Jack - Episode 97 | The Immunity Brief

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

This week, Judge Chutkan unsealed Jack Smith’s immunity brief with its limited redactions over Donald Trump’s objections. Plus, listener questions. Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ 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 97 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It's Sunday, October 6th, 2024. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. This week we have the show of all shows. So far. Yeah, so far. Over Trump's objections, Judge Chutkin unsealed Jack Smith's 170 page immunity

motion with very few redactions. So we're going to go over that. Plus Donald's request for five more weeks to respond. Yes. And we also have Jack Smith's sir reply to Donald Trump's weird motion to compel discovery and expand the size of the prosecution team. Remember last week, he went more prosecutors, please. Two weeks ago, we went over that weird discovery motion. Cause you know, judge Chuckin is doing discovery at the same time she's doing the immunity stuff.

And Trump filed his weird thing. And Jack Smith, last week, we noted he was like, hey, can I respond to that? Would you let me respond to that? So we have that response. And we'll dive into all of that today. But for now, it's time for another installment of Good Week, Bad Week.

Yeah. And I mean, at the risk of throwing myself into the bad week category, which I'm not going to do, I'm going to rise above. It's been a challenging week here on the home front. Now, bad week this week for the antagonist of our weekly story, which would be the former president. I mean, really bad week when the prosecution lays out essentially a roadmap to their case against you. And it's a, it's a, it's a significant map. The map has a lot of stops along the way. There's a lot of towns and cities that it visits and they're all very well

supported by facts and witnesses and all kinds of people. Yeah, I mean, we're going to obviously go through this in detail, but I think that pretty much eclipses anything else that's happened in his week this week. Yeah, just immensely bad for him. And what's even worse is he asked for it. So you know, be careful what you wish for. We talked a lot about that because, you know, a year ago, when they were battling what kind of protective order to put over discovery,

you know, Jack Smith was like, let's keep everything under seal, even nonsensitive stuff in the evidence. And Trump said, no, it goes against my First Amendment rights. We have to release everything, release it all, release it now. And and the judge was like, OK, how about we just redact the names? And so that's kind of a partial win for Trump, right? Set the standard. And so now it's like, no, no, no, I take it back. I take it all back. And now, oh, and you know, the fact that you went to the Supreme Court to try to get immunity means that we now have to decide immunity. And we're going to do it publicly with just minimal redactions that

you asked for Mr. Trump a year ago. So that's why we are where we are. And before we get into Jack Smith's massive immunity brief unsealed by Judge Chutkin, there was some docket activity leading up to that this week, and I want to briefly go over that, including Trump's opposition to Jack Smith's redactions, right? You say, President Donald Trump respectfully submits this opposition to the motion by the special counsel's office, proposing redactions to their so-called motion for immunity determinations, which they have- It's not so-called.

It is. It's actually called that. What's the point of the so-called? That's the title. Okay, sorry. Well, because he says, it's restyled in an unsuccessful effort to mask the fact that there's no basis in federal criminal procedure or the constitution for a filing that attempts to usurp control and presentation of a defendant's defense in a criminal case. Okay.

So basically, Trump was really mad that Jack Smith wanted so few redactions this time around. Like I said, last year he asked the court for more information to remain under seal. Jack Smith did, but Judge Chuck Hinn ruled that only sensitive material should remain under seal, witness names, grand jury testimony, interview transcripts, president presidents daily diaries, interagency documents, and the like, right? And Trump said that not only should the names be redacted, but their titles too, and the summaries of their witness testimony. But he didn't really ask for that. He mostly just said he wanted their titles redacted.

He claims that Jack Smith's motives to release the information are clear and inappropriate. He says the office wants their politically motivated manifesto, also known as a motion for immunity considerations, to be public. So-called. So-called. So-called. Sorry, my bad. Contrary to the Justice Manual and long-standing DOJ norms in cases not involving President Trump in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election while early voting has already begun throughout the United States. Now Jack Smith responded saying the summaries are needed to determine immunity which if Trump didn't want he shouldn't have asked for and as far as the titles of

the witness names of the witnesses we can redact them if you want, but the summaries make it pretty clear who they are. So, you know, the Jackson said, judge, if you want us to redact the titles, we got it ready to go. We'll redact the titles. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. And I think by titles, they also kind of mean descriptions, right? Because so many of those people who are not identified, because their names are obviously redacted, but you get a White House staffer or a White House staffer who also volunteered for the campaign, that sort of thing.

I think that's really what he was trying to keep the redactions on. Anyway, with the issue fully briefed, Judge Chutkin issued a ruling. I know, that's crazy, because we're all used to Florida where that doesn't happen for another six months, but no, you got a ruling right away here. And in the ruling she said, the government has requested leave to file under partial seal a motion for immunity determinations and appendix. Specifically, it seeks to redact from the public docket, one, the names of individuals that do not appear in the superseding indictment, and two, non-public sources, quote, including grand jury transcripts, interview reports, or material obtained through sealed search

warrants. The defendant does not object to any of the proposed redactions, but calls for sealing additional portions of the motion and further briefing from the government. For the reasons below, the court will grant the government's request with respect to the redactions in its proposed motion. This is where it gets good. She goes on to say, the job positions of individuals discussed in the motion constitute information upon which the court's review must be based and and on which its decisions will rely, as required

by the Supreme Court precedent. Indeed, that information was one of the few types of context that the Supreme Court specifically highlighted for consideration. Whether the people involved with the charge conduct were campaign or government staff, for instance, could affect the official nature of those acts. Their job titles are therefore central to the purpose for which the government's motion is introduced. And in order for the public to understand the court's eventual decision on immunity, the need for public access to that information is correspondingly great.

Hostage Yeah. And with regard to the witness statement summaries, Judge Chuckin says, neither party has specifically objected to disclosing the witness statements at issue nor articulated a prejudice that would ensue from doing so. Especially where grand jury materials are concerned, courts appropriately defer to the government's assessment of how to balance witness protection and public access. The court will accordingly not require the redaction of those statements or any further briefing from the government."

And she does take a moment to address Trump's other grievances, because he can't just file a straight-up motion. She says, of, defendant's opposition brief repeatedly accuses the government of bad faith partisan bias. These accusations, for which the defendant provides no support, continue a pattern of defense filings focusing on political rhetoric rather than addressing the legal issues at hand. Not only is that focus unresponsive and unhelpful to the court, but it's also unbefitting of experienced defense counsel and undermining of the judicial proceedings in this case.

Ouchy. Defendant has had an opportunity to make his case that his prosecution is improperly motivated. Future filings should be directed to the issues before the court. Wow. That is a redress of Donald Trump's lawyers, if I've ever seen one. Yeah, that's the judicial equivalent of just like a full-on assault. You know what I mean? Like they are always very reserved in their language, judges are, and that's a direct

shot at his attorney specifically. They should be embarrassed. I mean, we felt that way all along with the filings they submit they should be, but this is basically the judge in the court that you are in. This is the judge you're in front of saying like, shame on you. This is beneath you. This is an unbefitting experience defense counsel. Poor work.

Poor work. Yeah. We're disappointed in you. Yeah. So with that in you. Yeah. So with that, she granted the government's motion for proposed redactions, ordered the clerk to unseal Jack Smith's immunity motion, and then boom, it landed on the docket, all 165 pages of it. And before we dive in, I just want to explain how this is organized.

First of all, 165 pages, this is just the motion. This doesn't include all the exhibits. About 30 or 40 pages of this thing are eaten up by This doesn't include all the exhibits. About 30 or 40 pages of this thing are eaten up by footnotes, most of which are redacted because they refer to sensitive materials, the stuff she mentioned like grand jury testimony and the fruits of search warrants and stuff. And that'll be included in the second half of the government's immunity motion, which they're still arguing over redactions and that'll hit the dock at some point after October

10th, I think. This motion now, this motion has four sections. Section one is like the indictment on steroids. It presents the government's case in chief. It tells the story of all of the conspiracies and it gives summaries of supporting evidence with footnotes that cite the actual evidence that'll come later in the second half, and all of the conduct in the superseding indictment. He's putting all his cards on the table so that the court can decide what, if anything,

is immune. What are official acts? What are not? And they have to do that before the trial starts because that's what the Supreme Court ordered them to do. So it's not just everything Jack knows, it's how he knows it and how he intends to prove it. Yeah, it's remarkable. You know, there are these mythic things in prosecution referred

to as pros memos, prosecution memos, and they're an internal document that federal prosecutors write up for their supervisors. They're never even shared with the agents who work the case. So we're always kind of like, we're always angling to see what they said, but they never show them to us. This thing reads kind of like a pros memo, right? It's like very blatant. Here's what he did. Here's how we know it. Okay. So section two of the motion is described by special counsel like this. It explains that for each category of conduct that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, this court should first determine whether it was official or unofficial by analyzing the relevant, quote, content, form, and context to determine whether the defendant was acting in his official

capacity or instead quote in his capacity as a candidate for re-election. Where the defendant was acting as an office seeker not an office holder no immunity attaches. For any conduct deemed official the court should next determine whether the presumption of immunity is rebutted, which requires the government to show that, quote, applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch. So, that last part is the threshold set by the Supreme Court.

So, if Judge Chutkin decided that some of the Pence conversations, for example, are official acts, Jack Smith then has the burden of showing that the conversations pose no, or applying criminal prohibitions to those conversations poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch. Right, right. And Jack Smith says they don't because Trump has no role. The executive branch has no role in the certification or counting of electoral votes. That's right. And he covers that in section three, because section three, here's what it says, then applies those legal principles to the defendant's conduct and establishes that nothing the government

intends to present to the jury is protected by presidential immunity. Although the defendant's conduct and establishes that nothing the government intends to present to the jury is protected by presidential immunity. Although the defendant's discussions with the vice president about their official responsibilities qualify as official, the government rebuts the presumption of immunity. And all of the defendant's remaining conduct was unofficial as content, form, and context show the defendant was acting in his capacity as a candidate for reelection not in his capacity as president. Yes and section 4 explains the relief sought by the government and specifies the findings the court should make in a single order namely that the defendant's conduct set forth in section 1 is not immunized and that as a result, the

defendant must stand trial on the superseding indictment and the government is not prohibited at trial from using evidence of the conduct described in section one. So a couple of weeks ago, Andy, I wrote up what we should expect in this filing. You and I discussed it on the podcast too. Yes, we did. And Jack Smith covered, he's covered all the things. Though I thought he might bring up Trump's First Amendment argument.

You know how Trump argued saying, I am protected by the First Amendment. I can lie about the election, the election fraud because of the First Amendment. Well, in previous filings, Jack Smith says that if Trump is arguing that he's covered by the first amendment, that means he's arguing as a private citizen

because the first amendment doesn't cover presidents. It protects citizens. But I didn't see that argument here. But honestly, with all the other arguments, I don't think he needs that one. But that was the only thing that you and I discussed that I didn't see in here. I think it's one of those things

that he probably keeps in his pocket to see what Trump throws back at him in Trump's response, which could be in four weeks or nine weeks, apparently. Could be, though in briefing practice, you can't really bring up things you didn't argue in your reply. You have to argue it in the initial brief if you want to argue it in the reply. Unless Trump brings up his stuff. If he brings it up in his response, then it's fair game.

So we'll have to see how that goes. Yeah. He might be waiting for him to argue the First Amendment and then he could come back and smack it down and say, okay, so you're a private citizen then because First Amendment doesn't protect the speech of the government. It curtails the government from infringing on your speech as a private citizen. That's right. Really good argument from Jack Smith we might see in a response like you said. All right, we're going to dive into this thing. It's a bear. There's a lot. Buckle in. Yeah, buckle in. But first we have to take a quick

break everyone. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, since there's no possible way to cover this brief line by line in a one hour episode, we're going to cover some of the standout parts for you. And so let's start with the introduction to the Section 1 factual proffer. This is our, as you call it, the indictment on steroids. Okay, Jack Smith writes, at its core, the defendant's scheme was a private criminal effort.

In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process, which through the constitution, the ECA and state laws includes the state's notification to the federal government of the selection of their representative electors based on the popular vote in the state, the meeting of those electors to cast their votes consistent with the popular vote, and Congress's counting of the electors' votes their votes consistent with the popular vote and Congress's counting of the electors' votes at a certification proceeding. Okay. And as an aside here, AG, as we continue to go through the motion, there are all kinds

of redacted names and they're referred to by abbreviations like CC1, which of course stands for co-conspirator one, or P6, which would be person six. So we have replaced those redacted names with the names that we think actually apply to those descriptors. So that's what I'm going to be reading as this paragraph goes further on. Okay. So the paragraph goes on, as set forth in detail below, the defendant worked with private co-conspirators, including private attorneys, Rudy Giuliani,

John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chisboro, and private political operatives, Boris Epstein and Steve Bannon. The defendant also relied heavily on private agents such as his campaign employees and volunteers like campaign manager Bill Stepien, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark, senior campaign advisor Jason Miller, and campaign operative Mike Roman. In this section, the government sets forth the detailed facts supporting the charges against the defendant before addressing in the next section why none of this conduct is subject to immunity under the Supreme Court's decision in Trump.

The conduct set forth below includes the defendant's formation of the conspiracies leading up to and immediately following the 2020 presidential election, certain information regarding his knowledge that there had not been outcome determinative fraud in the election as he persistently claimed, and his increasingly desperate efforts to use knowingly false claims of election fraud to disrupt the electoral process. Hmm. Increasingly desperate efforts. That's a good way to describe that.

And Andy, there's a lot in here that we already knew, right? Like most of this stuff, we've been talking about this for the, you know, for the last 96 episodes. And a lot of it we heard in the January 6th hearings, right? Yes. But there are some instances of some new evidence or new testimony or summaries of testimony that were unable, that the January 6th committee was unable to get, that Jack Smith could get. So let's talk about what's new, stuff that we might not have heard before. Something that really stood out to me comes really early on in section one and has to do with Trump's intent to declare victory, regardless of the votes. Now we knew that he was going to declare victory, right?

Mm-hmm. We had talked about this thing called the Red Mirage, where we were telling our fellow Democrats, like, don't despair. On election night, it's going to look bad. But as the mail-in ballots come in and they start counting those mail-in ballots over the days following the

election, the numbers for Biden are going to go up, right? That's called the red mirage. We saw it happen in the previous 2018 election as well. And so, but it was going to be even more so this time because of COVID, right? And we have so many Democrats sending in mail-in ballots because Donald Trump went around telling everybody that you can't don't use mail-in voting. You'd show up on election day, sort of shoot himself in the foot there. And so we knew that he, you know, was trying to declare victory. We had some stuff from Rudy Giuliani where Rudy Giuliani said, just go tell everybody you won. But we have more evidence that we didn't know about here.

It says privately, the defendant told advisors, including P6 campaign personnel, P7, which is Roger Stone, and P8, the vice president's chief of staff, Mark Short, that in such a scenario, the Red Mirage, he would simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted and any winner was projected. So now there's evidence that Trump knew about the red mirage and plan to exploit it, to take advantage of it by declaring himself the winner before the mail-in ballots were counted. So Andy, again, we knew that, but now we know how Jack Smith knows it and we know how he's going to prove it.

Yeah, that's right. That's absolutely right. And something else that stood out to me is a more detailed explanation of what happened at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan. Now, the filing says, in the immediate post-election period, while the defendant claimed fraud without proof, his private operatives sought to create chaos rather than seek clarity at polling places where states were continuing to tabulate votes. For example, on November 4th, P5, who is Mike Roman, a campaign employee, agent, and co-conspirator of the defendant, tried to sow confusion when the ongoing vote count at the TCF Center in

Detroit, Michigan looked unfavorable for the defendant. There where a colleague at the TCF Center told Roman, we think a batch of votes heavily in Biden's favor is right. Mike Roman responded, find a reason it isn't. Give me options to file litigation. And even if it's BS. Wow. Yeah. When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest

reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers riot, which was a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, Mike Roman responded, make them riot and do it. Wow. I mean, that is like, that's bad. That is like, do anything to jam up this system, create confusion. And if that means prompt people to start attacking each other, then just go for it. Yeah. Even if it's BS.

Yeah. So that shows, like, knowingly, that they know, they knew that he was yeah yeah yeah then there's a bunch of evidence of conversations between Trump campaign advisors and Trump himself that he had lost the election which explains why Trump posted what he did on true social after he got this huge filing you know proving that that he knew that he lost Jack Smith has has all this proof. It's cited in redacted footnotes in this motion. The evidence includes Pence as his running mate, telling him they lost.

To quote, take a bow, he said. He said, think of this loss as an intermission and that we can run again in 2024, buddy, right? This is from the brief as well. It says, at one point, long after Trump had begun spreading false fraud claims, P-15, that's Nick Luna, overheard Trump telling his family members, quote, it doesn't matter if you won or lost the election, you still have to fight like hell. And that right there is extremely damning evidence.

Yeah. I mean, in the least case, it shows that he has absolutely no regard for the process and the accurate tabulation of the vote. That's in the least case. In the worst case, it's like a cinematic moment. I mean, as they describe it in the motion, it's a conversation that takes place in the presidential helicopter between the president and his family members. So it's like you can see it. The jurors will be like in their minds imagining what that looks like.

Yeah. And him admitting, it doesn't matter if I lost or won. That's not the point. And Jack Smith says he intends to show a huge pattern of false voter fraud claims at trial. He says the defendant and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth and thus their knowledge of falsity when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day. At trial, the government will introduce several instances of this pattern in which the defendant

and co-conspirators' lies were proved by the fact that they made up figures from whole cloth. So having that kind of evidence is extremely important. We talked about this a lot during the Mueller investigation, especially in the obstruction volume of the Mueller report. It's about the totality of the evidence, the pattern, right? That's right. And what this shows is just a complete disregard for the facts. And you imagine like if that, if imagine you're at trial and the government enters that evidence, now it's your time to put on a defense. How do you defend against that? You just say,

oh, we were dumb. We didn't know. We were mistaken all six times. I mean, like, it's really not good. I had seen those numbers somewhere. Someone had told me that, but they kept changing the numbers. So that proves. Yeah, from 32,000 to 250,000 at one point. It's just that blatant. Yeah.

And I mean, he does it all the time, right? We have 3 million illegal immigrants, 10 million, 25 million, 345,000 children. Like he makes these numbers up. I had 107,000 people at my rally in New Jersey. He just makes them up out of whole cloth. And the fact pattern here is what's important. He's got a history and a pattern of creating numbers out of whole cloth, which Jack Smith says will prove that these allegations of fraud are baseless. That's right. Jack Smith then goes state by state on how Trump used his false claims to alter the ascertainment and appointment of electors.

And he reminds us that none of that is immune because it's not the president's job. He says, as president, the defendant had no official responsibilities related to the state's administration of the election or the appointment of their electors and instead contacted state officials in his capacity as a candidate. I love this line. Tellingly, the defendant contacted only state officials who were in his political party and were his political supporters and only in states he had lost. The defendant's attempts to use deceit

to target the state's electoral process played out in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as across these and other states that use certain voting machines. In addition to the following evidence of the defendant's conduct during the charge conspiracies, at trial, the government will elicit testimony from election officials from the targeted states to establish objective falsity and often impossibility of the defendant's fraud claims.

Yeah, that's so important. And you know what's really great too, Andy, you and I said, I wonder if he's going to reference Georgia v Meadows, right? Where Mark Meadows was trying to get his case taken out of state court in Georgia and moved to federal court. And Judge Pryor, who's up sits atop the 11th circuit was like, no, no, it's not your job. It's not the job of the executive branch to provide oversight over the state administered elections. Sorry, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's right. No, you can't move this to federal court because

it's not your federal job, my friend. And they did, he did, Jack Smith actually did cite that decision and I'm glad to see it. Now, once that tactic failed, right? Trying to get, trying to call up all his Republican buddies. What if I send you some Trump swag? You know, once that all failed, he then enlisted his running mate in Pence, in his ministerial role as president of the Senate to delay or to refuse to certify the electoral votes from key swing states. And we'll talk more about that in section two. But when Pence refused multiple times and we got some more information about those phone calls, that's when Trump added language about Pence back into his January 6th rally speech, which he had taken out, at which Jack Smith will prove, by the way, was a

campaign speech, not immune, right? And he did that to rile up his mob of supporters, send them to the Capitol to obstruct the official proceeding. At one point, an advisor ran into the dining room of the Oval Office to tell Trump Pence had to be taken to that loading dock for his safety. He's been evacuated. And Trump said, so what? So what? That's incredible.

Now, Jack Smith has evidence that Trump sent out that tweet about Pence all by himself. Nobody helped him. And he's going to share that at trial. And he also explains in section two, why that tweet is not an official act and therefore not immune. And we'll talk about that in a bit. And that brings us to section two, the legal framework. That's right.

And Jack Smith writes, this section first addresses the defendant's interactions with Pence because in Trump, the Supreme Court held that when the defendant's interactions with Pence because in Trump, the Supreme Court held that when the defendant conversed with Pence about, quote, their official responsibilities, the conduct was official. Accordingly, the government explains below why any presumptive immunity as to the defendant's official conduct regarding Pence is rebutted. Other than the specific official conduct related to Pence that the Supreme Court held to be official, none of the defendants other actions were official.

Hmm. That's very important. I feel like that's kind of the whole shebang right there, right? He's really dropping the gauntlet to keep as much of the Pence information in as he possibly can. And my guess is they know that some of they're not going to get everything they want. So they're swinging for the fence and they're making the strongest possible argument for everything. And if they walk away with any of these Pence statements, they're probably going to think of it as a win.

A win. Yeah. So, so basically he's starting with Pence, because those are the only conversations in question here that could possibly have some immunity attached or be official. And then he goes on to explain why nothing else is subject to immunity. That's right. As far as the conversations with Pence go,

Jack Smith says, unlike all of the other threshold determinations that the court will have to make about whether the defendant's conduct alleged in the superseding indictment was official, with respect to the defendant's conversations with Pence about Pence's official role at the certification proceeding, the court can skip to the second step, whether the government can rebut the presumption of immunity that the Supreme Court held applies to such conversations, because the executive branch has no role in the certification proceeding.

And indeed, the president was purposely excluded from it by design. Prosecuting the defendant for his corrupt efforts regarding Pence poses no danger to the executive branch's authority or functioning. Matt, I'm really impressed with how simple Jack Smith has made this incredibly muddy Supreme Court ruling, right? He's basically saying possibly official chats with Pence are not immune because the executive branch has no role in the certification process. Other conversations with Pence are not official because they were, you know, conversations between a candidate and his running mate. And that's clear in

some of these conversations. And the rest of everything else isn't immune because it's all between candidate Trump and his campaign advisors. It was him as an office seeker, not an office holder. And that's quoting Blossom Game. He even takes it a step further and says that because private campaign folks were in those meetings with Pence, that further shows that those were unofficial acts. And the fact that Trump barred White House counsel from those meetings makes it even more unofficial. Remember when Cipollone

was running to the Oval Office and Trump's like, no, you can't come in. And he had that meeting with- We're conspiring in here. Do not come in. With like Powell and Rudy and Pence. That can't be an official meeting when it's your campaign private attorneys, right? This meeting is for crazy lawyers only. You're not crazy enough for this meeting. So I think it's going to be a really good argument here.

But like you said, he's swinging for the fences. He wants all of these pertinent conversations with Pence in. He recognizes that some of them, because of the discussions, like the phone calls about you need to delay or throw out the votes or do the right thing, you know, those are official conversations about his official duties. But they, they in no way, you know, impede the president's ability to do his job, which is the threshold that the Supreme Court set for Jack Smith to rebut any presumptive immunity. I also like that they made the constitutional argument of,

no, the executive branch has no role in the certification proceeding. And it was specifically designed that way by the founders in the Constitution to keep the guy competing for the office out of the decision of who wins the office. And it kind of elevates the argument a little bit above the purely factual. And it's the kind of thing that I feel like that's him laying a little bit of a

trailer breadcrumbs that he'll come back to if judge Judkins decision is later appealed, right? That's like seeding an appellate argument that he'll use later if this thing goes in that direction. Agreed. And then Jack Smith, he goes over each and every phone call to state election officials and explains why none of them are immune because he undertook all of them as a candidate for office, not as president. And even if the court thinks their official phone calls, official acts, the government can rebut that presumptive immunity. Because again, under the constitution, the executive branch has no constitutionally assigned role in the state electoral process. And that's so important.

Matthew 14 Yeah. So then the special counsel goes through all of Trump's speeches and explains that they aren't official acts because he was campaigning. Further, these speeches, including the one at the ellipse on January 6th, can't be considered official because Trump only focused on his race and none of the down ballot races in those states, which I think is a really cool point. If he's going to come back and say, well, it's presidential... Taking care that the laws were faithfully executed. But apparently not for any other candidate. Only for your races.

Oh, okay. The fraud was just about him, apparently. Yeah. So, okay. So then that brings us next to the tweets Jack Smith wants to use as evidence. Special counsel writes, as an initial matter, the defendant sent or directed the sending of all tweets and retweets from atrealDonaldTrump, the personal Twitter account that the defendant started long before assuming the presidency. During his presidential term, the defendant

sometimes used the atrealDonaldTrump account to tweet about official business, including regarding COVID relief and vaccines, legislation in Congress, and executive branch business. But he also regularly used the account to post on unambiguously private matters. For example, when he posted a picture of himself golfing with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, and retweeted a Trump organization post about the Trump New York Hotel being named the number one best hotel in the world. Which it wasn't. So, here, his tweets casting doubt on election integrity, his tweets encouraging people to come to DC will be wild, his tweets about

Pence doing the right thing, right? Having the courage to do the right thing. They were all sent, quote, in an unofficial private capacity as office seeker, not an official capacity as office holder. And Jack Smith tells us that Dan Scavino is going to testify and that Nick Luna will be testifying and that he intends to use statements from Chris Krebs and Bill Barr as evidence as well, which he says he's not immune because they were in furtherance of candidate Trump. And if the court deems them official, Trump didn't order them to be made. And so rebutting their immunity would not intrude on Trump's ability to do his job. Special counsel concludes with section four, which says, the court should determine that

the conduct described in the factual proffer of section one of this motion is not subject to presidential immunity. As part of this determination, the court should specify four determinations and do so in a single order. One that the government has rebutted the presumption of immunity attached to the defendant's official communications with the vice president. And two, that the remaining conduct described in section one, that is conduct other than the official communications with the vice president, was not official.

And in the alternative, that the government has rebutted any presumptive immunity for any of the remaining conduct that the court has rebutted any presumptive immunity for any of the remaining conduct that the court finds to be official. The government requests alternative rulings regarding rebuttal for all conduct the court finds to be unofficial to buttress the court's record, ensure thorough and efficient appellate review, and minimize the risk of successive rounds of interlocutory appeal. So he's saying, um, find your findings, but if you find that none of this is immune, please say that even if it was, we've rebutted immunity.

Right. Load it all in to the order so that if it goes up on appeal, which of course it will, they'll have to address all that stuff. It's not like you can appeal part of it and then come back and appeal part of it. You know what I mean? He wants this thing. He's not trying to cut off any opportunity

for the defendant. He's just trying to force the hand that you get one bite at the apple. Right, cover all the bases. Because if Judge Chuck King comes back and says, none of this is immune, and then he appeals up to the Supreme Court and it comes back down,

then the Supreme Court could say, well, what if we've decided that they are official acts? But did you consider whether or not the presumption was rebutted? Yeah, they want Judge Chuck King to say, none of this is immune, and even if it were, presumptive immunity is rebutted. So they, yeah, they want Judge Chuckin to say, none of this is immune. And even if it were, presumptive immunity is rebutted because the president's got no job to oversee the electoral count or whatever.

Right. Correct. Frontload it all. So we only have to go up to the Supreme Court once, please. And thank you. All right, everybody, we have a lot more to get to, including listener questions. We have to take another break, so stick around. We'll be right back.

All right, everybody, welcome back. So after all that, Donald Trump has filed a new motion on the DC docket and it says, President Donald J. Trump respectfully moves for leave to file a 180 page response and renewed motion to dismiss based on presidential immunity to the special counsel's motion for immunity determinations. President Trump further moves for a five week extension of the deadline to file his response to November 21st, 2024, and for leave to file a 25-page sur-reply by December 19th. So not only does he want to expand 180 pages, he wants to be able to file a new motion to dismiss based on what Jack Smith handed over, and he wants an extension and he wants a sur-reply. So Andy, he was really mad about Jack Smith wanting 180 pages.

Now he wants 180 pages and more time and a cert reply and to file another motion to dismiss. It's like my kids. George got ice cream. I want ice cream too. And I want more ice cream than what ice cream you got. And can I ask another question here? Does any motion come without a motion to dismiss? It's like, it's motions to dismiss are evergreen in the Trump defense world. That's like, we're filing a motion.

I think that because his lawyers got a little dressed down by saying, if you want to file a motion to dismiss, I'm really disappointed in your BS. And so now they're asking for permission to file another actual motion to dismiss instead of including it in his response, I think. Yes. Some nerdy law student should go through every filing and figure out every reference the Trump team has made to dismissing the case in all kinds of motions that are motions to dismiss some that aren't.

I think it'd be massive. It'd be a great list. I'd read it. Yeah, I would do. You and me. No. Okay. So here's how he squares that circle. Ready? As an initial matter, the court should expand the page limits for President Trump's response to match the 180 pages provided to

the special counsel. The court has decided over President Trump's objections that extensive factual submissions are appropriate at this juncture. It's what the Supreme Court ordered. Having made that determination, President Trump must have an equal opportunity to submit and address facts bearing on immunity and to rebut the special counsel's misleading submissions. Accordingly, the court should grant President Trump leave to file a 180 page response, even if 50 of those pages are just tracings of the president's hand. Well, it is almost Thanksgiving. And some made it to turkeys and other things.

Yes. Like what are you... They don't have any evidence to talk about. You know, fine, fair. Give him 180 pages to respond. I'm sure she will. It's just, it's kind of funny because he was like, it's quadruple the page amount. That's terrible.

You know, this page is hangman and the next three pages are tic tac toe. Now what about the, I'm fine with that. Great. Yeah. 180 pages go, but what about the five week extension? How does he justify that? Well, he says, regarding timing, President Trump seeks a five week extension of his filing deadline.

This resembles the three week extension, resembles. No, it doesn't, because one's five and one's three, but whatever. Five equals three. It's kind of like the three, but more beautiful and stronger. This resembles the three-week extension the court previously provided the special counsel on August 9th, 2024, minute order, which allowed the special counsel to work on its initial brief before the September status conference. In total, the requested extension would provide President Trump eight weeks

to file his response, which approximates the six weeks the court granted the special counsel, including a three-week extension before the status conference and an additional three weeks thereafter to finalize its brief and exhibits. Additionally, the extension reflects, one, the enormous size of the special counsel's filing, which will take substantial time to review, consider, and respond to, and, two, the importance of

the issues at stake. Like the underlying immunity question, the categorization of official and unofficial acts raises multiple unprecedented and momentous questions about the powers of the president and the limits of his authority under the constitution. The court should grant President Trump leave to file a 180-page response by November 21st, 2024. The court should further grant President Trump leave to file a 25-ser reply by December 19th, 2024. The special counsel indicates that it does not object to the 180 page limit for the response, but opposes President Trump's request for a deadline extension and for sur reprise.

Good, I would oppose it too. Like, no, you can't have, you know what? I don't know. Part of me thinks, sure, you can have a little bit more time, right? Since she set the briefing schedule before she granted Jack Smith's motion to file 180 pages and she gave Jack Smith a three week extension. So I'd be inclined maybe not to grant the sir reply, but to give him not five more weeks, but three more weeks. He's going to get three weeks. I'm telling you right now, he's going to get something. And the obvious thing is three weeks because she already gave Jack Smith three weeks. She

cuts it right down the middle. So I think no sir reply. Um, you do get three more weeks and you do get 180 pages. That's right. That's right. That's what I think we'll see. All right. We have one more brief to discuss today. You'll recall Jack Smith asked permission to respond to Trump's weird discovery motion. This is the one where he asked for all kinds of non-existent immunity evidence and reiterated his demand to expand the scope of the prosecution team to include the Department of Energy or whatever. Well, Judge Chuckin... Paw Patrol. Paw Patrol is part of the prosecution team. They look like very prosecuting.

I am going to need documents from McGruff, the crime dog. So Judge Chuckin granted Jack Smith his reply and it says in part, the court ordered the defendant, Donald Trump, to supplement his discovery motions by identifying his reply, quote, any specific evidence related to presidential immunity that the defendant believes the government has improperly withheld, so that he could subsequently, quote, review any additional discovery he receives and incorporate it into his immunity briefing. The defendant did not comply. Instead, he filed a reply designed

to disrupt the court's previously ordered schedule. With respect to immunity demands over which the defendant failed to confer with the government before filing, the defendant's requests are too vague or irrelevant to be helpful to the court's fact-bound immunity determinations, or they seek materials that the government long ago produced in discovery. The defendant otherwise uses his reply to improperly demand dismissal and seek reconsideration of several of the court's previous decisions, including the current briefing schedule for addressing immunity.

The court should reject all of the defendant's non-immunity-based discovery requests and reserve ruling on the defendant's immunity-based demands until he pursues them fulsomely, first by reviewing the government's immunity brief and then, and the disclosures he has already been provided, and then, and only if necessary, by including in his immunity filing due October 17th, any clear request for specific discoverable evidence

on presidential immunity that he still claims he lacks. Yes. And Jack Smith goes on to say, the defendant's conduct in this litigation suggests that he is less concerned with promptly receiving and using additional immunity-based discovery, which the government does not believe exists, and more interested in using the discovery process to delay the court's immunity briefing schedule. First, despite the government's direct invitation of specific immunity-related discovery requests and the court's explicit expectation that the parties, quote, meet and confer and discuss potential discovery issues, the defendant made no outreach about immunity-based discovery prior to filing his

reply promising to transmit specific immunity-related discovery requests to the government. Next, he filed his reply, in which he fails to identify specific evidence he claims to be necessary for his immunity filing and instead declares that the court should abandon its considered briefing schedule for conducting the immunity analysis that the Supreme Court directed on remit. And on September 25th, only after the court granted the government permission to file this surreply and rejected the defendant's unwarranted demand to upend the briefing schedule, the defendant sent the government a letter purportedly requesting discovery on immunity issues. And he goes on to say, the court should reserve ruling on the defendant's immunity related demands.

Specifically, the court should direct the defendant to try again to do what it previously ordered and what he could easily have done in the three months since the Supreme Court's decision to thoroughly review the expansive discovery he's already received and then make clear demands for specific contextual evidence related to presidential immunity that he believes is in the government's possession and has been improperly withheld. The government is confident that no such additional materials exist, but such a process would ensure that the court has the benefit of all the information relevant to its immunity determinations. And he concludes, the defendant's arguments

and support of his discovery motions, including those invoking the issue of presidential immunity, failed to provide any factual or legal basis for his broad requests. His attempts to secure dismissal of this case and reconsideration of the court's prior orders are equally meritless. The court should deny the defendant's

non-immunity related motions and should reserve ruling on the defendant's immunity related demands until after the defendant addresses the deficiencies in them in the course of the court's schedule for immunity briefing. So put it all in your immunity briefing response, my friend. If you've got any specific immunity related discovery you think we're withholding that you know exists, drop it in there and we'll get to it all at once. Yeah. I mean, if he were smart, he actually has, I expect they'll do this to some extent.

He has a lot to work with now. He's got 160 page motion with a billion references to actual specific pieces of evidence. He could make specific requests directly tied to the government's motion. All that stuff, right. Right. And that's kind of what Jack Smith is suggesting here. They asked for this.

Of course, a lot of that stuff he probably already has. Right. And Jack Smith spelled that out in his surreply. There were several instances that we didn't cover in detail when we were reading what Jack Smith had submitted, but he's like, he wants this, we gave it to him on this date. He wants this, we gave it to him in August of 2023. He wants this, he has that already. So clearly he doesn't know what he has. So until he figures out what he has and until he makes his immunity arguments, he needs to shut up. And so we'll see, we'll see what, I'm paraphrasing,

we'll see what Judge Chuck can says in response to this motion to compel discovery and increase the definition of the prosecution team, the scope of the prosecution team. I don't think it's going to go Donald Trump's way, however. Yeah. I mean, she does not brook any nonsense, right? She's made it pretty clear, especially in that piece that we read, that order that we read earlier in this show. She's not down for it. The nonsense, the political arguments, the demands for dismissal, she's not going there. So I don't see them getting

a lot of distance out of this. No, no, me neither. All right. We're almost at an hour here, but we want to take some listener questions. So we're going to take a quick break and be right back with it. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Let's get to some listener questions. And if you have a question for Andy or both of us, or you just have a question to scream into the void, you can send it to us by clicking on the link in the show notes. And there's a form you can fill out to submit your questions. What

do we have for questions this week, Andy? Okay. We have a couple of good ones here. First one comes to us from Mel P in California. Mel says, Dr. Gill just tweeted something on Tuesday, October 1st about the canon presided trial of the Mar-a-Lago golf course wannabe assassin. That would be Ruth. Ruth or Roof? Can I always mess up his name? Routh. R-O-U-T-H. Ruth. Routh. That's it. Routh. She goes on to say, wait, no secret docket? No months long redaction litigation? No March 2026 conference on the pretrial schedule and no oral arguments from a meekie

No special master. No pretrial evidentiary hearings just straight to trial what what what? That was my tweet. Yeah, I Was very confused. I mean she wants to go to trial November 18th. Who is this Eileen? Can and how are you? Okay, Mel P goes on my question for the Jack podcast. Can this November 18th. Who is this? Eileen Cannon. Who are you? Okay. Mel P goes on. My question for the Jack podcast. Can this positive normal behavior be introduced into the 11th circuit mix as evidence that her negative dilatory finger, nay, pet elephant on the scale behavior in the class-wide documents

case was out of bounds? Okay. So basically does her apparent knowledge of what the bounds are make her out of bounds behavior appear worse in the Trump case? It's an interesting concept. I like where you're headed. Unfortunately, I don't think we ever actually get there because the appellate courts have pretty strict, a strict process in terms of what they can and cannot or will or will not review.

And we got to remember, even though it seems like this might be called for, this appeal is not an overall fitness review of Eileen Cannon as a judge. No, right. I think those amicus briefs are what's kind of thrown a little bit of a wrench into this, right? I don't even know if they've accepted yet. Yeah, there's an element of that there, but what this is, is a legal issue about whether or not this case was properly dismissed, that motion was properly decided and the decision

to dismiss the case. Now, we all know that bound up in that is our questions about her potential bias. Being removed from the case. And being removed from the case. Because Jack Smith isn't asking for her to be removed. He's only asking to put the case back on track because it was dismissed improperly. It's the amici who are asking for her removal and without a supplement or a revision, which I'm not necessarily sure. I don't even know if they'll accept these amicus briefs for her to consider her removal. But it is an interesting question, right?

To say like, look, she knows how to do this right. Yeah. Yeah. If she were, if what was going forward was not an appeal of a legal issue and instead it was maybe somebody filing a judicial complaint against her that was actually taken up the chain, then it would be more of a broad base. They'd look at how she handled her docket generally and how she handled in one case as opposed to another case, that sort of thing. But in the context of where we are in the documents case, I think it's highly unlikely that that stuff would come in. But it is interesting to see that apparently

she knows how to do it in the case in which Trump is the victim. So yeah, very interesting. One more question? Yeah, one more. This one from Chris W. Chris starts by saying, thank you for making Sunday Morning Smart again. You are very welcome, Chris. He says, suppose Mr. Trump wants to use official acts as evidence and part of his defense. If the judge says he can't, wouldn't that be unfairly prejudicial and provide him a basis for appeal? If the judge says he can't, wouldn't that be unfairly prejudicial and provide him a basis for appeal? If the judge says he can, wouldn't that open the door to the prosecution's use of official acts evidence as well? Thanks for all you do. Great question. I guess the opening caveat is, we have no idea because none of this has ever happened before. It's never been decided. There's no other court that's ever addressed this stuff at the trial level.

So it's a really, I don't think anyone has the perfect answer here. My inclination is it would be an open the door situation. I think if he brought it up, I think she probably let it in as long as it was relevant and probative, which is the general standard for evidence and trial. I think she would let it in, but she would let it in with the warning that if he entered it, he'd open the door to discussion of it and use of it against him. So that's my guess. I don't know, man. I don't know, man. If I were her or Jack Smith, I probably wouldn't let any potentially already determined immune evidence in from the prosecution. If I were her, I would say, I don't know. This is, again, like you said, Andy, we've never been here before. It's not like regular

old evidence with a regular old defendant. We're talking about a king here who has immunity. So it's like, even if you open the door, can you let non-prosecutable immune stuff in? Well, yeah, I get it. It's kind of radioactive. I totally understand where you're coming from. But my feeling is it absolutely cannot be entered on behalf of the prosecution. But the defense is different. And this is true

for other evidence that is not admissible against a defendant. A defendant can waive that protection and enter it if he thinks that it's good for him. So for instance, the prosecution can't use a statement by one spouse against another spouse. Like let's say the dude got a man and wife, they're married, the guy's on trial for some crime and they have a statement from his wife that he, the guy's on trial for some crime, and they have a statement from his wife that he committed the crime. We can't enter that because of spousal immunity. Your spouse can't be forced to testify against you.

Well, if the defendant for some reason felt that that statement was beneficial to him, the defendant could, but by doing so, they waive the immunity and everything else the spouse said would then come in. So I think she would fashion something like that. But who knows? I'm guessing. My big fear though is if he appeals, if he wants to use immune stuff as a defense and she says that opens the door and then he gets convicted and then he appeals his conviction, I wouldn't put it past the Supreme Court to say, nope, nope, you can't waive POTUS immunity.

You can't waive it. The whole thing's thrown out. You made a mistake. That's fair. That's fair, it could happen. Yeah, on earth one where like a reasonable law would apply, we wouldn't have immunity. We wouldn't have immunity.

So yeah, I would be very, I'd be like, nope, you can't bring it in. I would even say, if I were Jack Smith, I'd say, sure, you can use it to defend yourself. We're not even going to touch it. Yeah. And they might be like, that was him? We didn't bring in the immune stuff. He did.

And we don't need the door open because we're not going to talk about it. But nothing can save you now. Like seriously reading this brief, Andy, this is so devastating. This amount of evidence and testimony that Jack Smith has to prove everything that he needs to prove is, I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. I mean, imagine, imagine the immunity ruling went the other way. This is the case that would be going to trial at some point. Right. Okay.

Plus the DOJ stuff. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. I mean, this plus the DOJ stuff that we lost in the Supreme Court, I mean, talk about an overwhelming mountain of problems for the defendant. Yeah. And I think maybe, you know, Judge Shuckin might come back and say, hey, you know what, these couple of conversations with Pence are immune and you have rebutted immunity because it's not anybody's job in the executive branch to do this, to provide, to count electoral votes or anything like that.

And I don't think this tweet can come in. Maybe she'll not allow a couple of tweets in and perhaps some statements from Bill Barr or things like that. She might say, nope, I'm going to not let that in. And then, you know, of course Trump will appeal all that up to the Supreme Court and we'll see where it stands. But I'm with you. I don't think that Jack Smith will get 100% of what he wants. I think a couple of things will be barred in the interest of erring on the side of, you know, conservatism, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, he's, you gotta remember when you're reading these things, this is the prosecution's argument, right? And of course their argument is a bit absolutist. It's like, everything here is fine. It's not official. We've rebutted the presumption. It's all good, it's good, it's good.

Well, every, if you lined out every single piece of evidence just in a spreadsheet, they're not all equally strong on those points. There are going to be some that are closer to the edge than others. And I think it's likely that Judge Chutkin is not going to go their way on every single piece of evidence. But there are so many, and there are so many really solid foundational arguments that support multiple pieces of evidence, I think at the end of the day, he's going to walk away with a lot of what he wants. Now, we've always talked about, like, there will be that moment for him after this process is over and before the case goes forward, he's going to have to see what he gets out

of Judge Chutkin and ultimately the appeals that follow to say, is there enough meat on the bone there for me to go forward? Well, I think with this mountain, there's a good chance he's going to walk away with enough. AMT – I think there is. And honestly, if you read the superseding indictment, which I know we all have, I think just like his initial indictment was written for perhaps a gutting of the 1512C2 statute, it was written with a narrower interpretation of that statute in mind. I think this superseding indictment was written, I mean, you know, he just redid it.

He retooled this indictment. And I think it was written keeping in mind like that it will still stand even if the Pence stuff is completely removed, just like removing all of the Department of Justice stuff. Now he's like, hey, we might not get the Pence stuff. We might not get the Bill Barr statement. We might not get some of these tweets. We need to write this indictment in such a way that all the charges still stand without

that evidence coming in. And his description of the fraudulent elector scheme conspiracy, I think on its own, simply on its own, is enough to go forward with a prosecution on these same four charges, the way that the superseding indictment is written. I'm sure he had it in mind that some of this stuff might be immune going in and that he could toss out some of the more controversial stuff, but he swung for the fences and kept it in to see if he can keep it in. But I think he can go forward on this prosecution without it. No doubt. I think that's the strategy. And they know that it's better than we do. Certainly.

They know every fact and every allegation and every piece of evidence that's in that indictment and what they've now laid out in the motion. They know the relative strengths and weaknesses of each piece. They know the arguments against their arguments. and they expect to lose some percentage, but not the most. And they expect to walk away with a still very strong case. And yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah.

Because you and I have said for a long time, he can go forward on just the fraudulent elector scheme alone with this prosecution. And that's all private. That's all obviously not immune. Okay. Thank you so much, everybody. I know this was a long episode, but you know, it was to be fair, it was quadrupled the number of pages allowed that we had to discuss on this episode.

I want to file a motion to say that I only wanted to do an hour episode this week, but it was denied. So here we are. And of course we didn't want to leave off listener questions because they're just so good. So please submit your questions to us by clicking on that link in the show notes. And we look forward to discussing all of this with you next week and see where we are next week. It should be interesting to say the least. No doubt. No doubt.

Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here, my friend? Man, it's a lot. It's a lot to process this week, but really good stuff. I, you know, for those hardcore listeners who can't get enough, download it. Take a look. Just flip through it. It's a very fun read. It's not like super hard to follow. It's even just the first part. If you just want to dip into the kind of factual recitation, it's totally worth your time. Yeah, that factual proffer is intense. And when we get the second half of this thing sometime after October 10th, Andy, I think

most of that's going to be redacted. I don't think we're going to see a lot of stuff for the public eye in there because a lot of it is definitely sensitive materials, which were initially covered by paragraphs 11 and 12 of the Protective order last year. All right. Thank you everybody. We will see you next week And whoo, we're just gonna keep marching forward. Thank you so much for listening. I've been Alison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe