Jack - Episode 77 | Cannon’s Canon

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

Judge Aileen Cannon is successfully bogging down the Mar-a-Lago proceedings. It seems undeniable that she is biased towards Trump. At least that’s what Trump supporters have thought all along.Justice Sam Alito tries to throw his wife under the bus for flying an upside-down American flag in front of their house.Plus, a listener question.Complaint of Judicial Misconduct or Disabilityhttps://www.uscourts.gov/forms/other-forms/complaint-judicial-misconduct-or-disabilityGlenn Kirschner’s Videohttps://youtu.be/0MXVfiTa3KM?si=LGaHDMkJR73dOzA4   Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ 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

MSW Media I signed an order appointing Jack Smith. And those who say Jack is a fanatic. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. Wait, what law have I broken? The events leading up to and on January 6th. Classified documents and other presidential records. You understand what prison is?

Send me to jail. Welcome to episode 77 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It is Sunday, May 19, 2024. I'm Andy McCabe. Hey Andy, I'm Alison Gill. Another huge thank you to the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government for hosting our live panel last week. And to SIPA expert Brian Greer, who joined us, and the amazing Anna Bauer who moderated the event.

We had so much fun meeting all of you. We will be back in DC on August 16th for a live show at the Hamilton Theater with both Andy and I. Brian Greer, Pete Struck is gonna join us along with Glenn Kirschner. Tickets are still available at allisongill.com. Andy, are you okay? Oh, man. Okay. So I guess first thing is greetings from Tokyo. So I'm coming in from very far

away. But the real problem is, and I will refer to a listener comment this week, who typed their message while flying on a red eye and said that they consistently used old Jack shows to listen to, to go to sleep because they found my voice so incredibly boring. Old shows make them go to sleep. They didn't phrase it exactly like that. But nevertheless, this week you should bookmark this show because my voice is at its absolute worst. I have a terrible cold, but I feel much better than I sound. Wow. Thanks for being here today with your sickness. I hope you feel better. Totally. That's all the listeners. That's your cue to send healing vibes Andy's way.

Thank you to like send healing vibes Andy's way. Yes, thank you. Thank you for all those in advance. So okay, so with all eyes on the Trump criminal election interference trial this week up in New York, there was still a lot of news on the special counsel federal cases and most of that unfortunately got lost in the coverage. But we have those stories for you this week. During our panel discussion, we briefly mentioned Judge Eileen Cannon's order postponing the Florida trial indefinitely.

And we're going to go over that in more detail today. Yep, yep. We're also going to go over another Cannon order to redact a tranche of undocketed motions and grand jury materials for their release. We have a complaint against Judge Cannon filed with the 11th Circuit using a form that the public can fill out. We have private discussions in Trump world calling Judge Cannon a godsend and a stop the steal symbol flying out front of Justice Alito's house shortly after the attack on the Capitol. But first, it is time

for another installment of Good Week, Bad Week. Beside your voice, Andy, who's having a bad week? All right. So it feels like there's so many bad weeks around. And if you're just listening to me, you'd probably conclude I was having one as well, but I'm actually not. My week's good. I'm going to say this week's candidate for bad week is Judge Eileen Cannon, none other than the judge of the hour. And I'm basing that on the fact that both her own decisions, you know, as slow coming as they are and the orders that are as vague and poorly supported as they are, and the critical commentary that she's now receiving pretty much from every direction, I think

her true colors are really beginning to fly. Now again, I think there's still that close watchers can disagree as to whether it's purely incompetence or some sort of bias or a combination of the two. But nevertheless, not a lot of good reviews coming out about Judge Cannon and her decisions in the last week. out about Judge Cannon and her decisions in the last week. No, I would agree with that. And also I think it's a bad week for Trump. He just sat there on trial, falling asleep in his own criminal trial. And I think that the direct examination of Cohen went well.

I think there was a little blood drawn on the cross examination, but not enough to overcome, in my opinion, what I think is a pretty solid case on documents. But we'll see. We're expecting, the judge said, expect to get be ready for summation on Tuesday. That's faster than I thought that that would be. So I think that that's probably pretty bad news for Donald. But he did make it to Barron's graduation today. So, congratulations. Look at that. Okay.

There you go. Father of the year right there. Father of the year. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that one. Definitely bad week for him. I agree with your comments about the Cohen testimony. They were expected to like cut off his head on cross-examination and roll it down the center aisle of the courtroom. That definitely did not happen. He took some

hits and there's no question the jury's got some good things to think about as they assess the validity of his testimony. But if they look at the really important parts of the testimony, it's all been pretty well corroborated by documents. I also thought Stormy Daniels was very effective in her testimony, certainly on direct. She had a tough first day on cross, but that second day on cross was really not good for the defense at all. Some very questionable questions, and she really took advantage of opportunities to knock them out. So yeah, I think it'll be a super interesting week as we go forward at the end of that case. Yeah, possibly concluding the trial. Yeah, she was, Starrie Daniels was funny. She was quick and hilarious. Like when they asked her, did you celebrate when Trump was indicted?

And she said, which time? And then they said, for this case, did you celebrate when Trump was indicted? And she's, did you sell merch or whatever? And she's like, yeah, just like Donald Trump did. And then they asked her, you know, they were like, hey, do you direct adult films? Are you an adult film director? And she's like, yeah. And they go, okay, so isn't it true that you lie about sex for a living? And aren't you lying about this encounter? And she's like, if I was making this up, I would have made it better than it was.

Yeah. And I was like, ouch, I mean, just real sick burns right there. Yeah, and then she pointed out, she said, no, actually the sex in those movies is real. That's why they call it pornography. Just like the sex in this story was real. Yeah. That's like catching the sex in this story was real. Yeah.

That's like catching the ball and throwing it right back. She was clearly nervous on day one of her testimony, but she got past that pretty quick and did a hell of a job. Yeah, I thought so too. And because of people like the folks who are patrons of this program or Daily Beans or Clean Up on All 45, I was able to make it to New York and get in line and make it into the overflow courtroom. And I got to see that smoking gun document where they talked about grossing up the hush money payback, which I've been tweeting about and covering since the Mueller investigation in 2017, 2018.

And it was really truly an honor to be there and the rest of the press was so welcoming. They were happy to see MSW media there. They were happy to see independent media there. They were very helpful. They gave me all kinds of advice and assistance. And it was quite a week. And I go over it in depth. On Clean Up on L45, we talk about the actual testimony and we dig into the weeds there. But on my Substack, MuellerScheibrot.substack.com, I had talked about what it was like inside the courtroom, the sounds, the smells, the clickety clack of the keyboards, rising and falling with the drama, depending on how dramatic the testimony was. It was really a fascinating experience to be in New York State Court, quite different than when I was up watching Judge Chetkin set a trial date. It was a little

bit different than that. Still very strict rules, but I was in an overflow room, so I was able to tweet about it while I was in there. But fascinating stuff. So I appreciate everybody who supports our shows that allowed me to go. That's so great. It's history. You're getting to witness it firsthand, which is always very cool. But also, I found even as an agent, you spend so much time building cases. It's really hard to understand the case and the process holistically until you've gone through the whole thing and you have a case that actually is contested and goes to trial and you go through that process of helping the prosecutors prepare and testifying

yourself and taking care of the witnesses in between testimony. So being in the courtroom, there's nothing like it. And it's an experience and an understanding you take with you forever, I think. So good for you for going. Yeah, thanks. All right, where are we starting today? Okay, so let's start with the more detailed look at the order issued by Judge Eileen Cannon that indefinitely postponed the espionage and obstruction classified documents case in Florida. Cannon opens the order by writing, following the court's prior order, setting the first batch of substantive pre-trial deadlines, the court hereby establishes the second set of pre-trial deadlines to manage pending discovery

and disclosure matters, adjudicate pretrial motions before the court, and advance through additional stages of the Classified Information Procedures Act as implicated in this complex designated case. That's a hell of a sentence. Is it like one whole, that's just one sentence, isn't it? That's it, one. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

But before we get to the new schedule, Andy, I just wanna remind everybody, on April 10th, okay, just a couple weeks before, 10 days before the New York criminal trial started, April 10th, Judge Cannon set SEPA Section 5 deadlines for May 9th. Now, Donald wanted June, Jack Smith wanted March, Cannon split the baby and calendared it May 9th for the deadline. And when she set the deadline on April 10th, she was well aware of the pending Manhattan proceedings. They've been on the calendar for a really long time.

And Donald and his co-defendants made all kinds of excuses to push the May 9th date into the future. I think Nauta said Woodward had a different trial, but then that trial went away. And then Nauta said, wow, we need more time for these other reasons. It was just all kinds of BS, something else I wrote about on my sub stack there. And we talked about in a previous episode, she was well aware of this

and they were trying to push this May 9th date still, further into the future. And we all thought, there's no way she'll go back on herself. She set this on April 10th. But then on May 6th, just three days ahead of the May 9th deadline, she entered a paperless order on the docket, temporarily suspending the May 9th deadline. No reason given. And she did that the day before she issued the order, this one that we're talking about now with the new pre-trial calendar that we're about to go over. And I just wanted to bring that up before we go forward.

Yeah, definitely. And that's a big piece of this because in her order, she reschedules that May 9th SEPA Section 5 deadline for the date that Donald Trump initially wanted, which is June 17th. So let's go over that new calendar and briefly discuss what each deadline means. Okay, so first you have May 20th, tomorrow, is the resolution of pending seal requests, and we're gonna cover that a little bit later in the show. May 22nd, in the morning, you have a non-evidentiary hearing on NADA's motion to dismiss

based on vindictive and selective prosecution. May 22nd on the afternoon, you have a non-evidentiary hearing on defendant's motion to dismiss for insufficient pleading. On May 31, discovery status report is due. On June 10th, defendant's expert disclosure is due. On June 17th, you have a CEPA section five deadline for all defendants. We just mentioned that.

On June 21, a non-evidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss based on unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel. Okay. So she's actually scheduling an entire hearing on the motion to dismiss the case based on Trump's idea that the appointment and funding a special counsel is unlawful. Yeah, an entire day essentially. That's a day, right? June 21st. It's not separated out morning and afternoon. And then three days later, and it's referred to as June 24th through the 26th, you have a partial evidentiary hearing on defendants consolidated motions to compel discovery and to define the scope of the prosecution team. Can you say circus?

Because I think that's exactly what that'll be, that three-day circus partial evidentiary, meaning it'll essentially be like a full trial. And that's what we talked about on the panel, too. It was unbelievable to all of us that she wanted to discuss in a hearing the definition of the scope of the prosecution team, something well-defined throughout the ages. It's just the FBI, DOJ, those investigating this. Because Trump wants to compel discovery from the Department of Energy and any executive

branch employee at any agency who ever emailed anything nice about Donald Trump. And all the different alphabet intelligence agencies who researched the, what was that called? The intelligence communities assessment on Russian interference. Like everything. He wants stuff from everywhere. He wants things that don't exist, including the deleted January 6th committee files, which don't exist. Two other judges in two other jurisdictions have said that doesn't exist, get out of my face. And she wants a whole hearing on the scope of the prosecution team. That's bananas.

It's kind of funny in a way because it's consistent with his view and I guess his intention if he's reelected of basically like rooting out anyone from government who doesn't like him. So you can imagine in the June 24 argument, something will come up like, hey, somebody in Pete Buttigieg's office once sent an email saying they didn't like Trump. That should be turned over in discovery. It's like a government-wide witch hunt. I hate to use that term. I wonder if they're going to go after your emails and my emails from our time in the

federal government. You know, my emails have been looked at so many times now. I really could care less. You don't care. I'm sure I would have been, you know, hung on a whatever. Well, I deleted all mine with Bleach Bit and then I hammered my phones into two pieces. There you go. That works. I've seen that work before. Okay. I'm kidding. So then the next date is July 9th and that is the special counsel deadline for supplemental

expert disclosures. July 10th, special counsel SEPA section 6A and defendants reciprocal discovery is due. And then on July 19th, this one's funny, the defendant's speedy trial report is due. Well, at least it'll be quick and easy to prepare because there isn't one. The government usually provides these speedy trial reports. You'll remember from a past episode she had asked for the Trump's speedy trial report. He's like, yeah. And it's usually like a page and it says this date, this date, this was the indictment, here's today, we don't have the next thing until now. Not a day has, we haven't told any days on the speedy trial report, the end. But Trump's speedy trial report was like this five page missive about how he's unfairly

treated trying to run for president. It's like she's giving him every opportunity leading up to the RNC in these hearings and his filings to give his little campaign speeches. Yeah, exactly. Your request for a speedy trial report demands that I point out that Joe Biden is behind the phone. You're just like, what? Oh my God. Anyway, that's the 19th. And the final one is July

22nd. There's a status conference and a SIPA section four hearing. So those were the ex parte hearings. It's kind of amazing that that's not even done already, but there you go. Yeah. Original SIPA section five deadline was last November. And the defendants, Trump, Nauta, and Deo Lavera had about 90% of discovery all the way back then. All right. So that's the new pre-trial schedule. After the break, we're going to go over her indefinite postponement of the trial date, which was scheduled to start tomorrow, by the way. I don't think it's going to start. That's just my guess.

Yeah, no, definitely. It's been officially removed from the calendar. And we're going to talk about that resolution of pending seal requests under order that's due tomorrow as well. So stick around. We'll be welcome back. All right, Andy, let's check out what Judge Cannon had to say about the trial date, which is still in this motion that you we were just reading that calendar off of not motion, excuse me, order. Yes, that we were reading that calendar off of. And the trial date again was supposed to start tomorrow. And in her May 17th order, the one, like I said, we were just discussing, she writes, the court also determines that finalization of a trial date

at this juncture before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pretrial and SEPA issues remaining and forthcoming would be imprudent and inconsistent with the court's duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pretrial motions before the court, critical SEPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury." That's her first sentence.

That's her opening sentence. Gasp, gasp. The court therefore vacates the current May 20th, 2024 trial date to be reset by separate order following the resolution of the matters before the court. All that stuff we just talked about. Consistent with the defendant's right to due process and consistent with the public's interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice. What? I mean, hold on. I got to pick myself up off the floor. The fair, the efficient administration of justice has never had anything to do with this.

No. It's been a train wreck from the beginning. Actually, as you're reading the dates, I was thinking to myself, she started out in a place of relative normalcy. We had trial dates set, motion dates set, things like that. And as the case has gone forward, what little progress it's made, she has drifted further and further and further away from it. And now we're at a point where this case is not being handled like any other criminal case ever. No. Right? I know it's a unique case. It's a former president. I get that. It has some challenges.

It's complicated, whatever. You have to go out of your way. If you're a judge handing one of these cases, you have to be focused on trying to get through this in a way that's as consistent with the way every other case is handled. She's not doing that. Yeah, but she created that secret docket. She said, you're not allowed to file anything with redactions on my public docket. You have to email it to me separately and make your, put little red boxes around the things you want redacted.

And then we have to have litigation and meet and confers and hearings on each and every one of those things before we even put it on the public docket and then we can you know make our decisions after that. There was like 13 motions to dismiss or something like that, eight remain on the docket and she has basically eaten up the last year litigating these redactions and holding hearings on motions that are 99 times out of 100 just dismissed on their face. Especially funding special counsel, the funding of the special counsel or the authority or the constitutionality of the special counsel or the scope of the prosecution team. Yeah, how about improper pre-indictment delay? What is that? I mean, there's a thing to cover that.

It's called statute of limitations. That's it. I mean, there's no such thing. You don't have speedy trial rights before you're indicted. It's just preposterous. So consistent with the public's interest in a fair and efficient administration justice. It's never never been that and it gets less that every day. Yeah. And she brings that up later. We'll go over that in a minute. But silver lining here,

Andy, my concern, I was worried that she would calendar this case for like September, effectively blocking the January 6th trial from being scheduled in the fall or trying to pending the outcome of the Supreme Court's consideration of Trump's immunity appeal. Right? So that's a silver lining. She didn't set the trial date around the fall, which, and I have to be clear here, only if and only if the Supreme Court comes back and

says he doesn't have total immunity and they don't remand it back to Judge Chuckin for further litigation, then and only then will the trial possibly go around election time. So at least she's not eaten up the calendar that way so that that time is still free. That's the only silver lining I can find here. Well, I mean, that's a silver lining like saying, okay, the Russians launched nuclear missiles at us, but not one of them hit me directly on the head. Right. Yeah. Oh, silver lining. Now here's the quote that came after her indefinite postponement of the trial, incredibly long run on sentence. She actually says here that the court finds that the ends of justice

served by this continuance by delaying the trial through the last deadline specified in this order, which is July 22nd. So the court finds that the ends of justice served by that continuance outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendants in a speedy trial. And she mentions that a couple of times. The ends of justice outweigh the public's interest in swift and efficient justice? Well, I guess entry number two in the silver lining category, she's acknowledging that they have an interest at all because prior to this point, that was not clear. But yeah, I disagree with her assessment there of our interest in seeing any sort of jury driven

accountability. I don't know. It's just crazy. It's kind of mind boggling. Like I said, when we see the next defendant's speedy trial report, the conclusion will be not a single day has told on the Speedy Trial Clock. Speedy Trial Clock gets 70 days. The defendants can ask for a Speedy Trial. We know Jack Smith did in the interest, the public interest of efficient justice.

But, I mean, Trump was indicted June 9th. When the time June 9th rolls around this year, a year later, not a single day will have told on the Speedy Trial Clock in over a year. So that's kind of where we're at. Yeah, I'd love to know what her, I don't know who the chief judge is in her district, but like this is the kind of thing that normally would land on the chief judges. You know, one of the jobs that chief judges have is to monitor the progress of the docket of each judge in their district. There's no progress on this one. This is definitely the

biggest case in that entire district or the most high profile case, I should say. And here we are, not a day told yet. That speaks volumes. Yeah. And it's going, it's been going in this direction, continues to go in this direction. And there's really no obvious off-ramp in sight. There's basically, she's been pretty artful. One thing she's been crafty at is structuring some of these orders that seem, we don't know the short fact, but they seem to be structured in a way to avoid possibility of an 11th circuit review. We've talked about that several times on this pod,

but yeah, here we go. It's just plodding along and doesn't have, I mean, there's not a snowball of chance and you know where that'll go before the election, it won't go at all. And who knows if he's not reelected? Who knows what happens to it after that. Yeah, no, we'll see. But we do have another deadline we mentioned in that calendar coming up tomorrow. What's that deadline? Yes. Okay. So this is the May 20th deadline for the resolution of pending seal requests. On May 8th, the parties had a phone conference regarding a series of government filings on the secret docket and also two Trump motions. In an order the day after the phone conference regarding a series of government filings on the secret docket and also two Trump motions.

In an order the day after the phone conference, Cannon wrote, quote, among other topics, the parties presented argument on the need for continued sealing of certain grand jury materials associated with defendant Trump's two undocketed motions. Number one, the motion for relief relating to the Mar-a-Lago raid and unlawful piercing of the attorney-client privilege. And number two, motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct and due process violations. And Colin Kambacher over at Law and Crime describes the two Trump motions at issue here. He says, the motion seeking relief over the raid of the 45th president's Palm Beach-based quasi-home

and business alleges that the government unlawfully obtained evidence in violation of the attorney client privilege and seeks either suppression of such evidence or dismissal of the indictment in its entirety due to said prejudice. Now the motion to dismiss was filed along with four other motions to dismiss filed publicly on February 22nd and alleges that the government engaged in pre-indictment delay is what you were saying earlier and a grand jury abuse or grand jury abuses. Those two motions likely contain a significant amount of information that the government would rather not be made public. Now, Jack Smith's team made their redaction arguments during that May 8th teleconference hearing. Now, on May 16th,

Trump did file his red box redactions. Like I said, you can't file anything on the public docket with redactions. You got to email it to the judge and email it to Jack Smith and put little red boxes around what you think should be redacted. Trump filed that on May 16th on the secret docket and he also included any objections to the government's suggested redactions. And tomorrow, what's due, Judge Cannon ordered the parties to submit a joint status report after they presumably have met and conferred to present their respective positions on continued sealing on the two motions plus any redactions proposed for all of the exhibits attached to the eight

remaining secret docket motions. Yeah. Yeah. And while the exact nature of the exhibits attached to those eight remaining motions is unknown because they're on the secret docket, we do know that they contain a minimum some grand jury material by the wording that she used in her order and the pending disclosure proceedings from the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Yeah, and Andy, I still think that those proceedings from the US District Court for District of Columbia may be the grand jury lies that Walnada told, but I'm not sure. That's just kind of my assumption. They've been trying to bring them down there, redact them, and put them on the docket for months and months and months now. They've been trying to bring them down there, redact them, and put them on the docket for months and months and months now. So. It could be that or it could be, it could be grand jury material related to the piercing of the attorney-client privilege.

Mm hmm. Could be a lot of stuff. And what's his name is Corcoran's testimony. So it's, there's a lot of potential ground there. But you know, I don't, I would love to know where she got the idea or who told her to do this secret docket thing. It's hard to imagine that she came up with it herself. I've never heard of it before. It doesn't mean other judges. It doesn't mean that it's never happened. The fact that I haven't heard of it, but it's just so weird. And it's so contrary to the whole idea of having a public docket. and it's so contrary to the whole idea of having a public docket. You know, if you file all these things on the public docket as normal, you file them redacted, and then you make the lawyers fight out which redactions get unsealed and which don't, then at least that whole process takes place in a

way that's transparent. But here, you don't even know what's going on back there until one of these things squeaks their way out. Well, she got the idea of where she gets all of her ideas from Trump's lawyers. They, you know, remember how they wanted the SIPA section four to be adversarial and didn't want them to be ex parte and wanted to have their noses all up in that program. It was the same here. They said we don't want, we want to litigate any redactions the government wants to make before they make them. And that was what I think prompted the secret docket. Okay, great. Email it to each other and me and then we'll litigate it. And then I'll set hearings and then we'll litigate it some more and have some phone conferences. And, and then maybe in a year, uh, we'll be ready to move forward on

SEPA section six a, you know, like it's bonkers. But Andy, did you know you can file a judicial misconduct complaint form? I did not. I didn't, well, I knew that the possibility of that might exist, but wow, now we know not only that you can, we have some information about how you can.

Yep, and we'll give an example of that after the break. Stick around, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Alison, before the break, you mentioned the judicial misconduct complaint form. Now one of our eagle-eyed listeners named Eric sent in a question about this. Yes, yes. I remember seeing that email. And it's as though Eric read my mind, Andy, because one of these judicial complaints filed

against Judge Cannon has been in my show notes to write this script for today's episode since the 8th of May. Now it was filed by a group called American Muckrakers over a week ago, and I had planned on discussing it with you today, actually. Yeah, so let's dive into it. Now, the complaint has been filed with the 11th Circuit Court, which is what the,

kind of the admission, the administrative office of the courts requires you to do. If you're having a complaint, that's where it goes. And they write, Canon 2A, now, note, this is, they're referring to the legal canon, not Judge Eileen Cannon. So they say, Canon 2A, an appearance of impropriety occurs

when reasonable minds with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances disclosed by a reasonable inquiry, would conclude that the judge's honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve as a judge is impaired. Canon 3A, Section 5. In disposing of matters promptly, efficiently, and fairly, a judge must demonstrate due regard for the rights of the parties to

be heard and to have issues resolved without unnecessary cost or delay. A judge should monitor and supervise cases to reduce or eliminate dilatory practices, avoidable delays, and unnecessary costs. Yeah. And finally, canon four, a judge may engage in extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the obligations of Judicial Office H, Compensation, Reimbursement, and Financial Reporting. A judge may accept compensation and reimbursement of expenses for the law related and extrajudicial activities permitted by this code if the source of the payments does not give the appearance of influencing the judge in the judge's judicial duties or otherwise give the appearance of

impropriety subject to the following restrictions. And they list restriction three here that a judge should make required financial disclosures including gifts and other things of value in compliance with applicable statutes and judicial conference regulations and directives. Remember, judicial conference is that group of all the circuit chief judges and a few other different judges. It's very, very conservative. Like 80% of the folks on the judicial conference were appointed by conservative presidents. Those are the three things they're filing this under. And then for each one, they attach an article or some sort of reference showing how Cannon violated

the Cannons, right? And the last one there, you know, for example, the, you know, you have to be in compliance with the statutes on disclosing gifts. Apparently Judge Cannon didn't do that. She missed some of her financial disclosures. They included the public reporting, the article in their form, this form that you fill out to send to the 11th Circuit about that. They they did that for each of these things. And so like for example, for Canon 2A, the appearance of impropriety, impartiality, temperament, you might include information on what happened with the special master case and how she was overturned by the 11th Circuit. In Canon 3A5, a judge should monitor and supervise cases to reduce or eliminate avoidable delays and unnecessary costs. Perhaps you talk about all of the secret docket and

all of these motions and how everyone has a hearing. There's a lot of examples in that. Yeah. Or that it's been a year and not a single day is told on the speedy trial clock. Or, you know, you could talk about the, you remember those bizarre jury instructions she wanted people to write up and Jack Smith had to file a motion for reconsideration because she was going to release the names of witnesses, witness name information. And he said, please don't do that. You would be, it would be manifestly unjust, unjust. And it's a clear error't do that. It would be manifestly unjust. And it's a clear error of the law. And she kind of back on April 4th, I think, reluctantly

reversed her own decision. But not after calling Jack Smith a whole bunch of names, in legalese. Right? So that's how this complaint process works. And there's a whole form for doing it online. And it's, you know, we've got some links in the show notes if you're interested in filling out one of these forms. But again, we aren't advising you to do so. You have to sign that

form under penalty of perjury. So I need to do our little disclaimer where we say we can't tell you what to put in your own form, nor are we telling you what to put in your own form, nor are we advising you to or to not do this on your own. But there is a place where you can go and publicly file one of these complaints using a form on a website. Our good friend Glenn Kirschner, who's going to be with us August 16th at the Hamilton in DC? Has actually put together a really great tick-tock video to walk you through the process and will include a link to that Instructional video in our show notes today The the website is really pretty interesting hit the link if you have any questions about this There's a lot of

FAQs and it kind of lays it out. There's obvious limitations on it as well. I mean, it's not really, it goes through how the process works and it's pretty clear like, you know, a complaint will be dismissed if it doesn't go beyond, if it's just simply complaining about a judge's order, you know, you didn't like the order or something like that, that's not going to be enough to even sustain the complaint to move to the next phase in the process, which is like an official inquiry. But yeah, it's kind of interesting to see. So hit that link if you have questions about this or any other interest in it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what's really interesting is, Andy, did you see that Rolling Stone article that came out about Trump and his campaign's feelings about Judge Cannon?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. This is pretty amazing reporting in Rolling Stone that basically lays out the following and I quote, according to some in his inner circle, Donald Trump's most effective and not so secret weapon in his 2024 effort to reclaim the White House is a federal judge he appointed in Florida. One Republican close to Trump told Rolling Stone, quote, My favorite member of the Trump campaign. She's a godsend. That's pretty, pretty strong language. According to two other sources with knowledge of the situation, Cannon's delays and legal reasoning have become something of a running joke among the upper crust of Trump world, with various

political advisors and campaign staff, lawyers, and media figures in the ex-president's orbit, remarking on how obviously and helpfully Cannon has been in the tank for Trump. Our SIPA expert on the Jack podcast, you all know as Brian Greer, he's actually quoted in the Rolling Stone article as well, quote, this case was indicted in June. We're now in May. And in terms of the scope of discovery, there's been no material developments in this case, just delay after delay. That to me is inexcusable, Greer says. CIPA cases can take a long time, but usually that's because it takes a long time for the

government to produce the classified material to the defense. They have to collect the classified records, get permission from relevant agencies, and decide what to redact. And they're usually aggressive in redacting, according to Greer. This is something, AG, that Ryan pointed out really well, I think, in the Sharr School live show. I think we overlook the fact of how forward leaning the government, the special counsel team has been in this case, in just immediately producing reams and reams of discovery and even classified stuff very early on in the case, in an obvious effort to front load these issues to try to move this thing more quickly. But of course, they've been stymied

in that effort. Yeah, I think it's, first of all, I love that Brian Greer was quoted in this rolling stone piece. Yeah, big up Brian. But he's right. He's like, these can take a long time because it takes a long time for the government

to put this stuff together. But like I said earlier in the show, they had 90 plus percent of this to the defendants and by last November because that first SEPA deadline was originally in November, back when the trial was supposed to go in May. And I'm thinking of a lot of other things here too in case people are wondering about the pace of this. I know a lot of people are initially frustrated with Merrick Garland about how it seemed like it took a while to get the

case off the ground, whether he started investigating it when he got there, which he did, but there was delays and hurdles. He was frustrated with the pace, all of that stuff. But, you know, the thing to keep in mind here about who I think is responsible for this delay is if we look at the Bob Menendez case, okay, because he was indicted. Let's see if I can get the date here. I'm actually looking it up on the fly. September 2023. He's in trial now. Yeah, that trial started a couple days ago. Yeah, so September, October, November, December,

January, February, March, April, May, eight months later. And that trial has started. So it's not unheard of, nor was it unheard of, to think that if you got these indictments in in 2023, you should be good to go for a trial before the election. But we have, you know, we have Judge Cannon doing her level best to do a hearing about each redaction and have a whole, you know, litigation about every single page of these 150 pages of exhibits attached

to these 13 different motions on a secret docket. She wants to have a hearing about every single one of them doing her level best to make sure that this trial doesn't go before the election. Then, of course, we have the Supreme Court who has just essentially stepped in to delay the January 6 trial, which was supposed to start in March. And those were reasonable times for these trials to begin, March and May. Yet here we are, because of Trump appointed judges at the Supreme Court and a Trump appointed judge down in Florida, dragging that timeline out

far past what normally happens. And that's why I wanted to bring up that Menendez case because from indictment to day one of trial, we're looking at less than eight months. Yeah, and you know, admittedly, that's a pretty quick turn. So maybe that's not the standard of, you know, quote unquote normal, although. It is the rocket docket,

Southern District of New York quote unquote rocket docket. So maybe a little bit faster than normal, but. And honestly, it wasn't unheard of Although it is the rocket docket, Southern District of New York, quote unquote, rocket docket. So maybe a little bit faster than normal, but honestly, it wasn't unheard of to start these trials in March and May. Garden variety, criminal cases, drug cases, theft from a mail truck, whatever. They go pretty quick. They go like at this pace. Bigger designated complex cases, you know, higher profile defendants, political ramifications,

all this stuff. They're going to go slower. But typically, even those will go in a year from indictment. The case gets indicted and you pretty much say, you know what? A year from now, we'll be in trial, which seems like a long time. What we have in Florida is we're at that point and there's no trial in sight. We're nowhere near it. It's not even on the horizon.

We're still in the middle of the ocean and we can't see land. Let me ask you a term of art question because you just said designated complex case. Earlier in our show, in one of the filings, Judge Cannon referred to this as a designated complex, designated hyphen complex case. How does a case get the status of a designated complex case? Do you know? Yeah. So it's basically a determination by the judge.

I can't tell you exactly what the thing, the points are that they look to like a checklist. If you have so many of them, it qualifies. But at the end of the day, it really is just at the discretion of the judge. Judge Cannon says, if it's my case, it's designated complex. If it's hard for me to understand, that means it's complex.

Which is every case she's had. Yeah. So it's basically at the discretion of the judge. Once they decide to make that designation, it basically takes the discretion of the judge. Once they decide that, make that designation, it basically takes the case out of some of the normal administrative deadlines. It extends those deadlines because it's a complicated case. Maybe cases get designated because there's a lot of defendants in them, multiple parties, many lawyers. You know, when the day-to-day scheduling of conferences and things becomes super complicated

because there's 20 lawyers in the case and they all have different schedules, things like that can weigh in on that. But here... Well, I bet SIPA, I bet classified documents might automatically classify something as a designated complex case. That's kind of what my feeling is. I'll look it up. But... And it's a way of releasing the judge from the sort of scrutiny they would normally get from the head judge in their district, right? Because they get a longer timelines to reach certain mileposts. But we're so far beyond that here. I mean, yeah, I had a reasonable accommodation in my PhD program because of my PTSD. So I had an extra week to turn in all my papers. That was kind of nice. Yeah. It didn't mean you could turn them

in whenever you wanted. It's four years later. You still had to hit a deadline, right? My dissertation did take me like three years though, but there was no limit on that. They don't care about that. The more, the longer dissertation takes, the more money they make. So, all right. We need to take one last quick break, but I really wanted to talk about the breaking story this weekend about the upside down flag, the stop the steal flag flying in front of Justice Alito's house in January, right after the Capitol attack,

because it is intrinsically connected to Jack Smith's January 6th case. So, we're- Yeah, if you haven't heard this story yet, be prepared to smack yourself in the forehead and say WTF. Like it's almost unbelievable, but it's true. I imagine every single person that listens to this program has by now heard about the Justice Alito, stop the steel flag in January 2021. That's probably true. That's probably true.

So we're going to talk about some thoughts on that connections to the Jack Smith indictment, but we do have to take that break. So we'll see on the other side. Stick around. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Andy, I really wanted to talk to you and to the listeners of this show about that story breaking in the New York Times about Justice Alito flying an upside down American flag at his home, which is a symbol, by the way, used by MAGA

and stop the steal proponents. And they did this shortly after the attack on the Capitol. It was in January of 2021. And the reason I wanted to discuss it is because Alito is currently considering whether the leader of the attack on the Capitol is immune from prosecution for what's alleged in the Jack Smith indictment in DC, which as a Supreme Court justice considering this, he has to assume is true. He has to assume that the crimes charged, those four charges, right, 241, conspiracy against rights. This is off the top of my head. 371, defraud of the United States conspiracy. 1512K, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, 1512C2, obstructing an official proceeding. Those four counts, thank you, they have to assume, the Supreme Court justices

have to assume that everything in that indictment is true, right? Yes. That's a case with any interlocutory appeal, an appeal before the case is heard. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And so I wanted to go over this because during the immunity arguments, Alito actually took the position. First of all, he said, well, can't you indict a ham sandwich? What are you going to do about that? Which I can't believe a Supreme Court justice said during Supreme Court arguments from the bench. And no, you can't just indict a ham sandwich. We can ask my good friend and ham sandwich Andy McCabe. Right here, ham over here. Or apparently not, I guess, because you can indict a ham sandwich.

So that would make me not a ham sandwich. Yeah, ham on five, hold the mayo, right, from airplane. So he took the position from the bench that the American judicial system cannot be trusted. Andrew Weissman was talking about this, former Mueller prosecutor, was talking about this, I think with Nicole Wallace. He was contending that the judicial system can't be trusted, that grand juries can't be trusted. I talked about this when we went over the immunity arguments, you're saying that, and then you can't even get through a petit jury like Durham couldn't do. You couldn't get through a grand jury like they couldn't do with your indictment or your wannabe indictment for you.

This is when Justice, I think it was Sotomayor was like, there are layers and layers and layers of protection and due process in this country. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we don't. Most of the time we get it right. And and this is what Alito was going against and talk and being like there's just we can't trust the judicial system. Presidents need immunity from criminal prosecution because we can't trust the judicial system by the way, which he sits atop in the United States. That was definitely the tone. Now we have to remember that was questioning, right? So we don't know what his final opinion will represent, but his line of questioning basically

assumed that there are not, you can't trust the judicial system, i.e. there's not enough protections in the system to protect the president. Against rogue prosecutors who will come out of the woodwork and indict a former president. Having heard him take that position with respect to any other criminal defendant who has had an appeal in front of the Supreme Court,

apparently for the rest of us, now whatever menial useless protections we have, that's fine for you all, but we definitely need something special for the president here. Oh, death penalty for this guy? Nope, we're not going to stay that. No extra protection for you. But if you're the president, maybe you need some. Again, that's just what we can deduce from his line of questioning. We'll see where he ends up on it. But just incredible. I think this is like in the, I feel like in for me, this is like a one giant step further than the concerns that a lot of people have about justice. Thomas and his wife,

Ginny Thomas and her potential, any potential conflict of interest that he suffers from because of his wife's political activity and specifically her political activity involved in these issues that are now before the court. So this is like unbelievably, this is head scratching. So it's so inappropriate. Yeah. And something else, I mean, Alito was named by Sidney Powell as part of the plan. Not that, you know, she didn't say that, you know, we have him in our pocket or anything like that, but she kind of insinuated it. She was an undis- she's an unindicted co-conspirator in Jack Smith's indictment. She's pled guilty, right, down in Fulton County for this kind of stuff.

And she said in an interview with Stu Peters in September of 2021 that the coup plotters had been relying on Justice Alito who sits atop the Fifth Circuit where she and Louie Gohmert and Sidney Powell, right, she and Louie Gohmert sued Pence over the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act. And remember the rest of the team started pushing them away and didn't want Gohmert to sue down in Texas because they didn't want, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? If they go in with the 12th Amendment thing against Pence

and the Supreme Court rules, no, no, Pence doesn't have that authority to throw out or not count electoral votes, then they would have been out of, then it like really would have been, I mean, it's bad what they did. Yeah, it would have ruled out that line of strategy, which they wanted to keep out there knowing that it was, its legality was dubious and just push it anyway. Let's just do it and we'll sort it out when, sort the bodies out later sort of thing.

And here's what Powell said about Alito. She said, yes, we're filing a 12th. We were filing a 12th amendment constitutional challenge to the process that Congress was about to use under the electoral count act that simply doesn't jive with the 12th amendment. And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that. Louie Gohmert was the plaintiff and we were suing the vice president to follow the 12th amendment. So after everything broke loose, she's talking about January 6th, Pelosi had to speed up getting the vote count going again before Justice Alito could issue an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have happened. They also did this in Georgia what should have happened. They also did this in Georgia,

because guess who sits atop the 11th circuit? It's Justice Thomas. And if there was gonna, remember how they were like, seven, two, well, probably nine, oh, when Eastman admitted, this is super illegal. But maybe we can get a seven, two ruling, but probably be nine, oh. Those two are Thomas and Alito.

That's- No question. No question. Their only hope, and now we know their wives are out there, you know, apparently. Because in this article, by the way, in the New York Times article, he blames his wife. He said she's the one who put the flag up because she was having beef with a neighbor. And I'm going to, explicit language warning here,

because we don't normally go there on this show. We usually reserve that for the beans or for the me and Pete kind of get sweary in the bonus episode of Clean Up on Al 45. My sensitive ears. But apparently Mrs. Alito was upset about a neighbor who had a fuck Trump sign in their front yard. And then they had a confrontation while they were out for a walk one day, a husband and wife, the Alitos, and this neighbor who, you know, called them insurrectionists or whatever. And what Alito said, his defense for

this flag, having his wife flying this flag upside down, is that this fuck Trump sign was within 50 feet of a bus stop. But if you just think about it for a second, there was no school in session in January of 2021. They were remote that month. Both of the school districts that could be at issue here in Olito's little neighborhood. So that's a lie, or an obfuscation if you want to be careful about it. But that was his thing. Now, he never addressed how an upside down stop the steal flag is a response to

your neighbor's F Trump sign. You know, and of course there's things that go around social media like, I called my plumber and he didn't show up on the four hour window so I flew a stop the steal upside down flag. You know, like things that bother you in your neighborhood. Nor did he deny that it meant stop the steal by saying something like, oh, well, it's a sign of being in distress. I mean, they did this to Kerry. Remember, there was some poster that was associated with John Kerry where there was an upside down flag and the Republicans were like, he's an anarchist and hates America and hates the flag and all this other stuff. But this is very interesting to me. It really is. There's another great point in the Times article, which if you haven't

read it yet, you should go back and take a look at that, where they reference the code of conduct for Supreme Court employees. And Supreme Court employees are specifically told they may not engage in public partisan activity, which includes, in the definition of that, they include putting a bumper sticker on your car or a sign in front of your house. So what the justice is doing here- Explicitly it says that, right?

Yeah, is absolutely in violation of the code of conduct that they require of their employees. Now, technically, the code doesn't apply to the justices. Okay, I get that because no one's allowed to put any sort of rules on the justice of the Supreme Court, apparently. But the point here is, even if it's true that, as he says in his statement that he had, quote, nothing to do with posting this flag and then he blames it all on his wife, even if that's true, and it's not just an incredibly weak and cowardly way to try to escape culpability, it doesn't matter because the flag was flying in front of his house.

And you know, that would be like saying, you know, riding around with a stop the steal sticker on his car and saying, well, my wife put that on my car. Like, no, it's your car. You're driving it. That becomes your statement. And what we're talking about here in the realm of conflicts of interest is all about the creation of the appearance of bias. And anyone, including a Supreme Court justice would know that anyone in his home hanging a flag upside down on a big, tall, prominent flagpole in his front yard clearly creates an appearance of conflict and bias. So it's just such an astoundingly bad decision.

It also kind of goes against the Republican sort of Gilead, you know, the woman's places in the case. I bet Harrison Butker is very upset about the fact that Ms. Alito has so much sway in her home. How dare she have a political opinion of her own? Yeah, and exercise, how, you know, the husband's not in control there. But, I mean, you know, what's he going to say? Oh, well, we meant to put it right. It was just an accident, you know. Yeah.

That, to me, would be if I had a PR firm that told me what to say, I'd be like, it was an accident and we fixed it as soon as we realized. But no, he's like, yeah, no, we did that, but it was my wife and there was a fuck Trump sign and then the school was in session and oh no, it wasn't. It's gotten into this big old mess. You could have easily said, look, pointing the finger at your wife is just so lame. I would never advise anyone

to do that. He could have said, listen, yes, that was outside my house. It should not have been. It's posted by someone in my family. I should have been smart enough to tell them to take it down. I take full responsibility for it. And then gone on to say that I don't hold that view. I didn't hold it then. I don't hold it now. Except he held it during the immunity arguments. And it was a mistake. It won't happen again. Right. You could have at least tried to pretend like a person without those biases, but he didn't even do that. No.

My wife did it and it was a logical and reasonable response to a F Trump sign. What? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I just, I can't believe this one. Yeah, I'd rather deal with the press inquiries about my differences that I, you know, talked about about my positions, at least through my questions in the immunity argument and what I just told you that I don't subscribe to the stop the steal stuff and that the election was fairly decided. I'd rather answer those questions than probably what's next. And we'll see what's next because I don't think that this story is going to go away for a little while. But anyway, that's where we're at.

As we will invariably get in questions next week, there's essentially nothing you can do. There is a code of conduct that they have adopted. It is entirely self applicable. Like you, the justices are supposed to be cognizant of that and then make their own decisions. And there's really no, there is no discipline that applies to them other than straight up impeachment. And I mean, that's clearly not going to happen. We don't have the votes for that in the Senate because the two senators from California have the same weight as the two senators from Nebraska. Anyway, just my two cents there. But we now are going to go to listener questions. If you have a question, we'll have a link in the show notes for

you. You can click on that, fill out the form and send in your question. What do we have this week, Andy? All right. The question this week, and fill out the form, and send in your question. What do we have this week, Andy? All right. The question this week, and I don't have the name associated with the question. That's my fault, but if you're out there, you'll recognize this. The question is about the New York fraud trial, which I thought would be good to end on. The question is, if Trump is convicted in the New York fraud trial and then is convicted in the DC trial, would the conviction in New

York affect sentencing in DC by counting as criminal history? Could you explain in detail how the timing works? What date would be used to calculate that? And also at what point in the DC case would this have to occur before? And can you explain whether having a state versus a federal criminal record plays a role? So, those are all parts of the same kind of general question about the application of criminal history in sentencing. So, a couple of things to point out. Could it apply as criminal history in the DC sentencing, assuming all these things have happened? Yes, it could, but only if at the time of the DC sentencing, the New York conviction is a final resolution of that matter, meaning there aren't any outstanding appeals. So if that case is still on appeal, making its way through the system in New York,

then it would not be counted as a prior conviction. Which it will be likely. Probably, probably. Although who knows how long that takes to get the DC case to a point of sentencing, which would be you've gone through a trial, it's been convicted, and now we're in sentencing. Yeah. And the sentencing after the trial in federal at least, it can take months and months because you have to, each side has to do their sentencing brief and then there's replies and responses after that. Then you have to get the probation office to weigh in with their sentencing recommendations. And then there's meetings about their financial

disposition to see, assess what kind of fines and restitution they can pay. Sentencing takes a long time. And that's just assuming there's no cooperators involved, which even makes it could make stretch it out a bit. But I think a really important point there, what you just mentioned is the report from federal probation, which is referred to as a pre-sentencing report. That's the thing that the judges really use that. That report brings in all of the criminal history stuff, figures out which ones apply and which ones don't, calculates the sentencing guidelines, which is really just a recommendation, but still very powerful,

looks at mitigating and aggravating factors that you weigh when determining a sentence, looks at stuff like connections to the community, all those sorts of things. And the judge is really, that's a very significant document. Prosecutors get to see it after it's been prepared. The agents do not. That's always been a point of contention with us because we feel like there'd be a lot of good info in there we could use, but no such luck. We saw that in play just today when DePapp was sentenced, right? The DOJ was asking for 40 years. The probation office initially said

25 because they didn't apply a terror enhancement. Then the DOJ took that probation office's sentencing recommendations and wrote the DOJ's sentencing recommendation memo, sentencing memo and said, we think that because of the enhancement and then we want to go the first count to run concurrently for the first 20 years with the second count and then we want to go the first count to run concurrently for the first 20 years with the second count and then 10 years consecutively. That equals 40 years and he ended up getting 30 from the judge who did add the tar enhancement but reduced one of the charges or something like that. Yeah. So that's kind of very, I think, going to be interesting to see what Department of Justice does with the DC indictment, provided there's a conviction, how they plan on sentencing

him because there's a lot going on here, specifically with the first sentencing memo for a former president. Yeah. And like I said, that's basically where the judge begins with the sentencing memo for a former president. Yeah. And, and like I said, that's basically where the judge begins with a sentencing memo from fed probation. And then the other sides come in with their pitches, their complaints. A lot of times the government comes in and says, we make no recommendation. They're good with what's in the report and they prefer not to like, they don't

want to establish a habit of reflexively coming in and asking for the maximum on every defendant that's been convicted. So many like routine cases, drug cases, things like that, they just let the guidelines speak for themselves. But ultimately, of course, the judge is the final word. And oftentimes you'll see kind of split the baby decisions like the one you just mentioned where they'll kind of half it between what the government wants and what federal probation or the defendant have requested. That'd be interesting. So it's an interesting process though. Yeah. I'm wondering whether Jack Smith might

not contest what the probation office puts forward in order to prevent, again, appeals on, you know, vindictive and selective prosecution or whatever, because anything that Trump files a motion to dismiss for, he can file an appeal on later if they don't dismiss the case. And, you know, I hate it when people constantly say this, but it is actually true. This is a little bit of a weird case because it's a former president. And there are going to be considerations in the sentencing phase, if he's ever convicted, that don't really exist in other cases. Like, can he really go to prison? Does that put the Secret Service in an impossible position of having to protect him while he's in prison? How does that work?

Well, we'll have a rehearsal after the New York case. No, I'm kidding. I don't know if he's going to be convicted. Maybe. He never know. So yeah, stay tuned for that one. That is years away. Years away because even convictions in these cases will lead to extensive appeals, many of which one side or the other will try to fight potentially all the way to the Supreme Court. So, yeah. And possibly the ability to stay out of prison and not be sentenced through the pendency of the appeal kind of like how state ban and got that worked out with Judge Nichols. But yeah, all right. That's our show.

Thank you for that really great question. You all have such the like such great questions, such thoughtful and important questions for us. So thank you. And again, there's a link in the show notes to send those in. Also a link in the notes to that website for information on filing a judicial complaint in the 11th Circuit. Again, not advising you to do so or how to do so, but we're giving you that. Any final thoughts before we get out of here today? No, I'll be remote again next week where I guess we're always kind of remote, but hopefully I'll sound a little bit better so sorry for torturing everybody with the sick voice today. I guarantee you will I know that everybody who's

listening is gonna send their healing vibes to you my friend so we will see everybody next week on the Jack podcast I'm Alison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe