Jack - Episode 82 | Against Her Better Judges

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

It has come to light that two “more experienced” judges urged Cannon to recuse herself from the Mar-a-Lago documents case. One of them was Chief Judge Altonaga. Nevertheless, Cannon stayed on the case and has turned it into a complete mess.America First Legal– a Stephen Miller joint– has been allowed to participate as amici.We are still waiting on SCOTUS to drop their Presidential Immunity opinion so the DC case can proceed.Plus, listener questions. 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 82 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It's Sunday, June 23rd. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Okay, so as we record this episode, Judge Eileen Cannon is conducting her mini trial, I guess, including oral arguments from non-parties over whether special counsel Jack Smith is funded and appointed properly. So we're going to give you the updates during the show, if and when they happen.

And there's still no decision from the Supreme Court on either the immunity claim or the Fisher challenge to the obstruction of official proceeding statute. Yeah. And real quick on that, Andy, um, empty wheel brought up a good point because you and I've been talking about how gutting 1512 C two might impact Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump since he's charged with 1512C2 and 1512K. And you know, I've long said that it wouldn't impact a Trump's case. But Marcy Wheeler pointed out that it might actually impact the case if in fact the Supreme Court finds that January 6th in its entirety or in its

totality that 1512 C2 doesn't apply to January 6th. So that might be something to keep in mind as we wait for the Fisher case. And I think they'll resolve the Fisher case before they resolve the immunity case. And I've long said the immunity case is probably going to be the very last thing they put out totally agree. Totally agree. It's that decision will eclipse every other decision from this term. And I think they don't want to, you know, they want to get these other cases out and get them some attention before they drop the one that's basically going to be the only thing anybody talks about. You also have the debate coming up next week. I find it hard to believe that they're going

to release an opinion on immunity like the day before the debate or a couple days before. They might. They could do it the day after. Yeah. So who knows? But we're all trying to read the tea leaves, but we'll see. We'll see what happens next week. They're going to have what three days are sitting next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Well, so far they've just put, I think they've just calendared Wednesday, but I'm assuming they'll have to calendar Thursday and Friday as well. Unless they feel like going into July, which they have been known to do. And the thing is, there's no hard and fast rule here with this court. We're just kind of banking on traditionally what they do and see where that's gotten us recently.

Nowhere. So maybe we shouldn't be like, well, normally this is what the Supreme Court does, because I don't think we can count on that anymore. Right. This whole thing went off the rails 200 and whatever years ago when they decided to call them the Supreme Court. Because they just think they're supreme to everyone and everything and they can do whatever they want. Yeah. And that's how they're acting. But they're all bought and paid for. Super corrupt. But big breaking news this week is that two judges down in the Florida district where Judge Cannon sits, called her on two separate occasions and advised her to hand off the Mar-a-Lago case, the Jack Smith Mar-a-Lago case, to a different jurist,

a different judge, and she refused. So we'll go over that bombshell report, which I can't believe got out into the news. And we'll also talk about a really brief SIPA update and a short motion from Jack Smith to exceed the page limit in his response to Trump's most recent motion to dismiss the entire thing on the basis of spoliation of evidence, which violates due process. But first, how about we do another installment of Good Week, Bad Week? How about it? Okay. So I'm going to say resoundingly bad week, epically bad week for Judge Cannon.

And I mean, we're going to go into the details of exactly why with this amazing New York Times report. But boy, it's just kind of really filling in some key details on the story that we've been watching. We've all been watching develop from the very beginning of this. Since the really since the aftermath of the search warrant in 22. And it kind of explains in a in a particularly troubling way a little bit of how we got here. So I don't wanna cheat the punchline here,

but stay tuned for the discussion on this thing because boy, she comes out of all these articles looking just absolutely horrendous. Yeah, no bueno. And possibly ammo for Jack Smith if, you know, she decides to dismiss the case on the appointment of special counsel grounds, which you know, as the hearing is going on today or, you know, it makes any misstep, particularly in SIPA proceedings, which so far she hasn't made, but she still has that looming 11th circuit, scathing, vacating of her ruling

in the special master case that is just not going to go away and is a big part of that story. So we'll talk about that. I think it was every week, every day that the Supreme Court doesn't issue a ruling on immunity is a good day for Donald Trump, because they are de facto helping him push the trial back. And, you know, it's not even necessarily about the Supreme Court thinking he's going to win. I think it's more about his allies on the Supreme Court taking a long time to write a dissent or a concurrence or whatever, just to push this out past the election so that he can't be tried on this before the election. I think that the Supreme Court is keenly aware that he will probably be convicted in this case. And I think they're just trying to assist him in not getting that conviction prior to the voters going to the polls to decide. So again, reading tea leaves. But every day that passes is a

benefit to Donald Trump not having to face justice prior to the election. Yeah, I think that's that's right. And it's correspondingly worse for the special counsel team as the delay continues to mount. And they get closer and closer to this potential result of pushing the trial back, the likely result, let's say at this point of pushing the trial back behind the election, and then potentially losing the case entirely if Trump wins. So you know that's kind of hovering in the backs of their minds. So bad week for them. And I guess my final bad week would be really, this is pretty obvious, but a bad, another

bad week for the Supreme Court. I think this entire thing, what you just walked through, and then the broader context of the incredibly slow pace that they're getting these decisions out, the roiling kind of personal conflicts that seem to be upsetting the balance of the court. You've got justices who are actually, you know, making public comments that are at least a little bit revealing of the fact that this is not a happy place.

Used to be, but this collection of judges don't seem to be very close. They seem to have really significant kind of divides. Even Clarence Thomas was complaining about the current kind of, I don't know, lack of collegiality. I think the scars from the leak of the Roe- ProPublica stuff? Yeah, decision are still kind of lingering and then on top of that you have these kind of deep deep ideological divides I mean even just the case the Rahimi case came out today would you have five

concurrences or five concurrences yeah a two one five concurrences the only descent being Thomas and I and I gotta say it takes a it takes some Cajones to you know after being embroiled in this You know corrupt Scandal of accepting, you know 4 million dollars plus And continuing to fail to file your financial disclosure forms Yeah more trips being brought out and then to just go ahead and put out flack for Alito. Yeah. But to continue to like to put out this singular dissent based on domestic violence abusers not being given due process because they weren't convicted

with a complete lack of understanding about what it's like to have to try to press charges is it takes a lot of gall, I'll say. To continue to act this way in the wake. Like if I were him and all this shit was coming out about me, I would sit down and shush my mouth. You know what I'm saying? Keep a low profile. Do your one thing, but to write a full dissent, basically, you know, putting your flag into

the ground, no pun for Alito, but to die on that hill of no due process for domestic violence abusers is wow, it's just out of this world. It's pretty tone deaf, to say the least. And I think even Roberts, I mean, we probably, I don't want to go take the show completely off track here, but I thought Roberts' decision, obviously he had a hard time bringing the group together on this one. You know, he's trying to patch together a decision that like basically breaks some daylight in the 2022 case. What is it? Buell versus New York? Oh, the one that could impact Hunter Biden's conviction. Yeah. So this is like his, his effort to say, oh, you know, this, this second amendment,

this new standard and second amendment interpretation of, you know, any restriction has to be based in historical tradition. Oh, it's not that bad. We didn't say it, it has to be an exact, uh, you know, twin to, uh, a practice or restriction from the 1800s. Um, he's trying to, he's clearly trying to kind of loosen up that, that, that prior, that precedent, but he did it in a way that I thought was totally unconvincing. Listen, at the end of the day, it's a good result for the gun safety community. So I don't, you know, the, the end result, I think was the right one. Um, but the jurisprudence behind it is now a complete mess. I could see if you're, if you're a district court judge and you get one of these challenges, one of these lawsuits, now you're just like throwing your hands up. Like, wait a minute.

In 2022, you told us it has to all be like historical to the 1800s pretty much. And, uh, now, now you're saying not really so much. It's okay, but kind of, but sometimes, but not always. Yeah, originalism. I mean, they're, you know, they're setting up the, they're teeing it up so that originalism just means whatever they want it to mean based on what's in front of them. That's what it looks like. Yeah. But that's our SCOTUS. Yay. Maybe we will have a decision on immunity and Fisher

the next time we speak. Maybe we won't for the next episode, but you know, we grind on. We do. We grind on. So let's grind on here. And let's start with the unheard of news that two separate judges in the Southern District of Florida advised Judge Cannon to recuse from the advise Judge Cannon to recuse from the Florida Trump case. So before we get into the article, let's first review exactly how Cannon ended up with the case to begin with. And a good way to do that is to go back to reporting

that we got from James Zirin at The Hill, which published this article in June of 2023. The article goes on to say, there are 26 US district judges in the Southern District of Florida eligible to preside over the case of United States of America versus Donald J. Trump. From the standpoint of Special Counsel Jack Smith, the case drew the worst. The Trump-appointed Judge Eileen Cannon. Cannon, who has been on the bench less than three years,

has thin experience in trying criminal cases. During her time in office, she's tried only four routine criminal cases, adding up to a grand total 14 trial days. I feel like we've had 14 hearing days on this motion today. Just for one. I was gonna say, that's shorter amount of time than it takes her to decide on a couple of redactions.

That's right. Moreover, she was the judge in the litigation over the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, where she was twice rebuked by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for decisions displaying undue deference to Trump's status as a former president. Court observers may wonder why Smith went to Florida to try his case in the first place. The Sunshine State is Trump's backyard. Besides the possibility of drawing the dreaded cannon,

Trump won Florida twice easily, and the jury pool might be riddled with Trumpers, election deniers, and MAGA fans. Plus, Smith, like a football coach in the fourth quarter, has to manage his clock carefully. If Trump or another Republican wins the election, the case is effectively dead on inauguration day. How prescient was that paragraph? Yeah. That's why I wanted to bring back this article because reading it, you know, so early on before we even got into any of this, any of the secret

docket, any of that, it's just, it's really interesting. Yeah, really see, he nailed a lot of it here. Okay, so he goes on to say, under federal law, the crimes alleged in the devastating 38 count indictment could have been filed in Washington, where it began when Trump took the 197 classified documents from the White House, in Florida where he stored the documents, or possibly in New Jersey where he discussed one of the documents with unauthorized persons. But while those other jurisdictions may have been more favorable from the point of view of judges and juries, Smith was certain to face a venue motion, arguing that the center of gravity of the alleged crime was Florida, where most of the documents were secreted.

The government would probably win a venue motion, but the motion practice would eat up time." Now, pause here for a second. We know from a little more analysis on this as time has passed and a lot of it provided by our buddy Brian Greer, there are other factors impacting that question of venue and actually Florida was kind of the obvious and very hard to avoid choice. So to be fair, I would say that the government

probably would lose a venue motion. I agree. I agree. Yeah. I think he did the right thing by going to Florida, but it did get more complicated as the article goes on to show us. So he goes on to say, Smith weighed the options and mindful of the play clock, did not want to waste precious time with venue motions and possible appeals. Under section 2.01.01a of Internal Operating Procedures of the Florida Court, criminal cases are supposed to be assigned by the clerk on a, quote, blind random basis. So he, meaning Jack Smith, rolled the dice on Florida, calculating his 1 in 26 odds of drawing the dreaded Judge Cannon were pretty good. The problem is, as they said in The Music Man, he didn't know the territory.

The odds were really as short as 3 to 1 against drawing Cannon. The catch is that the Southern District of Florida is administratively divided into five divisions. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Key West, and Fort Pierce. This is supposed to be for the convenience of the parties and their lawyers and has no other legal significance. Yeah. And then the article from the Hill kind of gets into the nitty gritty of how they drew this judge. Cannon is the only judge sitting in Fort Pierce, which is in St. Lucie

County, 68 miles north of Palm Beach, 128 miles north of Miami. But for the purpose of assigning judges, Fort Pierce is treated as part of the neighboring Palm Beach Division. There are three federal district judges in Palm Beach, one of whom is a senior judge. What Smith didn't know or failed to sufficiently appreciate or knew and you know went ahead anyway, is that that pool of judges administratively eligible to try the case was not 26 but just four. If you remove from consideration the senior judge because he had met his quota, the eligible pool then goes to three. The grand jury that returned the Trump indictment sat in Miami because the courthouse facilities were more accommodating than Palm Beach, but an administrative order deemed the investigation

a Palm Beach inquiry. The case is challenging, a challenging one even for an experienced trial judge. There are issues of pretrial management, setting deadlines for motions and resolving discovery disputes. Oh, you think? Yeah. Most significant, there's a problem dealing with CIPA, the Classified Information Proceedings Act, which seeks in criminal trials involving classified documents to strike a

delicate balance between the interests of the government in national security and the due process rights of the defendant to see the evidence against him. This would involve obtaining security clearances for the lawyers, the fact witnesses also, and possibly experts who might be called to the stand. Trump's lawyers will doubtless argue that they are entitled to discover and inspect all 197 classified documents. They've actually asked to inspect more, but not just the 37 that are mentioned in the indictment.

The trial judge will have to rule on that Then there's a critical case Issue of the trial date a seasoned trial judge could get the case to trial in November Quaint Hmm Yeah, Trump will argue that the proceedings should be postponed until after the election because he's a candidate for president He'll be too busy. Cannon will have essentially unreviewable discretion to decide that motion and discretion as to how long to take to decide it.

New York case involving the payoff of Stormy Daniels is set for trial in March of 2024. Trump's lead counsel in New York, Todd Blanch, is also his lead counsel in Florida. He will credibly argue to Cannon he needs time to prepare for trial in New York. Under section 213.01h of the internal operating procedures, the trial judge is obligated to entertain motions for continuances, scheduling conflicts or notices of proceedings. So it's pretty normal for that, you know. But Trump claims that the prosecution is politically orchestrated by Biden to interfere with and prevent his election. An experienced judge might give little weight to such claims, perceiving that the public and Trump are entitled to a fair and speedy trial that someone as callow as

Judge Cannon could weigh in on Trump's side. Love it. Wow. So now the fat is in the fire. Cannon may well turn out to be up to the task and prove to be fair and impartial. But legal experts such as Lawrence, say no good can come of her assignment to the case. Smith can try to have Cannon recuse herself for bias, but he probably won't get very far with it. Plus, it'll lead up time if he appeals to the conservative 11th circuit. But there's more to consider, he says, and this is great. Jack Smith could indict Trump for the January 6th insurrection

case. This one would be brought in DC where the crime incontestably occurred. Smith may be saving the best for last. The criminal prosecution of Donald J. Trump will not go away. So. Well, we'll see about that, I guess. As we sit here waiting for an immunity ruling a year later. It's fascinating.

Yeah. I mean, he really hit so many of the issues. A lot of it is prophetic. Obviously, he couldn't, you know, he didn't have a crystal ball. He couldn't see how everything was going to play out, but pretty astute observations back in June of 23. Yeah, I agree. All right. Now we need to get to this reporting

from the New York Times. With all that laid out before you, and it's really stunning, but we have to take a quick break. So stick around, we'll be right back. ["The New York Times"] Welcome back. All right, now that we've refreshed our memories on how Judge Cannon got the case,

let's turn to the new reporting from Charlie Savage and Alan Foer at the New York Times. Shortly after Judge Eileen M. Cannon drew the assignment in June of 2023 to oversee former President Donald J. Trump's classified documents case, two more experienced colleagues on the federal bench in Florida urged her to pass it up and hand it off to another jurist, according to two people briefed on the conversations. The judges who approached Judge Cannon, including the chief judge in the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia M. Altenaga, each asked her to consider whether it would be better if she were to decline the high profile case, allowing it to go to another

judge, the two people said. Yes, yes. The answer was yes. Okay. Yeah, it certainly is. All right. They go on to say, but Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, wanted to keep the case and refuse the judges and treaties.

Her assignment drew attention because she has scant trial experience and had previously shown unusual favor to Mr. Trump by intervening in a way that helped him in the criminal investigation that led to his indictment, only to be reversed in a sharply critical rebuke by a conservative appeals court panel. The extraordinary and previously undisclosed effort by Judge Cannon's colleagues to persuade her to step aside adds another dimension to the increasing criticism of how she has gone on to handle the case. She has broken according to lawyers who operate there with a general practice of federal judges in the Southern District of Florida, and I should add everywhere else as well, of delegating

some pre-trial motions to a magistrate judge, in this instance, Judge Bruce E. Reinhart. While he is subordinate to her, Judge Reinhart is an older and much more experienced jurist. In 2022, he was the one who signed off on an FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's club and residence in Florida, for highly sensitive government files that Mr. Trump kept after leaving office. Since then, Judge Cannon has exhibited hostility to prosecutors, handled pretrial motions slowly, and indefinitely postponed the trial, declining to set a date for it to prosecutors, handled pretrial motions slowly, and indefinitely postponed the trial, declining to set a date for it to begin, even though both the prosecution and the defense had

told her they could be ready to start this summer. God, remember that? Holy cow. But Mr. Trump's lawyers have also urged her to delay any trial until after the election. And her handling of the case has virtually ensured that they will succeed in that strategy. Should Mr. Trump retake the White House, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case. As Judge Cannon's handling of the case has come under intensifying scrutiny, her critics have suggested that she could be

in over her head, in the tank for Mr. Trump or both. Yeah, I vote for both. This is such a fascinating story. And I'll tell you why, Andy, because I had a conversation with a very well-respected and well-known expert who has vast amounts of experience in this type of situation, spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, et cetera, et cetera. But I remember during our conversation, this person said to me, you know, I would bet money that one or more judges have already called her and told her to step

aside. No way. And I was like, you are kidding. Really? Do they do that? He's like, it happens. And, uh, and here we are today discussing this, um, discussing this just absolutely blockbuster reporting from the times.

You know, it's funny you say that because I was in a conversation with a bunch of folks this morning and the question came up to a bunch of lawyers in the room, a lot of experience. Are you surprised that colleagues went to Canon and, you know, raise these issues with their try to convince or drop the case? And they all said no, which kind of shocked me. I was surprised. Were you surprised? I was surprised. Yeah. Mr. Drop the case. And they all said no, which kind of shocked me. I was surprised. Were you surprised? I was surprised. Yeah. And because, but really what I'm actually surprised when I started to think a little more deeply about it, when I'm truly surprised about is that we learned about it.

Yeah. It makes sense that these things happen and you never hear about it because the judges are such a closed kind of insular group. Well, that was kind of the end of the discussion I had with the person I was telling you about. It's like, well, we'll never know about that. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but I wanted to finish what they wrote here in the Times because they go on to say, against that backdrop, word of the early efforts Because they go on to say, against that backdrop, word of the early efforts by her colleagues on the bench to persuade her to step aside,

and the significance of her decision not to do so, has spread among other federal judges and the people who know them. So this is out there. Now, neither Judge Cannon nor Judge Altonaga directly responded to requests for comment. I assume they wouldn't, including by emails. Now, including like the emails went back and forth with the clerk of the district court, Angela Noble. And Ms. Noble later wrote in an email, our judges do not comment on pending cases. Now it's routine. Or do not comment publicly. Right. I was going to say, apparently they do, just not to us. They go on to say it is routine for novice judges to look to more experienced jurists for informal advice or mentoring as they

learn to perform their new roles. And as the district chief, Judge Altonaga has a formal role in administering the federal judiciary in South Florida. But ultimately Judge Cannon is not subject to the authority of her district court elders. Like any Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed federal judge, she has a life tenure and independent standing and is free to choose to ignore any such advice. The two people who discussed the efforts to persuade her to hand off the case spoke on the condition of anonymity. Each had been told about it by different federal judges in the Southern District of Florida, including Judge Altenaga. So that's interesting.

Yeah. Neither of the people identified the second federal judge in Florida who'd reached out to Judge Cannon. One of the people confirmed the effort to persuade Judge Cannon to step aside, but did not describe the details of the conversations the judges had with her, both of the judges. And the other person offered more details. So it's, again, I really want to talk a lot about, well, not a lot, but a little bit at least about how this got out to the public because this is fascinating. This is super fascinating to me. And this was two different levels, right? Because one judge called up Cannon and said, maybe you should step aside because you were appointed by Trump. And then the second judge, the chief judge, Al Tanaga,

called up after the special master debacle and said, given you were appointed by Trump and the fact that, you know, basically you just got your booty chewed out by the 11th circuit, and I'm paraphrasing, don't you think it'd probably be best if you stepped aside here? And she said no. It is fascinating. And you look at the kind of the chain of the sourcing.

So you have those two judges who both allegedly spoke to Ken and about passing on this case. Those two judges each spoke to someone else, two other people. And it's those two other people who spoke to the reporters. Only one of those people spoke in detail. The other one generally confirmed the story, but wouldn't give the details of what they had been told by the judge that they heard this from. And of course, one of those two sources heard it directly from Judge Altenaga and the other one heard it from another judge who has not been identified. So it's very direct. There's not a lot of links in this chain, and both confirmed it. It really, you know, causes you to wonder about how intentional this sharing

with the press may have been. That was my question too, right? Because these two people, my very first assumption is they're not also judges, right? Because judges don't go to the press with stuff. I think that's fair. I think if they, right. This is like, there was a clear, it's, well, I can't say there was. Maybe that's why Judge Cannon's clerks don't work for her anymore. They're too busy relating conversations like this. I don't know. They got fired. I don't know. I don't work for her anymore. They were too busy relating conversations like this.

I don't know. They got fired. I don't know. I don't know. Only they know, you know. And when you know, you know. They've been gone for a while. So yeah, I think it feels a lot like an intentional release of information, like to these two people who are outside the circle of trust

as judges, but could serve as kind of a de facto spokespeople almost. I don't know. I mean, that's impossible to tell, but I think you have to consider it as a possibility. Yeah. So if that's the case, and this was an intentional kind of disclosure, you have to think of what motivated it. That would indicate a very, very high degree of anxiety in that courthouse about what's going on in Fort Pierce. If judges who are in the know, so to speak, involved in this thing and concerned about it, are that concerned that they would actually want the story of their, this involvement of this attempt to kind of get her on a different path. I mean, that's just, I think, really revealing of how deeply people in that courthouse are concerned about what's happening in that courtroom.

Yeah. And, you know, interesting timing here, because I brought up those two law clerks that no longer work for Judge Cannon. You and I spoke about how rare it is for somebody to quit a clerkship. Both clerks quit in October and December of 2023, about, I'd say five or six months after she was assigned the case. And that was right around the time that Cannon kind of made clear through her rulings that she was open to delaying Trump's trial past the May, original May 20th date. And I can't help but I, you know, I'm a connect the dots person in my head and I'm like two people spoke to the New York Times. Did the New York Times go out because the reporting on the two clerks leaving came out this past March. Did the New York Times go out and find these clerks? Again, speculation. I just think it's, I have to wonder how this got out, you know?

Yeah. You wonder how it got out and kind of what does that mean? Like what's the motivation for people to share information like this? What are they trying to uncover? What sort of, you know, why is it they believe it's necessary to draw the public's attention to what's happening kind of behind the scenes? It's really, really remarkable, great piece of reporting by the New York Times team and really has kind of, I think, crystallized a lot of significant criticism about Cannon. So more detail from this report. Each outreach took place by telephone. The first judge to call Judge Cannon, this person said, suggested to her that it would be better for the case to be handled by a jurist based closer to

the district's busiest courthouse in Miami, where the grand jury that indicted Mr. Trump had sat. The Miami courthouse also had a secure facility approved to hold the sort of highly classified information that would be discussed in pretrial motions and used as evidence in the case. Judge Cannon is the sole judge in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, a two hour drive north of Miami.

When she was assigned to the case, the courthouse in Fort Pierce did not have a secure facility. Because Judge Cannon to the case, the courthouse in Fort Pierce did not have a secure facility. Because Judge Cannon kept the case, taxpayers have since had to pay to build a secure room known as a sensitive compartmented information facility or SCIF in the Fort Pierce courthouse. After that initial argument failed to sway Judge Cannon to step aside, the person said, Judge Altenaga placed a call. The chief judge and appointee of former president George W. Bush, so not like a pillar of liberalism, right, right, is said to have made a more pointed argument.

It would be bad optics for Judge Cannon to oversee the trial because of what had happened during the criminal investigation that led to Mr. Trump's indictment on charges of illegally retaining national security documents after leaving the office and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. What she was referring to was the special master debacle in late 2022. Right. That was what I was just brought up. Yeah. Cannon barred investigators from gaining access to the evidence and appointed a special

master, although she said that person would only make recommendations to her and she would make the final decisions. So as an aside, that I had forgotten that detail. But in retrospect, that is classic Eileen Cannon. I'm gonna put in place this whole process and require all this activity and work and reports and everything and put this person in charge of it. And at the end of the day, I'm not actually even gonna let them make the decisions.

It's all gonna come back to me to sit on it and think about it for years before- Never a firm decision. Yeah. So the article goes on to say, Judge Cannon's decision was unusual in part because she intervened before there were any charges, treating Mr. Trump differently from typical targets of search warrants based on his supposed special status as a former president. She also directed the special master

to consider whether some of the seized files should be permanently kept from investigators under executive privilege, a notion that was widely seen as dubious since it has never successfully been made in a criminal case. Prosecutors appealed to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. In a repudiation, a three-judge panel that included two Trump appointees reversed her

order and ruled that she had never had legal authority to intervene in the first place. Quote, it is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president, but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation," the panel wrote. Right. Because you got to remember that whole special master thing went down under Merrick Garland and it went down before the indictment happened, well before. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Because I think people forget this. Trump actually brought that issue by filing a separate federal lawsuit.

Yeah. Right? Because he's not a party to a criminal. He's not a party to anything. He's not being prosecuted. He's never been charged. So out of the blue, he files a federal lawsuit demanding that a special master basically be appointed and inserted proactively into an ongoing federal criminal investigation. The idea of that was preposterous, but maybe not because Eileen Cannon went along with it. Okay. Six months later, the grand jury in Miami indicted Mr. Trump, alleging in detail

how he had stored highly sensitive documents in a bathroom and on a stage at Mar-a-Lago, and persistently led his aides and lawyers to stymie efforts by the Justice Department and the National Archives to recover them. Under the district standard practices, according to its clerk, the new case went into a system that would randomly assign it to one of the handful of judges whose chambers are in the West Palm Beach Division, which covers Mar-a-Lago, or in either of its two adjoining divisions, Fort Pierce

and Fort Lauderdale. It went to Judge Cannon. Yeah. Now, I mean, this whole thing is, again, I just have to, like, it's one of those things that I sit and wonder who these two people are, why they decided to discuss it with the press. And honestly, what the backlash is in the Southern District right now with the chief judge, who's kind of been called out here, not called out, but exposed as having reached out. I'm just kind of wondering what's going on, what are the discussions that are going on right now in the Southern District about this stuff getting out? Because it's so rarely does that I have never,

I've never heard of it since I've been podcasting. And I don't, have you? I don't think you've ever heard of it. No, no, I've never heard anything like this. But you know, as we were mentioning before about the Supreme Court, how kind of the scars of the Dobbs leak before the official decision revoking Roe v. Wade, that thing really threw the Supreme Court into turmoil. I think the same could probably happen

here. I would bet you every judge and magistrate judge in that courthouse has a strong opinion, one way or the other, associated with this news story. I bet you there are some who are really concerned about the fact that this information got out and how did that happen and what does it say about how closely knit or not they are as a community of judges in that district. And I'm sure there are probably others that are thinking, well, thank God it got out because this is a disaster. It's making us all look terrible. And who knows, maybe it's in some way leads or helps lead to fixing this case that is by any measure wildly off the rails.

Wildly, wildly off the rails. And interestingly, Andy, it may have been all that shuffling of boxes of documents in the special master's case that actually led to the alleged spoliation of evidence motion to dismiss filed by Trump that we covered last week. And we have a little bit of an update on that and more after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Just a quick reminder about Trump's latest motion to dismiss. This is a kind of, this is a new one. This is newest. Well, new to us. It's been marinating on the secret docket for months, probably. No, no, he just filed it plain up on the on the public docket. Oh, wow. All

right. All right. Give him credit. There's a new one. He's coming up with a new one every five minutes. Yeah, I think he wanted to get this one out into the public and saw that the last litigation of redactions in exhibits took nine months and that would push it past the election. He wants this information out before the election. He filed it on the public docket without redaction. Legal filings designed purely for public relations effect. Exactly. So this is the spoliation of evidence we went over last week. Trump contends that the government didn't hand over quickly enough some notes that it took from a meeting about documents being out of order in the boxes. Based on that, Trump claims Jack Smith violated his due process, requiring prosecutors to hand over exculpatory evidence, and that Joe Biden is the devil and everybody's in on it.

a bad and that Joe Biden is the devil and everybody's in on it. Jack Smith has yet to respond to that motion, but this week we have something new. He filed for leave to exceed the page limit. Oh boy. Special counsel, yeah, special counsel writes on June 10th, 2024, defendant Trump filed an additional pretrial motion. So Andy, that's the answer to that question. He filed it 11 days ago. Okay. As of this recording. His motion to dismiss based on spoliation of evidence and violation of due process. Consistent with the page limitations set forth in ECF 320, that's electronic court filing

320, the motion is 25 pages long. The government's opposition is due on June 24th, 2024, which is tomorrow, if you're listening to this on Sunday the 23rd, the government hereby moves for leave to have an additional seven pages for its opposition in order to be able to fully respond to defendant Trump's idiocy. No, they say allegations and arguments. As set forth in the accompanying certificate of the meet and confer counsel Council for Defendant Trump Consents to the government's request. And yes, Jay Bratt did include the newly required Certificate of Meaningful Meet and Confer.

I bet he did. Yeah, he sure did. That'll never happen again, I don't think. Since the motion to exceed the page limit was unopposed, which I'm actually kind of surprised about. They usually oppose everything. There's a new minute order entry the next day. The canon granted the motion to exceed the page limit. So Jack Smith needs seven more pages to respond to this spoliation charge. you know the accusation that Jack Smith somehow violated his due process okay violated Trump's due process in a case where one

day has not yet told on the speedy trial clock we are a year from out of from indictment and he's trying to say he's not getting enough due process we have 15 secret docketed motions and we're having many trials on the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith and we're not handing any of these pretrial motions off to magistrate judges, but he is somehow still not getting his due process. So it's going to be interesting to see how Jack Smith or and or Jay Bratt respond to this. Oh, it's going to be interesting. All right, because this is essentially the legal equivalent

of asking if you can use an extended magazine on your weapon because you have so many rounds that you want to fire that the normal, you know, 14, 15 round magazine is just not going to do it. You're just going to hang the 30 rounder out the bottom of the pistol. Yeah, that'll be interesting. They have good editors on that team and they probably could have cut this thing down, but they just thought, no, we don't wanna leave a single shot out of this opposition.

Yeah, agreed. Okay, and also today, as we record, Judge Cannon is conducting her mini trial or three ring circus, I like to think of it as, on Trump's motion to dismiss on the ground that the special counsel Jack Smith was inappropriately appointed and funded. Okay, so here's an update from the Washington Post.

The long shot argument, I love that they begin with that. The long shot argument is based on a legal premise pushed in some conservative circles that the Senate should have approved Attorney General Merritt Garland's appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who's overseeing the federal investigations against Trump. Smith's team called the argument, quote, unsound and said Garland has clear authority to appoint lawyers to fulfill Justice Department functions. Similar challenges to other recent special councils, including Robert S. Mueller, the third, have been rejected in court. Trump's attorney said at the hearing that there are differences in the legal arguments they were making versus the rejected ones made in DC around the Mueller appointment. There aren't. No, of course they're not. Quote, the district court in DC did a fairly comprehensive review, Cannon said.

Oh. On Friday, Trump attorney, Hamill Bovet, argued that Garland has repeatedly said Smith is acting independently. Which Bovet claimed that Garland has repeatedly said Smith is acting independently. Which Bovet claimed would make Smith a principal officer who needs to be approved by the Senate. Now that argument, I got to say, really infuriated me when I read the motion because- Can I guess why? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Okay. I think maybe it's because all of the Republican howler monkeys yelling about how David Weiss, who was prosecuting Hunter Biden, was not independent enough. Do I have that? I mean, that's a good point. Not the one I was thinking. The one I was thinking was when you read their argument on this grounds, it's like they're

it's basically like they're saying, you said he's independent. Therefore, you can't now say he's supervised. You already claimed independent. No backsies. This is a no backsies legal argument. It's one or the other. It's one or the other. You can call them one or you can call them the other, but you can't call them both.

It's so ridiculous. Like saying the guy is independent, the attorney general saying he's independent is just a, it's like a comment of how Garland intends to treat him. Not that he is outside the realm of any attorney general supervision, simply saying, hey, I'm going to give this guy the room and the deference to do what he needs to do. He knows full well that he's the attorney general. At the end of the day, it's all on him. He makes the decisions about the report and the conclusions and whether or not charges are pursued. But it just seems so ridiculous. It's basically no backsies argument. Well, it reminds me of that whole, remember when we talked about Judge Chetkin's observation

on Trump's claims to immunity on the impeachment judgment clause saying you're denying the antecedent. You know, by saying, you know, that you, that you can be prosecuted if you're convicted by the Senate in an impeachment. That must mean ipso facto that you can't be prosecuted if you're not found guilty or convicted by the Senate. And it's like, no, that's not what that means. It also kind of reminds me of the, we're a constitutional republic, not a democracy. One is the other thing. And that's like you say, no take backsies. It's just sophistry, right? It's nonsensical, but it's working. So I can't completely criticize them because all of these

nonsensical arguments are having their intended effect of bollocksing up this trial. But when you read this one, they keep going on and saying, well, no, he's not, you said he's independent, therefore he can't be an employee. That's not true. Like you can be, you can have some independence, but you're still an employee of the Department of Justice and therefore you come under the authority of the AG anyway. Right. Okay. James Pierce, an attorney on the special counsel team said there are plenty of Justice Department officials who are not Senate confirmed but have the authority to make big decisions. He said adopting

the defense's theory would have, quote, pernicious consequences. Cannon, who asked detailed questions of the government and the defense throughout the morning portion of the hearing, seemed interested in the idea of how independently Smith has operated as he prosecutes the case. Oh, geez. Now, you know, I, another thing I'm reminded of about the special counsel's independence and, you know, that Pierce argued, hey, there's plenty of Justice Department officials who are not Senate confirmed, but have, they can make big decisions. They have big boy pants. Just reminds me of Jeff Clark and his amici, his friends of the court that were arguing. He

had, you know, the broad decision to make whatever arguments that he wanted. He was so independent, he had the right to commit crimes. It's like everything is so contradictory that comes out of this side. It's just mind boggling. motion to basically exclude or challenge the funding and the appointment of special counsel John Durham. Where was that one? Robert Herr. Yeah. John Durham, who had been appointed and Merrick Garland took a completely hands off position with respect to him for obvious reasons, both political and legal.

Let him go and go and go and go for as long as he wanted to go doing God knows what he was doing. And no, no, no challenge there was no problem there. He had incredible independence, but at the end of the day, was still required to submit an import report to the attorney general. So this is nonsense, this whole thing. Yeah. And also David Weiss. And I mean, there's a million examples, right? And the David Weiss arguments failed. Hunter Biden made those arguments in two courts now, and they failed in both places for the same reasons that they should fail here. And I didn't see any Republicans filing an amicus brief along, you know, to say Hunter

Biden shouldn't, this special counsel was appointed improperly and funded improperly. Ed Meese didn't mind. I agree because he was appointed, like just whatever. Ed Meese and Mike Mukasey were not offended by David Weiss's continued persecution of Hunter Biden. Hey, somebody wake up Ed Meese and tell him to file a brief, would you? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So she asked whether Garland would have reviewed the indictment against Trump before it was

filed. Pierce responded that the special counsel regulations call for the attorney general to review significant decisions in the case, which would probably include an indictment. Yeah. But he wouldn't answer that straightforwardly. He wouldn't say if Garland approved or disapproved, but he cited the special counsel regulation saying, yeah. Like in general, you know, yes, your honor. And you know, he doesn't have to, I mean, I think if I were in his position, I would

want to, but since he ultimately has the authority to say go or no go, he doesn't have to review the indictment to do that. He and Jack Smith could have had a conversation about it. Like, you can do that however you feel comfortable doing it. So maybe that's why they didn't want to kind of get specific about what the AG did or didn't do. It's also kind of a work product privilege issue kind of. That's kind of the way that it was sort of presented in some of the things I read here. Let me share with you some of the main takeaways here. Now, by the way, everybody, the oral arguments portion of this fiasco has ended. But here's a great recap of the proceedings so far from Adam Classfeld.

Proceedings adjourned a couple hours ago, he says. Main takeaway, Judge Cannon appears skeptical of at least one of Trump's constitutional challenges against Jack Smith's appointment to special counsel. That's because they've only heard one of Trump's challenges. The second part has not yet been litigated. And so far, Cannon seems skeptical, according to Classfeld.

At one point, Cannon pushed back sharply at Boves, likening the special counsel's role to a... Because Beauvais called it a shadow government. Oh, come on. And she said, that sounds very ominous, shadow government. But what do you really mean? She asked. Okay. Significantly, she asked whether that's a realistic risk given the well-defined regulations. And later in the same exchange, Cannon remarked that she did not know whether it was fair to cast aspersions in that direction. So she seems again skeptical of both.

All of which leads me to believe she probably does not like our constant reference to her as the shadow docket. Right. Now, for the special counsel's office, James Pierce emphasized how courts have unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of special counsel appointments. All eight of the judges in four cases came down on their side on this issue. He noted, a central issue at this side of Trump's constitutional challenge is the special counsel, a superior officer requiring the Senate's advice and consent or an inferior officer, which does not or is he merely an employee? Which one of the three is he? Trump's defense argues he's a superior officer. When Trump's lawyer, Boves, called the special counsel appointment an end run around the

statutory scheme for US attorneys. Cannon called that very debatable. And even if it were, she said, it'd be one that's been historically tolerated. So those are kind of the things that she had to say about Boves arguments. Yeah. And as for the oral arguments portion of the day, the amici arguing for Trump made the same arguments as lawyers did. And Katie Fang recalls the government's amicus arguing as follows. Matthew Seligman, an attorney, is arguing before Judge Cannon on behalf of the special counsel Jack Smith's appointment. Seligman, the special counsel, meets the definition of an inferior officer, allowing the attorney

general to appoint them. He pointed to the Supreme Court precedent upholding independent councils, which are, if anything, more independent than special councils as inferior officers. Seligman, the most important factor in determining whether an official is an inferior officer is whether the officer has a superior, quote, Oh, what a weird concept. Yeah, right. The order appointing Jack Smith could just be changed by Garland, Seligman said, giving him sufficient oversight, though he conceded when pressed by Judge Cannon that the quote, day-to-day supervision of litigation is not there. Nonetheless, the regulations still provide guidelines for when the AG can overrule decisions

made by the special counsel. Yeah, they sure do. So, he's independent, but not completely. No, Garland retains the right to shoot down any of his things that he wants to do. He just has an obligation to report it to Congress when he does. Yeah. If you're in your nine-of-fiver, your day job, your boss, you've been working for him forever or her forever, and they basically let you do your thing. You know what to do,

you've been doing it, you're in that job for a reason, and your boss gives you kind of free-ranged of your stuff. Do you still have a boss? No. Yeah, you do. You could be fired. If the boss comes in the next day and decides you want someone else, you're gone. It doesn't mean you're not an employee simply because you have a lot of independence and your decision-making is respected and tolerated. Well, as we know from the Manhattan election interference hush money trial,

Trump has a real hard time understanding the difference between allowing somebody to do their job and micromanaging them. That's true. And it kind of gets them in trouble. So he knows exactly what he's talking about. But again, they file all these motions. Normally, these are dismissed in due course, five days, 10 days. Sometimes they're handed to magistrate judges to be handled. Oftentimes, we see federal judges say, at the risk of this turning into a mini trial, I am not going to entertain this at this point in pretrial motions, but feel free to file an appeal later. Because like we have said multiple times, most of

these pretrial motions are just placeholders. You have to file a pretrial motion about something if you want to raise it again on appeal if you're convicted after conviction later. And so a lot of this is that. But here we have Trump and Judge Cannon using it as a means to have a secret docket with 150 page addendums and supplements and exhibits that need to have their redactions litigated. I mean, it's just, it's a perfect storm for delay. Yeah, it is.

And again, you know, we're constantly pointing out what we think are the fallacies in the Trump team's legal reasoning and these seemingly nonsensical arguments, but you gotta keep your eye on the ball. The ball is delay. You know, these motions are accomplishing what the defense team is trying to accomplish. And that's what they're for.

The weird thing here is why is she even putting up with it? Why is she entertaining these nonsensical motions? The problem here is the judge. And why didn't she step aside when not one but two and not just regular judges but the chief judge, including one of them is a chief judge in her district. She said no when they suggested that she hand the case off. Yeah, it's just that that's where the real questions are. All right, we have just a couple more quick updates. I know we've already like eaten up

the hour with all of this news. Every week I'm like, Oh, gonna be a quick week, gonna be a quick show. Never happens. Never happens. But like I said, a couple more updates and then we'll take a listener question or two, but only right after this quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. I have, Andy, just a couple more quick updates before we take a listener question. First one is that a third party has asked Judge Cannon's permission to file an amicus

brief opposing Jack Smith's motion to reconsider bail conditions. That's the one where the government is taking issue with Trump's mischaracterization of the standard FBI use of force document, claiming that Biden and the FBI were out to assassinate Trump. And Judge Cannon denied that motion, but she actually accepted another one. And we're going to go over that amicus brief because that's just breaking news right now. There has been a pro-Trump amicus brief accepted, arguing that Jack Smith's motion to reconsider bail conditions is BS. And we'll talk about that next week. And finally, Judge Cannon granted a SEPA Section 4 supplemental request from Jack Smith.

But it's under seal, so it doesn't tell us much. I asked our under seal expert, Brian Greer, and he said, without further information, we really don't know much beyond the fact that just Cannon has granted the government a part of their SEPA Section 4 motion. And then finally, we got a notice that Trump has filed his first notice pursuant their SEPA section four motion. And then finally we got a notice that Trump has filed his first notice pursuant to SEPA section five. June 21st, 2024, his first SEPA section five things were due November 17th of last year. Just want to point that out.

Just blaze ahead. What's that? Seven months later? Oh my gosh. Because they're finally due. He filed his first notice. Wow. So we don't know what it is. No, we don't. That's progress for you. Yeah, right? It's all again, all the SEPA filings are under seal. So we simply don't

have any more information than that. But I just wanted to update everybody. He did it. He made one of his SEPA Section 5 filings, or at least he noticed that he was going to file it. Thinking about filing. filings, or at least he noticed that he was going to file it. Thinking about filing. Yeah. So let's see, let's go to listener questions for the week. And by the way, if you have a question, we have a link in the show notes that you can follow to fill out a form and send us a question. We love your questions. They're so well thought out. So

please feel free to submit them. Again, that link is in the show notes. Andy, what do we have today? All right. So I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach this week. I'm going to call it speed round. Listener questions, speed round. So we have a couple of questions I've pulled out because there were a lot this week and I think they're pretty tight and I think we can go quick answers and cut through a few of these. So, okay. First I have Carolyn who says, when the case before Judge Cannon finally goes to trial, hopefully within my lifetime,

can Trump opt for a bench trial? Really good question, Carolyn. I'd not thought about that, how to do a little research. The answer is maybe, maybe. Rule 23. You're such a lawyer. Yeah, a jury or non-jury trial basically says, if the defendant is entitled to a jury trial,

the trial must be by jury unless one, the defendant waives a jury trial in writing, two, the government consents, and three, court approved. So it does happen. It is incredibly rare. I had to go phone a friend on this one who told me that he had actually had in his entire federal prosecutor career, had one bench trial. So it hardly ever happens. And it's inconceivable to me that it would happen here.

There's no way the government would ever consent to that. Certainly not before this judge. So it's a legal possibility, but I think a practical impossibility. Yeah, we have had a handful of bench trials in the January 6th insurrection cases. We've had a few people who just wanted to be before a judge, and I think because they have over 1,600 cases, the government's like, yeah, fine. Yeah, yeah, fine.

Yeah, fine. Let's go. Let's go. Keep going. Sure. All right. So that's the first one. Let's see. Next one is from Kim. Thanks for breaking down all the cases so as lay people can understand, is it possible the Supreme Court doesn't rule on the immunity question this session? Quick answer, anything's possible, but I think that's highly unlikely.

They typically do not like to drag business from one session into the next session. I think it's more likely that they'll extend the session by a day or so into July, but that's the answer on that one, I think it's more likely that they'll extend the session by a day or so into July. But that's the answer on that one, I think. Yeah, I concur. Like I said, I can't take anything for granted with the Supreme Court, but it would be pretty unheard of for them to push off any of these rulings that they're set to make this term

into the next term. They're going to just have to pull the all-nighter, right? We all remember that one, kids. The papers do at the end of the semester and that's only one more day left. You're staying up all night. That's the way it works. All right. Let's say last one comes from Sue, who says, at this point it looks doubtful that the trial can start before the election, but what about after the election, but before the inauguration?

Sure. Absolutely, Sue. No, nothing stopping that. Well, not the documents case. I mean, could it happen? I give it a one in 10 billion chance, but okay. No, I mean, there's nothing stopping the government from moving forward during that period. However, I do think it's an interesting question because it might, you know, it might provoke some conversations

in the Justice Department at the Attorney General level, this thinking like, okay, now are we essentially violating the spirit of our policy of not prosecuting a sitting president? Okay, he's not a sitting president yet, but to prosecute him, are we kind of stepping on the spirit and the intent of that policy? I think that it's a fair question and something that they would have to chew on a bit. And certainly Trump would file a motion to push all that off because he's an elected, he's an incoming president and he can't be bothered. He'll say, the Constitution says, I can't be over encumbered with a bunch of

stuff and he'll definitely file that motion. He'll file motions and he'll claim that those motions, the existence of those motions should stay the case and then the issue of the stay will get litigated to the Supreme Court. I mean, it's just we so you could chew up that period of from November to January 20 pretty quickly. All right, that's the speed round for this week. Awesome. Thank you so much, Sue, Kim, Carolyn, all excellent questions. If you have a question, there's a link in the show notes for you to click on and you can fill out the form, send us your question. And again, we really appreciate them.

Very thoughtful, always impressed with like the level of knowledge that our listeners have of these cases is stunning. It's amazing. I'm always blown away by it. Totally, totally. All right. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here? Do you think we'll have an immunity slash Fisher ruling

by the time we record next Friday, the 28th of June? I don't know. I don't know. I'm thinking that's the last one on the last day. So when is the last day? That's a tough call right now. It's possible. 50-50 chance. Yeah. I don't give it a 50-50. I don't give it any better than that.

Like getting it before this show would be a 0% chance. I've always been 100% sure that it's going to come out on the last day or one of the last days of the term. But we'll see what happens. They still have what? 12 left, I think. A lot. They have something like that, 12 decisions left. I think they had 17 at the beginning of today. They let go five.

Yeah. So they got some work to do. I got one thing I just wanted to bring up very briefly. I don't want to dwell on this, but I do want to say it's been a kind of a crazy couple of weeks, particularly this week, with having to do with some comments that I made about, you know, how former government people think about the possibility of a new another Trump administration and, and the pretty clear threats that the former president and some of the supporters have made. And

that provoked a lot of conversation from people like Steve Bannon and others. I talked about it last night on Anderson Cooper's show. And I just wanted to say, been getting a ton of messages of support and those are all super appreciated. It's a totally weird time to kind of be thinking about these things, but it's always, we always really, I say we, I mean my family and I always,

it's always very meaningful to us to hear from people who send those sorts of messages. And so I thank you for that. And yeah, nothing but good vibes. Let's keep our heads down, keep marching forward and it's all gonna be fine. Yep, that is a definition of bravery, my friend. So I appreciate what you're doing

and that you keep pushing back on on the disinformation and and Making sure that people understand what comes with a second Trump term Yeah, I think it's very important that everybody that everybody understands that and I'm so glad that our listeners are armed with all of this information so they can go forth to People in their community or family their family members and impart that information on others. So, yeah, and I know that that's what you all are doing. Have those conversations.

They're hard, but when you have the chance to do that with the people that you know and interact with and people who you respect, despite whatever their opinions might be, that's where real change happens. So well done. Yes. And thank you. And we will be back next week. And until then, I've been Alison Gill.

And I'm Andy McKib.