Jack - Episode 93 | Chutkan’s Orders

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

This week, the Special Counsel’s office and Donald Trump's lawyers filed their joint status report with Judge Chutkan in the DC case outlining how they think the rest of this proceeding should go; Judge Chutkan ruled on the schedule; Jim Jordan sent  a letter to Merrick Garland saying that the superseding indictment violates DOJ policy; and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson comments publicly about the SCOTUS immunity ruling.Plus, listener questions.  Questions about Jim Jordan's letter to DoJ(202) 225-6906 – Ask for Jim Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ  AMICI CURIAE to the District Court of DC https://democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Attachment-Brief-of-Amici-Curiae-in-Support-of-Governments-Proposed-Trial-Date.pdfGood to know:Rule 403bhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_40318 U.S. Code § 1512https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 Prior RestraintPrior Restraint | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information InstituteBrady MaterialBrady Rule | US Law |Cornell Law School | Legal Information Institutehttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule#:~:text=Brady%20material%2C%20or%20the%20evidence,infer%20against%20the%20defendant's%20guiltJenksJencks Material | Thomson Reuters Practical Law Glossaryhttps://content.next.westlaw.com/Glossary/PracticalLaw/I87bcf994d05a11e598dc8b09b4f043e0?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)Gigliohttps://definitions.uslegal.com/g/giglio-information/Statutes:18 U.S.C. § 241 | Conspiracy Against Rights18 U.S.C. § 371 | Conspiracy to Defraud the United States | JM | Department of Justice18 U.S.C.  § 1512 | Tampering With Victims, Witnesses, Or Informants Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AGFollow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

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

Send me to jail. Welcome to episode 93 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It's Sunday, September 8th already. It's September 8th, 2024. I know I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe wondering where did the summer go? Where did this decade go, my friend? I don't know. I don't know. But I do know we have a lot to cover today. Holy cow. I mean, today's show started at midnight last Friday when the special counsel's office and Donald Trump's lawyers

filed their joint status report with Judge Chutkin in the DC case. The report outlined how they think the rest of the proceeding should go. We're going to cover that as well as the joint status hearing that just took place on Thursday where each party argued the schedule that they proposed in the joint report. Yeah. And that was interesting. A lot of zingers in that hearing. Then we have Judge Chuckin's ruling on that schedule. She came out with it the same day. Plus, Jim Jordan and the House Republicans are decrying the superseding indictment issued by Jack Smith in this case, arguing that it violates the Department of Justice's policy of not taking overt investigatory

steps within 60 days of an election. And we'll get to that letter. Plus, we have some comments from Katanji Brown Jackson on the immunity ruling. But first, it is time for another installment of Good Week, Bad Week. What do you got this week, Andy? You know, it's been so long since I let off with a good week, bad week comment about Jack Smith, but I'm going there first. I'm saying good week for Jack Smith.

It's been a long time, Jack. Welcome back to the good week category. Yeah. And I obviously we're going to go over the details of this, so I won't belabor it now, but I think the hearing on Thursday went as well as they could have expected. In addition to the zingers that you mentioned, they pretty much got what they asked for out of this very crucial decision that Judge Chutkin has now made in terms of timing. So I think that was a real plus for them.

Yeah. And also bad week for me this week for Donald Trump, because all of his Russia buddies have been, well, not all of them, but some of them have been indicted. We got the DOJ indictment surrounding Tenet Media, right? With Tim Pool and Benny Johnson and all of them. And I tweeted out like a month ago that Donald Trump was really upset that he now has to run against Kamala Harris because he has been spending money and preparing to run against Joe Biden for the last two years. And I had noted that, you know, who else is going to be really upset? All of the people who work for the Kremlin and their AI bot farms or, you know, influence campaigns who now

have like, it's all been for naught because they're no longer running against Joe Biden. Time to reprogram the AI. Come on, relearn machines. Yes. We're in a different fight than we thought we were going to be in. So Chen has been fired. The YouTube channels have been taken down. Tim Poole says he's been contacted by the FBI. And I did write him a little note on Twitter saying, you know, hey, a word to the wise, Tim, if you did know that you were getting Russian money, then the FBI probably knows. And if you lie to them, they will threaten you with a 1,001 charge and make you flip

on your friends. So just, you know, don't be careful. Just come clean. Tell them the truth. You can't cooperate half-assed as we know. That's right. We had that doppelganger affidavit. They seized 32 domain names that were set up by the Russians to look like legitimate

news websites like the Washington Post and Fox News. So all that's going away. And we had an indictment of five additional Russian members of the GRU who were trying to cyber attack us. And Trump's appeal hearing in the E. Jean Carroll II case, which is the first case, this who case came first, didn't go well for him either, nor did his press conference afterwards. So that was a bad week, bad week for him. But good week for Donald Trump in that his sentencing in the Manhattan 34 felony conviction has been delayed until November 26th in the interest of keeping

it clean, according to Judge Merchan. Pete and I talked about this a lot on Clean Up on All 45, and we kind of saw this coming. That's where we're at. We're not going to get that sentencing on September 18th. He's not going to make a determination on immunity, whether or not the evidence in that case that was presented to the grand jury and used at trial in front of the petit jury, or whether that evidence is official acts evidence under immunity, he's not going to make that decision until I think November 12th. So everything after the election.

Well, you know, that's kind of good news for Donald Trump. But I think it's also kind of bad news for Donald Trump because he can't use it for the election. Do you know what I mean? So that's kind of where I'm going. Like I agree with you, it is on its face, good news for him. Not enough to outweigh the other bad news. So I think his week is generally bad in total. But I am disappointed by Judge Murchon's decision, but to be fair, I fully expected that they would go forward with the sentencing,

that he would be sentenced, and that that sentence would be stayed until some point after the election when the appeals process is resolved. So essentially, there's no really effective difference between that and this decision. So although I'm disappointed, I'm not really that disappointed. But the guy who should be a little disappointed is Donald Trump because every time he gets dragged through one of these knotholes, he raises a lot of money and it generates more support among

those people who already support him. So, and's, I think what you saw today with his presence at this E. Jean Carroll appeal, which was not necessary. He did not have to be there, but he goes anyway because he knows it's good for him. He turns them into campaign events, which he tried to do today, but you know, as his public events have been going lately, it didn't exactly to plan, I'm thinking, for the campaign. But nevertheless, it is what it is. I'm not, you know, I get it. Judge Merchant's trying to be careful.

He's trying to avoid creating yet another appealable issue and doesn't want to put the conviction in any more risk. So that's how he went. Gotta respect the guy who knows what he's doing. And none of us are altogether sure whether official acts evidence is interlocutory on appeal. We know that official acts are, but we don't know whether or not the evidence is because the Supreme Court didn't weigh in. And so that's why Alvin Bragg didn't oppose postponing the sentencing and left it up to the court.

One of the reasons. Right large challenges over the appropriateness of whether or not evidence should or should not have been used in a proceeding is not typically interlocutory. That's sort of appeal that comes up after conviction. So it could be the case here, but we don't know. Yes. And we are post-conviction. So that kind of again raises the question, do we go all the way back up to the Supreme Court with this or, you know, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. But Judge Marshawn didn't want to have, he didn't want to hurt Trump's chances, but he

also didn't want to help Trump by, like you said, sucking all the oxygen out of the room in the news cycle for a couple of weeks if he was sentenced. Right. So that's where he stands. Also, worth noting, he also didn't get any love from the federal courts this week. So his effort to move that case, the New York case, which is essentially over, he's been convicted, his effort to move it into federal court failed as we expected it would his effort originally to move it into federal court Also failed at the beginning of the case and he's of course appealed it now to Circuit court and we don't know what they'll do. We haven't heard from them on this yet, but

Yeah, so we'll see. Let's see what happens and Hellerstein in the district court denied the stay Emergency stay request. Yeah, like it was like, sir, this is a Wendy's. I'm not the appellate court. You've already filed this and I denied it. You got to go to the appeals court. Sorry. Have a good day. And he abandoned that appeal a year ago.

So that's not good for him. But anyway, yeah. A mixed bag on the good week, bad week. But let's head to the stuff that made it a bad week for him because in DC where the proceedings are underway again, after being on hold for most of this year, Andy, as you know, Judge Chuckin ordered the parties to file a joint status report by August 9th. Now Jack Smith came in and said, I'm going to need more time. And he asked until August 30th and he was granted an August 30th deadline

with a joint status hearing to be held September 5th. Now in that time, Jack Smith retooled the entire indictment in the wake of the two Supreme Court rulings, the one on immunity and the one on the scope of 1512 C2 in the Fisher case. And he then took his new narrowed evidence and indictment to a different grand jury on the same four charges and secured a superseding indictment on Donald. And I created, like I said, a red line comparing the original indictment and the new indictment on Substack. You can check that out. We covered that on the show last week, but late last Friday, as you said, right around midnight, after we had recorded last week's episode, naturally,

the parties filed their joint status report outlining how each side wants to proceed on what's left of the case. They did. And the first section of that report is all of the things, everything, the universe of things that both parties agree on. And as you would expect, it's one thing. One thing they could agree on. One thing they agree on. That's the whole universe. And it goes like this.

The parties believe the speedy trial deadline continues to be told because of at least one pending motion. For docket clarity, the parties ask the court to issue an order excluding time from the date the mandate returned, which was August 2nd, through the deadline the court sets for the filing of any motions. And that is it. They disagree on everything else. So that's a lot of technical language that basically goes to the Speedy Trial, right? There is a clock that tolls the days that the government has to work with, has to do

their business before they get to the end of the speedy trial period. And then there are all kinds of things that can essentially stop the clock. That's what tolling the clock means. And we've been talking about this in all these cases for a while. This is basically an agreement that the clock should stay turned off, essentially essentially while they work out all these motions. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so the government's position is as follows.

The court has indicated that it intends to conduct its determinations related to immunity first and foremost. The government agrees with this approach, both because the Supreme Court directed such a process on remand and because the Supreme Court directed such a process on remand, and because the Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in the litigation. To that end, the government proposes below a procedure by which the court can schedule briefing

and consider the party's positions on whether any categories of material in the superseding indictment or that the government plans to use a trial implicate immunity. To the extent that the court considers the defendant's other planned motions, the government proposes that the briefing schedule for those run parallel with the schedule for immunity briefing. That's the important piece here. What they're saying is they want to do all these things basically right away and at the same time. Yep. Right? So they go on to say the government

proposes that it file an opening brief in which it will explain why the immunity set forth in Trump, that's the Supreme Court case, does not apply to the categories of allegations in the superseding indictment or additional unpled categories of evidence that the government intends to introduce at trial and will proffer in its brief. But a pin in that. The government's proposed brief would provide the defendant and the court with detailed information regarding the content, form, and context of the defendant's conduct,

distinguish his private electioneering activity from official action, and rebut the presumption of immunity as to any conduct that the court may deem official. Such a brief would position the defendant in his response to oppose the government's positions and raise any other immunity claims based on the superseding indictment and additional evidence set forth in the government's pleading.

After the government's reply, the court can assess the party's arguments on that record and conduct any further proceedings it deems necessary to resolve immunity issues. The government is prepared to file its opening immunity brief promptly at any time the court deems appropriate. Yeah. And once they said that, the government is ready to file at any time. A lot of news stories came out with the headline that, you know, Jack Smith punts, but that's not really what happened. Jack Smith was like, I'm ready to go.

You choose, judge, but we're ready to go at any time. And then after that, after the immunity stuff, the government addresses other pretrial motions that Trump intends to file. They say the defendant also intends to file a motion to dismiss the superseding indictment on the basis that the grand jury that returned it was exposed to immunized conduct. Because consideration of that motion would require the court in the first instance

to make the very determinations described above, the government believes that the court should consider the defendant's grand jury claim only after conducting the fact and context specific analysis of whether the superseding indictment contains immunized conduct. What he's saying here is, look, we're going to show you all of the evidence. There's no need to file a motion to dismiss on evidence until you determine whether the evidence is immune. It's even clearer than that. There's no need to file a motion to dismiss based on having shown unfair evidence to the grand jury until we show you what evidence we show to the grand jury. You got to do that first. And they say to do otherwise would be inefficient for this court because it would entail successive rounds of immunity determinations and would pose the risk of multiple rounds of interlocutory

appellate review, one after each set of the court's immunity determinations. Of course, this is how Trump wants to do it. He wants to file his motion, have the judge determine whether that grand jury evidence is immune, and then have Trump be able to put up an interlocutory appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court and back down. Then he wants to file another motion and have the court decide it. And then he wants to appeal all the way back up and down the Supreme Court. And Jack Smith is like, look, we can do all of this all at once. We can determine if all of our evidence, all of our discovery, and all of our indictment, whether any of it's immune or not.

And then we can have one nice big interlocutory appeal on it and we're done. That's the key to this entire fight. That is the key right there. He wants to go round by round by round. And on that path, we'll be recording Jack episode 930 at some point. This will literally go on for years. Yeah, in 2035. And that's only if Trump loses his bid for the White House. So yeah, you're right. That's

the key to the whole thing. And then they go on to say that defendant also plans Trump plans to file additional motions to dismiss and the court has indicated it will conduct its immunity determinations before resolving those issues. The government notes it may promote judicial economy for the court to schedule briefing of all other Rule 12 motions, pretrial motions, concurrent with the immunity litigation. That way, all motions will be fully briefed and the court can later determine when to take them under consideration. If the court sets a deadline for the defendant's other Rule 12 motions, the government requests that the court set the same date for the defendant's

opening briefs as for the government's opening immunity brief, followed by parallel opposition and reply deadlines. Let's do this all at the same time. The defendant's proposed schedule also contemplates, Trump's schedule also contemplates a separate deadline and motions practice regarding discovery. The government does not see a reason to delay immunity determinations and other pretrial litigation to separately address the defense's pending or proposed discovery motions.

Yeah, and of course, that's not how Donald Trump wants to do it. No, of course not. No, I mean, the government is saying, stack them up, shove them all down the road at the same time, right? We can work in different channels at the same time. Trump wants to brief on a new motion to dismiss based on the appointment and funding of special

counsel. And he wants until November 15th. And then he wants an evidentiary hearing on that motion in December. That's his first gambit, right? That's the gambit number one. After that hearing, Trump wants to file a bunch of motions to dismiss in mid-December, including immunity and statutory grounds, which is also Fisher. And then he wants to file a motion to compel discovery and to have the court determine

the scope of the prosecution team. He wants all of those briefed by the end of January next year and then asks for a hearing on all of them as well. Trump's attorneys write, we believe and expect to demonstrate this case must end as a matter of law. Should the courts determine otherwise, however, we have fashioned our proposed schedule

to facilitate potential evidentiary submissions should such submissions become necessary. Right. So they want to try to get this thing dismissed outright, mostly based on the fact that Vice President Pence and all that immunity needs to be, you know, because they basically said, you know, on Fisher and on the VP stuff and on immunity, we want to file our motion to dismiss. And then if you dismiss the case outright, we don't have to do any of this other stuff. But it can be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court and all the way back down. Right. She says no. And so yeah,

that's, that's, they want to, you know, tag, like, yeah, they're basically arguing for judicial delay, masquerading as an argument for judicial economy. Right. And they even say that. Yeah. They're just, it's, you know, well, we want to take our shot, our worst shot first, the one where we dismiss because of the funding and the appointment issues, which they know they're going to lose here. They're shocked they won it in Florida. It's not going to win. It's not going to, Chuckton's not going that way, but we'll get to that in a minute. Yeah.

And she's not bound by that district court and their rulings, right? And she brings that up at the hearing and we're going to talk about the hearing, but we have to take a quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Okay, we just went over the joint filing on the court schedule. And now we'll cover the hearing that took place on September 5th on these matters. And big thanks to Roger Parlov and the folks at Lawfare for live tweeting the proceeding.

Okay, the first part of the hearing was Trump's lawyers pleading not guilty to all four counts on Trump's behalf. And so there's obviously no surprises about that. That's a required part of the process. A defendant has to enter a plea to a new or superseding indictment. And so they did that. Then for the government, Wyndham gets up

and confirms to the judge that their position is that they resolve immunity and the motions concurrently. And then Judge Chutkin wants to nail down how they'll tackle the immunity issue. She asked the government, quote, you propose filing on the immunity before Trump moves to dismiss. That is not ordinary course. Why depart? So it's an interesting way to look at it, right? Typically, the government doesn't jump out in front of an argument to

dismiss the case. They wait until the defendant makes that argument. But here we know exactly what that argument is because the Supreme Court has defined it for us. So to her question, Wyndham responds, and this is paraphrased, we're not in a typical situation. SCOTUS has created new law looking for the most efficient, practical way forward. Indictment doesn't include all the categories of information we believe may be subject to immunity litigation. That's why we propose to go first. We should structure a schedule that leads to only one interlocutory appeal. The defendant proposes several interlocutory appeals. We know there will be an interlocutory appeal, and we're trying to limit it to one.

And that's fascinating because they know at this point, a lot of this they're arguing, it's not subject to immunity. These are private acts. But they also know that the stuff with the VP Pence is presumed immune and that they have to meet the burden to knock that down. So there will be an interlocutory appeal here and they're acknowledging that. Chuck can then asks if the government's immunity filing would include a proffer and what form it would take.

Would it be written or oral? And Wyndham responds, our initial view is this, comprehensive brief setting forth facts and an outside indictment in the superseding indictment, substantial number of exhibits attached, grand jury transcripts, interview transcripts, 302s, which are memorialization of interviews with the FBI. And in addition, we would set forth why we believe the conduct is private in nature and not subject to immunity. Then, with respect to allegations regarding the vice president, why we believe presumption

of immunity is rebutted. And the benefit of the government going first is that you'd have everything in one place, a cleaner docket for you and for any appellate court. And then Judge Chuckin asks if there'd be any oral evidence and Wyndham says, nope, all written. But once briefed, Your Honor, you can set hearings if you need. You can go full on mini trial. It's okay with us.

And then, because now we're talking past the election, right? Then the judge asks for a proposed briefing schedule. And Wyndham actually says the special counsel would like to file our first brief in three weeks, maybe September 26th-ish. Yeah. And at that point, the judge asked Loro from Trump's team for their input. And Loro argued that the government's position is irregular and prejudices their client because they have to look at discovery issues before they get to immunity.

He also told the judge that the Supreme Court had already decided that discussions with the vice president were immune, so the entire superseding indictment has to be dismissed on immunity grounds. So our motions to dismiss should be know, should be considered first. That Supreme Court did not say that. No, that's not what they decided. But any, but no problem, because, uh, Chutkin to the rescue here. The judge then reminded Laurel that that's not what the Supreme Court decided. She said, I actually don't think so. SCOTUS ruled on three categories. Certainly the vice

president conversations may be subject to presumptive immunity. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe subject to presumptive immunity, but I have to decide if those conversations are somehow outside his official duties. As I read it, SCOTUS expects us to decide the immunity issue forthwith as early as possible. With your schedule, we wouldn't begin briefing immunity until December." And this is fascinating because she's like, look, the conversations with Pence may be subject to presumptive immunity, meaning they may not be, right? And as we saw when Jack Smith returned to this superseding indictment, he made sure that these were conversations

between a candidate for office and his running mate with his role as president of the Senate, not conversations between a president and a vice president. And I think that that is what the crux of the argument is going to be. They're going to try to say that these are private acts. And if she rules that they are not and they have presumptive immunity, then the government will rebut those, right? And so that's what these briefings are going to entail. Now Laro then launched into his, it's unfair because it's close to the election.

It's election interference. He launched into that speech. Pull the record, pull the election interference record. Break glass. And it's extremely prejudicial to my client. And the judge tells him, I'm not taking the election into account as far as timing is concerned, which is wonderful. And she says, these things can likely be done concurrently, gives a big hint as to how she's

going to rule. And of course, Larrow says, it's unseemly to rush to judgment on these issues. You're being unseemly, judge. And Chuck can replies, this is hardly a rush to judgment. This case has been pending over a year and we can't even contemplate a trial date. And she also says she can't as a matter of law actually dismiss the indictment outright on the VP issue because the Supreme Court did not rule on whether their discussions were immune. They had the indictment in front of them, she says,

and they did not weigh in. So I can't just dismiss it. As a matter of law, the Supreme Court won't let me. They have remanded this to me. It is my duty to determine. To review it. To make a call. So I can't dismiss it based on a non-judgment.. Now had they left the DOJ stuff in there when

the Supreme court explicitly ruled it out. Sure. Yeah. And here's a little exchange. The judge said, you want your opening brief to deal solely with the issues about the vice presidential communications. And Laura says, exactly. I'm an originalist. And the judge said, you may be an originalist, but I'm a trial judge. I thought that was pretty great. You may be an originalist, but an unseemly one at that. Yeah, unseemly. Then they discussed the potential motion to dismiss based on inappropriate appointment and funding of Jack Smith, Jack council. I like it. Because, you know, judge Cannon dismissed the Florida case saying Jack Smith was appointed and funded

inappropriately and Judge Chuckin says, no, I don't find Judge Cannon's dismissal persuasive. Besides, there's binding precedent here in the DC district that says otherwise, which means you can't just file a motion. You have to ask me for permission to file the motion. And because you do, you have to ask for leave of court to file a motion to dismiss on settled law in that district. So that happened there as well. Yeah. So then the last issue they cover

is the motion to dismiss on statutory grounds, which is the impact of the Fisher case. So the government argues, again, that this can be briefed concurrently with the immunity matter. They also maintain that the motion to compel and the issue about the scope of the prosecution team can't be separated because the scope of the prosecution team determines the discovery obligations. The judge says on the Fisher issue that she's inclined to vacate her ruling on the motion to dismiss on statutory grounds and ask for a supplemental briefing, even though Laura wants to file an entirely

new motion. So if you recall, she'd already dismissed without prejudice their motion to dismiss on statutory grounds. And now she's saying she might vacate that ruling and just have them basically update their papers. Yeah, you can't, we're not filing a whole new motion. You're gonna do a supplemental, I'll vacate my denial. Right. So the hearing ends with Judge Chutkin saying it doesn't make sense to schedule a trial date because there will be another interlocutory appeal after the immunity issue is determined. Yeah. And something else that came up that's interesting that a lot of people kind of clung to was in the, in the discussions about whether Jack Smith was

appointed appropriately or not. Um, Larrow said Clarence Thomas, justice Clarence Thomas directed us to do this. And she went directed you. And he said, well, you know, uh, in the ruling and, and within con, everyone was like, oh, justice Thomas is working with Larrow. And, you know, I looked at Anna Bowers transcripts, I read what Roger Parlov wrote. And in the context of it, and this is kind of how I took it, it was just, they were wanting to file this motion to dismiss, you know, on funding and appointment for Jack Smith, because of what Clarence Thomas wrote in the immunity decision. That's how I took it as well. No one asked, but he put in there,

hey, we should visit his appointment. I'm not sure it's constitutional or that he's funded appropriately. So I know I 100% don't think that Clarence Thomas and Trump's legal team are talking and coming up with a, that Thomas didn't direct them to bring this motion, that he was referring to what Clarence Thomas said in that immunity ruling. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah. So within hours of this hearing, Judge Chuckin came out with her order because she said she would. She said at the very beginning of the hearing, I'm going to not rule from the bench, but I'll rule on this today. And like you said, total win for Jack Smith. She

basically implements the government's proposal. She said the court vacates its denial without prejudice of the defendant's motion to dismiss based on statutory grounds, what she said she was going to do with the Fisher thing for 1512 C2. And we are now, I reopen it to submit supplemental briefing as described below. She'll give dates below. So supplemental, not brand new. And here's the order. The government first shall complete all mandatory evidentiary disclosures, including those mandated by Brady, Guglio, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, Local Criminal Rule 5.1, all of that stuff by September 10th, 2024. So that's in two days. And most of that's been handed over. And you don't really need to

claw back stuff that's no longer relevant. So they pretty much have everything. Second, defendants reply briefs in supporting of his motion to compel discovery and his motion for an order regarding the scope of the prosecution team are due September 19th, 2024. The reply briefs shall also identify any specific evidence related to presidential immunity that the defendant believes the government has improperly withheld. Number three, the government shall file an opening brief on presidential immunity by September 26th.

I believe Wyndham said September 26th-ish. That's what you get. So you get three weeks to file your opening brief on immunity, September 26th, 2024. That is what 18 days from now. Defendants response to that and their renewed motion to dismiss based on immunity is due October 17th. That's getting on. And so that's 21 days later, three weeks.

And the government's reply is due October 29th, 2024. After briefing, the court will determine whether further proceedings are necessary, meaning hearings, right? The defendant's supplemental to his motion to dismiss based on statutory grounds is due October 3rd. So we're doing run in these concurrently. The government's response to that is October 17th. That's the same day that Trump's response to immunity is due. And defendants request for leave to file a motion to dismiss based on appointment and appropriations is due October 24th.

You have until October 24th, Trump, to ask me for permission to file a motion to dismiss based on Jack Smith being appointed and funded inappropriately. The government's opposition to that is due October 31st, which will basically say, no, there's too much precedent here, binding precedent. He shouldn't have permission to file this motion. I would be inclined to think that Judge Chuckin would probably let Trump file that motion and end up denying it, but we'll see what happens.

Yeah, interesting that it's at the absolute back of this calendar. That's the one they wanted first. They wanted that with nothing else going first. Yes. And Trump's reply to the government's opposition on that is due November 7th, 2024. So Jack Smith got everything he wanted. Yeah. I mean, minus the fact that there was an immunity ruling by the Supreme Court. Had he gotten everything he wanted, the Supreme Court would have denied this altogether back in December and we would be done with trial.

That's right. This is merely the first skirmish in the post Trump v United States war, the immunity wars. But now we've limited it to one big skirmish, not 10 little ones. Yeah. It's a crucial conflict because it sets the pace and the tone of how this is going to go. And she obviously accepted their logic on this. Also think it's really, this is consistent with what they did with the superseding indictment. And that is they are retaking the momentum here, the prosecution is. They are being bold and they are striking first.

And then they made this pitch to be first to brief, to not only set up how the schedule would work, but they get to fire the first shot in the immunity battle. And that essentially frames the argument, right? So it's a very aggressive, but I think important position for them to take. Cause they have clearly decided like, we're tired of just sitting back

and being victimized by the calendar. We are moving forward, we're gonna control as much of this as we possibly can. I think that's a good way to go. Yeah, and so there will be no hearings prior to the election, but the immunity issue will be fully briefed before we go to the polls. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, we've been saying all along, and I still believe strongly,

they don't care about the election. They don't know. He's not concerned about like, oh, let's get as much evidence out there in front of the voters before the election. I mean, would he have liked to have resolved this case before the election so that people could think, decide, made whatever they thought, whatever they wanted to think about it? Sure. I think that's just the, you know, that's just a prosecutor trying to do their job of resolving a matter quickly for the societal interests that are involved there. But, but at this point that's not going to happen. And so they's not going to happen. And so this is actually not election interference. No. And the only difference here in what I thought we might hear from Jack Smith is it doesn't seem like he wants to file any of this grand jury material, witnesses, evidence

under seal. He hasn't said that yet. That doesn't mean he won't make that request. But I find it very fascinating that Jack Smith is willing, possibly, to put all that out on a public docket. So we'll see how he goes forth with this and his brief. He may, because we don't have a Judge Cannon secret docket here. He doesn't have to send an email to get permission to file shit under seal on this docket, right? Like he did in Florida, so he may come out with his brief there may be some redactions that he makes there may be some exhibits that are sealed and He doesn't need to get judge Chuckin's permission to do that, right? That's so we'll see how Chuckin's permission to do that, right? That's right.

So we'll see how much he's willing to put just out there on the public docket for everyone to see. And we'll see what he wants to hold back and keep close to his chest to prevent this from being tried in the court of public opinion. As you and I spoke about, he's not wanted to do that. Right. And so we don't yet know what that will look like,

but we will before the election. Yeah, I think there it's likely there will probably be a few things at least that he'll want to keep under seal But also unlike the Florida case, he knows whatever he tries to file under seal The defense is not gonna object So there will be no fights over keeping things under seal because the defense wants, they'd like to keep the whole thing under seal, right? They'd rather not have any evidence or anything that even points to evidence exposed to the public. So if he comes forward and wants to keep a certain, you know, grand jury testimony or something like that under seal, the defense

would likely consent to that request and they wouldn't fight it. Or they might fight it knowing it'll be denied so that they can say, they're keeping it from you. You know, he's done that quite a few times. Remember when he didn't want it? He wanted the affidavit for the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, release the affidavit and the DOJ is like, okay. And he's like, no wait. Yeah. He also wanted to fight over those things, right? Because in Florida, it was just a way to fight over more stuff that bogged down the case. My guess is here, he'll want to keep that stuff out at that moment. You know,

we're talking about October, some of this stuff. So anyway, we'll see. But yeah, it's a different battlefield here than it was in Florida in a lot of ways. It is, definitely. And Jim Jordan has a lot to say about it, by the way, the superseding indictment. And he's written a letter. He's written a letter to the manager, who's Merrick Garland. And we're going to go over that letter, but we have to take a quick break.

So stick around. We'll be right back. Hey everybody. Welcome back. All right. As I said, Jim Jordan and House Republicans are big mad at Jack Smith and his superseding indictment. And they've written a letter to the management, Merrick Garlandland to air their grievances and make some pretty unreasonable demands as well. So let's go over that letter because this wasn't really covered in the mainstream media. And I think it's fascinating. Yes, I agree.

He says, Dear Attorney General Garland, on July 1st, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in Trump v. United States explaining the parameters of presidential immunity and rebuking special counsel Jack Smith for violating this constitutional principle. They didn't. No, that's not, that's not in there, but okay. Because it's not a con. It wasn't a constitutional principle at the time until they created one. So paragraph one, we already have one massive misstatement, misleading statement.

Okay. They rebuked special counsel Jack Smith for violating this constitutional principle in his political prosecution of president Donald J. Trump. You are rebuked, sir. I rebuke you. Of course, no quote from the ruling because there was no rebuke. Nothing to quote. On August 27th, special counsel Smith obtained a superseding indictment against President

Trump, not former President Trump, obviously, but President Trump in an attempt to fix the constitutional defects. They were not constitutional defects inherent in his initial indictment. In doing so, however, special counsel Smith appears to have violated longstanding department policy intended to protect our democratic processes. This just shows you that Jim Jordan doesn't know what he's talking about because this is a superseding indictment, not an indictment. And it was 69 days out. The letter is a political statement. So it's veering into, you know, political rhetoric,

fancy word for lies. So okay. The committee must therefore understand why you approved special counsel Smith's indictment in advance or whether special counsel Smith, whether Garland approved this or whether Smith continues to exercise prosecutorial authority without your meaningful direction and supervision. Did you approve this across administrations for both parties? The department has attempted to safeguard the sanctity of the electoral process by adhering to a 60-day rule under which federal prosecutors avoid, quote, the return of indictments against a candidate for office within 60 days of a primary or general election. Although not formally codified, there's a wide acceptance that the 60-day rule is critical to

protecting the integrity of the electoral process. Notably, some senior department officials have extended the prohibition beyond 60 days. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General, quote, to me if it were 90 days off and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election unless there's a reason you need to take the action now, you don't do it. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch affirmed, in general, the practice has been not to take actions that might have an impact on the election. So, let's talk about a couple of key things here. We'll get into the 60 day thing and whether or not that's actually happened

or technically because it's a superseding indictment. It's not new over investigatory steps, but there's other stuff in here that stands out. Totally. I got to say, this is an issue that consistently makes me a little bit crazy because you also hear, I'll get to Jordan in a second, but you also, this comes up in the media all the time. And you hear reporters or anchors who are interviewing people, they'll tee up a question of like, wait a second, you know, Jack Smith released this,

it's less than 60 days to the election, and didn't they violate the rule on not doing things and lead up to elections like Time out There this is a policy first of all, it's a policy. It's not a law they they can change the policy They can suspend it under any certain set of circumstances. They can You know Veer from it if the Attorney General thinks that that's the best thing for justice in that case.

So it's entirely within the Justice Department and the attorney general's scope to determine how and when, whether or not they're going to comply with this general policy or not. That's the first thing. The second thing is his comments about the department has attempted to safeguard the sanctity of the electoral process and critical to protecting the integrity of the electoral process. That's not entirely what this policy is for. The policy is to avoid taking new and very public action in an investigation that would basically create a cloud over the head of somebody running for office. Because a cloud over your head is not a

conviction, right? In the investigative stage, you are taking actions that if they became known, people could misinterpret as guilt, as a signal of guilt, and then judge you unfairly. And so when somebody is running for office, the Justice Department would rather not muck around in their chances of getting elected or not elected by taking an action that the public might misinterpret as some sort of a sign that someone is guilty of a crime, which in fact, they have not been convicted of yet. So generally it prohibits doing things like executing a search warrant publicly, again, publicly, or charging someone in that 60 day period because you figure,

well, we could just wait until after the election, unless there's some compelling reason to go forward, we'll wait until after the election. Now, in this case, the policy doesn't even apply to the things that we're doing now because the case was already charged long before the 60-day point. And it's now in the hands of the court, in the hands of the Supreme Court, for that matter, the Supreme Court who said, take this case back, District Court, and immediately figure out these immunity issues. So the idea that this policy would prohibit the Department of Justice from taking appropriate action that's been necessitated, ruled on by the Supreme Court is absurd. This is not an issue.

No, it's not. And also, for Jim Jordan to talk about the sanctity of the electoral process and the integrity of the electoral process. No, I'm sorry. And where is your letter about Comey coming out and announcing the Hillary Clinton investigation was reopened? Good point. So I don't really want to hear it from this guy who by the way still hasn't complied with a subpoena. Yeah. Yeah.

So the letter continues though. There's more. Yes. The letter continues. Special counsel Smith obtained the superseding indictment against president Trump just 10 days before early voting begins in some states. I guess that signals the beginning of an election. There can be little question that the superseding

indictment has some effect on the election, especially coming after the Supreme Court's opinion on presidential immunity casts significant doubt on the special counsel Smith's ability to prosecute the initial indictment. In light of the court's opinion, Smith's superseding indictment amounts to an initiation of a prosecutorial action by the Biden-Harris administration against its opponent in the upcoming election.

There's no persuasive argument why special counsel Smith could not wait until after the election to file the superseding indictment. It is therefore difficult to believe that the superseding indictment was filed now for any purpose other than to affect the outcomeeding indictment. It is therefore difficult to believe that the superseding indictment was filed now for any purpose other than to affect the outcome of the election. The Supreme Court told Judge Chuckin to get on it.

And Judge Chuckin gave him till August 9th. And Jack Smith actually asked for a delay until August 30th. So there was a reason that he couldn't wait until after the elections because the court ordered him to do this. Right. Not to file a superseding indictment,

but to get your, you know. Fix it. Make a decision him to do this. Not to file a superseding indictment, but to get your... Fix it. Make a decision as to what stays and what goes. Special Counsel Smith's superseding indictment presents two stark conclusions. One, that as Special Counsel Smith's supervisor, you approve the indictment knowingly violating the department's policy counseling against such a prosecutorial action and doing so to harm the electoral opponent of your political bosses or two that special counsel Smith acted without your approval reinforcing judge Eileen Cannon's observation that quote mr. Smith is a private citizen exercising the full

power of a United States attorney and with very little oversight or supervision. In other words, either you are personally weaponizing the Department of Justice against President Trump or Special Counsel Smith is continuing his unconstitutional prosecution against President Trump. But either option does not reflect well on you or your commitment to the rule

of law in the United States. Fascinating. So here's the ask, right? The unprecedented nature of the special counsel's superseding indictment demands prompt attention from the committee. Accordingly, to further the committee's oversight of the department, we require the following documents from the period of January 1st, 2024 to the present. Number one, all documents and communications between Maine justice, including but not limited

to the Office of the Attorney General and Special Counsel Smith's office, referring or relating to the superseding indictment filed against Trump on August 27th, 2024. We want all your emails. Number two, did you personally approve the superseding indictment filed against President Trump on August 27th? If so, please provide documentation sufficient to reflect your approval. Number three, did you evaluate the superseding indictment against Trump in the context of the department's longstanding policy counseling against prosecutorial actions so near an election? If so, please provide documentation sufficient to reflect your evaluation of these issues. So all documents and emails pertaining to his approval or not,

or his decision making process on whether this violated their policy of the 60 day thing, this superseding indictment came 69 days from the election, from election day. It did come 10 days before early voting, but I don't think that the DOJ policy says anything about before early voting begins. It does not. It goes off of Election Day. It goes off of Election Day. Please produce all documents no later than 5 PM, September 13th. That's what, five days from now? The Judiciary Committee has legislative and oversight jurisdiction over you pursuant to Rule 10, et cetera, et cetera. If you have any questions about this matter, or if any of our listeners have any questions about this matter, ask your staff to contact

the committee staff at 202-225-6906. Everyone that's 202-225-6906 if you have any questions about what Jim Jordan is putting forth in this letter, but it's just absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. My suspicion is they will get a document at 4.59 PM on September 13th and it will be the letter saying, we're not going to give you any of these things. And I hope the letter says, we've analyzed your requests and we believe that complying with it would violate the 60

day policy. So we're not listening to any documents. That would be so funny. That would be so funny. Yeah, we don't want to bad mouth you within 60 days of your election, Jim Jordan. So yeah, we're just going to pass. Yeah. Or yeah, the right of the thing. Like we'll reply after the election. I'm sorry. That's just, that's funny. Yeah. Anyway, I had to share that letter because it was just so full of, Oh, we protect the integrity of an election. This is the guy who helped, who helped the coup attempt on January 6th. Yeah. Who helped obstruct the count on the six to, you know, I mean, good Lord.

Fascinating. Truly, truly fascinating. Hypocrisy knows no bounds. No, it doesn't. Of course not. And it's, you know, all, like you said, political in nature. Anyway, we have one more quick little story. We want to talk a little bit about what Katanji Brown Jackson had to say in an interview about

the immunity ruling, and then we'll take listener questions, but we're going to do one more quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be one more quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right, we're going to take listener questions in a second and there'll be a link in the show notes, by the way, always is for if you can click on to submit your questions. But I wanted to go over something the Guardian reported on this week. The Guardian writes, in an interview airing Sunday, US Supreme Court Justice Katanji

Brown Jackson lamented her conservative colleagues decision to grant broad immunity to Donald Trump and other presidents for official acts as essentially protecting one individual under one set of circumstances when we have a criminal justice system that has ordinarily treated everyone the same." Unquote. Great line. Yeah. She said, I mean, that was my view of what the court determined.

She said this was a prerecorded conversation from CBS Sunday morning. And she added, I was very concerned. As interviewer, Nora O'Donnell noted Jackson's remarks first circulated by the network in a preview, hewed closely with her written dissent, right? Right. But she issued alongside the July 1st ruling. So in this interview, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson lamented her conservative colleagues'

decision to grant this broad immunity to Trump and to other presidents for official acts. Like I said, she said it was protecting one individual under one set of circumstances. And so I think that this was just, she was doing this interview because I think she's putting a book out, but it mirrors her dissent almost exactly. So I just thought that that was interesting that she very carefully went out to speak to the press a very little bit, but didn't really go outside of the four corners of what she wrote in her dissent and the ruling that came down from the Supreme Court. But she's obviously very concerned. Yeah. I mean, we knew from her dissent that this was a real issue for her. We knew from

her questions during the argument, right? She had some of the most pointed questions of any of the justices. And I think it's pretty bold for the most junior justice to go out and actually talk about the way she sees some of these issues. Totally appropriate that she stuck with her official opinion that is on the record in the form of her dissent.

But I think it's good that she's out there talking because it kind of seems to me, maybe I'm just paying more attention now, but it seems like they're doing more of this. Occasionally you hear quotes about public comments that Justice Barrett or Justice Gorsuch have been making. And so, yeah, I think it's good that she's getting out there a little bit. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, it's a lot better than, you know, Justice Thomas and his interviews or Sam Alito and his interviews. So I'm kind of tired of hearing from them.

Totally. But anyway, thank you for letting me share that with y'all. Let's look at some listener questions. What do we have from our listeners this week? All right, we got two good ones here. One that's I think gonna, I think this first one's gonna inspire some interesting conversation. So this one comes from Stuart and he starts out with a really well-crafted over-the-top flattery which you know is my favorite part

of the listener question segment. Stuart says, oh, learned and gorgeous guides through the thickets of federal jurisprudence. Greetings, I'm looking forward to your next show, as I do for just about every show, as you delve into the DC case proceedings. Thank you, Stuart, that was really well done. That was really nice, yeah.

Right, okay, my question, since the superseding indictment presented by the government included evidence given by and about Mike Pence in his role as presiding officer of the Senate, should Smith's team have anticipated that Team Trump would claim that the entire indictment should be thrown out based on a jury tainted by evidence clearly falling under the SCOTUS immunity ruling, or is this a deliberate sucker punch move drawing Todd Blanch at all, Todd Blanch of course being one of Trump's attorneys, into the tar baby and requiring them to stipulate to the acts as they seek to exclude the evidence thereof?

That's a good question. What do you think? Yeah. the evidence thereof. It's a good question. What do you think? Yeah, my initial thought is, well, first of all, they're arguing that the other three, there are four conspiracies left, right? There were five. They pulled out the DOJ conspiracy with Jeff Clark. Lucky day for Captain Underpants. So that's gone.

So of the four, three of them are private acts. They're not even presumptively immune. And they're going to argue that the stuff with Vice President Pence is actually not presumptively immune either, because as we said, it wasn't the vice president talked to the president. It was a candidate for office and talking to his running mate about his role as president of the Senate. So I don't necessarily think this was a sucker punch move. I think this was just basically the Department of Justice putting forward their thoughts that nothing in this, what we're alleging in this new indictment, is immune,

though we anticipate there will be arguments over whether the discussions with the vice president are immune and they may have presumptive immunity and we're expecting an interlocutory appeal. Because if Judge Chuckin comes out and decides no, all of those discussions with the president of the Senate and his running mate between him and the candidate, private acts, not immune, Trump is going to appeal that, right? Plus probably a great deal of other things. So I think that they were, I think Jack Smith was anticipating there would be a fight over the vice president stuff, but he's positioning himself in such a way to sit to argue that it's not, you know, we don't think it's a subject to immune immunity, presumptive immunity, but if it is, here's how we're going to rebut it because it is our high burden to do so.

Right. Yeah. So I, I agree with that. I don't think it's an intentional sucker punch kind of ploy, although I do think that they've thought through that. They see that as a possible second order benefit, right? Because they're thinking about this stuff more critically than we are. I know that seems hard to believe, but they are. I agree with you. I think it's important to realize that as readers of that immunity decision and critics of it, I guess you could call us that, we read the opinion and we're like, oh my God,

they have created this massive space that the law cannot touch and the evidence cannot be used. And there's so much that could fall under this. And there's so many things, bad things that presidents could do that would then be immune. We look at it that way. What the prosecutors have to do is look at it the exact opposite way. You know, it's kind of like, it's like in basketball. They, you know, when you watch a basketball game, you watch where the ball goes. You instinctively look at the player that's handling the ball. The referees look the other way. Referees watch the defense.

And that's what Jack Smith is doing here. They're saying, no, they carved out something and it's up to us to try to put the walls, the limits of that carve out as tightly as we possibly can. So I think it's good for them to have one of the four conspiracies tee up this question of what sets the boundary of- Private acts versus official acts. Private acts versus official. How do we somehow define what constitutes rebutting that presumption of immunity? Yeah. And it's also consistent with where they are trying to draw the line here, as you've said many times, Eiji, is between private and official.

And they've done that in those other three conspiracies. You're running for office, it's private. You're in the office making a decision, it's official. And they've done that in those other three conspiracies. You know, you're running for office, it's private. You're in the office making a decision, it's official. Well here is kind of similar to that. It's not exactly private versus official, but it's presidential versus your non-presidential stuff. So remember, there's no vice presidential immunity, nowhere in that opinion did the Supreme Court say that the vice president or anyone else is entitled to constitutional immunity. They get it kind of secondhand in the fact that when they're talking to the president

or interacting with the president, those actions can't be used as evidence of crimes. But in this case, what the Vice President does in his role as President of the Senate, it does not touch that outer limit of presidential unity and therefore it's fair game. That's what they're saying. Whether or not the court will go with them, we don't know. But I just think it's interesting that their job here is to kind of like cabin this thing off as much as they can. Yeah. And there's no real way for Jack Smith and the government to rebut the immunity of the discussions between Trump and Jeff Clark.

No. Those were discussions between President Trump in his role as president, even if he's wrong in trying to oversee the elections because Jack Smith says he has no role to do that, and a member of the Department of Justice, there's no way to separate those two things or to say that they were in different roles at the time of those discussions. And the Supreme Court specifically said this Jeff Clark stuff has got to go because of that. They did not say the same thing about the VP stuff. They

said, Judge Chuckin will have to decide that. And so also, then you make that argument that it's private acts because he was a candidate for office talking to the president of the Senate and his running mate. And if it's presumptively immune, we have arguments against it, but we don't even think it's subject to presumptive immunity. And we'll take that as it comes. But also, you know, as Jack Smith really wants Mike Pence's testimony. You don't really want Jeff Clark's testimony. He's not going to be any help to you at all.

So get rid of that. Get rid of the conspiracy. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. The Supreme Court said it's immune anyway. We're not even going to try to meet any kind of a burden to overcome it because they explicitly ruled that it was immune, but they did not rule it on the vice president and those discussions. So we're going to make our arguments and we really value vice president Mike Pence and

his counsel as witnesses in this case. So that rolls right into the next question, which I think we can handle pretty quickly. It comes to us from Judy and she says, "'Your wonderful podcast has given me shinier hair, fewer wrinkles, and many new attractive friends. You are brilliant and worthy of excessive praise.'" I love that.

That's awesome, thank you, Judy. I'm so glad to hear the podcast is totally improving your life in all those wonderful ways. Okay, my question, question does the Trump immunity ruling mean that Mark Meadows is likely to evade justice as you suggested? Jeffrey Clark is so no for two reasons one as we just talked about Jeff Clark doesn't have immunity Jeff Clark is kind of getting the benefit of Trump's immunity because Jeff Clark's conversations with Trump Will be within Trump's the orbit of Trump's official duties and therefore Cannot be used as evidence against Trump or anyone else so you could try to bring a case against Jeff Clark

But you wouldn't be able to get the evidence in you need to convict him So it's like essentially it's like immunity the the end result is the same, but technically he doesn't have immunity. Mark Meadows is not currently charged in a federal case. So as a preliminary matter, none of this stuff applies to Mark Meadows in the Georgia case, or I think he's also charged in the Arizona case now. So he doesn't have any immunity. And so far we haven't seen him in a federal case in a set of circumstances like Jeff Clark is in that would get him this kind of, I don't know, transitive property of immunity from, you know, immunity by proximity or something.

I don't know, we're going to come up with a good name for that. Yeah. Immunity by proxy, right? Yeah. Yeah, immunity by proxy, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think, he's not an unindicted co-conspirator in this case. And I think he would be a witness and he might provide testimony and evidence, but I don't think that he is in legal jeopardy with the feds, like you said, in either of these cases,

as he would be in those state cases. And that, and it'll be determined by the way, whether or not he's immune or gets immunity or the evidence of his discussions with Trump are immune in those cases, right? He'll try to take it up to Supreme Court, like they're doing in the Judge Marshawn thing, by trying to say his discussions with Cassidy Hutchinson are immune evidence. And so Judge Marshawn will rule on that in November, as we said, and he'll be sentenced at the end of November. But those are the kinds of things that all just have to be kind of fleshed out item by item. That's right. And the Supreme Court will probably make

the ultimate determination based on how they feel and not the law. So we'll see where it all ends up, but Meadows isn't an Anadidiko conspirator, and I don't think he's on the legal criminal hook in any federal case with Jack Smith at this point. Agree. For those reasons. Thank you so much for your questions. These are wonderful questions. We appreciate you. You can click on the link in the show notes to submit your questions to us.

Don't forget to give Jim Jordan a call and let him know what you think about that letter. We gave the phone number earlier. Yes, we did. But we know I seriously I love these questions. They make me think so. Yeah, I really appreciate it. They really are good. Great questions.

And they make us feel better about ourselves as attractive and eloquent people. So like, what's wrong with that? It's the best. And now we know this just in breaking news. Our podcast prevents wrinkles and makes your hair shinier and have more bounce. Proven scientifically, I think. Proven scientifically, just share it with your friends

who have limp damaged hair and crow's feet. Okay, thank you so much. Now this stuff has actually given me more wrinkles than it's prevented. My hair used to not be so white as it is now and gray. Really, my kids don't believe that, but it is true. You know, I thought about you the other night because I was, you know, I was watching the Sopranos. I'd never seen it before. By the way, the end is dumb. And I was watching and I was like, Oh, Andy

McCabe, because the guy who plays you in the Comey rule is in he plays a fed in the sopranos. So it's not you. But I was instantly like, it's Andy McCabe. It's like I'm there. It's my doppelganger. I was like, Come on, come on, Andy, get him. Yeah, what a weird show. I mean, a great show. I loved it, but I don't know how I felt about the ending. Do you think it gets whacked or do you think he has to testify or do he gets arrested? What do you know? What do you think? I don't know. I mean, first of all, I haven't seen it in a thousand years, but I remember at the time just being kind of unsatisfied by it, they deliberately constructed the setting and the dialogue leading up to the final shot there.

And the suspicious guy. To just leave it wide open that anyone could interpret it any way they wanted. And I don't know, I just thought that was kind of like. Yeah, I think the creator came out later and said, yeah, no, he got shot. But, he was like, oh, thanks for, Okay. What was the whole point

of leaving it up to my imagination? I imagine they got out of crime and went into the witness protection program and moved to, you know, move to Pennsylvania. So I started on a farm. Yeah. Anyway, thank you all so much for listening. Sorry about that. I just went back to Grabsotic with my friend and the feds about the sopranos, but we do appreciate you. We will see you next week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Any other final thoughts, my friend? No, I can't top those last few.

I'm good. All right, everybody. We'll see you next time. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe.