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Voting By Mail & Social Media Promote FBI Arrests · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brossel from Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: Mail in ballots are corrupt. Mail in ballots. You can
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Speaker 2: never have a real democracy with mail in ballots. And
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Speaker 2: we as a Republican party, are going to do everything
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Speaker 2: possible that we get rid of mail invalots. We're going
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Speaker 2: to start with an executive order that's being written right
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Speaker 2: now by the best lawyers in the country to end
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Speaker 2: mail in ballots because they're corrupt. And do you know
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Speaker 2: that we're the only country in the world, I believe
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Speaker 2: I may be wrong, but just about the only country
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Speaker 2: in the world that uses it.
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Speaker 3: In fact, more than thirty countries, including the UK, Canada
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Speaker 3: and Australia, use mail in voting. But President Trump has
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Speaker 3: complained for years about mail in voting leading to fraud
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Speaker 3: without any evidence, and in an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity,
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Speaker 3: Trump pointed as validation to comments by Vladimir Putin, Russia's
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Speaker 3: authoritarian leader.
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Speaker 4: You know, Vladimir Putin said something, one of the most
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Speaker 4: interesting things. He said, your election was rigged because you
1:12
Speaker 4: have mail in voting. He said, mail in voting every election.
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Speaker 4: He said, no country has mail in voting it's impossible
1:19
Speaker 4: to have mail in voting and have honest elections. And
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Speaker 4: he said that to me, it was very truck because
1:25
Speaker 4: we talked about twenty twenty. He said, you won that
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Speaker 4: election by so much.
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Speaker 3: Trump says he'll sign an executive order targeting mail in
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Speaker 3: ballots and voting machines, which he also claims are quote
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Speaker 3: highly inaccurate. He's trying to prevent Republicans from losing control
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Speaker 3: of Congress during the midterms. In several other ways, there's
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Speaker 3: the widely publicized demand that Texas Republicans redraw their congressional
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Speaker 3: map to create five new GOP seats, and in March
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Speaker 3: he signed an executive order now put on whole by
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Speaker 3: federal cos sort that would require documented proof of citizenship
2:03
Speaker 3: to vote. My guest is constitutional law professor Rick Peldis
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Speaker 3: of NYU Law School. Rick, Under the Constitution, what roles
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Speaker 3: do the President, Congress, and the states play in elections?
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Speaker 5: So let's start with the president. Actually, so the president
2:20
Speaker 5: has no power constitutionally to dictate to the states how
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Speaker 5: they conduct national elections. The Constitution gives states the power
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Speaker 5: to regulate the way in which our national elections are held,
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Speaker 5: and the Constitution also gives Congress the power to decide
2:37
Speaker 5: to sort of supplant the states in that role. But
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Speaker 5: the president has no power constitutionally to dictate how states
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Speaker 5: conduct elections.
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Speaker 3: What could Congress do. Let's say Congress agrees with President Trump,
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Speaker 3: what could Congress do to change the way elections are held?
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Speaker 5: I think that begins to get us into the more
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Speaker 5: significant questions in a sense. So even if the President
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Speaker 5: doesn't have the power to do this, once he puts
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Speaker 5: the marker out there on this by issuing the executive Order,
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Speaker 5: then the question becomes, you know what's going to happen
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Speaker 5: in the States, and what's going to happen in Congress. Congress,
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Speaker 5: in theory, does have the power to determine issues like
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Speaker 5: the appropriate use of absentee ballots in national elections. Congress
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Speaker 5: could require absentee ballots to be provided, It could determine
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Speaker 5: the conditions under which they can be used, and I
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Speaker 5: think in theory it probably could ban their use. There
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Speaker 5: might be some constitutional challenges individual voters would bring, but fundamentally,
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Speaker 5: the Supreme Court is recognized extremely broad power in Congress
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Speaker 5: to regulate national elections under the Elections Clause. Now you
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Speaker 5: know whether Congress would actually do this, I'd say fairly
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Speaker 5: skeptical about because number one, of course, as long as
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Speaker 5: we have the filibuster, the Democrats are going to oppose
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Speaker 5: this and it won't get through the Senate. But number two,
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Speaker 5: the Republicans have for a very long time been very
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Speaker 5: much against nationalizing the election process. There will certainly be
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Speaker 5: some Republicans I would imagine who would go along with
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Speaker 5: the President, but I think there might well be pushed
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Speaker 5: back from within the Republican Party on going down this route.
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Speaker 5: At the national level, election administrators, including in red states,
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Speaker 5: are I'm not going to be happy about a change
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Speaker 5: like this because it means the election process will be
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Speaker 5: more complicated for them to run because it would increase
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Speaker 5: the number of people who would turn to in person voting. So,
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Speaker 5: in theory, Congress could regulate in this area, but I
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Speaker 5: don't know what the politics will be about that. I
4:45
Speaker 5: think then the question is what will happen in red states,
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Speaker 5: you know that are run by legislators and governors who
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Speaker 5: are sympathetic to the president's agenda, And will we see
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Speaker 5: significant changes going on in red states about the use
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Speaker 5: of absentee ballot And.
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Speaker 3: Let's say Congress does pass a law like that, what
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Speaker 3: would a challenge look like from the Blue states.
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Speaker 5: So if Congress were to ban absentee ballots altogether, I
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Speaker 5: can imagine individual voters who cannot be in the jurisdiction
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Speaker 5: on election day or during the early voting process if
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Speaker 5: the state has early voting who say I just can't
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Speaker 5: exercise my right to vote at all, in effect, because
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Speaker 5: I just, for whatever reason, cannot be in the jurisdiction
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Speaker 5: during those days. I could imagine they might bring a
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Speaker 5: challenge under the federal Constitution and sort of right to
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Speaker 5: vote constitutional doctrine. They would argue that this ban would
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Speaker 5: impose a severe burden on their voting rights. So I
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Speaker 5: suspect that would be the form the challenge would take,
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Speaker 5: And I think the voters who would have the strongest
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Speaker 5: case would be the voters in that category I just described,
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Speaker 5: people who just physically can't be in the jurisdiction during
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Speaker 5: any of the day on which voting takes place. I
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Speaker 5: don't know whether they would win that constitutional challenge, but
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Speaker 5: that's what I would envision.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the military votes by mail for that reason. Also,
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Speaker 3: Republicans poured tens of millions of dollars last year into
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Speaker 3: convincing their voters that ballots by mail are safe. And
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Speaker 3: Trump himself has voted by mail. Now, what about voting machines.
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Speaker 3: Trump wants to go from voting machines to paper ballots
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Speaker 3: with water marks.
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Speaker 5: Well, I don't understand exactly what he has in mind
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Speaker 5: yet about that. So we do overwhelmingly vote on paper
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Speaker 5: ballots already. The question then is how those ballots are counted,
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Speaker 5: and typically, you know, that's where machines come into the picture.
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Speaker 5: So if you vote on you know, what's called an
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Speaker 5: optical scan machine, you fill in the bubbles on your ballot.
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Speaker 5: You then enter the ballot int to the machine that
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Speaker 5: tabulates the vote. So I doubt he means so I'm
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Speaker 5: a little load to speculate. If he means that voting
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Speaker 5: should be done on a paper ballot, most of our
7:12
Speaker 5: voting already takes place that way. If he means that
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Speaker 5: the vote should be somehow counted by hand rather than
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Speaker 5: counted by a machine whose accuracy has been you know, validated,
7:24
Speaker 5: and by the way, we also do audits after the
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Speaker 5: tabulation to make sure the machines are accurately counting the ballots.
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Speaker 5: If he means to get rid of machines for counting
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Speaker 5: the ballots. It's very hard to conceive of what that
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Speaker 5: would mean and how that could possibly be done, because
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Speaker 5: it would mean, you know, hand counting millions of ballots,
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Speaker 5: which would introduce huge delays in the counting process. And
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Speaker 5: we know counting by hand is actually much less accurate
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Speaker 5: than using the machines to count the ballots. So it's
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Speaker 5: really unclear to me what he even has in mind
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Speaker 5: about voting. I guess we need to see what the
8:02
Speaker 5: order actually ends up saying.
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Speaker 3: What's really going on here. Is it an attempt to
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Speaker 3: give the Republicans an advantage in the midterms because Democrats
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Speaker 3: supposedly do better with mail in voting than Republicans. Or
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Speaker 3: is it a power grab or something else.
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Speaker 5: It's a little hard for me to speculate about, you know,
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Speaker 5: what exactly is going on. He's obviously had an issue
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Speaker 5: about mail in ballots for quite a while. He made
8:29
Speaker 5: a big issue of this in the run up to
8:31
Speaker 5: the twenty twenty election. I think the view is that
8:34
Speaker 5: that ended up hurting him in the election because many
8:37
Speaker 5: Republicans then decided not to vote by absentee ballot. And
8:41
Speaker 5: whether those people voted in other ways or not. You know,
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Speaker 5: we don't know for sure. I'm sure that this statement
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Speaker 5: by him is causing consternation among other elected Republican officials
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Speaker 5: who probably think it's not in their interest to abandon
8:57
Speaker 5: the absentee voting. But you know, for whatever reas in,
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Speaker 5: he has a being his bondit about this issue, and
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Speaker 5: he lacks the power to do anything directly about it.
9:07
Speaker 5: But we'll see if Congress ends up doing anything.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, a federal judge has Trump issued an executive order
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Speaker 3: in March that would require proof of US citizenship to
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Speaker 3: vote and ban the counting of valid mail in ballots
9:23
Speaker 3: that arrive after election day, and a federal judge has
9:25
Speaker 3: already blocked that order, at least temporarily. So does that
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Speaker 3: indicate how other challenges might fare well.
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Speaker 5: I think there's little doubt that an executive order that
9:39
Speaker 5: purported to tell the states that they could not use
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Speaker 5: absentee ballots would be blocked by the federal courts. Again,
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Speaker 5: I'm a little hesitant to speculate too much until we
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Speaker 5: see the actual order and what the order actually entails,
9:53
Speaker 5: and how it's designed and what powers it asserts. But
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Speaker 5: he doesn't have the power to dictate the states that
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Speaker 5: they cannot use absentee ballots or can only use them
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Speaker 5: under certain conditions. So I don't have much doubt that
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Speaker 5: in order that did that would be struck down put
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Speaker 5: on hold by the court.
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Speaker 3: Trump and Republicans have tried to reshape elections in other
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Speaker 3: ways over the years, with tougher voter id laws, restricting
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Speaker 3: access to the polls, the fights over voter rolls and
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Speaker 3: accounting of ballots, and now pressuring Republican states to redraw
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Speaker 3: their maps, with Texas about to do that to get
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Speaker 3: five more Republican seats for the midterms. Does all this
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Speaker 3: cause the public to have less confidence in the integrity
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Speaker 3: of our elections.
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Speaker 5: I think that having a stable framework for our elections,
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Speaker 5: which is what we had and took for granted for
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Speaker 5: many years in the recent past, you know, certainly helps
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Speaker 5: promote confidence in the process. I think when the political
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Speaker 5: parties and the candidates are continually fighting over voting policy,
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Speaker 5: changing the rules in one direction or the other that
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Speaker 5: they think, you know, is in their partisan interests, I
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Speaker 5: think that certainly undermines public confidence in the process. It
11:16
Speaker 5: creates a sense that the rules are being rigged by
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Speaker 5: one side or the other for their own self interested reasons,
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Speaker 5: and I don't think that's, you know, overall healthy for
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Speaker 5: the democratic process.
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Speaker 3: Rick, are there any persistent problems with mail in voting.
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Speaker 5: When we have had problems in the voting system with fraud,
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Speaker 5: it has been in the absentee ballot area. It's not
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Speaker 5: a huge number of cases, but we have had some.
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Speaker 5: Just recently in New Jersey in the twenty twenty two elections,
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Speaker 5: there were criminal convictions for fraud that some actually, I
11:51
Speaker 5: think it was a city council member was engaged in
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Speaker 5: and pled guilty to. So I don't want to say
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Speaker 5: there's never fraud in the absentee ballot process. Does happen occasionally,
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Speaker 5: but it's very rare and there are safeguards against it
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Speaker 5: with the way ballots have to be validated and the like.
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Speaker 3: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
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Speaker 3: this conversation with NYU law professor Rick Pildis. The Republican
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Speaker 3: controlled Texas legislature is poised to vote soon on that
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Speaker 3: redistricting plan you're listening to Bloomberg. I've been talking to
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Speaker 3: constitutional law professor Rick Pildis of NYU law school. Turning
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Speaker 3: to what's become a redistricting battle. The Republican controlled Texas
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Speaker 3: legislature is poised to vote soon on that redistricting plan
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Speaker 3: that resulted from President Trump asking them to get five
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Speaker 3: more GOP seats for the midterm elections. I take it that,
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Speaker 3: though it's very unusual, there's no legal impediment to mid
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Speaker 3: decade redistricting.
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Speaker 5: We've had very little mid decade redistricting in American history,
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Speaker 5: certainly in modern American history. The last time this happened
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Speaker 5: in a way that went to the Supreme Court actually
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Speaker 5: was also from Texas in the early two thousands. I
13:11
Speaker 5: actually filed an amicust brief in that case, urging the
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Speaker 5: court to hold that the federal Constitution precluded mid decade redistricting.
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Speaker 5: The Supreme Court didn't agree with that position. But we're
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Speaker 5: in a world in which control of the House rests
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Speaker 5: on such a fine margin kind of election after election,
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Speaker 5: which is a very important part to understand as a
13:31
Speaker 5: backdrop to all of this, and so it leads the
13:34
Speaker 5: political parties to fight over every single inch of terrain,
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Speaker 5: and so various kinds of you know, norms that have
13:42
Speaker 5: been around for a while, just you know, are breaking
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Speaker 5: under that pressure, which is what's happening with the constraints
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Speaker 5: against mid decade redistricting, and the Pandora's box that opens
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Speaker 5: up is not only you know, if state can do
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Speaker 5: it once, they could just adjust their districts every couple
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Speaker 5: of years to try to maximize partisan advantage throughout the decade.
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Speaker 5: And of course it's going to trigger you know, retaliatory
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Speaker 5: mid decade redistricting. And it's another example of the kind
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Speaker 5: of tactics that at the end of the day, really
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Speaker 5: undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of the process. Gerrymandering
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Speaker 5: is bad enough when it happens once a decade, but
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Speaker 5: if we move down a path towards sort of perpetual
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Speaker 5: redistricting for partisan advantage seeking, it's all the worse. So
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Speaker 5: none of these things really promote the integrity of the
14:32
Speaker 5: process from the perspective of voters.
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Speaker 3: What's the argument that the constitution prohibits mid decade redistricting.
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Speaker 5: Well, the argument was that the Supreme Court has said
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Speaker 5: that partisan gerrymandering or excessive partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, but
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Speaker 5: that the Court can't develop judicial standards that are appropriate
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Speaker 5: to manage that problem. That is a prophylactic measure against
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Speaker 5: partisan jerrymandering. A per se rule against mid decay redistricting
15:05
Speaker 5: doesn't require the court to wrestle with you know exactly
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Speaker 5: how much jerrymandering is too much. It's a way of
15:13
Speaker 5: imposing at least some constraint on partisan gerrymandering, and that's
15:17
Speaker 5: sort of the argument. This is an area where you
15:19
Speaker 5: can do something without having to address the difficulty of
15:23
Speaker 5: coming up with standards for what a fair map is
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Speaker 5: just a per se rule that unless a court orders
15:30
Speaker 5: mid decay redistricting, the constitution should limit it. But as
15:34
Speaker 5: I said, that's not the law. And even more so,
15:38
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court has said that partisan jerrymandering is not
15:40
Speaker 5: something that the federal courts can address. So that's where
15:44
Speaker 5: we are, and the.
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Speaker 3: Court is most likely going to address the issue of
15:50
Speaker 3: racial gerrymandering in the next term. Thanks so much for
15:54
Speaker 3: joining me, Rick, that's Professor Ric Pildus of NYU Law School.
16:00
Speaker 3: You may remember the story, or you may have even
16:03
Speaker 3: seen the viral video of the now famous DC resident
16:07
Speaker 3: who through his subway sandwich at an ice officer, apparently
16:11
Speaker 3: after cursing about the federal takeover of the city in
16:15
Speaker 3: addition to being fired from his job in the Criminal
16:18
Speaker 3: Division of the Justice Department. Shawn Charles Dunn, a decorated
16:22
Speaker 3: Air Force veteran, has been charged with felony assault on
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Speaker 3: a federal officer for throwing the sandwich. You can now
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Speaker 3: also see a video of the rearrest of Dunn in
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Speaker 3: a swat style raid as more than a dozen federal
16:38
Speaker 3: agents with guns drawn converged on his apartment, where he
16:42
Speaker 3: peacefully surrendered. That's because the White House has posted a
16:46
Speaker 3: professionally edited dramatic video of the arrest entitled Nighttime Routine
16:52
Speaker 3: Operation Make DC Safe Again. Addition, joining me is national
16:57
Speaker 3: security expert Bradley Moss, a partner at Mark Zaid brad
17:02
Speaker 3: the White House is sending social media teams to go
17:05
Speaker 3: along with law enforcement and videotape FBI rs. Does this
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Speaker 3: violate the suspect's constitutional rights?
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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court in about twenty something years ago, possibly
17:19
Speaker 1: thirty something years ago at this point, had addressed the
17:22
Speaker 1: idea of embedding media with law enforcement in the context
17:27
Speaker 1: of doing work, and Supreme Court had basically overturned the policy,
17:32
Speaker 1: saying it was violative of people's First Amendment Fifth Amendment
17:35
Speaker 1: and Fourth Amendment protections. After all, you are presumed data
17:39
Speaker 1: sit until proven guilty. I mean, there was no legitimate
17:42
Speaker 1: basis to have news media embedded with law enforcement for
17:46
Speaker 1: that purpose. What we're seeing here with these social media
17:50
Speaker 1: influencers embedded with the FBI or whichever federal law enforcement
17:55
Speaker 1: agency is conducting these particular raids is even greater abuse
18:00
Speaker 1: of the process in the sense that it's not even
18:03
Speaker 1: tending to be about news gathering or objective journalism. This
18:08
Speaker 1: is straight up political hackery. These are social media influencers.
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Speaker 1: These are media players with a very explicit partisan agenda
18:18
Speaker 1: designed not to gather facts, but to push the White
18:21
Speaker 1: House's specific narrative about what is transpiring. This entire process,
18:27
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, is at least unethical, if
18:30
Speaker 1: not likely also illegal.
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Speaker 3: What would be some of the possible legal challenges.
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Speaker 1: So you're almost certainly going to see at some point
18:39
Speaker 1: various pre trial motions for you know, pretro publicity issues
18:45
Speaker 1: tied to the inclusion of these social media influencers being
18:48
Speaker 1: embedded and publicizing this. There's going to be various actions
18:52
Speaker 1: taken by defense attorneys claiming their clients privacy rights and
18:56
Speaker 1: constitutional rights were violated by use of these at it
19:00
Speaker 1: in individuals. How that will play out remains to be seen.
19:05
Speaker 1: I don't think the cases necessarily are thrown out simply
19:08
Speaker 1: based off that, but it is entirely possible it will
19:12
Speaker 1: cause some problems with prosecution of these cases. And if
19:17
Speaker 1: that does start occurring, if the courts start pushing back
19:20
Speaker 1: by way of these pre trial rulings, I think you'll
19:23
Speaker 1: see a shift in the policy from most of the
19:27
Speaker 1: agencies and from the White House. If for no other reason,
19:30
Speaker 1: then it'd be undercutting their ability to do what they
19:33
Speaker 1: say they're trying to do, which is to identify arrest
19:37
Speaker 1: and convict criminals.
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Speaker 3: Could it also become part of the evidence of the
19:43
Speaker 3: defense at trial, perhaps demonstrating, you know, bad conduct by
19:49
Speaker 3: the arresting officers, or that the defendant was being targeted
19:54
Speaker 3: in some way.
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Speaker 1: Yes, all of it would be discoverable, All of it
19:59
Speaker 1: would be potentially exculpatory information that would have to be
20:02
Speaker 1: turned over to the criminal defendants and their council. All
20:06
Speaker 1: that could be brought up not only from a factual standpoint,
20:09
Speaker 1: depending on what the you know various footage shows, but
20:12
Speaker 1: also simply if there's a you know, political or vindictive
20:16
Speaker 1: prosecution pre trial motion brought. This would all be information
20:19
Speaker 1: that these defendants would be entitled to obtain and to
20:23
Speaker 1: use in their own defense, which is why normally we
20:27
Speaker 1: don't do this, you know, you especially don't do it
20:29
Speaker 1: with these types of individuals following along in the cars,
20:35
Speaker 1: because it opposes so many problems for the ultimate actual
20:38
Speaker 1: prosecution of the crimes.
20:40
Speaker 3: And also does it run against the Justice Department's policy
20:45
Speaker 3: to insulate criminal investigations from political influence.
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Speaker 1: Yes, but of course, as we're seeing with everything in
20:53
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, policies, norms, customs mean nothing. Those are all,
20:59
Speaker 1: you know, the restrictions of the deep state and the
21:02
Speaker 1: weak people who didn't really want to fight you know,
21:05
Speaker 1: crime and swand and look, you know, politically correct, so
21:09
Speaker 1: they don't care about any of that. The entirety of
21:13
Speaker 1: these actions and the entire purpose for promoting it in
21:18
Speaker 1: this way, is to push completely partisan propaganda and to
21:23
Speaker 1: utilize these institutions of the state in order to push
21:28
Speaker 1: that propaganda, not necessarily even for a particular political party,
21:31
Speaker 1: but for one person, Donald Trump.
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Speaker 3: The White House is owning it. A White House spokesman
21:37
Speaker 3: told Reuters that this is not a standard law enforcement
21:41
Speaker 3: posture because this is action directed by the president deeming
21:44
Speaker 3: what is necessary and appropriate under the law.
21:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, unfortunately for Donald Trump, he doesn't decide what
21:51
Speaker 1: the law is, at least not in our current form.
21:54
Speaker 1: We'll see what the courts ultimately decided to just completely
21:57
Speaker 1: bend the knee and succumb to him at the moment
22:01
Speaker 1: in this constitutional republic, he is not the law. The
22:04
Speaker 1: courts decide what the law is.
22:07
Speaker 3: I mean, the FBI has allowed the media to do
22:10
Speaker 3: ride along. When I was a local news reporter, I
22:12
Speaker 3: did a ride along with police, but you were always
22:15
Speaker 3: careful to obscure the video of the suspect's face.
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Speaker 1: Correct. And there have been TV shows, you know, you
22:23
Speaker 1: think of the infamous show Cops that's been around forever.
22:27
Speaker 1: Those shows did have some kind of media embedded within it,
22:30
Speaker 1: but there were very strict protocols and procedures. There were
22:34
Speaker 1: waivers that had to be signed by anybody whose identity
22:37
Speaker 1: was shown, anybody whose information was made public, and of
22:40
Speaker 1: course that footage was always then had to be made
22:45
Speaker 1: available to those defendants when they went to trial. And
22:49
Speaker 1: so this is why there were always those limitations foot
22:52
Speaker 1: of place, because while it makes for great TV, while
22:55
Speaker 1: it looked cool on social media with the hype music
22:59
Speaker 1: and the you know, the raw rah, you know, beating
23:02
Speaker 1: their chest machismo that the White House is doing, that
23:05
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be helpful when it
23:08
Speaker 1: comes to actual trial. And that's what we're waiting to
23:11
Speaker 1: see is does this backfire from a legal standpoint by
23:16
Speaker 1: undercutting law enforcements ability to actually prosecute successfully these criminals.
23:23
Speaker 3: Last week, the White House posted a highly produced promotional
23:27
Speaker 3: on its x account documenting the rearrest of Sean Charles Dunn,
23:32
Speaker 3: the now former Department of Justice employee who threw a
23:36
Speaker 3: subway sandwich at a federal agent. Do you have all
23:39
Speaker 3: these police, FBI agents and federal marshals in full gear
23:44
Speaker 3: with guns drawn and carrying bulletproof shields to get this
23:49
Speaker 3: guy whose weapon was a subway sandwich and they converge
23:52
Speaker 3: on his apartment and he just opens the door. And
23:56
Speaker 3: it took about eight minutes. And it ends with a
23:59
Speaker 3: black screen showing the White House and the words the
24:03
Speaker 3: White House President Donald J. Trump. I'm not sure why
24:08
Speaker 3: they would want to promote using all these federal agents
24:12
Speaker 3: to re arrest the guy who'd already been caught after
24:16
Speaker 3: he threw the sandwich.
24:17
Speaker 1: The way they're approaching this, the hype videos they're doing
24:21
Speaker 1: it would make you know, Nazi propaganda blush, because this
24:24
Speaker 1: is just gross abuse of you know, a vital entity
24:29
Speaker 1: and institution in government, which is law enforcement, which is
24:33
Speaker 1: necessary to the survival of any state. But it is
24:36
Speaker 1: turning it into not an arm of government, not an
24:39
Speaker 1: arm of the law and the constitution, but an arm
24:42
Speaker 1: of a political entity in a particular political official, namely
24:46
Speaker 1: the president himself. And that is not what the Justice
24:50
Speaker 1: Department is supposed to be. That is explicitly not how
24:53
Speaker 1: this is supposed to be handled. But as far as
24:56
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is concerned, he was vindicated in twenty twenty
24:59
Speaker 1: four with his victory, and the public is ready to
25:02
Speaker 1: let him just do whatever he wants on that front,
25:05
Speaker 1: and that's why he's doing it. He got an immunity ruling,
25:08
Speaker 1: he got everything he wanted, he overcame convictions, and he
25:11
Speaker 1: got back to the presidency. And as far as he's concerned,
25:14
Speaker 1: he's going to push this envelope as far as the
25:17
Speaker 1: law will allow him to do.
25:19
Speaker 3: Doesn't it also erode confidence in the FBI and federal agents.
25:25
Speaker 1: That's got to be one of the bigger confers somebody.
25:27
Speaker 1: So we've seen this for the last ten years, ever
25:29
Speaker 1: since Trump came on the scene, ever since cross Fire, Hurricane,
25:34
Speaker 1: the Muller probe, all this, there's been these bipartisans food
25:38
Speaker 1: fights over you know, the integrity of law enforcement. Republicans
25:43
Speaker 1: basically assume anybody in the intel community who doesn't tow
25:46
Speaker 1: the Trump line is a deep state operative out to
25:49
Speaker 1: get him. And for you know, people on the left,
25:52
Speaker 1: they're basically assuming everyone who's getting urged, anyone who's left,
25:56
Speaker 1: are all just toties of Trump's propaganda or you know,
26:00
Speaker 1: getting off on basically beating up everyone they want and
26:04
Speaker 1: walking around with masks and grabbing people off the street.
26:07
Speaker 1: The fundamental problem that you have that underlies every collapsing
26:12
Speaker 1: governmental institutions they're out history, is when people lose trust
26:16
Speaker 1: in the basic functions of the state. And the greatest
26:20
Speaker 1: threat there is from Donald Trump right now is that
26:23
Speaker 1: the public may never fully regain that trust in the FBI,
26:28
Speaker 1: in CIA, in the intelligence community at large. We've had
26:32
Speaker 1: moments in history in this country where that trust has
26:34
Speaker 1: been eroded. This is now getting to the point people
26:37
Speaker 1: are thrown with sandwiches, like you said, you know, at
26:40
Speaker 1: the cops, they're calling them Nazis. And it's because of
26:43
Speaker 1: these raw emotions tied to both sides of this, where
26:45
Speaker 1: no one trusts anyone anymore, and it's becoming the point
26:48
Speaker 1: where no one can trust that anybody acts in good faith.
26:52
Speaker 3: And talk about overcharging. The US Attorney Janine Pireau is
26:56
Speaker 3: charging him with a felony forcibly assaulting, resisting, or impeding
27:01
Speaker 3: a federal officer, which you know the maximum is up
27:04
Speaker 3: to eight years in prison. But what jury, what DC
27:08
Speaker 3: jury would convict him on those charges.
27:12
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see one if that stuff gets
27:16
Speaker 1: reduced in pre trial motions, but two, even if somehow
27:19
Speaker 1: even one aspect of this does get to a jury,
27:22
Speaker 1: whether or not they can find a jury that would
27:25
Speaker 1: convict this guy based off that kind of evidence. It's
27:28
Speaker 1: laughable right now to assume that would happen, But it's
27:31
Speaker 1: entirely plausible. It's entirely possible that people would simply look
27:35
Speaker 1: at it from a strictly legal standpoint and saying, do
27:37
Speaker 1: I think this is a ridiculous case? Yes, did his
27:40
Speaker 1: conduct meet the scope of the statutory provision? Yes, Okay,
27:45
Speaker 1: you know guilty. I don't if foresee that whole case
27:48
Speaker 1: going through the end with the original charges. This is
27:50
Speaker 1: all a media spectacle right now. We're seeing the US
27:54
Speaker 1: attorney Pierro having problem getting invitements from grand juries because
27:58
Speaker 1: they can see how ridiculous this is. I fully expect
28:00
Speaker 1: this to be just another case of that.
28:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, and his lawyer says she was trying to arrange
28:04
Speaker 3: his voluntary surrender. Tell us about the problems Piro has
28:08
Speaker 3: been having lately.
28:09
Speaker 1: So there have been problems lately with prosecutors going to
28:12
Speaker 1: the grand juries trying to get indictments based off these
28:15
Speaker 1: various arrests, and the grand juries are refusing to indict,
28:19
Speaker 1: you know, in the old standings, inde, a ham sandwich.
28:22
Speaker 1: Apparently you can't even indict a ham sandwich at the
28:24
Speaker 1: moment because the grand juries are seeing how preposterously stupid
28:28
Speaker 1: some of these arrests are, you know. I mean, look,
28:31
Speaker 1: there is a clear and explicit need for law enforcement
28:35
Speaker 1: to operate in any functioning society. There's a clear and
28:37
Speaker 1: explicit need for prosecutors to be able to prosecute cases.
28:41
Speaker 1: There's also recognition of the preposterously stupid when it comes
28:46
Speaker 1: to some of these cases, which is why objective, rational
28:50
Speaker 1: adults normally don't bring them. It makes for great TV,
28:54
Speaker 1: it makes for great outrage bait on social media. It's
28:58
Speaker 1: not how a functioning society he operates.
29:01
Speaker 3: The Justice Department is investigating whether DC falsified crime data,
29:06
Speaker 3: but I'm wondering about the data the White House is
29:08
Speaker 3: handing out on these arrests in d C. Because the
29:13
Speaker 3: details have been hidden.
29:14
Speaker 1: You know, we were speaking to the idea of people
29:16
Speaker 1: losing trust. The biggest concern coming now is that people
29:20
Speaker 1: are going to lose trust in the data. You know,
29:22
Speaker 1: the Bureau Labor Statistics. Now their data might get suspended
29:25
Speaker 1: because there's quote unquote mistrust from the White House and
29:30
Speaker 1: its political allies because data didn't show what they wanted
29:32
Speaker 1: it to show. The data from the Justice Department and
29:35
Speaker 1: from DC police about crime in DC is now under
29:38
Speaker 1: question because it doesn't show what the President wanted to show.
29:41
Speaker 1: He wanted to portray a city in chaos, a city
29:47
Speaker 1: like the battle days of the eighties and the early
29:49
Speaker 1: nineties in DC when it was the homicide capital of
29:52
Speaker 1: the world. Those days are long gone. Does DC have crime?
29:55
Speaker 1: Of course DC has crime. It's a city you're going
29:58
Speaker 1: to have crime. Is Trump is stuck in that eighties
30:02
Speaker 1: nineties mindset. That's how he's always viewed BC. It's a
30:05
Speaker 1: very scary place to him, and he's trying to reconfigure
30:10
Speaker 1: facts in the truth to fit his narrative.
30:13
Speaker 3: I also wanted to ask you about Tulsea Gabbard. She's
30:17
Speaker 3: beginning anew to revoke the clearances of national security officials
30:22
Speaker 3: who President Trump, I guess, in some respect teems political enemies.
30:27
Speaker 1: Telfy Gabbert is on a mission to destroy the intelligence
30:30
Speaker 1: community and to basically try to rewrite history. It goes
30:34
Speaker 1: back to Trump's original readents. You know, the original sin,
30:37
Speaker 1: which was the Russia investigation. You know, it doesn't matter
30:40
Speaker 1: what Muller found, doesn't matter the charges Muller brought, doesn't matter,
30:44
Speaker 1: what the Muller reports said, doesn't matter the extent to
30:46
Speaker 1: which the Durham Report vindicated the Mueller's reports findings. In
30:51
Speaker 1: various ways. He wants to rewrite history to say that
30:56
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen never should have been investigated, that there was
31:00
Speaker 1: never any coordination or anything with Russia. That mattered to
31:03
Speaker 1: be investigated, and that's the original sin. And now he's
31:07
Speaker 1: got art blanche, you know, discretion from Congress as far
31:11
Speaker 1: as he's concerned, and from the spring Court, from the community,
31:13
Speaker 1: Rulin to just throw out anybody who was ever tied
31:16
Speaker 1: to it. He doesn't care about the impact of national security.
31:20
Speaker 1: Telsey Gabbard is having the time of her life, just
31:23
Speaker 1: wrecking political havoc because she knows she'll never be held
31:27
Speaker 1: accountable for anything, because she'll be long gone by the
31:30
Speaker 1: time the real damage shows up. She can have fun,
31:35
Speaker 1: she can be a power player. She can go on
31:38
Speaker 1: you know, podcasts and joke around with Megan Kelly. He
31:42
Speaker 1: has no sense of the amount of damage she's doing here.
31:46
Speaker 1: And the firings of these people and the revocations and
31:49
Speaker 1: security clearances has nothing to do with anything other than
31:53
Speaker 1: pursuing Trump's condictive agenda.
31:56
Speaker 3: Well, apparently these latest ones seem to be a directive
31:59
Speaker 3: from far right activist Laura Lumer, who posted three weeks
32:04
Speaker 3: ago urging dozens of officials from the CIA and National
32:08
Speaker 3: Security have their clearances revoked. Her influence is really concerning.
32:16
Speaker 1: You know, they always said idiocrisy was, you know, just
32:20
Speaker 1: the movie, but no, we continue to be reminded it
32:22
Speaker 1: was simply foreshadowing reality because the idea the Laura Lumer
32:27
Speaker 1: is having this kind of influence not just on the
32:29
Speaker 1: OD and I, but across the federal government, all this
32:32
Speaker 1: influence on who Trump hires and fires someone who has
32:35
Speaker 1: absolutely no qualifcation of being you know, chiming in on
32:38
Speaker 1: any of it, say nothing. Effect that she's not even
32:41
Speaker 1: a federal employee, not even advisor to the President in
32:44
Speaker 1: the White House is obscene and ridiculous. But this is
32:48
Speaker 1: the reality. He loves the Laura Lumers of the world.
32:51
Speaker 1: They do his dirty work and he can just you know,
32:54
Speaker 1: use power like he's a mafia don. The only damage,
32:57
Speaker 1: of course, is the damage to the national security, but hey,
33:00
Speaker 1: who cares about that anymore?
33:01
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me. Brad. That's Brad Moss, national security
33:05
Speaker 3: expert and partner at Mark Zaid. That's it for this
33:09
Speaker 3: edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always
33:12
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33:15
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