Jack - Episode 64 | Cert du Delay

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

This week; Trump’s application for a stay on the immunity issue has been fully briefed to the Supreme Court– they can rule any day; Judge Engoron in the NYAG civil fraud trial has fined Trump, his two adult sons, and Weisselberg a total of $364M; plus some listener questions about Robert Hur. Brian Greer’s Quick Guide to CIPAhttps://www.justsecurity.org/87134/the-quick-guide-to-cipa-classified-information-procedures-act/  AMICI CURIAE to the District Court of DC https://democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Attachment-Brief-of-Amici-Curiae-in-Support-of-Governments-Proposed-Trial-Date.pdfGood to know:Rule 403bhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_40318 U.S. Code § 1512https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 Prior RestraintPrior Restraint | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information InstituteBrady MaterialBrady Rule | US Law |Cornell Law School | Legal Information Institutehttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule#:~:text=Brady%20material%2C%20or%20the%20evidence,infer%20against%20the%20defendant's%20guiltJenksJencks Material | Thomson Reuters Practical Law Glossaryhttps://content.next.westlaw.com/Glossary/PracticalLaw/I87bcf994d05a11e598dc8b09b4f043e0?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)Gigliohttps://definitions.uslegal.com/g/giglio-information/Statutes:18 U.S.C. § 241 | Conspiracy Against Rights18 U.S.C. § 371 | Conspiracy to Defraud the United States | JM | Department of Justice18 U.S.C.  § 1512 | Tampering With Victims, Witnesses, Or Informants Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AGFollow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew 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

M.S.W. Media I signed an order appointing Jack Smith and those who say Jack is a finesse Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor Wait, what law have I grouped? The events leading up to and on January 6th classified documents and other presidential records You understand what prison is?

Send me to jail! Hey, everybody, welcome to Episode 64 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. I feel like we were just here because we were. We did a bonus episode on Tuesday of this week, but now it's Sunday, February 18th, 2024. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Oh my gosh, we have so much to cover today. Holy cow, these Fridays are killing me.

The application for a stay on the immunity issue has been fully briefed to the Supreme Court So they can render a decision at any time and we're gonna go over those briefs in detail Yeah, and actually that bonus episode was the last week. I'm just I have completely lost all track of time And you know as you said it I was like, oh my god was that a couple days ago? It seems like a week ago, but I just like I I'm like, just let's go with it, right? And, you know, we, just in this week, we have gotten fully briefed on that immunity thing. That's bananas.

We got the brief, we got the reply, and we got the response. We're also gonna give you an update on Florida. Some other breaking news we can't ignore, by the way. This is just happening as we record on Friday, Judge Angoran and the New York Attorney General Civil Fraud Trial has fined Trump and his two adult sons in Weisselberg a total of $364 million. Ouch. He has barred Trump from the real estate industry in New York for three years and the two adult

sons for two years each. He's going to keep retired Judge Barbara Jones on as a fiscal monitor and she gets to recommend names to appoint an independent director of compliance that's going to be installed at the Trump Organization. So before we dive into the immunity briefings, what are your top line thoughts on this ruling? Well, my first thought is whoever that new independent compliance guy is, I'm guessing he wins the award for least popular dude in the Trump organization. If there's an in-house popularity contest, kind of like a

homecoming king vote or something, I feel like he's least likely to have lots of friends vote for him. But man, that's a tough one. Starting day one of the new job knowing that you are the person the court inflicted on your new company. Oh gosh. That's a rough one. I mean, I guess that's a lot of money. Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, I don't even know if we have to go through this today, but let's do it. Good week, bad week. even know if we have to go through this today, but let's do it. Good week, bad week, right? Here we are again. I was waiting for you to ask. I was like, so did my hotel room last night. I'm like, good week, bad week is going to be really interesting tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a that's a big hit on a Friday afternoon. I think that's pretty much good enough to tank your entire week. What do you think? Yeah, your entire next five years, which could be how long it takes to appeal this if he can even come up with the money needed to appeal it. Well, I guess we're about to see how much liquid cash he actually does have on hand because with this and the EGene ruling and the 9% New York interest rate that has to be applied.

That's like $540 million. It's a lot, yeah. Given the circumstances, I think he's going to be hard pressed to get alone. Right about now? Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand like, sure, the pendency of the appeal delays the amount of time that you have to kind of forfeit the funds to, in the Eugene Carroll case, obviously Eugene Carroll in this case would be to the state. But it doesn't mean that you just get to keep that money and do whatever you want with it while the appeal is ongoing.

He has to either deposit the full amount at the court or he has to go out and, as you said, get a loan or a bond and he'd still have to put up, I think, 20% or something like that. So it's however you slice it, it's a lot of money that's sitting on ice rather than being used for your business or your campaign. So it's tough. Yeah. Yeah.

And you can't pay this directly out of the pack. That would be illegal. So we'll see what ends up happening, but he still hasn't put up the money into escrow for the eGene verdict, the $83.3 million, to appeal that because you can't just appeal, like you said. You've got to put money in an escrow account to appeal. We'll see what happens. All right, let's talk about the Supreme Court briefings.

As predicted, Trump filed an application for a stay. He has not filed a petition for certiorari, which is basically an appeal to the Supreme Court on the merits. He's just asking for a stay here because if you go through the regular order, regular judicial order, you ask for a stay, you get a stay, then you have like 120 days to file your petition for cert, and then they can sit on that for a while. And that's exactly what Jack Smith

doesn't want to happen here. So this all got briefed this week, since our last episode. Trump wants the Supreme Court to grant him a stay and give him a long time to file his petition for cert. So, let's go over his arguments for a stay because they're really wholly insufficient. He's really kind of cagey too in the way that he says, you know, I might petition for cert if I need to later or I might request an on-bunk

re-hearing of the DC circuits decision. And so he definitely is kind of, okay, I have to take one step here, which that one step is asking for the stay to remain in place. And I'm absolutely not taking two steps, right? I'm going to stretch this out as long as I possibly can. Yeah, he is. And here's, he opens with a quote from Yogi Berra, which is just so weird to me.

He says, the application is deja vu all over again. Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, Yogi Isms with a link. Two months ago after the district court denied President Trump's claim of presidential immunity, the special counsel filed a petition for certiorari before judgment, asking the Supreme Court to undertake an extraordinary departure

from ordinary appellate procedures and decide the vital and historic question of presidential immunity on a hyper-accelerated basis. This court correctly chose to follow standard judicial process and declined to do so. Now, at the special counsel's urging, a panel of the DC Circuit has, in an extraordinarily fast manner, issued a decision on President Trump's claim of immunity and ordered the mandate returned to the district court to proceed with Trump's criminal trial in four days, business days, unless this court intervenes, which it should. This court should stay the DC Circuit's mandate to forestall once again

an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures, which means you should really go super slow and not even hear this until the next term and allow President Trump's claim of immunity to be decided in the ordinary course of justice. Yeah. So you see the two themes building right off the top here. It's number one. Oh, look, a couple of weeks ago, Jack Smith asked you to take this case out of the normal process

and rule on it because it's so important. It's such a novel issue and only this court can do it. He's setting up like, well, yeah, that's why you should take it now for all the same reasons Jack Smith told you a couple of weeks ago. And of course, he's hammering the normal order. It should be normal. It should be normal order. And did I mention he's hammering the normal order. It should be normal. It should be normal order. And did I mention it should be normal and slow?

Yeah. So that's kind of, you hear that 100 times, you know, across the, across the brief. So, you know, as we said, this is only an application for a stay. And the standards for granting this day are as follows. Number one, there must be reasonable probability that four members of the court would consider the underlying issue sufficiently meritorious for the grant of certiori or the notation of probable jurisdiction. Two, there must be significant possibility of reversal of the lower court's decision. And three, there must be a likelihood that irreparable harm will result if that decision

is not stayed. So that's the standard for granting the stay here. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we'll bring this up multiple times, but the Supreme Court can ignore all that if they feel like it. Sure. Yeah. So he gets into this trying to hit all three of these points. As to the first

standard, Trump's argument is basically as follows. He says, the appeal addresses two issues, whether the president possesses absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts, and whether the impeachment and acquittal of a president forecloses a subsequent criminal prosecution of the president for the same and or closely related conduct. The court is likely to grant a position for Sir Treore to review these questions. Sir Treore is warranted when, quote, a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been but should be settled by this court or has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this court or has decided an important federal question in a

way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this court. Both criteria are satisfied here. Narrator, no they are not. But he also says that with regard to the first standard, that the DC Circuit ruling is somehow in contrast to the previous Supreme Court rulings, and that's really ridiculous. He says, the DC Circuit's decision also warrants review because it decided important federal questions in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this court. As discussed below, the DC Circuit decision conflicts

with Marbury versus Madison, Mississippi versus Johnson, Nixon versus Fitzgerald, and a host of other decisions of this court. No, no. The DC Circuit courts ruling conflicts with my cherry-picked sentences from those decisions. Yeah. It's gotta be annoying to be an appellate judge

and to be constantly faced with these sort of briefings where like one side is like, it's black, it's black, it's black, and the other one says it's clearly white, it's obviously white. And that's why they just decide how they do, I guess. Yeah. Then I think my favorite part is Trump tries to argue there's a good chance he'll be successful

on the merits. Meaning there's a good chance the Supreme Court will reverse the DC circuit courts ruling. Or I should say the district courts ruling and the DC circuit courts affirmation of Judge Chuckins ruling. If I want to be technical about it, I just don't see how they even get there. He argues the DC circuit got Marbury wrong. They did not. And that they got the executive Vesting Clause wrong,

which they didn't. In fact, it was the basis for Judge Littig's amicus brief. And we talked to him about that on this show. Then he makes his weird First Amendment argument for a reputable harm,, that's the third standard. He says absent a stay, President Trump will immediately be required to bear the burdens of prosecution and trial. Yeah, just like any other person who's being prosecuted.

If standing trial were in a reputable harm, no one would ever stand trial. Yeah, the decision of the grand jury is what throws you into the irreparable burden of a criminal trial, right? I mean, that happens to defendants every day. And as the DC Circuit Court said, he is citizen Trump and he has the same defenses as every other citizen. And he goes on to say, the DC Circuit's extraordinary decision to return the mandate to the district court to proceed to trial imposes another grave species of irreparable injury, a species.

The threat to the First Amendment rights of President Trump, his supporters and volunteers, and all American voters who are entitled to hear from the leading candidate for president at the height of the presidential campaign. The special counsel seeks to urgently force President Trump into a months-long criminal trial at the height of campaign season, effectively sidelining him and preventing him from campaigning against the current president to whom the special counsel ultimately reports. President Biden, this would impose grave First Amendment injuries on President Trump and all American voters, whether they support him or not, and threatens to tarnish the federal courts with the appearance of

partisanship. Again, if a trial impedes on voters' First Amendment rights, then no one running for office would ever have to face criminal charges. Just a wholly ridiculous argument. Plus, no one else's job is taken into account in criminal proceedings. I think when I was at the hearing with Judge Chuckon to set the trial date for March 4th, she was like, look, if there's a female professional athlete that's in front of me and she has to go to the Olympics, sorry, we have a criminal trial here. You know, like, it just doesn't make any sense. And it's, you know, the criminal process takes precedence over a lot of things.

Like, it takes precedence over Congress, right? It takes, you know, the Clinton, what is it, Clinton v. Jones. You can, you can stall, you know, you can stonewall a request from Congress, but you cannot stonewall a request from Congress, but you cannot stonewall a request from a grand jury, a grand jury subpoena. So yeah. And then Trump asks for time to file on bonk with the full DC circuit court. But you would have to have one of those three judges mathematically voting to rehear, so

mathematically can't happen. He says, as additional relief in issuing its stay, President Trump requested that this court direct that the DC circuit's mandate is stayed pending the resolution, not just of proceedings in this court, but also of President Trump's planned petition for en banc consideration to the DC circuit, which he intends to file in DC, in the ordinary course, which again, there's that term, before seeking, if necessary, this court's review, if given the opportunity to do so. And Professor Steve Vladik says of this prospect, quote, they'll either stay it pending cert, which would include on-bunk review, or they won't stay it at all.

Splitting the difference makes no sense. Zero percent chance this happens. And so, I mean, that whole weird asking for on-bondk, the DC circuit ruling pretty much precluded him from doing that because if this is treated as a petition for cert, you will get an on-bondk, a chance to ask for on-bondk review. But you do need five votes for a stay. Okay, so only four for a writ of cert, but five for the stay. So Trump concludes with this, this court should stay the DC circuit's mandate pending resolution of President Trump's petition for certiori in this court. As additional relief, President Trump requests that this

court stay the DC Circuit's mandate pending the resolution of a petition for on-bunk consideration in that court before the filing, if necessary, of his petition for cert in this court. So basically he's saying, stop everything and keep everything stopped until I can one step at a time, you know, exercising the full extent of every deadline and every timeline, piecemeal this thing through for the next, you know, however many months it takes. Yeah, and he's basically saying it's because I'm running for president. Right. That you should do this, not for any other reason.

Yeah, that's right. So if Supreme Court denies the application for stay, which requires five votes, as we've said, and those three standards have to be met, the DC proceedings would be back underway immediately with a trial likely starting in May. Or SCOTUS could treat this application for stay as a petition for a writ of certriari, which is something they've done a lot in the last couple of years,

and grant the stay and give Trump a limited amount of time to file for cert. Those are the most two likely outcomes. And I think that second one is closest to kind of Jack Smith's like alternate reasoning which we'll get into in a couple minutes. Yeah, I'm hoping they deny this day. I don't see how they could conclude that he has a chance of winning on the merits or having the lower courts ruling reversed, especially when balanced with the public's interest in a swift resolution of justice and the law enforcement,

the public interest there. And we'll talk a little bit more about some other cases and how Jack Smith presents that. He signals he'll first request en banc, which, like I said, makes sense because why would you skip that step if you're trying to get a delay here? But he's not requested that yet, right? That's correct. Just a stay application. He's not going to ask for it until the absolute last second that it's due. And I'm not sure what that time deadline is on requesting the EnBank re-hearing,

but it's clearly not expired yet. Well, he, you know, he, Anbanck request would automatically put the mandate into effect. That's kind of how the DC circuit court made it happen. So he kind of, it's kind of against his own best. That's why he's asking Supreme Court, can I please do Anbanck and still have this stayed and not put the mandate into effect? I don't think they're going to let him do that. Because they specifically said in their ruling on the mandate that it doesn't... If he didn't file this with the Supreme Court, the mandate would be that the trial court resume proceedings. If he requested an on-bunk rehearing, that that request would not affect the trial courts going forward

with the case. Yeah. Yeah. So, Supreme Court is directly going to have to curtail his appeal timeline if it has any chance of moving forward, right? Yeah. Now, if they just deny the stay, we're back underway, trial in May or June, right? If they don't, and we'll talk about the proposed timeline, if they grant cert, treat this as a

petition for cert, grant cert, and set an expedited briefing scheduled, and Jack Smith proposes one, then we're probably looking at end of summer trial. So we'll see what ends up happening because it's going to be about three months that they'll need from the time this is resolved and the time that the proceedings in DC start back up again, it's going to take about three months from that point to get to trial. Yeah. As you and I have discussed this in texts and conversations, if they leave this day in place, I think everything starts to fall apart in terms of the timeline. If they leave this day in place and they give him the normal amount of time to actually file an official request for cert and then handle that in the normal amount of time to actually file an official request for cert and then handle that in the normal course of business. There's no chance the

trial happens before the election. Yeah, no, I agree. But Steve Vladek says that that's probably pretty highly unlikely. Yeah, I think so too. I think the no-stay, we're gonna treat this as a request for cert and deny it, is your uh, no stay, go ahead and no stay. We're going to treat this as a, as a request for cert and deny it. Is your dream scenario, right? Yeah, or just no stay. And, um, yeah, and we're not going to do this as a request for cert or deny it. And we'll talk about the Thompson case.

That's my dream. Um, we'll talk about it in a little bit. But yeah, that's the, that would be the fastest way to get this done was for the December leapfrog to be rejected with an expedited consideration, which they, which they had. And then for the appeals court to rule the way that they did unanimously, brilliantly, and then to deny application for a stay, which means, hey, cert or not, you can go forward and appeal this junk if you want to, but the DC trial proceeds. Yeah. The most important element in that whole math problem is the stay getting pulled and the

trial court going forward. It would be like a home run if they did that and said, and by the way, we're treating your filing as a request for cert and we're denying cert. Then the whole thing is done. This whole piece is done, case goes forward. I'm not sure that we'll get that. I don't know that we'll get two wins out of this round of filings, but... Yeah, Steve. Steve Lattic is of the mind that they would not grant cert to deny it. Yeah. They would just not approve this day.

They'll just now say, we don't see it, move on. Nothing to see here. Yeah. I hope he's right. I hope so too. All right, everybody, we gotta take a quick break. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. ["Dreams of the Dead"]

Okay, welcome back. Now let's turn to Jack Smith's response to Trump's application for a stay. Ah, this is so good. And from folks that I've spoken to that have worked with Dreben, this filing has Dreeben written all over it. And it covers all of the bases we talked about, Andy. There was a question

about how Jack Smith's team would argue against the Supreme Court taking, you know, how he said in December, the Supreme Court must take this case, you know, when he was trying to leapfrog over the circuit court. And I was talking to a reporter who, we were just having a discussion and that person asked me about that. Well, you know, Jack Smith already said that this Supreme Court has to take this case. How can he argue that they don't? And I said that I was skeptical DOJ wouldn't be able to make the arguments for SCOTUS to not take the case because they're arguing against a stay and the standards for a stay, right?

And the DC circuit had not come out with the airtight unanimous bipartisan, so to speak, ruling. That kind of changes the entire ballgame. Plus, I figured Trump was only going to file for a stay, not a petition for cert. So, like I said, DOJ can simply argue against granting a stay because Trump is most definitely not likely to win on the merits. And as I wrote on post, the public interest in swift justice countervails the need to grant a stay. But when I spoke to experts like Steve Lattic, he told me that not meeting those three standards for a stay doesn't necessarily prevent SCOTUS from granting the stay.

And all of that made it into this filing from Special Counsel. I honestly haven't read a filing this succinct in a while. They get straight to the point. Yeah. I think that's right. Like the Chiron or the headline when the Special counsel team filed this was like, oh, Jack Smith does a 180. Jack Smith does a 180.

It's not exactly a 180 because the issue is different. But as you said, he's got more reason now to say, well, now you don't need to weigh in because we've had a quick and effective and in our view, legally correct ruling from the DC circuit. So it's logical and makes sense that they're going to say at this point, no, okay, we didn't want to go that route, but you made us go that route. Having gone that way, we've taken care of this issue and your attention is not needed here.

But anyway, let's take a look at the introduction of Jack's filing. They start by saying, the special counsel on behalf of the United States respectfully submits this opposition to the application for a stay of the mandate of the Court of Appeals pending the filing and disposition of applicants' forthcoming petition for a writ of certriori. The stay should be denied because of applicants' failure to meet this court's settled standards. The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy. A president's alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place

to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law. Applicant seeks a stay to prevent the proceedings in the district court from moving towards trial, which the district court had scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, before applicants' interlocutory appeal necessitated postponement of that date. Applicant cannot show, as he must, to merit a stay a fair prospect of success in this court. Nor can applicants show that the balance of equities or the public interest favors continued delay of the criminal proceeding.

To the contrary, the equities and the public interest strongly disfavor a stay. Applicants in a locketory appeal placed the district court proceedings on hold, thus delaying the trial and the verdict in this case. He has no entitlement to a further stay while seeking discretionary review from this court. Delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict, a compelling interest in every criminal case, and one that has unique national importance here, as it involves federal criminal charges against a former president for alleged criminal

efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election, including through the use of official power. results of a presidential election, including through the use of official power. Yeah. And I mean, that's it right there. You know, he's saying there shouldn't be a stay. And but if you are, don't even don't even listen to it because in this particular case, which is what the DC Circuit Court ruled was in this particular case. Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But he walks right up to the word election, right? But he doesn't invoke it. Nor has he mentioned it in any filing to date. He says that the public interest

and law enforcement interest countervails your desire to make this go slow. I'm sorry. That's right. Whatever occupation or endeavor you're engaged in, it's a bit of a third rail. It introduces politics into the case and into the rationale in a way that the special counsel would prefer to not even go near. I totally get that, but it's clear what he's referring to. I also think it's kind of a hilarious comparison to the intro to Trump's papers, which starts oddly with a Yogi Berra quote. I don't even know what to say about that. Yogi Berra not precedent, no presidential value for Yogi Berra in the Supreme Court, I'm just saying.

I was thinking of what other quotes he could have opened it with, like maybe Billy Ray Valentine, Capricorn, from trading places or... Yeah. I mean, it's just not the place where you, it's not the moment where you go for the laugh. You know what I mean?

No. This is like, this is a Supreme Court brief or gosh says. That and it's not even funny. Yeah. It's just not a good joke to open with. Your opener has to be strong. Yes. Yes.

As you know, and we have seen. I mean, and then he goes in his intro to like these broad concepts of like Let we need normal order or stop disrupting the normal slow flow of things and Injury Smith's finally see the exact opposite. He's like yeah I want them to focus on exactly what this Defendant this criminal defendant has been alleged to have done and the significance of that, all of that is persuasive on the issue of how quickly should this be resolved. Yep.

Yep. And he addresses what he said in December. Well the DOJ, I should say, addresses what they said in December when they tried to leapfrog. They say recognizing that the applicant's claim of immunity implicates fundamental issues about the role of the president, the government filed a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment, that's before the judgment of the circuit court, to provide this court with the opportunity to resolve Trump's immunity claim at the earliest possible juncture. The court denied review. Then he says, to the extent that that denial reflected

an inclination not to review the applicant's claim of immunity from federal criminal prosecution, the court should likewise deny this application and any forthcoming petition, especially now that the court of appeals has unanimously affirmed the denial of immunity in a thorough opinion that correctly rejects the applicant's arguments. So what a beautiful, succinct way to say something that would probably take me 10 pages to say. That yeah, we told you you had to do this,

but that doesn't really apply anymore. And you said no. And the reason you said no is probably because you didn't want to take this case. So you should think about that. Yeah, that's called turning it around back on him. The official term for that. Yeah. And then they talk about what the Supreme Court should do if they do actually want to hear the case. He says, if however this court believes the applicants claim merits review, the government respectfully requests that it treat the application for a stay

as a petition for a writ of certiorari, grant the petition and set the case for expedited briefing and argument. An expedited schedule would permit the court to issue its opinion and judgment resolving the threshold immunity issue as promptly as possible this term so that if the court rejects the applicant's immunity claim, a timely and fair trial can begin with minimal additional delay.

The government proposes a schedule that would permit argument in March 2024 consistent with the court's expedition of other cases, meriting such treatment. And there's your echo to Trump v. Anderson, right, the 14th Amendment case, which they handled very quickly. The briefing schedule was super fast. They got the oral arguments done two weeks ago now. And so basically he's saying like, yeah, do this one, do to this one what you did to that one. Mm-hmm.

Yep, totally. Yeah. Totally. So then the government suggests a timeline and they base it on a recent case. This is one we've just mentioned, the Colorado 14th Amendment case, Trump v. Anderson. They say the government suggests that if the court grants review, it order that applicants brief on the merits and any amicus cura briefs be filed on or before 10 days after the grant of cert,

that the government's brief on the merits and any amicus briefs in support be filed seven days thereafter, and that the reply brief, if any, be filed five days thereafter. The court's recent expedition in Trump v. Anderson reflects that this timeline is fair and reasonable. So not only are they saying, hey, you just did this in this other case, the fact that

you did it in the other case means it's reasonable and fair and okay to do, so do it here. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So DOJ effectively argues against immunity for about 30 pages, in case SCOTUS treats the application for a stay as a petition for cert and grants it. And something in the merits argument that jumped out at me was footnotes 7, which reads, a sufficient basis for resolving this case would be that whatever the rule in other contexts not

presented here, no immunity attaches to a president's commission of federal crimes to subvert the electoral process. The Court of Appeals analysis was specific to the allegations that applicant conspired to overturn federal election results and unlawfully overstay his presidential term. And a stay can be denied on that basis alone, leaving for another day whether any immunity from criminal prosecution should be recognized in any circumstances. Hmm.

Yeah, that's super important, right? Because I mean, the DC circuit ruling was, as we said, narrow on this point. This is what we were talking about at the top of the show. And by the way, they're quoting Judge Ludwig's amicus brief in this footnote. Yeah. There is reset at the top of this thing. Their effort is to like stay focused on the issue. And that helps the court because the Supreme Court does not like to weigh in on cases where there's like a whole bunch of if, then, but, for possible issues hanging in the breeze. They want to laser focus on as few things as they can and just address those things directly.

They have to be issues that are completely supported in that case by the facts of the case. And so keeping the eye on the ball of you got to take all the allegations in the indictment as true for the purpose of an airlockutory appeal, they're really trying to keep this thing very focused. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And even the quote from the Circuit Court ruling is that they say, we note at the outset that our analysis is specific to this case before us in which a former president has been indicted

on federal criminal charges arising from his alleged conspiracy to overturn federal election results and unlawfully overstay his presidential term. Right? There's that executive vesting clause. And it was Eric Columbus that pointed this out on Twitter, right? Yeah. Yeah, Eric Columbus pointed out that Trump ignored that in his brief to the Supreme Court, and instead argued from the position that the DC Circuit ruled that presidential immunity doesn't exist at all. And that's simply not true. The circuit court ruled that immunity doesn't exist for the

crimes Trump allegedly committed, which is exactly the point that Judge Ludwig was making. So this kind of a narrow ruling happened when Trump wanted to claim executive privilege over documents NARA was going to hand over to the January 6th committee. Columbus wrote, Trump argued that executive privilege should block transmission of the documents even though Biden waived executive privilege. The main question was whether Trump's invocation of executive privilege should prevail even though he wasn't president anymore. Now, Trump, of course, lost at the district court with none other than Judge Chutkin presiding and the court of appeals. And he needed the Supreme Court to pause the case and take it up.

So this is at the exact same situation we're in right now. Exactly. Even to the extent of including Judge Chutkin, which is kind of amazing. I know. Yeah. So Trump applied for a stay pending petition for cert just like he did here. And in that one, the Supreme Court said no to Trump, but not because he was no longer president. Rather, the court wrote that his executive privilege claim would fail even if he was still president because the House's need for the documents was compelling.

Much like the countervailing public's interest in this case. The compelling interest that the court has many times recognized in criminal proceedings, even in the presidential context. So that would not be a new idea for them to hang their reasoning on. No, it wouldn't. And if you read that denial of the stay, you could almost just plug in different words and make it... Just do it old, just find and replace. And make it happen here. Yeah. Actually, let me find...

I want to... I have to read this to you because it's so perfect for this particular scenario. And I'm really glad that Eric Columbus brought this up because it's just so right on track. Do you know what I mean? It's like exactly what we're seeing here. All right. So I've got the scotus denial in that case, where he was trying to block National Archives. And it says, on application for stay of mandate and injunction pending review, which is exactly what's happening here. The application for stay of mandate and the injunction pending review presented to the Chief Justice and by him referred to the court is denied. The questions whether and in what circumstances a former president may obtain a court order

preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office in the face of a determination by the incumbent president to waive the privilege are unprecedented and raise serious substantial concerns. The Court of Appeals, however, has no occasion to decide these questions because it analyzed and rejected President Trump's privileged claims under any of the tests he advocated. Trump v. Thompson is cited, which is this case, without regard to his status as former president. Because the court of appeals concluded that President Trump's claims would have failed even if he were still the president, his status as former president necessarily made no difference in the court's decision. And so, that, so they kind of granted cert and denied it and denied the stay

but put the reasons like right in the denial. And I think we could see that here. You got to wonder if the DC Circuit wrote their opinion with that in mind. I think so. Right? Because they knocked it out on every possible grounds. They specifically, even though they analyzed the specific facts here, they said, we're not getting into whether or not his actions were within the outer perimeter of presidential responsibility or outside it official or not. They just said, on these facts, on this indictment, no immunity for you. Yeah.

And then you know what surprised me was Trump responded. I thought he, because the rules about when a response is due to the Supreme Court, like the, you know, the briefing, the response, and then a reply, right? The third thing. They're very muddy and murky, and he could have sat and waited or asked permission or just kind of hung out. The Supreme Court doesn't need that reply, but he wanted to make one, and he made one pretty fast.

Trump did. And it's the same kind of stuff. He first brings up that special counsel argued in December, it's imperative that this court should grant cert, so he's still on that. He then goes after Jack Smith for not saying why the trial needs to go quickly. He says, in a few short lines, the brevity of which speaks volumes, the special counsel argues that the nation has a compelling interest in the prompt resolution of this case, but he relies on generic statements about the public's interest in seeing the case resolved in a timely manner and the need to avoid undue delay in all criminal cases. The special counsel offers no explanation why that supposedly

compelling interest requires the immediate return of the mandate to the district court to set this matter for trial, likely in three months or less return of the mandate to the district court to set this matter for trial. Likely in three months or less from receiving the mandate. The omission is glaring. And here's how he argues against the case we just talked about, the National Archives privilege, executive privilege case. He says special counsel cites the recent expedited consideration of Trump v. Anderson, but that case involved an accelerated decision before an upcoming primary election A quintessential case for expedited treatment

I mean when I need it I should get it but that doesn't mean we have it all the time I guess that's kind of the there there's a rule that there's, the rule is there's no rule. His argument is, well, you had to decide that quick because an election was coming up. What the hell do you think this is? Yeah, that's confounding. Oh my God, it's so funny. I seriously can't, but then he said,

and the special counsel's rationale cannot avoid the appearance of partisanship. The government took nearly three years to file baseless charges against President Trump, and now it clamors to bring him to trial in three months or less. No, not three months or less. Three months or less from the issuance of the mandate, sir. The indictment happened last August. So it's not three months or less.

And three years, it was two years and six months. That's quite a rounding that you're doing there up to three years from two years and six months. That's fancy. Anyway, for fully briefed and the Supreme Court can rule at any time, I think I'm going to write up a mock decision to mirror the one that happened in Trump v. Anderson because I like it so much. Switch the nouns out and...

Instead of national archives, you know. It's like the Mad Libs version of Supreme Court rejection. It's scotis mad Libs. I love it. Anyway, we still have to talk a little bit about Florida because there's a lot going on down there too, including Judge Cannon denying Trump something, which I thought was very interesting. We'll talk about it.

I know. We got to take a quick break first. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back, everybody. Let's talk about what's going on in Florida. All right. Welcome back everybody.

Let's talk about what's going on in Florida. First, since the last episode, Judge Cannon ruled to unseal those supplemental exhibits on Trump's long weird motion to compel in the documents case. She ruled to unseal those. Those include a list of witnesses and some of their testimony. And that's all covered by the way by a protective order on discovery. But she has ruled those to be unsealed. And then Jack Smith filed, we covered that last week. But since then, Jack Smith filed for permission to include an exhibit under seal and ex parte

that he wanted to attach to a motion for her to reconsider her ruling to unseal. Right. So you wanted to keep the exhibits that Trump submitted with his motion sealed, which is consistent with the protective order. And so he filed it. She opened it up, then he's like, I file a separate motion for you to reconsider this terrible decision that you made.

And I am requesting that exhibits to this motion be under seal. And ex parte. Right. And the reason was is because that exhibit that he wants to file under seal and ex parte is evidence of social media threats to a potential government witness that is currently under federal criminal investigation

at a U.S. Attorney's office. Okay. And he wants that to be kept under seal and ex parte to protect that ongoing investigation. Right? Sure. Sure. Now, Judge Cannon granted his request to file that evidence under seal and ex parte. But once he submitted it and she read it, she changed her mind on the ex parte part. She expanded it to be, well,

she, I guess she, she changed her ruling that it shouldn't be sealed and ex parte, it should just be sealed. Right. So shared with Trump's legal team. Shared with Trump and his team, yep. Now, Jack Smith didn't file to oppose, which I thought was weird. And come February 10th, which was the deadline, he handed that evidence over to Trump.

Now, the larger issue of Cannon wanting to unseal the witness lists is still not fully briefed. She's given Trump until 223 to, well, the unse is still not fully briefed. She's given Trump until 223 to, well, the, well, the unsealing thing is fully briefed, but his motion to reconsider is not. Right. And she's given Trump until February 23rd to respond to the government's motion for reconsideration. And again, that's the, that's the one where Jack Smith said, Cannon committed a clear legal error that if not reconsidered would lead to manifest injustice.

error that if not reconsidered would lead to manifest injustice. Yeah, that's, um, I guess she's, you know, in the leaving it sealed, but sharing it with the defense, her logic there is probably, well, it's sealed. So they can't tell anyone, they can't share it outside the defense team. So it's not really going to, um gonna place the investigation or any of the people involved in it in jeopardy. I think that's unreasonably confident in the defense. Well, that's also weird for Jack Smith to not oppose it because he argued for it to be ex-partee in the first place. You know what though? Like in every one of this is you're we're already like five levels down on the on the on the issue that would this started this whole nonsense. And he's on the verge

of having to file to the 11th Circuit to fight this anyway. So he's got to make tactical decisions about how how how far am I going to argue every little subcision. I'm sure that the US attorneys who are responsible for those cases and the agents who are doing those investigations are howling about the idea that Trump gets to see that stuff. And you just know that Trump in some future thing that Jack Smith wants to file ex-partee, Trump is going to say he totally abuses the ex-partee system. He didn't even stand up for his ex parte thing this last time. I mean, you know what I mean, right? I mean, he's totally gonna be like,

this doesn't need to be ex parte and he knows it. And even one time he asked for this thing to be ex parte and then it wasn't, and then he didn't even argue. Like- Yeah, you can see that coming. But you know what? You're gonna get that kind of nonsense one way or the other. So I'm sure there are these prosecutors are like,

oh my gosh, I mean, we're already, there was a decision, we're fighting that decision. To fight that decision, we had to file another motion and then she made another bad decision on the new motion and now we're gonna fight. That went to, it's like, how many of these things can we do at once? So it's unfortunate, but they're putting out fires here as quickly as they

can and trying to stay focused on the main one. And in the middle of all this, we've got SIPA stuff happening. So our best update on SIPA always comes from our man, Brian Greer, from his Secrets in Laws Twitter account. And on that account this week, Brian said, and I'm gonna number these just the way that he did, number one, Canon should first rule on the defendant's motion to access all or part of DOJ's section four filings, which were filed ex parte by DOJ per standard SIPA practice.

This motion should be denied, but if it's granted, she should permit the defendants to see parts of the filings and make arguments based on them prior to ruling on DOJ's section for a motion. So this is kind of what he said to us last week, that he thinks she might split the baby here. So again, the underlying fight is the normal process is DOJ makes their filings ex parte

to the judge, but in this case, Trump's team is like, it's not fair. We want access to everything that they give you. The judge is essentially getting rid of the ex parte character of this process. And she should have just denied it outright, probably what she's going to do is split the baby and say, okay, I'll show you a couple things here and there. If she's going to do that, she should do it before she makes the final ruling on what DOJ is proposing. It would be a way to kind of back herself up and insulate herself from any potential appeal by Trump on this decision. So we'll see how that goes. And then he says, number two, then she needs to rule on DOJ's section four motion.

This will be a classified ruling, but maybe we'll see a public summary. As to Trump, DOJ is likely just trying to use section four to apply for summaries, substitutions, or deletions to a very narrow sliver of discovery, likely relating only to documents postdating his presidency. Judges sometimes have small tweaks to the summaries or redactions, which is fine. That's like normal course of business. So DOJ is probably not swinging too hard for the fences on the Section 4 process anyway, and under normal circumstances, they're likely to get that.

But here, Brian goes on, if we see an outright denial, we'll have trouble. Whether DOJ appeals will depend on the sensitivity of the info. But that he means like, obviously, if she denies their section four motion entirely, that means everything gets exposed, no substitutions, no deletions.

That might be serious enough. If the information is still sensitive, serious enough to send DOJ down another appellate course. Okay, Brian says, as to Nauda and De Lavera, Canon is making DOJ use Section 4 to keep them away from seeing the contents of the charged documents. I mean, their lawyers can see them already. As covered previously, it does not make sense to use Section 4 in this way. It should be litigated under Section 3 Protective Order, but alas, here we are. DOJ has strong arguments that the defendants don't need to see these documents since they

are not charged under the espionage back. So Brian is cautiously optimistic that DOJ could win the Section 4 motions, perhaps with some tweaks to the Trump summaries and redactions on the margins. Brian is cautiously optimistic that DOJ could win the Section 4 motions, perhaps with some tweaks to the Trump summaries and redactions on the margins. Yeah. Okay, then Brian says, number three is basically the motion to compel stuff that we just covered. Number four, Brian has, on February 22nd, all pretrial motions, except motions in limine, are due for the defendants.

Here we'll see, among other things, a motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution, something about the Presidential Records Act, and the Presidential Immunity Motion. Judge Cannon actually denied Trump's motion to delay that due date for pretrial motions, but left open the possibility of Trump filing something after that date if he can show good cause. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so It is quite possible that Canon will stay the proceedings while she and the 11th Circuit consider it. So, if she doesn't rule on the section 4 motion and the motion to compel soon, it could be a long time before those are resolved.

Yeah, he's talking about the immunity motion. Right, right. Which is odd to me that they haven't filed that yet because if they had, they would essentially have started a process that's likely to land in the 11th Circuit and then they could have added that to their argument to the Supremes like, hey, the same issue is currently on its way to the 11th Circuit. Yeah, but probably not because he wasn't president at the time. And so it's kind of like a different set of arguments.

Yeah, but you could bootstrap it. You could say, I took the stuff when I was president. You know, and it all showed up at Mar-a-Lago. I was still, you know, no one else had been sworn in yet. But also, why hurry this case along? It's the one you're successfully delaying. Yeah, but I'll mean, play devil's advocate here. He's winning the delay fight a hundred times over.

So to sacrifice the delay argument on this to make my appeal to the Supreme Court a little bit more compelling because it raises the potential of the different decisions in different circuits. But anyway, I digress. Okay, so Brian says, number five, finally on March 1st, the parties are supposed to have a scheduling conference with Canon ostensibly to schedule the remaining pretrial litigation, including the next critical steps of the SIPA proceedings. This may get put off for the reasons noted, but if it proceeds we might find out what she's thinking in terms of a new trial date.

May is out, but later in the summer is still a possibility. This will largely depend on whether DOJ has to appeal any of her SIPA rulings, as well as the resolution of the motion to compel and the immunity motion. So, let's a lot of ground to travel there. There's a lot of off ramps in which Trump pursuing delay could slow things down or cannon making ridiculous decisions could force DOJ into the box of having a file more appeals and you know what happens there.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so that's what's going on in Florida. We have one other quick story and some listener questions, but we need to take one last break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, before we get to listener questions, we should talk about this. In the special counsel Rob Her case from CNN, we have House Republicans have reached out to the special counsel Rob Her to discuss having him testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee about his report on President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Her's report last week didn't charge the president with a crime, but it painted a picture of a forgetful commander-in-chief who failed to properly protect highly sensitive

classified information, a depiction that could hurt Biden politically and that Republicans have seized on. Now, her has retained noted Republican attorney Bill Burke. I inserted the noted Republican there who previously represented special counsel John Durham as his personal attorney. While there's no date on the calendar, they are looking forward to the end of February a source has told CNN The Justice Department declined to comment Yeah, yeah, and you know who else bill Burke represented

Steve Bannon Ryan's pre-bess. Yeah, Don McGahn. Yes, and he's the guy who went through all of the Kavanaugh writings to decide what to keep out of the hearings. Yeah, he is the go to guy, particularly in the last administration for people in the Trump administration who find themselves under the guns. So yeah. And whenever we talked about how Prebis and McGahn had to have been singing from the same sheet of music, it was because they were both represented by William Burke.

Well, it's pretty. That's a pretty fair guess. Pretty fair guess. All right. And speaking of House Republicans, Andy, the source for their entire impeachment case against President Joe Biden, that guy has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss of all people. Oh, oh.

Which seems like he's trying to cover his butt on some stuff because discovery is about to happen in the Biden case. It's just weird. First of all, not a good day. If you're a prosecutor or an agent working towards an indictment or you have a guy under indictment, you're trying to build your case for trial, and then your number one star witness who provides really the only piece of alleged evidence of corruption turns out he's lied about the entire thing and now you're charging him with a crime in any other case.

And I tell you this from much experience, in any other case, this would submarine the entire thing. Well, this is their second witness who's been indicted. Yeah. So... Not to mention all the witnesses that the house called in who didn't actually provide any information or testimony that was worth anything. But now you've got a few that are maybe going to jail.

Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, that's fascinating that the House Republicans were laundering Russian propaganda. That's crazy. Yeah. All right, let's hear questions. What do we have? All right, let's hear questions. All right, so we got so many questions this week about Merrick Garland and the whole

Rob Her thing. Jay Swain, Carol, Elizabeth, and many other people, they're asking all over the map about why Garland selected her, whether or not Garland can be removed or sanctioned for his choice of her, whether he could remove her from the job, whether he should have changed the report in some way. Thought it's important just to touch base on that thing real quick. I'll give you my thoughts on it. As we said last week, I believe it was a mistake to pick Rob Her. I've said that from the beginning since when Rob was selected, not because he's not capable

or has the wrong background or anything, but simply because he was so closely involved and deeply involved on the Trump administration legal team at DOJ. He's a political pointee, he's involved in, I think, some questionable decisions. And I don't think that, I think that Garland probably selected him because he wanted someone who was a Republican to give him some political cover. He didn't want someone who would be perceived as, you know, a supporter of Biden investigating Biden. So he picked a Republican. I just think he overshot with it. I think there's plenty of good Republican lawyers who didn't have any connection to the Trump administration that

could have done a fair job. Your obligation as AG is to pick someone who's going to do a fair and competent job, not like the guy who's, you know, potentially got an incentive to do something in a political way. I also- Yeah, and why does it even have to be a Republican? Why is that even a rule? Like- It doesn't, it doesn't. That's a self-imposed thing that attorneys general will do in an effort to give themself the political cover

for the selection, like, hey, you can't say... Political cover from the Nazi party? What? Like, what? Well, I mean... What do you understand? You know, I'm with you and this was a mistake from the jump as we discussed, you know, a year ago in episode seven, right? Right.

Right. And now I think that as far as removing, sanctioning, pulling the report, redacting the report, I think it's too late to do any of that without looking bad or acting like a Bill Barr. I wouldn't want Merrick Garland to act like Bill Barr, even if it's for the right reasons. Yeah, well, I mean, any of those things, I argue, would be in the category of making a bad thing worse, right? Because they would all be reportable to Congress. They would all create the impression that Garland was actually trying to meddle with the result to protect the president, to help him politically, what have you, I think all that would create a lot of static and needless controversy for the administration.

Whatever Garland did that was perceived as protective of Biden would be imputed to Biden. They would say, like, oh, Biden must have told him to do it. So you really don't want that. You want the special counsel, their report to stand for themselves. And if it's going to be criticized by people for reasons, then fine. Like that's fine. You can do that. But once... And honestly, a mandate or a rebuke of Merrick Garland from President Biden would be to select a different attorney general in a second term. And I think that that's a very likely possibility. Yeah. Yeah. It could go that way.

Because of this mistake. And it's the type of thing that would be far enough removed in time from how this was handled, that he could very discreetly say, like, well, you know, or really how that would happen is Garland would resign and say he's moving on to greener pastures or something. But who knows, we don't, that's all speculation. Yeah, I came here to do January 6th. Jack Smith has that. The DC US Attorney's Office has the boots on the ground, guys. I've done my job, duty to country, I'm resigning. But yeah, that would be the punishment, I think, for Merrick Garland. It would

be a second term, Joe Biden, different pick for Attorney General. And who knows? It might be that Biden is not kind of pinning this on Garland. I mean, Biden, the ultimate institutionalist, he obviously feels very strongly about Garland, put him in as AG kind of in response to how he was treated by Mitch McConnell and everybody else during the Obama administration and his nomination to the Supreme

Court not going forward. So, I don't know. And we'll have to see how that happens. If Biden gets reelected, we'll find out the answer. But when Biden gets reelected? One way or the other, we'll see. But that's our kind of combined question for the week, all things Garland. Very cool.

Thank you so much for submitting your questions. If you have questions, we have a link for you in the show notes. You can send those questions to us. But yeah, I want to be clear, because a lot of people come at me like, oh, you keep for Merrick Garland, what do you think of this? I think it sucks.

And I don't think he should have a point. People never listen to me when I criticize Garland. You've been doing this show with me for a long time. There's been several instances and decisions that I've disagreed with Attorney General Merrick Garland on. One of them was the appointment of her. And I think that that was a mistake. And I'm happy to call him out on his mistakes.

What I won't do is bash the entire institution as the Department of Justice is an institution or question, I won't question Merrick Garland's intent. who has bashed the entire institution as the Department of Justice as an institution or question, I won't question Merrick Garland's intent. I don't think he's working for the Federalist Society to protect Trump and all that other stuff. To be fair, Garland has done plenty of good things as AG. The selection of Rob Herr, I think was a, but like in the end of it, whenever he stops being AG, when to sit down and just evaluate his time in office, that column's going to

have entries on both sides, right? He's done a good job with civil rights. He's done a good job bringing back, kind of returning some rigor to the process of consent decrees and investigations of law enforcement agencies. He is by any standard a fair and decent man. I just think that this one wasn't great. When you're in one of these jobs running in a massive agency and the stakes on everything that you do are so high, you're not going to get every decision, right? I mean, I know that personally. So that's just how it goes. Yeah, but just going so hard to the other side to pick kind of a political creature

with the known background of her to run this thing was just, it was a... It was an overshot. Yeah, it was an overshot. I'm sure each one... It was a pendulum swung too far the other direction. And it could be a staff thing too. That, I mean, he didn't just pick the guy out of the clear blue sky. His staff recommended a whole list of possible selections. Well, he was only one of two Trump holdovers that hadn't been removed from the Department of Justice.

The other one was Durham. Yeah, actually, her wasn't a holdover because he left. He left his gig as Baltimore or Maryland US attorney was in private practice. It was Weiss. And then got picked out. Weiss was the other holdover. Weiss was the other guy. But that's it. Yeah. So Durham Weiss, I wouldn't want to be in that club personally. No. No. Yeah, no thank you. All right, well, you know, we're gonna cover that

indictment of the Smirnoff guy pretty closely on cleanup on all 45 this week. So plus that, the Fonnie Willis testimony, amazing Fonnie Willis testimony that happened down in Fulton County, we'll talk about that too. But Andy, do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here today? No, I'm hoping someday, some, we get a nice light load. One

or two good stories that we can cover quickly, but that does not seem to be happening. Now next week, we're going to have this immunity ruling. The DC trial is going to pick back up. It's game on, fellas. Let's go. All right, everybody. Thanks so much. We'll see you next week. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McKibb