The Daily Beast Podcast - The Mob Boss Tactic Trump Uses to Keep People From Flipping

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

When former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig says Donald Trump acts just like a mob boss, he’s not using hyperbole. Honig just released his new book Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It and came out the show to talk to co-host Andy Levy all about it, including the one trick bosses use on those closely involved in their crimes that makes it “harder for those people to flip” and another tactic that has helped the former president avoid charges, at least it did back when Michael Cohen flipped. Plus! He and Andy also talk about the rule that has saved Trump from indictment “over and over” as well as the prosecutor who gave the Trump children, and Harvey Weinstein, a free pass. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal.

We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Ellie Honig, who's a CNN legal analyst. We're going to talk all about his new book, Untouchable, how powerful people get away with it. But first, let's have some fun. All right, are we ready to listen to some clips? Hell yeah. Jure. See, I'm going the other way now because you all thought I was too enthusiastic the last couple weeks.

That's nice. You're a little operational defiant disorder you got going here. It's real, real nice. I'll show them. I'll show everyone. All right. I want to start off the show going a little easy because it's going to get ugly real fast this week. Warren Bober, Congresswoman from Hornie for Gunslandia.

She has some thoughts on America's gun problem. Second Amendment is absolute and it's here to say. A recent report states that Americans own 46% of the world's guns. I think we need to get our numbers up, boys and girls. Anyone? I just... I... I know I said this on our last episode,

but I do not understand these fucking people with their religious, patriotic, erotic fixation on guns. They're fucking weapons of war. Let me. them stay there. That's where they belong. Who is their version of Jesus? I just like, I really, I got to understand, because maybe I need to reread their Bible because I don't know who this gun totin, John Wayne, shoot them up at the Last Supper type of Jesus

they got going on to make this kind of integration that they do between their religion and their guns and turning guns, as Andy said, into a religion. It's sick and it's twisted. And I'm telling you again that if they were not white and they were not Christian, they would not be in office. They would be considered terrorists, right? Like plain and simple. When you have people who are elected officials amping up, like, we need to get more guns, boys and girls and like taking their children who can't even hold a weapon who are not even of legal age and posing with pictures with them. Who the fuck? Like, call CPS, child protective services, right?

Lauren Bobert shouldn't be able to parent anybody. Those are my thoughts. Yeah, I think just to answer your original question, I think that they are, they're not monotheists. They're duo theists and they worship Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson. Mm-hmm. Here's my thing. Remember when Al Freikin redid Jesus as supply side Jesus? I'm thinking they need another update and it's ammo supply Jesus.

That's basically what they've done. Okay. Danielle, how's the blood pressure today? Oh, I don't like where this is going. Why don't you ask me how the blood pressure is? I don't worry about you as much as her. Why? Because I'm white?

Yes, clearly. I don't want to get sued for wrongful death in the workplace. Wow. But Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided to show us why she deserves a committee assignment, and she's going to teach us all what CRT is. Didaro, can you tell me how much COVID cash went to CRT? CRT? Critical race theory in education.

It's a racist curriculum used to teach children that somehow their white skin is not equal to black skin and other things in education. Yeah. No, I do not know that, but I do know that there's provisions that the federal funds generally are not used, are supposed to be used for curriculum. Oh. That's a state. Oh, Mr. DeDarro, I have to tell you in Illinois, that they received $5.1 billion at an elementary school there that used it for equity and diversity.

So it's being used for these things. You'll be shocked to learn that she did not have that figure properly. Really? You mean that school didn't receive $5.1 billion fucking dollars? Really? You mean Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't know how to do math? Or understands CRT fairly. Oh, my God.

You know, see, this is when you do this to me, Jesse. Right? Because you're trying to test me during Black History Month. This is the only 28 days that white benevolence is. supposed to be a fucking thing. That's true. That's true. Now I feel bad.

Marshaer Taylor Green is insane. Yeah. She connects no dots because every screw in her head is loose. Yes, the CRT is about teaching white children that their skin is less than. What white kid in America knows that? Tell me, what white kid on a fucking planet thinks that? I assume she just thinks that it's basically the reverse of what was taught in this country for hundreds of years. Yeah.

Like that's the only thing she can think of it is, oh, we used to do that. So that must be what they're doing. Like, it's just, she's so fucking eager. Like, we shouldn't laugh and it's not funny because she is one of the standard bears of the Republican Party. But she's so fucking stupid. She is just dumb. And there's nothing else to say, really. She's just fucking dumb.

She is the standard bear. She is the standard bear. She is the Republican Party. Not the margins, not the fringe, not the Freedom Caucus. She is the party. I pray to God she runs with Donald Trump. I really do. I hope that he does choose her as vice president of these United States.

I really do because I think that they are just this will, this, this, that ticket will be the ticket to end all tickets. It will be the ticket to finally maybe have 100% turnout in our elections. Be careful. Yes. But truly, you know, we will long. for the days of Sarah Palin. Oh, I've been longing for those days since 2016. Jesus Christ.

That was legitimately funny. It is true. That was a much funnier time. Yeah, I missed Joe Sixpack, you know? He didn't have a six magazine pack of bullets. Joe Sixpack. He just had beer. He just had beer.

I forgot about old Joe. The Joe, the plumber, you know. Yeah. Even Ken Bone, come on. Oh, Ken. Okay. So I figure we needed a cooling down after that. So I do actually have the rare clip that's going to make us all happy.

AOC did a quick little four speech about them trying to take Elon Omar off her committee assignment on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which they successfully did. And here she is. Let's go. Nice for one minute. Thank you. Now, as also as a fellow New Yorker, I think one of the things that we should talk about here is also one of the disgusting legacies after 9-11 has been the targeting. and racism against Muslim Americans throughout the United States of America. And this is an extension of that legacy.

Consistency, there is nothing consistent with the Republican Party's continued attack except for the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body. I had a member of the Republican Caucus threatened my life, and you all, and the Republican Caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this Congress. Don't tell me this is about consistency. Don't tell me that this is about a condemnation of anti-Semitic remarks when you have a member of the Republican caucus who has talked about Jewish base lasers and an entire amount of tropes and also elevated her to some of the highest committee assignments in this body. This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America.

Don't tell me because I didn't get a single apology. My life was threatened. Thank you. No lies spotted. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I mean, everything that she says is facts. These people are terrorists, right?

We don't talk about them as terrorists, right? We just say, oh, they're far right. Oh, you know, the far right, the incredibly conservative members of the, there's nothing conservative about them. They want death to their political opponents. They get applause. They fundraise off of it, right? They fundraise off of their racism.

They fundraise off of their political violence, right? And they get rewarded for it. None of these people have been brought in by the Department of Justice. None of these people have been really seriously investigated in any type of way. And then we sit around and we go, oh, I don't know why violence in America is escalating. Because the people with the biggest fucking microphone and platforms, we don't do dick about. Yeah, I just, I mean, AOC mentioned the Jewish space lasers. And of course, that brings us back to MTG, who is, of course, sitting on a whole bunch of committees.

and so to pretend that this has anything to do with anti-Semitism is just a flat-out lie. Also, I don't personally think Omar is anti-Semitic. I do know that she, in the past, she has tweeted some things that uncomfortably sounded like tropes, and she was educated on that, and she apologized. That's fine. Like, that's how you learn. So this is just, this has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It never did.

And for Kevin McCarthy and people like that to wrap them. themselves in that cloak is abhorrent to me. And as Eric Swalwell pointed out in his speech, you know, they really kept clinging to that Kanye guy. They keep cleaning to Trump after he hangs out with the anti-Semites. Yeah. Yeah. They love them some anti-Semites.

They love them some anti-Semites. You just need to have the right skin and the right religion in order to be an anti-Semite and be accepted into the Republican Party. And just to be clear, Ilhan Omar, just as Andy said, is none of those things, right? But she wears a hijab and her skin is brown and she is an immigrant to this country. So she is their number one target. Yeah, she had the nerve to come to this country to try to make a better life for herself,

which used to be called the American Dream and now it makes you something less, I guess. After that horror show of an episode, I'm going to send us off with possibly one of the stupider things. I've seen a Republican say in a minute, which really, goes far. One Roger Williams of Texas decides to go full caveman on the Congress floor. Bottom line, socialism bad. Capitalism, good. In God we trust, I yield back. So you don't even need to speak in complete sentences. Barking. That's like an S&L sketch. That's like Will Ferrell when he used to play Bush. When he used to play W. That's sort of how he talked. And it's just,

That's what that is. That's a parody of a parody. And we should note that they're literally the next vote that they're doing after we tape this is a vote to condemn socialism. Oh, that's important. Yeah. I'd love to see how they'd all vote if they did one to condemn the insurrection again. Oh, it wouldn't pass. Yeah.

You know what somebody tweeted at me the other day? They said, when the aliens come by Earth, they lock their doors. All right. Roll up the windows. Yep. Joining me now is CNN's senior legal analyst and author Ellie Honig. His new book, Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It Just Came Out, and the It in the title refers to, uh, criming. Ellie, thanks for being here.

Glad to be with you, Ed. Yeah, that's a good way to phrase it. Yeah, what is the it? Yes, criming. Crimeing is a good. I should probably, maybe we'll, I don't know if it's too late to reprint all these books, but how powerful people get away with criming. I like that.

Or just put crime in parentheses after it. Yeah. That's why I. Yeah. So among other things, you were an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. You were co-chief of the organized crime unit there. You took on mob bosses, et cetera. And the reason I bring this up is because your book spends a lot of time talking about how Donald Trump has gotten away with it.

But what I liked was a lot of the chapters start with a mob case that you worked on and talking about a specific tactic that mob boss. is used to avoid prosecution or to get lesser sentences. And then you show how that tactic was used by Trump or has been used by Trump pretty much throughout his life and how they are basically the identical tactics. Yeah. You know, a big reason why I decided to write this book was it's become quite common to hear people say, oh, Trump, he acts like a mob boss. He acts like a mob boss. All due respect to people who say that, they don't always know what they're talking about. They're based on Goodfellers or the Godfather or the Sopranos. Again, all due respect. I know what I know. I know and I don't know, I do know the mob because I spent six of my eight years at the Southern

District of New York prosecuting the actual mob. And so, yes, I have those stories throughout the book. A, they're, I think, interesting and entertaining. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny and violent and all the other things. But all these stories sort of have a point, which is here is a tactic that I used to see all the time in real mob cases that Donald Trump, and not just Donald Trump, plenty of other powerful people who I discuss in the book, use really, I guess I don't intend this as a compliment, but quite skillfully. I think that those parallels really sort of pop. Yeah. No, it was quite striking because as you said, yeah, I mean, look, I run around saying, oh, he's running this just like the mob. And of course, my frames of reference are the movies you just mentioned. Yeah. But it was really

fascinating to have you mentioned, you know, specific cases and specific mob bosses and then show exactly how that applied to Trump. Yeah, thanks. I mean, look, I'll just give you one quick example. I don't want to spoil everything in the book, but one of the tactics that I used to see all the time in the mob is bosses and powerful people and the families, the mob family's paying for lawyers, not just for the big shots, but for everybody. Now, look, it's no revelation to say rich people, powerful people. They go and hire their dream teams. We remember O.J. You know, I talk in the book about Jeffrey Epstein, how when he was initially prosecuted in Florida, he went and hired Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, and that actually helped him avoid charges down in Florida before he got charged years later. So that's not really anything I think

that's much of a mystery. But what I think people don't know is just how common it is in the real world, whether it's a mafia family, a large corporation, a bank, the Trump org, to pay for the lawyers for all the people involved. And as a result, that makes it much harder for those people to flip. I tell the story in the book about a lower-ranking mobster who wanted to flip but had one of these lawyers that was chosen and paid for and had to go through this sort of dramatic backdoor where he sent his girlfriend secretly to tell us that he wanted to cooperate. And I talk in the book about the whole drama that ensued. We see that with Donald Trump. The best example is Cassidy Hutchinson. She had a lawyer paid for by Trump's organizations, his politically affiliated entities, and not until

she got rid of that lawyer. Did she fully come clean? And then we all saw her testimony. But that's why she had that emergency testimony. She broke free of that Trump-funded lawyer. And only then was she able to talk. It's a tactic and a technique that I think often flies below the radar. Yeah. It's absolutely fascinating. So very early on in the book, you write that the prime opportunities to hold Trump, Trump criminally accountable for his actions have passed. And then as the book goes on, you show how many people are to blame for this up to an including Merrick Garland. So I want to start, because the book does, with the infamous Stormy Daniels case, which resulted in only Michael Cohen being charged and ultimately convicted. You say that somewhere in the Southern District of New York's offices,

there is a draft indictment of Trump for this case that, in your words, would have shaken Trump's presidency and the country. what happened there? Well, let me just correct one thing. It's not an indictment of Donald Trump. It's not United States versus Donald John Trump. It's a draft indictment of Michael. There's two things here. Yes. The first one is there's a draft indictment of Michael Cohen, which would have blown Trump up. Because remember, this is happening in 2018 under longstanding DOJ policy, DOJ not cannot, and I talk about this policy in the book, but has long decided that it won't even try to indict a sitting president. So there was no chance DOJ was going to indict Donald Trump.

Trump in 2018. But I report on this in the first time, there was a major battle, a struggle between the SDNI where I used to work and DOJ. And so people understand the SDNI is part of the Justice Department. We are one of 93 U.S. Attorney's offices, but we also are famously headstrong, arrogant, whatever you want to call it. We don't like to listen to the people down in D.C. The lawyer joke is the sovereign district of New York, not that funny. But it means, you know, we think we are our own sovereign entity, which is absolutely true. I can say having worked there for eight and a half years. I was often told, I don't listen to just do what we're going to do. You don't have to report that to D.C.

Now, there was a huge struggle that broke out over this indictment, and it's detailed in the book, but the bottom line is the bosses at DOJ, and this is in the Trump era. The AG at the time was Jeff Sessions, who was recused, but other bosses at DOJ forced the Southern District to take all that language out of the indictment about Donald Trump. That would have discussed in detail his role in the hush money payments. That would have basically been an indictment without a charge. And the second big piece, I think of this that I report in the book is that when Trump left office, January 2021, now he can be charged. The Southern District actually met on it several times and discussed, should we charge him?

And I walk through the internal deliberations in the book, but their bottom line, obviously, was no. And so, yes, we end up with this preposterous result. We're the only person charged with a scheme that involved quite a few people was Michael Cohn, who essentially was the bag man, the check cutter. And that's it. Yeah, I misspoke on that. Thank you for correcting me. The battle was over whether Trump should be named as a co-conspirator in the Cohen indictment. And instead, they completely watered it down and just referred to him as individual number one. Exactly. And I do actually have the story of how Trump became individual one. This is sort of what happens inside prosecutors' offices. But I'll summarize it by this. There was a long back and forth between the SDNY and DOJ as to what do you

call this guy, right? Because when we write an indictment, you don't usually give the names of anyone other than the charged defendants will say person two or the accountant or the witness or whatever. And SDNI, you know, they thought about do we call him co-conspirator one? That language was used for Richard Nixon in a grand jury report. And that it was ultimately decided, no, that's too inflammatory. Again, we see things being watered down. I like this. The SDNY wanted to call him candidate one because when this happened, he was a candidate. And DOJ said, no, that's too specific or something. And so the SDNY jokingly internally was like, let's just call him president one. Let's see if they're okay with that. Of course, they ended up settling on individual one, which means nothing because we are

all individuals. Right. And so you actually quote an SDNY prosecutor in this section of the book as saying, we wouldn't even bat an eye about charging Trump if it was somebody who was less well known. And that's disturbing. Yeah, that part jumped out at me. I mean, you know, the, look, not anyone's involved in campaign finance, but let's just say this was a person running for the United States House of representatives, right? You have to raise money and people of, you know, John Edwards when he was running for Senate paid hush money to people. He ended up being tried and found not guilty. But yeah, that was quite clear to me. I mean, the view within the SDNY team varied as to how strong the evidence was against Trump from marginal but good enough to charge to the quote that you just read very good.

It would have been easy. You know, and prosecutors sometimes disagree. But there was nobody there saying we don't have a charge against Trump because of the policy that was in place while he was president, which covered the first two years or so of this. They didn't charge him then. And then when the moment came in 2021, for various reasons I lay out in the book, and I don't necessarily agree with them, they just decided it's not worth it, not on this evidence for this charge at this time. And oddly, the fact that Trump had been involved in so many other things since the payoffs,

right? The payoffs happened before he was elected president. But from Mueller to Ukraine, the first impeachment to January 6 itself, it almost seemed by that point in late January of 2021 that the hush money payments were this afterthought. Now we know, of course, that the Manhattan DA is freshly looking at them now as we speak in 2023 again. So I think it's more relevant now. But the SD&Y, look, this is, to me, was surprising because the SD&Y has this braggado show about it. The ethic and the culture there. What I was there was we go after the big players. We don't just scoop up the small fish yet when it came to Donald Trump. They took a pass.

So and let's talk about something that you mentioned throughout the book and you and you just mentioned a little earlier, this notion that the Justice Department can't indict a sitting president. Or as you go through and describe it in the book, this was a decision that the DOJ itself made the Office of Legal Counsel, I think it was, back in 1973, that this would be its policy. And then they renewed that later on, you know, they sort of confirmed their own policy. Right. No one took advantage of this more than Trump, right? And it really did, you say it, basically it hamstrung the hell out of Robert Mueller. I did. You know, there's such a fascinating history behind this policy because people do often just sort of say casually, well, you can't indict a sitting president. The real answer is we don't know. I mean, no one's ever tried. Constitution doesn't say. But I think the policies probably, if it was up to me, I think I agree with it would cause crazy mayhem to indict a sitting president. But yeah, I mean, look, if we look at people who benefited from it, it was drafted in the Watergate era, actually not with Richard Nixon in mind, but with Spiro Agnew in mind. The funny thing is, the question was, can you indict a president? But they really meant Spiro Agnew. And the response was, you can't indict

the sitting president, but you can indict the sitting vice president. Yeah, how they, how they threaded that needle is a little bit of a mind trick. You know, it benefited Bill Clinton during his time in office. And that's when they reexamined it, by the way, shortly after Bill Clinton. And then he ultimately worked out a deal where he wouldn't be prosecuted after he left office. He had to pay a fine and give up his law license. But yeah, boy, think of how many times Donald Trump was saved by it. I mean, certainly Mueller was tripped up by that policy. Couldn't figure out how to deal with it. Did not tell us, I think wrongly, did not tell us, hey, I know I can't indict this guy. However, in my view, he has committed a crime, which clearly he wanted to say so badly,

but he couldn't. He didn't let himself. I think he could have, but he decided not to. But this policy saved Donald Trump's hide over and over again. Nobody has ever benefited from it like he has. Yeah, it really is unbelievable. So throughout the book, you sort of go through the various ways that they get away with it. Among them are, obviously, they have a lot of money. They can mount expensive defenses. These sort of organizational hierarchies where the boss's insulate themselves. You know, they sort of make sure they're not present for the actual crimes. Things like never saying the magic words, like saying do what you have to instead of kill him. Or I know you'll do the right thing instead of you need to lie to Congress for me. And it was just,

again, it was, I know I made this point earlier, but it was just absolutely fascinating to watch this play out over and over in the book with Bob bosses, with Trump, with people like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein. And it just, it really is a playbook. Yeah. I get, boy, I get, I I guess I don't want people to look at this as a how-to get away. I underlined a lot of pages, and if I'm ever rich and famous, I am using this book. Boy, I never thought about that. I really intended it to be for the other side, how to stop it from it. But I suppose it could be.

Hey, look, it's all in the public domain. But one of the points I make in the book that you mentioned here, Andy, is nothing protects power like power itself. Yeah. Think about, you know, we all have seen the movies with the pyramid, the hierarchy, right? with the lines and the cops will put it up on the cork board and he's the boss and he's the underboss, he's the consigliary. I mean, we had those, by the way, those were real. But the higher you are on the chart, the more levels that prosecutors have to go up the line. I tell one story in the book about a case where we intercepted by lock 200 kilos of coke. That's $5 million

or so worth of cocaine in Illinois that was destined for New York. Well, we flipped the driver. That was easy. And then we flipped the guys who were coming to pick it up. That was pretty easy. And we knew that that's $5 million worth of Coke. That's tied to a major, major trafficker. But you know what? At a certain point, people stopped flipping and we didn't get anywhere near the real bosses. We just weren't able to move high up enough above that ladder. And so that's a reality. The other thing is people really come to learn the unwritten rules. And I talk in the book about the scene in Goodfellas. There's a famous barbecue scene where they're all out grilling. And Polly, the boss is sitting there. And someone, one of the soldiers, comes over, whispers something into Polly.

easier, takes a couple seconds, Polly just looks at him and gives a nod. And Ray Leota, of course, the main character in narration says something like, for a guy who moved all day, Pauli didn't talk to six people. And I love that because I said, wow, that is exactly accurate with my experience, not only in the mob, and not only with Donald Trump, by the way, in the book, I talk about examples of CEOs of mega corporations who have been charged and gone to trial and said, basically made what we call the idiot defense. I didn't know that. I wasn't part. I wasn't of that. I didn't tell anyone to do that. I wasn't informed of that with at times successfully and at times not successfully, but that's not a defense you or I could ever make. So it's another advantage

for bosses and a challenge for prosecutors. I mean, I am most fascinated by the one where it's the sort of never saying the actual words. Yeah. I just find that absolutely fascinating. And you point out that that's what Trump did sort of with Michael Cohen in terms of lying to Congress. And Michael, who I talked to for the book, and I should say, has become a friend of mine. I know, you know, for better words, I do his show and stuff. So Michael Cohen lied to Congress about Trump's efforts to develop a hotel in Moscow when he was still on Team Trump. He lied to Congress. He said it ended a long time ago, but it hadn't ended a long time ago. And Michael Cohen later, after he flipped on Trump, so to speak, said, oh, yeah, of course, that was a lie. But Michael Cohen said, you know, Donald never told me,

hey, I need you to lie about Moscow for me. Cohen just says, it was understood. He called me in. He said, I know you're testifying. Of course, of course, you know what to do. that kind of thing. And that is completely, that is, that is out of the mob playbook. I mean, no mob boss ever tells a guy, hey, I need you to lie. Hey, don't know, don't know this or that. It's just, oh, I heard you got a subpoena. Okay. All right. Well, you know, remember who your friends are, that kind of thing. And we saw it also with Cassidy Hutchinson. The messages that were conveyed to her were really mob like. And that's a very powerful thing. If you have people who are afraid to talk or who cannot testify truthfully. And I open the book with this story about a prosecution of a mob boss that I'm, I don't want to spoil the

ending, but I'll just say it was very difficult. And to this day, I say I'm not particularly proud of the result we got, but he gave an order to do a murder by just saying, do what you got to do, do what you have to do. You know, one of the problems with our case was that could be construed as anything. That could mean make sure he's cooperating before you kill him. That can mean beat him up. That can mean put him in the hospital. That can mean anything. Right. And so smart bosses know how to talk that way, but still convey their meaning. Right. I mean, that could mean get him a birthday prison.

Yeah. That would be an interesting response to, he's cooperating. All right, boss, I got him a cake. Right, exactly. But no, I mean, the scenario was, and I talk about this, the boss was the uncle of the guy, the guy who they believed was an informant correctly. And they send someone into prison. The boss was already in prison for something else.

He's out now. They say, hey, your nephew, we think he's a rat. And the boss basically says, do what you got to do. yes, that could mean, hey, before you do anything, make sure he's a cooperator and come back to me. That could mean beat him up. That could mean, yeah, it can mean, I don't know, tell his parents. That can mean, confront him and make him stop, you know, globally. So we knew what it meant. When that guy says, do what you got to do, you know, we would have had to argue in the case didn't end up going to a jury, but we would have had to have argued to a jury that that's what that meant.

But that's a tough, that's a heavy lift. Yeah, no, absolutely. So the last 60 pages or so of the book is a section called pursuing Donald Trump. And basically you lay out, how he could have been indicted if he didn't have this protection of the office of the president. And you lay out seven counts, including obstruction of justice in the mural investigation, all the way up to election interference and seditious conspiracy and incitement for January 6th. How many of these seven counts could he still be indicted under, do you think? Virtually all of them, right, because we're talking about the time passage here, right? Has the statute of limitations run out, which usually is five years.

So if we go back to 2018, big parts of the Mueller investigation have now expired, but there were still little pieces that sort of straggled into 2019. I mean, the hush money payments were made before the 2016 election, although again, there were straggler payments. So most, nearly all of it is still in play. But, you know, I make the argument in the book that this policy only covers a sitting president, but it really has a longer tail than that. Because once the moment passes, it becomes much more difficult and prosecutors become much less inclined to actually bring. bring a charge. And I think that's part of why I certainly do not make excuses for prosecutors in this book. I'm quite critical of prosecutors who failed to charge Trump in the book. But I think that's part of the reason why that these things are old now. They've been superseded by even bigger events.

Yeah. One prosecutor in particular who you're not particularly kind to was Cy Vance. Yeah. And you point out that not only did he sort of botched stuff with Trump, but also Harvey Weinstein. And it was just interesting to see his name pop up more than once. I'm very critical of Sy Vance. Bottom line is he gave the Trump children a pass on a fair-day straightforward fraud case, and he gave Harvey Weinstein a pass on a very strong case early on. He doubled back later after media exposure. But the thing that really makes Cy Vance an interesting character is he had accepted campaign donations as an elected DA from some of the lawyers for these folks, and then he tried to give him back, and then he ungave him back. He completely fumbled

this scenario. I think he's a perfect example of a prosecutor who, I don't argue that he's corrupt or was taking bribes, but I think he was badly compromised by politics. And I think he just didn't have the guts to pull the trigger, frankly. To sort of follow up on this thread before I let you go, what is your take on Merrick Garland? Because listeners of this podcast know that I have been highly critical of him, but of course, I'm not a lawyer. I've never been a prosecutor. So it's entirely possible to be blunt. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. So here's my view on Merrick Garland and maybe it aligns with yours. I think Merrick Garland has done a very good job of restoring. after the Bill Barr tenure, which, by the way, was the subject of my first book.

Restoring the basic fundamentals. He's not lying to us. It's kind of sad that you would have to praise an AG for not lying to us, but that's a change from Bill Barr. And he's not openly playing politics with DOJ. He's trying to restore DOJ's integrity. I do respect him for that. I do give him credit for that.

That said, here comes the turn. Okay, because not to interrupt you, but I could have done that. Yes, you're right, actually. Any person who just says, we're not going to lie here. politics could have done that. Yes. Where he has failed is in the investigation of Donald Trump and other powerful people. Now, look, there's a chance Merrick Garland still brings an indictment of Donald Trump, whether it's for Marlago or January 6th. And by the way, I do think the Fulton County DA, I say this in the book, is quite likely to charge Donald Trump. But in both cases, it's too late. They've taken too long. You know, Garland had this bottom up. We're going to start at the very, very bottom with the guys in face paint and horns who, you know, ran into the cap. Of course they had to do all those. cases. But the problem was this notion that we're going to flip those guys and they're going to flip those guys and we'll see where it takes us. You don't have to do it that way. You could have gone right at the bosses here. The way the January 6th committee did, frankly, which with far less

powerful investigative tools, instead, here we are. We're two plus years out from January 6th. Not a single person above the level of an oathkeeper has been charged. No one, anywhere near any position of official power. And I argue in the book that the way I would sum it up, I say this in the book is Garland could have gone for the jugular. Instead, he poked at every individual capillary. And, you know, the point is timing matters here, right? I always say it's taking too long and people go, don't be so impatient. These things take time. He has to make sure everything's perfect. I know. I know investigations take time. I did him for 14 years. Not this long. Absolutely not. There's no reason he couldn't have gone right at the White House staffers to get to Cassidy Hutchinson,

get to Mark Short, you know, put pressure on Mark Meadows, all these people. And, and, you know, made a case against Donald Trump in late 2021. And here we are. And the reality is, what if Merrick Garland indicted Donald Trump or Fannie Willis, the DA, tomorrow? What's going to happen? Well, guess what, folks? Indictment is the start of the race. It's not the finish line. When do you think these cases are going to be tried if they get to trial? There's potentially legal issues with the Fulton County case. But if it gets to trial, you're not looking at a trial until 2024, realistically, because Trump's going to appeal. He's going to go to the federal courts, as he has the right to do. Now, let's jump ahead. a year. It's 2024. Trump is the candidate, maybe frontrunner for the nominee, maybe even the

presumptive nominee. Now you're going to get 12 jurors unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt to convict not only a former president for the first time in our nation's history, but also a guy who's on the brink of or maybe the nominee for the upcoming presidency. That is, you are making your job many, many times more difficult than it should have been. Also, I would imagine Trump at that point is going to file legal challenges saying, hey, you can't indict me right now. I am a candidate for president. He's going to try to stretch. I'm sure he would make that argument. I'm not sure that one will succeed. One that I think we ought to watch for because all the signs, especially even this last week, are that Fannie Willis fully intends to charge Donald Trump, the way I'm reading these tea

leaves. But there's going to be a legal question about whether it's constitutional for a local, elected partisan. She runs as a Democrat. County level district attorney to charge someone for anything touching on federal office. The answer actually is probably almost certainly no, but the question will be did Trump's conduct touch on his federal office? Prosecutors will argue no. What he was doing was illegal. He has no role in enforcing the election, but his team will argue that, of course, it had plenty to do it, seeing that the laws be faithfully executed and all that. But there's going to be a constitutional question as a threshold matter with the Georgia prosecution.

Well, I love what you said about Merrick Garland because I always enjoy it when someone who actually knows what they're talking about agrees with me. Turns out you. Yes. The book is untouchable, how powerful people get away with it. It's out now. And I know I focused mostly on Trump for this interview, but I do want to point out to our listeners that there is a lot of really interesting stuff about people like Epstein, Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and other rich and powerful people who also managed to get away with it for a very long time. Ellie, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thanks for having me, Andy. It was a pleasure.

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