Jack - Jack | Episode 80 | Cannonagans

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

Again, Judge Cannon has rearranged the pre-trial schedule AND is allowing oral arguments from non-parties in a hearing about whether Jack Smith was appointed and funded appropriately. This is the same sort of motion to dismiss that Judge Chutkin dismissed in a matter of days.We have an update on Jay Bratt’s motion to modify bail conditions that he refiled since our last episode.Walt Nauta’s attorney cops to missing filing deadlines.Federal law enforcement is still investigating the Michigan fraudulent electors scheme.Plus, a listener question and more. Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJ Brian Greer’s Quick Guide to CIPAhttps://www.justsecurity.org/87134/the-quick-guide-to-cipa-classified-information-procedures-act/ AMICI CURIAE to the District Court of DC https://democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Attachment-Brief-of-Amici-Curiae-in-Support-of-Governments-Proposed-Trial-Date.pdfGood to know:Rule 403bhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_40318 U.S. Code § 1512https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 Prior RestraintPrior Restraint | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information InstituteBrady MaterialBrady Rule | US Law |Cornell Law School | Legal Information Institutehttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule#:~:text=Brady%20material%2C%20or%20the%20evidence,infer%20against%20the%20defendant's%20guiltJenksJencks Material | Thomson Reuters Practical Law Glossaryhttps://content.next.westlaw.com/Glossary/PracticalLaw/I87bcf994d05a11e598dc8b09b4f043e0?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)Gigliohttps://definitions.uslegal.com/g/giglio-information/Statutes:18 U.S.C. § 241 | Conspiracy Against Rights18 U.S.C. § 371 | Conspiracy to Defraud the United States | JM | Department of Justice18 U.S.C.  § 1512 | Tampering With Victims, Witnesses, Or Informants Questions for the pod Submit questions for the pod here https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJCheck out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AGFollow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

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

Send me to jail! Welcome to episode 80 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel. It is Sunday, June 9th. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Alison, we have so much to cover today. It's amazing how much content is generated by Eileen Cannon's docket with so few actual results. We have an update on Jay Bratt's motion to modify Trump's bail conditions based on his

remarks about the FBI's operations language limiting the use of force during a search of Mar-a-Lago and Walt Nauta's Trump paid lawyer accepting responsibility for failing to file a timely show cause response. Hmm. Yeah, and and we have Judge Cannon now rearranging yet again the pretrial schedule that we went over in episode 77 and the pre-trial schedule that we went over in episode 77. And she's allowing oral arguments from non-parties in the case in a hearing about whether Jack Smith was appointed and funded appropriately, along with a revelation in Michigan that the feds are still investigating the fraudulent elector scheme. But first, let's talk about our, you know, good week,

bad week situation. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I gotta turn the light this week onto Jack Smith. And I kind of feel like it's been another bad week for our man Jack because, you know, just when you think the insanity in Florida has gone as far as it can go, and we've kind of squeezed the juice out of every possible delay.

All of a sudden, she comes up with new stuff. It's like the land of wacky decisions in Judge Cannon's court. And we got some of those today. We're obviously going to go through them this week. But I thought really no good news down there for Jack Smith. No. And I think the bad week for Trump continues with, you know, he's just still

a convicted felon. And that's just going to be how it is for the rest of his life. So I don't know that we can really use that anymore in good week, bad week, since it's just a default, you know, bad life. It's just a default characterization of his existence from now on. Yeah. You know, I have life Default Characterization of his existence from now on. Yeah, but it was you know for being a I think it's just a neutral week for everybody I think it's kind of kind of bad for Jay Bratt with his I

think mistakes in the motion to modify the bail conditions. And also not good that Judge Cannon is allowing oral arguments. We're going to get into this later. The circus is coming to town. It really is. Wow. But she did cancel that weird three-day hearing about the scope of the prosecution team. But I think she's just postponed that indefinitely now. But I think it's, you know, with regard to the Florida case, I think it's just another bad week for speedy justice.

Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. I'm not convinced that that hearing isn't going to come back at some point. The next, I don't know, 40th revision of the schedule will contain a, that thing will show back up. So we'll, I have a feeling we'll see that again. Yeah, it was a real bad week for Steve Bannon though. He was ordered to prison by July 1st and so he'll have to go do that. Of course, they're calling it election interference because his sentence will basically run until a few days before the election. But you know, had he just served his time, he'd have been out in February of last year. Yeah, this is the most postponed four month sentence I've ever heard.

Yeah. Yeah. So you know, you can't call it election interference if you're the cause of the delay. If you're what's running this right up to the election, because with your delays and your privilege battles and your continuances and your appeals and being out in dependency of your appeal, that's on you. I'm sorry. Yeah. Maybe interference with the primaries, but not now. I mean, come on. It's crazy. Not even, not even. He was indicted a year and a half ago. He'd be all done. Had he just served a sentence, it's only four months. Like, come on, buck up, get in there. So bad week for him. Bad week for Rudy. They recommended his disbarment. Bad week for, for, for trupus and, uh, Roman and

the cheese because they were indicted in Wisconsin. So, you know, it's, uh, in other areas outside of the Jack Smith O sphere. Her view. Yeah. Yeah. Bad week for the big lie, I think is how the New York times put it. Uh we'll see. Those cases are moving along. We'll be talking about Michigan a little bit later in the show. Yeah, so there are progress in some places. Florida's not one of those places. No, no. DC isn't either, but you can't blame DC.

You can't blame Judge Chuckin. And really, as we crank on towards the middle of June, we got to start thinking about getting a ruling from SCOTUS. Those come out typically on Thursdays, so we have a little bit of a Thursday watch now for the next couple of weeks. I've guessed all along it'll be at the very tail end of the month, but who knows? Or even first week of July. I think it'll be within a month within the next four. By episode 85, we should have an immunity decision. Unless of course, I mean, they have 29 more decisions to drop between they bottlenecked their calendar to where they may now need

more time to release their decisions. I don't know if they're gonna push them into the next term. I have no idea. Usually I asked professor Vladek, Steve Vladek, and he's like usually they just add some days on to the end of the term. They don't usually push, they don't push them to next term. But you know I wouldn't put anything past these folks so we'll see what happens. But as talking about other delays, where should we start today? So let's go down to Florida with the motion to modify bail conditions. So you'll remember where we left off last week

when Jay Bratt, one of the members of Jack Smith's team, filed a motion to modify the conditions of Trump's release. Now to remind folks, bail conditions are the things Trump or any defendant must do or avoid doing to prevent being remanded to jail pending trial. So for example, a defendant can't commit any crimes whether out on bail or else they can be sent to jail. And a couple weeks ago, after some exhibits were redacted and unsealed, liberating them from Judge Cannon's secret docket, we learned that Trump's attorneys misquoted the standard language the FBI uses

on operations orders, which they must prepare before executing any search warrant. So Trump's lawyers said that the FBI was authorized to use deadly force when necessary, when the ops order actually says only when necessary and only when the lives of officers or other people are in danger. Now Trump used that standard form to promote a conspiracy theory that the FBI and Joe Biden wanted to assassinate him. Which he's arguing is totally legal in the Civil Court. Yeah, so if he wins at SCOTUS, maybe that actually happens. I don't know. I'm not advocating for that either, that decision or that result, but it's a bit ironic. So anyway, Jay Bratt filed a motion to modify

Trump's bail conditions to bar him from saying things that endanger the lives of law enforcement officers, something that Trump has a well-documented history of doing. But there's a local rule requiring attorneys to meet and confer before filing any motion, and Jay Bratt failed to do that. Instead, Bratt reached out to Trump's lawyers to get their input, but Trump's lawyers wanted to meet and confer a few days later after the Memorial Day weekend. The J. Bratt didn't want to wait, so he mentioned the interaction in his motion, but he didn't technically meet and confer with Trump's lawyers on the merits.

Now this seemingly basic procedural error was exacerbated by the fact that Bratt didn't file for emergency relief, nor did he ask for an expedited briefing schedule, both of which would have made his decision to push forward before Memorial Day without a meet and confer more reasonable. He also didn't attach any declarations from FBI agents about the threats posed by Trump's language, which would have given the judge some meat basically upon which to base a decision. But he did include a history of violent incidents following past comments by Trump about law enforcement, which we know there's been a

few of those. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Judge Cannon denied that motion without prejudice, and then yelled at him for failing to follow the local rules regarding meaningful meet and confer. And she also set new rules, more stringent rules about future meet and confer things. She was requiring 200 words, must be verbatim, it has to be in a separate certificate on any future motions about, you know, that's what the new rules are for the meet and confer. And that brings us to this week. And Jay Bratt refiled his motion.

That's new for us, you know, that we didn't get to cover last week because of, you know, time is linear. But he refiled the motion. But I think there still might be some problems with this. First, he filed the exact same motion to modify bail conditions. The only thing he changed was a date because he said something like yesterday and he had to change it to May 28th because it was no longer yesterday. And then he, you know, let's see, he didn't add any evidence. Like you said, he didn't add any declarations. I know Brian Greer was like, when you refile, you should probably stick a declaration in

here. Yeah. And he didn't ask for an expedited briefing. He didn't file for emergency relief again. And that move just to refile the same thing again with your little meet and confer at the end of it, your little meet and confer certificate just seemed like seems bratty. It's definitely bratty because it's coming from Jay Brad. So technically it just seems a little like, I don't know, I'm not going to say unprofessional, but

like kind of like a little dig. You know what I mean? Like fine here. It like reminds me of this old Patton Oswalt bit about this angry magician. He had to open for who they found out they were going to get paid $25 less that night. And so he just pulled the trick out of the suitcase and said, here's the rings together. Now they're separate. Now they're together. Done. And he would stick it in the other thing and then he'd pull out his next trick and he'd be like, here's a handkerchief. It's coming out of my mouth. Done. And then like shove it into the, you know, the discard pile.

And that's kind of what this feels like to me. Like, oh, you want me to refile it with a meet and confer? Fine. Here's your meet and confer. Yeah. And then you stomp your feet and walk up the stairs really with your arms outstretched and little fists. And I get it. It's frustrating. This is stupid. Like there shouldn't have, you know, maybe just, you know, hey, refile with your meet and confer instead of all the admonishment and having and hawing that she tends to do. But like, I don't know, I would have attached a declaration, maybe changed it up a little bit, maybe added why I did what I did and

then, you know, and then refiled. But no, same exact motion with the meet and confer attached. And that just seems like you're kind of poking at the judge to deny your motion. That makes it appealable. I agree. I agree. I mean, it just seems kind of half-baked, right? I mean, like, he's backed himself

with this entire effort and kind of the presumption of it, that Trump's speech is presenting a threat of violence, an imminent threat of violence, if you will, to law enforcement officers, kind of backed himself into a position where like this is an emergency. So if that's what you're saying or implying, you got to frame it as an emergency. You got to, you know, put it on the rocket docket. You got to put an affidavit or a declaration from an agent that says why it's dangerous and how we've seen this happen in the past, things like that. Substantiate the things that Trump actually said, you know, for the record. So I just don't get it. It seems like they weren't all fully on board with this thing when they initially filed it. It got thrown

back in their face, which is frustrating, but you don't now come back with another like we're not fully on board with this sort of filing. It doesn't make them look good. I would have gone for the meet and confer. If they said no, wait until Monday. If I could wait until Monday, I would have waited until Monday. If I thought it was so emergent that I couldn't wait until Monday, I would note that in the filing. I would ask for emergency relief and I would ask for an expedited briefing schedule. And then if she, you know, then she wouldn't have reason to deny the motion without prejudice. She could either deny it or call for briefing on it and deny the expedited part and, you know,

go from there. It would have at least given them a reason for not meeting and conferring, which is basically what they claimed in the filing anyway. Right. They said this is of dire importance. We can't wait three days. It's got to go before you now. But not not as on an emergent basis and not with expedited briefing. It just doesn't make sense and makes the overall makes the whole thing look kind of half baked. Well, she she certainly didn't give it an expedited briefing, did she?

Yeah, she sure didn't. Because in response to Jay Brad's refiled motion to limit what Trump can say about law enforcement while out on bail, Judge Cannon ordered a briefing. And it's the opposite of expediting, which means slow. On June 2nd, she entered a paperless order on the docket requiring Trump's response by June 14th, and the government's reply due on June 21st. Yeah, you don't need three weeks to brief this. No, especially not if it's an emergency, which you kind of, in a half-baked way,

claimed it was originally. Yeah, and it seems like Trump hasn't posted any further assassination conspiracy theories. Doesn't matter. It's out there now, and everybody's running with it. But she's given him a lot of time to do so. And, you know, maybe also Trump is not making these additional comments because it would give more ammunition to the Department of Justice when she holds the ultimate three day hearing with amicus oral arguments attached in August over this issue.

attached in August over this issue. So he doesn't want to give her any ammunition there or give the government any ammunition there. But yeah, I will say this, if she denies this motion that will be appealable to the 11th Circuit. But after this, I think, mistake of violating the meet and confer rules and not making it an emergency, it might be a hard case to take to the 11th circuit. They're certainly not making their case any better. Right. Right. If that's the sum total of their argument that they're going to run to the 11th circuit and say, oh, we filed this thing and said it was a security emergency and she didn't

treat it as such. They're going to look right at the details we're talking about now. And they're like, well, neither did you really. So yeah. Yeah. And so that briefing is that'll be fully briefed by June 21. There's also something really fun now that's going to happen on June 21. And when I say fun, I mean, awful and weird. And we're going to talk about that after this quick break. So stick around, we'll be right back. ["Walt Noda Saga"]

Welcome back. All right, let's talk about the Walt Noda Saga because it appears his lawyer, Stanley Woodward, failed to follow some instructions. So let's piece together what happened with this. On May 21st, Judge Cannon issued this order. She said, the court is in receipt of the joint status report regarding sealed filings.

Upon review, the clerk is directed to unseal ECF, and then she lists several document numbers. She goes on to say, on or before May 28th, 2024, defendant Noda shall publicly file docket entry 138 with redactions to names of potential witnesses, ancillary names, and personal identifying information, PII. And the special counsel shall publicly file docket entry 142

with redactions to witness names, ancillary names, and PII. In docketing these filings, the parties shall clearly indicate in the docket text the corresponding sealed filing. OK, so special counsel complied with the order to unseal their redacted filing, but Nauta failed to docket his. The government's redacted filing is the special counsel's response to Nauta's motion to reference discovery. It's of note that this filing was originally submitted on September 1st, 2023.

Oh my god. 2023. Oh my God. Yeah. It languished on Canon secret docket while the parties litigated these redactions for nine months. Yes. Nine months, three quarters of a year on, on this, on this set of motions, redactions on this set of motions. How many of those SIPA proceedings got done in those nine months? Oh my God. Zero?

Okay, so according to the September DOJ filing, Nauta was seeking grand jury testimony from last year's Garcia hearing. As a reminder, the Garcia hearing was held to ensure that the defendant, Walt Nauta, who is one of two defendants represented by the same attorney, Stanley Woodward, realized the following. One, that there is risk of conflict of interest inherent in the joint representation of Nauta

and the other defendant. And two, that he is entitled to the services of an attorney who does not represent anyone else in the defendant's case. So you'll recall Stanley Woodward had represented both Nauta and Yuseal Tavares, but Tavares opted to use the government recommended lawyer instead of Woodward, the Trump paid lawyer. Now there will likely be a conflict of interest if this case ever goes to trial and Tavares testifies for the government, which he is expected to. Woodward would then have to cross-examine Tavares and he really can't do so without

violating his duties to both clients. Yeah, I remember this whole saga. Yeah. So, let's say Tavares gave, while Woodward was representing him, Tavares tells Woodward something that implicates his credibility. So now he's got his new attorney. He's testifying for the government.

Woodward has to cross-examine him. Woodward either cross-examines him with the information that Tavares gave him, which is a violation of Taveras's attorney client privilege, or he doesn't cross examine him on that information, which is violating Nauta's right to have an unconflicted and aggressive attorney. So either way, you got a problem. So what do you do? Also, now if that happens, Nauta, and Nauta is convicted,

after his conviction, Nauta can turn around and file an appeal for insufficient assistance of counsel because his lawyer basically had one hand tied behind his back with respect to the cross-examination of Taveras. Now, I think this was resolved because Taavares waved conflict of interest and was comfortable with Stanley Woodward representing Nauta. And so, but I think that's what eventually ended up happening.

But that was kind of, this is sort of the birthplace of this whole thing. Right. So in order to make sure that both defendants know what they're entitled to, and in order to make sure that if one of the defendants waves the conflict, which is what Nauta did, he can't turn around and use it on appeal later. That's the purpose of the Garcia hearing.

I know that was a really long explanation. I'm sorry about that. But that's why you bring him into court. The judge explains what's going on here. And both of them get the opportunity to either waive the conflict or say, no, Judge, I think that's serious. I need a new attorney.

So that's what happened. And on May 28, Nauta was supposed to unseal his motion to get that grand jury testimony. And he missed that deadline. Yeah, and, and, and cause he was supposed to make redactions to it. And they've been litigating these redactions for nine months.

And at that point, judge Cannon ordered Nauto's lawyer, Stanley Woodward, to show cause, to file a show cause motion as to why he has to show cause, why he failed to comply with the court's order to meet that May 28th deadline. And on June 3rd, Cannon issued a minute order saying, I've received your late redactions, but have yet to receive your show cause filing. And that was she said that on June 3rd. And then later that same day, she issued the order. And then Stanley Woodward

filed his notice of compliance. And here's what it says. It says, Mr. Nata's lead defense counsel Stanley Woodward accepts full responsibility for and regrets the unintentional error in failing to comply with the court's deadline for submitting a redacted copy of docket entry 138 as instructed by the court in its May 21st, 2024 paperless order. This inadvertent oversight will not reoccur. By way only of explanation, defense counsel recognizes the significant effort by all involved in this action to manage the flurry of activity in this matter.

Oh, sorry. There's a flurry involved here. Concerning the voluminous unsealing that has occurred in the past two months. In that time, 11 separate orders concerning the complete or partial unsealing of 25 filings have issued. Mr. Nata specifically was required to ensure 11 separate filings were docketed with redactions and thus available to the public with corresponding unredacted sealed submissions and accompanying notices cross referencing each one. This is the thing that her secret docket has caused. Defense counsel's oversight in docketing a redacted copy of docket entry 138 was inadvertent. And again, defense counsel sincerely regrets this error

and apologizes to the court. Yeah. And there's a footnote that reads, defense counsel is acutely aware that this is the second time the court has issued an order directing Mr. Nolotta to comply with a prior order of the court. So, I mean, a couple takeaways here. First, Stanley Woodward has missed a couple of deadlines and Cannon doesn't seem to have a crossword for the guy, at least not yet. I mean, maybe she comes out with one, but so far none. Meanwhile, in every DOJ motion she grants, she reprimands DOJ, takes him to the woodshed

consistently. Second, these motions about releasing grand jury testimony sat on the secret docket, did I mention, for nine months and we still don't have not as redacted version nine months to resolve just the redactions for these motions. And this is just one of over a dozen on the secret docket. My gosh. At least some, I get, at least they're running parallel and not, you know, at least they're concurrent and not consecutive. Like, all right, we're going to spend nine

months and do this one and then on to the next, you know? How about, how about Woodward though? Like fails to file the thing on the date it's required. So she hits him with an order to show cause. And then he just turns around and files the thing late. No order. Right. And he still hasn't shown cause. He still hasn't said why. He just said, my bad. There was too much stuff going on.

Right. Sorry. Won't happen again. Although it's at least the second time that it's happened. So maybe it will happen. Yeah. But is she going to come after him for failing to adhere to the local show cause rules? Probably not.

I doubt it. Anyway, nine months just for this one thing. And it's an interesting filing too. The government is like, because you remember they had Taveras in the grand jury and Woodward was his representative and the government's like, they're questioning him and the government's like, hey, in the Garcia hearing, we have this other lawyer who you might want. And he's like, yes, new lawyer, new lawyer. And he takes the new lawyer. And so all of that, you know, is what Nauda wanted. He filed a motion for additional discovery. He wanted all that information. And of course, Judge Kinn put it on the secret docket and said, and by the way, none of those motions were filed publicly because they wanted

to redact the witness names, Tavares and the names of all that stuff and the grand jury testimony and things like that. And so she's like, well, you can't do that on public docket. So file it all private and we'll talk about the redactions. And then eight, nine months later, she goes, okay, now that we've figured out the redactions, you need to unseal your mo you need to make the redactions and unseal your motions. And he failed to do that. And that's why we ended up here. Just really nine months, man. That's nine months.

And once again, let's remember that this entire seal secret Docker thing is a construction of hers that's supposed to aid transparency. So instead the result is they litigate this stuff in secret for nine months. You could have a child in that time. You could literally give birth to another human life in the time it takes her to figure out redactions on emotion. And none of us know any of it is happening

because it's all in secret. So well done on the move for transparency, Judge Cannon. Yeah, and in Florida, you would actually have to carry that pregnancy to term. I'm just, you know, just throw that in there. All right, we have a lot more to get to, especially this, you know, the mystery June 21st thing I told you about.

I'm really excited to talk about it. Again, I said it was fun and what I meant by fun was awful and weird. So we're going to talk about that after this break. Stick around. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. All right. So remember I said in the intro, I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st.

I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. I'm going to talk about the mystery of June 21st. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right. So remember I said in the A block, put a pin in June 21st. That's in the A block, we talked about that being the deadline for the briefing on the motion to modify the bail conditions to prevent stuff like the assassination conspiracy theory. Well, now, June 21st has another new and exciting thing happening. And I'm running out of adjectives to describe the cannon shenanigans, but. Cananigans? Yeah. Cannon shenanigans. I love it.

Okay. That's what. I think we got a name for this show. Cananigans. That's what we're calling it. You know, like her weird jury instructions or wanting a special master, taking nine months to litigate. Everything's without prejudice. This new thing though is bizarre beyond words. Back when Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial date and set the pre-trial hearing schedule, we went over it in episode 77. On June 21st, she scheduled a non-evidentiary hearing on the motion, Trump's motion to dismiss

the whole case based on the unlawful appointment and unconstitutional funding of special counsel Jack Smith, right? Right. Now, since then, several people have filed amicus briefs, including Ed Meese. He's like, I remember when he filed his first amicus brief in the, in the Colorado Supreme Court 14th amendment thing. Everyone's like, that guy's still around. It was what I was just going to say. I thought, I don't know, I shouldn't say that, but apparently it's what everybody said. So I'm good. I'm good. So yeah, Ed Meese, Citizens United, Edward Trent, Mike Mukasey, Steve Calabrese, Gary Lawson and more. And those arguing for Team Trump, they say Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and

funded. They asked, they filed a motion to give oral arguments. And we were like, right, like oral arguments from a amici in motion to dismiss on unlawful appointment? Never. But never say never. Never say never. They could have filed a motion to wear white wigs to the hearing and it probably would have been granted. I know. I know. So here's the order. Paperless order granting motions for leave to participate in oral arguments as amici curie, the representatives designated in the respective filings, Josh Blackman, Jean Schare, is it Schare or Schare? I don't know. And Matthew Seligman will be permitted to appear on behalf of amici curie and present

oral arguments at the June 21st, 2024 hearing on defendant Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment based on the unlawful appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. Approximately 30 minutes of arguments for each side. Yeah. Yeah. So Seligman is going to be arguing, I think, on behalf of the government, while Shear and Blackman are going to be arguing on behalf of Donald Trump. Now, Shearer and Blackman are going to be arguing on behalf of Donald Trump. Now, Shearer served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court, later served in associate counsel to the president in the White House

of President G.H.W. Bush, and has argued seven cases before the Supreme Court in addition to a lot of cases in the appeals courts and district courts. And here's what's interesting in their motion, you know, Trump's friends of the court in their motion to get oral arguments, they cite Clarence Thomas because during the immunity arguments, which happened April 25th, as we know, we're still waiting on a decision that That's in the DC case. Justice Thomas actually asked Trump's lawyers, quote, did you in this litigation challenge the appointment of a special counsel? So that, you know, they're kind of basing all of this on that one utterance of Clarence Thomas in the immunity argument. This is my interpretation.

That's a direct shot at the judge. That's like, hey, heads up, the Supreme Court is interested in this issue. Because a question during oral arguments has zero precedential value. It's not law. It's not a finding. It's not even dicta. It's just stray voltage. Yeah,

so that's just crazy. Yeah, absolutely. So real quick, Andy, what is Trump's argument? What will this sheer fella be arguing on behalf of Ed Meese, Citizens United and Mukasey and Donald Trump in order to dismiss the case, saying that Jack Smith was inappropriately appointed and funded. Yeah. So this is a pretty detailed kind of esoteric constitutional argument. It's premised on the Appointments Clause, which is found in Article 2, Section 2, which

talks about the president having the power with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties, blah, blah, blah. And then about halfway down it says, referring to the president's power, it says, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law. But the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. So there's a lot of language in that kind of second half of the appointments clause that's relevant here.

But basically what the Trump motion argues, this is actually a quote from their briefing, it says, there is no statute establishing an office of special counsel. As a result, because neither the constitution nor Congress have created the office of special counsel. As a result, because neither the Constitution nor Congress have created the office of special counsel, Smith's appointment is invalid, and any prosecutorial power he seeks to wield is ultra virus, which means beyond the powers or exceeding the scope or power conferred by law.

So basically their argument says that Jack Smith is not an officer under the statute cited by the AG. So in his appointment of Smith, of course, the AG references some statute and they say none of those statutes, under none of those statutes is Jack Smith a constitutional officer. At best, he's merely an employee of the Department of Justice. Now, they say that the AEG also relied on regulations that were enacted by Janet Reno, which lay out kind of the details about how the Department of Justice appoints special councils. And their argument is that regulations are not, quote, a law of Congress. There is no congressional act that creates the office

of special counsel. And so since there is no office, then Smith is not a constitutional officer. Thus, he serves at the discretion of the attorney general and not as an independent or as independent as the attorney general has claimed that he is. So there's a lot going on here. And quite frankly, I'm not really sure why simply considering Jack Smith to be an employee

who functions under the supervision of the AG is a problem or somehow renders his work as a special counsel or special prosecutor invalid. But I can say that these are probably the same arguments that were made in the Manafort case and have been made before. And there is a long history of special counsels appointed exactly the way Jack Smith was, and none of them have been made before. And there is a long history of special councils appointed exactly the way Jack Smith was, and none of them have been thrown out as being unconstitutional. That battle was waged in the Manafort case, attacking, of course, special counsel Mueller, and he failed in that effort. Yeah, and I imagine, if for some reason,

Cannon finds that Jack Smith wasn't appropriately appointed or there's something wrong with special counsel regs or something, and that's somehow upheld all the way up to the Supreme court. Well, then you got to throw out Robert Herr's findings and you got to throw out Durham's findings and you got to throw out Mueller's findings and you have to throw out David Weiss's findings and they're in court right now on the Hunter Biden gun charges. So I don't really see how this is possible because even if she makes... John Durham's findings and the cases that he brought, okay, he didn't win any of them,

so who cares? But had he, I mean, the whole thing is kind of nonsensical. And I don't understand why, even if they think, like even if DOJ thinks that the Trump argument might succeed, like who knows what'll happen in Cannon's court, that's just like off the wall. You might as well flip a coin. But let's say, let's say she agrees with Trump and then DOJ turns around and appeals it.

What's to stop DOJ from then turning around and saying, okay, well, he's fine. He's an employee. He's actually functioned under the auspices of the AG from day one. The AG is the only person that can remove the special counsel. He can only do it for cause, but nevertheless, he has that, that he holds over the special counsel's head. So like if they sort of reclassify him, it doesn't erase the indictments that have been.

No, but it does bolster Trump's argument that Joe Biden by way of Merrick Garland is pulling all the strings. You know, his prosecutorial misconduct and vindictive and selective prosecution. But that doesn't get the case thrown out. No, no, it doesn't. And I don't think that the 11th circuit would, you know, like, and when I say that if she dismisses this based on, you know, dismisses the indictment based

on this, I don't think that makes it past the 11th circuit. I really don't. I don't either. But that's basically what they're saying on that part of their motion, which is focused on the appointments clause. Yeah. Now, in addition, Andy, to granting these oral arguments, Judge Cannon has now rearranged the pretrial schedule and indefinitely postponed some things. We talked about that a little bit earlier. The new schedule goes like this. On June 21st, as we know, as previously scheduled, there's going to be an argument starting at 930 a.m. Eastern on the Appointments Clause challenge for the whole day. The court anticipates starting with arguments from counsel for the parties, proceeding to hear argument

from amici and rebuttal from the parties as necessary and then accommodating any presentation of evidence if deemed necessary by me the court. And note here this was originally scheduled as a non-evidentiary hearing. So hmm, that's an interesting... There goes another one. You know what? Who knows? Who knows what she's gonna say? It's she is not, we've already proven she is in no way limited by her prior decisions. So here we are. Now, what else did she change? Well, she said, by appropriate notice filed no later than June 10, 2024, defendant Nauta

shall clarify whether he adopts or joins in defendant Trump's motion to dismiss indictment based on unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel Jack Smith. But not Dale Lavera? Yeah, and who knows? Like not his lawyer probably won't file on time, but then he'll be able to file it later. So it doesn't really matter. I just think it's weird that she's like, Hey, Nada, you want to join?

You want to join in? You want to join this party? But not Dale Lavera. Did he start cooperating or something? Am I unaware of like, why? Why just Nada? That is a very logical question. But I'm afraid we're in a place where logic doesn't apply the way it does in most other

cases. So I don't know. It would be really funny if Dale Lavera filed something saying, hey, what about me, judge? What's up? Yeah. Can me a little love on the nudge-nudge. Your lawyer should do the followings sort of signals. Yeah, so she goes on to say, on June 24, 2024, the court will hear argument as follows.

10 AM, appropriations clause challenge has raised in the defendant Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment based on the unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel Jack Smith. Okay, so now we have a day and a half. Yeah, they're only going to get to the appointments clause issue. That's the all day hearing on what, the 21st. Yeah, and then three days later, three days, they go back to the second half of the same motion to talk about the money side, the money argument, that illegal funding, allegedly. And then at three o'clock that same afternoon,

special counsel's motion for modification of conditions of release. Remember that one? The emergency motion we talked about at the top that wasn't really handled like it's an emergency. I can go with three after two days of arguments about the other stuff. On June 25, 2024, the court will hear argument on defendant Trump's motion for relief related to Mar-a-Lago raid and unlawful piercing of attorney-client

privilege. In light of the scheduling adjustments above, the court hereby cancels the partial evidentiary multi-day hearing on defendant's motions to compel previously scheduled for June 24 through 26, 2024 to be reset by subsequent order. And that was the hearing, the three-day hearing on the scope of the prosecution team. Yes. Because, you know, when you do a motion to compel evidence from the government, you got to go by what the definition of the pro you can't get anything from anyone outside of the prosecution team because the prosecution team doesn't have it.

And you remember Trump wanted stuff from basically every single agency and the federal government, including the department of energy because of his Q clearance that they forgot to cancel. And so he thought he still had the ability to delete video of him obstructing justice. I don't understand the arguments at all. Again, these motions are just to put a pin in so that usually, so you can file an appeal later, but boy, she is spending nine months on each of these things. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. you know, spending nine months on each of these things. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, basically the strategy for delay,

which has been, you got to give them credit, executed flawlessly, but partially because it's received two massive assists from Judge Cannon. One is of course, litigating the sealing and redaction issues from the sealed docket for months and months and months on end, and maybe even sometimes the decisions in those leading to motions for reconsideration. Right, where she wanted to release the witness lists. And then Patanjula Piozzo, it is just that secret docket has become just a gold mine

of delay. And now in a new twist, we have hearings, not only just hearings on everything, but hearings with guest lecture spots by conservative groups that want to come in as friends of the court. Yeah. I mean, it is, I can't describe how totally outside the realm of normal it is to have friends of the court presenting arguments in a trial court. This never ever happens.

I can't think of a single case that I've ever been associated with. And that's not because they haven't... Some of the national security cases that I worked with had controversial issues in them, issues like defendants who had been subjected to two different levels of interrogation, one from an intelligence team that interrogated a defendant without the provision of Miranda warnings, and then one from a clean team of FBI agents that followed and provided Miranda warnings. This is a serious constitutional issues there, unprecedented sort of things. Friends of the court were allowed to submit papers and briefs to the trial judge if they wanted to do so, but they didn't get to argue it. The admission of FISA evidence in proceedings

typically generates friends of the court statements and arguments, but they don't get to argue them because it's a trial court. You're trying to move this thing forward to get the case resolved. Yeah. But not here. Well, Judge Judkin. Trump filed this same motion, just for example, the motion to dismiss based on inappropriate appointment of special counsel and funding of special counsel.

And I think she took a handful of days. No funding of special counsel. And, you know, I think she took like a handful of days. No, denied. Yeah. No. And here's why. And a really full, beautiful explanation as to why. Right. All of which is uprooted. Take it up on appeal. That's where people can come in and let the steam out. But this isn't appropriate for a pretrial, you know, motion. So anyway, not like it's not appropriate to file, but it's inappropriate to dismiss at this stage, is what I meant to say when she denied those things.

All right, we still have something really interesting that happened in a Michigan court with regard to, we're going to talk about the DC case for a minute now. I know, again, it's been on hold, and we're still waiting for the immunity decision to come down. But something very interesting came out in that hearing, in that preliminary hearing in Michigan with regard to the fraudulent electors there.

And we'll talk about that, but we do have to take one more quick break. And then after that, we'll take listener questions. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right. Like I said, still no ruling from the Supreme Court on the immunity case. And I don't imagine we'll see it until the very, very last minute because you know, Justice Alito can't write his full dissent yet. He's very busy handling flags. Flag gate. Yeah. You know, trying to move flags around his various properties. So he's, you know,

he's busy, but I'm sure that this whole thing is taking forever because he wants to write a snitty dissent and that's going to take a, he'll put it off to the last minute. But it seems that the DC investigation continues. This is from Craig Mager and Melissa Nan Burke at the Detroit News. Testimony in a Michigan court Friday revealed that both state and federal investigators continue to investigate the certificates that falsely claim Trump won the 2020 election five months ahead of the next presidential election. On the fourth day of preliminary exams, that's preliminary examinations of the witnesses for six Republicans whose names appeared on the

false certificate in Michigan, a guy named Captain Darren Green of the Michigan State Police said he had been interviewed Thursday, last Thursday, not this previous but the week before Thursday, by someone from the FBI and two US prosecutors from Washington DC. Now if you're wondering who Captain Darren Green is, he was at the Michigan Capitol when a group of false electors tried to get into the building on December 14th to present their document to the Michigan Senate. And Green said the interview Thursday focused on the fraudulent electors

Now to US prosecutors from DC Just a week and a half ago Andy What are they doing? I've we have long said that the reason that all of the unindicted co-conspirators have not yet been indicted in the DC case Is to keep the Trump case clean and speedy to go before the election if possible, right? Yeah. I still believe that. So it's not you don't think that they haven't been indicted because they're still investigating. This seems like more like one of the witnesses you and I have talked about previously, one

of those evid like witnesses that you want to use at trial to be a foundational witness to bring in some sort of evidence or put your case on or, or clean something up or not clean up, but you know, tie up a loose end sort of a thing and get that sort of testimony as far as, you know, because the unindicted co-conspirators here that I would be concerned about are Chas Brough and the people who put together the fraudulent elector scheme, Sidney Powell, the unindicted co-conspirators in the Trump indictment. So maybe you need this particular witness to bring into evidence the fact that these Republicans were trying to get into the state house and were denied entry. I don't know. I don't know.

It's just an interesting thing that we know that in August of 2023, Jack Smith said to the court in DC, this investigation is still ongoing. So we know it's still an ongoing investigation. It's just interesting that we're still seeing and hearing about interviews that are happening. Yeah, this one, this really came out of left field. I think I've talked to a couple of reporters who were covering it and I think it really took everyone by surprise. Interestingly, the testimony they elicited, they elicited this comment, it wasn't, I've heard that it wasn't really clear whether or not he'd ever talked to them before.

So it could just be coincidence that whoever talked to him has talked to him, you know, a long time ago when they were developing kind of the facts around this story for whatever purpose. you know, a long time ago when they were developing kind of the facts around this story for whatever purpose, and they happen to like sit down with them and go through it again for, for whatever reasons of the timing could be kind of coincidental. But nevertheless, I think there's like two basic possibilities here. If you intend to go back and actually, um, pursue or investigate to determine whether or not you should pursue an indictment against a co-conspirator. This is a guy who you would definitely talk to if the facts of the fraudulent

electors activity are part of that investigation. This guy is like, he's a great witness, law enforcement witness, believable, and he can testify literally to their physical effort of trying to get into the building to commit the fraud. Totally. So if you're still investigating those. Instead, they go down to the Chuck E. Cheese and sign the certificate because they can't get into the Capitol.

So if you're investigating the unadited co-conspirators, you're definitely going to talk to this guy. But also- I'm sorry to interrupt, but especially if you need to prove that these electors knew that they weren't the electors. Yeah. Right. Because think about their defenses.

They're going to say, well, no, no, that's not what we were doing that day. We were just having a coffee break outside and talking about politics. And then we were coming in or we were told this was a contingency thing or we were tricked into it by Chesbro or, you know, he had an interaction with them at the door where he physically stands in front of them and doesn't allow them in the building and they make statements. There's a, there's a, there's undoubtedly an exchange between him and them. He said something, they say something in reply. there's undoubtedly an exchange between him and them.

He said something, they say something in reply. So you want all that evidence if you're going after the co-conspirators, but you also want that evidence if you're developing the narrative of the fraudulent elector scheme as one of the ways to prove that Donald Trump was trying to obstruct an official proceeding one of the ways to prove that Donald Trump

was trying to obstruct an official proceeding and essentially overturn the election. So it could still be about just doing their homework, firming up a witness's testimony, ironing out maybe some questions they had, maybe from an earlier interview, because in an eventual trial of Donald Trump on the January 6th case, they're going to need to show these different efforts that he was involved in, that he instigated, that he was aware of, all of which contributed

to the alleged obstruction of an official proceeding and the other charges. So it really, that's a long way of saying it could go either way. I don't think it's a solid indication of one direction or the other charges. So it really, that's a long way of saying it could go either way. I don't think it's a solid indication of one direction or the other. And in fact, it's possible that both are still at play. Also interesting to remember though, that part of the special counsel's job is to investigate and ultimately write a report. So this could be an effort, almost a defensive effort on the special counsel's office to like say, you know what? We got to clean up the facts and what we have and the testimony we would present on this

thing and build it all into our report because the report might be the only thing we ever do. Right. Like a preparation in case Trump wins the election and he wants to unseal the rest of these indictments or drop the rest of these indictments or drop the rest of these indictments, put them out on the- Or at least say in the report- And put a report out.

Here's the evidence we have to bring in indictments against these other people who are unindicted at the time and like establish the most rich, detailed, permanent record of their work and what they thought about it before they get kind of cast off into the, into the Netherland by a, by a Trump administration. Yeah. And I don't mean to say that in that this should be a, an alarm bell because he's prepping for Trump to win the election or anything like that. What I'm saying is, is that he's going to need this information for his report regardless

of who wins the election. It's just when he puts the report out, it might make a difference when he releases his report. The election might, but you know, he's going to need all this information anyway. Like you said, he's going to need this information for when he indicts the unindicted co-conspirators, which I still am very certain he will at some point. And so yeah, you need that information. So that makes sense. You do. And look, he's a realist. He knows what the

calendar looks like. He knows what's happening in November. He knows what that it's a binary choice that if Biden wins the case and the investigations and the trials and everything goes on. And if if Trump wins, they all go away. So he's not going to want to I would expect that that team is doing a lot of different things right now. One of the lines of effort is preserving the record, drafting things that will pieces that will ultimately be part of the final report if and when, you know, well, I shouldn't say

if whenever they need to release that report. Yeah. And, and one other quick piece of news to something that happened this week. I mentioned this at the top of the show, Jim Trupas, Roman and the cheese have been indicted in Wisconsin. Now, remember, Wisconsin didn't indict their fraudulent electors, but they did. You know, they had to come out and admit that they did it and apologize. But they have indicted the architects of the fraudulent electors scheme in Michigan, which is Jim Trupas, Mike Roman, and Ken Chesbrough. So that's going to be

very interesting. Wisconsin, I think, was also the state, the prosecutors who figured out that Ken Chesbrough had that secret badger pundit Twitter account where he basically contradicted everything that he told prosecutors on Twitter. So that might change the outcome for the cheese in several other states. We'll see. We'll see what ends up happening. Definitely. So, listener questions this week, my friend. All right, so we've got one that I think really dovetails

into a lot of the conversation we've had this week about Canon so far. References of what I thought was a really good article as well. So I'm going to go with this one. And it comes to us from Emily from Arlington. Arlington, Emily. Emily says, hello, thank you both for all that you do to help educate us normies out here. In light of the recent CNN profile on Judge Cannon by Tierney Snead and Hannah Rabinowitz, how well do you think Jack

Smith's team is adjusting to Cannon's ways? Quote the article, she doesn't defer automatically to the assertions of prosecutors cutting against the stereotype of judges always airing on the side of the government. I should tell you that that stereotype is not accurate. That's not true. I don't think at all. All judges don't lean towards the prosecution.

I think they give the prosecution a much harder time so that when they get a conviction. And the prosecution has a higher burden by definition, but nevertheless, there are some judges that are very, very defendant friendly. So it's, it kind of goes 50-50. Okay. She goes on specifically in that she has repeatedly taken Smith's attorneys to task for using broad generalizations to back up their requests.

She says, it feels like DOJ keeps walking into her somewhat predictable nets. Could this be in the hope to eventually appeal, but she perhaps strategically doesn't give them a viable excuse to appeal and instead snags the chance to delay more. I'm just starting to wonder if DOJ isn't necessarily adapting and predicting as well as they could to having a crappy nitpicky and perhaps biased boss for a judge thoughts. Yeah, that goes right at the heart of why I think Jay Bratt should have refiled that motion in a different way from a different position. Yeah, and I agree, as I said, with your assessment there, and I don't change any of that, but

I wanted to raise one possibility here. And we've talked a bit about, are they just logging all this stuff into the kind of chapter after chapter of what will be the book of an appeal that goes eventually in front of the 11th Circuit to try to get her taken off the case? That's possible. It's also possible that they've determined that

this is just a necessary period of suffering and that when the case finally gets to trial, the evidence against Trump is so overwhelming that it kind of doesn't matter if they really have the judge on their side. And that happens in cases sometimes. I think the Manafort case was kind of an example of that. It was pretty clear the judge over that case did not, was not supportive of the prosecution. A lot of very anti-prosecutor prosecutor rulings and the motions in that case. And I think in that case, the prosecutors just said, screw it. This guy's never going to like really give us the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn't matter because the evidence is so good, we're going to get a conviction. And of course they did. It's possible that

the special counsel team has kind of made the same assessment here. Like they're just going to get through dealing with her. You know, they can't change her pace. They certainly can't change her decisions. And so they're just going to get through this to turn on the lights in the courtroom. The first day of that trial, everything changes. What do you think of that? I agree. And I think they've made some good decisions to that end. Like for example, when the judge can, when Judge Cannon ruled that Trump would get to

see that evidence of social media threats. At first she granted ex parte and sealed, and then she changed her mind on the ex parte and we were like, let's see if Jack Smith fights the ex parte. He didn't. He just gave the stuff to Trump. I think that furthered this, but I think what Jay Bratt did, and this is really the only example I can think of right now with this motion to modify bail conditions.

I think he stepped in it and caused more delay by not filing emergency relief or waiting until Monday for a meet and confer. I think that was kind of an own goal. I totally agree. It was a miscalculation. That now it's going to take another three weeks and, and, and who knows what happens after that. So I think kind of partly yes and partly no. Um, I, that's why I really expected Jay Bratt to do something differently. Uh, even, even though he didn't. And I, I

would chalk that up as, I don't know, a miscalculation. He's way smarter than me though. Maybe he's got something up his sleeve that I don't know about it. But it just seemed like it added to the delay. But that's really the only instance that I can think of here. Yeah, we have not been very critical of their decisions to date, of their motion filings or anything like that, because it really hasn't been much reason to. This one, I think the criticism is totally fair. I also think on that motion, it's possible that they weren't really fully invested in it.

There are all kinds of reasons that you would file a motion like that. And one of them is basically, and I don't know that this was the case, I'm just saying it's a possibility, I've seen it in other cases. It's possible the FBI was outraged by these claims and was demanding that DOJ do something about it. And it may be that even, you know, DOJ didn't have that much really faith or hope that they would succeed, but they just kind of said, okay, we'll file it

they would succeed, but they just kind of said, okay, we'll file it because the bureau wanted them to. I've seen this before in cases where in a case like a defendant will do something stupid and will do something that basically qualifies as an assault on a federal agent. We don't take that kind of stuff lightly and we scream to high heavens demanding that they be charged with assault on a federal officer. And those cases typically don't go anywhere. But sometimes, you know, the US attorney's office will file a case realizing that it's not really going to go anywhere. They're going to end up like dropping the charge and pleading the guy out to something else on the substantive case. But it's not really going to go anywhere. They're going to end up like dropping the charge and pleading the guy out to something else

on the substantive case. But it's, they kind of have to, it's a show of support for something that the agents and the FBI takes very seriously. Yeah. It could be something like that going on here. I don't, again, I don't know that there is. I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility.

Yeah. Maybe the FBI rightfully was upset. wanted the DOJ to file something. And maybe the DOJ is like, bro, you want us to add another three months to the docket for your thing? Like it sucks and we're sorry. Maybe, yeah, who knows? Maybe that was the conversation that happened. I mean, as you know, I've not been a fan of these gag orders in any case. I feel like they put a lot of drag on the prosecution team for not a lot of benefit. Other people will argue that once the gag order is actually in place, Trump does moderate his language a bit, and maybe that's worth it. But this one clearly, they've gotten no benefit

out of it whatsoever. The judge hasn't even substantively really considered the request yet, and here we are. She won't until the earliest, the end of the month. So yeah, or maybe it was to just get the information out there, uh, to of the, you know, the fact that, uh, Bova and Blanche misquoted the standard ops form, you know, maybe just to get the information out there. Cause they don't really make statements, right? The only way they talk is through their filings. And so maybe that was just another way to get the information out there because they don't really make statements, right? The only way they talk is through their filings

And so maybe that was just another way to get that information out there will never probably know But will of course report to you what ends up happening with this specific motion and all the other motions Next time on cananigans Do you have any final thoughts? Oh, by the way, if you guys, you are, y'all are amazing. If you have any questions, please send them to us by clicking on the questions link in the show notes. Um, and we'll talk about them. Um, so yeah, my, I'm going to bet, I'm going to bet you a dollar that by episode 85 we'll

have an immunity decision. Wow. All right. I'll take that. All right. Cool. episode 85 will have an immunity decision. Wow. All right. I'll take that. All right, cool. I'll take that bet. I'm gonna say no decision until after episode 85, just cause I'm trying to steal a dollar from you. So there you go.

Yeah, I think this is like, I just want to say I'm continuously impressed by how well our audience tracks all the minutia and the details and the legal arguments around this stuff. It's fascinating to me that you guys are really in it as deep as you are. Well done, you're all getting kind of like free law school or something.

I don't know what it qualifies as, but you're getting a great insider look and the questions show the interest and the depth of consideration that people are putting to this. So I appreciate it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And we're glad that you're listening and spread the word. Let other people know if they want a more in-depth understanding of these proceedings, let them know that they can listen to the Jack podcast and get all that info. So thank you so much. We will be back next week. Until then, I've been Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe.