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Trump’s War on Habeas Corpus and DOJ Independence — with Harry Litman · The Oath and The Office

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath in the Office.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm John Fugelsang, and I am so pleased and proud
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to welcome a man who does not appear in the
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Epstein Files, the star of our show, the author of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: The Oath and the Office, Brown University professor Corey Bretschneider.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Hello, sir, Hello John, And you know, in the midst
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: of so much bleak news, I look forward to talking
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to you every week.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: It just sort of cures.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Me of any malaise I might have and lets me
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: see the hope and the humor. And so we'll do
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: as we always do. We'll talk about the worrying stuff
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: that's out there and also the hope. And of course
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: in the second half we'll have Harry Littman, one of
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: the best commentators on law and presidential power, So looking
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: forward to that as well.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: It's nice of you to say, Corey.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Usually people find me the most depressing person in the room.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: I'm not an optimist. I'm a recovering cynic.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And as bad as all of this is right now,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I can point to you a lot of other times
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in American history where it was even worse, even without
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a flamboyantly racist moron for president. But also there's so
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: much resistance, there's so much hope, there's so much reason
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to hang on again. As a recovering cynic. I'm just
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: astonished at all the good people out there who are leaking,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: who are struggling, who are resisting. And I really want
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to talk to you about the reporting from Maggie Haberman
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and Jonathan Swan about Epstein. That could be the story
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of the month. But let's start with this tidbit that
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: this White House was considering suspending Habeas Corpus. Apparently Donald
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Trump weighed suspending a constitutional right because he's allowed to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: do that if he can't spell it or pronounce it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So Will Sharf, who's this very right wing White House
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: staff secretary. He wrote a secret memo last spring to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Susie Wilds, the chief of staff, and the New York
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Times got it five page memo. And the whole thing
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: was this guy in writing, because it looks like Will
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Sharp is looking to cover himself for posterity in writing
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: making sure that Susie Wiles knew that this crazy idea
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: from Stephen Miller to suspend Habeas Corpus for unauthorized immigrants
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: was unconstitutional, Corey for listeners who vaguely remember high school civics,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: what exactly is habeas corpus and why have legal scholars
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: called it one of the most important protections for any
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: constitutional democracy.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great set up, John, It's certainly a
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: constitutional right, but it's really more than that. It's I
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: would call it the kind of core of the idea
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: of a system of the rule of law, that we
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: don't live under a tyrant or an absolute monarch or
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: a dictator, that we live in a system in which
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: everybody is supposed to be subject to the same rules.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And the first idea there, and this goes back to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the thirteenth century to Magna carta, is that if government
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: is going to hold you against your will, it's going
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: to detain you, it has to have a reason for it,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: and it's got to be it has to be a
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: reason that they're able to give you a legal reason
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: in court. And so the idea of being able to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: appear in court, being able to hear the reasons why
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: you're being detained, that's the presumption of liberty and the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: idea that if you're going to be stopped from that liberty,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: that there has to be a great reason, a good reason,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: let's say, some reason for it. And you know it's
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: not any right, it's a fundamental right in the sense
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: if you think about it. Once that's gone, what is
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: to prevent absolute control by the president or by the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: authorities over any individual, because they could say, Stephen Miller,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: for instance, claimed oh, I just want to do it
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: in regard to Venezuelan's at least in the beginning, and.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Repard to those from enemy nations.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: But if you don't have a right to appear in court,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: how do we know that I am from Venezuela, that
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I am the person I'm accused of being. And so
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: quickly we saw when this got translated into policy, and
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: now we know exactly who it was coming from Stephen Miller.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Right, that was one of the problems. They were getting
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: the wrong people.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: They were getting people who were supposedly guilty of crimes
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that weren't in any way, And we know the root
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: of it. A battle in the White House, and at
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: least you know that we could question the motives. But
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: at least somebody stood up and said, hey, this isn't
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: just a violation of the law. It's a violation of
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the fundamental idea of the rule of law, right, the
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: basic idea of our constitution.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Well, this guy's sharp is hardly a resistance fighter. He's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the dirtiest pete. I mean, this guy's dirtier than Steve
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Mannen's hamper. But he clearly knew how illegal this was.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And again, at the end of the day, Corey, we
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: noticed these people are all looking out for themselves. So
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: he writes, how you know, the Constitution provides habeas corpus
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: can only be suspended in times of rebellion or invasion.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But Stephen Miller was going around apparently saying that Trump
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: can suspend it whenever he feels like, because he can
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: do that. Professor, how God bless Stephen Miller. How often
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: has habeas corpus actually been suspended in American history? What
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: circumstances traditionally justify suspending it?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, the Congress in our Constitution it does
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: say that Congress has the ability in times of emergency
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to suspend habeas corpus, to really postpone our right to
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: appear in court. And Lincoln during the Civil War did
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: try to unilaterally himself suspend the writ to suspend habeas corpus. Now,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: the courts came back at him and said, rightly, in
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: my opinion, no, the Constitution's clear. Only Congress can do this.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You can't do it on your own. And Lincoln, being
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: a serious constitutional thinker nothing, of course, like Donald Trump
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: or Stephen Miller, said Okay, I'm going to abide by
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: what the courts said here. I'm going to seek the
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: suspension of the writ from Congress. But the fact that
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Lincoln did it, I think is a lot of the
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: fuel here. That Trump sees himself as a kind of Lincoln.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: We've seen it from other presidents too, that Nixon himself
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: compared himself to Lincoln, talked about his emergency powers and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: in ordering crimes against his political opponents. Nixon did, of course,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: you know, run and run around the writ of Habeas corpus.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: So you know, there are precedents in some of the
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: worst moments in American history, but they really don't support
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: in any way this unilateral suspension that Miller was arguing for.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And that's what the memo says.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It points out why that Lincoln moment was one that
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: was corrected, why other presidents who have tried to do it,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I should say too.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: George Bush g W.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Bush tried to suspend the rid of habeas corpus in
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: regard to Guantanamo, and he was corrected by the courts.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And in the Comedian case they said, I don't think so.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: There's no such thing as a law free zone under
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: the control of the United States, And all of these
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: things are in that memo correcting Miller and trying to
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: educate I.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I'm sure Trump didn't read it.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: It's way too long, but at least trying to educate
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: this president.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: You had me at Trump thinks he's like Lincoln. I'm
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: still on that except John Wilkes Booth would have been
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a much bigger fan. Corey, I got to ask you
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: about the Situation Room. This place that's built for nuclear
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: threats and terrorist attacks and military crises. This is the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: room where they famously tracked Osama bin Laden. Donald Trump promised,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: as you know, many times, to release the Epstein files,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and now, according to reporting from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's top officials held repeated meetings in the Situation Room
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to contain the Epstein fallout, not
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to contain predators, not to expose predators, not to help victims,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to contain the story. Bush's senior team, including JD Vance,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Susie Wilds, Pam Bondi, Cashptel, Dan Bongino, who I'm sure
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: is one of the leaguers, Todd Blanche and others had
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: multiple emergency in the situation room. Okay, the same room
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of the bin Laden raid was now being used by
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Trump's people to strategize around their bosses. Many many connections
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to a convicted child rapist and child sex trafficker Corey.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I just these guys spend ten years telling us there's
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this secret cabal of elites covering up sex crimes, and
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: then they get into power and immediately form a secret
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: cabal of elites to cover up sex crimes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: The irony as sothic. Trump could use it as gravy.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I have so many questions for you about all this,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: But what was your reaction when you first heard about
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: these senior officials having Again, this was not about protecting America,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: This was about protecting their boss from their boss's own resume.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing to say is I'm grateful that
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: we have a light being shined on all of this.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: One of the problems with the debacle of the Epstein files,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: aside from the horror of Epstein's crime himself and the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: president's close friendship with this person who was a horrific
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: sex trafficker.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And abuser of miners, is.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: The failure of transparency, the ability to hide all of this.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: And of course, exactly as you say, my first instinct was,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: thankfully we have this reporting. At least we're getting to
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: see what was going on behind the scenes, and we
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: see the tension that isn't just an irony, it's something
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: that they were aware of that. You have Bongino, you
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: have cash Betel crying out against the supposed deep state
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and the idea that there's the secret cabal, and now
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, they realize in the Oval Office
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: in these discussions, we're part of it. We're part of it,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: and they're calling for release of files. They're criticizing the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: attempt to hide.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: All of it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: But increasingly, my sense is that as they learn what's
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: in it, they realize they really are part of this
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: deep state conspiracy that they've been railing against all the time.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: And you know, I.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Think that's part of what the reporting shows. And of
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: course I think the other horrific thing is the Pam
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Bondies of the world, you know, trying to cover all
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: of this up, not thinking about the horror, not thinking
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: about the wrongdoing, but thinking how can we protect this
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: president at all costs? And at some point, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: there's politics, but there's also a deep immorality, and that's
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: of course at the heart of all of this.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in June of last year, BAMBONDI told Trump,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: We've gone through the files. There's not a lot there
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of child pornography. We can't put any of
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that out. There are some mentions of you, but nothing substantive.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: There are thousands and thousands and thousands of mentions of.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: This man there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're in the situation room. And my favorite
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: detailed professor could be the Rump reportedly wasn't even in
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: these meetings. The president wasn't running the cover up. His
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: staff was running a cover up about him. Imagine being
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: so politically radioactive, your own administration is having emergency ops
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: without you because you're a security risk to yourself. Now,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: according to the article, Vance, who again is only concerned
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: with his becoming president someday, everything is filtered through that,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and he was floating the idea of having more transparency,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: maybe getting Tucker Carlson to interview de Lane Maxwell in prison.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: By contrast, and Wiles and Blair, they just dismissed the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: whole thing is fringe noise. And Bongino of course comes
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: off as the guy who knows how bad this is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: and says this will be Trump's Iran contra. And it's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: pretty clear that Bongino is one of the leakers. But wow,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: some of them wanted greater transparency while others favored containment.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: This has all been leaked, and apparently they were flipping
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: out yesterday because they are quite convinced that Haberman and
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Swann have audio recordings of all of these individuals and
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: one of the most secure your places on Earth discussing
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: covering up child rape. I mean, what does that tell
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you about the internal split, that we know this much
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: about this meeting?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it shows you how the weakness of
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: this president is starting to emerge, and this turns out
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: to be his achilles heel. It's one of the hopeful
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: things about the story that Congress did eventually push back
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: and demand transparency.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: So that's one thing we're.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Also starting to get a sense of the internal dynamics
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: of JD. Van's trying to save himself. He wants to
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: be president. Obviously, one way that he can become president
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: is to have this president impeached or be forced to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: step down. And the scandal over these files might be
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: part of it. And somebody who I don't see winning
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: a primary, you know, on his own, might have a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: real chance if he's the sitting president of the United States,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: and so the incentives are there politically for him to
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: demand transparency. It too in the sense that he knows,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: you know, that Trump is going to be implicated in
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: these files. The incompetence also stands out that Pam Bondi,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: you know, trying to cover up for the president, also
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: release files unknowingly perhaps that you know, showing that he
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: was implicated, of course, and so you know, it's just
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a sort of cacophony of incompetence and craven selfishness and
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: as you said, covering up child rape. One big picture
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: thing is one of the biggest dangers of the Office
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: of the White House is the tradition of secrecy, in
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: which basically we can hide crimes and we can hide
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: immorality underneath this veil of secrecy, and we're seeing it
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: here in the extreme because it is hiding complicity in
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the crimes of one of the most notorious sex criminals
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: in American history.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just madness.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, as Donald Trump's makeup has made me say
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: many times, do you, professor, the cover up is worse
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: than the crime. I mean, our history is full of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: scandals where the attempt to cover it up became much
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: more damaging than the underlying conduct. I don't know that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Lessons repeating here. The underlying conduct is pretty awful, But
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen this part of the movie before,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: haven't we. They always create larger problems for themselves.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a famous line that
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: history doesn't repeat at rhymes, and I think we see
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: that here in the Nixon case.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Certainly, the idea that there's.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: An awareness of the crimes committed, serious underlying crimes in
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the Nixon case, not just Watergate, but the at least
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: the ten other crimes that were being investigated at the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: time of the pardon of Nixon by Ford, including an
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: attempted assault on Daniel Elsberg and other protesters that the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Special Prosecutor's office.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Was looking into.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: And as these crimes became apparent, and as Watergate became
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: a parent, they dug in by trying to pay people
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: off as hush money. And then that cover up became
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the real scandal that we found on the Smoking Gong
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: tape that took down Nixon. Now, what's the difference, I
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: said at rhymes, It doesn't repeat. Some of that pattern
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: seems very similar here, the cover up being part of
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: the problem.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: But at least in that case Nixon was in charge, he.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Was ordering the hush money, he was at least being informed.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Also, the loyalty is remarkable to me.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: In the Nixon example, where his staff or is Haldeman
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: and Erlickman is chief of staff and high level assistance.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: We're saying, you know, if you need us not.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: To be here to take the blame, we'll do it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: They really love this guy. In the case of Trump,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: that's not the case at all. A he's not in
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: control of anything, he's not even in the room, and
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: be no way or any of these people taking the
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: fall for him.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It kind of makes all their attempts to steal elections
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: seem so innocent and wholesome.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Doesn't it.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: We got to take a break, but when we come back,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the latest United States Postal Service proposal
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to block mail ballots. Spoiler alert, it's designed to help
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: one party.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: This is the Oath in the Office. We'll be right back.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Fiegel Sank Professor bretsch Us. Postal Service has proposed this
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: new rule, and I'm not sure I understand this. I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: might need you to hold my hand here a bit.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: It would allow the Post Office to refuse to deliver
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: mail ballots in and two states if those states refuse
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to turn over their voter role information to the federal government. Now, Corey,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember racist talking a whole lot
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: about states rights.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: But this is crazy.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: States would have to create a list of mail voters
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that employees of the service would review for eligibility, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service could decide who didn't get to vote.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And the Postal Service could not even send the ballots
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: to a state if the state didn't give them private information.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: What is your initial constitutional reaction to this?
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: Wow?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: You know we use this phrase self coup all the
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: time on this show to talk about the ways that
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is trying to use the presidency to usurp
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: and destroy our constitution. And you know, he did it
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: during January sixth in one way, and we've been focused
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: on trying to repair that way. There's something called the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Doctoral Count Reformact that keeps the events of January sixth
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: from repeating themselves, from using that technique to destroy democracy.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: So he's just gonna pivot and find another way. Our
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: elections under the Constitution are supposed to be controlled by
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the states and local government, and yet you have this
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: institution of the Post Office, and Trump is trying to
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: commandeer it to reverse what our constitution says and to
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: really take control. Of course, he doesn't have to eliminate
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: all votes for Democratic candidates. He can just tram a
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: sliver of them in order to get that difference. And
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: that's what he's trying to do. And this really unprecedented
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: and illegal.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Make it harder here, a little bit, make it harder there,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit, voter id save Act, ladies with a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: new last name, whatever they can do to just shave
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: off the vote count a little bit state by state.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: The Constitution I thought, I seem to remember you telling me,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: once generally leaves election administration to the states, is that
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: still a significant principle or do we not care about
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: that anymore in this country?
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: You know that's the law.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: But when Donald Trump says he wants to federalize or
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: nationalize elections, this is what he's talking about, usurping the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: check of federal power by the states.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: And it was kind of a brilliant thing to do in.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Some ways, to have multiple checks on power and federalism.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Although it's traditionally been used.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: By racis to try to usurp the right to vote,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: now we're in a bizarrel world where we're seeing actually
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: now it can be used to protect the right to vote.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: And Trump sees that, and what does he want to do.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: He wants to create a vulnerability to use a supposedly
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: benign part of the federal government, the post Office, to
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: usurp it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: There is a precedent for it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you go all the way back to
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the seventeen nineties and lead up in particular to the
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: eighteen hundred election, Jefferson and Madison are writing to each
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: other about the fact that they're worried that their mail
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: is being read and really that the Federalist Party and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: John Adams are spying on them using the postal service.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And the postal service was an enormously important part of
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: our government. At one point it was protected from residential
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: control who had an independence to it. That was ended
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: in the Myers versus Nebraska case where the Supreme Court
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: essentially put it under the control.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Of the president.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: And the worry all along has been from scholars and
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: from politicians. This gives communication control over the president, all
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: sorts of control.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: And look at this all of a.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Sudden, that fear of the abuse of national power by
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the post Office is being revived once again. And with
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: this one proposal, which really is a proposal, let's say
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: what it is to cheat in this upcoming election.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, could the postal Service legally determine voter eligibility?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I mean that sounds crazy, Like what worries you the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: most about the federal government becoming involved in deciding whose
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: ballots are allowed to travel through mail?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Well, as we know with Trump's technique, and you see
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: this in the Save Act and the voter id push
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: to and as Stacy Abrams explained on this podcast, so well,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: you know every state has some form of ID. They're
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: trying to create requirements of ID that will exclude some voters,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: and that technique will be used here too.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: They'll say, all we're.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Trying to do is determine a neutral, simple thing, are
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you an eligible voter or not? And not send you
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a ballot If it's fraudulent. Well, that's not what's going
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: to go on. What's going to go on is that
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: definition of valid or invalid voter is going to be
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: used to big surprise, destroy Democratic Party voters. And that's why, Yes,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: it's not just dangerous. It could work because it sounds benign,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: just as voter ID sounds benign, and yet they're able
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to reshape it, possibly into this technique to steal an election.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: We should be awfully worried about it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Well, meanwhile, Corey, I got some bad news for the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: terrorists of January sixth. It looks like it's getting harder
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: for people who beat cops for Donald Trump's lie to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: get paid for their labors. Once again, yet another private
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: contractor gets stiffed for working for Trump. But Judge Leoni
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Brinkman of the Eastern District of Virginia just extended her
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: injunction against this sohole slat fun and she's pretty mad
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that the government is refusing to admit, under penalty of
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: perjury that the fund has actually ended. Recall, just a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: couple weeks ago she blocked the move, and Todd Blanche
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: said to the House, we're not moving forward with the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: fund period, and they're like, yeah, you're still trying to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: move forward with the part where the IRS can never
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: go after Trump and his kids for committing crimes. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: then later that next day, Trump said to reporters, I
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: don't know if the fund's ending or not. So this
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: judge seemed really mad that this administration is saying one
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: thing and doing another, sort of like back during the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: January sixth cases when Rudy Giuliani would come out and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: preach all manner of fraud and then go into the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: courthouse and actually say under oath, Oh judge, no, there's
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: no fraud. We'll not claiming any I mean, I mean,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: this seems madness. The administration claimed the fund was paused
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: while simultaneously refusing to formally terminate it. Do you agree
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the judge has every right to be so vexed?
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you know, just to kind of big picture
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: think about all of the themes that we've been talking about.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: The sunlight that's ing the abuses and all of these
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: cases is transparency.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: It's actually just learning about what's happening.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: And the more things come out, the more the American
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: people have it explained to them what's happening, they react,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and then that causes the president to react back. You
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: saw that in the Epstein files case. And the more
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: we learned about the cover up, the more we learned
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: about what's in there that was being hit, the more
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: we demanded Congress act, which it did.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: In this case, it's a little different.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's really the judiciary that's telling the main that's driving this,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I think in a lot of ways, and there is
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: an amazing group Democracy Forward.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Shout out to them.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I worked with them, of course on the brief that
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I filed along with other scholars saying that the tariffs
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: were unconstitutional, and that case, of course did bring down
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the tariffs. And what they did here was so important
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: is they challenged this Department of Justice supposedly anti weaponization
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of government fund that was a weaponization of government fund,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: and they just through pushing in court revealed what's happening,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: which is an attempt to reward Trump's political allies. Where
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: is the legal authority to do that? Now, the statements
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: of Trump and the Department of Justice have basically backed off,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: and yet the court is still considering this case. They
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: haven't the Department of Justice hasn't given up and trying
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to defend as supposed anti weaponization fund. And so in
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: the midst of all this, you have a judge who's like,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: what is going on. You're making these public statements that
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: you're no longer doing this, and yet you're fighting this lawsuit.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: That must be incredibly frustrating for this judge, who, after all,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: is supposed to be considering a real lawsuit, hearing arguments
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: about what's really happening on the ground, and instead is
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: getting this mishmash. And not just frustrated, but the judge
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: is now demanding, you know, either a clear statement that
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: this is continuing this drive towards this anti weaponization fund
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: or if that's not going to happen, then we're done,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and basically an injunction to stop it. So we've been
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: talking about hope transparency. It's not just transparency here, it's
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: also the judiciary, not the Supreme Court, but the lower courts,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: lower federal courts have really been heroic in all of this,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and this is a great example of it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: We do have to hit a break, but before we go, Corey,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: it really does seem like, once again with Trump, the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: ambiguity itself is a political strategy, right. He's just hitting
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a snooze alarm, kicking the can, trying to see how
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: much he can wiggle out by not committing too hard
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: to one definitive promise.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would say it's some mix of incompetence
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and you see this in the chaos of the aftermath
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: of the ft scene files and the internal debate amongst
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: it and incompetence, and you know, also just not caring
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: at we talked about transparency is the cure to abuse.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: For Trump, it's.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: All about lying at any cost, bsing in order to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: just get your way with a total indifference to what
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: the truth is.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: And you know what, that doesn't work so well in court.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break. But when we
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: come back, we're joined by a very special guest, Harry
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Livin will be here.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: This is the Oath in the Office. Don't go Welcome
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: back to the Oath in the Office.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I'm John Fiegel, saying, Professor, I'm so excited about this guest.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: This is someone that I've never actually gotten to meet
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: in person before.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: What a pleasure. Our guest today is Harry Littman. He's
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: He's a veteran federal prosecutor. He's played a lot of
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: roles in the DOJ and knows it well.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: He's also the host of the terrific Talking Feds podcast.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: We can trying to recommend to you all.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: You've seen him on MS now, and he really knows
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the DOJ from the inside. He knows how it's supposed
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to function, and why it's independence is supposed to matter,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and how we're failing so badly at this moment. And
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: we wanted to bring him on, among other things, to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: talk about what's going on with the destruction of the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Department of Justice and its use as a tool to
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: go after political opponents.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: So, Harry, welcome to the oath.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: In the welcome sir, thank you very much.
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: Corey John good to be here, longtime fan, first time caller.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: I love thank you so much.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I wanted to just start off by talking to you
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: about this anti weaponization fund, and we just talked about
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: this judge's frustration with what's going on the Department of
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Justice not withdrawing the suit, but also at the same
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: time all of these statements that look like they are
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: pulling back. I mean, so, what's your sounds of where
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: things stand with this supposed anti weaponization fund and just
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: your thoughts in general about what's going on here in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the creation of the fund to reward political allies, including
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: those who participated in the attempted coup of January sixth.
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, so on that second question, I'll come to
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: it after. It's a surpassing stinkpile. It's really about as
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: bad as anything I think since the wholesale pardons on
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: January sixth.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: But where it stands legally, I think is kind of murky.
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: So to me, there's a basic legal question that they
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: just can't answer well, and the question is whether the
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: courts are going to force them to it, And that
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: is what's the damn basis for. And I think you're
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: really right to emphasize not just the fund but the
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: whole amnesty provision. It's just a sort of taxpayer funded
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: bounty directly to Trump of nine figures anyway, either that
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: was an exchange, a regular old senttlement agreement. Oh, he
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: will voluntarily dismiss his case, which was worthless literally for
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: several reasons, meritless it already one case is exactly the same.
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: It was probably unconstitutional because it was colluded. So literally,
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: this zero thing is being exchanged for billions of dollars
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: for Trump and his allies.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: That doesn't fly.
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: And that and sort of narrow legal grounds because you
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: can't use the money the Congress appropriated if it's not
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: a real dispute. So that's the first than on the
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: other hand, they could just try to say, okay, we're
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: not relying on that. Instead, it's it's what it's Todd
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: Blanche giving, you know, a few billion dollars to the
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: well even if they leave the fund to sign one
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: hundred million to the president he's professed to love, and
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: just a raw kind of Attorney general gift that's even
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: sort of worse. So legally, it's I think completely untenable,
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: and they're going to try to straddle. Politically, I think
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: it's pretty interesting, and I wonder what you guys think.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: But the Republicans and Senate initially balked, and there was
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: just enough to sort of push back on the fund.
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: But this other real stink part of an appendage here,
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: the amnesty provision, which I think the American people would
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: be equally repulse by.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: Seems to be just kind of hanging around.
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: And the Republicans, who initially had gotten a little steel
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: in their spine like corn In or till Us or
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: you know, have not been falling through with the same
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: kind of Hell, no, this isn't going anywhere. So it's
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: one of these cases where I think the politics in
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: a good way have driven the overall challenges, but it's
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: to my mind not clear whether the follow through will
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: get at both parts, and they're both independently, you know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: complete outrages.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I think we've talked a lot on the show about
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: this so called lawsuit where Trump is settling with the
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: irs supposedly, and the idea of it as a fraud
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: on the court.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, have you ever seen anything like this? I
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: was trying to think of examples.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I president creates a sort of fake lawsuit in order
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: to give leverage to himself to then settle with himself,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: in order to then create a fun to reward as political.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And might not be able to get any American examples,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: but there must be some historical accesses.
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, maybe Putin did something like this. No, look,
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: it's really straightforward. But again, the lawsuit that he brought,
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: he brought it too late. It was time bard he
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: brought it against the wrong person, and the irs had
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: already established that it is collusive because he controls both sides,
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: and even if it were meritorious.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: His damages would be capped at one thousand dollars.
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: Using that as the vehicle for these fights, it's completely
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: beyond the pale. And so it's a flat out vehicle
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: for self dealing and enrichment of the insurrection.
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: It's an addition everything else. It's got this legal veneer
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: for that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: People may be accept for things that are really odious,
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: just as conduct for Trump to do. So, the sure
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: to answer your question is, you know, I've been focused
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: on this a lot, and there are other cases where
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: they've clearly been both the same side has been controlled
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: by one guy, as Trump does here, And every single
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: time the Supreme Court says that's not a real case.
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: The federal courts can't hear that kind of case. We
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: can only hear a real controversy. So this just doesn't
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: fly in any way. But the question now becomes what
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: court can There have been many suits against it, but
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: there are going to be standing questions. That's always their
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: sort of you know, hobby horse. Oh maybe it's wrong,
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: but nobody can challenge it. There's this interesting case down
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: in the Southern District of Florida where they judge said,
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: I think you may have defrauded me. I would like
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: this reopen. And just on Friday, Trump came in with
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: a with a totally kind of aggressive but also psychotic saying, no,
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: there wasn't any kind of collusion, No, there wasn't any
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: of course we were adverse. Of course this was a
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: you know, just essentially propagating the same lie. And what
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: court can actually pull the plug on it, or whether
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: the rs in Congress will pull the plug on it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: It's right now, as outrageous as it is, to my mind,
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: a little bit unsettled whether what obviously should happen, which
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: is to have this thing, you know, dean and buried
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: and never never see the light of day, Whether that
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: will happen, or whether he'll somehow or be able to
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: rest some kind of compromise.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: But it does seem like the danger primarily at this
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: point is maybe not the actual prosecutions, but how the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: threat of investigation itself becomes the political weapon. That certainly
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: seems the case with Komi and many others. I mean,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: in a way, he doesn't need to know he's got
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: enough of a case to get a conviction. He's here
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: to bankrupt people with legal costs.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: As puttive vengeance.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, we just saw this yesterday with Newsom,
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: and don't discount you know they're able, both Komy Knewsom
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: were able to say bring it on. But the pain,
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: the expense, the anxiety for the whole family. You know,
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: we know that they were going around talking to anyone
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: who knew Newsom's wife, say yesterday. So Komy has very
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: unusually right. Normally the subject investigation, you keep your head down,
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: but they've really confronted him.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: But you're totally right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: We've had a record of failure in these cases that
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: is breathtaking. Or you know, if when I was in
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: the Department of Justice in my entire career, I saw
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: one case where the grand jury didn't return the charges.
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: It wasn't even mine, but I worked on it. And
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: that's because you choose them very carefully. Here, they're chosen
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: simply as you say to Harris, and make trouble and
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: mean and Todd Blanch. You know, Pam BONDI had the
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: impression she wasn't exactly sure even what she was doing,
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: but she did it. Todd Blanch knows the difference. And
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: he's literally come out and defended the right of Trump
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: to bring these cases, these meritless cases. And it's just
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: we're really grinding into both DNA. When you're talking about
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: abusing the awesomeness of the federal prescatory power just to
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: make trouble for political enemies. That just does not happen
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: in democracies. That happens then.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Some guys want to get disparked. Some guys just want
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: to get disparred. Sometimes yeah, yeah, we'll see.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a good way to put it too,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: to recognize that, you know, they're not necessarily trying to
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: get convictions in court at this point. They might realize
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: that some of these cases are going to be tossed,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: but that's not the idea. Of the idea is to
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: threaten your political opponents. And although you are seeing bravery
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: from James Comey and Letitia James, and they do have
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the resources to back and the knowledge to know that
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: they're going to win in court not to give in.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: My worry is, of course, that you know, it sends
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: a chilling effect to the wider public, and it lets
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: people know, you know, if you really are good at
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: criticizing Trump, you might find yourself under indictment. And when
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: you're weighing that cost of speaking out and taking the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: risk of being prosecuted or not doing so, at least
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: for some people, it's going to tilt the difference. I mean,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: what are your thoughts about that, Harry, about the chilling effect?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: And I also did want to ask you John brought
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: up your time at the Department of Justice. I mean,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I just don't have to imagine that the government lawyers
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: that you were working with would never have signed their
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: names to these indictments. So what's going on that there
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: are people who are willing to not just Todd Blanche,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: but the lawyers and the Department that are willing to
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: go along with all of this. It seems like just
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a complete abandonment of legal ethics and their obligation as lawyers.
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: Let's start there, never ever, ever, ever, Look, there's a
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: absolute bedrock Bible principles of federal prosecution. Two things you
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: must do, and if you haven't done them, your supervisors
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: will put you through the ringer. You must believe or
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: have the proof that the person has committed a crime,
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: and it must be likely that you're going to be
• 35:19
  Speaker 6: able to get a conviction. Two different standards, and if
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: you don't have those, it is as elementary as it
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: comes that get the hell out of here until you do.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: So.
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: You're certainly right, Corey that there's a chilling effect. I
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: know of people who you know are are flinching, And
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: it seems evident to me that there are media stories
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: that are have sort of false whataboutism, But that kind
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: of impact is just secondary to like the what the
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: f are.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: You talking about?
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: You're going after people yet you know, oh, are not guilty,
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: justsa Harris. It's so fundamental, a violation of everything the
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: DOJ stands for. I feel sometimes like I'm a little nerdier.
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: It pains to try to explain how completely you know,
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: down to the absolute foundation of what the whole place
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: is about, right to make that point, But yeah, anyone
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: who has anything to do, and you see many many
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: people leave the department at this kind of point, starting
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: with say the Mayor Adams case would have been I
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: did know the Department of Justice, and it's not any
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: kind of nuanced thing. This is like, are you kidding me?
• 36:44
  Speaker 6: Why don't you just go into court with like no
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: clothes or whatever. It's just don't doesn't happen. So, yeah,
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: the deep corruption that that could happen once, not to
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: mention twice, three, four times. There's so much in place,
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: including the mindset of all the people who show up
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: for work for this very reason, that makes that not
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: a possibility until you have the very guy on top
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: saying do it. And yeah, I think he also has
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: some allies there.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: You know. I think there's no doubt there's.
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: A lot of you know, how will we try to
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: correct the situation if and when things change, But this
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: aspect of things will you know, I think there's no
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: doubt that he will blanche and Bonny will go down
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: in infamy.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: This is all you have to know.
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: They brought merritless cases against political enemies of the president
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: because the president wanted to. There's no possible defense of that.
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: This is just revolting boom.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean and again like the topic, but it's
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: just it's just I keep thinking, like we have to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: move on, you know, what happens to the long term
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: institutional damage of the institutions, Like even if these investigations
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: never result in convictions, the fact is that the founders
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: didn't foresee this. Our system is available for rich people
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: to use as a harassment tool for punitive vengeance, like that.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: We've crossed the room coon or maybe it's the River Styx,
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: right that this could actually happen, and you really do
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: you know, we should have such problems, But what does
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: it take to because basically this was all inculcated in
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: a more powerful way even than law, through culture and
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: norms that were just from the time of Watergate, when
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: the you know, revered Attorney General Edward Leevy came back
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: to write the Ship. And then what I'm telling you
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: is it's true, it's in Princevill's veneral consecution, but it's
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: an ethos that is so completely baked in. I'm just
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: trying to think about how it would work if a
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: politically minded person for half a second decides to try
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: to gin up a case, you know, they would be
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: I think drun down the department. And conversely, by the
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: way you have this mantra about the Biden weaponization, there's
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: a way to confirm or deny that were these cases
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: that fit the principles? Was there probable costa believe they've
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: come in a crime, probably cost to believe conviction. There's
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: not a case. There's not a freakin' single case in
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: which those principles weren't satisfied, meaning there was no weaponization
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: in the Biden Justice Department. The difference is the conduct
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: of what people did and didn't and that's something that
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: I do think it's been really hard to kind of
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: uphill battle for just DOOJ types, not you know, pro
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: Biden or pro Trump, but people to just sort of explain.
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: I fear that the mantras kind of caught on. Oh
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: both sides.
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: Did it, they didn't.
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: The DOJ was a righteous place, and the ultimate pain
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: here is born by the people. You know, if you
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: don't have the presumption of regularity and you can't get convictions,
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: or you're doing it for political reasons, it's public safety
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: and all the good things that DOJ is able to effectuate.
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: That is ultimately in sacrifice.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you, Harry, I'm eager to talk
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: about more about Todd Blanche and his potential future as
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Attorney General, but you did mention something that I'd be
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: remiss if I didn't focus on, which is the period
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: after Nixon in which you had Attorney General Levy trying
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: to reshape the Department of Justice.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: And as I understand.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: That history, and I'm wondering if what your take is
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: on it, that you had Nixon who really did try
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: to weaponize certainly the IRS and the Department of Justice
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: to use He had plans to use special prosecutors as
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: weapons against his political opponents, including Daniel Ellsberg and others.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: And in the aftermath of that, part of the idea
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: of the Ford Whitehouse was bringing in this University of
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Chicago president who had very serious integrity, not a partisan in.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: The you know, certainly not in the Nixonian.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Sense, and reshaping the Department through as as you said
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: several times, through norms. But one of the things I
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: guess I wonder about is there was the possibility at
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: that time and now we have to think about it
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: about more serious reforms about what we did have an
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: independent council for instance, who could investigate the president without
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: being fired Outside the contoys of the DOJ, there could
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: be legal reshaping of the Department of Justice. That would
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: have been another way of doing it, not relying on norms.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: So I guess my temptation in this second Trump term
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: as we see the total destruction of norms and the
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: taking of what's supposed to be an independent Department of
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Justice and turning it into a weapon of the president.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: You know, what do you think about what a future
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: reform after we're done with this nightmare might be? Like,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, is it a matter of getting the right
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: people back in the Department.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Of Justice or more serious legal reforms?
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: Well?
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: Both, And that is the thing, the kind of purging
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: that people have documented, and every time I talk to
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: someone who really reports on this, it's worse than we know.
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: It's just complete fear and loathing of the people who
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: are left there. But that really the part of the
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: point that it's a cultural as well as legal kind
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: of ballast, is that there are a sort of subset
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: of people who really were that go to people of
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: judgment and respect. They are disproportioned, they've just been completely
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: hollowed out, and so there's literally talk I have, you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: some glancing involvement in people thinking about just this. And
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: one of the things is, well, certain people come back,
• 42:46
  Speaker 6: at least for a time to try to establish things
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: on the legal front. And lev and you know, you
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: mentioned Corey the Independent Council that had a whole kind
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: of legal odyssey where the Ris eventually did not approve it.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: As a separate point, but.
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: It's the paradigm for a series of possible moves that
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: essentially would legislate these norms into I make them congressional enactments.
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: And I'll just say generally this Supreme Court and its
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: overall kind of enthusiasm for executive power, each and every
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: one of those would have some kind of potential child.
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: Oh you can't do that. You can't tell the DOJ
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: what to do. Oh if you can't tell the president
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: what he can say with the DOJ, in fact, it's immune.
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: So that's part of the challenge. But people are really
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: really aware of the challenge. I'll just say that of
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: the two pieces, you know, when I think of the
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: really vibrant and look, DOJ not perfect. On the other hand,
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: more than people really recognize it was an idealistic place
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: where people gave up a lot of money believe to
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: go in and feel they were doing the right thing.
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: And of the two elements the law and the requirements
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: which people knew and the norms and culture, it's this
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: one that is the stronger one. And it's a very
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: hard general problem. How do you reconstruct culture? How do
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: you have generations? And I think everyone seems to agree
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: you can't just pretend it's twenty fifteen. It is more
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: complicated than that. There will be holdover folks, but you know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: they'll certainly be will and good faith to do exactly that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: And at least the main borderlines that we talked about,
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: like are you kidding me going reprizal prosecutions or are
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: you kidding me? Just the converse of just letting political
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: friends go, et cetera. Those will be understood. But when
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: and how exactly it will be a flourishing place dedicated
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: to service of the interests of the American peace people.
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: That's like Hercules cleaning out the stables of the right.
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: That's going to be really friggin' you know.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, God bless our tattern freight and warned guardrails held
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: together tenaciously by duct tape. God bless these judges. I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: have to ask you, sir, as long as we have
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you here, what concerns you the most about Todd Blanche's
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: tenure so far.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: If you had to pin it down to one thing.
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: I would say the sort of crystalline moment for me
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: with Todd Blance, even though it wasn't the most damaging,
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: was when he goes down and talks with Elaine Maxwell,
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: and that it is absolutely breathtaking lee without any possible
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: public purpose, any possible taking care to do the people's
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: business plainly and solely.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Giving a rapist a cushy club fed prison doesn't help us, sir?
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Is that what you're saying?
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: Even the Deputy Attorney General himself going down with no
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: you know, to try to elicit this information that announced
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: I am Donald Trump's lawyer, and if it comes to
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: a choice between Donald Trump and the people, see a people,
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: I am Donald Trump's lawyer. So in a word, I
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: mean I should say that Todd Blantz has a special
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: place of contempt in the sort of scorecard lineup of
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: the people former d O jayers like me, because he knows.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: What the hell he's doing. He was accolutely clear.
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: But if I have to capture in a heartbeat the
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: worst thing about him, it's absolutely that just I love you,
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: mister president, I'm your lawyer, and this whole department.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: Is here to serve you.
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: That you know, that's not just a like a violation
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: of norms. That's like, you know why we fought the revolution.
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: I mean, that is so fundamentally corrupt of the basic
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: job to do take care that the people's interests in
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: the last be faithfully executed.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: So that would be in that word, yeah, it really
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: is the opposite of the idea that the Department of
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Justice is there to defend the law, to defend the people.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: And he I mean, he hasn't said these words exactly,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: but his actions have more than showed it that, as
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you say, he takes his role as the president's personal
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: lawyer and his role as Attorney General to be exactly
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: the same.
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: And you know he is more or less said it, Corey.
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: He actually defended the president's baraga to bring these reprisal prosecutions.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: Bondy just did it or talked about how guilty Kobe was,
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: but he's basically said, yeah, that's Article two. That's his
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: read of article.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Somewhere on a tarmac, Loretta Lynch is scratching her head.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you mentioned the Supreme Court, Harry too,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and I wonder if you you agree with this. But
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: to me, you know, the idea of the unitary executive.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: You know, one alternative to the unitary executive course of
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: the founding would be to go the way of New
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: York and have an independently elected attorney general. The Framers
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: decided not to do that.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: They put the.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Chief prosecutor of the United States essentially in the cabinet
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: and under the control of the president. But the danger
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: of the defenders of the constitution said, well, you have
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: these norms, you have this Washington would never order the
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: prosecution of his political opponents. And I guess now we're
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: starting to pull these themes together to see the danger
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: of that that what do you do, we're the norms
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: when the person in charge of the Department of Justice,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: when the Attorney general is just willing to say, no,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: I am the president's personal lawyer. I really was struck
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: by that point, and I just want listeners to absorb
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: it that he was essentially willing to say it doesn't
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: matter if you're guilty, we are willing to try you anyway.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: We talked before on the episode about the memos, talking
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: about Stephen Miller's proposal essentially to get rid of habeas
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: corpus through presidential action at least, you know, in the
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: case of enem nations, in the case of Venezuela. But
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: we're really talking about now too, is the getting rid
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: of habeas corpus, getting rid of any fundamental idea, at
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: least as concerns the Attorney general when it comes to prosecutions.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Of course, we still have courts, we still have the
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: ability of judges to push back. But the idea that
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: the Attorney General would think that you can prosecute political
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: opponents even if they're not guilty is about as fundamental
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: and undermining of the rule of law as I can
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: think of.
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: So I totally agree, and that will be true this
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: one thing. But tomorrow, twenty years, forty years, et cetera.
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: On your point, though, like the Habeas corpus memo, that
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: was pretty interesting because the administration has bound only there's
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: just a bunch of people in their sort of hot
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: house there.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: What can we do to screw them? You know? Anything?
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: Any idea comes up.
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: But it was interesting that a pretty conservative lawyer there,
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: you know, wrote the memo back saying.
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: Guys, you can't do that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: Kill yourselves if you try to get rid of habeas corbas.
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: But the notion that it just arose, and it's pretty
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: much it's of a piece. It seems to me that
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: kind of contemplation with what they've done with the Alien
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: Enemies Act, or it's just if I Donald Trump say
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: there's an emergency, nobody can question it, and that just
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: can't be true, and the habeas is the is the
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: best example, because you know there must be an insurrection
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: or rebellion.
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: That goes to the broader point.
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: I think of what you're saying about the unitary executive
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: if I could, because look, I understand the sort of
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: syllogistic appeal of all executive power resides, but that kind
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: of begs the question of once the executive power, there
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: are things built into the constitution. Here's a very good example.
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: You know, appropriations are with Congress, So how can you
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: if you back to the slush fund, it's not just
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: up to the executive to take this pot of money
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: and say you can do with it. And there are
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: many ways in which things are designed for Congress to
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: be a counterpoint, and the Court has again and again
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: kind of seen a without precedent, kind of robust role
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: for the executive. But it just won't do to say
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: unitary executive because the notion is okay, But what are
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: the checks and balances that the judicial power supplies or
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: that the legislative power supplies.
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: And what's really been the.
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: Engine of this administration is to just steamroll legislative power
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: and have cowed the Republicans in Congress from doing anything.
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: When the history of this all is written, you know,
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: I think there'll be so much lame to focus on.
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: Totally indolent and seeing Republican Congress.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: We've talked about Todd blanche and how dangerous he is
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: in the midst of this administration which is hell bent
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: on destroying the rule of law.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: I would say, as a whole you.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: See any way of pushing back against him a role
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: for Congress.
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: So I do, And in particular, you know, the sort
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: of conventional wisdom in Washington I did my time there
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: with nominees and controversial nominees is if somebody is in
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: an acting position, you don't nominate them because they have
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: to answer for so much. Todd Blanche we know from
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: Pam Bondi basically was running the show, has his fingerprints
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: on everything from the first week in March when he
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: shows up, the whole thing with Sea Coat, prison and
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: Al Salvadar all the way through.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: So that is going to be a bruising.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: I think you have an unusual opportunity because typically, through
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: procedural maneuvers, both houses are able to keep really sort
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: of strong rip Hofs from being raised. But not in
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: a confirmation and he starts. I think, right, it looks
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: as if, you know, it's getting probably two in the weeds,
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: but it looks as if his best hope for a
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: Democratic vote is gone. And there are four now Republicans
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: who you know Trump three of them is you know,
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: decapitated personally. So yes, I think the things that he's
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: done are a frustration for.
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: Me as a commentator. I don't know if you feel this.
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: There's certain things that he's done that are so outrageous,
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: but their basic strategies just smush them under the carpet.
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: Not Now, there's going to be so much with Epstein,
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: so much with this slush fund, so much with the
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: amnesty part, of the slush fund, and so much going
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: all the way back even to March, that he's going
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: to be on the hot seat as the midterms approach,
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: and individual Republicans, if they actually succumbed to White House
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: pressure and vote for him, could get it on the
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: other side from their constituents. And then in general I
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: perceive a dynamic where little by little there are Republicans
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: who are pushing back, and Trump's numbers are historically low.
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: So yeah, it's not as terrible as it was. And
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: in particular the nomination and conform hearing some lance, I
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: think raises a real opportunity not just to go after him,
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: but to highlight, as you say, the general lawlessness and
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: degradation of the department.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: I just think of the ghost of Hary admirers watching
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: all of this. You know, it's just insane, the corruption.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, Professor Rhino, we got to run. But do
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you agree with mister Liman. Do you think that you're
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: going to have enough Republicans to go ahead and approve
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: this henchman goon. It does seem that they are already
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: looking at the numbers and they realize that, you know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: supporting Todd blanch ain't going to help them with the midterms.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's a historic opportunity because they're vulnerable, they
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: know it, and I think to kind of put a
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: cap on this whole conversation, we can point to the
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: prosecution of political.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: Opponents, the supposed.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Anti weaponization fund, but they all have a common element,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: which is that this guy thinks he's the personal lawyer
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: of the president, Tomma Deer the Department of Justice.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: So if they could show that and.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: This president says the state.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think it's a historic opportunity, and yeah,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I'm excited for it's I want to see it called
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: out in real time, and I think that might be
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: a moment I was saying too, Harry. You know, in
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: the confirmation of Elliott Richardson, you know, Congress was able
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: to extract all sorts of promises to really use it
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: as a way of focusing on Nixon's abuses.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: And I don't know if he's going to get through.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: I hope he doesn't, but if he does, at minimum,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I would hope that's what the Congressional Republicans who are
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: going to vote for him do do. What was done
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: during Elliot Richardson's confirmation, which is get some promises to
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: behave according to the rule of law, and then you can,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: of course very well might violate them.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: At least that's on the record.
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: I mean, I know we're out of time on a
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: one end, on a downer, because this is a sort
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: of buoyant moment, it feels to me. But Cash Mattel
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: made some promises, will never do you know? So that
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: hasn't been the most honest of administrations.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: Well, I'd rather be honest than just hopeful. So well,
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: hopefully keep getting some of both.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much Harry Littman for joining us. John, any
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: final words of it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I just like to ask mister Lemon how our listeners
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: can follow you and keep track of your brilliance on
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: the regular.
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: Oh, that's really kind of you. It's all talking fans,
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: talking fans, talking fans. We have a substack and a
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: YouTube at a rag table. Put in fans you'll find me,
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: and I should say, especially on what the fun we
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: were talking about. I've been doing a lot of writing
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: in the substack and that's the best place to fallow.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: That's great, so we'll link to it.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: We'll link our substack to yours, and thanks so much,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Harry Littman for this amazing discussion. It was brutally honest
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: about how far things have fallen the Department of Justice,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, which we're always trying to do,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: hopeful about what the future might look like. So thanks
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: so much for joining us on the oath in the Office.
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: Thanks man, Let's do it again.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Peace Well, Professor. I got to say this has been
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: a great one. I think when historians look back on
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: this period, it's either going to be a central story
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: about this lawless administration trying to push boundaries, or it's
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: going to be a story about how these American institutions
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: proved strong enough to with stand us. We don't know
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: how it's going to end yet, but man, it's pretty
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: amazing washing and play out.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: The stakes couldn't be higher, John, And that's why I'm
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: glad to be doing this podcast with you, to have
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: amazing guests like Harry Littman, because it really is a crossroads,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and you know, there is a version of this that
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: goes wrong, that the people don't fight back, that we
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: don't have the journalism and the lawyers and the protests
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: that really stop this thing in which we crumble and
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: which democracy ends.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's going to happen.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: I am an optimist, not a recovering cynic, a continual optimist,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: and I believe we're going to prevail. But you know,
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be naive about it. It's going
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: to only happen if we push back against the vision
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: of people like Todd Blanche, if we push back against
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: those who are trying to cover up for Trump's association
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: and complicity with this disgusting sex criminal trafficker, a person
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: who just cravingly attacks. We could keep going, and that's
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: how bad things are. But you know, I am, as
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: you know, a deeply hopeful person. And when you think
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: about the past, you think of those norms of the
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. You heard mention of a brilliant attorney general,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: a former president of the University of Chicago, Attorney General Levy.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: You know, we really did come back after a disastrous
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: criminal presidency in Richard Nixon. And that's why talking to
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Harry Littman talking about these issues gives me faith that
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: we can do it again.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: We came back from a criminal presidency with Donald Trump,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: and then the American people decided they wanted another criminal president.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: So you know I'm well beat cops for a lie.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Huhase sign me up for more, Professor. Thank you so
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: much for everything on this show. We crammed a lot
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of information in here. I want to thank Wendy and
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Beowolf and everyone who puts the show together. Corey, what
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: is the best way for our evil army of the
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: night to follow you and keep up with your brilliance?
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: You can find me on Blue Sky at Democracy prof
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: There on Twitter at Bret Schneider. See we have the
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Oath in the office Substack, so look for our links
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: there to Harry's subsac as well. You can find us
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: on YouTube as well. Is listen to us wherever you
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: get your podcasts. The amazing reviews keep coming in, John,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: people love this dynamic. We were number three last week,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: which I think is.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Our record on Apple Government.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: And you know, keep telling people, spread the word, tell
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: a friend, That's how we grow and get the message out.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: And I just want to let everyone know I'm on
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: series six, five nights a week on Substack as well.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: My book is Separation of Church and Hate and I
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: have a new piece Scory. You inspired me. I have
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: my first ever article.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: In the Nation magazine.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: They asked me to write a piece for their Big
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: America two hundred and fiftieth anniversary edition, and my piece
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: is called Separation of Church and State America's best idea,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and it's all about how these Christian nationalists keep on
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: forgetting what our country's founders kept on writing down more
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: than once. So please check that out, and Corey, I
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: can't wait till our next episode next week on the
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Oath in the Office.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much, John, We'll see you next time. Peace,