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DOJ vs. Trump: The Indictment That Never Came (with Glenn Kirschner) · The Oath and The Office

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Oath and the Office.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I'm John Fugel Sang, joined as always by the star
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: of this show, Ivy League, political science professor, author of
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The Oath and the Office and the Presidents and the People,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: and a man kicked out of Wu Tang Clan for
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: being too hardcore. I give you Professor Corey Bretschneider. Corey, Hello,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Hello from LA where I'm taping today.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, I know you're out there, and thanks for that intro.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: They get better and more ridiculous every week, so I
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: look forward to that.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: And you know, we have an amazing show today.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: Of course, we're going to talk about how to fight
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: back using impeachment. We're going to talk about the Federal
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Reserve case that the Supreme Court's going to hear, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: then we have this amazing guest, and Glenn Kirshner is
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: going to talk to us about the attack from the DOJ,
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: the weaponization of the DOJ as an insider, somebody who
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: worked there for a long time.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: So a great show today.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Terrific and there's so much to get to. Hey, by
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: the way, congratulations, no more fence at all on tiny
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: boats making its way to America. I mean We've saved
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: what like like thousands and thousands of lives because there's
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: no more drugs coming anymore. That's what Venezuela is all about, right,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I understand now they're just talking about oil and that
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Trump's going to take the money from the oil and
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: put it into an account over it. But it was
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: about the feendom, I mean, the cocaine not I'm not sure.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: They kept changing the stories and Greenland you should get
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: very used, so the story's being changed. So it's been
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: a crazy week, Professor. The DOJ is launching this insane
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: prosecution of the FED chair because he won't lower interest rates.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: They're still trying to fire Lisa Cook. Trump is threatening
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the sent troops to arrest protesters in Minneapolis after Renee
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Good was killed by an immigration officer, and they are
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: still covering that up, not allowing state law enforcement to
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: investigate anything. Trump now says he will take a Greenland,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: whether Denmark likes it or not, and he's sending bizarre
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: letters to the leaders of Norway indicating he doesn't know
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  Speaker 2: how things work. He's threatening war with Iran, declaring himself
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: acting president of Venezuela. The DOJ just searched the home
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of a Washington Post reporter, and Jeff Bezos has decided
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: it's not worth commenting on. And a federal judge this
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: week compared Trump to an authoritarian on free speech, saying
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that he seeks to exclude from participation everyone who doesn't
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: agree with them. This was a Ronald Reagan appointee, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the White House has accused him of being a left
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: wing activist. And for the first time, a president did
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: not acknowledge Martin Luther King's holiday until about eight to
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: fifteen pm at night. After forty years every president has
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: done it. They got shamed into doing it before I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: turned midnight. And oh yeah, Trump flipped off a union
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: worker in Michigan who is heckling him. So we have
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: a lot to bring down Corey, and I want to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: begin it with Minnesota. A federal judge just barred, as
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you know, federal agents from arresting peaceful protesters or using
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: non lethal munitions and crowd control tools against them. This
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: is US District Judge Kate Menendez, and it's barring Homeland
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Security and ICE from using pepper spread non lethal munitions
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and prohibiting federal agents from stopping vehicles following them. Now
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  Speaker 2: the Democrats are openly discussing impeachment of Homeland Security spokesmodel
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  Speaker 2: Christy Nome over fifty Reportedly up to seventy House Democrats
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  Speaker 2: are supporting these articles. Obviously, this won't happen with the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Republican control of the House right now. But I want
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: to ask a lot of questions about this, because we
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: tend to think of impeachment as something reserved for presidents
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: and judges. But now, I mean up to eighty Democrats
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  Speaker 2: could be supporting this. Constitutionally speaking, professor, what does it
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: mean to impeach a cabinet official? And why is this
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  Speaker 2: not some kind of like fringe or symbolic act here.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's really restoring to a place something
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  Speaker 4: that has been in disuse that really needs to be used.
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  Speaker 4: And that's the power of impeachment, as you say, not
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: just as famously, of course, we've talked about impeachments of presidents.
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  Speaker 4: Donald Trump himself has been impeached, which is the formal
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  Speaker 4: procedure of the House of Representatives uses to.
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  Speaker 3: Begin removing someone.
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  Speaker 4: The Senate majority is only needed in the House, and
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  Speaker 4: then two thirds are needed in the Senate for removal
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  Speaker 4: that's never succeeded when it comes to a president. But
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  Speaker 4: Donald Trump has been impeached without being removed twice. But
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  Speaker 4: less understood, as you say, just to elaborate, is that
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  Speaker 4: that same procedure of fifty percent of members of the
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  Speaker 4: House and then two thirds of members of the Senate
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  Speaker 4: can be used not just to remove presidents or federal judges,
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  Speaker 4: but to remove also cabinet officials, top government officials, including
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  Speaker 4: cabinet officials, And that actually, in some ways is more
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  Speaker 4: true to the origin of impeachment.
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  Speaker 3: One of the.
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  Speaker 4: Places really where impeachment comes from is the British system
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  Speaker 4: is England, and in England you couldn't impeach the king.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, the king had a right to rule. In fact,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: if you criticize the king, it could be charged with sedition.
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  Speaker 4: But the idea was that even though the king couldn't
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  Speaker 4: make could do no wrong, could make no mistake, couldn't
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: be subject to indictment or removal, that his advisors could
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: steer him or her I should say in the case
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  Speaker 4: queen's wrong. And that's where this main idea came of
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  Speaker 4: impeachment of removal from office.
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  Speaker 3: Because the idea was that.
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  Speaker 4: The advisors to the king are charged with certain kinds
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  Speaker 4: of advice in the public interest, and if.
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  Speaker 3: They fail, then remove them.
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  Speaker 4: So anyway, that's a long history lesson to get to
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  Speaker 4: the point that actually that's the original idea that government
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  Speaker 4: isn't just the head of the government, it's also these
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  Speaker 4: other officials. And I think politically too, it's such a
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  Speaker 4: smart thing to do because it puts pressure on somebody
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  Speaker 4: who's really at the center of the abuses that we're seeing,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: and it tease up the constitutional issues. I read the
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: articles of impeachment and there are a number of them,
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  Speaker 4: but one of the most important things that they do
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  Speaker 4: is they systematize all the abuses that we've talked about
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  Speaker 4: as an impeachable violation of constitutional rights.
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  Speaker 3: And the simple point that's made in the articles is.
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  Speaker 4: That like a president is also charged with enforcing the
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: law and the Constitution, and she's violating rights of free speech,
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  Speaker 4: rights of due process systematically. By the way, I just
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: watched a local police chief in Minnesota talking about how
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: his own officers are having their rights, their due process
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  Speaker 4: rights violated by randomly being approached on the street and
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: being asked for papers. All he said, actually people of color.
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  Speaker 4: You know, these are systematic civil rights violations.
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  Speaker 3: So how do we tee that up? How do we
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  Speaker 3: make that.
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  Speaker 4: The central story not just the horrible killing of Renee Good,
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  Speaker 4: which we covered in depth last week, but the systematic
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  Speaker 4: abuses of Ice. Well, impeachment does that. So, yes, you
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  Speaker 4: know this is one of those places. How do we
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  Speaker 4: fight back? I think the Democratic Party is exactly right,
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  Speaker 4: and yes we won't have the votes for removal, but
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: it starts the process, it puts it on the agenda,
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  Speaker 4: and it makes one of the central issues. Although some
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: Democrats don't seem to agree with this, what should be
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the central issue I think of this midterm election, which
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  Speaker 4: is the system constitutional abuses by the Trump administration.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I want to see a lot more articles of impeachment
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  Speaker 2: for a lot more members. I mean, they can just
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: table them until January second of twenty twenty seven. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: want to go through some of the specific grounds there sighting.
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  Speaker 2: But I just got to ask, because my job is
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: to come here and ask the dumb questions that our
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: listeners would be too prideful to ask, not me, what
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  Speaker 2: are the constitutional standards for impeaching an executive ranch officer
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  Speaker 2: like a DHS secretary. It's like the president, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's high crimes and misdemeanors about criminal law or is
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  Speaker 2: it about abuse of power and violation of constitutional norms?
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  Speaker 4: No, Man, John, I'd say, not only is that not
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  Speaker 4: a dumb question, that's about the most important question you
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  Speaker 4: can ask about how our government is supposed to function
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  Speaker 4: and how it's not functioning.
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  Speaker 3: And that's absolutely right.
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  Speaker 4: This phrase high crimes and misdemeanors is the same standard
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about a president, a judge, or one of
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  Speaker 4: these cabinet officials as we're talking about here.
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  Speaker 3: But what does it mean?
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  Speaker 4: It certainly sounds like and this is why it's far
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  Speaker 4: from a dumb question, a great one, Like what you
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  Speaker 4: need to show is that she committed a crime, and
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  Speaker 4: yet the things that I was describing are not crimes.
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  Speaker 4: It's not that she'd go to prison necessarily, it'd be
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  Speaker 4: very hard to prove that she's guilty of a crime.
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  Speaker 1: But so maybe not all of it. In a second, Well,
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  Speaker 1: we'll see.
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  Speaker 4: I mean there are some I should say, the contracting,
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  Speaker 4: for instance, and the notes about self dealing are potentially
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  Speaker 4: crimanal offenses. But the deprivation of civil rights, of constitutional rights.
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  Speaker 4: Although they might be criminal, that's not the way they're outlining.
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  Speaker 4: And that's also very important to point out. It's not
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  Speaker 4: the standard that we use in impeachment to see whether
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  Speaker 4: or not to remove a public official, and a criminal
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  Speaker 4: trial we have to show beyond a reasonable doubt, and
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  Speaker 4: impeachment it's more like preponderance of the evidence that it's
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  Speaker 4: likely that they've done this. But most importantly, to go
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  Speaker 4: to your question, if you look at a criminal law textbook,
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  Speaker 4: there is no section of a criminal law textbook, and
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  Speaker 4: you take for instance, first year criminal law and law school.
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  Speaker 3: Almost all law schools require it.
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  Speaker 4: You're not going to see a section of that book
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  Speaker 4: called high crimes and misdemeanors because that's not a criminal category.
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  Speaker 3: It's more an idea.
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  Speaker 4: Again, going back to England, that's where the phrase comes from,
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  Speaker 4: that the office was demean that's the sense of a
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  Speaker 4: misdemeanor that's being used or lowered, and that, in other words,
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  Speaker 4: that there was an abuse of power, failure to do
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  Speaker 4: the duty of enforcing the constitution and the law that
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  Speaker 4: all public officials taken oath, not just the president, all
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  Speaker 4: public officials taken oath to pursue.
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  Speaker 3: So no it's not a criminal offense.
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  Speaker 4: It doesn't require the same standard of proof, and it's
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  Speaker 4: the different kind of category. And if I were to
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  Speaker 4: pick one way to describe the abuse, it's systematic violations
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  Speaker 4: of civil rights of exactly the time that we're seeing
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  Speaker 4: from Ice.
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  Speaker 2: I was actually accused of diminishing the office when I
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: was hosting America's Funniest Own videos for a couple of seasons.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: So I know that you were the host of America's
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Funniest Home I.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Was young and I needed the drug money. So I mean,
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  Speaker 2: the most common grounds Democrats are whispering about. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: obviously that she interfered with lawful congressional oversight of DHS,
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  Speaker 2: especially its attention facilities, like she's used policies like like
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  Speaker 2: the seven day notice before visits to deny or or
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: delay Congress people from getting into facilities where people are
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: being held in cages. There's also, you know, obstruction of Congress,
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  Speaker 2: violation of public trust and constitutional rights with these warrantless arrests,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: with this insane use of force, with the response and
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: cover up to the shooting, because there is not just
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: a cover up of child rape. Now there's a cover
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: up of the killing of an American citizen done by
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: this administration, misuse of federal funds. You mentioned the self
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: dealing and the DHS contract awards, and then just you know,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: aggressive enforcement tactics. I mean, my question is, how does
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  Speaker 2: impeachment functions as a tool when an agency like Homeland
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Security is really accused of systemic rights violations rather than
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: just someone did one thing bad.
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  Speaker 4: Well, that was the idea of the founding that and
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  Speaker 4: you know, talking about the generalized violations of civil rights.
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  Speaker 4: But then you rightly point to a more specific part
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: of the articles of impeachment, which are about blocking members
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: of Congress from doing their constitutionally mandated role of oversight.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Part of what Congress's job is is not just to
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: pass laws, but to actually see that those laws are.
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  Speaker 3: Being complied with. And how did they do that?
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  Speaker 4: They do that through oversight, through making sure that the
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: laws and being violated by cabinet officials, for instance. So
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: what Noelman is doing is she's blocking the most basic
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: kind of oversight, being able to, for instance, have members
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: of Congress access facilities. She's just refusing. So what the
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: framers did you know? They were flawed people? In many ways,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: we have a flawed system, you know, always point out
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: its flaws, its weaknesses. They underestimated the power of Congress,
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: but they gave it some major powers to enforce that
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  Speaker 4: oversight function, and impeachment was the main way to protect
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: its more generalized powers. If you, I mean think about
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: just how they laid this out. If you had a
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: cabinet official that was refusing to allow oversight, well then
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  Speaker 4: they can be not just even if you didn't impeach
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: the president, you could impeach them. And that's why they
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: designed this I would call a dormant mechanism because it
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: just hasn't been used.
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  Speaker 2: Because both parties care so much. Both parties care about
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  Speaker 2: these norms.
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  Speaker 4: You're right, well, I think the Republicans have not cared
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: much about them. And that was another flaw in the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Framers thinking. I think they thought, you know, when you
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: had a president or you had a cabinet official violating
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  Speaker 4: the norms of the Constitution, that they would really stand
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  Speaker 4: above partisanship. And they thought, you know, they didn't envision
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: political parties, certainly, not like what we had now. They
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: worried about the danger of faction, but we didn't have
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: political parties at the time. The Constitution was written they
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: developed during Washington's term. But you know, this is the
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  Speaker 4: flaw that they thought, Well, if there's a violation of
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  Speaker 4: the law of the Constitution, people will transform the Congress
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: will actually transform itself from a political body to something
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: that's not a criminal one, but it is a kind
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: of quasi legal one.
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  Speaker 3: And let me just say how that happens.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: They take a new oath and impeachment the Senate to
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: become a new body looking only at the question of
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: legal not just legal violation, but violation of duty of
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: the oath of office of abusive power. By the way,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: our podcast is called the Oath and the Office. How
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: do you ensure that the office is respected? It's through impeachment.
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  Speaker 4: That's what they thought. So you know, maybe they were
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: naiven thinking that that bipartisanship would be there, But you know,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: we got to use the mechanisms that they gave us
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: at minimum, and this is a major one before.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: We move on, because we have to talk about the
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: FDC on fire. But I mean, how do you see this, Corey?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Is this really about?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Like I don't want to be too harsh on Christy
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Nome because she brings lots of inspiration to many racist
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: dog murderers. But I mean, is this really about her
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: or is this about a democratic Congress reasserting their role
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: as a check on this increasingly insane executive branch.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I should say more generally, there's a
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: worry among some members of Congress, and we heard a
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: little bit about it as we have had members on ourselves,
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: which is that the midterm should really be about the
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: econ there should be about inflation, and let's not get
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: mired in this impeachment stuff.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: And I think that's really a mistake.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: I agree with our guest Roal Torrez that we have
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: to think about how to combine thinking about the economy
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: and thinking about the constitution together we can walk in
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: chew gum at the same time.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: So I think it's just essential that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: That members of Congress see the look, the main story
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: here is not, as Jim Carvell said, it's.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: The economy, stupid.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: No, it's the existence and fragility of our democracy. That's
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: really what's at stake, and so to think that shouldn't
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: be front and center, it's just a terrible mistake. And
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: that's why with these you know, about ninety members of
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Congress you know, I think we're moving in exactly the
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: right direction.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: To tease up the issues. By the way, you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Trump did lose.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: An election after those two impeachments. Let's let's not forget that.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: And part of the mistake in thinking about impeachment is
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: that because it failed in the formal sense of removing them,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: that it didn't work.
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: No.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I think it did get Americans talking about the constitutional
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: threat that was Donald Trump. It did contribute his loss
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: in that election, and we've got to do that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: We've got to learn from that.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Again, he was impeached twice, both times for cheating in
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the same election, once before the election, once after the election.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Let's not forget.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So I also want to remind everyone Minnesota has taught
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: us what maga Christianity's level is right now, which is Corey.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: The killing of Renee Good is a tragedy, but she
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: was also a terrorist, so it's really good that she
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: got killed. That's the morality we're getting. I want to
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: move it over to the FTC because we talked last
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: week about Donald Trump's power that he believes he has,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: that he can fire the Federal Reserve. Because Jerome Powell,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: who represents a board. He doesn't change interest rates on
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: his own, a board has to vote on it. But
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump doesn't understand this. He wants to fire the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: guy who won't cut.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Interest rates for him.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And this week the Supreme Court's going to hear arguments
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: that could expand his power to let him fire independent officials,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: including potentially the Federal Reserve Chair. I mean, at first glance,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: this looks like an obscure FTC case. Why is this
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: anything but obscure?
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: There are two cases, I should say that are relevant
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: to what we're talking about. One is the case that
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: was heard a number of weeks ago about the firing
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: of the Federal Trade Commissioner, and the question in particular
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: was whether or not the law that says you can
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: only be fired for cause in that case is constitutional
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: and under the theory of the unitary executive, which we've
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: talked a lot about, the Trump administration is trying to
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: argue that you can't keep the president from hiring and
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: firing for political reasons, and that this law passed by
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: Congress that says that you neque cause is unconstitutional. So
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: that's level one, and that's what the president's ultimately trying
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: to achieve. And the reason he thinks, by the way,
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: that he can fire a Federal Reserve governor, why he
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: could fire the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell,
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: is because he thinks that these laws like in the
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Federal Trade Commission or in the Federal Reserve, that limit
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: the president's power to hire and fire for any reason,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: including political reasons, that those are all unconstitutional. Yes, But
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: then we've got this second case that's going to be
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: argued Wednesday, January twenty first, so people will be listening
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: to this after it's been argued. And what's going to
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: happen on this case, this Wednesday case. We're recording this
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: before the case happens, is a related question. It's directly
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: about whether or not the president can fire at will
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: for politically, for any reason, the member of the Federal Reserve.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: But here he's saying he's got a reason that does
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: fit with the law, that the law says you need
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: cause or you need dereliction of duty, and that this
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, has engaged in a kind
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: of mortgage fraud and that that's the cause.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Now, her response to this is Lisa Cook, by the way,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: this is Lisa Cook, who is the first black woman
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: to ever be confirmed as a member of the Federal
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Reserve's Board of Governors by Joe Biden goohead exactly.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: And what she's saying is, well, first of all, I
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: didn't do what you're accusing me of.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: But even if I did, this is an interesting part
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: of the case.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Even if I did, you know, Sorry, that's not about
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: my job. That's something that took place outside the course.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Of my duties.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: In fact, it happened, I think before she was on
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve. But you see the general theme, right,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, the nuances I think are important that he
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: wants to get rid of any constraint on political firing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: But if he can't get rid of them, he wants
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: to do an end run by pretending to find things
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: like mortgage fraud to remove somebody. And she's saying, no,
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: that's not what you're not saying. I did a bad job.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: That's what this law requires. So we've got these two
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: cases which are really about the same thing, the independence
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission and
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: the ability of the president or not to fire people
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: based on political reasons. Sorry, that was a thicket of information.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: No, but it's important.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: It's important because the FED, we have to remember, it's
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: an independent agency, unlike other agencies we know. You know,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: the FED is fun to through interests that's earned on
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: securities at its own. Like that's how independent it is.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It's not through Congress appropriating money for him. And as
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you said, it's got this seven member board of governors.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: And for whatever reason, Donald Trump has decided to go
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: after the first and only black woman to ever be there.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden nominated Lisa Cook for a new fourteen year
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: term in twenty twenty three. In the midst of all
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: of this, You guys can go listeners can go and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: google the fact that Donald Trump is quite guilty of
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: the very things he's been accusing Lisa Cook of doing.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: But Jerome Powell is really rallying members of Congress to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: defend the Fed's independence, which is something that FED shares
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: in my lifetime, I've always avoided. What does that tell you, professor,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: that Powell feels he has no choice?
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that it's such an interesting dynamic. You know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: we've got the legal case and I'm not sure how
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: either of these cases are going to come out. I
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: think there's a very good chance actually that they're going
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: to get rid of these requirements of independence, at least
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: in the Federal Trade Commission case. I should say too,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: that part of the argument for independence is Congress that
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: you know, it's the same theme that we were talking
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: about before. Congress has to find ways of asserting its
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: authority and defending itself and its laws against the president
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: who would destroy them. And one of the main ways
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: it does that is the creation of these independent agencies,
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: which includes both the Federal Trade Commission and as you said,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve. So, you know, traditionally courts were the answer.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: How are we going to fight? Well, fight in court.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: You can't do that, you know, that's a simple answer.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: And that's what I would have said, you know, when
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Trump was running the first time in twenty sixteen, in
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: these issues first arose about canny fire, the head of
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: But what do you do if courts aren't there for you?
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: Wow, Jerome Powell is answering that he's politically savvy enough
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: that he's been courting members of Congress, he has allies,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: and far from the tradition of complete independence in the
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: sense of not speaking out against the presidents, certainly just
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: doing the job. He knows that won't work. So he's
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: slamming Trump. He's slamming the attack on him. Of course,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: one thing that we can ask Glenn Kershner about is
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: that now the Department of US as being used to
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: investigate him, and that we've talked about this too, the
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: supposedly supposed fraud that he's engaged in construction complete bs
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: of course, so he's fighting back, I think realizing the
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: courts aren't necessarily going to be the place for vindication,
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: and in the same way, to tie the themes together
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: that impeachment is a way of Congress protecting itself. Powell
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: is in the most direct way, speaking out, using his
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: own voice, his own status, to slam this attack on Well,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: it's not just an attack on the rule of law
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: or an attack on independent agencies. It is an attack
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: on democracy.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So before we get to the break, I want to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: quickly hit on Greenland because this story's not going away,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: and I wish it will with the acknowledgement that Donald
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Trump is never going to actually invade Greenland. But let's
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: talk about this trifling fool because the tariff case might
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: be decided this week by the Supreme Court, and suddenly
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the tariff case intersects with Donald Trump's threat to tariff
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: people who block his takeover of Greenland, which he will
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: never commit troops to do. This is getting messier and messier.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: People already know. Trump wrote a deeply insane letter to
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the head of President of Norway, who he seems to
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: believe is on the Nobel Committee, who he seems to
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: believe has something to do with Greenland. And then Trump
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: admits in a private phone call that his whole tariff
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: blow up on the European countries might be because he
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: was just given bad information about European troop deployments to Greenland. So,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is getting crazy constitutionally, how dangerous is
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: this convergence that, right when he's flirting with sending troops
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: to invade another country that hasn't attacked us to take
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: away their resources. By the way, you hear much about
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: the drugs out of Venezuela anymore. It's just the oil.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Greenland is not about anything but just stealing what's under
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: their ground. I mean, how scary is this? And what
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: are the limits constitutionally on a president using tariff's not
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: for trade policy, but again to punish other countries for
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: diplomatic resistance to his illegal trifles.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Well, as listeners know, and you know I've been involved
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: in the tariff case, I helped write an amicus and
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: file an amicus brief arguing that you know, no taxation
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: without representation means that the tariff power rests with Congress,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: not with the president. Now, why is that such a
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: fundamental principle that Congress decides whether it's not that tariffs
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: are unconstitutional just has.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: To be deliberated on.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: It's because the main powers can't just rest with the
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: dictator acting unilaterally. And if you allowed the tariff power
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: to combine with the president's ability to engage in diplomacy and.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Threats of war, he's also not.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Supposed to engage in but we know that this president
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: is doing that. Well, it starts to give up all
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: of the power of democracy to one person and to
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: allow a kind of dictatorship and imperial dictatorship where you're
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: using the power of tariffs, the power of economic sanction
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: at will. And you know, I think the Framers didn't
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: want that. They wanted in a democracy, questions of war
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: certainly to be deliberated upon by Congress, and relatedly, questions
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: of tariffing or taxation in that sense to be.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Deliberated by Congress.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: So what he's doing is this sort of realizing the
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: worst fears of the Framers that these two powers of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: tariff power and the war power could be abused, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: you know that's why we've got to reclaim both. Hopefully
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: this tariff case will put a limit on his ability
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: to unilaterally impose these teriffs as well.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's cool arguing.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to keep Glenn Kirshner waiting in
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: the lobby too long. But let me just ask you
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: one more question. I mean, this whole thing seems to
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: just it's just pushing us closer to this pre constitution
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: model of a monarch. I mean, the president just pursues
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: territory and demands his tribute, and we seem to be
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: watching that right now. What role, Corey, is the Supreme
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Court supposed to play when a president's impulses turn imperial
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and unconstitutional?
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, when you add it all up, that's
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: exactly the threat here that you know, you have this
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: caisse about terroriffs. We talked about Lisa Cook we talked
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: about the Federal Trade Commission, we talked about gnomes abuse.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Each one of them is not a threat to democracy necessarily,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: but if you add them up, it's a huge threat.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: And the role of the Court.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Certainly, the Court is not going to limit the president's
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: war power. Unfortunately, it has this political question doctrine. It's
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: not going to get involved in military questions like that,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: even though it should in my opinion. But I'm hopeful anyway,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: we'll see. I might be wrong that the Court is
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: going to protect the terrorf power because to me, no
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: taxation without representation.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: We all learn that in seventh grade Civics. That's like
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: the core power.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Of Congress, and so you know in that area, I'm
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: still hopeful it will assert itself as of January twenty first,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: we'll see I might be wrong.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: All right, Listen, folks, we got to take a break.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I know it sounds bleak out there, but just remember
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: the world is repulsed by this stocks just at a
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: two percent dip, the biggest of a month over the
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Greenland fear. This guy's not getting more popular. His tie
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: rates are not getting more popular. Please, folks, stay calm.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: If you get stressed don't forget stop and spell the
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: train wreck quick break back in just a moment with
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: the great Glenn Kirshner and the great Corey Bretschneider, and
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I'll be the guy telling jokes.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Oath in the Office. Don't go away.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: Hey all Clenn Kershner here, friends, I hope you'll join
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. We talk about
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: not only the legal issues of the day, but we
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: also talk about the need to reform ethics in our government.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Here's one example.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: The Oath of Office, you know, the one I do
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: foreign and domestic. Let's add twenty two words to that
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: oath quote, and I will promptly report any instances of
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: crime and or corruption by government officials and employees of
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: which I've become aware. Friends, our democracy is worth fighting for.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: Join us in this.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Because justice matters.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: Look for Justice Matters wherever you ordinarily find your podcasts.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fiegel,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: saying Professor Bretschneider. I am so excited that this next
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: guest has returned to the podcast. In spite of as
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: many reasons to want to avoid me. Glenn Kirshner is
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: a hero to anybody in the Internet age who cares
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: about justice in this country. He has taken the skills
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: he learned as a military prosecutor and jag to call
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: out injustice, to call out real time constitutional violations, in
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: my opinion from a conservative point of view, on our airwaves,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: and it's a blessing anytime we can talk to him.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I was really blessed to have Glenn do a talk
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: back with me at a special we did for my
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: book in DC a few months ago. And Corey, I'm
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: always excited anytime I can be around Glenn because I
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: look dumb next to you, but I look extremely dumb
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: next to him.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: And of course we've had a few return guests, but
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: not many. And at the top of our list certainly
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: was Glenn Kirshner, who joined us very early on when
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: we launched the Oath in the Office, and the issues
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: that we've been talking about, the attack on our democracy,
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: on free speech, on the very rule of law, far
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: from going away, have just gotten more worrisome and more increased.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: And of course Glenn spent a long period of time
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: in the Department of Justice and is in many ways
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: as much as he is a renowned commentator and insider
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: who knows the intricacies of the Department of Justice. A
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: very different department of Justice, I take it from the
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: one that we see now. So Glenn and just launching us,
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I really want to ask you about the
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: weaponization of the Department of Justice and what we're seeing
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: from the attacks on Comy and James, in particular, the
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: resignations of a number of Department of Justice lawyers from
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: the Civil Rights Division related to the attack on citizens
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: in Minnesota, And to ask you the general question, I mean,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: what do you make of those who are there. I
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: have a lot of former students who are in the
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Department of Justice. I know you have a lot of colleagues.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Where's the line of resignation? I mean, when did you
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: send that letter in When do you give up? When
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: do you stop fighting from the inside for what's right?
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's an intensely personal decision. I had lots
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: of friends and former colleagues contact me really right after
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: they received the Fork in the Road email from Elon
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: Musk and his minions, saying you know, why don't you
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: leave your low productivity government job in favor of a
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: high productivity private sector job. Nothing could be more insulting
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: to career public servants who were in that job not
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: for the money, but for the mission, because we were
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: representing the interests of the American people. And I had
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: so many friends call and say, you know, Glenn, can
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: you talk through this with me. It's an intensely personal decision.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: Do you stay and fight, perhaps only to be unlawfully
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: terminated and then have to spend the next couple of
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: years fighting your wrongful termination in court? Or do you
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: opt out? Do you say, I can't be part of
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: this evil, lawless regime, so I am leaving. Everybody made
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: the best decision they could, of course, the ones who
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: tried to stay, like people in the Civil Rights Division,
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: and I would love to talk about the abdication of
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: the Civil Rights Division's solemn duty to investigate officer involved
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: shootings resulting in death, but you know, they made their
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: own decision. So you know, I understand not being able
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: to work for the regime. I couldn't. I served under
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: every president continuously, from Ronald Reagan to Trump in his
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: first term, and I got out about halfway through Trump's
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: first term. I don't think I could have served in
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: Trump's second term at the Department of Justice. So there
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: are a couple of things. One, the hollowing out of
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: DOJ is not so much a brain drain but an
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: ethics drain, and that presents real problems because you have
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: these flunky lawyers who apparently you have no concern for
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: their license to practice law because they're going into federal
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: courts and they're doing Pambondi and Donald Trump's dirty bidding,
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: and the federal judges are calling them out and saying
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: you're making misrepresentations. Do you, gentlemen, know that once a
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: federal judge says that you are automatically going to be
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: referred to your state bar council for an ethics investigation,
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: and it could result in sanctions up to and including disbarment.
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: So in normal times, in normal but well, but remember,
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: every attorney who is a federal prosecutor holds a state
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: law license. There's no such thing as a federal law license.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: So they will all end up being referred to bar
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: council in their states. And generally the state bar council
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: are independent of the federal government and of Donald Trump,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: and they have a real interest in policing the ethics
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: of the attorneys that are admitted to practice in their state.
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: So that's how Juliani ended up being disbarred in both
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: jurisdictions where he held law licenses in Kenneth chesbro and
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark and all of these people.
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: So you know that is coming for today's batch of
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: dirty DOJ lawyers. But the other thing is, there are
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: about one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifteen
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: thousand employees at the Department of Justice they've managed to
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: dislodge or folks have self selected about twenty twenty five thousand.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: You know, there are still great career public servants who
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: are hunkered down trying to do the work of the
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: American people. And I hope that that will make the
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: rebuilding mission when the rule of law comes back into
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: the light of day, not easy, but at least possible.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: What do you think, Glenn, Just following up on that
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: point about disparment, which I think is so important as
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: we start to think about what the incentives and disincentives
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: of doing evil are, and certainly a lot of the
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: people including those that we've been focused on the Department
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: of Justice. I believe our well intentioned want our career prosecutors,
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: many of them want to do their job. These heroes
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: who resign the five in regard to Minnesota exemplify that.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: We've seen others refusing to do the bidding of this administration.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: But you know, Trump has figured out, and Pam Bondi
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: has figured out, and Pam Bondi yourself is an example
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: that if you really want people to do your bidding,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: look for people who care about loyalty and are loyal
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: over the rule of law and caring about the rule
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: of law. So that's what I guess I wanted to ask.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: It's a follow up question about the disbarment. I mean,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: is it that there's just a lack of awareness by
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: Pam Bondy or by some of her let's call them cronies,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: that they might face that in the end for doing
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: things like attacking the president's political opponents in court, Like
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: what's going on? Can you think your way into those
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: who are less moral than the ones that we want
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: to focus on, And what's.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: I think power and proximity to power is intoxicating. You know,
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: maybe some of these people had some moral center, but
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: they've loved their way. Maybe they never had their moral center.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: I will say, over my thirty years as a prosecutor,
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: I prosecuted a lot of folk who were just kind
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: of bad to the core and ended up living a
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: life of crime. I think some of these people are
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: so drunk with the proximity to power and they feel
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: bulletproof in the moment. Why Because Donald Trump has that
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: pardon power that the Supreme Court has said is a
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: core constitutional function that nobody can question. And I think
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: the Pam Bondis of the world fully expect to be
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: delivered a pardon on Donald Trump's last day in office,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: such that all of the crimes, and I do believe
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: that they are violating federal law and violating the constitutional rights.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: For example, of the people of Minnesota. At the moment,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: I think they believe they're going to get away with it,
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: so they're willing to do things that they otherwise might
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: not have been willing to to do because they know
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: they're going to get that pardon. They may already have
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: the pre printed pardon in their bottom desk drawer ready
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: to go.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you about that. Glenn because this
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: is not the DOJ. To me, it seems like it's
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: the Department of Presidential Protection and Retribution. Pam Bondy. From
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: your vantage point, You've worked under a lot of presidents.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: You've also worked under a lot of attorneys general. What
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: makes her tenure different from other biased partisan attorneys general
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: you served under? And even with a full federal Trump pardon,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Pam Bondi can still be disbarred right or even prosecuted
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: in the state of Minnesota.
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: Yes, So, first of all, any violation of state law
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: is pardon proof. It is beyond the reach of a
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: presidential pardon. And as you say, pardons have absolutely no
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: applicability to bar council investigations and disbarment of attorneys. So
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: you know she's gonna get got on some front, I
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: believe for what she's doing. I don't know what makes
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: Pam Bondy as lawless as she is proving to be.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: But you know, she really started early on when on
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: day one, after being sworn in, she said, now let
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: me unroll and announce my enemy's list. These people did
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump wrong, and these are the people we're going
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: to open investigations into. I didn't see that coming. I
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: thought she would at least pretend to be a legitimate
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: Attorney general for some period of time and maybe do
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: this kind of in closed closed door rooms. But she
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: was all in from jump. So but I can't explain why.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: If I may, it was long before day one she
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: personally solicit a twenty five thousand dollars contribution from Trump
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: when she was Florida Attorney General thirteen years ago, while
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: her office was weighing whether they were joined the lawsuit
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: against the scam Trump University. So she signaled, you know
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: early on. I mean, when Trump appointed her, he was
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: letting the world know this ag takes bribes, and.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately John, none of the Republican members of Congress really
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: cared to perform their duty in confirmation hearings to make
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: sure that we were only getting good quality, honorable, ethical
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: people in Donald Trump's cabinet. So, you know, we have
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: an entire political party that, for whatever reason, is willing
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: to give away our republic and they are proving that
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: day after day as Donald Trump begins to ratchet up
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: the dangerousness, the abuse of office, the abuse of military power,
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: and yet we've got a Republican party lying dormant in Congress.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: I continue to hope that changes, maybe hoping against hope,
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: but you know, that's one of the ways Donald Trump
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: could be stopped.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: What do you think, Glenn pivoting to the prosecutions of
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: James and Comy and generally the president's desire for revenge
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: and retribution. You know, one argument is, regardless of what happens,
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: there's already damage done, killing effect that comes from seeing
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: these indictments in the first place, regardless of whether they
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: get through. But in a normal justice department, we never
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: would have been at this point. We would have had
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: the Attorney General say to the president, that's not how
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: this works. There's an the Department of Justices technically within
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: the executive branch, but it's independent and you can't use it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: It's meant to it's not the president's personal retribution for us.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: It's meant to be independent, devoted to the rule of law.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: We're past that because of the back and forth that
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: you just had with Bondi. She did go along with this,
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: He did get at least at one point, indictments in
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: these two cases.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: Now there's been pushed back.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: And we have the judiciary itself and it's independence, but
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering. I mean, in these cases, do you think
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: that we might actually see the successful prosecution even of
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: some of these opponents, or are you do you still
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: have faith that the independence of the judiciary or other checks,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: including those that are remaining within the Department of Justice might.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: Hold so for a very long time, you know, Donald
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: Trump has been threatening to prosecute people. Who is the
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: og of Donald Trump's prosecutorial wrath, Hillary Clinton. Lock her up,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: Lock her up. And you know, for a decade we
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: heard that, and he was always threatening his opponents right
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: with prosecution and with jail. That went on for ten
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: years before he finally found a conciliary at the Department
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: of Justice and Bambondi who would do his criminal bidding.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Because I'm sorry, Lend, but under Jeff Sessions, they declared
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: there was no case against Hillary Clinton, and right wing
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: media never reported this to the Trump fan base.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, go on.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: You know that's okay. So a couple of years ago now,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: John I started saying, I'm looking forward to the first
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: vindictive prosecution Donald Trump actually has his Department of Justice
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: bring because I have such faith in the judiciary that
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: they will not stand for it my words were, and
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: this was a couple of years ago. I said it
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: early and often the judiciary will cram those vindictive prosecutions
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: figuratively speaking, down the throat of Donald Trump's dirty doj
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: and that is like a blind mouse bumps into a
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: piece of cheese every now and then. That was a
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: prediction I got right. And I do not believe for
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: a minute that they will successfully resurrect these vindictive prosecutions
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: against James Comy or La James. And what has that done.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: It's exposed Donald Trump as the paper tiger he is.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: He can threaten prosecutions all day long, but he can't
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: follow through. He will not successfully prosecute Jerome Powell. He's
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: got his imbecile hack US Attorney Janine Piro, who can
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: indict a hamm sandwich no matter how many condiments he
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: throws on it. And the only one that I put
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: in a different category is John Bolton, because the people
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: who indicted John Bolton are career prosecutors at the US
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Attorney's off for the District of Maryland. It appears they
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: have the goods on him, at least based on the indictment.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: If they can prove what they put in the indictment.
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: It looks like Bolton probably violated the law John in
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: much the same way that General David Portraeus violated the
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: law and he was prosecuted and held accountable for it.
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: And I don't feel bad for General Petraeus. He served
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: the country honorably. But if you're going to write a book,
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: don't compromise classified information. And it looks like John Bolton
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: did something quite similar. So he may be successfully prosecuted. Interestingly,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: it will still be a vindictive prosecution. I say that
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: because the Biden Department of Justice also investigated him ultimately
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: decided not to bring charges, maybe not because he didn't
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: technically violate the law, but because we don't prosecute every
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: case where somebody violated the law. If we did, we
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: would run out of resources in twenty four hours. So
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: it was still vindictively brought. But that doesn't mean there
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: wasn't a factual basis to bring the prosecution.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: So of these.
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: Vindictive prosecutions are not going to succeed, and that will
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: weaken Donald Trump, not strengthen him.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: It is an interesting case in the Bolton case, which
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: we've talked about as well, where you have independent prosecutors
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: who are prosecuting what looked to be you know, problematic
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: facts of crime. But you also have a motivation of
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: a president pushing for these prosecutions simply because of political reasons.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: One you know question there, I guess, is whether or
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: not there's a taint that comes from the fact that
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: you know, there are all sorts of crimes that aren't prosecuted,
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: the fact that these are being pushed so hard because
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: of the president's vindictiveness. I mean, so I invite you
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: to respond to that, But also I'm also wondering about
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: another just where the I mean, I agree with you,
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: I don't think that we're going to see James and
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: COMI the most purely political prosecutions go to prison. But
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: I do think there's a puzzle about where it will stop.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, years ago you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: And I would have said, well, it'll stop with the
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: attorney general.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: That's not happening.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Maybe it'll stop with career prosecutors. Not clear, because so
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: many of them have been some of them, I should say,
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: have been corrupted. So is it the judiciary there that's
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: doing the work. So that is a double question then yeah.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So first of all, the judiciary is the
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: point of light amidst the Trump induced darkness. And we
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: could talk more about that, including many of the Trump
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: appointed judges who have ruled hard against Donald Trump. But
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: you know, to go back to the vindictive prosecution piece.
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm sure the viewers know that the courts
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: didn't even get to the motion to the smiths based
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: on vindictive prosecution. They didn't even get to that far
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: in the litigation. Why because Lindsay Halligan, who was no
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: more US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia than
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: was Bugs Bunny into the grand jury, having no lawful
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: authority to set foot in the grand jury, twisted arms.
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: I infer because she walked out with indictments that no
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: subsequent prosecutor has been able to get. And what happened, well,
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: the judge ruled that she was not US attorney, she
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: was not lawfully authorized to obtain indictments, and dismissed the
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: indictments before they ever got to the vindictive prosecution motion
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: to dismiss. You know, Lindsay Halligan may have been one
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: heck of a beauty pageant contestant, but somebody should have
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: told her. You know, there's no swimsuit competition in the
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: grand jury. Lindsay, well, you don't know how she got
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: the job.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Glenn, let's not judge, but can I can I ask
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: about your career because I'm fascinated by the many years
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: you spent as a federal prosecutor and earlier as a
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: judge appic at general and what drew you to public service.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I'm curious how did your experience in the military justice
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: system shape your understanding of accountability, chain of command, the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: idea that no one, even powerful people, are above the
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: law in the military justice system. Glenn, how seriously is
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: independence from political pressure taken?
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: Interesting? Great question, and thank you for asking that. You know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: I was always drawn to a public service, and it
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: started in the military back in the eighties when I
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: joined the Army as an army jag. My pop had
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: served in the army, and I always knew I had
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: an interest in both military service because kind of serving
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: a cause bigger than myself and trying to help others.
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: And you know, I was a little bit naive and
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: wide eyed and red, white and blue, and we're the
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: good guys for all reasons. Unfortunately, our government were now
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: the bad guys at least the leadership of the executive
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: branch these days. But you know, in the military, we
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: didn't call it political pressure. We called it command influence.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: What does that mean. It means if the commanding general
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: of the military unit or post or installation where I
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: was a prosecutor, had I was going to use an
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: indelicate term, had a bone to pick with a particular
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: soldier because he or she committed some crime. It made
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: the military look bad, it made the division look bad.
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: The commander couldn't be in a position to say I
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: want that person, I want that soldier prosecuted. That was
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: akin to a president saying I want somebody prosecuted. That's
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: not the way systems of justice, whether military or civilian,
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: are supposed to work. So we had lots of safeguards
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: in place to guard against what we called command influence,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: because we wanted to make sure if we were going
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: to court martial the soldier, and I court martialed many
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: a soldier, that we were doing it fairly. We were
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: doing it without fear or favor. We were only doing
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: it based on the law and the facts. And then
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: it would be tried to either a jury, which we
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: called a panel or a judge, and it was a
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: People may not know this, and they may find it
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: hard to believe it. In my experience, is an extraordinarily
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: fair system of justice that really honors the rights of
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: the defendant. We don't call them the defendant, we call
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: them the accused. The military and I was so well
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: framed as an army prosecutor and army jag that I
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: think that experience and that foundation served me really well
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: when I decided to leave military service and shift over
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: to the Department of Justice.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you, also drawing on your career
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: in this part of it in the Department of Justice,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: about Robert Muller, and you know, one of the huge differences,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: and of course he worked very closely with Robert Muller
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: and know him extremely well, work for him, as I
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: understand for a number of years. One of the huge
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: differences between Trump one point zero and two point zero
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: is it's very hard to imagine the kind of rigorous
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: investigation into wrongdoing in the interference in the twenty sixteen election.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: But also, of course, as part two of the Muller
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Report talks about the obstruction of justice, at least ten
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump, even the
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: fathoming within Pam Bondi's department, that kind of investigation happening.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: It's it's kind of hard to imagine.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: You see the difference, I think between the hollowing out
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: of the Department of Justice now and the more robust
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Department of Justice then. But I still want to ask
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: you a main question that I think is still on
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: a lot of our listeners' minds, which is, you know
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: what happened with Robert Mueller. So many people, you know,
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: there were t shirts and just hope that there would
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: be an indictment, that there would be justice served for
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: the wrongdoing by Trump. You know, ten instances of criminal
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: obstruction that looked like enough for prosecution, and so many
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: of us were hoping for that.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: So what wasn't in his mind?
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: Of course, you know, he testified before Congress, but that
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: didn't I think go as well as he might have hoped.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, what was in his mind? Why it wasn't
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: there an indictment? Was there a worry about the Department
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: of Justice and immunity. I thought that really impeachment was
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: the right way to handle this issue. And you know,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: I'm asking you not just as a commentator now, but
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: as somebody of course who knows the person at the
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: center of that moment.
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: So more intimately, well, yeah, so I stand on Bob
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: Muller's shoulders. He was my chief of homicide in many respects.
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: I think it's fair to say I was kind of
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: his right hand guy for many reasons. In the office,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: he not only taught me how to handle homicide cases,
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: but he taught me how to run the homicide section
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: because he was chief. But a couple of years after
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: he left, I became Chief of Homicide, so responsible for
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: supervising and overseeing all murder cases in Washington, d C.
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: So I think there are a couple of things involved
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: in how the Mueller investigation and the Muller report played
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: out and ended up playing out poorly in my opinion.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: But first I want to start with I think Bob
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: Muller was such an old school guy. I mean, he
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: was a war hero, dragging injured soldiers out of enemy fire.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: I mean he was the best, and I've said this before,
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: the single best supervisor I ever had the honor of
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: serving under. I think he may have still been living
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: in nineteen seventy four, where he believed, and he never
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: talked about this with me, but he believed that he
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: if he delivered Volumes one end two to Congress, the
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: Republicans in Congress would do precisely what the Republicans in
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: Congress did in nineteen seventy four. They would have looked
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: at it when the tapes were released in the Watergate era,
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: they would have marched on the Oval Office. They would
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: have said, mister President, you're done. Your own party will
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: impeach you and remove you. And I think he was
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: living in that time when he believed there was still
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: honor in Congress and in the Republican Party, and he
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: was a Republican, right, that was a miscalculation. I don't
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: think any of us knew that the Republican Party would
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: walk away from not only their own constituents but American
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: democracy the way they have. I don't think we could
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: have even envisioned that back then. I think that's part
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: of what Bob Muller was thinking. But here's the second thing.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: Because DOJ had an Office of Legal Counsel memo with
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: which I disagree, that says you can't prosecute a sitting
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: criminal president. I can't think of anything better than prosecuting
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: a sitting for a president, rather than let a criminal
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: president run rough shot over the American people for four years.
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: But that's just me so because he could not be
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: prosecuted as of the time Bob Muller delivered his report
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: to Congress. The next logical step is he gets prosecuted
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: the minuity leaves office.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, and that couldn't have had exactly.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: Job to do, and he didn't do it. I would
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: have walked. I would have walked into the federal judges
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: chambers on day one, and I would have sought, you know,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: arrest warrants. Or I would have already had indictments in
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: hand for Donald Trump for the crimes he had committed,
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: and I would have doubled down for the January six
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: crimes we saw him commit with our own damn eyes,
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: and he would have been held accountable criminally on both
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: of those fronts. That's what should have happened if we
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: wanted to deter tomorrow's dictator. But we didn't. So look
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: at what we've got, Corey.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: This is why I'm going to run for president, just
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: to make Glenn Kirshner my attorney general. I'm sorry, I
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: just can I defend Robert Muller for one second.
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: Here.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: It's not popular, I.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Know, and I'll always say, you know, Muller's team hired
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: a money laundering guy, and then they didn't follow that lead.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: And if they had gone deep on Donald Trump's history
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: and money laundering, I think a lot would be different
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: right now. But I do want to say, in Muller's defense,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: he handed Congressional Democrats ten gift wrapped counts of obstruction
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of justice that no one's ever bothered on Republican side
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: to try to refute because they're irrefutable. There's ten instances
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: that Muller gave Congress of Trump breaking the law, obstructing justice.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: And when the Democrats decided to impeach him over cheating
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: by blackmailing Zelenski, what was it?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Two charges?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: They could have made a twelve, But it was the Democrats,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: once they had the majority, who chose to leave Robert
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Muller's gift and never use it. So as much as
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: it's in vogue to say he didn't do what he
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: was sent to do, the Democrats didn't do what he
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: gave them the fuel to do.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we was both a sort of hope in bipartisanship
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: of a kind actually that the Framers believed in too,
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: and that, as you said, Glenn, that we saw during
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: Watergate that if a president committed crimes that people would
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: rise above party and they would you dig in.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: And not only did.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: We not see that, but as John says on the
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: so much of the report really outlining the crimes. And
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: my memory of part two of the Mueller report is
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: that but for those DOJ memos that you mentioned talking
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: about non indictability of a sitting president, there would have
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: been an indictment. In other words, yes, there was enough
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: to indict, and yet even the Democrats. That's such a
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: good point did not dig in. There, I take it, Glenn.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, just as a follow up that you blame
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: mar Garland, that all of this still did tee up
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: because Garland did have the hindsight of seeing the failure
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: of impeachment and there hadn't yet been a case saying
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: that there was immunity for a former president, and arguably
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: some of that immunity might have been gotten around too.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: So is that right?
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, do you think that Garland really is to
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: blame here for having seen Mueller's You know, well, intentioned
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: way of doing things not work out or do you
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: have a different way of seeing it?
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah? No, I think he should have pursued the ten
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: obstruction counts. I think he should have pursued the attack
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: against American democracy that Donald Trump launched in the harsh
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: light of day. Go to the Capitol. Fight like Keller,
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: you won't have a country anymore. Stop the certification, stop
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: the steal. I love that he used the word steel
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: because he knew the election wasn't stolen, and that provides
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: criminal intent. So I mean this. It was a lay
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: down winner in this old prosecutor's opinion. But then he
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: waited until the Senate finally had to put together a
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: select committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol on
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: January sixth. My friend Tim Heathey, the Chief Investigative Council,
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: had to put together what was essentially a Rico investigation,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: you know as a congressional inquiry, and then presented to
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: the American people before Merrick Garland said, wait a minute,
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: I guess we need to look into.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: Those crimes too.
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: That is the exact opposite of how prosecutors typically do business.
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: We don't want congressional committees touching a damn thing until
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: we can first investigate those crimes. And yet Merrick Garland,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: and again I don't think Merrick Garland is a bad guy.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: I think you know, he was well intentioned, you know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: straight to the road to hell, right, And I think
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: his main focus, misguided though it may have been, was
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: enhancing rebuilding and enhancing the reputation of the Department of
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: Justice after what Bill Barr and Donald Trump did to
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: it the first time around. And I would say, Merrick,
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: look at where that's gotten us.
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean in the case of in the
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: case of Mueller, you know, we have this way of
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: thinking back into the way he was seeing it. We
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: had the example of Watergame. But after we saw that failed,
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: waiting for.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Congress to take the lead, I mean, I guess too.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: By the time January sixth report well came out, it
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: was there was really no choice. There was so much pressure,
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: the evidence of a crime was so strong, and as
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: you say, the American people had seen it. But it
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: looks like the timeline was just too well, it was
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: we know, too late, I think to it. It is
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: an important point gleand that I don't want to lose
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: this that although there was a real debate, and in fact,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: I think you and I and John talked about this
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: when you were first on about whether or not sitting
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: presidents could be indicted.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: It was so out of left.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: Field when Trump versus the United States came down that
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: they read that former president you know, yes when it
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: comes to their official duties, but still former were immune.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, just one of the worst decisions, not just
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: of the Roberts Court, but if a mayor and history
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: and as you say, just to emphasize it, you know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: the Framers had a system that said, okay, you know,
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: maybe impeachment first, but after removal, of course, indictment and yeah,
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: but let's I.
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: Mean, I think one of the things that gets lost
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: in the presidential immunity ruling from the Supreme Court, which
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: couldn't have a more appropriate caption Trump versus the United States,
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: isn't that what we've been living through. But what people
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: I think tend to forget or overlook is the Supreme Court, yes,
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: they you know, ruled contrary to the express terms of
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: the Constitution, like the take care clause to faithfully execute
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: the laws of the nation, kind of the opposite of
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: you can violate all the laws of the nation and
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: victimize the American people and forever exactly. So it's a
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: laughably unconstitutional decision. As Yale law professor Khiel read Omar said,
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: they ruled that the constitution is unconstitutional and you can't
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: can't do that. But here's the thing. When that opinion
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: came down, it announced that there were three categories of conduct.
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: And the core constitutional function like directing the military, absolute immunity,
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: but official governmental acts, official acts of a president presumptive immunity,
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: but prosecutors can rebut the presumption and you can go
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: to trial. And then private acts like of the candidate
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: trying to unlawfully retain the power of the presidency, no
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: immunity for you. And where were we when Donald Trump
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: won reelection. We were in the process of litigating that
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: issue in front of Judge Tanya Chuck In how the
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: presidential immunity case applied to the four felony charges that
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: remained in the indictment. She would have ruled, I predict
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: no immunity for those four correct primes, let's go to trial.
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: Where were we in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: with the classified documents case, the government had appealed it
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: Judge alien Cannon's dismissal would have been overturned. It would
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: have been remanded to the trial court for a trial
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: on the classified documents crimes. That's where we were, and
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: guess what, we're still frozen in time right there. Those
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: cases are not dead. I'm not saying they're necessarily going
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: to be successfully re brought, but if we care about
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: keeping our republic, they have to be.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: If Trump lives, there is a question about whether or
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: not he can still be prosecuted. And on my view,
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: and it sounds like yours too, Glenn, trying to subvert
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: an election far from an official duty.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: The definition of acting in your private rather than in
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: the public interest, and generally the category of a crime
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: that is also an official duty is a hard concept
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: to get around, as one of the problems with the decision.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: But it's certainly a narrow category.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: And I would think that the things Trump is accused
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: of two, we had Senator Whitehouse and spoke with him
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: about possible legislation short of an amendment that might so
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: narrow the meaning of what an official duty is that
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: these crimes might still be executed. So yeah, I mean,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: we're always looking for hope and and that's really a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: great one to offer.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Some Glenn, it's such an honor to have you join
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: us again. I just want to ask you one question
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: in parting, and thank you for being so generous with
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: your time and wisdom. We've seen waves of resignations by
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: prosecutors and DOJ officials, and I know it takes a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: lot emotionally and professionally to walk away from a career
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: you believed in and gave years to. For those who
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: are still inside the DOJ, what forms of resistance are
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: even possible now if any.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a great question, John. And the way to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: resist from the inside is to continue to represent the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: American people in every case assignment you're given, and you know,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: remain loyal to your oath and that is the support
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: and to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: most importantly these days domestic, and do not do the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: bidding of Donald Trump or the you know, dirty Trump administration.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: And if you suffer the fate of a wrongful termination,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: there is no shame in that. Keep doing the work
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: of the American people. And you know, if you feel
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: the need to get out, you save yourself, you get out.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: But then you fight from the outside. And the most
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: important way to fight from the outside, John and I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: urge my colleagues who left EOJ to do this every
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: day is speak out about what you saw on the inside,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: because that will help bring this corrupt regime down.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Boom oh, mister Kirshner, you always make me feel better
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: about this whole Michigaus, thank you so much.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much Glenn for joining us, having me.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: Guys, you've been a great.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: Return guest, and of course what that will get you
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: is another invitation to be a third, third time come back.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: We're really proud to give you our Returning Guest Award,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: which Donald Trump will now demand.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: You give him to prove he's done the show twice.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: So thank you, sir.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: Trophy drop off center. Is it right there at the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: White House?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, love, what a pleasure. Thank you, Thank
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: you so much. We'll be right back in just a moment.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: This is the oath in the office.
• 1:02:01
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• 1:02:12
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• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fugelsang,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: Professor Dretschneider. It's so good to be with you, and
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Lenn Kirshner. I also want to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: point out that this week was Martin Luther King Junior's holiday,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: a day when we ignore most of his great activism
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: on behalf of anti militarism and for civil rights and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: for labor, and focus on one line from one speech.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: But I wanted to ask you while I have you
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: here and again, Donald Trump became the first president to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: almost not mention it for forty years, ever since Ronald
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Reagan was forced to side it into law because there
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: was a veto proof majority. He did not want to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: do it. But ever since then, every president has marked
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Doctor King's holiday. I love his holiday. I can't believe
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: it exists. I think it's more important than ever now
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: that the civil rights pioneers are starting to die off
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: and young people have no real tether to this period
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: of our history.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: But I'm curious. You know, we quote him as a.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Moral figure, as a religious figure, but you have written,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: especially in the Presidents of the People, about his evolution
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: into a sophisticated constitutional thinker. Early on, he framed justice
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: in very Christian natural law terms, and over time he
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: really came to see the Constitution itself as a moral
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: document worth reclaiming.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: How did that transformation happen?
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a privilege to spend a lot of
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: time with King's original materials and to tell the story
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: of King's constitutional thinking, because we often think of him
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: as a civil rights leader, a political leader, and of
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: course as a minister. But I think less understood is
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: how much he did for the Constitution. And what our
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: podcast is about is citizens reclaiming the Constitution, and what
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: I talk about in The Presidents and the People is
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: the way that after the white nationalism of Woodrow Wilson
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: and the legacy of segregation throughout the country, including in
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: the federal government, that he played an instrumental role in
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: recovering a very different to my mind, actually closer to
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: the original meaning of the fourteenth them an equal protection clause.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: But that was slow in the making. He was originally
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: really a theologian. I've talked about actually my wife's grandfather,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: who he collaborated with on Christian ethics, and that was
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: his background.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: He was writing really about theology.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: And he gets a letter after a debate in about
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty from a student actually who's in his twenties
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: named Hereford, and I have the actual correspondence between them
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: that says, look, in some ways, what you're saying is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: too intellectual and it doesn't speak a common language, and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: he's urging him to find a common language. And what
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: King writes, and I have the written correspondence in his
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: own hand.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: Is anti tyranny. And this prompt from the student.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: You know, it's not like the student tells him what
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: to say, but he says what he wants to see,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: which is this common vocabulary rooted in the Constitution. He
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: returns to the idea that in the same way that
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: the Declaration of Independence was a resistance to British tyranny
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: from the outside, that what is segregation. But and he
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: starts using the language of the Constitution so much so
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: that in his last speech he talks about the idea
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: Somewhere I read about the right to protest.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Somewhere I read about the freedom of speech.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: This amazing speech right before his death as a protest
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: from sanitation workers that he's aiding a union strike. And
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: you know that to me really speaks to the idea
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: of reclaiming the Constitution and that the Constitution isn't just
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: what the courts say. It's a common vocabulary that all
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: of us can reclaim for ourselves. And that's really what
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: I love about doing this podcast. John that yes, the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court, as you heard Glenn Kirshners say, says that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: a president is immune from crimes. He said what the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: Constitution actually says, or in the Federal Trade Commission case,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: that they might uphold the right of a president to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: hire and fire even for political reasons, fire for political
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: reasons that doesn't mean that that's.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: Really the meaning of the Constitution.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: And if we want to find heroes, there is no
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: better hero of reclaiming the Constitution as an anti tyranny
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: principle resistance to segregation and white nationalism than Martin Luther
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: King Junior. So there's so much to celebrate. But that's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: in particular what I'm focused on, and I think what's
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: directly relevant to the moment.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I agree his.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Whole dealings with LBJ, and you document this so beautifully
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: in The Presidents and the People.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, there really is a shift.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: He went from saying segregation is morally sinful to saying
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: it's unconstitutional.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: I guess being arrested and going to jail that many
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: times would turn you into a bit of a strategist.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: And it's amazing to watch his evolution as he learns
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: about power and law and leverage. It was a side
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: of him that, God, I wish I could have my
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: dad read this chapter.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: It's great.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: What do you think he would?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: I'll say too, John that for you know, your book,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: which has had now a real cultural impact, that it's
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: such resonance between the way that he does things because
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: he does talk about Christianity, of course, and about the Bible.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: He never abandons that and natural law, but he's always
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: doing it hand in hand with the Constitution. If you
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: think of what we're up to here, you know that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: is what we're up to or in his very much
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: in his footsteps.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you my ballion dollar question. What
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: do you think doctor King would say today about politicians, who,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: you know, my favorite subject, to invoke Christianity to undermine
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: constitutional equality.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that he would certainly agree that that's
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: a fake Christianity, because what he saw Christianity as is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: as a message of anti tyranny, a message of equal protection,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: and the love in the Constitution as compatible not with tyranny,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: but as the opposite. And yet you know what I
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: love about him, and you know, so much of your
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: book has spoken to non believers and people who aren't
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: in the tradition of Christianity. And that's what he was
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: really trying to do with this constitutional language, to speak
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: the language of Christianity he was a minister, after all,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: but also to broaden it out. And his method of
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: his language of broadening it out was to talk about
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: the fourteenth Amendment about equal protection, and in that last speech,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: in particular about the First Amendment the right to protest.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: And you know, was there a better exemplar of our
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: constitutional tradition of reclaiming it?
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: The only rival is Frederick Douglass.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: But I put them in the pantheon, certainly, the two
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: of them.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: I do think, Corey.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: And one of the things I've learned from doing this
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: with you, if doctor King were alive today, I think
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: that he would see the Constitution as we do, both
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: as fragile and as a tool still capable of saving democracy.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: That juggling Act is always there. It is so perilous,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: and yet it did is such a strong tool if
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: we're willing to fight for it. And I want to
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: thank you so much, Professor. We crammed a lot into
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: the show today. All that in Glenn Kirshner too. Everyone
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: please please write to us, Corey, what do you want
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: to tell the folks and how can our listeners keep
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: it up with you and your good Deedscory. The other
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: six days of the week.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: We're collecting questions if you want to send them. Corey
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: Bretschneider at gmail dot com. Of course, subscribe, subscribe subscribe.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: If you're listening to us on Apple, leave us a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: review or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: very close to five hundred. You might be the five
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: hundredth reviewer if you jump on it for Apple, and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: you know, tell a friend, send it to somebody. We
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: are growing so fast and there's so much interest in it,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: and that's due to the listeners really, who are such
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: a part of this community, this collective community of reclaiming
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: our constitution, as we just talked about.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: I do want to thank our listeners as well, and
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: might everyone that I host the primetime programming on sirius
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: XM's Progress channel every night night to midnight on the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: East Coast six to nine on the West coast. If
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: you don't have sirius XM, we're the John Fuebel Setting podcast.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: That's a free show every day. That's the highlights of
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: last night's show. Here Corey there one day a week
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: as well. My book is called Separation of Church and Hate,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: a same person's guide to take it back to the
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Bible from fundamentalist fascists at flock fleecing frauds. We just
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: went back on the New York Times bestseller list last week,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: Professor Pretschneider and into Amazon's top ten. So thank you
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: to everybody out there who's scretched that. Thank you, Professor.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: And I can't wait till next week and to see
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: how much insane malfeasance I stress out about and then
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: you Corey can talk me off. A ledge for my therapist.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks you for all you're doing for me in my
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: nervous system. I want to thank Wendy and Bey Wolf
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: and everyarde who puts the show together. And most of all,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: I want to thank you the listeners for joining us
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: every week on the Oath and the Office