Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig: Trump’s War on the Rule of Law

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Elie Honig is CNN’s Emmy-nominated Senior Legal Analyst, writes a weekly column for New York Magazine and Cafe.com, hosts podcasts on the law and true crime for Vox Media, is a Rutgers University scholar, and is special counsel to the law firm Lowenstein Sandler. His book is one of the must-read political books of the fall, get it here: When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. He is the host of the podcast Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci. A graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Law School, he lives in Manhasset, Long Island. 📚 Get a copy of my books: Pre-order: Solana Rising: Investing in the Fast Lane of Crypto From Wall Street to the White House and Back The Little Book of Bitcoin The Little Book of Hedge Funds Hopping over the Rabbit Hole Goodbye Gordon Gekko: How to Find Your Fortune Without Losing Your Soul Timestamps 00:00 Elie Honig Introduction 02:58 Why did you write this book about accountability for presidents now? 04:41 Would this be the situation if Trump won in 2020? 07:31 Is this time different in American history? 11:23 Archibald Cox, Saturday Night Massacre, & Robert Bork 16:11 Everyone loves the idea of an outsider prosecutor, until this happens 20:19 Presidential immunity case: Would Nixon have gotten in trouble? 21:49 Is the Supreme Court afraid of Trump? 22:50 Examples of Supreme Court rulings against Trump 23:08 Is Elie more optimistic or pessimistic about America holding the powerful accountable? 27:52 Five Words Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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With Service Now, you can do the parts of your job you're best at and delegate the rest. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Today we're sitting down with Ellie Honig to talk about his new book when you come at the king. Ellie takes us through the complexities of accountability in the American justice system, especially the role of special counsels from Nixon to Trump. We dig into political hypocrisy, historical legal cases, and the evolving relationship between the presidency and the Department of Justice. Ellie also reflects on what it would take to make the system of accountability more independent,

and insulated in today's political climate, which is obviously sorely needed. Why are special counsel so crucial to maintaining justice in America? Well, the real reason is the conjoignment of the Justice Department into the executive branch can make the Attorney General or other members of the Department of Justice too political. So when a special counsel or special prosecutor gets hired, it's supposed to be detached and outside the system. Of course, President Trump hated that in his first term, which is, why he's flipped the card table over on the traditional precedence of the Department of Justice,

which Ellie clearly addresses in his book. What I will say about Ellie's book is that it is a great history of presidential accountability, but also the layers of politics that always creep into the justice system and how necessary it is to have some level of reform to protect us from leaders that want to use the justice system for political purposes or as their personal law firm as opposed to really doing what's right for the American people, which is to have a fair arbiter of who should be brought to justice and who shouldn't be. I'm optimistic about this. I do think, despite the current challenges today, Ellie's book is a real recipe for that reform. And I encourage you to go out there and read it. But in the meantime, let's get into the story with

Ellie Hon. Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us now is bestselling author, CNN legal analyst, and dear friend Ellie Honig. You know, Ellie, I, you know, when you're a lawyer and you pass the bar, you have to take continuing education credits. I feel like your books are continuing education for me. I mean, I'm learning more from your books than I did in law school. Yeah, go ahead. Say it. I'm so glad to hear you say that. And by the way, I'm going to make a petition to the New Jersey and Pennsylvania. bars where I'm admitted that I should get credit. Like I shouldn't have to sit through some webinar. I wrote this book. That should count. I'm with you.

There's a lot of content in here. Okay. So the title of your new book, and you wrote two great books prior to this one, but the title of the new book is when you come at the king, inside DOJ's pursuit of the president from Nixon to Trump. And so obviously we know the other part of that cliche, when you come at the king, you better not miss. And so you got some great stories in here. So it's always great to have you back on Open Book. You know, you called the special counsels, the ultimate test of American justice. Why did you write that?

And why did you write this story right now when accountability for presidents, particularly President Trump, it feels more fragile than ever? So I think there's two reasons, Anthony. First of all, these cases are the most important cases that we've seen in this country over the last half century. I mean, there's a chapter basically for each of the main cases from Watergate to Iran-Contra to Clinton and Ken Starr all the way up through the Mueller, her, Durham, Jack Smith cases. And, you know, we have just come through a period where we've had a glut of these. There was a point where we had five of them, basically, in about a half decade, which was historically unusual. And I thought, well, I think we need to get inside these cases, which I do in this book. I talked to three dozen people who were actually involved in the cases, prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses, White House,

officials. And what lesson can we draw from it? And then the second thing, to your point, Anthony, what I mean, it couldn't have come out at a better time. What we see Donald Trump doing now, day by day basis, even just this past few days when Trump is ordering Pam Bondi that I want you to indict Letitia James, I don't care really what the evidence is, is making the point, and this goes to the title of the book, that what the Trump administration is doing now is pure payback. It's retribution. It's when you come at the king, you best not miss. And I, look, I don't, I don't, I don't mean to, and I don't celebrate that. I use this descriptively.

In fact, in the book, I argue this is incredibly dangerous. This is a complete misuse of DOJ's prosecutorial power. And really, what's happened now is Trump has kicked down the wall of independence that used to define DOJ to keep it what it was. I feel like, yeah, I want to test something on you. I was reading your book. And I said, I feel like if Trump had one reelection, we wouldn't be in the trouble that weren't. Hear me out for a second. In 2020, you mean?

Yeah, he had a lot of Republicans still on the playing field with him. I mean, traditional Republicans. He was still adhering to some basic ideas about the presidency. You wouldn't have had the nine, the big insurrection, the January 6th disaster, which is now in the public law, we'll call it the insurrection. But it also called into question and made many Americans question their own election integrity, which is exactly what our adversaries of like us to do in the country. I feel like if he's just one, he would have served us four years, very sloppily, lots of Twitter explosions and craziness. And it would have been, oh, it's an interesting count. And now we have this sort of 10 year yoke over us. Am I wrong in thinking? It's an interesting

counterfactual because for two reasons. One, if you compare Trump two, which we're in now, to Trump one, there's big differences. I mean, Trump one, he did a lot of the things that you just talked about, Anthony. And, you know, my first book was about Bill Barr. his primary attorney general during those years, his second AG during those years. And, you know, while Trump would have these temper tantrums and say, I want to see John Kerry indicted, I want to see Barack Obama indicted, Hillary Clinton, Andy McKay, maybe you, Anthony. Maybe you, Anthony. I don't know if he may be fired one of those at you. I wouldn't shock. He hasn't come from me yet. I'm too much of a piker. But I think if he wins the midterms,

he's going to put some people in jail for sure. Right. So I think that's the next move. And that's a thing. This was talk during the first term, but nobody did it. Bill Barr basically just ignored him as did others. And nobody was indicted. But now he seems, Trump seems like he's serious. And he seems like in Pam Bondi, he has a person who's willing to do it. I think the second part of considering your counterfactual, what if Trump had won in 2020? I mean, yeah, I don't think all these criminal cases, they certainly would not have landed while he was president in this scenario from 2020 up through, you know, January of 2025. There wouldn't have been a January 6th. Who knows, you know, with a classified documents, he wouldn't have been a private citizen. So, and I do. And I

argue in the book, I want to make clear, like, the book is not some sort of anti-Trump screed. I'm critical of Trump and the way he's done this. But I'm also not afraid to be critical in the book of some of the things that were done to get Donald Trump. The Jack Smith chapter has some criticisms of Merrick Garland and Jack Smith. I don't argue that they were acting, you know, in the same way that Trump is. But they're also, their hands are not clean either. There were things that they did that were inappropriate, that were clearly designed to go after Trump in a way you would not have gone after a normal person. So that brings the hypocrisy question.

Again, these are questions I've been dying to ask you since I closed the book. So we rail on free speech, unless you're saying something that we like Democrats and Republicans, it's a great op-ed today in the New York Times about that. Additionally, we don't want you to pick winners. I mean, we don't want you to tell you who's going to be the tick-tock investors, but yet Democrats make an investment in Cylindra. It goes to zero. And there's what aboutisms now on both sides where, you know, they go after each other

in a way that I don't think they previously went after each other. Maybe I'm wrong. You point out Nixon, you give up other situations, the Iran contra, things like that. But it just seemed like it was tamer, Ellie, or was I just younger and more naive? No, you tell me. It was different. I mean, it used to be that, and again, I talked to Watergate prosecutors, Iran-Contra prosecutors, both sides of the Clinton Star case. It used to be, look, no president in history has ever wanted to be investigated, right? No person in history. He's ever wanted that.

But presidents, and I would include Nixon and I would certainly include Reagan Bush and I would include Clinton all the way up through now, have understood that there does need at times to be some sort of DOJ investigation and needs to be carried out with some level of independence. Now, various presidents have taken various steps to undermine that, but they've never gotten to the point where Trump is right now of there will be no investigation of me. Anyone who thinks about it will be fired and may be prosecuted yourself. But the second thing is, and I think what Democrats did during Trump's, during the 40 years between Trump's presidencies, do not excuse or justify what Trump's doing now. But Democrats don't have clean hands here. There's hypocrisy on the Democratic side also.

So for all the talk of rule of law and all men are created equal and treated equal under the law, I don't think you can support that in an objective sense when you look back at all of the cases that were brought against Trump. I mean, before we get into the criminal stuff, the Letitia James case. Look, I don't think Letitia James should be indicted now. I don't think there's a case there. Todd Blanche doesn't think there's a case there. But her lawsuit against Trump was ridiculous. And I said this many times, Anthony, publicly, I'm sure probably with you.

She ran for office on vote for me and I'll nail Trump. I don't know what, something, I'll sue him, I'll indict him for money laundering. She brings this ridiculous lawsuit. And just the other day, a liberal appeals court in New York throws out the whole financial penalty for exactly the reasons I was saying. There was no real victim. So now the financial, he's still liable, but the financial penalty has been zeroed out now. That's quite a rebuke.

I think the Alvin Bragg Hush Money case was ridiculous. It's certainly backfired politically. I think that'll get thrown out. And I think if you look at, I mean, I'm not even going to talk about Fonnie Willis. that case was a joke and sidetracked itself. And then even if you look at Jack Smith, there are things that he did that you would never have done to anyone else. I'll give you, I'll give you one example. Jack Smith indicts Trump on January 6th, as he should have, in my view. But then Smith says, now Smith's up against this mad dash against the clock because he wants to try

Trump before the 2024 election. But the problem is DOJ wasted so much time. It took him two and a half years to indict this guy. So Jack Smith says, I want to try him five months from the indictment, five months from the indictment, Anthony. This is a case with $13 million, excuse me, 13 million pages of discovery. There is no physical way Donald Trump could exercise his right to effective defense counsel. They could not have gone through 13 million pages in five months. The average case, I looked this up in D.C. Your average gun drug case gets two years and four months, 28 months to prep for trial. And Jack Smith made a straight face argument. He needs to go to trial within five months.

The reason was the election, of course, but he wouldn't say it. And so there was some disingenuousness and hypocrisy from Democrats as well. Now, that doesn't justify Trump firing back 10 times greater as he's doing now. But Dems can't claim clean hands here either. So was Archibald Cox, was he at Harvard Law School when you were there or he had already left? Are you kidding? Archibald Cox was like taught in the 70s. I was born in 75.

Okay. No, Archibald Cox was there when I was there. Maybe he went back. I guess he went back. You're right. Actually, I take back my little laugh there. He might have been there in 2000 when I was there. I don't know.

Yeah, you're right. Well, anyway, he was there when I was there. He gave a big speech about the Saturday night massacre. So for the young listeners that don't know who even Archibald Cox is, tell us who Archibald Cox is. You wrote great stories about him and what is known as the Saturday Night Massacre. Tell us what that is. There's so much great color.

Archibald Cox gets brought in under political, you know, Nixon's under political fire. He agrees to bring in Cox as the independent, as the special prosecutor for Watergate. And I talked to two people who were on Cox's team. They were 30 and 26 at the time. Now they're in their 70s and 80s. Joe Wine Banks and Jim Quarles. Cox was this venerated Harvard law professor. Quarles had been his student. And, you know, the investigation was starting to make real inroads towards Nixon. And then on this. This Saturday night in October of 1973, he orders his AG, Elliot Richardson, to fire Cox. Richardson refuses. The Deputy AG refuses William Ruckels House. They both resign, so you lose your top two officials. And then Cox gets fired anyway. So those three all get decapitated. Jill Wine Banks tells me a great story that I have in the book about how she experienced the Saturday night massacre. She was at a wedding. She said she couldn't get a day off for weeks and months at a time. Finally, that Saturday she got to go to New York City for a family wedding. She comes back at midnight. This is before the era of phones. The desk clerk jumps out in hands are a message that

says, the office has been seized, return immediately. So next morning, she goes down. It's a Sunday morning now. She's there. Quarles is there. The other prosecutors are there. And they don't know what's going on. They don't know. They know Archerball Cox has been fired, but they don't know if are we fired? Is this continuing? And they're all sort of sitting there. The office has actually been roped off with police tape. And Cox comes in. I guess they let him back in. They never let him back in now. but at the time they let him back in, I guess, to clear out his desk or something. And he comes into the prosecutors and he tells them, don't give him what he wants, meaning Nixon. You stay here and you finish the job.

Robert Bork comes in. Robert Bork gets blamed a lot of times. I think it's unfair. I think actually Robert Bork was a hero in this because he stopped the bleeding and he made sure Leon Jaworski got appointed. A lot of historians I spoke to actually agree with me, Jaworski becomes a special counsel and then ultimately leads to the subpoena, the Supreme Court case, and Nixon resigns.

So, you know, the Saturday Night Massacre, it's sort of miraculous, but because of the integrity and the courage of these prosecutors, the case carried on and led to Nixon's resignation. I'll tell you real quick, Anthony, a funny story that they told me that's in the book. There was a restaurant, which apparently is still there in D.C. across the street from their offices, which were near DuPont Circle, called Archibalds. And one day Archie Cox, again, this very starched, you know, patrician guy says, we should go to lunch there. That place is named after me. It's called Archibalds. That's my name. And they're like, yeah, Archie, that's a strip club.

I don't think we should go there. You know, he should have gone there. It would have probably loosened them up a little bit. He was pretty uptight. It was pretty uptight. And I was there. You know, the interesting thing about Bork, this predated you a little. But when I was in school, a constitutional law scholar,

Professor Lawrence Tribe was battling to block Robert Bork from getting on the court. Yeah. He was nominated by Ronald Reagan, and they successfully blocked him from getting on the court. And part of what was used against it. Part of it was his ideology was deemed too extreme, but his involvement in Watergate. And you know, there's a, I'll tell you something about the book. So we commonly look at Bork as the villain of the Saturday Night Massacre, right? The guy who came in and carried out Nixon's order. But if you do the research, both the A.G. Elliot Richardson and the deputy AG, both guys who resigned later, years later said, oh, no, no, we asked Bork to do that. We begged him to. stay because we knew the bloodletting had to stop at some point. There was actually no chain of command within DOJ after Bork. Bork had nothing to do with Watergate until this. And Bork felt misled later. And I asked Garrett Graft, who's a great Watergate historian, and he said, no, I agree with you. I think Bork is misremembered. I think he was a hero. And I will tell you, since the book came out,

I got a note from Robert Bork's son who said, basically, you know, I thank you. Like, I feel like our father has not been remembered correctly through history. So, you know, Bork was like this. gruff guy with the goatee and everything and he had very sharp conservative views but when it comes to watergate he's he's miscast as the villain but it's the early stages of villainization in our society right because that's what we do to each other we two dimensionalize people Ellie and we we go hard and so the left wing media went hard at him the right wing media goes hard at George Soros yeah listen I've been on Wall Street for 37 years Ellie George Soros was always looking up to on Wall Street.

You know who worked for George Soros? Scott Bassent. Stephen Mnuchin, Stanley Drucken. So interesting, yeah. Yeah, they all went to work for a movie. It just becomes a buzzword. They just say the word Soros. Yeah, because he went against Cheney during the Iraqi war.

And so the conservatives said, we're going to do to George Soros with the hard left did the Robert Borough. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a verb now. They villainized and demonized. If you look at the urban dictionary, to get borked is actually a word now.

It means basically to get demonized in that way. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, if I'm going to get borked, I'm going to wear protection, Ellie. Okay. I just want to let you know that. Okay. Let's go to what Robert Ray said to you.

Yeah. Everyone loves the idea of an outside prosecutor until one gets appointed at them. Right. So what a true line, right? I mean, so evidential in your book. Yeah. So look. Because these guys are like, yeah, we're going to have a special prosecutor.

And then when it starts picking and probing at them, they flip out. I mean, Bill Clinton's. signed the final reauthorization of the independent counsel law in 94. George H. W. Bush, I have in the book, actually told the guy he had just beaten two years before actually said to him, I would not recommend signing that. Like this law is a problem. And Clinton, you know, I don't know if he wanted to or not, but he obviously felt like he had no choice. And what ends up happening, he becomes the receiving end of the whole Ken Starr thing. But I certainly do not argue in this book that special counsels or independent councils are perfect. They're highly vastly imperfect. A lot of this book is exposing that.

But I also think we do need some sort of mechanism in place so we don't end up with no check on the president like we have now. Bob Ray is an interesting figure because he ends up replacing Ken Starr. You know, Ken Starr starts off with Whitewater, which is just these real estate deals in Arkansas. He's not getting anywhere. He gets some people around the Clintons, but not the Clintons themselves. And I talked to David Kendall in the book who represented Bill Clinton and Lannie Brewer, who was a White House lawyer at the time. And they both said he was just hanging on waiting for something. And then Monica Lewinsky emerges like mana from heaven for him.

I actually also talked to a guy named Saul Weisenberg, who was Ken Starr's number two. Star died a few years ago. And Saul was very candid. He said, you know, I was on a detail that was supposed to run out in February of 98. And I felt like we were playing out the string. But the Monica stuff hit in January of 98. And I thought, ooh, now I'm going to stick around. This is getting good.

So of course it all spins vastly out of control, becomes an impeachment, becomes ridiculous. they're horrible. Both sides are horrible in their treatment of Monica Lewinsky. And it ends up basically killing the independent counsel law because both sides hated it. I mean, Clinton survives the impeachment. He leaves with a record high approval rating. Democrats hate it. Republicans hate it. And it lapses. But anyway, Bob Ray takes over the case at the very end, the last year or so. And he had it was in an interesting position because by this point, everyone was done with this case. The impeachment was over. And Bob said to me, but we still had a problem. We had to decide if we're going to prosecute Bill Clinton for perjury.

And I said, you're kidding me. There's no way you would have indicted him. Bob goes 95% of the way in the book to saying that he would have if he had to. He said to me, all the pieces were in place. But he ends up having this. And I detail this in the book, a dramatic one on, not one on one on one, but face-to-face meeting with Clinton in the map room of the White House, like 20 days before Clinton leaves office and says, we need you to admit that you were untruthful. We need you to pay a fine. And we need you to lose your bar license.

And basically, Clinton agrees to that on his. last day in office. But Bob Ray basically makes clear to me that if Clinton had not agreed to that, he would have indicted. And I said, Bob, you would have lost. You would have lost in two seconds. And he goes, maybe, but I felt like I was going to do what I have to do. But Bob knows. Bob understands that the idea of a special counsel is lovely in theory until you're on the receiving end of one. So let me ask you this, because I've another big question for me. The presidential immunity case, would Nixon under that ruling have gotten in trouble? Ooh.

See, that's a, I love that question because what I argue in the book is the ruling is very broad and vague. And no question will make it harder for people in the future to prosecute presidents. But there still is conduct that can be prosecuted. And I think my argument would be what Nixon did there would be prosecutable because he was in on, you know, to some extent the break in, he knew of it or he knew of it shortly thereafter. He was in on the cover up. But that's political. If your political arm is committing crimes or whatever, that's pretty clearly even that is outside the scope of the immunity ruling. It would be a little oddly. It would probably be worse conduct, but actually more within the immunity ruling if he was using his own cabinet members or federal executive branch officials to commit these crimes. But the fact that he was doing it with private citizens engaged in political activity. So that's a great example. Like some people say no president could ever be prosecuted again. I don't think that's true. I think if you really look at the immunity opinion, there is plenty of conduct that can still be prosecuted. I do argue in the book that the immunity decision went way too far. But I also argue that that doesn't mean everyone should just give up on accountability for all time. You know, I've heard, and I want you to react to this. I've heard that the court, the Supreme Court's afraid of Trump. I've heard that Roberts is worried that he's going to render a decision against Trump and Trump is going to flip him the point.

bird and he's going to get no support from the Congress or other elements of the government. Do you think that that's bogus? I don't buy that. I don't think the Supreme Court. I don't think the Supreme Court is like loves Trump. You'll hear something. Oh, these guys. I mean, maybe Alito and Thomas. But no, I mean, there's very little Trump can do to them. The only thing he could really do is defy one of their orders and sort of bring us into this crisis moment. But he's had chances to do that. And while he has defied the spirit of some of the orders, including those early immigration orders, he hasn't quite stepped over the line of overtly defying an explicit order from the Supreme Court.

So I just, I don't think they're afraid of him. I think I can understand they're concerned he might do that. But I don't think they're pulling punches or doing him favors because of that. All right. You just want to throw that out there. They rule against them a lot. You know, they rule against there. There's this notion out there of, oh, they're always, no, they've, they've ruled against Trump quite a bit.

Give me one example where they ruled against them. Several of the immigration cases where they said, you know, have to give people due process that he wasn't giving. Some of the firing cases and the withholding of federal funding cases, they've said, you can't do that. I mean, they ruled against him on his tax returns when he got subpoenaed for his tax returns. They wouldn't, they refused to block Jack Smith from releasing his special counsel report. Like, there's a lot.

I mean, he's done well with the Supreme Court, but it's not like he's gone undefeated with them or they've always sided with him. By the way, I should say, I know you're financially focused. I believe they're going to strike down the tariffs, too. That's coming up in November. I mean, so you're reading my mind because I'm dying to ask you that question. So this is not investment advice. Let me make clear. So I don't. But I think that that case, we know the Supreme Court is expediting and hearing it in November. I think they'll probably rule by the new year right around then. And, you know, Trump has lost the first two rounds of this in the district court and the court of appeals. And I think what Trump has done in passing these tariffs actually violates conservative principles because Congress holds tariff power, not the president.

If Congress is going to delegate a power like that, they can, but they have to do it clearly and unambiguously in a statute. And this statute that Trump has used, the AEPA, the Emergency Economic Powers Act, International Economic Emergency Powers Act, A, arguably doesn't cover tariffs at all. And B, isn't specific enough. So I think if you use conservative, traditionally conservative legal principles, he loses. I mean, definitely that you know the three liberals will be against him because they always are almost no matter what. And I think he's going to lose at least two of the conservatives. If I had to guess, don't invest based on this, folks. I know a lot of you wealthy Wall Street people listen to Anthony.

But if I had to, if I had to guess, I would guess it's going to get struck down. Okay. But no, there's big consequences to that. That means there's a trillion or so dollars of tax revenue. because it's all tariffs are. I mean, the president is telling the biggest lie of lies. He says, well, the countries are paying the tariffs. No, it's the importers.

The consumer is paying the tariffs. Well, the importers pay it and pass it to the consumer. Yeah. Of course. It's a consumption tax. We both know this. So what happens? What happens?

They have to return the money to the people that they charge? So I think the answer is that the importers can actually, yeah, can actually try to recover the money they've paid. Yes. There is some case law. But on a going forward basis, the tariff nonsense, him coming down from evil, Mount Evil with the like Orange Moses, with the tablet. All of all of that stuff's going away. Yeah, I mean, there are some tariffs that are separate from the ones he announced on Liberation Day back in April.

There are some on certain types of raw materials and things that could stay in place because he's done them under different legal guidance, legal authority. But those whole Liberation Day tariffs, if the Supreme Court strikes them down, they're all dead. So, you know, I'm sure the financial industry and markets will be watching that case more than probably any case. Yeah, the market's not set up for that just so, you know, the market expects the Supreme Court to rule with them. Oh, is that right? So, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think that's how the market's acting.

I mean, that's my prediction. Yeah, I hope you're right. I think it's been insanely stupid to do this. So, you know, are you more optimistic or more pessimistic and cynical about America and holding the past. powerful to account after writing this book? I think I'm more optimistic than the average person, right? I mean, I think a lot of people have sort of gone to the point of no one's ever going to be held accountable. But I think if it's done in a measured and fair way, I propose a policy at the end of this, a way we can sort of change the way we structure these special counsel cases

to yield better results and more permanency. But I think we can still hold people to account. I think Trump has defied the rules a lot in a lot of ways, has defied the normal law. laws of gravity. I also think some of the Democratic missteps and oversteps, this is really the subject of my second book, undermine the effort to bring him to justice. The second book I wrote in 2022, while all these Trump cases were about to get started. I said he's in the book, basically, he's going to get indicted probably more than once. And everyone's telling you he's going to go to jail and it's the walls are closing in. But it's not going to be as easy as you think. And here's why. And that ended up all being true. But I still do think we can, you know, it's not going to have, look, let's be real.

It's not like this administration over the next three years going to have some sudden epiphany and go, oh, yeah, you know, we need to allow for better accountability. But this book is largely a pitch to whoever comes next, be it a Republican or Democrat, J.D. Vance or, you know, Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom or whoever, that this can work. We can have and we do have a history, you know, not a perfect history, but a history of meaningful accountability through this idea of special counsel or outside prosecutors. There's things we need to do to change it. but I'm not ready to give up on accountability for all time. All right. So you've done this podcast before. I've got five words I want to present to you and I want you to react to it.

Okay. You're ready? Yes. I say the word Nixon. You say what? I can respond in more than one word. Yeah, of course. Got meaningful accountability imposed on him because of brave prosecutors.

Clinton. Abused his. power mistreated Monica Lewinsky, but ultimately was over pursued by Ken Starr. Okay. Joe Biden. Biden was fairly exemplary when it came to his respect for the independent justice department until he pardoned his own son and blamed politics in a Trumpian statement. I think that pardon undermined Joe Biden's legacy.

after telling us for months he would do no such thing because he respected the justice system. And that was probably not an auto pen pardon. Let's put it that way. All right. How about Trump? Has gotten away with almost everything and will redefine the way that we look at the justice system and accountability from here on. Yeah. And Democrats, trust me, there will be ambitious Democrats that take advantage of and study Trump's playbook. All right, let's go to the last two words, special counsel. You say what? Imperfect, but better than any other system and can be improved. I learned that from you, actually.

I didn't really understand the mechanisms of it, but you have to do that. I guess I'm wondering if the whole Justice Department at this point should be a special counsel, meaning should it get moved, should it get moved out of the executive branch? I don't know where you put it. I'm not saying you could put it in the judicial branch, but you've got to get it. it away from the powers that be, particularly if they have to examine at times the powers of And that's sort of my proposal with respect to special counsel that it needs to be more insulated, but not, but you know, you also can't be politically unaccountable. We can't have prosecutors doing whatever they want with no consequence. But there are models for that. And I will tell you,

I pulled it from not only scholarly articles, but from these people. Like I asked the lawyers, the players, what rules do you think worked and didn't work and what would you like to see happen? But I agree with you. I would like to see some sort of you can't pull it out of the executive branch entirely, but I would like to see it more independent, more insulated. Well, listen, the book is awesome. When you come at the king inside DOJ's pursuit of the president from Nixon to Trump. I'm sorry I don't have the book in front of me. I would also hold it. Hold it up, Ellie. Hold it up. Hold the book up. I was looking for the book this morning, but I have it at home. There you go. And love the book. It's from Ellie Horace. Thank you so much

for joining us once again on Open Book. Great to see, Anthony. Thank you very much. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on X or Instagram.

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