Jack - Episode 78 | Loco Motions

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Judge Aileen Cannon continues to complain– after much deliberation– about having to grant DoJ’s motions. Trump’s lawyers deceive the court in their motion to dismiss by mischaracterizing the language in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. Hearings on that got heated. DoJ files a motion to modify Trump’s bail conditions.Chief judge for the D .C. District Court denied Walt Nauta's overly broad bid to release all grand jury matters related to the investigation to the Florida court. Plus listener questions and more.Government’s Motion for Modificationof Conditions of Releasehttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.581.0.pdf 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. 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 78 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It's Sunday, May 26th, 2024, and I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Even though both cases brought by Jack Smith are in a holding pattern, we have a lot of updates down in Florida where two more motions have finally come off the secret docket, including a year old order from Judge Howell, Barrel Howell, that reveals more Trump obstruction along with the order to unseal those motions, in which Judge Cannon once again rules in favor of Jack Smith while simultaneously reprimanding him.

Yeah, she's got a habit of that. There were also two hearings in Florida in one day, one for Walt Nauta's motion to dismiss on vindictive and selective prosecution grounds, and the other was for all three defendants' motion to dismiss on insufficient pleadings. And those hearings got pretty heated. Yeah, I think we said last week that was likely a circus in progress. And it sounds like it

went exactly that way. But finally, we also have Judge Boesberg. You'll remember the chief judge for the DC District Court who decides grand jury stuff. Well, he denied Walt Nott his overly broad bid to release all grand jury matters related to the investigation to the Florida court. But first, Allison, as always, we start with good week, bad week. What do you think? Who stands out to you in this last week? And then as always, we start with good week, bad week. What do you think? Who stands out to you in this last week? Well, I think you're having a good week

because your voice sounds better. So I was going to say that. So it sounds like you're feeling better. Yes, definitely feeling better. Still over here in Japan for a few more days, talking to you from Osaka this morning, beautiful city, but definitely feeling a lot better. Thank you. Excellent. So everyone who sent healing vibes, thank you, because Andy feels better. For real. I think it was a pretty bad week for Trump, not because of

anything to do with the Jack Smith stuff, but because they decided to bring Bob Costello enough, but because they decided to bring Bob Costello in as a witness in the criminal election interference trial in Manhattan, the case that the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg brought. And you know, they did this, they tried this back in the grand jury. They were like, Trump, do you want to? And he's like, no, I'm going to send Bob. And Costello went and I guess the point was to rebut Michael Cohen's grand jury testimony. And after all that happened and Bob Costello went and then he made some remarks outside of the grand jury, the DA was like, well, we don't need to bring Michael Cohen back in to answer to any of that because it was all stupid.

Not even necessary to respond to. Pass, hard pass. And so we were thinking no way the defense is going to call any witnesses, let alone Costello and they sure enough they did. And any tiny bit of a case that the defense had, that Trump had, I think personally, in my opinion, was completely obliterated by Costello's performance on the stand. So I think it was a very bad week for Donald Trump and for Jack Smith. I think it was just also a bad week. And I say that not bad, but difficult because of what Judge Cannon is doing and what

went on in that hearing with Harbach. I think it was Harbach and Jay Bratt. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but it didn't go well. Yeah, I'm with you on both of those. I think as we go, as we very slowly make our way through these motions in southern Florida, each time it's like a starker realization of what we were worried about in the beginning. I think her rulings indicate a very clear dislike for the prosecution team and we'll go over that in a few minutes. But totally agree with you on the Trump and New York trial. Oh my gosh. So two things I would point out about that decision to have Costello testify. Let's not forget that in the prosecution's case, they

had already talked about Costello and they had his text messages and emails to Michael Cohen admitted as evidence of the fact that he was basically the fixer, right? He was the guy who was reaching out to Cohen to kind of strong arm him into keeping his mouth shut after the FBI searched his house. So already Costello in the minds of these jurors is like this kind of pseudo thug who was doing something at least kind of sketchy, if not illegal. And that came up in the Mueller investigation volume two for obstruction, Costello's emails, trying to get Cohen into the fold, keep him in the fold. Yeah, super shady, super shady.

So you're gonna bring that guy out. That's the last image that you're gonna leave in the jurors minds is that like, this is our guy. Really, really bad decision. And it also, the second point is it runs counter to the, to their best defense, which is this thing is nothing. There is no clear crime here. This is politically motivated. There's nothing to tie Trump directly to these decisions that are allegedly illegal and therefore they should have just done the classic defense presents no witnesses. We don't need to present any witnesses because we are innocent and they have not proved us

guilty. By putting someone on, you kind of walk away from that a little bit. Show your hand. Show your hand a little saying we aren't confident in our case. Yeah, it's not a good idea and definitely not with that dude. So bad week for the Trump defense team and their client. Yeah, and his tough guy stare down, clear the jury, clear the press, clear the courtroom attitude is what the defense was hoping they could

get out of Michael Cohen, but never did. Now you contrast Michael Cohen's personality to Costello's personality and you're like, okay, yeah, these guys are the jerks. Bad, all in all bad. Not a good look. Who knows what the jury will decide? They'll get the case this week and anytime you have a jury trial, it's a crap shoot. You're really as good as your case went in.

Sometimes they go the other way. So who knows? It's far from over, but not a great ending for them. Definitely not. All right. Let's start, Andy, with the two motions and all their hundreds of pages of exhibits that were ordered unsealed this week. And before we get into the content of those motions, I want to review the order from Judge Cannon to liberate them from the secret docket because it's her way. In no fewer than three other orders written by this judge, Judge

Cannon, in this case alone, she has granted Jack Smith's motions or his objections to motions while also reprimanding him for making them. You'll recall when Jack Smith opposed Cannon releasing the witnesses' names, those lists of witnesses, and he filed that motion for her to reconsider. She overturned herself on her clear error of manifest injustice, but blamed Jack Smith for not educating her on the law. She wrote in that ruling, the special counsel's initial seal request failed to offer a governing legal framework or any factual support for the relief sought. Instead, it contained only conclusory and unsubstantiated assertions about witness safety, the integrity

of the proceedings and privacy interests, notwithstanding the still developing and somewhat muddled questions raised in this criminal case. The court determines for the reasons previously stated that no right of access attaches to the disputed discovery material referenced or attached in defendant's motion to compel. So you suck, I hate your face, but I'm going to grant your motion. Yeah. The dreaded muddled issues explanation. We talked about that. Yeah.

But she did the same thing, Andy, back in February, remember on the SEPA section four ruling. Yep. She basically said, you're wrong and I hate your face, but I'm granting your motion. She said, special counsel's suggestion that defendants may participate in the proceedings by filing their own ex parte submission, outlining their theory of the defense to aid the court, which by the way is the way SIPA works. While commonplace in SIPA section four context, she says, it serves as a whole-

Otherwise known as lawful. Yeah. Otherwise known as following the procedure laid out in the law. But okay, commonplace. Well, commonplace in the law, it serves as a hollow stand in for the traditional adversarial posture. These half measures provide little consolation to criminal defendants, Trump, and in the court's estimation, threaten to reduce the judicial function to a mere ceremonial

right. Nevertheless, in light of the unrebutted weighty authority of the circuit and others, and following a thorough review of the subject material's extensive colloquies with defense counsel to understand their theories and careful consideration of the good faith arguments raised by Trump, the court determines at this juncture it can resolve the special counsel section four motions in an ex parte posture. Wow. So this is her way. So I wanted to bring up those two past examples because they stick out in my head as her saying, you have no law, nothing on your side, no facts, you're dumb, but I'm going to grant your motion. Yeah, and she does this repeatedly.

This one is fascinating, though, because she's got this commentary on what is the law, right? Reducing the judicial function to ceremonial, right? That was Congress's decision when they passed the law. Your job as a judge is basically to follow the law, but I digress. So she has a documented history of granting the government's motions with all kinds of unnecessary and colorful insults aimed at the special counsel. And she did the same thing in her most recent ruling on the redactions.

Now, keep in mind, she doesn't allow redacted filings on the public docket. So she's basically forced both parties to submit their proposed redactions on the secret docket, and then she takes months to litigate them before unsealing them. So like in this great effort to be more transparent, it's way less transparent. Now in this case, the parties were arguing about redactions for two different

motions. The first one is defendant Trump's motion to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct and due process violations. And the second one is defendant Trump's motion for relief relating to the Mar-a-Lago raid and unlawful piercing of attorney-client privilege. So here- And she calls it a raid. Yeah, of course, right? Here Judge Cannon writes, where the parties agree the content to be redacted, even if for different reasons, the court accepts and authorizes the proposed redactions with limited

exceptions enumerated below. Where the parties disagree with respect to whether certain materials should be redacted on the basis of attorney-client privilege, the court agrees to accept for now defendant Trump's characterization of the material as privileged, pending Merritt's review of the privilege issues raised in the motion to suppress, and authorizes redactions on those bases. Finally, to the extent the special counsel asserts a need for continued secrecy over the subject material under Rule 6E of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, reminder to the audience, 6E is the grand jury secrecy rule, okay? The court accepts that rationale despite concerns

about the special counsel's use of rule 6E as a basis for continued secrecy and authorizes the requested sealing redactions subject to potential further review. I.e. I'm making a decision, but not really making a decision. I'm holding out making a different decision, possibly later, more to be heard later. Yeah.

And she grants Trump's redactions on attorney-client privilege grounds and says that we can battle those attorney-client privilege arguments out later. Why? This is your time to shine here. This is your time in the sun to make those decisions. Why have one argument when you can have sex and stretch it out over eight months? So now we'll have other hearings on those privileges, right? That attorney-client privilege. Of course. Then we'll have another hearing on special counsel's rule of a rule that is using 6E for a continued secrecy. Yeah,

because grand jury material is secret. Right. Yeah, that's the rule. Yeah. So she manages to congratulate Trump, assert concerns about the government's use of rules, but grants Jack Smith's redactions. But again, subject to further review, whatever. She's not even making a ruling in her ruling. It's ridiculous. She then says, in the end of her order, in closing, the court deems it necessary to express concern over the special counsel's treatment of certain sealed materials in this case. In two separate filings related to sealing, the special counsel stated without qualification that he had no objections to full unsealing of previously sealed docket entries related

to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. Didn't have any arguments. Subsequently, in the course of adjudicating continuing redaction disputes leading to this order, the court, me, the judge, inquired about those now unsealed filings that he didn't object to, which contained material as to which the special counsel has voiced and continues to voice objections to unsealing opposing public disclosure of witness names, ancillary names, and grand jury matters. Let me stop here and say Jack Smith never agreed to unseal potential witness names, ancillary names, or grand jury matters.

In response, she continues, special counsel took the position on unsealing in order to publicly and transparently refute defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct raised in pretrial motions. And then she says this, she goes, fair enough, but nowhere in that explanation is there any basis to conclude that the special counsel could not have defended the integrity of his office while simultaneously preserving the witness safety and Rule 6E concerns he has repeatedly told the court and maintains to this day are of serious consequence and which the court has endeavored with diligence to accommodate in his multiple orders on sealing and redactions. The court is disappointed in these developments.

So because he wants to redact personal information, witness names, grand jury stuff, she's like, I can't believe you keep asking me to do that. I don't like it. I'm disappointed in you. And you've unsealed stuff before. Yeah. Granted, it's not Rule 6E or witness names or personal information, but how come you want to unseal other stuff, just stuff that makes Trump look bad, but you keep asking to seal witness names and grand jury information? It's just the most ridiculous ridiculous run-on weird sentence

I've ever read. Yeah, the first time I read this I was like I must have this wrong. I had to keep going back and reading it again but what I realized is like I don't have it wrong. She is literally, her argument is once upon a time on a different subject regarding different material, you didn't oppose the unsealing. So why are you now on different stuff saying it has to remain sealed? Like, well, because it's different. It's not the same thing. You keep asking me about grand jury stuff. Right. We're talking about different motions, fighting over different information.

And she basically says like, oh, you're being inconsistent. Like one time you said it was okay to unseal and now you're saying it's not. Well, yeah, it's different. So I cannot understand. I'd really love to know how much of these orders she is actually writing. Is this the product of a not particularly competent law clerk or does she really take the pen on these things?

Because they're incomprehensible, terribly written, and really kind of like, there's no logic underlying it. This is just contradictory. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, the rules are this. The law is this.

I'm going to grant this, but you shouldn't be asking for this. It's pretty ridiculous. Yeah. Fair enough. What judge uses the expression fair enough? And in order, like you're supposed to be fair. That's the whole point. You don't want to characterize things. I don't know. I'm going down a rabbit hole here. Wait until you hear what she says in those hearings, everybody, because it gets worse.

But first we're going to talk about what has been unsealed, what she was complaining about, including never before seen ruling from Judge Barrell Howe on Corcoran's crime fraud exception. Remember when we got his notes and templated language limiting the use of force during the Mar-a-Lago search, which has turned into a giant conspiracy theory that Joe Biden is out to assassinate the former president. Hey everyone, this is AG with some breaking news. Within hours of finishing the recording of this episode of the Jack podcast, Jack Smith filed a motion for a limited gag order

over Trump's remarks about the FBI's ops form limiting the use of deadly force. And it's got everything Andy and I just talked about. I've written about it in detail at MuellerSheWrote.substack.com and you can get a link to the full filing there as well. But here are some highlights. Quote, the government moves to modify defendant Donald J. Trump's conditions of release to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

The government's request is necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the FBI planned and executed the search warrant Mar-a-Lago. Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents, falsely suggesting they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him and expose these agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment. Now, what's incredible about this filing is that Jack Smith used Judge Cannon's own words from the past to prove his point. It's almost like a dig. It's almost a twist of the knife.

A year ago, Judge Cannon ordered the parties to submit briefings about NADA's lawyer, Stanley Woodward, and his claims that he was actually threatened by the DOJ to get NADA to cooperate, saying that they said that I wouldn't get my judgeship if I didn't force NADA to cooperate. Here's what Cannon wrote back then. Quote, the court refers herein to reported allegations raised by Stanley Woodward, counsel for NADA against Jay Bratt, counselor to the special prosecutor, concerning statements made by Bratt to Mr. Woodward regarding a judicial application submitted by Mr. Woodward. In service of the court's independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding,

it is ordered that both parties shall brief the court on this incident." On the secret docket, by the way. In service of the court's independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding, she says. Well, last night, Jack Smith wrote, the court has a, quote, independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding, unquote, and should take steps immediately to halt this dangerous campaign to smear law enforcement. Now, Jack Smith repeats that same phrase, independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding, two more times in the filing. And he also raises the fact that Trump's lawyers omitted the word only from the language of the deadly force limiting order, which we just talked about.

This is what Jack Smith says. He says, Trump stated that the operations form, quote, contained a policy statement regarding the use of deadly force, which stated, for example, law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary. Although Trump included the warrant and operations forms as exhibits for his motion, the motion misquoted the operations form by omitting the crucial word only before when necessary. And he did this without any ellipsis reflecting the omission. The motion also left out language explaining that deadly force is only, quote, when the

officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person, end quote. And that is just what Andy and I had discussed. Andy had brought that up as well. There's a lot more of this filing. You can find it in my Substack post. But the bottom line is that Jack Smith is asking Judge Cannon to modify Trump's bail conditions to prohibit him from making statements that endanger law enforcement.

If she does not, I looked it up, this is something that is appealable to the 11th circuit. And if Cannon refuses to grant this motion, I can see by Jack Smith's anger here, by using her words back at her three times, and by the quickness with which he filed this motion, I think he is mad enough that he would go to the 11th Circuit and either ask for a writ of mandamus, compelling Judge Cannon to file this limited gag order or to approve this limited gag order or to appeal her decision if she decides not to. And also if she sits on this decision and Trump continues to make these inflammatory statements that endanger law enforcement, I can also see him going to the 11th circuit and asking for an expedited review of his petition. All right, that's it. Now back to your regularly scheduled podcast. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, on Tuesday, pursuant to the order from Judge Cannon that we just discussed

in the last block, two motions and hundreds of pages of exhibits were unsealed. One of the exhibits attached to Trump's motion to dismiss based on a breach of attorney-client privilege is an order from Judge Beryl Howell that was written in March of 2023. Now, you'll recall at that time, she was the chief judge in DC. So she was overseeing all grand jury matters. So that order confirms what we already knew to be true about the secret battle between the parties about the additional searches of Trump's properties,

along with a new revelation about the extent of Donald Trump's obstruction. Ultimately, the ruling is about whether Corcoran's notes had to be handed over to the government under the crime fraud exception, which of course they were. But intersection on background, we get a lot of new detail about the timeline of events. Yeah. And it was also to get his testimony, right? Because remember when he went into the grand jury and claimed attorney-client privilege with that phone call that he had

when the tapes were subpoenaed and the meeting he had with Trump when they got the original subpoena to hand over the classified stuff. So he tried to claim work product privilege, deliberative process, all these privileges, attorney-client privilege. And the government was like, no, compel him to come in and testify. None of this is, it's all crime fraud accepted. So the government, well, first of all, Judge Howell runs through how the 85 to 95 bankers boxes got Tamara Lago and where they were stored

and when they were stored there in that unlocked storage room. She then goes over the back and forth with the National Archives to retrieve the boxes. And then the handoff to the IG at DOJ when classified materials were found in those boxes. And we don't need to go over all that again. We know that long drawn out process and all of the chances that Donald Trump had been given. And then she goes over the May 11 subpoena, a concession as DOJ wanted, by the way, a search warrant, you'll remember. And the FBI was like, no,

let's do a subpoena first. And we're like, okay. So they agreed on a subpoena and that went out May 11th. And they also wanted an attestation, a certification that all of the stuff had been handed over. The government also conceded that Corcoran did not have to come up to DC and produce all the documents on May 24th, the FBI said, we'll come down and get them then. And Corcoran asked for two more weeks and the government granted that extension, just concession after concession, Andy. Just like you do in an assassination attempt. I'm kidding. Then we get to the section called movement of the boxes out of the storage room before Corcoran's search. Corcoran's name, by the way, is redacted, but I know who it is.

Right. And a lot of this part is redacted, but it says between the May 23rd meeting between Corcoran and Trump about the subpoena and the June 2nd search conducted by Corcoran, employees of the former president moved approximately 64 boxes from that storage room to the former president's personal suite and returned only about 25 to 30 boxes to that storage room. That's from the Judge Howell's writing. Correct. But then at that moment Trump changed his travel plan so he could stick around and

go through the boxes. He delayed leaving for Bedminster. He was gonna leave on May 28th, but he changed it to June 5th. And he made that change the day after he met with Corcoran on May 23rd, right? So May 11th subpoena, meeting with Corcoran on the 23rd about the subpoena. May 24th, he's like, I gotta change my travel plans and go through these boxes.

I got a lot of work to do before I could go on a summer vacay. And this is from the filing. Security camera footage reveals that box movement began on May 22nd, the day before Corcoran and Bob's meeting with the former president. Cameras capturing Nauta moving a box from the storage room. Andy, for the first time, we get to see a photo of Walt Nauta moving boxes from the storage room.

That was on June 1st. That's before Corcoran's search. You'll recall he testified to the grand jury that he didn't know anything about the boxes. I don't know what boxes you're talking about. It goes on to say Nauta was interviewed by the FBI on May 26th regarding the location of boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Four days after that FBI interview, within an hour of speaking to the former president by phone, Nauta moved about 50 boxes from the storage room to the former president's

suite. And on May 30th, Nauta texted another person that Trump wanted to review and look through, pick through the boxes. That's in text messages that they have. And then on June 2nd, Nauta and his friend moved 25 to 30 boxes back to the storage room after they'd been picked through by Donald Trump, leaving about 34 to 39 boxes unaccounted for. Now, the section on the June 2nd search, by the way, in this filing, that June 2nd search by Corcoran of the storage room, the assignment of the custodian of records, which never really happened, and the section on the June 3rd handoff is all redacted, presumably because it's grand jury testimony.

Right. Right. And can I just say here, this is kind of a side note, but to all those people who are still asking, why was Joe Biden's investigation of classified documents handled differently than Donald Trump's? This is why we keep saying it's because of classified documents handled differently than Donald Trump's. This is why we keep saying it's because of evidence of intent. You had none in the Biden case and you've got gallons of it, just a gusher of it here. You got videos of boxes being brought to Trump. You got him canceling his plans for the purpose of staying back and looking at the materials. It's really a remarkable case in terms of evidence. The amount of evidence, right? Yeah. Okay. So then we jumped to June 24th. There was a subpoena for the video surveillance

footage and that of course led to the search warrant on August 8th. And then fearing that additional responsive records may exist beyond those that had already been uncovered through the execution of the search warrant and the subpoena, the government contacted Trump's office on September 15, 2022, offering yet another opportunity to provide additional responsive documents or to certify that no more documents remained on any Trump property. Trump's office refused, citing the Fifth Amendment protection. So the government for the fifth time said, OK, now, for, you know, speak now or forever,

hold your peace. If you have any more documents, we really, really want them. We speak now or forever and hold your peace. If you have any more documents, we really, really want them. We want you to look and give them to us. If you don't find any, we want you to certify that there aren't any. And they refuse to certify on the grounds that that certification might incriminate them. Okay, so on October 4th, DOJ filed a motion

to compel compliance. A hearing on that motion was set for October 27th. Minutes before that hearing, Trump attorney Tim Parlatorre circulated a declaration that just two days earlier, Trump had authorized the search of multiple properties, including Trump Tower and Bedminster by quote, elite but unnamed professionals who have military training and experience as well as prior experience searching for sensitive documents and contraband in national security matters supervised by legal counsel. Legal counsel in this case was Jim trustee. Oh, yeah. So that's a really bizarre description. But anyway, the government said, yeah, the government said that was unacceptable, of course, and

the court granted the motion to compel. The judge then gave Trump until November 18th to submit a final certification. Trump's office asked for another extension for 11 days and the government opposed that and the judge granted an additional five days. So kind of classic split the baby. I'll give you half of what you asked for. Ultimately Parla Torre certified the search by the deadline, though he refused to call himself the Custodian of Records and said they had found two more documents at the off site Mar-a-Lago storage. We had seen open source reporting about that. The government said this certification was unacceptable and asked for a show cause hearing to hold Trump's office in contempt.

Ah, yes. We all remember the contempt hearing, but we couldn't quite figure out if she'd granted it or not or what was kind of going on. We got a lot of really good reporting from like Hugo Lowell on this, but we all remember that contempt motion. The judge did not hold Trump's office in contempt, but gave them yet another chance to cure their shoddy search and certification, which apparently they did. They handed it in December 16th and said they found nothing at Bedminster, nothing at Trump Tower, but they did find four more documents at Mar-a-Lago. And the judge said, this is from the judge, Judge Howell, remarkably the report regarding the Mar-a-Lago search conducted on December 15th and 16th, 2023, uncovered four more responsive records.

This is 2023. Yeah. The certification misleadingly refers to these documents as low-level ministerial documents without any explicit mention whether they had any classification markings, indicating only that one document includes, quote, an explanation that it was no longer classified if it's not connected to the attachment and the document had no attachment. To be clear, the four documents were responsive to the May 2022 subpoena.

That was still not the end of the production of responsive records. In complying with the subpoena to produce that box, the office also provided the FBI with two additional documents responsive to the May 2022 subpoena. The judge then discusses the requirements to why we're here, to the requirements to pierce the crime fraud exception, saying that the government has proven that Trump knowingly deceived his lawyers and knew that Christina Bob's attestation was false. In a bit of new reporting, the judge writes, within two hours of landing in Florida, Walt Nauta and his friend entered the storage room and N Notta's friend can be seen gesturing toward the camera. The government urged that this

scramble to Mar-a-Lago in the wake of the June 24th 2022 phone call reflects the former president's realization that the removal of boxes from the storage room before Corcoran search was captured on camera and his attempts to ensure that any subsequent movement of the boxes back to the storage room could occur off camera. Now the government's going to get these tapes. Based on all that evidence, Judge Howell ordered Corcoran's testimony and records be handed over along with another lawyer's pursuant to the crime fraud exception. She did say that 12 documents had some work product privilege, but those could be redacted, those little bits and the documents could be handed over to the government. So that's a lot of evidence.

And you know, the reason she was going through that whole thing is because generally a judge will say, here's the background of the case so far. And that's where that was included. Yeah. And any decision to pierce the attorney-client privilege is, it's rare and it's super impactful. And I think judges take, you know, making a decision on emotion like this very, very seriously and anticipate that it, that their decision might be the subject of an appeal. And so with that knowledge, they it's, it's understandable that she would build a very, very complete record of the facts and the timeline, you know, cause all of that would be then available to the appellate

court to consider on reconsideration of what she had done here. So yeah, she establishes a very clear record, which is very helpful to us, of course, now. If I could just go back to the search, the kind of search and research and research and have another shot at the deadline and have a few more days and something that started in October doesn't get resolved until the end of the year. All that stuff, they keep coming up with two more documents, four more documents. It really, I think raises serious questions about how the actual search was conducted on August 8th, 2022. We had thought that there was kind of odd signs about

that. I think it was not as grand jury testimony where it was revealed that there was kind of odd signs about that. I think it was not as grand jury testimony where it was revealed that there was some additional space at Mar-a-Lago that was not searched. There was a locked cabinet or something like that that they didn't go into. When you find this stuff over time, more documents, more documents, every single one of those should be taken by the

agents involved in the case as an indication that they did not search very completely and You know you they they obviously had a they were handling this as a highly sensitive matter They were very very careful about it They went with the subpoena instead of the search warrant at first. Lots of junctures here. It looks like they decide to err on the side of caution, which is not in and of itself a bad thing. But I wonder if that hampered the, I don't want to say aggression because that's not what it's about. The completeness of the search. When they finally got on site and you're there to search you got to search thoroughly and completely and systematically every space that you have

Lawful authority to enter and the fact that they kept finding more documents in the place that they had searched Indicates that they didn't do that here. And by the way the fact that Parolatore and trustee found more documents, not the FBI. Right. Found, you know. So there were spaces that were clearly not searched. Now maybe there's a legal interpretation that those spaces were not searchable under the

terms of the warrant. I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to convict or defend them. I'm just saying that in hindsight, it raises questions about how complete the search was. And it looks like she never held them in contempt. She accepted their certification. So that's kind of where that whole thing ended up. Corcoran ended up testifying.

Now, that's just one I mean it was many many pages that that ruling but that's just one of the exhibits attached to one of the motions That was unsealed. There were many other exhibits many other pages many other redactions that had to be litigated behind the secret docket You know dragging this out months and months But there was another piece of information that was unsealed with regard to the search warrant affidavit. And we should talk about this because as soon as it was unsealed, Trump,

well, Trump's had it for a while now, but when it became unsealed, he shared it trying to say that the FBI or Joe Biden or both were conspiring to assassinate him by the use of deadly force during the Mar-a-Lago raid. And I wanted to kind of clear that up because that is not at all what happened. And it's also surprising that Trump's lawyers like Blanche, who worked at the DOJ, signed off on this kind of, I guess, characterization of the use of deadly force. Yeah.

This thing makes my head want to explode. I'll start it by saying, if there are any of my former colleagues listening to this, at some point, there's no limit to how Donald Trump will lie about the FBI. There's absolutely no limit to it. And this is just another example of that. And so knowing how search warrants work and what an operations order is, you've got, if there's anyone out there listening from the FBI who is still supportive of this guy, it's time to really reconsider that decision. But in any case, what we're talking about here is an operations order.

And it is FBI policy that anytime you execute a search warrant or an arrest warrant, you have to fill out an operations order. It's an internal document. Back in the olden days, when I was a street agent, you had to basically write it from scratch. But now it's actually a pre-populated form on the FBI's computer system. So you bring up the form and you fill it out.

The purpose of the ops order is to convey information to the other members of the team who are going to be with you on the search site or at the arrest location. And it has all kinds of information in it, like where you're going and whether or not a search warrant was actually executed and what the address is that you're going to go search. And then it has tactical information like where the closest trauma center is and how you would evacuate people

who might be injured in the execution of the operation. Like if it's an arrest warrant and somebody resists and there's like some sort of a confrontation, you want the people on the team to know exactly where to go and who's responsible for what, how many vehicles are gonna be there, what trucks going to be there, whether or not the evidence response team is with you, all this minutia logistical details. One of the details that DOJ requires the FBI to include in this very tactical form is it

must include the FBI's use of force policy. Now, like I said, in the old days, you would actually have to type this in. Of course, now it's on the form. You can't remove it. It's inextricably a part of the ops order. And the use of force policy is not an authorization to assassinate anyone. It is in fact the exact opposite. It is a notice to FBI agents of the limited circumstances in which they might be able to use force. So it's a limitation on how and when you can apply lethal force. So it lays out the details of when you are actually authorized to use force. And I'm going to read a little bit of it here for you, Allison. So it says, it begins by saying,

law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary. That is when the officer has a reasonable belief the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person. That's the basic policy. You can only pull your gun out and use it when you're doing so to protect your life or the life of another person. And then it has additional limitations that are listed. You may not use lethal force to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject. You cannot use lethal force to disable a moving vehicle. Like these sorts of things further limit

how you could potentially, how you would be authorized to use your firearm. So that's what this was in a standard form that must be used in every search warrant, not just search warrants for Donald Trump or for Republicans. This is just a part of how the FBI monitors and controls its agents across the country to do things consistently according to the

law. Yeah. And the thing is, is that in the actual motion to dismiss Trump's lawyers write that right that it says that the FBI should use force dot dot dot when necessary. They leave out the word only on purpose. Instead of deadly force only when necessary, it just says deadly force when necessary. Those lawyers signed their names to that. And it seems like that seems like sanctionable stuff to me, especially two dudes who have previously worked at the Department of Justice, have been prosecutors who have done this before, who are familiar with these forms. It blows my mind that they're allowed to misrepresent what it says like that in order to create this political grenade that could endanger and will endanger now FBI, FBI agents, and especially if he is convicted. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's bad

news. Yeah, it's deliberately misleading the way they use that quote. And I think the presenting this the way they did was also deliberately misleading without any, completely outside the context of how this open, publicly available FBI policy is used. People should see this and be like, hey, that's a great thing. The FBI is being very careful, making sure that their people who go out and are interacting with the public in a sensitive circumstance, like a search warrant, understand exactly the limits of their legal authority. That's what this is.

Merrick Garland modified them too to eliminate chokeholds, for example. In the wake of what happened to George Floyd, he says, well, we can't really control the local police, but we can control what our federal cops do, FBI, etc. So we are going to ban chokeholds and we're going to make it even more safe for criminal defendants. And so limiting the use of deadly force and pulling out words and cherry picking it to make it seem like they wanted to use deadly force, knowing full well, well in advance that Trump wasn't going to be there and that NARA spent nine months trying to get stuff. And then they sent it to the DOJIG and then they did this

and then they wanted, then they did a subpoena instead of a search warrant and then they did an extension and an extension and an extension and an extension. It's like, those are the layers and layers of protections against rogue prosecutors that Sotomayor talked about in the immunity arguments. And I talked about on our panel, when looking at the immunity arguments,

trying to figure out for Alito and Thomas, where it all ends with these rogue prosecutors, this case is a perfect example of how we never get to that point. We're still a year after the indictment and a day hasn't told on the speedy trial clock. So it's just absolutely mind boggling that you have the perfect example right in front of you of the layers and layers

of protections for criminal defendants, including limiting the use of deadly force and making sure he wasn't there. And we're not going to wear our windbreakers and we're going to wear khakis and polos and we're not going to break down doors because they're locked. Coordinated with his attorney before they actually executed the search, even the day of, coordinated with the Secret Service before they went in there. I mean, there were innumerable lengths

that the Bureau went to to do this in the least confrontational way possible. And by doing so, I will point out, gave him considerations that most people do not get. And despite that, what you hear is protestations to the contrary. Oh, I'm being politically prosecuted and this whole thing is rigged against me and Joe Biden's pulling all the strings. It's just fantasy. It's nonsense. And it's designed not... A bit of it is bare knuckled criminal defense work. They go right

up to the edge in terms of making their arguments and things like that to get delayed, it kind of undermined the prosecution's evidence, whatever, that's part of the process. But it's also politics because this is electioneering on his part. To get out there on Truth Social and claim completely falsely that the FBI tried to assassinate him, that's a political message. It doesn't actually have anything to do with facts or this case. Yeah, and I hope that the FBI has learned, you know, in their... After what happened to them during the Mueller investigation and in the Trump years,

that you know that they're a little bit gun shy, now quite literally, I hope that they've learned that Treating Trump with kid gloves doesn't make him attack you any less It it won't that's right. And you know the only course this is my view. I I guess others Don't embrace it the only course you can take I think as a leader of the FBI is to try to do things exactly the way you would with this guy as you would with every other guy. And when given the facts and the circumstances and the law, you go forward, whether that's opening a case or pursuing

a search warrant or an arrest warrant or whatever it is, and you let the chips fall wherever they fall politically. Yeah, somebody's really not going to like you at the end of the day. That's too bad. You didn't take the job to be Mr. Popular. So you just kind of move forward. They definitely kind of hesitated and pulled back a bunch of times in the course of this case. You can make the argument it was trying to be careful, trying to err on the side of caution, trying to avoid problems. Okay. But, you know, when I think there's

sometimes fallout from that, that you maybe didn't expect and was not productive. Mm hmm. Yeah, agreed. All right, we're going to go back to Judge Cannon and talk about this hearing, this doubleheader. It happened on May 22nd. There was one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Y'all are not going to believe some of the stuff that Judge Cannon says in this hearing, but we do have to take a quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Okay, Allison, let's talk about the hearings that happened on May 22nd. And you'll remember from the episode last week that Judge Cannon scheduled two hearings last week on the same day. This reporting is from my colleagues at CNN, Hannah Rabinowitz, Tierney Sneed, and Evan Perez.

During a marathon day of proceedings in the Marlongo classified documents case, a morning hearing in front of Judge Eileen Cannon devolved into a shouting match amongst the attorneys, and the afternoon series of arguments prompted the judge to wonder if the legal nuances of the case may be too difficult for jurors to understand. The heated arguments played out in a morning proceeding in Fort Pierce, Florida that had been scheduled for Walt Notta, one of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants, to present arguments that special counsel Jack Smith's team had selectively and vindictively brought charges against him. But the hearing quickly diverted

into a longstanding disagreement over an August 2022 meeting between prosecutor Jay Bratt and NADA's defense attorney Stanley Woodward. Woodward has claimed in court proceedings and filings that Bratt attempted to pressure him into convincing NADA to cooperate against Trump by threatening to affect a potential judgeship nomination.

Cannon did not issue a ruling from the bench on Nauta's motion that the case be dismissed on those grounds. Shock of all shocks. Nor did Cannon rule on a motion she heard during an afternoon session Wednesday brought by all three of the case's defendants who claimed that the indictment suffers technical flaws that require the dismissal of the charges. Cannon seemed skeptical of those arguments while also expressing concern about a jury's ability to understand the legal nuances in the case at a future trial. Quote, real people have to decide these issues, Cannon said.

All right. So everybody hear that? Judge Cannon is calling you too stupid to understand this case. She doesn't acknowledge the fact that the judge's role is to make sure the jurors understand the case and the law. But I don't know. Let's not get hung up on that. It's Jack Smith's job. Obviously, and I'm hung up on that. It's Jack Smith's job, obviously. I'm very disappointed in Jack Smith's job that he's doing.

Here's more from the article. Walt Nott claims that he was criminally charged in the case as retaliation for declining not to cooperate with Justice Department investigation into the former president's retention of classified documents at his estate. I want to just say, yeah, that's kind of how it works. If you don't cooperate and we have you on video moving boxes and you tell us to our faces that you don't know anything about any boxes, yeah, we're going to retaliate against you by indicting you. I don't know.

These conversations happen in every case. That's how you get people to cooperate. You say, dude, you're done. I have all this evidence against you and you got two choices. You can come on board, come on Team America and provide testimony at trial, or you can take your chances. I'm telling you right now, I'm going to indict you if you go that way and you're gonna get convicted because I've got a great case.

That's how that conversation happens in every federal criminal case. It's like Nada is saying, well, so if I lie to you and don't cooperate, you're gonna indict me? That can't be right. It's exactly right. Beyond my comprehension. That's how it works. But know, I mean, it's, it's, it's beyond my comprehension.

But then Woodward says at this, at this hearing, he says, I'd been recommended for a judgeship. That's beyond dispute. There was a folder about defense counsel on the table during that meeting, he said, claiming Bratt referenced that judgeship recommendation, quote, I think the implication was that I was to travel and convince Mr. Notta to cooperate with the investigation and if I didn't do that, there'd be consequences. So he's extrapolating this from the fact that there's a folder about defense counsel on the table. No one said anything, but he's saying the implication was that I had to convince Notta to cooperate andodda to cooperate,

and if I didn't, there'd be consequences. I wouldn't get this judgeship. Now, prosecutor David Harbach then rose and accused Woodward of engaging in procedural gamesmanship by making a garbage argument about the meeting. He used the terms garbage argument. Mr. Woodward's story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy. He shouted, Harbach shouted this, banging his hand on the lectern in front of him. It did not happen. Now during Wednesday's hearing, Harbach slammed Woodward saying he chose not to report the alleged incident until months later and has repeatedly changed his recollection of the conversation. Quote, this is a lawyer whose allegations amount basically to him being extorted, Harbach said of Woodward waving his arms. Now, Judge Cannon had apparently

told Harbach to calm down. And then Cannon asked why there was no evidence gathered of what happened in the 2022 conversation saying, why do these comments about Woodward have to be made? And Harbach said, that's not true. And I didn't say that. The prosecutor said that there was no recording of the conversation between Bratt and Woodward, but that Smith's team had preserved any record they have of the meeting. Now Woodward shot back up saying, I'm here and offering to testify under oath to what he remembers of the meeting.

But she didn't rule on that matter, of course. What a circus. What a complete circus. So that was the morning hearing. Then there was another one in the afternoon. CNN writes, during the afternoon portion of Wednesday's arguments, the defense lawyers raised concerns about how prosecutors structured the indictment, claiming that the wording for different charges within the same indictment sometimes sounded the same. Prosecutor Jay Brad said the charges referenced different parts of the obstruction statute used to charge Trump and two of his employees. Brad also pointed out that jurors would be given clear instructions about the charges during trial. Cannon said that while, quote, it's going to be hard for someone to detect what's

different in these counts, she noted that quote, it will be a project down the road. Kennan has yet to set a trial date in the case after indefinitely postponing it in an order earlier this month. The Florida judge spent hours Wednesday entertaining theories from defense attorneys about what they say were problems in the investigation and the prosecution of the former president, Nauta, and the third co-defendant, Carlos de la Vera. The defense theories ranged from allegations that prosecutors tried to extort Nauta's attorney to claims that prosecutors used inappropriate, quote, attention-grabbing descriptions of

Mar-a-Lago in the indictment. Cannon ultimately suggested that the potpourri of criticisms from the three defendants may best be suited for a jury to decide at an eventual trial. Several legal issues have still gone unresolved, including at least five motions to dismiss the criminal case. Cannon has repeatedly suggested that various legal issues could be punted down the road and handled closer to trial. Yeah. And then we got to figure out if there's attorney-client privilege on the redactions

of Exhibit B, on motion to compel six, was filed on the secret docket. I mean, it's amazing. Yeah. And not to call her out yet again, but in this case, the defense claims pre-trial motions claiming that the indictment was defective. That's not the kind of thing that goes to a jury. You don't have a trial about that. You decide that before the trial and you either dismiss the case or you dismiss the motion and you move on. But like her claim that the potpourri of criticisms, again, I've never seen potpourri in a legal order before, but okay, here we are. Maybe best suited for a jury to decide at an eventual trial. No, no, no, they wouldn't. These aren't the sort of things that go before a jury. Yeah, pretty unbelievable. But again, par for the course, we're just going to continue

to see these litigations. She's not going to rule on any of them. If she does rule on them, she'll say they can come back up again later. And this is what we're going to be, I think, looking at for quite a while. All right, we've got one more quick story and then listener questions, but we have to take one last quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. One more bit of news in the ongoing secret docket saga of one Eileen Cannon. In a ruling issued May 15th, Judge Boesberg, who is now the chief judge of the DC Circuit

Court, took over from Judge Berlhal, he oversees grand jury matters. The judge, Judge Boesberg, says that Walt Nauta is asking for all relevant grand jury materials in the case against Trump, including the proceeding where the DOJ got Nauta's grand jury testimony, the case in which the DOJ got an immunity order compelling the testimony of redacted and redacted, the case where they got an order compelling the compliance with the grand jury subpoena that's the that it was the second and third and fourth searches, the case where they pierced attorney-client privilege to get those

two lawyers to testify and the case where the DOJ got an order compelling Trump to produce additional classified documents. Nada also apparently asked for any other relevant grand jury materials that I don't know about. The judge denied this motion for being patently, he said, patently overbroad and because Nauta failed to particularize why he needs any of it. So that didn't go too well for him. Yeah. My guess is he knew he was going to lose that. He's just throwing these things out there so that he can later come back and pursue

them on appeal if he's convicted. Yeah. So I didn't get the discovery I was a for, I was, I should have had or whatever. And plus he was just trying to get all this stuff because this all has to mostly do with Trump and Trump wants it. But you know, and I think Trump is going to get most of it if it, if it involves him, but that's just very interesting. And let's not forget, not as attorney Stanley Wood Woodward, is like Trump World inside in-house counsel, right?

Yeah, he's paid for by Trump. He's paid for by Trump or the PAC or whoever doles out that money. And he's represented a whole bunch of people from Trump World who Trump had a significant interest in making sure they, you know, pursued their own defense in the way that was most amenable to him. So there you go. All right. Listener questions?

Are we ready? Yeah, time for questions. And again, if you have any questions, there is a link in the show notes that you can follow to fill out a form to submit your questions to me and Andy. Yes. Yeah. Good questions again this week. I picked this one because I think it kind of hits on all the cases a little bit. And it's kind of a broader issue that we haven't talked about recently. But as we get closer to a verdict in the New York trial, like a lot of people are wondering about issues like this. So Chip writes in, could the Supreme Court decide that not even the states have the right

to prosecute a president or conditions as to when they could prosecute a president? Would this mean that all of the states indicting Trump could just be s out of luck? Well, I guess the short answer is yes, but probably deserves a little more explanation than that. You kind of have to think about this in two halves. The first is the question of can they prosecute? And the second is the issue of can, if convicted, can a president be sentenced? So we know that on the federal level there's a DOJ policy that says you can't prosecute a sitting president. So that's not the law but it is policy and it's been observed for quite some time. At the state level

there isn't currently any sort of federal law or constitutional principle that prohibits the states from prosecuting a sitting president. But it is likely. So let's imagine Trump is reelected. Now you have the issue of the Georgia case, which is still trundling forward in some respect. So the question is, will Georgia be able to go forward with that prosecution if Trump is president. I think you could guarantee that Trump will file a federal lawsuit raising this issue that they should not be able to. And what he'll cite first is the DOJ policy, which lays out the reasons why constitutionally you should not prosecute a sitting president, which basically comes down to the argument that like it would deprive the people, the electorate of the honest and complete

services, the undistracted services of the president they elected. So yeah, I think that that issue would go to the Supreme Court likely. And I think it's, there's a good chance that they would come down on that side to say that a sitting president can't be pro criminally prosecuted really at any level. Now, can he be sentenced if he's convicted? Let's say he's convicted in New York before the election. Could he be required to serve his sentence while he's president? Again, he'll fight that one on very similar grounds, and I think he would likely succeed. Now, the end result of all these things is it's not that it would eliminate prosecution

or sentencing forever, but it would delay them until a point after which he is no longer president. Which probably wouldn't happen. He would probably be president until he is, you probably have to take him out of the White House feet first. Let's just say that. Yeah. Now, I don't think that the Supreme Court could decide that a president could pardon state crimes. So let's say he's convicted here in New York and he serves a few months in prison and then he's elected, which would be very difficult if

he's convicted and has gone to jail. But, you know, let's just say for the sake of the hypothetical for the parade of terribles, that that happened. And then he's out of jail by the time he's in the Oval Office, could he go and pardon his own state crime? And I think that the law is pretty clear there, although I thought the law was pretty clear on Roe. I thought the law was pretty clear on the Voting Rights Act. I thought the law was pretty clear on... I wouldn't put anything past this particular Supreme Court because they're really into unitary executive power. But I think our best hope, just from a very political, my political views point of view, is that he's convicted, whether he just does jail time or not in New York,

if he's convicted, I think that that will probably cause him to not win the election. I'm hoping he wouldn't anyway, because he's been indicted. That's kind of why I was like, hey everybody, can you temper your idea of justice to just being indicted and not convicted and tackled and handcuffed and put in prison? Can we bring it back a little bit and say he's been indicted? We've done what we can do and let justice work its magic

or very slow, slow magic as it were. Because then people, I think if they were polled, if he's indicted, would you vote for him? Then more than half of the people would say no. Instead of, if he's convicted, now we've moved the goalposts because we were all so adamant about making sure he was convicted before the election. And I warned against that. Nobody listened. But anyway, I think that that's our best, our last best hope is that a conviction, I think the indictments will do it, but that a conviction would prevent him from being elected as president because the voters, as outlined by Jack Smith in his immunity brief to the Supreme Court, the voters are the single most

powerful check on the electorate that we have in this country. Yeah, I agree with you. I think the criminal justice system is not going to save the country from Donald Trump or anything like that. That's not what it's designed to do. That's not Jack Smith's remit. He is following the law and the facts in two different cases and he brings his cases and wants them heard. I think he thinks it's important to have these cases in front of a jury that can hear the evidence and sort it all out and make an unbiased decision before the election. It's

probably not going to happen, but it should happen at some point. What happens is the fallout from that. Boy, I can't say. The polling supports your proposition that if he's convicted in New York, it'll have a negative impact on his campaign chances. But we'll see. I would never have predicted all of everything that's happened to date, so who knows? As to Chip's question, I really think that the constitutional underpinnings of the current DOJ policy will provide the framework that a convicted Trump or a prosecuted Trump will rely upon to try to squelch those things while he is president if in fact he's re-elected. And with this Supreme Court I think he

probably has a better-than-not chance of succeeding on those sorts of arguments. I agree. So there you go. Thanks Chip for the question. Anybody has a question, again there's a link in the show notes, you can click on that and fill out a form, send us a question. And again, thank you so much for your questions. Seriously, very well thought out, very intelligent questions. They make us think. We really appreciate it. And if you are interested in getting these episodes of Jack early before they come out to the public and ad free, so you don't have to listen to the ads, you can become a patron of MSW Media by going to www.mullershewrote.com. No, www.patreon.com

slash mullershewrote is the correct address. Or you can go to Supercast and search for mullershewrote. If you contribute at the $5 a month level, you get to be a patron for both this show, this program, and the Daily Beans podcast. So we thank you for your support supporting independent media and we appreciate you. Do you have any final thoughts today, Andy? No, just I just another huge thanks to all the people who sent nice messages, good vibes, helping that I would recover my voice for this week's episode. I feel like you guys did that. So thank you very much. Glad to have not been choking and sputtering through

another Jack episode. Awesome. I'm glad you're feeling better and everybody, we will see you next week where we might have a verdict in the criminal Trump trial. Until then, I've been Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe.