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DOJ Payback Politics (with Preet Bharara) · The Oath and The Office

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome once again to another episode of The Oath and
0:13
Speaker 1: the Office. I am John people sang, and right now
0:15
Speaker 1: we are witnessing a series of extraordinary clashes over the
0:19
Speaker 1: rule of law, the separation of powers, fundamental democratic norms,
0:23
Speaker 1: and from what's being described as an extortion demand over
0:26
Speaker 1: infrastructure to full on attacks on press freedom in Jersey
0:30
Speaker 1: and New York. A federal judge just blocked an effort
0:33
Speaker 1: to shut down the Gateway Tunnel for a president's vanity.
0:36
Speaker 1: The DOJ executed a search warrant at the home of
0:38
Speaker 1: a Washington Post reporter. What did these events say about
0:42
Speaker 1: the health of American constitutional democracy? I have no idea.
0:45
Speaker 1: I'm a dopey comedian. That's why I lean on the
0:48
Speaker 1: star of our show, best selling author and professor, Corey Bretschneiter. Corey,
0:53
Speaker 1: it's good to see you, Welcome back.
0:55
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure, John.
0:56
Speaker 3: And as horrible as things get, I look forward to
0:59
Speaker 3: this conversation every week.
1:00
Speaker 2: It gives me hope.
1:01
Speaker 3: And speaking of hope, we're gonna have after our discussion,
1:04
Speaker 3: a discussion with pre Berrara.
1:07
Speaker 2: His podcast is called Stay Tuned.
1:08
Speaker 3: I hope you'll stay tuned for that and uh, you know,
1:11
Speaker 3: it's an in depth conversation that we'll have with him
1:14
Speaker 3: about questions of integrity in the midst of such destruction.
1:18
Speaker 2: And so let's get to the destruction.
1:20
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
1:21
Speaker 1: You and pre Ferrara one on one is that's like,
1:24
Speaker 1: that's like pouring for the angels, Sir. That is just
1:27
Speaker 1: a brilliant conversation.
1:28
Speaker 3: But I Woanta, I want to before we get to there,
1:31
Speaker 3: quote from like somebody famous or you just no.
1:34
Speaker 4: I just that's something I made up.
1:35
Speaker 1: But let's before you get to your exalted conversation with
1:39
Speaker 1: pret Burrara, come down to the mud with me for
1:42
Speaker 1: a bit, Professor. Let's beget this because these current headlines
1:45
Speaker 1: about the temporary restraining order to stop the shutdown of
1:48
Speaker 1: the Gateway Tunnel project, which affects millions between New Jersey
1:52
Speaker 1: and New York City in essence blocking a political move
1:55
Speaker 1: to coerce state and local consent, I mean, Donald Trump
1:58
Speaker 1: essentially came out and said, I will release the funds
2:01
Speaker 1: for this critical infrastructure project if you name Penn Station
2:05
Speaker 1: and Dulles Airport after me. Now, Corey, we discussed this
2:09
Speaker 1: on serious XM already, but traditionally what you do is
2:12
Speaker 1: if you want to have buildings named after you, you do
2:15
Speaker 1: good things for people, and then later they name buildings
2:19
Speaker 1: after you to honor you for the good things you
2:21
Speaker 1: did for them. This president's doing it differently. He is
2:24
Speaker 1: trying to blackmail people into naming things after him that
2:27
Speaker 1: are already named and saying he will hurt them and
2:30
Speaker 1: not let the projects be built and waste billions if
2:34
Speaker 1: he doesn't get what he wants. I mean, is this
2:37
Speaker 1: a form of extortion that crosses legal lines or is
2:40
Speaker 1: this just really a pathetic, narcissistic version of political brinksmanship.
2:46
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know it is narcissism. And this
2:49
Speaker 3: is a person who wants to put his imprint. He
2:51
Speaker 3: put it on buildings in New York City, and now
2:53
Speaker 3: he wants it on a public monument in New York
2:56
Speaker 3: City or train station. He wants it on airports. He
2:59
Speaker 3: really wants to brand the name Trump. We would put
3:02
Speaker 3: it on the Lincoln Memorial if we let him. He
3:04
Speaker 3: wants to put that brand on our entire country and what.
3:07
Speaker 2: That stands for.
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Speaker 3: It's a symbol, I think, if nothing else, of the
3:11
Speaker 3: destruction of democracy into a kind of kleptocracy of regime
3:16
Speaker 3: of theft, and you know, thankfully he can't be indicted
3:20
Speaker 3: for extortion likely that you know, there's a question anyway
3:24
Speaker 3: about whether this is part of his official duty, but
3:26
Speaker 3: a good chance courts would say it is, and as
3:28
Speaker 3: part of his official duty, it's protected. That's the horror
3:32
Speaker 3: of the immunity case. That's part of why we're talking
3:34
Speaker 3: all of this. You know, I wish I could say, yeah,
3:36
Speaker 3: in Dietem he committed a crime, but there are other
3:39
Speaker 3: ways to go at him. And what's happening is that
3:41
Speaker 3: this project in New York and New Jersey is pushing
3:44
Speaker 3: back saying that this is a breach of contract. You
3:46
Speaker 3: can't just agree to a plan in which there's expense sharing,
3:50
Speaker 3: have an entire contractual arrangement, and then up end it
3:52
Speaker 3: with an extortion demand. So I think there is a
3:55
Speaker 3: realistic possibility, very strong possibility, that if Trump tries to
3:59
Speaker 3: stop this project, he's not going to get his name
4:01
Speaker 3: on the building. That's clearly not happening. But I think
4:04
Speaker 3: he also won't be able to stop the funding. And
4:07
Speaker 3: so yes, ideally he'd be indicted for something like this
4:10
Speaker 3: all sorts of things, one of many things, but realistically
4:13
Speaker 3: what's going to happen, I think is that courts will
4:15
Speaker 3: slow him down and stop him from succeeding in this
4:18
Speaker 3: attempt to brand all of us with his name.
4:20
Speaker 1: I mean, from a constitutional governance grown up standpoint Corey,
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Speaker 1: how dangerous is it when a federal authority is wielded
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Speaker 1: in such a seemingly personal and dare I say petulant way?
4:33
Speaker 1: I mean major infrastructure a funded in part with federal
4:36
Speaker 1: dollars relied upon by millions. It affects the economy when
4:41
Speaker 1: that becomes leverage for a personal conflict, not even about policy.
4:45
Speaker 1: I mean, what does that mean for the rule of law?
4:47
Speaker 1: Is there any legal precedent against this kind of tactic?
4:51
Speaker 2: Wow?
4:52
Speaker 3: You know, I would say, just to go back to
4:55
Speaker 3: the beginning, like, isn't this extortion that sure looks like
4:58
Speaker 3: it to me? And isn't that criminal trying to basically
5:02
Speaker 3: use public money in order to get your demands? I mean,
5:05
Speaker 3: it's mafioso in its characterization. And the thing that's really
5:09
Speaker 3: unprecedented is the Supreme Court's decision that the President of
5:12
Speaker 3: the United States has all sorts of immunity. Again, it's
5:16
Speaker 3: limited that we've talked to Sheldon White House about waste
5:18
Speaker 3: through legislation to coordinate off to define official duty very narrowly.
5:23
Speaker 3: But the bottom line is, what's unprecedented is not prosecuting
5:26
Speaker 3: somebody for extortion, the idea.
5:29
Speaker 2: That we're all under the law.
5:31
Speaker 3: So now we've got to find other more creative ways
5:33
Speaker 3: of fighting back. And that's the reality of this regime
5:36
Speaker 3: that we haven't face all unprecedented. A president of the
5:39
Speaker 3: United States, this naked and this aggression. We've seen other
5:43
Speaker 3: presidents act out in different ways, but this kind of
5:46
Speaker 3: raw extortion. We saw it from a vice president, that
5:48
Speaker 3: kind of corruption spureau agnum, But from a president in
5:52
Speaker 3: the open doing this, I think that really is different
5:55
Speaker 3: from what we've seen before.
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Speaker 1: I want to turn it now to another report that
6:00
Speaker 1: the DOJ executed a search of a Washington Post reporter's home,
6:05
Speaker 1: professor and filed a bar complaint related to coverage. Alarm
6:09
Speaker 1: bells have been going off in all the hot First
6:11
Speaker 1: Amendment circles on this. Jeff Bezos, of course, has had
6:15
Speaker 1: no comment about a reporter's home being searched, and this
6:18
Speaker 1: is a reporter who people leak to. How do you
6:22
Speaker 1: view this in light of constitutional protections for the press.
6:26
Speaker 1: It seems like this is done to intimidate other journalists
6:29
Speaker 1: more than to punish one.
6:30
Speaker 3: You know, I think our first story, John is important symbolically.
6:33
Speaker 3: It's about a president trying to put his name on
6:36
Speaker 3: our building and to destroy democracy in a sort of
6:40
Speaker 3: symbolic way. But when I think about this story, if
6:43
Speaker 3: I had to pick one thing that defines whether or
6:45
Speaker 3: not we're in a dictatorship or a democracy, it's whether
6:47
Speaker 3: or not the dictator can imprison those and investigate those
6:52
Speaker 3: who are doing.
6:53
Speaker 2: Things that displeases him. And you know, you like to
6:57
Speaker 2: think that.
6:57
Speaker 3: In America, of course, we have a First Amendment, not
6:59
Speaker 3: just a guarantee of the freedom of press, but a
7:02
Speaker 3: guarantee of free speech more generally. And you know, in
7:06
Speaker 3: the hot First Amendment circles, which I include the Supreme
7:09
Speaker 3: Court in that circle, and all those of us who
7:12
Speaker 3: care about the rule of law, not Donald Trump and
7:14
Speaker 3: his cronies, that's not even a hard thing to talk about.
7:18
Speaker 3: And we don't just have, thankfully, the First Amendment. There
7:21
Speaker 3: is legislation protecting journalists from being prosecuted for their work.
7:26
Speaker 3: And yet all of that, all of those laws, it's
7:30
Speaker 3: not just norms. We're going to talk later about the
7:32
Speaker 3: DJ and norms. These aren't norms. There's legislation, there's the constitution.
7:38
Speaker 3: Are just being blown through, and they're trying to essentially investigate,
7:42
Speaker 3: maybe charge journalists for doing their job under the grounds
7:45
Speaker 3: that they're committing espionage. Just to get into it. This
7:48
Speaker 3: is about an investigation into the kind of pressure on Meiduro,
7:51
Speaker 3: what was happening in Venezuela. This isn't sideline stuff. It's
7:55
Speaker 3: the heartbeat of the questions facing us right now as
7:59
Speaker 3: a democrat. And if you can't have investigations here, then
8:03
Speaker 3: in what way do we have a democracy? It's why
8:05
Speaker 3: the collapse into dictatorship. Are we collapsing? Have we collapsed?
8:09
Speaker 3: That is a very real question right now, and this
8:12
Speaker 3: example is one of the best for showing that.
8:15
Speaker 1: I mean, can you just explain what are the legal
8:18
Speaker 1: limits that the DOJ is supposed to observe before they
8:21
Speaker 1: target a journalist or their communications. I mean, is there
8:25
Speaker 1: some kind of constitutional threshold here that has to be
8:28
Speaker 1: met to justify going into this lady's house and taking
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Speaker 1: her laptops and phone.
8:34
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there is a clear answer about that.
8:37
Speaker 3: When the preperraras of the World when he was US
8:40
Speaker 3: Attorney for the Southern District of New York, when he
8:43
Speaker 3: was working at the Department of Justice.
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Speaker 2: We've had Glenn Kirshner on the show now twice.
8:47
Speaker 3: When he was at the Department of Justice, there was
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Speaker 3: a rule that had to be followed internally, which was
8:52
Speaker 3: essentially was, don't prosecute journalists for doing their job. If
8:55
Speaker 3: a journalist kills somebody or commits murder, fine, but not
8:59
Speaker 3: for journalists. And you can guess what's happened to that
9:02
Speaker 3: rule under the Trump administration. Pambondi has not just gotten
9:07
Speaker 3: rid of it, but just.
9:08
Speaker 2: Blown past it.
9:10
Speaker 3: And you know, there are laws about espionage, for instance,
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Speaker 3: that traditionally just don't apply to journalists, and there's legislation
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Speaker 3: to protect against that. But when you're Pambondi and you're
9:21
Speaker 3: doing the bidding of a president of trying to shut
9:23
Speaker 3: down democracy by shutting down descent and shutting it down
9:25
Speaker 3: the information flow that the press needs to give us
9:28
Speaker 3: to make decisions as citizens, again that's as important as voting.
9:33
Speaker 3: The lines are blown past and all of these norms
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Speaker 3: that protected us, all this law that protected us, seem
9:39
Speaker 3: to be a minimum eroding now it's not over. I
9:42
Speaker 3: think that the judiciary here, it's such a line that's been.
9:45
Speaker 2: Crossed, they'll push back.
9:47
Speaker 3: But there is a chilling effect and that's part of
9:49
Speaker 3: the danger here, that the press is being shut down
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Speaker 3: by the president, even if he doesn't succeed in a
9:55
Speaker 3: prosecution imprisoning this journalist, there's fear and that's.
10:00
Speaker 1: It seems like this is directly connected in a way
10:03
Speaker 1: to the Gateway tunnel story with infrastructure.
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Speaker 4: It's all about intimidation.
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Speaker 1: Yes, it's all about this government trying to use fear
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Speaker 1: to get its own way.
10:10
Speaker 4: It's not really about policy.
10:12
Speaker 1: I mean, there are people who are defending this search
10:14
Speaker 1: of a reporter's home saying that, you know, it's law
10:17
Speaker 1: enforcement acting within their boundaries. But what happens when a
10:22
Speaker 1: DOJ does things that have the effect of chilling reporting,
10:26
Speaker 1: especially on matters of public interest. It seems like, again,
10:29
Speaker 1: this is why they went after Don Lemon and those
10:31
Speaker 1: four journalists and for covering the protest and the Saint
10:34
Speaker 1: Paul church. They know Don Lemon and the black journalists
10:37
Speaker 1: didn't break the law. They're trying to scare other journalists.
10:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, and John, I think that's such an important point
10:42
Speaker 3: that a lot of times. And I think when you
10:45
Speaker 3: and I started talking about all this in twenty sixteen,
10:48
Speaker 3: when Trump was running, when even early in his first term,
10:51
Speaker 3: and you know, Preperr is an example of this, you know,
10:54
Speaker 3: fighting back, refusing to resign, getting fired. The norms were
10:59
Speaker 3: so wrong that we thought he's not going to succeed.
11:02
Speaker 3: And now we're in a different world, which is that
11:04
Speaker 3: the question isn't whether or not people are going to prison,
11:06
Speaker 3: whether or not these prosecutions are successful. It's whether or
11:09
Speaker 3: not he can intimidate us into being quiet. And now
11:12
Speaker 3: you and I are talking every week. I don't anticipate
11:15
Speaker 3: us stopping that. There are lots of others speaking out,
11:17
Speaker 3: but there are a lot of journalists, I think, who
11:19
Speaker 3: are being targeted who must think to themselves, I'm not
11:22
Speaker 3: sure I wouldn't go through with this. Now it's a
11:24
Speaker 3: different story. But if you add in Jeff Bezos's evisceration
11:28
Speaker 3: of the Washington Post and how hard it is to
11:30
Speaker 3: keep your job in journalism, you know it might succeed
11:33
Speaker 3: in having that chilling effect and that idea of the
11:36
Speaker 3: chilling effect, and just to say what that means, it means,
11:39
Speaker 3: you know, apart from the hard power of putting people
11:41
Speaker 3: in prison, scaring people into thinking they might be investigated
11:45
Speaker 3: or prosecuted. That's equally detrimental to the First Amendment.
11:48
Speaker 2: We've got.
11:49
Speaker 3: It's not just a chilling effect, it's a storm, an
11:51
Speaker 3: ice storm of the chilling effect of free speech.
11:54
Speaker 2: To shut down of free speech, we.
11:56
Speaker 4: Got to take a quick break.
11:57
Speaker 1: But when we come back, the least didictable members of
12:01
Speaker 1: the resistance to stare down subpoenas by Congress, Bill and
12:05
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in twenty twenty six will be back in
12:07
Speaker 1: a moment.
12:08
Speaker 4: This is the oath and the Office.
12:14
Speaker 5: Here's what you've been missing on the Stephanie Miller Happy
12:16
Speaker 5: Hour podcast.
12:18
Speaker 2: This is the putin. I'm not saying that's ruy.
12:21
Speaker 6: Lie, not gonna put.
12:22
Speaker 7: It Obama ape video.
12:25
Speaker 5: He's like, you know, the sixteen different explanations, right, like
12:28
Speaker 5: I was a staffer. Oh no, I told the stafford
12:30
Speaker 5: to do it. No, I'm not gonna apologize. I mean,
12:32
Speaker 5: you know how I'm gonna take it down now, I'm
12:34
Speaker 5: not gonna take it. I mean, it's just it's insane, right,
12:37
Speaker 5: and everyone knows there's no staffer that posted from your
12:41
Speaker 5: personal account in the middle of the Night Right.
12:43
Speaker 6: It's just such a whiner, just again, whining point USA
12:48
Speaker 6: all they do and again it's Putin's just lie. Hold on,
12:52
Speaker 6: I'm calling Putin for advice like keep them lying, just
12:55
Speaker 6: keep lying.
12:56
Speaker 2: Why do you call in the book?
12:57
Speaker 7: I kill you lie lie light booth, go me again.
13:00
Speaker 7: I'm blocking you.
13:02
Speaker 5: Subscribe to the Stephanie Miller Happy Hour podcast on Apple Podcasts,
13:05
Speaker 5: Stephanie Miller dot com, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
13:17
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath and the Office. I'm John
13:20
Speaker 1: Peeble saying, along with Professor Reretschneider Corey, I want to
13:23
Speaker 1: talk to you about the Clinton subpoena dynamics we've witnessed
13:27
Speaker 1: this week. This has been a really fascinating story and wow,
13:30
Speaker 1: it's been a long time since I found myself standing
13:32
Speaker 1: up and rooting for both of the Clinton's at the
13:34
Speaker 1: same time. But we've seen these reports that Hillary Clinton
13:37
Speaker 1: is pushing for a public hearing ahead of this deposition
13:40
Speaker 1: related to the Epstein files. Bill Clinton did quite a
13:44
Speaker 1: hell of a Twitter threat about how he will not
13:46
Speaker 1: be a prop for these people. And there's a broader
13:49
Speaker 1: fight going on here over congressional oversight tools. They seem
13:53
Speaker 1: to have really embarrassed James Comer, and a lot of
13:55
Speaker 1: people are wondering what, why are they doing this? I mean,
13:58
Speaker 1: no presidents testified before Congress since Gerald Ford, like forty
14:03
Speaker 1: years ago. How would you assess the legal and constitutional
14:07
Speaker 1: contours of this battle with the acknowledgment that this is
14:10
Speaker 1: all a distraction from the fact that Trump and panbody
14:13
Speaker 1: have been protecting child rape illegally breaking the law every
14:17
Speaker 1: day since December nineteenth.
14:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the most important place to begin, Like,
14:21
Speaker 3: why were we even talking about this. It's because Trump
14:23
Speaker 3: is trying to cast off any guilt and implication that
14:26
Speaker 3: he might have in the Epstein evils. I think we
14:29
Speaker 3: can call it based on what we know at this
14:30
Speaker 3: point and put it on one of his opponents. Again,
14:33
Speaker 3: that's the common theme, Hillary Clinton and also increasingly Bill Clinton. Now,
14:38
Speaker 3: they would be well within their rights and I think
14:40
Speaker 3: they would win to simply fight and court the subpoena,
14:43
Speaker 3: because there are rules and principles of law that govern
14:47
Speaker 3: when Congress can force people to testify and when it can,
14:50
Speaker 3: and that is what a subpoena is. It's compelled testimony,
14:54
Speaker 3: and the question is whether or not there's some legislative
14:57
Speaker 3: purpose here. Now, if Congress was considering, you know, legislation
15:01
Speaker 3: to correct the evil of Epstein, to look into the
15:04
Speaker 3: wrongdoing of these networks and to break them up, then
15:08
Speaker 3: I think, okay, there's a legislative purpose.
15:10
Speaker 2: But what's the purpose here? If the purpose is.
15:12
Speaker 3: To deflect from the guilt and attention on the President
15:16
Speaker 3: of the United States and Pam Bondi and covering up
15:19
Speaker 3: again evil, that's not a legitimate purpose.
15:22
Speaker 2: So they could fight back. So why are they not?
15:24
Speaker 3: I think because they know they could win in court,
15:26
Speaker 3: and I think again they would, but they seem to
15:29
Speaker 3: be and I'm willing to praise them for this, demanding
15:32
Speaker 3: more and more transparency. Want transparency, will give it to you.
15:35
Speaker 3: And Bill Clinton is indicating that he knows something that's
15:38
Speaker 3: going to educate America about all right. You know, I
15:41
Speaker 3: think he could just tell us. That would be one
15:44
Speaker 3: way to do it. Ready to do it in this
15:46
Speaker 3: dramatic fashion by facing off against House Republicans.
15:49
Speaker 2: More power to them, let's see it.
15:50
Speaker 1: I was at the DNC two summers ago, and of
15:53
Speaker 1: course Bill Clinton was the guy who went off script
15:55
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes, just went off the telepropter. He does
15:59
Speaker 1: know how to high jack something, and we forget what
16:01
Speaker 1: an incredibly compelling orator he is. But yeah, I mean,
16:05
Speaker 1: this is the smartest pr I have seen Bill Clinton
16:08
Speaker 1: do in many many years, that that he urgently wants
16:11
Speaker 1: to come out and do it. Now, You're right, he
16:13
Speaker 1: could just get himself booked on any TV show. Hey, Bill,
16:16
Speaker 1: serious exp progress. I'm here baby, waiting for you.
16:19
Speaker 2: How about the in the Office pot in the Office podcast? Bill?
16:22
Speaker 1: Come on, I mean, I live near Harlem. We're all
16:24
Speaker 1: practically neighbors. But oversight via subpoena power is supposed to
16:28
Speaker 1: be whe of Congress's core constitutional authorities. I've learned that
16:31
Speaker 1: from you, and we learned that when the Republicans just
16:34
Speaker 1: loved ignoring their subpoenas because they don't have to. But
16:37
Speaker 1: what happens to the balance of power when subpoenas are
16:40
Speaker 1: ignored or or contested at the executive level.
16:43
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a balance.
16:44
Speaker 3: You know, during the compulsion to testify of people in
16:48
Speaker 3: the Trump administration the aftermath, I thought that, you know,
16:51
Speaker 3: there was a serious legislative purpose to compelling some of
16:55
Speaker 3: this testimony. Of course, Bannon refused to testify in and
16:58
Speaker 3: went to prison for it. But you know, I think
17:01
Speaker 3: the balances we have to remember there are moments in
17:03
Speaker 3: history where Congress has abused its investigative power. So it's
17:07
Speaker 3: not as simple as if you're brought to testify, then yes,
17:10
Speaker 3: you should have to do it. So I think of
17:12
Speaker 3: the red Scare of the House on American Affairs Committee,
17:15
Speaker 3: for instance, which is all about attacking those on the left,
17:18
Speaker 3: communists but also progressives and people who were to the
17:23
Speaker 3: left of center. And were those subpoenas legitimate, No, absolutely
17:27
Speaker 3: they were not, and so they were an attempt to
17:30
Speaker 3: use the tools of government in order to shut down opinion.
17:34
Speaker 3: And I think here too, it's more complicated. It's not
17:38
Speaker 3: just that it's an attempt to deflect from the responsibility
17:41
Speaker 3: of the President of Trump and it's not a legitimate purpose.
17:44
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think they would be within their legal
17:47
Speaker 3: right to fight back.
17:48
Speaker 2: But again, you know, they're savvy politicians. They can defend themselves.
17:51
Speaker 3: They're not in a position where they're going to look
17:54
Speaker 3: bad in front of this committee. And my bet is
17:57
Speaker 3: on them that they are going to bring out some
17:59
Speaker 3: truths that we haven't seen before, and in the process
18:01
Speaker 3: humiliate their political opponents.
18:03
Speaker 4: I think you're right, and oh, I'm buying popcorn.
18:06
Speaker 1: I think for that very reason, we'll see James Comer
18:08
Speaker 1: demure from this when he realizes that humiliating the Clintons
18:13
Speaker 1: won't get him some table scraps from mister Trump.
18:15
Speaker 4: I want to ask about this, this.
18:17
Speaker 1: Article you sent me in the New York Times that
18:18
Speaker 1: blows my mind about the DOJ trying to recruit prosecutors.
18:23
Speaker 1: The reports say that they're recruiting prosecutors with a strong
18:26
Speaker 1: view of federal enforcement. What does that mean? Well, in
18:30
Speaker 1: this case, it seems to mean that they align with
18:32
Speaker 1: the political priorities of this current lawbreaking administration. In other words,
18:37
Speaker 1: they're having a hard time hiring prosecutors to do their
18:40
Speaker 1: dirty work for them. This is fascinating from a constitutional perspective.
18:45
Speaker 1: From an institutional perspective, I mean, what are the risk
18:48
Speaker 1: of recruitment strategies like this. We don't want you to
18:51
Speaker 1: be loyal to the law. We want you to be
18:53
Speaker 1: loyal to the game show host running the government.
18:57
Speaker 3: Well, I just think what a topic and what a
18:59
Speaker 3: lead in This is the in depth interview that pre Perrara.
19:02
Speaker 3: I'm going to certainly ask him about this and talk
19:04
Speaker 3: to him about it, but as an initial way in,
19:07
Speaker 3: let me just say this. You know, the Department of
19:09
Speaker 3: Justice used to be a highly prestigious position. One of
19:12
Speaker 3: the most impressive things that you could do out of
19:15
Speaker 3: law school or really any point in your law career
19:17
Speaker 3: would be to go and to work in one of
19:19
Speaker 3: the divisions of the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice,
19:22
Speaker 3: by the way, founded during the Grant administration to protect
19:27
Speaker 3: civil rights, to enforce the Ku Klux Klan Act and
19:30
Speaker 3: shut down the white supremacy that was left in this
19:33
Speaker 3: country in the aftermath of the Civil War.
19:36
Speaker 2: What a proud history.
19:37
Speaker 3: And I think for so much of its history, the
19:40
Speaker 3: Department of Justice did amazing work, even during the Nixon administration.
19:45
Speaker 3: Archibald Cox who went after the President for his crimes,
19:49
Speaker 3: exposing him, working with the Grand Jury that uncovered so
19:53
Speaker 3: much of the crimes of Watergate, later handing it all
19:55
Speaker 3: over to Congress and a failure to indict the president. Yes,
19:59
Speaker 3: but still a proud moment. Leon Jaworski who continued that
20:03
Speaker 3: fight the aftermath of Nixon.
20:05
Speaker 2: All of this, what I'm summarizing.
20:07
Speaker 3: Is this is a prestigious proud part of our government
20:11
Speaker 3: for so long, and now it is the opposite. It
20:14
Speaker 3: is the tool, the weapon of this president. And guess what,
20:18
Speaker 3: people don't want to go work there. So what does
20:20
Speaker 3: that mean. It means really the hollowing out of this
20:23
Speaker 3: institution and the use of it to go after political opponents.
20:27
Speaker 3: Here's one silver lining that I'm going to ask pretty about.
20:30
Speaker 3: Maybe their incompetence helps at least in some of these cases,
20:33
Speaker 3: because you know, with better lawyers, maybe they would succeed
20:36
Speaker 3: in going after some of their opponents.
20:38
Speaker 7: Exactly.
20:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, and that is why we know
20:42
Speaker 1: that they're kind of doomed to failure. This whole thing
20:44
Speaker 1: of deliberately hiring unqualified flunkies. I mean, Pete, hegseeth cash,
20:50
Speaker 1: but tell cash, but tell like he's hiring these people
20:54
Speaker 1: because they're not going to say no, mister President, that's illegal.
20:57
Speaker 1: He's hiring them because they're obediently unkies who are easily disposable.
21:02
Speaker 1: And if, say in the case of Christy Nome, things
21:04
Speaker 1: ever get too hot or unpleasant for Trump, you just
21:07
Speaker 1: land them like a boil and they take all the blame.
21:09
Speaker 1: The flunkies don't seem to realize, professor, that this Supreme
21:13
Speaker 1: Court immunity doesn't apply to them. But beyond that, it
21:17
Speaker 1: just seems like this is going to wreck this whole
21:20
Speaker 1: partisanship in recruiting prosecutors. This is going to destroy public
21:25
Speaker 1: trust in America's Department of Justice as a neutral law
21:28
Speaker 1: enforcement body. I mean, at some point, perception is going
21:31
Speaker 1: to be a serious problem for the rule of law
21:33
Speaker 1: in this country when everyone knows you can't take the
21:35
Speaker 1: rule of law seriously.
21:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, as they destroy they I mean, Trump and his
21:39
Speaker 3: cronies destroy our institutions, including the Department of Justice, and
21:44
Speaker 3: they are pretty close to having destroyed it. It's not
21:46
Speaker 3: going to be so easy that if we defeat them
21:48
Speaker 3: to just put it back. We really are going to
21:50
Speaker 3: have to rebuild these institutions one by one, and that
21:52
Speaker 3: includes the Department of Justice. I love your reference to
21:56
Speaker 3: our slogan from last week, which is that Trump has immunity,
22:00
Speaker 3: you don't. I had a lot of comments from listeners
22:03
Speaker 3: who love that, and we should make t shirts at
22:05
Speaker 3: some point. But that's part of the reminder, you know,
22:08
Speaker 3: and not just that you might be charged with a
22:09
Speaker 3: crime if you're Pambondi. And it looks like some of
22:12
Speaker 3: what she did is not just unethical but possibly criminal
22:15
Speaker 3: or Pete Hagseth. But you know, for lawyers there's a
22:18
Speaker 3: question of disbarment. And so that's one thing that I'll
22:21
Speaker 3: continue in the conversation with Preed that you know, you
22:24
Speaker 3: might get away with it now, but eventually we're going
22:26
Speaker 3: to find out and you might lose your license. And
22:29
Speaker 3: if you value being a lawyer or a short term
22:31
Speaker 3: moment in the Department of Justice, it might not be
22:33
Speaker 3: worth it for you. But that's not how these people
22:35
Speaker 3: are calculating it often.
22:37
Speaker 1: But when you consider how they chase down the honest,
22:40
Speaker 1: hard working prosecutors who went after the terrorists who attacked
22:43
Speaker 1: our government and our election on January sixth, I mean,
22:46
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be punitive for the Democrats.
22:48
Speaker 4: To have a purge.
22:49
Speaker 1: Of the purge, a lot of people are going to
22:51
Speaker 1: get invited to have their jobs back when the Nuremberg
22:54
Speaker 1: trials were all praying for finally happened. But I mean,
22:56
Speaker 1: are there any structural safeguards Corey and the DOJ in
23:01
Speaker 1: just basic norms that protect against partisan staffing decisions, or
23:06
Speaker 1: are those safeguards eroded and they can just hire twenty
23:08
Speaker 1: five cash hotels if they want.
23:11
Speaker 3: You know, there was a lot of discussion, especially after Nixon,
23:14
Speaker 3: about the need for norms, and I think there were
23:17
Speaker 3: norms of independence, and we'll talk about that in the
23:19
Speaker 3: interview with pre Ways, in which they're really the president
23:22
Speaker 3: wasn't even allowed to call somebody to talk to prosecutors
23:26
Speaker 3: on the phone, that that was seen as so outrageous
23:29
Speaker 3: that it was itself a norm violation. Forget about what
23:32
Speaker 3: was said, even to talk to each other. And that
23:35
Speaker 3: shows you it's a symbol of this kind of independence.
23:39
Speaker 3: The Department of Justice is not supposed to be the
23:40
Speaker 3: president's lawyer. They're supposed to be the people's lawyers defending
23:44
Speaker 3: our laws. And how badly have those norms eroded. My takeaway,
23:49
Speaker 3: and we've talked about this before, but I don't think
23:52
Speaker 3: we could talk about it enough, is that it's not
23:54
Speaker 3: enough to have norms. When we think about how to
23:56
Speaker 3: recover this Department of Justice, that we have to create
23:59
Speaker 3: another independent prosecutor who can't be fired by a president,
24:03
Speaker 3: who can look into the wrongdoing of a president.
24:05
Speaker 2: And yes, through legislation, if.
24:07
Speaker 3: We were to bring this back, we would need a
24:09
Speaker 3: new law to do this. It was in existence the
24:11
Speaker 3: independent prosecutor between Carter and Clinton. Clinton got rid of
24:15
Speaker 3: it because he didn't like being investigated by Ken Starr.
24:18
Speaker 2: If we bring it back, we should give protection from.
24:21
Speaker 3: Firing to allow that independence of investigation of even the president.
24:25
Speaker 2: And we should give and.
24:26
Speaker 3: This relates to what we were talking about before, the
24:28
Speaker 3: ability to even indict a sitting president, and that means
24:32
Speaker 3: narrowing community case.
24:34
Speaker 1: Okay, but you say, you know, if we get it back,
24:36
Speaker 1: I mean, what would it take to restore it? The
24:39
Speaker 1: Justice Department's independence has been compromised. I mean what would
24:44
Speaker 1: it take to restore it with a president who's not
24:46
Speaker 1: capable of wanting that? You know, like day one, you'd
24:50
Speaker 1: have to have someone who followed the Epstein Files law
24:52
Speaker 1: that was signed in December.
24:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, recoveries take time. It's not going to
24:56
Speaker 3: happen now. It's not going to happen before the mid terms.
24:59
Speaker 3: It might happen, you know, in a new Congress that's
25:02
Speaker 3: controlled by not the Republican Party but by Democrats. And
25:06
Speaker 3: just to say how it would happen, you know, the
25:09
Speaker 3: Department of Justice is structured by legislation, and right now
25:13
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of protection of the supposed norm
25:15
Speaker 3: of independence, and the norm is gone.
25:18
Speaker 2: But you could rewrite the law.
25:19
Speaker 3: You could rewrite it so that there is independence of
25:22
Speaker 3: the Department of Justice itself, of especially independent prosecutors.
25:26
Speaker 2: That idea that did exist in.
25:28
Speaker 3: This country was an idea after Watergate that we should
25:31
Speaker 3: bring back, and we've got to be creative about that.
25:33
Speaker 2: But that's part of the hope.
25:34
Speaker 3: You know, on this podcast, we're always talking about the destruction,
25:37
Speaker 3: but there's a way to respond to fix the problem
25:39
Speaker 3: through legislation, and that's what we're talking about.
25:42
Speaker 2: And that's what I think will happen eventually. It will
25:44
Speaker 2: take time.
25:45
Speaker 3: It's not going to happen, you know, in the next
25:46
Speaker 3: few months, certainly, will it happen in the next Congress.
25:49
Speaker 2: Possibly. I think that's what we've got to get on
25:51
Speaker 2: the agenda. Part of what we're.
25:52
Speaker 3: Doing is talking to people, educating them about what's happening,
25:56
Speaker 3: but we're also trying to set an agenda for recovery.
25:58
Speaker 3: And when we talk to Senator white House, for instance,
26:01
Speaker 3: you know, we were able to talk to him about
26:03
Speaker 3: the specifics of what this might look like, not just
26:05
Speaker 3: ask him questions and we'll continue to do that.
26:08
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break, but when we
26:10
Speaker 1: come back, it is happening. It is on Corey Bretschneider
26:14
Speaker 1: and pret Burrara. You don't want to miss this. This
26:16
Speaker 1: is the Oath in the Office.
26:22
Speaker 8: Hey all, Glenn Kirshner here, So friends, I hope you'll
26:25
Speaker 8: join me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. Do you
26:29
Speaker 8: care about ethics and government, criminal justice, reform, a conflict
26:34
Speaker 8: free federal judiciary?
26:37
Speaker 7: I thought so.
26:38
Speaker 8: On Justice Matters, we take on issues involving the need
26:42
Speaker 8: to reform our government and its institutions, and we talk
26:46
Speaker 8: about real.
26:47
Speaker 7: Achievable reform. I hope you'll join us.
26:51
Speaker 8: Look for Justice Matters wherever you usually get your podcasts.
27:00
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm Corey Bretschneider.
27:03
Speaker 3: Today it's my pleasure to be joined by Prete Burra,
27:06
Speaker 3: the host of the podcast Stay Tuned with Preed. It
27:09
Speaker 3: was my pleasure to be on that podcast with Prete
27:12
Speaker 3: and to do a live event with him at the
27:14
Speaker 3: New York Historical Preed, of course, is the former US
27:18
Speaker 3: Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He's a
27:20
Speaker 3: former Justice Department official, and he also teaches at NYU
27:24
Speaker 3: Law School in addition to his law practice.
27:27
Speaker 2: Pre I want to start with the DOJ.
27:30
Speaker 3: You've been inside that institution at a very different time
27:34
Speaker 3: in our history. And while I should say first welcome.
27:38
Speaker 7: And nice to be here, Corey, thanks for having.
27:41
Speaker 3: Me, real pleasure to have you so as always saying,
27:44
Speaker 3: I mean, you've been inside the Department of Justice, but
27:46
Speaker 3: it was a very different Department of Justice when you
27:48
Speaker 3: were there. And I'm just hoping that we could start
27:51
Speaker 3: by orienting listeners and getting some of your thoughts about
27:54
Speaker 3: the difference between the DJ that you were a part
27:57
Speaker 3: of and what you're seeing right now.
28:00
Speaker 7: So I was hired into the department as a young
28:03
Speaker 7: prosecutor in the Bush administration, and there was no litmus
28:07
Speaker 7: test for politics, and you weren't asked if you support
28:12
Speaker 7: the particular president, and you weren't asked who won the
28:15
Speaker 7: last election, and nobody asked you your party affiliation, your ideology,
28:19
Speaker 7: or anything else. And that is how it should be.
28:22
Speaker 7: And when I was US attorney for almost eight years,
28:25
Speaker 7: appointed by Barack Obama, I was a political appointee. But
28:28
Speaker 7: all the assistant US attorneys we hired, the prosecutors and
28:31
Speaker 7: the civil lawyers we hired. We hired without any attention
28:36
Speaker 7: to or inquiry about their political affiliation, their party affiliation,
28:41
Speaker 7: or their ideology. What mattered was do they have good judgment,
28:44
Speaker 7: do they have good character? Do they practice their craft well?
28:49
Speaker 7: And no doubt under Republican presidents the Democratic presidents, you know,
28:54
Speaker 7: many people are independent, but you know, hired into the
28:57
Speaker 7: ranks of the Justice Department were many people of opposing
28:59
Speaker 7: and different points of view, but that did not matter.
29:03
Speaker 7: Didn't matter. That seems to matter today. So that's point one,
29:07
Speaker 7: and that's a terrible thing. Point two is, you know,
29:11
Speaker 7: we had a pretty full Justice Department, most US attorney's
29:14
Speaker 7: offices as well as the main office in Washington, you know,
29:17
Speaker 7: the what we call Main Justice, you know, other than
29:21
Speaker 7: on those occasions when there was a budget freeze or
29:24
Speaker 7: you know, hiring freeze or a government shutdown, operated at
29:29
Speaker 7: full capacity because you needed that to vindicate the rights
29:33
Speaker 7: of victims, to maintain public safety, and to do the
29:36
Speaker 7: job of justice. We now have, as I was talking
29:39
Speaker 7: about on my own podcast just a couple of hours ago,
29:43
Speaker 7: a fleeing of massive numbers of line prosecutors, some of
29:47
Speaker 7: them being fired, some of them being relieved of their
29:49
Speaker 7: duties from US attorney's offices all around the country and
29:52
Speaker 7: from the Washington office in the district of Minnesota itself,
29:57
Speaker 7: which is the scene of a lot of you know,
29:59
Speaker 7: terrible things and government overreach. They've gone from an office
30:03
Speaker 7: of fifty I think, to twenty, which, if I'm doing
30:07
Speaker 7: the math correctly, the sixty percent decrease. We used to
30:10
Speaker 7: fight for every single full time employee allocation in budget
30:16
Speaker 7: with our lives because it was so important everyone had
30:18
Speaker 7: a full docket. But more troubling than the lack of
30:21
Speaker 7: staff and the diminution of the ranks of prosecutors is why, right,
30:26
Speaker 7: you have people who were hired, you know, some of
30:29
Speaker 7: them many many years ago, served multiple administrations. We're screened
30:33
Speaker 7: not only for talent and craft and legal competency, but
30:36
Speaker 7: also for character and integrity and ethics. Who are leaving
30:41
Speaker 7: because they think they're being asked to do things that
30:44
Speaker 7: are contrary to their oath and contrary to their conscience,
30:48
Speaker 7: and that's why they're leaving, and that's that's a terrible
30:51
Speaker 7: and heartbreaking thing. And the American so I can go,
30:53
Speaker 7: I could go on and on an onion.
30:56
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you think of the on that theme.
30:58
Speaker 3: And you know, one of the stories that we've been
31:00
Speaker 3: talking about is the coverage about how hard it is
31:02
Speaker 3: to even do recruitment in the Department of Justice now
31:05
Speaker 3: that it used to be.
31:06
Speaker 7: It used to be the In fact, you never saw.
31:09
Speaker 7: I think people are tweeting about openings of the Justice
31:12
Speaker 7: Department there. I don't know if they're a billboard, but
31:15
Speaker 7: there used to be a billboard.
31:16
Speaker 2: Like one eight hundred lawyer.
31:19
Speaker 7: It was the most coveted I still like printages prestigious,
31:24
Speaker 7: most coveted jobs. I mean, people would leave highly lucrative
31:30
Speaker 7: private practice for the opportunity to serve at a government's wage
31:35
Speaker 7: in the Department of Justice, at various US Attorney's offices.
31:38
Speaker 7: You know, I recruited back people who took people who
31:42
Speaker 7: were in the office, and then I needed, you know,
31:44
Speaker 7: a leadership position filled and people will I mean, who
31:47
Speaker 7: does this in life? People took ninety five percent pay cuts,
31:52
Speaker 7: people making two three four million dollars a year came
31:55
Speaker 7: back for one hundred and fifty thousand, right so they
31:59
Speaker 7: could serve the who leaves millions of dollars on the
32:02
Speaker 7: table for a job, you know, in the government. Some
32:08
Speaker 7: people do it, not not many people do.
32:10
Speaker 3: I mean, do you think that you know, part of
32:11
Speaker 3: the story, of course, that we're talking about and that
32:15
Speaker 3: you're discussing is the increasing lack of competence in the DOJ,
32:19
Speaker 3: because if you're not able to recruit high quality people, you're.
32:22
Speaker 2: Going to wind up with worse lawyering. I'm wondering how
32:25
Speaker 2: that plays out.
32:25
Speaker 3: I mean, is one possibility that there's a I'm always
32:28
Speaker 3: looking for the hopeful story that in some ways, although
32:31
Speaker 3: there's a kind of destruction of the Department of Justice
32:35
Speaker 3: in its main functioning, that when it comes to some
32:38
Speaker 3: of the ambitions of Donald Trump to destroy democracy, I mean,
32:42
Speaker 3: does that in some ways protect us having more incompetent
32:45
Speaker 3: lawyers in the Department of Justice?
32:47
Speaker 2: Is that too optimistic? That can still do damage and
32:49
Speaker 2: be incompetent.
32:50
Speaker 7: Well, they can do both. They can do both in Garden.
32:54
Speaker 7: It still is the case, Corey that the garden variety
32:59
Speaker 7: cases that offices deal with are not about Donald Trump,
33:02
Speaker 7: not about Michael Flynn, They're not about Hunter Biden, They're
33:05
Speaker 7: not about Jeffrey Epstein, right, They're about you know, unnamed
33:10
Speaker 7: and and unfamous victims and perpetrators who are brought to
33:16
Speaker 7: justice every day in the various offices. So their lack
33:20
Speaker 7: of resources is a problem. Their lack of competence is
33:23
Speaker 7: a problem, because the wheels of justice already, I think
33:27
Speaker 7: per many people grind slow, and they only grind more slowly. Now,
33:31
Speaker 7: with respect to those those certain politicized, weaponized cases, you
33:36
Speaker 7: were exactly you were exactly right. They may be an ethical,
33:40
Speaker 7: they may be you know, weaponizing, but they're also incompetent.
33:45
Speaker 7: And you saw that in New Jersey, and you saw
33:46
Speaker 7: that in Virginia, and you see that in a lot
33:49
Speaker 7: of places. So I guess that's sort of a silver lining.
33:52
Speaker 7: You have people who don't even know how to present
33:54
Speaker 7: to a grand jury indicting a former FBI director. That's
33:58
Speaker 7: probably to everyone is benefit.
34:01
Speaker 3: I want to ask you more about the weaponization the
34:05
Speaker 3: political prosecutions, but I have a follow up on the
34:07
Speaker 3: interesting theme that you're carving out, which is I want
34:10
Speaker 3: you to react to. There's a theory that law professors
34:13
Speaker 3: are increasingly embracing of a kind of dual regime, that
34:17
Speaker 3: there's a kind of lawlessness. The theory which goes back
34:20
Speaker 3: to a theory of fascism and various ideas of dictatorship.
34:23
Speaker 3: That there's a theory that says, when it comes to
34:26
Speaker 3: the dictator, there's lawlessness, but you still might have a
34:29
Speaker 3: normal functioning rule of law state in relation to normal people.
34:34
Speaker 2: But in a way I hear you saying maybe the.
34:35
Speaker 3: Opposite, which is that you know, actually exactly where we
34:39
Speaker 3: want the rule of law to function, prosecutions of the
34:42
Speaker 3: bad guys, of those who have committed serious violent crimes,
34:45
Speaker 3: that maybe there we're lacking the kind of competence that
34:49
Speaker 3: we need even for the rule of law.
34:50
Speaker 2: So I don't does it go too far to say that, really, I.
34:53
Speaker 7: Think you look at some it's look, prosecutors do two
34:57
Speaker 7: things roughly right. And this is actually car doubt in
35:00
Speaker 7: law and order the first half hour and second etat right,
35:03
Speaker 7: and unlike law and order makes out where it's only
35:07
Speaker 7: the law enforcement agents who carry guns do the investigation.
35:10
Speaker 7: Prosecutors do the prosecuting and the trial work. I believe
35:13
Speaker 7: in the federal system they do. The prosecutors do both.
35:17
Speaker 7: And so if you have limited resources, what are the
35:20
Speaker 7: things that you urgently have to deal with? You have
35:23
Speaker 7: to deal with already indicted cases of defendants who are
35:26
Speaker 7: already in the dock, right, So you've indicted a case,
35:30
Speaker 7: there's a suppression hearing in a week. The judge has
35:32
Speaker 7: ordered everyone to show up and to have here. You
35:34
Speaker 7: have to do that hearing, right, you have to have
35:38
Speaker 7: And so if both prosecutors on the case resigned the
35:41
Speaker 7: week before, you got to find a new prosecutor get
35:43
Speaker 7: up to speed, right a way. You have to do
35:44
Speaker 7: that because as a court proceeding and humans have to
35:47
Speaker 7: show up and do the work. The things that are
35:50
Speaker 7: not on the same timetable are investigations. So let's say
35:54
Speaker 7: you have three prosecutors working with three FBI agents to
35:57
Speaker 7: root out corruption in the state capital of a state.
36:00
Speaker 7: You know that deadline is just a statue of limitations, right,
36:04
Speaker 7: And so that might be the most important thing going
36:06
Speaker 7: on in the office, not the garden variety case that
36:09
Speaker 7: has a suppression hearing the following week, but chasing down
36:12
Speaker 7: witnesses before they destroy evidence, before they get rid of
36:15
Speaker 7: their ill gotten gains. But that's what's not going to
36:18
Speaker 7: get done because that's not what where you need humans necessarily,
36:23
Speaker 7: because it's not a suppression hearing that's been scheduled on
36:25
Speaker 7: the docket. You know what I'm saying so so lots
36:29
Speaker 7: and lots of and people don't see it right away,
36:31
Speaker 7: but there's an opportunity cost when you pick one thing
36:35
Speaker 7: versus another thing. Yeah, and that's what you worry about.
36:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, And of course the worry is that the incompetence
36:42
Speaker 3: of the DOJ isn't just short term, that even if
36:44
Speaker 3: we survive this Trump presidency, there might be long term damage,
36:48
Speaker 3: and the damage might go beyond the immediate political prosecutions
36:52
Speaker 3: to more general harm to the system of justice. I
36:55
Speaker 3: did want to pivot to ask you about the political prosecutions,
36:58
Speaker 3: of course, and I'm interested you mention in James Comy
37:01
Speaker 3: and Letitia James.
37:02
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm interested in your thoughts.
37:03
Speaker 3: They seem to me at least to be raw instances
37:07
Speaker 3: of political prosecutions by prosecutors who are choosing loyalty over So.
37:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was my first question. Am I missing anything?
37:16
Speaker 3: I mean, the more complicated case and maybe more interesting
37:18
Speaker 3: one to get into is the Bolton case. And you know,
37:21
Speaker 3: there is an argument that there it's more of at
37:24
Speaker 3: least a hybrid. Clearly there is an element of retaliation,
37:28
Speaker 3: but the argument is that there really were national security
37:31
Speaker 3: issues that he might have acted in a criminal way,
37:35
Speaker 3: and so I wonder I mean that to help us
37:36
Speaker 3: puzzle through that. I mean, what do you do when
37:39
Speaker 3: there is some element of law breaking, but there also
37:42
Speaker 3: is this political motivation?
37:44
Speaker 2: How do you analyze that case?
37:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm interested, of course in your thoughts on
37:47
Speaker 3: Komy and James as well.
37:49
Speaker 7: So sometimes it's hard to figure this out, particularly for
37:52
Speaker 7: your late person. It's also hard to figure out if
37:54
Speaker 7: you're not involved in the case and you have prosecuted experience,
37:58
Speaker 7: so you have certain ndisha whether something as kosher or
38:01
Speaker 7: not right. One indicator is whether or not And this
38:05
Speaker 7: is not a question that had to be asked before.
38:07
Speaker 7: Did the President of the United States post on social
38:10
Speaker 7: media flatly his interest in sending it a prison, perhaps
38:15
Speaker 7: to the death penalty, which he's done with certain people,
38:18
Speaker 7: and pronounced you guilty. That's a marker that any prosecution
38:22
Speaker 7: that follows is bs and is weaponized. Second thing you
38:27
Speaker 7: can look at are the charging documents themselves. You read
38:30
Speaker 7: it like if you read the Bolton indictment. And I've
38:33
Speaker 7: read a lot of indictments, and my name is affixed
38:35
Speaker 7: to hundreds of indictments that have been filed in court,
38:39
Speaker 7: it has a certain theft. There are certain things in
38:41
Speaker 7: there that you think, huh, I wonder how he's going
38:43
Speaker 7: to defend against this not pre judging is presumed innocent,
38:47
Speaker 7: and there may be defenses, and there may be. It's
38:49
Speaker 7: one side of the story, but it's quite a story
38:52
Speaker 7: of his sharing information with members of his family for
38:55
Speaker 7: purposes of writing a book that are clearly classified. You know,
38:58
Speaker 7: I don't know how that's going to work out. But
38:59
Speaker 7: you read it and you don't think it's trash. Then
39:03
Speaker 7: you read the coffee indictment and you think that's trash.
39:08
Speaker 7: Then the third indicator for outsiders, I think, and then
39:12
Speaker 7: maybe others is you know, who else was involved in
39:16
Speaker 7: the decision making outside of the people who were beholden
39:20
Speaker 7: to the guy who posted the truth social send these
39:22
Speaker 7: people to prison. And in the case of Bolton, again
39:26
Speaker 7: it's not just positive at all. There was a search
39:29
Speaker 7: executed and that search was authorized by a court, So
39:33
Speaker 7: there was the intercession of a court. That just gives you,
39:36
Speaker 7: you know, one data point that somebody found outside of
39:40
Speaker 7: the executive branch found there to be some support, probable
39:45
Speaker 7: cause support which is substantial that a crime was committed,
39:48
Speaker 7: right On the other hand, in the James James case
39:52
Speaker 7: in particular, the first indictment was dismissed. Then we understand
39:56
Speaker 7: from reporting they went to a grand jury. No true,
40:00
Speaker 7: Bill rejected the indictment. They went to a grand jury again,
40:04
Speaker 7: which by the way, is like unheard of and contrary
40:07
Speaker 7: to policy. So you have a dismissal by a judge.
40:10
Speaker 7: So you have the truth social getter. She happens to
40:14
Speaker 7: be a political adversary perceived by the president to biblical
40:16
Speaker 7: adversary of the president. You have a dismissal of the indictment.
40:20
Speaker 7: Then you have one grand jury said no way. You
40:22
Speaker 7: have a second grand jury that said no way. You
40:24
Speaker 7: don't have to be Clarence Darrow or his or his
40:28
Speaker 7: prosecutorial analog to think something's rotten in Denmark.
40:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but what's your bottom line on the
40:35
Speaker 3: Bolton case working through that?
40:37
Speaker 2: And I wasn't because.
40:40
Speaker 7: The bottom line, but I'm just saying, look.
40:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, because well, I guess my thought is, and we
40:44
Speaker 3: could abstract from the details, but I guess my thought is,
40:47
Speaker 3: even if the way you still.
40:49
Speaker 7: Sorry, yeah, it is still the body of law that
40:53
Speaker 7: exists about Melissia's and selective prosecution. Yeah, and where people
40:58
Speaker 7: have won on those motions, have not one on the
41:01
Speaker 7: basis of innocence, right, They've won on the basis of
41:04
Speaker 7: selectivity and maliciousness.
41:06
Speaker 2: Right.
41:06
Speaker 7: So it is not necessary. It's a tough uphill road
41:10
Speaker 7: in any case where you bring such a suit or
41:12
Speaker 7: such a challenge, but it is not bound up with
41:15
Speaker 7: your innocence. Right if you happen to be innocent, right
41:19
Speaker 7: to have the ability to show that there's no harmful
41:22
Speaker 7: evidence against you, that bolsters your argument that it was
41:25
Speaker 7: malicious and selective, because why are you going after somebody
41:28
Speaker 7: who's innocent? But it is not necessary, no.
41:31
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, interesting, And I mean I see the point,
41:34
Speaker 3: which is that in the Bolton case, even if it's
41:36
Speaker 3: true that there are all sorts of indicators that there
41:40
Speaker 3: really is guiltyre the fact that Trump has targeted him,
41:44
Speaker 3: that might turn out to be the thing that makes
41:46
Speaker 3: the difference here in whether or not this is or
41:48
Speaker 3: is not a selective prosecution, even if he is guilty.
41:51
Speaker 7: Yeah.
41:51
Speaker 3: I wanted to pivot pre to a question that's on
41:55
Speaker 3: a lot of people's minds, and it's the question of
41:58
Speaker 3: what those in the dog should do. The career lawyers
42:01
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about when it comes to the question of
42:03
Speaker 3: resign or stay. Of course, in Minnesota, we've seen a
42:06
Speaker 3: number of resignations connected to the ICE's role there to
42:11
Speaker 3: questions of going after even one of the victim's partners.
42:16
Speaker 2: So I mean, how do you see that?
42:17
Speaker 3: What kind of advice would you give to a member
42:20
Speaker 3: of the Department of Justice. Now, I mean, I'd invite
42:23
Speaker 3: you too, to reflect on your own famous controversy where,
42:27
Speaker 3: of course you decided not to resign during the first
42:29
Speaker 3: Trump administration as a matter of principle, and we're ultimately
42:33
Speaker 3: fired in Trump one point zero by Trump.
42:36
Speaker 2: And if that's a lesson in any way in any
42:39
Speaker 2: of this.
42:40
Speaker 7: It's very difficult, you know, and my view on this
42:43
Speaker 7: has evolved, and it depends on the particular circumstances you
42:45
Speaker 7: find yourself. And so if you're the problem is if
42:48
Speaker 7: you are involved in a particular, specific, concrete matter, and
42:53
Speaker 7: you've been given a directive to do something, let's say,
42:57
Speaker 7: pursue indictment or you know, dismiss a case you thought
43:03
Speaker 7: was a righteous case. You're not the turney in the
43:05
Speaker 7: United States. You know, there's a chain of command. You
43:09
Speaker 7: can either do the thing that you think is wrong, unethical, immoral, unlawful, unconstitutional, that,
43:15
Speaker 7: by the way, this is not a small thing, may
43:17
Speaker 7: put your bar license in jeopardy at some point in
43:20
Speaker 7: the future. You kind of don't have the option of
43:23
Speaker 7: doing the thing that you think is correct. You kind
43:26
Speaker 7: of have no choice but to step down. If you
43:28
Speaker 7: are the head of the office and you insist on
43:32
Speaker 7: taking a particular action, which you can do right, then
43:36
Speaker 7: you can force your firing, which I'm partial to, I'm
43:39
Speaker 7: partial to making people fire you on their grounds which
43:43
Speaker 7: can be seen to be you know, false or fraudulent
43:46
Speaker 7: or improper, rather than giving them a bye. But you
43:50
Speaker 7: really kind of have no choice. Then there's a more complicated,
43:53
Speaker 7: i think region in which you're kind of, you know,
43:58
Speaker 7: in a position of authority somewhere in the Justice Department.
44:01
Speaker 7: No one has asked you to do a particular, concrete
44:04
Speaker 7: things that goes against your conscience or your oath or
44:08
Speaker 7: the law as you understand it. But there's you know, overall,
44:11
Speaker 7: but people around you are doing those things. And in
44:14
Speaker 7: that situation, it's the same moral dilemma that has been
44:18
Speaker 7: faced by lots of including you know, chiefs of staff
44:21
Speaker 7: in the Trump White House, in the first term and
44:23
Speaker 7: in the second term, which is, if I leave, someone
44:27
Speaker 7: with less ethics and less morality and less integrity is
44:33
Speaker 7: going to take my spot. So I should fight for
44:35
Speaker 7: what I can fight for here. And I increasingly don't
44:40
Speaker 7: buy that. I think it depends on well, it sounds
44:43
Speaker 7: all well and good, but you're tainting yourself and yourself
44:48
Speaker 7: and complicity is bad, and you're enabling things. No doubt,
44:51
Speaker 7: it's true. You have somebody who you know. There are
44:54
Speaker 7: people who've been in the Trump orbit, including Jeff Sessions
44:57
Speaker 7: and Bill Barr, who were not paragons of virtue in
45:02
Speaker 7: my book as attorneys general, but they had lines right,
45:05
Speaker 7: They had some lines right, And every time somebody with
45:08
Speaker 7: some lines steps away or gets removed, somebody with fewer
45:13
Speaker 7: lines or no lines can take their place. Yeah, so
45:16
Speaker 7: this is no you're the professor.
45:19
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems to me.
45:22
Speaker 7: I'm just trying to show my work. I don't know, Yeah,
45:25
Speaker 7: trying to be thoughtful about this. It's just a really
45:28
Speaker 7: tough thing. And there are arguments in favor of staying,
45:31
Speaker 7: the arguments in favor of going. As more time goes by,
45:35
Speaker 7: I tend to favor going.
45:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if it's just a matter of conscience. I mean,
45:39
Speaker 3: this is just fitting with your thought process.
45:41
Speaker 2: Here.
45:42
Speaker 3: More and more we have people around who seem to
45:44
Speaker 3: have no conscience. And when I look at Pambondi, it's
45:47
Speaker 3: not just unethical behavior, but I imagine some of it
45:50
Speaker 3: might be even criminal. I don't know if you think
45:52
Speaker 3: that goes too far. And then over time, as the
45:55
Speaker 3: people of conscience over two terms have resigned, what we're
45:58
Speaker 3: left with our loyalists who seem to have no line.
46:01
Speaker 2: So I wonder how relevant any of this advice becomes.
46:04
Speaker 3: Then if if it's pure loyalists who don't even have
46:07
Speaker 3: the kind of conscience and you know, careful you also
46:10
Speaker 3: of course teach or a professor professorial way of seeing
46:14
Speaker 3: this dilemma.
46:16
Speaker 7: Yeah. Look, the arrival of Donald Trump on the scene
46:19
Speaker 7: has put a spotlight on some people who have courage.
46:21
Speaker 7: But sadly, I think the record reflects that it shows
46:25
Speaker 7: a lot more people about whom you didn't you think
46:28
Speaker 7: of what their moral fiber was or the makeup of
46:32
Speaker 7: their spine was, who don't have courage and like to
46:35
Speaker 7: hold onto power. I mean, for me, you know, it's
46:37
Speaker 7: interesting you talked about my controversy. My sin, it sounds
46:41
Speaker 7: so quaint now, was determining that as the independent, somewhat
46:46
Speaker 7: independent United Attorney and the Southerners good New York, that
46:49
Speaker 7: I shouldn't speak to the sitting president of the United
46:51
Speaker 7: States who had called and left a message, that I
46:54
Speaker 7: shouldn't speak to him without knowing what the nature of
46:56
Speaker 7: the call was, given my jurisdiction over various of his
46:59
Speaker 7: properties businesses, the appearance of impropriety, especially when that call
47:04
Speaker 7: was not made under the auspices of some you know,
47:07
Speaker 7: program or policy, and Jeff Sessions wasn't involved. And I
47:12
Speaker 7: never said that I wouldn't talk to the president in
47:13
Speaker 7: any circumstance. But you know, my integrity told me, and
47:18
Speaker 7: my training told me, and the example of the REDA. Lynch,
47:21
Speaker 7: the former Attorney General on the tarmac with Bill Clinton,
47:24
Speaker 7: all told me don't talk to the president, and twenty
47:27
Speaker 7: hours later I was told to step down, as were others.
47:30
Speaker 7: But I'm positive there's a link between my refusal to
47:33
Speaker 7: talk to the president and my being asked to step down.
47:36
Speaker 7: How quaint is.
47:37
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, can even imagine that?
47:39
Speaker 7: And that was the best job, Yeah, you know, I
47:42
Speaker 7: loved the job so much and thought it was such
47:43
Speaker 7: an important position to have. I didn't vote for Donald Trump.
47:47
Speaker 7: I didn't have respect for him as a politician, but
47:50
Speaker 7: I accepted his offer to stay on because I thought
47:53
Speaker 7: I would be left alone in the sovereign District of
47:55
Speaker 7: New York to do my work and not to pat
47:57
Speaker 7: myself in the back. And I lost my Job's fine,
48:00
Speaker 7: I'm thriving here. I am with you, right and and
48:04
Speaker 7: there's so many people who can't.
48:06
Speaker 3: Allow it's not that great that you want to be there,
48:08
Speaker 3: no matter what I mean. I think too, it's an
48:11
Speaker 3: illustration of the difference between the world. I mean almost
48:14
Speaker 3: a historical document of the world in which the way
48:17
Speaker 3: the DOJ the way US attorneys thought about the dilemmas
48:21
Speaker 3: that they faced, and the independence of the Department of Justice,
48:23
Speaker 3: and what those worms meant. Then when you look at
48:26
Speaker 3: Pam BONDI now essentially taking commands from the President of
48:30
Speaker 3: the United States to go after his enemies, I mean,
48:32
Speaker 3: you couldn't even imagine to step.
48:34
Speaker 7: Down, have some integrity, have some pride, and just get
48:37
Speaker 7: the hell out of Dodge. I don't get it. Look,
48:40
Speaker 7: you know you have law firms who caved for no reason,
48:43
Speaker 7: for no reason, and we're all very nice and polite
48:45
Speaker 7: about it. My law firm had an executive order issued
48:49
Speaker 7: against it. We went to court. Yeah, we're one of
48:52
Speaker 7: four law firms Wilmer Hale. I'm very proud of that.
48:54
Speaker 7: And you know, I don't mean to be overly dramatic,
48:57
Speaker 7: and I'm not, but what I leave these environs one day.
49:02
Speaker 7: You know, ultimately, I'm proud of the fact that I
49:05
Speaker 7: didn't talk to the president. I'm proud of the fact
49:07
Speaker 7: that I wanted to affirm that went to court. And
49:10
Speaker 7: one like, you know, more people should want to do that.
49:14
Speaker 7: More people should want to have that be the thing
49:17
Speaker 7: that their associations are are known for and that their
49:20
Speaker 7: own personal conduct is known for. And again I don't
49:23
Speaker 7: mean to get in my high horse, but I just
49:25
Speaker 7: don't get it. For a little bit of power for
49:27
Speaker 7: a little bit longer, it's not worth it. Yeah.
49:29
Speaker 3: And also when you think about the fact that this
49:31
Speaker 3: regime will end one day and the unethical behavior, the crimes.
49:37
Speaker 3: You know, as we've been saying on this podcast, Donald
49:39
Speaker 3: Trump might have lots of criminal immunity, but you know,
49:43
Speaker 3: average officials might not.
49:44
Speaker 2: And so here's the case.
49:45
Speaker 3: Certainly they don't have ethical immunity, and they don't have
49:47
Speaker 3: immunity from Here's.
49:49
Speaker 7: What they're going to say. You know, they're going to say, Look,
49:53
Speaker 7: I was a tempering influence on the president. I was
49:55
Speaker 7: a tempering influence in that administration. If it wasn't me,
49:59
Speaker 7: it was going to be somebody wh And here, you know,
50:02
Speaker 7: you don't know this, but behind the scenes, here are
50:04
Speaker 7: the things that I did. I sidelined this bad guy,
50:08
Speaker 7: I fired this other bad guy. I prevented this other
50:11
Speaker 7: weaponized prosecution. But meanwhile, you are complicit in lots of
50:15
Speaker 7: other bad stuff. And you know, I don't know that
50:18
Speaker 7: I trust a person who wants to stick to their
50:20
Speaker 7: job so at only to make the judgments about, you know,
50:25
Speaker 7: which things were appropriate to let slide and which things
50:28
Speaker 7: were good not to let slide. But that's what they're
50:30
Speaker 7: all going to say when they come out. They're going
50:31
Speaker 7: to launder themselves, and we should not permit them to
50:34
Speaker 7: get laundered.
50:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I mean you've started answering my last question.
50:39
Speaker 3: This has been an amazing and in depth and honest
50:41
Speaker 3: conversation preed and I like the idea too that in
50:44
Speaker 3: some ways the usual professorial model of resign or not,
50:48
Speaker 3: and questions of conscience really have shifted as we're facing
50:52
Speaker 3: the threat of well, as I see a dictatorship, and
50:55
Speaker 3: the question of whether you want to be complicit in
50:58
Speaker 3: the destruction of American democracy seem looks different than the
51:01
Speaker 3: questions of conscience might have in previous presidencies. I mean,
51:05
Speaker 3: we've talked about some you know, worrying things pre and
51:08
Speaker 3: we're always looking for hope on the oath in the
51:10
Speaker 3: Office podcast. So that's my last question, I mean, where
51:13
Speaker 3: can we find it?
51:14
Speaker 7: Well, look, it's we find it where I began in
51:18
Speaker 7: talking about a few minutes ago, when I said the
51:21
Speaker 7: advent of the Donald Trump administration, particular the secondministration, I
51:25
Speaker 7: focused on one of the two things. I focused on
51:26
Speaker 7: the negative in my answer, and the negative is that
51:29
Speaker 7: you find people who have no scruples, who want to
51:32
Speaker 7: hold on to power, who want to hold on to
51:33
Speaker 7: their prestigious position or get a prestigious position. But then
51:37
Speaker 7: you do find people who are courageous and will fight
51:40
Speaker 7: against the tide in their own party. You know, Liz
51:44
Speaker 7: Cheney is one of those people. I think Marjorie Taylor
51:47
Speaker 7: Green is one of those people I think I mentioned already.
51:50
Speaker 7: I think the four law firms have fought when so
51:52
Speaker 7: many didn't and were told that they were going to
51:55
Speaker 7: perhaps cease as going concerned. The law firms have been
51:58
Speaker 7: around for decades or hundreds or hundred years. You know,
52:01
Speaker 7: they took a lot of risk and they did those things.
52:03
Speaker 7: The people of Minneapolis, who by dint of I think
52:07
Speaker 7: protesting honorably and peacefully and not giving, you know, the
52:13
Speaker 7: other side an excuse of overreaction to then be more
52:17
Speaker 7: violent and say, see, these killings you thought were unjustified
52:21
Speaker 7: were justified because we now have an unruly mob and
52:23
Speaker 7: these people are savages and they've been called worse things
52:26
Speaker 7: by President Trump. Whenever bad things happen, you see two
52:30
Speaker 7: things go on, right, You see some people who go
52:33
Speaker 7: along with it because they think that's the way to be,
52:36
Speaker 7: and you see people who defy it. And so I
52:38
Speaker 7: always draw inspiration and hope from the people who defy
52:42
Speaker 7: when it's most difficult to do so, when it's most
52:45
Speaker 7: perilous to do so. And there are lots and lots
52:47
Speaker 7: and lots of those people, and we should hold them
52:50
Speaker 7: up and hoist them up and try to find ways
52:52
Speaker 7: to join them.
52:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, ethics might look different at this moment
52:56
Speaker 3: and what the right thing to do is. But one
52:58
Speaker 3: of the things that I've gotten from this conversation, it's
53:00
Speaker 3: been such a pleasure to have this in depth conversation
53:03
Speaker 3: with you, is that you know, it's especially in the
53:06
Speaker 3: most dire times that we need to think about questions
53:08
Speaker 3: of ethics and that looking for heroes and looking for
53:11
Speaker 3: those people of virtue and so preed.
53:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
53:15
Speaker 7: And thanks you. Great conversation, total pleasure again, great to
53:18
Speaker 7: see you.
53:19
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
53:20
Speaker 1: Wow, I want to thank pree Berarra for sitting down
53:23
Speaker 1: with Corey.
53:24
Speaker 4: That was great.
53:25
Speaker 1: Corey, this is a guy who's been on the front
53:27
Speaker 1: line since the first year of Trump's first term, and
53:29
Speaker 1: it's so amazing to see how he is still fighting
53:31
Speaker 1: for the.
53:31
Speaker 2: Rule of law.
53:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you and I first met, it was around
53:35
Speaker 3: the time he told the story about how he decided
53:37
Speaker 3: to refuse to resign to force Trump to fire him
53:40
Speaker 3: in order to get on the table the corruption that
53:43
Speaker 3: was at the heart really of Trump's regime, and that story,
53:47
Speaker 3: you know, is one of the.
53:47
Speaker 2: Ones that we talked about.
53:48
Speaker 3: So to get to talk to him in depth about
53:50
Speaker 3: what happened and his thoughts about Department of Justice.
53:54
Speaker 2: And dependence, and also to end on the hopeful note, to.
53:57
Speaker 3: Talk about ethics and the importance of ethics, especially in
53:59
Speaker 3: the midst of this attempted dictatorship, and finally to get
54:03
Speaker 3: his ideas about hope and that theme of the oath
54:05
Speaker 3: in the Office podcast that we always come back to
54:08
Speaker 3: that yes, it's a dark moment, but we will recover.
54:11
Speaker 3: He was an exceptional guest. We'll have him back, and
54:13
Speaker 3: what a pleasure to have him. What a pleasure of course,
54:16
Speaker 3: as always John, to speak to you every week.
54:18
Speaker 1: Well, and I thank you, Corey. There's no one I'd
54:20
Speaker 1: rather spend multiple constitutional crises, because we're way beyond constitutional conflicts.
54:29
Speaker 1: We're in multiple juggling constitutional crises with live chainsaws. And
54:33
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta say, like, really, it is the
54:36
Speaker 1: judiciary that's the primary bulwark against this overreach. I mean,
54:40
Speaker 1: God bless all the good people marching in the streets,
54:43
Speaker 1: But it ain't the press right now that's doing it.
54:46
Speaker 1: And it sure ain't Congress that's doing it. I mean,
54:50
Speaker 1: these other institutions are supposed to play equal or greater roles,
54:53
Speaker 1: but it really is the judiciary.
54:55
Speaker 4: If you had a.
54:56
Speaker 1: Chance to tell everyone in America about what's at stake
54:59
Speaker 1: legally and constitutionally in these conflicts for the months ahead,
55:03
Speaker 1: what would it be.
55:04
Speaker 3: Well, John, I mean, I wish I could say that
55:06
Speaker 3: we could look at each of these conflicts, and you know,
55:08
Speaker 3: there's a question about search and seizure and ICE ignoring it.
55:12
Speaker 3: There's a question about the Tenth Amendment and ICE ignoring it.
55:16
Speaker 3: There are the questions about extortion that we talked about
55:18
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the podcast, and political prosecutions that
55:22
Speaker 3: I talked about with pre But really, I think it's
55:25
Speaker 3: a mistake to just see these as isolated things. The
55:28
Speaker 3: thing that really is at stake is our democracy and
55:30
Speaker 3: the threat that the presidency, which is supposed to be
55:33
Speaker 3: bound by the rule of law, might be used to
55:36
Speaker 3: destroy democracy itself. It's something that the anti federalists worried about,
55:39
Speaker 3: that the founders were aware of, and wow, it really
55:43
Speaker 3: might happen. And I don't want to hide from that.
55:45
Speaker 3: That's what we're showing every week. But I also don't
55:47
Speaker 3: want to hide the hope because we are fighting back,
55:49
Speaker 3: and I do think that in the end, the fact
55:52
Speaker 3: that we're fighting that there is a constitutional crisis, that
55:55
Speaker 3: we haven't given up, that there's a crisis at all,
55:57
Speaker 3: not subjugation, that that's where the hope comes from.
56:00
Speaker 1: Well, I want to just thank you Corey for just
56:03
Speaker 1: helping us navigate this extraordinary moment where legal norms and
56:06
Speaker 1: constitutional order and political power are intersecting in ways that
56:10
Speaker 1: Civics class it didn't prepare us.
56:12
Speaker 4: And thank you for knowing all the bad bunny lyrics too.
56:15
Speaker 1: What is the best way for our listeners to follow you,
56:17
Speaker 1: professor and keep up with your work the other six
56:19
Speaker 1: days of the week.
56:20
Speaker 3: Well, we have a great newsletter on substack, so subscribe there.
56:24
Speaker 3: You can listen to us on any of the places
56:27
Speaker 3: that you get podcasts, and I urge you to continue
56:30
Speaker 3: to leave reviews. We've got almost all five star reviews
56:33
Speaker 3: on the various platforms. On Spotify, we have more than
56:36
Speaker 3: five hundred and twenty on Apple, and of course we
56:40
Speaker 3: continue to be in that top five.
56:42
Speaker 2: We were four last week.
56:44
Speaker 3: We continue to climb on Apple Government Podcasts and continue
56:48
Speaker 3: to tell people about it. The reason we're growing is
56:51
Speaker 3: we don't have a huge advertising budget. We do some
56:54
Speaker 3: sharing of ads, but it's really people telling their friends,
56:57
Speaker 3: so keep doing that.
56:58
Speaker 2: We like this podcast.
56:59
Speaker 3: Tell your friend to listen and become aware of what's
57:02
Speaker 3: happening in this democracy and the threat to it.
57:04
Speaker 7: Right on.
57:05
Speaker 1: I want to thank Wendy and Beowulf and everyone helps
57:07
Speaker 1: us put the show together. I want to thank all
57:09
Speaker 1: of our listeners are being so brilliant and so deeply attractive,
57:12
Speaker 1: and most of all, I want to thank you Corey
57:14
Speaker 1: for making me feel a little bit smarter, a little
57:16
Speaker 1: bit braver every week. You can hear me every night
57:19
Speaker 1: on Serious XM Progress Channel one twenty seven. If you
57:22
Speaker 1: don't have Serious XM, we're a free podcast called the
57:25
Speaker 1: John Fiegelsang Podcast. I have a substack too, and my
57:28
Speaker 1: book is called Separation of Church and Hate, A sane
57:30
Speaker 1: person's guide to take it back to the Bible from
57:32
Speaker 1: fundamentalist fascists and block pleasing a prauge, Corey, I feel
57:36
Speaker 1: better about my crumbling democracy already. Thank you, and we'll
57:40
Speaker 1: see you guys next time on the Oath in the Office.