decision that you say, okay, well, if I've got this host of things,

which I might charge, I'm going to do this thing and leave these others because that's enough. And then nobody, I think, on the Mueller team anticipated what bars Department of Justice would do with both Stone and Flynn to kind of undo that sort of prosecutorial balancing and thought process. So I think there was a certain amount of good faith that went in on the prosecutor's side that was completely upended by Bill Barr and his Department of Justice, which make what would otherwise be reasonable decisions not so reasonable in the final analysis.

Yeah, Maniford was a perfect example of that because in Mander Weissman's book, who was head of team Maniford, he's like, yeah, we had enough with that whole Constantincolymnic thing, but we went with the tax stuff. It was just way easier. Uh, I don't know if he agreed with that method, but we went with the tax stuff. It was just way easier. I don't know if he agreed with that method, but that's what ended up happening. That just sort of seems what has gone on with these other two as well. And yeah, a lot of people forget that Stone and Flynn and Manafort and Bannon, they were all charged and then pardoned. Well, not ban and, you know, with the,

we build the wall bullshit. So, you know, people seem to forget because they're not sitting in prison right now that they didn't get charged. Yeah, and when you plea, you're typically pleading out to something less than what the government could do. That's why typically you plea.

The government comes and says, we've got you on one to 10. And we can go to trial and convict you on one to 10. Or you can take a plea from one to four. And defense attorney will say, well, let's make a deal about one and two. And so the government typically on a plea agreement agrees to let go of the rest of that.

So I think that is, I know that's what happened in many of these cases. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you very much. I'll probably see you again next week. I know that's what happened in many of these cases. Cool. Well, thank you very much. I'll probably see you again next week. I don't see why. But I appreciate your time again. Yeah, I'm going to be kind of mercy podcast when they are broadcasting

the courting of boxes from our logo. What's next, Pete? For the Trump trailer at the archives, I like this idea. It's the new DC tour stop. Yeah, and you can give blood while you're there. It's, you know, my spot. All right, I appreciate your time. Everybody pick up the compromise,

the book if you get a chance, and we'll talk soon, Pete Strack. Thanks. That's awesome. See you. Thanks. All right, everybody, it's time for the fantasy indictment, League. I'm gonna be a date.

No, it is gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna bement league. I'm gonna be a date! No it is gonna be a date! I'm a dick! I'm a dick! It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. Now, you ready? If you had Ken Kerson plea deal on your team this week, high five and give yourself five points,

close friend of Jared Kushner and Trump pardon Dick Bagg Ken Kerson, a former editor of the New York Observer, who was charged with unlawfully spying on his former wife, pled guilty on Wednesday to two misdemeanors, with the opportunity to have the charges further reduced after a year. Kerson, 53, had been charged in August by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office with eavesdropping and computer trespass, both felonies, each which carry a penalty of up to four years in prison. On Wednesday, he

plugged guilty to attempting both crimes, but under the terms of his plea deal, if he completes a hundred hours of community service and is not arrested in connection with any other crime, he will withdraw those pleas and plead to a lesser offence of second-degree harassment of violation in a year. So I have personal experience with that kind of bullshittery and I don't like this 100 hours of community service shit. I'm not sure why Manhattan D.A. agreed to that. Keep a minus no longer side vans. And for my draft this week, I am keeping team Florida to include Sabotini, MacGates, L.A.K. and Jacob Engels.

Out of the Southern District of New York, I draft Rudy and Toansing, Victoria Toansing. Out of the DCU's attorney's office, I'm going to go with Sidney Powell. And then based on new reporting about a search warrant issued for old Kojah thumb drives that were in-house at the FBI about George Nader. I'm going to draft Super Seating Nader indictments, George Nader. And I'll take Super Seating Weiselberg and Super Seating Trump org from the Manhattan DA's office. So that's my team is 10 this week. Let's see what happens. The news just keeps heating up. I don't think it's going to calm down and talk to the midterms. And thanks again to Pete Struck for his time today and get your copy of Compromise, Wherever

Books Are Sold. Check out this week's MSW Book Club on Corruptible by Brian Claus out today, Episode 7. And I'll be back on the daily beans tomorrow with Dana Goldberg. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and vote blue over Q. I've been AG, and this is Mullershi Road. Mullershi Road is written and produced by Allison Gill in partnership with MSW Media. Sound designed in engineering or by Molly Hockey, Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and

web designer by Joelle Reeder at Moxie Design Studios. Muller she wrote as a proud member of MSW Media, a group of creator-owned podcasts focused on news, justice and politics. For more information, visit mswmedia.com. Hi, I'm Harry Lickman, host of Talking Feds. Around table, the brings together prominent figures from government law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day. Each Monday, I'm joined by a slate of Feds favorites at new voices to break down the headlines and give the insiders view of what's going on in Washington and beyond.

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