Jack - Unmasking Obamagate (feat. Frank Figlizzui and Mimi Rocah)

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

This week on MSW, we're going to play some incredible interviews from last week's Daily Beans episodes in case you missed them - including from former assistant FBI director Frank Figliuzzi and former SDNY prosecutor Mimi Rocah!

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubles. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a biweekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me, and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Hey all, this is Glenn Kirschner,

and you're listening to Muller Shee wrote. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time, a true, and that campaign, and I didn't have, not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Food and Fire?

I have nothing to do with Food, and 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 profession, I'm a capitalist. Hello and welcome to Mueller, she wrote. I'm your host A.G. And today, we're going to play for you some incredible interviews we had this past week

for our sister show, The Daily Beans, that's worth a listen. Really, really incredible interviews. So for the Mueller memos this week that came out for the Flynn News, check out Monday, May 18th episode of The Daily Beans. We're going to cover it all there. So I can bring you these two interviews. So today we're bringing you these two interviews, one with former assistant director for the FBI for counterintelligence, Frank Fagluzzi, and the other with former federal prosecutor currently running for district attorney in Westchester County, New York,

Mimi Roca. So first up is Frank Fagluzzi. So let's have a listen. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Joining me today to discuss the potentially dangerous next steps for the Department of Justice is former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence and MSNBC analyst Frank Fagluzzi.

Thank you for speaking with me today. Thanks, A.G. So yesterday you penned a piece for NBC about Trump's Obamigate comments. He just tweeted out, Obamigate in all caps. And you talked about a troubling new pivot at the Department of Justice. And, you know, we've recently seen unprecedented meddling by Bill Barr to go easy on Trump's friends, but where do you think this is leading next? So I want to just share with you a little background on this NBC Think piece I did,

because when I started writing it, I was into what you'll see in the first paragraph, which is the concept of predictive analysis, studying someone's behavior and the intel you have to predict where their conduct might be headed. And I submitted the piece to a number of major platforms and publications, all of which came back to me and said, Frank, this is a great piece, but it's out there. I mean, you're actually trying to say that the president,

the president of the United States is going to accuse the former president and vice president of conspiracy. But Frank, do you remember when we were out there for thinking that Russia was meddling in the election? Yeah, yeah, no, I know. And then so I'm like, okay, look, I have a contract with NBC television. I'll submit this to them and see and have them tell me I'm crazy. Well, in the course of the 24 to 48 hours that transpired while I was getting a rejection complex, of course, low and behold, the President of the United States started tweeting

and retweeting the very conspiracy theory I'm talking about, including retweeting an article from the Federalist that claims that Obama and Biden and you name it, Komi, Brennan, Rice, whoever, all sitting in a room, Clapper, all sitting in a room trying to gin up the Russia case for the express purpose of taking Trump out. And then he starts tweeting Fox News host who are saying the exact same thing. And then we see, you know, D&I acting D&I Richard Grinnell show up with great fanfare with a satchel in his hand at the front door of the department of justice because, you

know, he's going to unmask the terrible people who found Flynn was the guy on the wire tab talking to Kisley-Ak. And then we have a Rose Garden press conference where Phil Rucker asks Trump the question, what kind of crime are you accusing former president Obama of and Trump responds, Obama gate, you know the crime, you know the crime. So then we, then we, the Neetzeh tells reporters, hey, I had a call with Putin. This is by the way, on the very same day that, that DOJ files the motion to dismiss the Flynn charges.

I had a call with Putin. We talked about this, we talked about the Russia hoax, and quote, a lot of things might happen. Unquote, next few weeks. So my point is not just that I'm recovering now from my rejection complex, but rather that what seemed unbelievable two or three days ago has actually come to pass. Well, Bar hinted at that earlier. Didn't he? I mean, when he went on, I can't remember

it was Fox or ABC and made the comments, you know, well, we're looking into it. And if there's crimes, you know, we're going to hold people accountable. I mean, he sort of, we call it looping the truth here on this show where you sort of like smoke out that, what did he call it, smoking the jury or something where you, you know, you drop what you're about to do. So when it hits, it doesn't hit his hard. But he was, he was sort of laying the groundwork for this. Even before Trump went on his crazy 125 tweet every seven minutes Mother's Day come thing. Yeah, so Trump has an accomplice in this and that happens to be the Attorney General of the United States who's writing shotgun on this travesty train ride that we're on.

And he's all the Attorney General in many ways over the past couple of years has signaled his willingness to, and complicity to help Trump out of this mess, and to more importantly twist the truth. So, you know, and we're talking about everything from that four-page summary of the Mueller inquiry and calling a press conference to shape the public perception of it.

And now appointing John Durham, the U.S. Attorney Connecticut, to, you know, get to the bottom of the vast Russian conspiracy. So we're going to see, and then of course that we fast forward to the flint filing. So we're going to see over the next few weeks and months, and very conveniently right up to the election, this sort of damically is hanging over the head of anyone including former president Obama who who touched

the Russia case and the right wing is eating it up hook line and sinker Fox News is every night is hitting this Hard and and I think it's important to the facts on this I don't want to be that guy that That does a podcast and TV appearances and just says oh this is all bunch of nonsense. I don't want to be that guy that does podcasts and TV appearances and just says, oh, this is a whole bunch of nonsense. I want to dig deeply into the facts of this, what we know, and more importantly, what we don't know. Right. Because that's how we combat it is to discuss the facts and the details.

And, you know, and you were just bringing up all this other stuff with Durham and appointing US attorneys to look into Flynn and look into Stone. Because you say Trump is still very sensitive about 2016. We know from Bob Woodward's book that he kept an electoral map, maybe still he does, on display outside of the Oval Office. So he's still very, very, you know, about trying to unwind this entire Russia investigation. He's been doing it his entire presidency. It goes directly to the heart of how he sees the validity of his own election. So it's much like a baseball season when there's been a strike, right? In the record books, there's an asterisk next to that entire

season. And in parentheses, it says, you know, strike occurred during the season. So basically don't pay attention to these stats. It's a him, not only it's a double whammy, not only did he not win the popular vote, but now there's this perception that since it's been proven that Russia interfered in the election, then quote, then then then comma, they must have actually got him the win. The reality is, Aegee, there's never been proof that Russia got him the win. That's hard to quantify and qualify. There's been proven evidence, including confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, controlled

by Republicans, that indeed they went all out to do this, and we indicted 26 Russians for doing it. So he, in his mind, the way you become more valid in terms of the presidency is you get rid of this taint. How do you get rid of the taint? You have to get rid of those indictments or at least cause a perception that those indictments were tainted

and part of a vast conspiracy. Bar has signed up for that cause, and we're going to see some people absolutely ruined and destroyed in the process. I would not be surprised if you see the Attorney General of the United States take whatever John Durham comes up with, twist it, contort it, and issue statements that make people think, yep, Obama and more importantly,

Biden, who's opposing the president, they came up with all of this. And so if you dig deeply into this, here's the condensed version. What we know so far is that the intelligence community came to President Obama during the transition period when Trump had won, and here comes the transition team. The transition team is about to receive very sensitive briefings, right? It's that it's a crucial time between November and January when you start really informing the incoming team of the world picture and sensitive intelligence. And so they come to the White House and they go, hey, serious problems with Flynn. We got him on tape.

We, you know, we, we, he's, he's been paid by Russia for speaking engagements. He's an unregistered foreign agent of Turkey. We've got photos of him and Putin in, in Russia. And, and by the way, you know know we've got these greater concerns about Russia now proven Russian assistance to the campaign. What say you, President Obama, and what appears to have happened is, by all accounts, Obama said, hey, I've got to know what we can breathe and not brief to this transition team, and particularly an incoming national security adviser, like Flynn, let's get to the bottom of it.

So that's being turned into this smoking gun bombshell proof that somehow Obama fabricated the Russia evidence. Yeah. And unraveling the Russia investigation has the added benefit of giving a pretext for Trump to lift sanctions, you know, the Obama sanctions for attacking us in the 2016 election. And I appreciate your major league baseball analogy because I am a Cleveland Indians fan. And the strike in 1995, we would have won the series.

I know. But I don't have you been to the new field, the progressive field. I have. It's beautiful. Oh, yeah,? I have. It's beautiful. Oh, yeah. It's gorgeous. But I don't have their season standings hanging on my desk outside of my office. You know, that's the point.

I'm not that hurt by it. My greatest concern, as you just mentioned, since I come from the counterintelligence world and see everything through a national security lens is that those 26 indictments of Russians, I mean badass Russians, 12 of them are GRU intelligence officers. If we make people think that those indictments are invalid or that never happened or even Trump just pretends like, hey, see, the whole thing is tainted fruit of the poison is tree. Therefore, I'm going to, I'm going to overturn the sanctions against Russia for messing with our democracy. That empowers the Russia and Putin, and all bets are off in terms of what adversaries will feel like they can do to us. Oh, yeah, that's the scary part. And I want

to ask you about playing this kind of thing out to its logical conclusion. Let's say we do end up seeing charges against Clapper, against Brennan, Komi, etc. They likely won't make it past the first round of the court, particularly in the DC circuit. I mean, I imagine that the awesome lawyers that these folks would hire would file motions to dismiss and it would likely these cases would be dismissed. So what's the end game here? Is he just pushing it out to get the charges and then have the election and then they just go away? Like, what's the goal? Yeah, you don't even need to actually get a grand jury to indict. You theoretically don't even need to get to the grand jury. What I think is going to happen,

AG, is we're going to see some attempts at criminal charges probably at a very low level. The easy one, and by the way, I can get into this. It's not that easy, but the most logical candidate at a low level would be the FBI attorney who allegedly fabricated, and I'll get into this in a second, allegedly fabricated an email in support of the FISA affidavit against Carter Page.

That's the first one you're going to see. That's what I thought too, because I mean, they say that they was, they were trying to determine whether Carter Page was an asset to the CIA and it was misclassified. He was misnamed. It was a misnomer and they added something to an email after the fact, allegedly. And we may have even had this discussion before AG. I've talked about this so much.

I can't remember who with, but look, in the course of my career, I can't tell you how many times I've had go around with the CIA about how to properly characterize one of their sources, operatives, informants, contacts, associates, unpaid, uncontacted, and they'll go in circles. And look, that's the world they live in. And you can get three different answers from three different people on three different days about how to characterize someone that they're talking to. And so it's what I'm hearing.

And by the way, I'll stand corrected on this. If this was an outright fabrication by an FBI authority, right? But what I'm hearing is that he was trying to get this right as to how the agency was characterizing Carter Page and make it explainable easily to the FISA court. And so the language was being played with and manipulated to try and figure out what the agency was saying on any given day

and portray it correctly. If that's what happened here, then there's no way a grand jury is going to indict, and by the way, that would require the CIA to come forward and release classified information to a grand jury about what they were doing with Carter Page. So, even that might not happen. But to answer the question of where this is going, you don't have to get to criminality, right? I mean, even Trump said, when asked what the crime was, Obama gate, well, there's nothing entitled

18 of the US code called Obama gate. So what you'll have is bar through the next six months, start to attack folks, start to lay seeds of things, and then you hear him watch carefully, listen carefully when reporters ask bar, is there going to be a report from Durham? You get, I don't know, maybe, we'll see. So wait a minute. Oh, you know, you know, we'll see.

So you got a US attorney and an entire team tearing apart a case against a campaign in a president and you might not issue a report, why might you not? Well, because this allows me to spin and insinuate and destroy people. So, you know, just plant the seed in people's mind. We're headed to a grand jury. We're thinking about it. We're fixing to get ready. Or we present it. Yeah, it's like the question, when did you stop beating your wife? Once those words are out of somebody's mouth, there's nothing you can do to deny or dissuade them. So once he says grand jury, we're going to try. We're going to go. We went and they said, no, that's all that matters in certain people's minds. Yeah, and I mean, and you're talking about counterintelligence, previous patterns of

behaviors, that's what he did with Ukraine. Just the mere announcement of an investigation without even having to do one would have an impact. So I need to squeeze in a quick break, but I do have another question for you. We use stick around. Sure. Okay, great. We'll be right back.

We are talking to former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence Frank Fagluzzi stick with us. Hey, everybody, it's AG from the Daily Beans. Due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, the job market has been uncertain for the past couple of months, and we don't really know what the future will hold. None of us can predict it. We're all in uncharted waters. And as a small business ourselves, we understand what employees and employers are going through right now. Employees are worried about their jobs still being there.

When this is over or having to find a new one, while employers are concerned about their business surviving and hoping that both customers and employees can come back. In the effort to dissuade fears and provide some assistance and comfort in these crazy times, we'd like to relay the following message from our sponsors, Zipper Cruder. They say, right now, we cannot be overwhelmed. We have to work to keep our loved ones safe and protect our communities. We have to work to stay strong, to stay connected, to stay focused. We have to work to inspire and to innovate to build new solutions. But for all this to work, we have to work together. At Zipper Cruder, we connect employers and people every day, but today is different. We Zippercrooter, we connect employers and people every day,

but today is different. We're partnering with first responders, government officials, and the medical community, the innovators and manufacturing, transportation and food distribution industries to make sure we're finding the right people for the right jobs right now. So let's work together. Zippercrooter.com slash work together. All right everybody, welcome back. Frank, thanks for sticking with me here. I just had a couple more questions for you. What do you think of the notion that by, well, first of all, tell me, explain to me what this whole thing is with Rick Grinnell and the unmasking Fox news, I believe.

Just put out the report that Biden, Komi and the intel chiefs were among those who wanted to unmask Flynn. What does that mean? Unmask Flynn. Yep. This is really important because again, we're going to get a steady Trump e to this on Fox News every night. Okay. So we saw Grinnell with great fanfare walking and with a

satchel to the Department of Justice headquarters. That was all staged and it was like the new nez running at midnight or the or the parchment envelope with calligraphy sent to by by Giuliani. They're just so funny with their really lame like staging. But you got you got to give them credit. So here's here's some important background on what unmasking means. When a certain three letter agency that we shall not mention intercepts conversations, let's say, you know, and these are by the way, all court authorized intercepts, almost always a foreign national targets.

Occasionally, more than occasionally, an American citizen will be intercepted and captured. Speaking to this person, it could be that this target is ordering pizza from Domino's and the pizza delivery guy is saying, Hey, I'm outside your door. That gets intercepted as part of the wiretap on the foreign person, right? Well, that happened with one Mr. Michael Flynn, who was talking with him, Russian ambassador to the United States, Kislyak. So, the way that report shows up on your desk and many of them showed up on my desk when I was a D of counterintelligence is Unnamed US person or unnamed, you know us per or unknown person You then have to go back to that agency with three letters and say I have a valid I have a valid

Reason for knowing who that was right and if it's a pizza order You don't have a valid reason for knowing and that was, right? And if it's a pizza order, you don't have a valid reason for knowing, and that agency, believe me, will tell you, take a hike, that's a pizza order, right? But instead, what they'll usually come back is, they'll courier to you because it's top secret. Literally, a human will hand you the unmasked name. And because it's determined you have an intelligence reason. And of course, if you are, oh, say a president or vice president trying to figure out if you can trust an incoming transition team, or who the hell is undermining my policy by talking sanctions with a Russian ambassador because that's, I need that missing name. Who the hell is doing this to me? And if you're the FBI or CIA or Susan Rice at national security advisor or the UN ambassador

Susan power to the United Native to the United American ambassador to the United Nations and someone's talking about undermining sanctions and telling the ambassador to Russia don't don't pay attention to these sanctions. We'll take care of it You want to know that name. So you ask for it to be unmasked. So you're going to see people, all, you know, in the Obama administration, who are saying I had a valid reason to know, and that three-liter agency said, yeah, I think you do, because they're messing with you, and here comes the name. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole law about that.

It's called the Logan Act. I know we never charge anybody with it, but you're not supposed to act as an agent of the federal government if you're not one uh... and by the way i i get that logon act is a crime that's almost never charged i i get that but i'm saying understand the bigger picture it's an intelligence counter intelligence threat picture of course of course i don't think i don't think susan powers or seussan rice is sitting there going

uh... i want to charge the logon net i think they're going who the hell is telling the russian ambassador that that not to pay attention to our sanctions and and and the president bomb likely saying i need to figure out if i can trust to brief uh... at the tsl level to the incoming trump team who is doing this that and that's a valid purpose, what do you think of the notion that by investigating and possibly trying to charge folks, but even just investigating folks like Brandon Biden

and maybe even Obama, that Trump could knowingly or inadvertently leave a bad taste for going after a proceeding administration as he faces losing the election in November. I thought about somebody mentioned that on Twitter, like I don't know, that's probably just a benefit, a side benefit. Now, be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

So you want a previous administration investigated for little and nothing, then you better be prepared that it's going to happen to you. There's a lot of irony here, don't forget, we have a president and his lawyers, as recently as this week in the Supreme Court, claiming that the president has vast powers to do whatever the he'll he wants. And now, what's the president saying? Obama should not have had briefings from the intelligence community on the Russia case. Well, which is it? Yeah, you think a lot like me. My

very next question was given the arguments at Scotes yesterday. How does this square with Trump and the Department of Justice arguing that presidents are immune from investigation and prosecution? Yeah, up is down, down is up. Yeah, this isn't the only dissonance by the administration. They fight for preexisting conditions while mitigating against Obamacare. They say they're trying to save Social Security while cutting it in their budget. That's why, you know, I believe

Mato always says, you know, watch what they do, not what they say. But yeah, I really appreciate you explaining that to us because I know you're a counterintelligence expert. And I just wasn't sure what the unmasking thing meant. So now it's clear. It's much more clear to me that uh... there were senior officials within the obama administration who wanted to know the name of the person talking to kissley act in intercepted uh... call from a three-letter agency talking about don't freak out over the sanctions will take care of it yeah maybe it's total sense because then we had what you know what it's all heates to and what

the two things obama warned the incoming president about uh... flin and north korea well it yet and that flin and north korea well it yet and that flin is compromiseable the moment the moment the white house came out and said hay flin never talked about sanctions with the russians the russians own you now they own flin and that's what celyette was trying

to tell them is hey wait a minute we have flin on tape saying this so they own him because they know he's lying to you and now you said it publicly they can screw him over at any time and that's what she was trying to say he poses a threat and that's what those fb agents were trying to get to the bottom of when they showed up at the white house to interview flint

and it just real quick before i let you explain what that would look like uh... compromised flint russians know he lied how could the Russians screw him i don't i don't know if there is a lot of like i feel like there's some people out there who don't quite understand how that makes someone compromised well if you so the bottom line is when someone if you're in a position of trust trust top secret clearance close to the president doesn't matter you can be anywhere in the intelligence community quite frankly um... and if the bad guys have something on you that you're keeping secret and keeping secret is defined by you lied to your boss about it. And that boss

embarrassingly has gone public with with what you've told him, which is a lie. They come back at you and go, hey, hey, General Flynn, you know, we need you to side with us on this issue. We need you to convince the president of XYZ. And you know what, if you don't give us this piece of information, this position paper, this classified intel, we're going to tell folks that you did commit a violation of the Logan Act, that you did tell us to stand down on anything regarding sanctions. And oh, by the way, when you got paid $30,000 to show up at a dinner in Russia and sit with Putin, and you claim you don't know how that was paid, and all of that, we'll expose that too.

Straight up blackmail, and why wouldn't a general, a patriot quote unquote, just call it out, just go public, say, I'm being blackmailed by the Russians or, or, I mean, I don't understand, is it just the desire for power and money that overtakes somebody's duty? I just don't know how you make it that far in that kind of position and and sell out the country, which is what Sullivan was saying when he said in his courtroom December 18th, I think 2018, when he was about to sentence him and he talked flint out of it, saying you need to go forth and cooperate more because I hate your face right now. And you pointed to the flag behind him. You and I've talked about this and said, you betrayed everything that stands for,

asked the prosecutors if they looked into treason. I mean, I think that is sort of the crux of it, isn't it? Yeah, the behavioral studies of folks who actually do these really stupid things is fascinating to me, but it requires you to understand the history of Flynn and where he's coming from. Let's not forget.

He was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA. It sounds like a really cool position, and it is, if you're one of the Intel nerds, like me. Yeah, I remember visiting the Pentagon walking past that their office. And I was like, ooh, ooh. It's a very important institution, but in the scheme of things in the US military, it's not the cool kids department, right?

It's not, you're not, you're not leading battle. You're not in the combat theater. And he, even worse, he develops a reputation as a rogue cowboy that causes Obama to feel he's insubordinate and to recommend that he not get anywhere near an important position. Even Chris Christie was recommending against the hiring of General Flynn because of his cowboy reputation and the fact that people didn't like him or care for him. And Obama removed him from the DIA position. So he has a huge chip on his shoulder,

his career is essentially ended. He's not gonna get where he wants to be. And so in retirement, he's looking to get some posture and some cash. And where does that come from? Well, I can give speeches for $30,000 a pop, even if they're in Russia, really bad judgment, but I've seen it before. Well, there's a veteran I'm disgusted by it.

And, you know, I mean, I was a support position in the military. I was a Navy nuke under Clinton, so it wasn't, you know, I wasn't one of the cool kids either, but I'm, you know, it's just, and then to take the position of being the patriot is just, it's disgusting. It's gaslighting. And we're going to, I think we're going to see a lot of this, just like you said in your piece, we're going to see his base falling for these, you know, charges, if there are any, or at least the attempt to

make them, they'll fall for it hookline and sinker. And they'll all come after us and gaslight us for being part of the deep state. if there are any or at least the attempt to make them, they'll fall for it, hookline and sinker. And they'll all come after us and gaslight us for being part of the deep state. We are, it's gonna get worse. We're going to see Flynn rolled out at campaign rallies. We're going to see Navy SEAL, former Navy SEAL chief Gallagher, accused of war crimes, but for Trump's meddling in that, rolled out as campaign surrogates, and it's going to be disgusting.

Well, let's all prepare for it because it's going to happen. And thank you very much for joining us today, everybody, former Assistant Director of the FBI for Counterintelligence, MSNBC analyst, Frank Faglucci. Thank you again so much for speaking with me today. I appreciate it. Stay well, AG. Bye. This is AG and you're listening to Mollershi Road. And now, let's hear the interview with Mimi Roca. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Joining me today is former federal prosecutor

from the Southern District of New York, law professor, MSNBC legal analyst, and candidate for District Attorney for Westchester County in New York. Mimi Roca, Mimi, thanks for speaking with me today. Thanks, A.G. It's so good to be back with you. It's been a long time. We've had a little bit of a, I guess, hiatus doing all, you know, all this stuff that we're trying to accomplish right now, but I'm really, really glad to speak to you again.

And I'm glad to be here. There's certainly a lot to discuss right now. The legal front. Yes. And I want to just give you a heads up. Our listeners are pretty well caught up on what's going on with Flynn all the way up to the minute order asking for Amicus Curie. But I wanted to speak with you today about, first of all, here's a brief timeline with this minute order. So the Department of Justice, we know filed a weak sauce motion to dismiss the case against

Flynn. And then May 11th, retired judge John Gleason, I believe is John Penn and Op Ed. He penned an op ed in Washington Posting, evidentiary hearings and Amicus Curie were needed in this case since neither side was opposing the motion to dismiss. Like it's now it's bar versus Flynn and their friends, you know. But then Judge Sullivan issued a minute order asking for Amicus briefs.

And then yesterday he issued an order that Judge Gleason, retired Judge Gleason, would be assisting the court under Amicus Cure, meaning he's got, you know, things that he can provide, information he can provide the court that the parties, representatives, aren't providing. And he's gonna assist in weighing the motion from the Department of Justice. So first of all, I put out a tweet there and you had responded and that's why I wanted to talk to you. Has any of you ever seen anything like this? Have you ever seen anything like this? Yeah, no.

And I jumped right in there because to me, the answer seems so kind of obvious but also important, which is no, I have not, I can't, I mean, doesn't mean it's never ever happened, but in my experience, 16 years as a federal prosecutor and a watcher, you know, for the past couple of years very closely, for the past couple of years very closely, you know, it is unusual to see a judge in a criminal proceeding invite amicus briefs and even more unusual, I think to sort of say that they're appointing one person in particular

to do that. But we've never seen anything like what has happened here with Bill Barr and the Department of Justice dismissing a perfectly legitimate and even important criminal prosecution after the person's play go to twice. So, you know, it is, the answer is, I haven't really seen anything like this, but have never seen anything like this attorney general. And I think what the judge is doing is recognizing that the interests of the Department of Justice

as an independent institution with apolitical motivations is not being represented by Bill Barr. And so, you know, you bring in people for you invite Amica's briefs, you allow Amica's briefs when friends of the court to represent it. And, you know, I know that the Trumpians will disagree with this, but any objective observer who's watched bar over the past couple of years cannot say that he is representing the interests of the Department of Justice. He is representing the interests of Donald Trump.

And that is not what his job is supposed to be. And I think this is the first time, this is where someone in power, namely a judge, has said, there's something I can do about that. Yeah. And, you know, I think you're exactly right. An unprecedented motion to dismiss calls for an unprecedented reaction. Right. And so, and just, I mean, I guess I would say one other thing. While I think what the judge has done here is highly unusual, it's, there are similar procedures in other cases that are analogous. So it's not like he just made this up.

I mean, but we have Amicus briefs and, as you know, well, and, you know, Supreme Court cases dealing with all sorts of issues. I mean, it's not foreign to, it's not unusual to have these kinds of briefs filed. It's just somewhat unusual on individual criminal cases, but not, but, but not where there are bigger legal principles at stake, which I think is really what's going on here. This isn't just about plan anymore. It's about the principle of an independent Department of Justice making lawless decisions. Yeah, and the beauty of it is we have seen, like you said in the past few years,

we've seen the Department of Justice under Bill Barr way in with Amicus Briefs in Supreme Court cases on multiple occasions. And so it's not an argument. It's nothing that Bill Barr can stop. And we'll get into that in a second. But I wanted you to tell us who is judgegly sent. Because I feel like our listeners have a little bit of an indication. They know some of the cases.

He's prosecuted some of the people he's brought down in his, or you know, presided over. I shouldn't say brought down in his years as a judge. Can you just, who, give us a picture of who he is? Yes. So Judge Gleason was a federal judge for many years. I actually clerked for him, meaning I was one of his law clerks back in 1997, right, when I was fresh out of law school. And he had been on the bench, I think, for two years or so. So it was a very young judge. He was a judge in Brooklyn, I mean, United States Eastern District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He had been a federal prosecutor for many years before that in the Eastern District,

US Attorney's Office, and did kind of cases, federal prosecutors like him, like me, do, but his sort of claim to fame, I think the thing that he's most well known for is that he successfully prosecuted John Gotti Senior, who was known as the Tupland Don, because so many times had been prosecuted and was not convicted, but then Judge Gleason in a very well-tried case was able to successfully prosecute him and end that one man crime spree with the Gambino family.

And so he after that, I think he was acting US attorney for a little bit of time, but then he was appointed, I believe by President Clinton, to be a federal judge. She was pretty young to be appointed a federal judge. And I will tell you though, both from my experience, you know, corking with him for a year,

which means I was with him every single day, every minute of the day, you know, in court, outside of court, eating lunch with him, talking with him, and he has remained a friend and a mentor to this day. He is one of the most brilliant people, not just lawyers, but also a brilliant lawyer that I know. I mean, truly has a brilliant mind is really not sort of a cookie-cutter

person. In other words, I, it's hard to fit him into one mold or another. So he was a prosecutor for many years. I think came to the bench with that experience, but pretty quickly, as a federal judge, became very defense-oriented and actually became very involved with the criminal defense organizations, federal defenders, in particular, and really before criminal justice reform was a sort of popular thing, or even a term that people talked about in the way that they do now. He was really at the forefront of that, and really tried to help reform, sentencing, federal sentencing guidelines, which he thought were too high. He really was a judge who looked out for sort of the most vulnerable people in the criminal justice system and tried to

work on early reforms to, you know, thought our drugs, laws, and sentences were too harsh and too high at the federal level amongst others. and sentences were too harsh and too high at the federal level amongst others. So he's kind of a really independent thinker. He doesn't fit neatly in sort of one box or the other. I think he really knows the Department of Justice inside and out and knows what it is supposed to be at its best. But also knows the dangers of it and the overreach and how that can work and has not been afraid to stand up to that,

even in the past as a judge. And now he's a practicing, I would call him sort of a white collar criminal defenceler at a law firm in New York. He did step down from the brunch recently. But he's a well-known voice in terms of speaking out for what he believes when he was a judge. He did several political redistricting cases that made a lot of headlines. He's just a very kind of smart and independent thinker who does what I think he thinks is right, whatever box that fits into or doesn't fit into. And so I think he thinks is right, whatever box if it's into or doesn't

fit into and so I think that's part of why he's the perfect choice for us. Yeah, it seems like his experience advocating for the every man. It seems to be relevant. And in his op-ed, in Gleason's op-ed that came out before Sullivan asked him to join the case. He was urging Sullivan, it seemed, to really think twice about just dismissing this case and talked about having evidentiary hearings, perhaps listening, questioning, calling into question, bringing in the guys from Covington, Burling, which is Flynn's original lawyers, with possibly bringing in former prosecutors

who worked on the case who have since left, like Kravis, I would assume. So it was Kravis, was it Van Krak? It was Van Krak. But he still works for Department of Justice as far as I know Van Krak does. Right. So I think, Van Crack does. Right. So, I think, and this is what I was personally hoping for when Flynn filed his motion to

dismiss, we were all sitting around, you know, me and Glenn Kirschner, and we were just sitting around and say, gosh, I hope he has evidentiary hearings. I hope he just doesn't dismiss this case. And so now I think we're, we kind of see what wear gleece in stands, what his background is in. I think we can sort of see where this is going. And it's, is it fair to say that the Justice Department and Trump can't do anything about this? This isn't something they can ask for a stay for or oppose or file a, I mean, they can

file a motion to, I guess, disagree with it. Yeah. And I think, if I'm keeping up on this fast-moving news, I think that he has. I think Flynn has filed something saying, basically, you can't do this, you can't invite Amicus briefs in a criminal case. You know, that's not going to go very far. Well, no, and it explains why Sullivan put in his minute order. I was like, why is he putting citing case law about Amicus Kira in his minute order? Oh, it's because he knows, you know, he's saying, Hey, I have soul discretion, mofos. And so come at me. It's not a free for all, though, quoting Judge

Jackson. I'm like, what is he getting at? What is he getting at? Now we know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, he's, he's, I mean, this judge, John Sullivan is, it is very smart and very independent himself. And which is not unusual. I mean, most federal judges, a lot of them are and they don't like being told what they can and can't do. They have a lot of discretion for a reason in how to run their cases in their courtroom. And I think here, I don't, I mean, I know Fox News is going to be screaming about how the judge shouldn't do this, but I don't know what basis they have to say that.

And if you look at the history of federal judges having discretion in sentencing, in motion practice, I mean, that's their job. And of course, you shouldn't just rubber stamp this. So I hope he calls Rod Rosenstein, frankly. I mean, yes, he can call some other people. But Rosenstein was the member of this administration that signed off on this prosecution. I know he wasn't there at the beginning,

but he absolutely approved it. And he's completely silent now, you know, as they say that this was all a big political conspiracy by quote the Obama administration. Yeah, and it's going to be interesting too because by now, normally, we would have heard Trump tweeting, oh, biased Obama judge blah, blah, blah. But here, Judge Sullivan was appointed by HW. And so, yes, yes, exactly. And so, but I don't know that that necessarily has stopped Trump from going after people before and calling them bias. So I'm assuming that we're going to start getting

some misinformation and propaganda about Gleason and Sullivan being bias judges and bad judges. I'm assuming we'll start seeing that sort of thing come to light. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. Yeah. All right, we'll tell us before I let you go. Tell us a little bit about your campaign where people can find you, where people can donate to you. I don't work for the government anymore,

so I don't have to go down the patch act. I can ask for donations for your campaign. Thank you. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so I'm running for Westchester District Attorney. Westchester is right outside of New York City. So, you know, an important and big District Attorney's office that has cases that can affect, has cases that can affect, you know, even far beyond Westchester County. And my campaign is going really well. I'm running on a platform of bringing ethics reform and integrity to the DA's office, something that I think your listeners will appreciate wherever they are. And really the need for building institutions at the local level that are counterweight to what's going on in Washington and to the Trump administration. And particularly when it comes to the criminal justice system keeping the politics out of our justice

system, that's something I've really been talking about and the people really respond to and also pursuing public corruption cases, conviction integrity, making sure that we are not prosecuting the wrong people and that we are having not having wrongful convictions and I have platforms about that about human trafficking that's a big priority for me gun safety and all this people can find on my website, you know, all of my issue papers. I'm kind of listed out. It's Mimi Roca, ROC-AH4-FRDA.com. Mimi Roca4DA.com. And, you know, hopefully people can look me up and happy to have people help make a do-phone baking, if we can do that anywhere in the country and make donations. And then you get on our mailing list. We do weekly updates. We are iInterview people on Zoom about important issues. So yeah, that's that's pretty much a summary, but I hope people check it out. Thank you. Thank you so much because these these are the steps, these are the crucial steps that we're going to need to start taking to rebuild integrity in our institution, equal justice under the law, ethical guidelines, giving some teeth to these things and moving forward to put back

what Trump has taken away in being able to trust our legal system. So thank you so much for joining me today. You have your list of credits is too long. But law, professor, MSNBC legal analyst, former prosecutor from Southern District of New York, and candidate for Westchester DA. Thank you so much, Mimi Rokai. I appreciate you coming on today. Thanks, great to talk to you, A.D.

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