Jack - Ed Martin, WCADAGPA

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

Judge Xinis holds a hearing over whether certain discovery in the Abrego Garcia case is subject to state secrets and deliberative process privilege.Trump administration lawyers submitted documents under seal to Judge Boasberg they say show the US "does not have constructive custody over" El Salvador CECOT detainees.Ed Martin reveals that he’s under investigation by the ethics office that handles attorney discipline in Washington, and reveals he’s working with January 6th defendants in his role as the Weaponization CzarTulsi Gabbard has fired the intelligence officials that developed the assessment that tren de aragua is not a proxy of the Venezuelan governmentPlus listener questions…Questions for the pod? Questions from Listeners Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Judge Sinise holds a hearing over whether certain discovery in the Abrego Garcia case is subject to state secrets and deliberative process privilege. The Trump administration lawyers have given Judge Boasberg documents they say show the United States does not have constructive custody over El Salvador sea coat detainees, but the Department of Justice submitted them under seal. Ed Martin reveals that he's under investigation by the ethics office that handles attorney discipline in Washington and reveals he's working with January 6th defendants in his

role as the weaponization czar. And Tulsi Gabbard has fired the intelligence officials that developed the assessment that Trende Aragua is not a proxy of the Venezuelan government. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Unjustified. It's Sunday, May 18th, 2025. I don't know how we're going to fit

all this in, Andy. Hi everybody. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Yeah. Okay. Everybody out there, buckle in, get an extra cup of coffee, put on your cozy slippers, whatever you need, because this thing could go a little bit long. Lots of stuff happening this week. In addition to the headlines you just heard, we're also going to be discussing the DOJ shuttering the public corruption squad that aided Jack Smith and his investigations into Donald Trump and that Republicans in the House are trying to bring Jay Bratt in for questioning. Nicole Forleo Yeah, yep. And you'll remember Jay Bratt worked on, I think he was in the public

corruptions unit at Maine Justice, right? And he was working on the documents case and the January 6th case with Jack Smith's team. And we have our first judge deciding that Trump's invocation of the alien enemies act is actually legal. There's always one. There's always one. This one's in the Western District of Pennsylvania. And Jim Comey is under investigation for sharing an 8647 meme on social media. And after all that, we'll take some listener questions. Andy, let's dive in with the Abrego Garcia case. As you know, in order to get to contempt proceedings, you need to do a little discovery first. And Judge Sinis ordered that discovery, which

was put on a week long hold after the Trump administration said they needed more time to facilitate the release of Abrego Garcia. But then discovery resumed because nothing happened. And the Trump administration invoked state secrets and deliberative process privilege over a lot of what Abrego Garcia's lawyers were asking for in the discovery process. So per the rules, the judge has to

address the privileges as a threshold issue before discovery resumes, right? And she set a hearing for this, you know, these privileges to discuss them, which happened on Friday. There's just this past Friday. And thanks to Anna Bauer at Lawfare, and of course, Kyle Cheney over at Politico, we have a really good play by play of that hearing. That's right. The hearing began when Judge Sinise decided to unseal Marco Rubio's declaration invoking state secrets privilege, which is woefully insufficient because it simply declares the privilege without actually explaining how disclosing certain information would harm

national security. The judge cites Wilkinson from the Fourth Circuit to explain that the court can conduct an in-camera review of the documents when the government's explanation is hollow as it is in this case. The lawyer for Abrego Garcia, an individual named Rossman, tells the judge, the government claims they have over 1,000 documents, but we received only 32 documents, not including our own interrogatory requests which were sent back to us. Oh my gosh. Rossman also said in this hearing, I don't want to get into sealed filings matters,

but if the government in its filings is saying that they have asked for a break of Garcia's return and it's coming from a mid-level bureaucrat, but then his boss and his boss's boss is saying otherwise, then that doesn't seem to us to be compliant with the court order. And since a lot of these answers turn on privilege, the judge says she'll address the privileges first. And that's what this hearing was initially for. And since a lot of these answers turn on privilege, the judge says she'll address the privileges first. And that's what this hearing was initially for. And the DOJ lawyer points out that the Supreme Court ordered the government to share what it can. This is the DOJ's argument about why they've only given 32 out of a thousand documents. Well,

they said to share what we can. And, you know, we're arguing that we can't share pretty much anything. The judge said, look, I made a finding that SCOTUS was clear. I then amplified why the ruling was what it was. When I still didn't get a response from you, I asked three questions. And then I required daily updates from people with personal knowledge. Then we get to the point where depositions were going to be taken. And that's why I asked for people with personal knowledge. Each of those depositions were an exercise in utter frustration.

I don't know how you can make the point to me that this was a good faith, a good faith effort to comply, at least with respect to the deponents. And the Department of Justice said, well, we didn't choose the deponents. And she snapped back. When I ordered the daily status updates, I said someone with personal knowledge should file the declarations. So you basically did choose these deponents. Yeah.

Nothing like DOJ completely abandoning their client. We didn't choose the deponents. It's not the strongest answer, but nevertheless. At one point, Judge Sinise got into a back and forth with the DOJ lawyer, an individual named, is that Gwyn? Am I pronouncing that right? I think so. Okay, let's just go with that. About statements DHS head Kristi Noem made saying that Abrego Garcia would not return to the United States during the Trump administration. Sinise asks

how that's not an admission that the government won't comply. And Gwyn replied, we are complying. We will comply. And the judge asked, who is we? What evidence is there of compliance? DOJ said they'd need a sidebar for that because it's privileged. Okay. And while at that point, Department of Justice lawyer said, there's zero documents withheld based only on state secrets privilege, but there's 43 based on deliberative process

privilege. And then in the middle of that sentence, Judge Sinise breaks in, what am I looking at then? She's looking at the privilege log here. She says, I see one of those privileges invoked 1400 times. Wow. Yikes. Then the attorney for Ibraico Garcia, Rossman, gets a turn to address these privileges and discovery and this is so well done.

Rossman says, my head is spinning based on what I've heard from the government. They've told us nothing. Zero. Nothing. Courts have moved with lightning speed, went to the Supreme Court in six days, and it's been crystal clear since April 10th that the government knew exactly what it was supposed to do. The government says in filings that there's some sort of effort to comply, but I can tell you, Judge, there is zero evidence of that.

All of the government officials have shouted from the rooftops that they will not allow Mr. Arbrego Garcia to return to the United States. The government is delaying for delays sake at the expense of a person wrongfully removed who sits rotting in a foreign prison. I respect the court's decision on this, but the government getting more bites at the apple just allows them to keep doing this because the reason he's saying that is because the government wants more briefing on this privilege. Of course. And judge Sini says, I can give them a short period to cure their error

and everyone will be on notice that I don't think what I've been given is sufficient. Well, Rossman continues on the state secrets privilege issue. It's important to underscore the context here. We're talking about a single person removed to another country, and it's very difficult to swallow from the position of common sense that this information would endanger the diplomatic relations with El Salvador. We could pool our imaginations to come up with potential or hypothetical things that could be state secrets, but rather than us talk about that in a speculative way, the question is, what have you actually done?

And they know the answer. They either have done things or they haven't. What they could do is make a list of the things they've done and bring that to the Secretary of State who can then assess and say, okay, this is okay to share, but the other part's not. But they haven't done that. A life is in the balance. We have due process in the balance.

And there's the question of the role of the judiciary. In a speech last week, Justice Roberts said the judiciary is a co-equal branch with the power to strike down obviously unlawful acts of the president or Congress. I like that they brought up the John Roberts, his continuing tour of crying about how the leopards are eating his face too.

Next, the judge moves on to the deliberative process privilege. The government said context is important here, expedited discovery was ordered and collecting documents or preparing declarations from witnesses is a task that takes months, not days or weeks. That's what the government's arguing here, months. At which point Judge Sini is interjected, not days or weeks. That's what the government's arguing here, months. At which point Judge Sinis interjected, not in this court, if I order it, you do it. This is my court. And this is big because at that point,

Judge Sinis asks the attorney for Ibraico Garcia to come up and address the government misconduct exception to deliberative process privilege. So yeah, wow, that's the big takeaway from this entire hearing. Because you know how with the attorney-client privilege, there's the crime-fraud exception. You and I went over it with Eastman ad nauseam

with John Eastman and his emails from Chapman University. Well, so is true with the deliberative process privilege. It's not absolute. If there's government misconduct, that pierces the deliberative process privilege, just like committing a crime pierces the attorney-client privilege. Yeah. Ask Evan Corcoran. Yeah.

And all his notes from his discussion with his client ended up in front of the grand jury. Right. And that brings up a second lawyer for Abrego Garcia named Cooper. Yeah. And Cooper tells the court, from the beginning, this has been a case about government misconduct. Cooper argued that the deliberative process privilege doesn't apply given the misconduct by the government.

And then he turns to another exception, the compelling need exception. He says, that squarely overrides the invocation of the privilege here. This discovery is relevant and important. The government hasn't pointed to alternative sources of information. There's been no substance produced of information that's key and critical here. We only have roughly 30 documents that are relevant versus the 500 that have been withheld based in part on deliberative process privilege. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And then the Department of Justice guy gets up, Gwen, to respond to

what, you know, that Cooper lawyer just said. And he says, it's not clear from Cooper's discussion what misconduct is at issue. Is it a failure to provide information? Is it failure to comply with the court's order? And Judge Sinise says, or is it all of the above? Oh, man. And Gwen says, look, that was an administrative error that he was removed to a country he shouldn't have been removed to. But that doesn't mean there was misconduct. And Judge Sinis interrupts saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. During the first hearing, the government admitted that Ibrego Garcia was unlawfully detained. There was an unlawful detention. And Anna Bauer says on Blue Sky, there's a long, awkward pause. And then Gwyn says for the DOJ that he can't speak to what

happened at that hearing in which the government admitted that Ibrego-Garcia was wrongfully removed which led to the firing of DOJ attorney, Erez Raveny. And Zinni said, come on, you took over the case, you read that transcript. There's a bit of back and forth then until the DOJ finally admits that Ibrego-Garcia was unlawfully removed. But that's not government misconduct, he says. That doesn't pierce the privilege. And at that point, they decide that the rest of what they need to discuss has to be done behind closed doors. That could be the end of Mr. Gwyn's appointment at the DOJ.

Yeah, admitting there that what exactly what Erez-Ruveni got fired for admitting. Yeah, admitting there that what exactly what a res revenue got fired for admitting. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I mean, again, another pretty lame effort of distancing yourself from your client there. Hey, I wasn't here for that hearing. That doesn't matter, dude. You're on the record in this case. You own everything that happened until you, you know, you own it all.

You're the lawyer. Ugh, what a mess. I know. And Judge Sinise does not seem super happy with what the government has done here. So they are going to come back from their break and they're going to have more of a hearing, but it's going to be behind closed doors so they can discuss things that have been filed under seal. And, you know, then at that point, I imagine Judge Sinise within the next few days will rule on the privilege.

And if she says there's no privilege here or she wants to review these things in camera, because there was a lot of discussion in this hearing about, you know, what you brought up about Judge Wilkinson saying, look, if the government isn't supplying things or you think that the government is acting in bad faith, you can demand an in-camera review to get the information you need. The court has the power and the inherent authority to do that. And Wilkinson, not a deep state Marxist woke lawyer. Okay. This is a Fourth Circuit conservative dude.

An icon of conservative jurisprudence in the Fourth Circuit. And you know, I really think she's being, even though she's clearly frustrated for good reason, she's still giving the government a lot of leeway. She could have just dropped the hatchet on this thing and entered a really tough order for the government, probably several hearings ago. But she's taking her time and really trying to tease out as much of a detailed record as she can because I think we are careening towards a contempt finding. I think we are too. And it's real hard to kind of skip around some of this due process in a case

about due process. Yeah, she wants to put a solid, because it will immediately get appealed to the circuit and she wants to put a solid product in front of them. Yeah. And eventually the Supreme Court, right? Oh yeah. So anyway, everybody, you definitely need to follow Anna Bauer. Her courtroom reporting on Blue Sky is really, really thorough and good. And right now, I think they're having a pledge drive at law fair. So, you know, definitely follow Anna Bauer on Blue Sky. Give what you can so that they can keep doing the reporting that they're doing from the courthouse so that we can bring it to you.

Yes, we wouldn't be able to bring it to you if we didn't have these folks, folks like Kyle Cheney, Anna Bauer, Josh Gerstein, and etc. Ben Wood is Roger Parloff on the ground in the courtroom taking these, doing these live action posts about what's going on. Because as we know, these hearings aren't televised and Judge Sinies actually doesn't have a dial-in number like Judge Boasberg does. So we really thank them for all their work and we really think you should support them

if you get a chance. Heck yeah, for sure. All right, we have quite a bit more to discuss in today's episode. There's just so much more. We're gonna talk about the Seacoat case, remember what's going on over in Judge Boasberg's episode, there's just so much more. We're going to talk about the Seacoat case, you know, remember what's going on over in Judge Boesberg's court with the Alien Enemies Act. But we have to take a quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. All right. Over in the Seacote case in Judge Boesberg's court,

the government is pushing back on Discovery 2. This is a case that originated like March 15th, where the ACLU filed suit to block the administration from removing Venezuelans, five people plus they wanted to expand the class to be nationwide, that are said to members of Trende Aragua to the Seacoat prison in El Salvador. Boasberg ordered the planes be turned around, issued the temporary restraining order saying nationwide nobody can be sent away. And he was using APA, right? The Administrative Procedures Act to do that. But the Supreme Court came back and vacated those orders saying, no, no, no, no, no, no APA, no INA. We have to do habeas petitions in the individual jurisdictions where people being detained

in the United States are being detained. Right? So Boasberg issued a memorandum initiating contempt proceedings against the government for failing to follow those orders because you have to follow the orders even if the Supreme Court comes in and vacates them. You have to follow them in the meantime. The Supreme Court also created a new rule for the ages from the emergency docket, as I was saying. They said you can't do a class action for everybody in the United States. Each person has to file their own habeas petition in the jurisdiction they're in. So the ACLU

filed on behalf of their five original plaintiffs in Texas and New York. And then both of those judges ruled that Trump's proclamation violated the law, the AEA, the Alien Enemies Act. An additional judge in Colorado did the same thing in response to a habeas petition there. So all these individual habeas petitions started popping up since you can't have a nationwide class. And then a Trump-app appointed judge in the Western district of Pennsylvania

ruled the other way, saying that Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation is lawful because the president gets to decide what an incursion means, which is just wrong. And that I'm sure will be appealed. But this judge said the 12 hour notice that the government's been giving in English on one piece of paper, not telling them what their rights are, insufficient. So she said they should get 21 days. So even the judge who thinks that we're under invasion because Trump says so acknowledges that that notice was not notice at all.

Yeah. That wasn't, they weren't getting due process. I guess that's a good sign. Yeah. So that's what they're doing to handle the cases of those detained in the United States. But what about the hundreds of people trapped in El Salvador? Well, as we discussed in prior episodes, the ACLU filed an amended complaint and a new class certification for those remaining in C-Code. They filed this action in DC, the district court in the District of Columbia, which is the proper venue to contest detention for those held outside the United States.

In fact, the district court and the District of Columbia actually has jurisdiction for every case, federal case involving matters that happen overseas. So if you go overseas and you're murdered and the government investigates it and is able to bring a murder of a US citizen case against the person who killed you, that case has to be brought in DC, no matter where you lived or traveled from

or where you were visiting or anything like that. That's just a part of their unique jurisdiction in DC. So the government argued DC does not have jurisdiction and that the government does not have constructive custody over people trapped in El Salvador. So they held a hearing and Judge Boesberg ordered discovery briefings. And this week, the government filed its opposition

to discovery in these proceedings. That's what we're covering today. Yep. Yep. And here's the crux of the government's argument from their response on the docket. I'm sure you'll be really surprised. I have changed a couple of words here and there to clarify who's asking for what. It says the ACLU's request for discovery is unwarranted. This is the Trump administration.

Right. The evidence produced by the government established that the United States does not have custody over the Seacote class. Even under the ACLU's preferred test, the government has now definitively proven that El Salvador is not an agent or intermediary who is indifferent to the detention of the prisoners. That's in sealed filings. This is the proof they've submitted under seal. And that El Salvador would not release the petitioners upon nothing more than a request by the United States.

So Andy, it appears that the government in a sealed filing produced some kind of proof that they don't have control over the detainees in El Salvador, despite the vast public record to the contrary and that Bukele will not release the prisoners if the U S asks them to. Right. and that Bukele will not release the prisoners if the US asks them to. Right. So you're telling me that Abrego Garcia got moved to a non-Seacoat, much nicer detention facility on the eve of a congressman showing up to talk to him just because Bukele decided to do that on his own? Well, yeah, they're actually in the Abrego Garcia case,

arguing that that El Salvador's movement of Abrego Garcia proves that El Salvador has control over Abrego Garcia. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, so the government's response continues. They say petitioners request to delve even further behind the scenes of a diplomatic arrangement

between the United States and El Salvador is improper for two other reasons. First, even though the government has voluntarily provided highly sensitive details about, quote, the conduct of foreign relations, petitioners ask this court to delve into the niceties of diplomatic negotiations. I can't imagine that's the word they use. But in any case, but such matters are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference. Discovery in that context is thus unwarranted and inappropriate. Second, petitioners' requests implicate areas duly protected by the executive privilege,

the presidential communications privilege, the state secrets privilege, and the deliberative process privilege. They conclude like this. They say, Respondents have already provided the final documents governing the diplomatic understanding between the United States and El Salvador, so any responsive document would be cumulative. That should suffice. Based on the final governing documents already produced, this court should determine that the United States does not have constructive custody over the putative C-Code class and deny petitioners requests for yet more discovery. If this court does determine that some additional jurisdictional discovery is warranted, it should implement the usual discovery process

with objections and responses. Is that what we're in here? Yeah, isn't this the usual discovery process? I mean- I think they want just a slower one, where they get to file more crap. Because as you said before, the delay is the point. Yeah, absolutely.

And this is not the Abrego Garcia case, but there's a lot of parallels. Sure. I mean, we have all like the same privileges coming up. I think Boasberg will take this apart. But Boasberg has already shown huge skepticism over like, for example, the state secrets privilege. He did a whole filing on this. Like, I really doubt it. I mean, you guys have been sharing photos with tail numbers and you can publicly look up where these planes are. And you've been saying, Bukele said that they're what your agreement is about, you know, generally speaking. And it seems like here too, someone

has just filed a declaration saying, this is what the agreement between us and the and El Salvador says, it without actually providing the actual agreement. Yeah. Yeah, that certainly could be. They can't really, in either case, they're going to have a hard time reconciling what they're claiming in court with what the leadership involved here, Rubio, Nome, you know, the list goes on and on, have said publicly, like those public statements, that little snarky stuff they post on Twitter or whatever, really undermines the government's position here. Yeah. And what I don't get is why they don't just get to the wall that I think we're going

to run into, which is to have somebody testify or say, or write a declaration that they have asked multiple times for the release of a Brago Garcia. They have sent a delegation, they have sent a letter and they keep getting told, no, the end. I think that that would actually satisfy what the Supreme court is looking for here, which is that they tried to facilitate his return or the return of the people in C code, but they don't But they won't even get to that point. They want to throw all this privilege up there

before they have to turn anything over in discovery first. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I do think as unsatisfying a result as that would be, you're probably right if they actually ponied up the evidence to support whatever efforts they have undertaken, if they've actually undertaken any, I certainly don't take them at their word, then that might be enough. But I will tell you, I have been involved in state secrets filings before and they require

a an extraordinarily detailed disclosure to the court. Now, of course, the other side doesn't get that. It's in camera. But it's a very high standard because it's kind of like the nuclear option. You can take a civil suit. Somebody files a civil suit and what's at issue impinges upon a state secret, something that qualifies as a state secret, it basically obliterates the lawsuit and the petitioner is just sent home with nothing. It's just incredibly, you know, that's not what our system is designed to do, but the court in very rare circumstances will not allow a litigation to go forward if it actually does put a state secret in danger. So like, I don't know how you hit that bar in front of any judge and

on these facts, but we'll, we'll have to wait and see, I guess. Yeah. I mean, unless you want to, you know, testify about your discussions with a break or with Bukele and that they went nowhere and he kept saying no and denied you over and over again and and that's the actual and that actually happened maybe you can file that under seal and also satisfy what the Supreme Court ordered but they won't even do that they're saying we can't even tell you about that because of like these 900 different privileges we're going to invoke 1400 times. Which is the standard Trump legal team approach that we saw throughout the criminal cases

last year, right? In the Jack Smith cases and the other cases, it's all about like throw out a claim of privilege. When that one fails, throw out another one. That one fails, throw out another one. And sooner or later they got one that worked, which was presidential immunity. Yeah. That's, I mean, it just really feels very familiar. Yeah, it certainly is, especially the delay part of that equation. Andy, this is just now hitting my feed. There's huge breaking news here. As we're recording this, it looks like

the Supreme Court in a seven to two ruling, I'll let you guess the two, has just issued an injunction, a preliminary injunction blocking removal of the petitioners in the Northern District of Texas under the Alien Enemies Act case. So yeah, wow. This was the case where the detainees filed an emergency temporary restraining order in the Northern District of Texas, but the judge there denied their motion. And then within hours, the Trump administration started telling detainees in the Northern District of Texas at the Blue Bonnet facility that they're going to be removed under the Alien Enemies Act. And they started putting these people on buses to take them to the airport in Abilene, right? Near Blue Bonnet.

And this is, by the way, the facility where the men spelled out SOS in the yard. And then lawyers filed for emergency relief with the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court. And that's when the Supreme Court, you'll remember they came in at like two in the morning and said, don't remove these people, temporary restraining order. Wait until the Fifth Circuit rules on this. And, you know, Alito dissented, right? To that a couple of days later. But they, but they stepped in in the middle of the night and put that out before Alito could finish writing his weird dissent. And at that point, then the Fifth Circuit dismissed the case and said that the petitioners, these migrants don't have jurisdiction here, which is dumb because they do, because the Supreme Court just said they did. You

know, when they said you have to file your habeas petition in your district. And it was the dismissal of that case in the fifth circuit that allowed the Supreme court to consider this or writ of certiorari. And that's what they're responding to, it seems. And they say the fifth circuit aired and they're vacating their dismissal saying you do have jurisdiction and they're remanding it right back to them. Saying you have to keep going on this. And in the meantime, nobody in the Northern District of Texas can be removed to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act case.

Yeah, so this is basically shut that whole plan down. It doesn't address the fundamental legal question of whether or not the Alien Enemies Act can be used in the way it's being used here. The justification that we're being invaded by Venezuela via Trende Aragua, and therefore we can throw out anyone who is affiliated with Trende Aragua. So that's still a hanging question, but now we're in a

position that the Fifth Circuit's going to have to weigh in on that issue. And also they're going to have to define what notice looks like, what appropriate notice looks like, and then that will go back to the Supreme Court. Yeah. And then we might get the first Supreme Court ruling on the legality of the Alien Enemies Act. That's right. And so basically what this ruling means, seven to two, Thomas and Alito dissenting, and there's like a really great post on Blue Sky by someone named Aaron Reichlin Melnick, who is an incredible follow if you're following the immigration cases. He says that basically what this new Supreme Court ruling means is that the Trump administration is barred from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport the men in Texas, Northern District of Texas, and nationwide must give better notice under this ruling because they actually

put in a footnote here, hey, 12 hours, one page in English doesn't cut it. This isn't due process. And once the Fifth Circuit rules, this almost certainly goes straight back to the Supreme Court for a ruling on the AEA proclamation itself and so Andy you and I are actually gonna In light of this Breaking news, I think you and I should record a bonus

Episode that'll come out tomorrow morning so we can go over this ruling in a little more detail. You into that? Totally, totally. Let's do it. This is like going back to our past, our Jack Smith past. Something big comes out. We're just gonna lay it out there for people to hear for themselves.

It's an impactful ruling and pretty much of a smackdown of the Fifth Circuit. So that's always interesting. and it's not too long. I think the whole thing is only about 24, 25 pages. So yeah, we're gonna bring that to you. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that because I think it's important

that everybody knows what's in this because it's gonna impact. I am waiting now. Like I kind of wish the Abrego Garcia hearing had happened after this ruling came down because I'm sure it would have been brought up. But yeah, we'll do that. We'll do that. We'll release it first thing tomorrow morning. So you'll have two episodes of unjustified this week.

Excellent. And I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of the show with this news on my mind, but we can do it. We can do it. Let's carry on. Let's carry on. But that's a big thing. All right. So next up, remember last week, Andy, when we talked about a second intelligence community assessment about Trendy Aragon not being a proxy for the Venezuelan government. Yeah. Totally undercutting Trump's reason for invoking the A.E.A. in the first place. What is it? First time? Shame on you. Second time? Shame on me. This is like shame on you

and second time even more shame on you. Even more shame on upon you and your house. And how that, by the way, that Intel memo, we talked about this, it was released through FOIA and you and I are like, Oh, somebody's going to get fired. Well, well they have, we have our answer. This is from the post. Tulsi Gabbard has fired the top two officials at the NIC, the National Intelligence Council, weeks after the council wrote that assessment that contradicted Trump's rationale for invoking the AEA and deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. Gabbard removed Michael Collins, acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, as

well as his deputy, Maria Langenreichoff. And that's according to a spokesperson in Gabbard's office. Gabbard is taking two other steps, by the way, that appear intended to buttress the role of her office. She's moving the office that creates the PDF, the present, or the PDB, the President's Daily Brief. And she's moving the National Intelligence Council, the, you know, the two people she just fired. She's moving those offices from the CIA to her office, the ODNI. Well, that'll go well because she has such a deep background with producing finished

intelligence for the president. Oh wait, that's right. She doesn't at all. I mean, first of all, I feel terrible for Mr. Collins and Ms. Langenreichoff. It's a tough spot to be in, I feel for you. Trump asked him to reassess the original February 26th intelligence memo, and they did. Yeah, this is just going,

this is going nowhere good for America because it's the kind of Trumpification of intelligence products, right? We're going to start, we're going to go back in time to that era post 9-11 when it was, you know, the CIA was producing intelligence about Saddam Hussein's role in 9-11 because they knew that's what the president wanted to hear. And of course it was not true. Um, so yeah, so she moves this, uh, the PDB office into the DNI. And it'll also come with changing the staffing and putting in a bunch of

people whose opinions she likes. And then that's, that's how the, the actual intelligence products end up getting changed. Um, and which means, you know, we'll have less accurate, less truthful, less competent intelligence assessments. So as a nation, we'll be a little more blind. I hope there's still some good analysts there. I remember Miles Taylor, I did an interview for his book, Blowback, and he told a story about how he had to turn

an 80 page brief from the Pentagon on why pulling out of Afghanistan was a bad idea into a one pager in Trump's voice. And just across the top, he put, don't be a loser. Pulling out of Afghanistan will make us look like a loser. We want to be, we want to look like winners. And then like it's just a one-page thing. Like about why it's bad to pull out of Afghanistan. And Trump actually read that and listened to it because it was one page and it was in his voice. Yeah. So I don't know maybe we'll get intelligence assessments like like that. I don't know. I just, I envy anybody who has to be in a position where you're asked to do your job. And if you do it properly, you could, you'll be fired.

You're going to get fired. Yeah. Your job is to tell the truth to the president so that the president knows and understands what's happening in the world and can use that information to make good decisions to protect the country. But if you tell this president a truth that he doesn't want to hear, you're gone. Yep, absolutely. It's gone. All right, we have more news to get to about our good friend Ed Martin, for example,

and a few other stories. But again, we have to take another break, so stick around, we'll be right back. ["The New York Times"] Welcome back. Welcome back. Okay. We have some interesting news on the new weaponization czar assistant deputy attorney general pardon attorney Ed Martin.

Is that his new title? I think so. The WCAC-A-D-A-G-P-A. I feel like Ed Martin just covers it all. Like once you say Ed Martin. The Whacka Dagpa. Yeah. That's what he is.

The Whacka Dagpa. Do we now have the title for this week's show? Yeah. Oh, okay. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So this reporting comes from the Washington Post.

Justice Department official Ed Martin, whose nomination to serve as US attorney in DC stalled in the Senate, is under investigation by an ethics office that handles attorney discipline in Washington. He said in an office wide goodbye email on Wednesday. All right, pause. Hard pause here. Who puts that in their goodbye email? I mean, hey, it's been great. You guys are terrific. Keep protecting America. It's been such a privilege working

with you. And oh, by the way, I'm under investigation and might lose my law license. If anybody has an extra, send it my way because I might need it. Just yeah, bye. I mean, Ed. Okay, thanks, bye. Felt cute, might delete later. Ed, take out the editor, right? I mean, just think about taking, saying less, really, Ed.

Okay, sorry. On his last day as interim US attorney before heading to the Justice Department, Martin alerted his offices roughly 350 attorneys and 400 staff members to this matter while claiming that his confidentiality had been violated. Also an odd topic for a goodbye letter, but okay, Martin alleged that the legal ethics office called the Office of Disciplinary Counsel had inappropriately notified a unit of his US Attorney's Office of the probe.

Now, Martin identified the case number, case anybody wanted to look it up, as 2025-D is in Delta 047, but not the specific allegations against him. Come on, Ed, what happened in the spirit of transparency? Democratic lawmakers and groups have accused Martin of abusing his power, seeking the suspension of his law license or other penalties.

In complaints lodged with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel's Chief Hamilton Phil Fox, they allege that Martin has used the threat of prosecution to intimidate and chill the speech of perceived adversaries, such as lawmakers, protesters, journalists, medical journals, and others. I think you could probably add law firms and universities to that list.

And others that he said opposed the agenda of President Donald Trump or his billionaire advisor, Elon Musk, even in instances when they did not commit a crime, but quote, acted simply unethically. I remember that tweet. Yeah. A lawyer found to have violated ethics rules can be subject to law license suspension or

other penalties, although the process can take years, as we've noted. In a letter, Martin attached to his email, again, while... Ed, come on. He asked the court that oversees the counsel's office to suspend and investigate Phil Fox and dismiss his case, claiming it was being weaponized by Fox against him. Now, Martin said he objected to being mailed a copy of the complaint against him and related materials and that a separate copy was emailed to an intake address for the U.S. Attorney's Office Civil Division. He says, quote, it appears

that Phil Fox wanted people to know about this complaint. Why else would he email it to intake email box of the U.S. Attorney's Office Civil Division when he already had my work and personal email accounts? That's what Martin wrote in the letter, his goodbye letter, which was viewed by the Washington Post because he sent it to a 450 people. How many of those 750 while reading it were like, oh my God, why did he send this out? Martin's letter appeared to describe a notification process used when a lawyer does not respond to a complaint as required. So he didn't respond. And that's why they sent it to that inbox. On Wednesday, some

members of the US Attorney's office said they found Martin's email perplexing. Quote, his complaint was that it was confidential, but then he reveals it to the whole office. That's what one person said. We even to those smarty pants attorneys. On the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. He said, quote, it's not like any of us knew about this. Now they do. My God, I'm going to miss that guy.

Oh, he'll still be doing stuff as the WCAGPA. The WCAGPA? The WCAGPA. The weaponizations are assistant deputy Attorney General, Pardon Attorney? I'm literally choking over here. I'm sorry. The Whack-A-Dag-Paw. Okay.

All right. I thought the pay dag was too many, but we've, we're out of, we're beyond pay dag, making fun of territory here and with whack a dag pop. Okay. Next up from Ryan Riley at NBC. The FBI's Washington field office is folding its federal public corruption squad, the same unit that aided Jack Smith's special counsel investigation into president Donald Trump. Three people familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

The field office has three units, they're actually referred to as squads, but nevertheless, that work on public corruption issues, but this one known internally as quote CR 15, that stands for criminal squad 15 for those playing at home, or Criminal Squad 15 for those playing at home, was deeply involved in the Bureau's Arctic Frost investigation, which was the precursor to the Smith Probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results

by Trump and his allies. That investigation resulted in one of the two federal criminal cases against Trump, both of which were dropped after his election. Arctic Frost. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a bad one, right? Not election. Arctic frost. Yeah. All right. Yeah, it's not a bad one, right? Not bad.

Well done, folks. FBI special agents assigned to the squad will be reassigned. An FBI official said the change was part of a broader reorganization at the Washington Field Office and that there would be additional changes to come. Oh, I bet there will. And that public corruption cases would still be pursued. No. Not so much. Not real ones.

No. The move to shutter the unit comes amid a major shift of FBI resources towards immigration enforcement, an area that is primarily the responsibility of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's actually exclusively their responsibility. But anyway, ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security,

a top leader in the FBI's Washington Field Office was also recently reassigned, two people familiar with the matter said, an FBI official said the person was not reassigned for any adversarial reason. Oh, sure. So they're gutting the public integrity section, they're gutting the public corruption squads. They're getting rid of

White collar they're taking people off white collar stuff getting rid of the Joint Terrorism Task Force moving everybody to ice folks the reign of retribution Continues this is not going to end anytime soon if you thought that Our our friends and colleagues at the FBI who simply showed up and worked the cases, they were supposed to work, they were assigned to work, were out of the woods, they are not. And there's not anyone in the FBI to include its current director who's going to stand up for them and protect them and protect the work that the FBI needs to do. You know, that 30% of FBI agents being, or, you know, Cash Patel telling the FBI that agents should be spending 30% of their time on immigration

matters and that the white collar crime program will be kind of scaled down as a result. That's work that no one else does. That's your state and local police departments can't do that white collar program. It's long term complicated document intensive data intensive investigations. They're just not gonna get done. Which means that you know your your grandparents and elderly parents are more likely to get scammed by cyber fraudsters, white collar... Yeah, nothing will be done about the White House collar crimes. No, no, none of that. So this is another bad sign for the home team here.

Mm-hmm. And there was a little bit of that jockeying back in the old days of the first Trump administration when, you know, Barr would put some guy in charge of specifically getting all the juice from Rudy Giuliani so that it didn't go through normal channels and like they would just kind of move US attorneys around and assign them to specific things and assign like David Weiss to look into Hunter Biden and Burisma. But now that the Trump administration has gone out on a limb and says that special prosecutors are no longer a thing. They're just gutting whole departments and moving everybody to ICE. Resources have to get moved every now and then. Threats change. The volume of the work

you do in one place or another shifts and changes, and you have to respond to that. And it often provokes a negative reaction by the people on the ground who are doing the work that they don't want their lives and their work lives to be changed like that. But that's not what we're talking about here. To to to rip the guts out of the white collar program after you've signed an executive order ordering the Justice Department to no longer enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That's a campaign to take the teeth out of the government's ability to hold take the teeth out of the government's ability to hold white collar offenders, wealthy offenders, people in the business community and the private sector who are committing frauds that cost people millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Elected officials.

That's letting them off the hook. We're not interested in holding them accountable anymore. Nope. All right. You mentioned the retribution tour and we have a couple of examples of that, but we have to take one last quick break and then we'll get to listener questions. Stick around. We'll be right back.

Hey everybody. Welcome back. All right. Just a couple of quick stories before we get to listener questions. First up from your colleague, Andy Paula Reed at CNN. Shout out Paula Reed. Paula, a key federal prosecutor in the classified documents case against Trump, declined to answer questions during a House Judiciary Committee deposition Wednesday, invoking his

Fifth Amendment right as a spokesperson suggested the government had been weaponized against him. Jay Bratt, this is Jay Bratt, former Justice Department National Security Prosecutor who spearheaded the case in which Trump was charged with retaining classified national defense documents, taking them from the White House after he left office and resisting the government's attempts to retrieve the materials and obstructing the government's attempts to retrieve those materials. I don't know how the pool flooded the server room. I don't know. It's just a mystery.

He entered the committee room, this is Jay Bratt, on Wednesday morning, this past Wednesday, and two sources familiar with the matter confirmed he invoked the Fifth against self-incrimination. And he left after a little less than two hours. Quote, this administration and its proxies have made no effort to hide their willingness to weaponize the machinery of government against those they perceive as political enemies. That's what brat spokesperson Peter Carr said in a statement to CNN. And he went on to say that should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law. In light of these undeniable and deeply troubling circumstances, Mr. Bratt had no choice but to invoke his fifth amendment rights. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan declined to comment on Bratt's deposition, but told

CNN he has a list of other former DOJ officials he wants to interview, David Weiss being among them. Yeah, that is, I'm sure that that really bothered Mr. Bratt to have to go in there and do that. No one wants to do that because it always raises this implication that like, oh, you must have something to hide. I don't believe for a second. Likely the fifth, right. Yeah.

I don't believe for a second that Jay Bratt has anything to hide, but this is the only thing any smart attorney would say to him. You cannot go in there and share any information with them because they will use it against you. Yeah. And this was a behind closed door deposition, which Jim Jordan has a long and sorted history of cherry picking for public consumption. If they're going to actually prosecute him for some trumped up bullshit charge, that

would be a prior statement on the record that they would then turn around and try to manufacture some sort of inconsistency with. So like, yeah, he had to do this, but I feel terrible for the guy. Yeah, me too. So as we know, our buddy Ed Martin has been ousted as DEC US attorney and now has three jobs at DOJ, rendering him the- Waka dogpa. Waka dog, Waka dog, Pah.

One of his jobs as Waka dog, Pah is the weaponization czar. That same CNN report tells us this at a news conference, Martin suggested that in his new role, he would seek to identify and embarrass people, even if he could not charge them. Now let that sink in for a second. Quote, this is Ed's quote here, there are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people and if they can be charged we'll charge them, but if they can't be charged we will name them and we will shame them. That is first of all, a huge violation of Department of Justice policy against releasing the names of unindicted people.

Yes it is. And possibly even a violation of their privacy rights. But let's go on. Ed continued to say, and in a culture that respects shame, what culture is that Ed? I'm really not sure. And in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are shamed. And that's a fact. That's the way things work. And so that's how I believe the job operates. So his job at the DOJ is to violate DOJ policy. Okay. This guy is a disgrace to the practice of law, to the Department of Justice, to the

DC US Attorney's Office. And he's just like that bonkers that he comes out and says the quiet part out loud. I know. So you don't have to guess like what is he up to and how far off base is he in terms of his understanding of like the law and What's constitutionally? permissible He is truly the whack-a-dag-paw

Yeah, he's the whack-a-dag-paw for sure. All right, and by the way that screed about naming and shaming people that aren't indicted Made its way into the FBI agent's lawsuit against the government. This is the one that asked the court to block the DOJ from releasing the list of names of FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases out of fear of retaliation. Remember St. Dris, Driscoll, who didn't at first supply the names and only gave numbers identifying people,

trying to stand up for the agents there that he was accidentally put in charge of because of a typo. He should have only given like HRT ask nicknames. Here's Thor's hammer. Arctic frost. Johnny Thunder. Johnny Thunder, Tony, Tony the big fish. Bovay's head would have exploded. Like who's Johnny Thunder?

You don't know. Is Thunder a last name? You don't know. You claim to be down with the people who work for this. Yeah, come on dude. Johnny Thunder. Everybody knows Johnny Thunder. Everybody knows Johnny Thunder.

But anyway, that press conference thing that you just read made it into this lawsuit, rightfully so, right? So glad. And it was just a notification to the court, right plaintiffs the FBI lawyers were like but Mark Zaid is one of them who I just had on the Daily Beans podcast representing these FBI agents just want to say hey court we just want to let you know that Ed Martin just said this yeah okay and uh he here's what the the notice to the court said Mr. Martin's statements represent new relevant facts worthy of the court's attention while it considers our requested relief.

First, the statement indicates that Mr. Martin speaking in his capacity as a senior DOJ official and a leader of the weaponization working group has indicated a clear unmistakable intent to name and shame federal employees, i.e. the plaintiffs who investigated January 6th because that's quote how he believes the job operates. Second, it confirms that DOJ leadership values their version of the truth coming out over some procedure. This is particularly relevant where Mr. Martin is widely known to believe, as he has publicly stated, the January 6th insurrection was a fraud and a hoax orchestrated by the FBI. Third, it indicates that the Department of Justice

leadership is in regular contact with January 6th defendants who are imploring them to release information, such as the survey results at issue in this litigation, survey results being the list of FBI agents. That's right. So they go on to say, further compounding the threat to plaintiffs is a recent New York Times report that indicated Attorney General Pam Bondi has granted

the Department of Government Efficiency personnel access to DOJ systems. As this court is aware, the list of names of FBI personnel who participated in the January 6 investigations and prosecutions exists on DOJ systems following then acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Beauvais demand for FBI to send the names to DOJ. Plaintiffs submit that they're requested relief as set forth during the April 30, 2025 hearing,

which requested that the DOJ be ordered to destroy the list it created of the names of FBI personnel in addition to issuing an injunction preventing defendants release of the list beyond DOJ remains the only outcome that will ensure the safety of plaintiffs. Yeah. So, boy, Ed Martin, doing a favor for the FBI plaintiffs in this particular lawsuit. He is the embodiment of unjustified. Yes. It really is. Absolutely.

And we'll see what Judge Jeanine Pirro ends up being like taking his place and whoever comes after her and whoever comes after them. All right, Andy, you ready for this? Yes. From Reuters, US President Donald Trump is accusing Jim Comey of calling for his assassination in a quote unquote coded post on social media, rejecting the former FBI director's explanation that he was not aware of any violent connotation

of his post. US law enforcement officials are investigating an Instagram photo posted by Comey of the numbers 8647, formed by seashells with the comment, cool shell formation on my beach walk. Trump and his allies say this is an assassination threat. US Secret Service Director Sean Curran quote is leading the investigation into the threat. According to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, she told that to Fox news on Thursday night. And by the way, Trump and his allies sold all kinds of 86 46 merch during the Biden administration.

Yeah. Now, Gabbard dismissed Comey's explanation saying it's not violence. She dismissed that as absurd, saying 86 47 has been used by anti-Trump protesters and was a failed call to action against the sitting president. So all right, do Lulu much? I don't know what to say about this, but Jim Comey is under investigation for posting 8647 on Instagram. thing is ridiculous from start to finish. This as a policy matter, when people make any kind of threat,

even one that you think is kind of silly, maybe it's not really a threat, whatever, when the Secret Service becomes aware of it, they look into it, which basically means they identify the person that said it, and they go sit down and talk to them and make an assessment as to whether it's a real thing or not. I'm thinking of Kathy Griffin, who held up a decapitated head of Donald Trump.

Yeah. They went, talked to her, got the story and left her alone. Yeah. So would they do that here? I assume they probably will. They'll sit down and talk to him and they will, if they can, if they handle it the way they handle literally hundreds and talk to him and they will, if they handle it the way they handle literally hundreds and hundreds of these things

that come across their desk every year, they'll walk away from that conversation and take no action. That's what should happen here. I mean, I think this is an important thing probably for Jim to put up. I'm not gonna guess it. His motives are what was in his head, I have no idea.

But if anybody thinks that Jim Comey is an actual danger to the president of the United States, I mean, come on. The whole thing is pretty silly, but, uh, But I wouldn't put it past the weaponizations are to shop around some grand juries and see if you never know any, do you know any other time in history when, uh, attorney general is shopped around to a couple of different grand grand juries trying to indict a political enemy? It happens. It doesn't. It does happen. I can tell you that does happen. And it's awful. And it goes on for years.

But obviously, that should, I really hope that does not happen here. But yeah, this is just kind of a, it's unfortunate and I hope that they resolve it the right way, which is to not really do much more than look into it preliminarily. Right, to ensure that the president's safety, right? That's their job. All right, we, I think we have time for a question from a listener. Again, if you have a listener question, there's a link in the show notes you can click on to submit your question to me and Andy.

So what do we have this week, Andy? Andy Barthes All right. So I got two for you. The first one is just a little, it's not even a question, but I kind of liked it. It came comes to us from someone who identifies himself as anonymous she her and, and she said, quick correction on the pronunciation of perk, the law firm Perkins. And then of course, the second name is spelled C-O-I-E. She says, it rhymes with gooey, which I love that because I always get stuck on that name. So it's Perkins

cooey, right? Perkins cooey. I think we get that right, but thanks for the- I also hear it coey sometimes. Yeah. She seems pretty intense. So I'm going go with her just because I like the that she used the word gooey All right. All right So John sends in a couple of questions here and I kind of like them because you really hit the whole spectrum of different Things that we're dealing with so maybe do these as like a little bit of a speed round that works for you Yeah, let's do that. All right. Here we go. John says hey, I love the show and all everything that you guys do All right, here we go. John says, hey, I love the show and all everything that you guys do

First one is what are your thoughts on the reports about DHS ice being ordered to recruit 20,000 agents in 60 days? Can DHS simply deputize willing individuals in mass? Okay, John, here you go 20,000 agents in in 60 days not a chance that will never happen And this is the same thing they said in the first term they were gonna hire 25,000 border patrol agents in one year. And of course it never happened. They got like five or something. I don't know. I don't know what the number was, but it was not 25,000. Yeah, it was around 5,000. And now I think they're trying to get 20,000 National Guard to, to do this. However, National Guard does not have power to arrest people or they're just they can, they can like operationally assist, but they can't actually enforce the

law. Right. So can they simply deputize willing individuals? My understanding, I mean, I'm not an expert on this. My, I am familiar with people being deputized to serve on federal task forces. It happens all the time. It's when you have like a local or state police officer that wants to work on the JTTF with the FBI or maybe a safe streets violent crimes task force. You deputize them as federal marshals. That gives them federal arrest authority and they can work with the same powers that agents have. But they're law enforcement people to begin with. So I'm not, I don't, can you

just go out and start deputizing randos who have a personally owned AR-15 to start rounding up immigrants? Uh, I'm not aware of that, but wouldn't put it past them. I wouldn't put them past them trying it. Okay. Yeah. Like remember how the U S marshals deputized Elon Musk's private security guys to be US Marshals? Yeah, yeah. Make your own badge, here's a gun, have at it. All right, second question. What's the legality of government agents hiding their faces in badges, et cetera,

as ICE is being accused of? Okay, there's no legal requirement that government agents show their faces during an arrest when they're out there conducting operations. You might find it to be creepy or unethical. That's your own decision, but there is no legal obligation to show your face. There is an obligation.

It may be grounded in policy, not law, that you show your badge and ID, your badge with a number on it, and your affiliation, like what agency you work for. ICE, HSI, ATF, FBI, and it's got to have police on there and it's got to be, I think, at least three inches tall or something like that. I think that's all policy. It's all policy.

And a lot of that stuff is to protect them as well. Like you want other law enforcement people, especially now that you've got all these mishmash teams of people from different places working together, you want the people who are out there with guns to know that you are on their side, because if they see you with a gun and you're not clearly identified, you could end up shot. But there is no requirement of showing your face. Okay, next one.

Can you explore the suspension of habeas corpus as well? This is gonna take a while. I'm gonna do this quickly though. Under what circumstances can it happen and how cooked are we if they risk and try it? So under the constitution, that thing, the ability to suspend habeas corpus is a power given exclusively to Congress.

It is in article One of the Constitution. So only Congress can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. And they can only do it in, I forget the actual language, but it's time of like rebellion or invasion or something like that. I'm blowing the actual quote. The president does not have the solitary ability to like that. I'm blowing the actual quote. The president does not have the solitary ability to do that. That's why almost every person who's talking about this publicly

is saying if Trump tries to do this in that executive order, it will be like unconstitutional from Job Street. But that won't stop him from doing it on the down low and then acting on it and then having it go through the courts afterwards like he did with the alien enemies act. But at least the president can declare the alien enemies act. In this case, it has to be Congress, right? Yeah, in this case, it has to be Congress. Now Lincoln did it during the civil war. It's one of the few times it's ever happened. And people point to that.

The reason Lincoln could do it was because there was no Congress sitting at the time. Congress had basically headed for the hills during the war. So that is seen as an exception that will never happen again. Okay, finally, there's another big one. We're gonna cover it quick. Can you explain the emoluments clause and how the Qatari 747 fits into that?

So he's referring to this gift by the government of Qatar to Donald Trump of a 747-8 that Trump intends to use as Air Force One. And there's almost no interpretation that could justify this under those circumstances as not a violation of the Emoluments Clause. The Emoluments Clause says the president cannot take anything of value from a foreign government. And this is a $400 million airplane. It is an old crappy one though that would cost about a billion dollars to retrofit with everything that Air Force One would need and would take like more years than he has

left in office. But that it would be his at the end of it. And you know I've seen him use the Statue of Liberty as a analog to this like oh well Statue of Liberty was a gift. We were supposed to turn that, just turn that down? Well, first of all, it's not in the presidential library of the guy who was president at the time. It's in the harbor. Second of all, you don't care about what it says on the Statue of Liberty, but that's beyond the point.

And third of all, Congress voted on the ability for us to accept this gift from France. So if they wanna do Congress voting on the plane, on the Qatari plane, cool, bring it on. I would love to see that vote. Right. Because that's also in the Emoluments Clause. You cannot, if you're president, you can't accept a gift from a foreign government unless

Congress approves. So yeah, so the Statue of Liberty, that's an example of the Emoluments Clause being working the way it's drafted. And of course, the Republicans flipped out when Hillary got and returned a $400 necklace from Bangladesh. That was, of course, a total violation of the Constitution. And she's clearly in the pockets of the Bangladeshis. And oh my God, I can't believe she accepted this gift. But she gave that back. And said she couldn't accept that gift. And there's also, by the way, absolutely no way to ensure that this plane will not present

a counterintelligence risk to flying around the president. I'm sure Tulsi Gabbard could do a really good sweep, very thorough. Absolutely preposterous, but yeah, no, it's not a problem. All right, so John finishes by saying, none of this makes sense, it's like the Twilight Zone. Agreed, John, that's the one thing I'll say yes to in all your questions.

All right, there you go. That's the speed round for this week. Thank you, great questions. Everybody, if you have a question, there's a link in the show notes. Sorry, we went a little over an hour, but we had a lot to get to. We had that breaking Supreme Court ruling. Like I said, tomorrow morning, we're going to be releasing a bonus

of us going over that ruling in detail. So you can look for that free public episode. And that's just one of the many things that we provide to our listeners here at Unjustified. It's a gift from us to you. Yes, indeed. Happy May, what, 19th? Happy May 19th to you. Yay. May 13th was the one year anniversary of me sitting in the courtroom listening to the Cohen testimony

against Donald Trump in New York. A year. Nice. It's been a year. Wow. Seems like more than that. I know. It seems like a decade ago. A lot happened. But also a minute ago. All right, everybody, we're going to be back next week with I'm sure no news. Nothing's going to happen. It's just be a very, very scant show with very little information. But really appreciate you listening. Really appreciate

your thoughtful questions. And also, I want to announce that this coming Friday, we're going to have a happy hour Zoom for our patrons, patrons of The Daily Beans, patrons of Unjustified, and patrons of Clean Up on All 45. We're going to have Harry Dunn, and you're going to be joining us, Andy McCabe. Yes, I will. Bringing my charm and dumb jokes, and I'll be enjoying a cocktail right along with everyone. Wonderful.

So if you are a patron, you will get that invite in your inbox this week. Check your junk too, because MSW media is just so cool and super big and corporate that it tends to go into junk mail. I don't know why. And also, if you aren't a patron and you wanna become one, you wanna want to get these episodes ad free, you want to get them early, you can sign up at patreon.com slash Mueller. She wrote.

Heck yeah. So, and then you'll get access to these Zoom happy hours. And like I said, the ad free episodes, gala tickets, presale tickets for live events. We have all kinds of cool stuff for patrons. So we really appreciate everyone listening and we'll see you next week. I've been Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research

and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds. And the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and

justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.