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Trump’s Bad Week Is Democracy’s Opening · The Oath and The Office

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath and the Office.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I am John Fugel sang so great to have you
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: with us. Donald Trump's Freedom to fifty concert is collapsing.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It looks like not really a patriotic celebration. Friends, It's
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: like the last night at a bankrupt casino that's trying
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to pay their electric bill with expired Arby's coupons. And
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm here to announce that Professor Corey Bretschneider has pulled
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: out of Donald Trump's Freedom two hundred fifty concerts. He
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: will not be performing on stage, so now it's just
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: going to be Vanilla Ice and the animatronic rat band
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: from Chuck E. Cheese. Folks, please welcome the star of
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this podcast, the author of The Oath and the Office,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: my favorite IVY League political science Professor Corey Bretschneider.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Hello, sir, Thanks John. You know it's going to be
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: doing my spoken word verse.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: At the I was so excited, but I just I.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Had to pull out. And you know, one reason I'm
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: pulling away from Donald Trump is because he is a
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: sinking ship. And today I'm just so excited for this
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: discussion because so often it's just looking bleak and how
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: are we going to survive this today? It's really all
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: about the you know, checks and balances, working judges, fighting
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: back lawsuits, including one that I'm proud to have worked with,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the group that brought it Democracy Forward, winning in court,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Congress pushing back and so you know, this this nightmare
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: that we've been living through, and I'd really call it
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: that we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So this really is an episode about hope and about
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: constitutional resistance that works. That's not just principle.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I agree. I hope our listeners are ready for all
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of the relentless good news that's going to be. We're
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: just going to be a big up on People Show
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: for the next hour because let's talk about our tattered,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: torn and frade guardrails. Professor Donald Trump had this kind
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of Friday last week. This was like a Friday that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: usually you see for cars tuned villains who tie themselves
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to railroad tracks by accident. A bevy of federal judges
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: looked at multiple schemes at the same time and just
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: responded like exhausted toddler parents and said no. This included
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: his white trash supervillain plans for the Kennedy Center, which
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we will get to, but I want to begin by
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: talking about how these institutions might really be strong enough
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to withstand one person, because it's been like a stress test.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We saw multiple federal judges step in simultaneously, and I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: wanted to start with the one point eight billion dollar
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: slush fund to pay off white supremacists who beat cops.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: This was a taxpayer funded compensation program, a rewards program
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: for January sixth terrorists and people in Donald Trump's orbit
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: for him to just give our money to whomever wants.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And obviously the shock was on Friday when Judge Leoni
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Brinkhema blocked this anti weaponization slush fund. Professor, I mean,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where to begin with this, Like, historically,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: are there examples of democratic leader creating financial mechanisms that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: disproportionately reward political supporters? Has this ever happened in this
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: country before?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, we certainly have had slush funds before and illegal operations.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And as you know from talking to me, of one
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: of the things I'm doing lately is hunting around the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Nixon Library archives. And Nixon was famous for receiving illegal contributions,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: often called slush funds, but it was done in private,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: in the dark, hidden. They were embarrassed by it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, Mussolini had had the decency to do this under
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the table. I mean putin creates a shell company. They're
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: just doing it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I got to say, you know, slush funds
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: usually when we talk about them, they are you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: let's say they're in the tens of thousands or hundreds
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: of thousands, or an extremely large slush fund would be
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in the millions. But at one point eight billion dollars
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: that's going to be used to reward political supporters and
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: done in the open, and done, you know, as a
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: result of a settlement in this bogus IRS lawsuit. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: you know, this is about stopping one person, but it
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: shows you the power of that one person that we're
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: even talking about this, the ability to sort of take
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: what was supposed to be a compensation fund within the
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Department of Justice and then reorient it and let's just
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: say what it was meant to do to pay political.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Supporters, Yeah, for engaging in insurrection.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, was it a compensation fund like that?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: This is for people who gave guilty please or are
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: found guilty by juries this was a political reward system.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, the founders were very suspicious of patronage systems,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: weren't they, Professor like a fund controlled by the executive
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that can give huge sums of money secretly to people
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: for politically defined reasons.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some I would say some of this definitely was
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: anticipated by those who are arguing about the Constitution for
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: and against at the ratification moment. And I often talk
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: not just about Hamilton and Madison, those who were for ratification,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: but the anti federalists whore opposed to it, and they're
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: certainly relevant here because part of what they warned about is,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: you know, they anticipated the possibility that we now have
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: of a criminal president, and this is what they said, Look,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: that person is going to be able to use their
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: powers that are supposedly benign and for good to destroy
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the country, to engage in more crime. And one of
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the main things they worried about was the pardon power.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And that's certainly relevant here because the January sixth insurrectionists,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: of course, the you know, well more than a thousand
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: of them that were prosecuted by the Department of Justice
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: during Biden were pardoned basically all of them, and now
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: he's doubling down. This is part of the same story
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: by creating this slush fund to pay them, and so
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: people who are in the midst of the insurrection, in
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the midst of the attempted coup, like you know, the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Proud Boys leaders are signing up and say, you know, hey, hey,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: give me some money, not just free me as a
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: result of the pardon. And you know, so, I guess
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: what I would say, just to answer your question, the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: anti federal has definitely anticipated the pardon power. Did they
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: think about a one point eight billion dollar slush fund
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that I think was even too far fetched for anybody found.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Imagine, let's go back to what's become one of our
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: favorite themes, Professor to cover on this humble little pod,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: which is that Congress traditionally controls appropriations. Again, they're supposed
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to do the funding for things like wars or bribes.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, a president creates a mechanism to direct billions
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of dollars with no congressional oversight that the Constitution has
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: led us to expect.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where the story. You know, we
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: said we're going to be hopeful, and now we can
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: get hopeful pretty fast because a group called Democracy Forward.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Who are the group that represented me and my cohort
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: in the terriiff's case, and I was proud to work
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: with them. They're a group that really has been formed
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to fight Trump and his abuses. On behalf of several
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: litigants said, just what you said, you know, what about
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the separation of powers and can you just can a
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: president just unilaterally take money that was allocated by Congress
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: for one purpose? I guarantee you they didn't allocate it
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: for the purpose of rewarding your political allies and insurrections
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: and just diverted into it, as you said, as we
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: keep rightly calling it a slush fund. They brought claims
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: to saying this was arbitrary and capricious. Government action by
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: the administration has to have some reason for it. It
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: can be arbitrary. That's a requirement of a statute that
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: really creates the administrative state, and you know, these kind
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: of basic claims about how government is supposed to work.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: They also brought a First Amendment claim saying, you know, basically,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: it can't just redirect money to reward your allies and
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: get them to pay them basically to attack your opponents, right,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: which is what this money, what this slush fund was
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: meant to do. So all of those arguments did result
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: in what you know, was looking pretty clearly like a
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: victory in federal court. And that's part of the great
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: story here that eventually, did you know, as you said
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: in the beginning, lead them to back.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Down, Professor, One of the great lessons and themes you
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: have taught me ever since I first became your padawan
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: long ago, was this this notion that democracies don't usually
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: collapse overnight. Democracies weaken through these tiny little acts that
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: normalize favoritism and hierarchies. Does this fit that pattern.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you look at how dictatorship and
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: oligarchy were, it's you take money and you reward you know,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: you don't serve the general public, you don't follow the law,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: you just reward your cronies. And look at what he
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: was doing here. You know, when he said, way back
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: in the first term, proud boys, you know, stand by
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: and stand down. He was sort of commanding this private army.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And then when we watched the proud Boys and the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: oathkeepers and his supporters attack the capital on January sixth,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: that obviously wasn't an active democracy. It was an active dictatorship.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And now you know, if you really want to solidify
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that bond between the insurrectionists and your private army, essentially
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: you have to reward them because the more that you
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: back off and they look like criminals, you've abandoned them,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: which essentially had done for a while the worst it is.
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  Speaker 2: So the pardon was the first step, but now it's money.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this is real salary to engage in insurrection.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: That was what he was trying to do. And so
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: the courts stepping in here, this wasn't just any moment
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to step in. It really was the moment in which
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the financial creation of this paramilitary force, you know, was
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: about to be formed one point eight billion dollars, an
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: incredible amount of money with no oversight, you know, to
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: do what to set up his dictatorship.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, we get the dumb leptocracies, Corey, we get
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the cacistocracy here. We couldn't get the shrewd fascists. We
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: got the dopes. And now, you know, we talk a
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: lot about all the different ways that individuals have resisted
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: in the guardrails of the courts, but let's talk about
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the states, Corey, because as you know, before America's racists
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: fell in love with Donald Trump, they loved something called
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: states rights. And it was what the racist when I
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: was growing up loved more than anything else. Oh, those
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: states rights unless some states want to have things like
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: legal weed or gun safety laws. Now we see the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: states are really getting creative on this slush fund. California,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: New York, Connecticut, and Jersey all discussing imposing a one
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: hundred percent tax on any of their state residents who
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: receive these slush fund payments. This is wild. This is
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: what I think people want to see. This is what
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: they want to see from Democrats in DC. This kind
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of ingenuity is this federalism functioning as intended professor. The
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: states are being a counterweight when the federal government appears
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to be abusing power.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Look what your face with dictatorship. And that's what this
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: fund was really trying to do, is to set up
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a fund again, to fund not in secret. You know,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: usually slush funds. For instance, the plumbers during Nixon era
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: were paid through a slush fund, a secret fund to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: support a you know, secrets very small you know, we're
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: talking like a few handfuls of.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Nixon had the decency that do this under the table,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: good god, hey, and.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: With very little money compared to what we're talking about now.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: They were embarrassed, they knew it was illegal, and now
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know, doing it in public. So how do you
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: oppose it? Well, one thing that we've talked about is
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: citizens fighting back. It's partly about the story about a
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: heroic judge. That also is stories of this group, these citizens,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: some of whom, by the way, we're former Department of
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Justice employees and democracy forward. And then it also is
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: creativity within state officials. And so Newsom in California talking
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: about this tax in the New York twelfth congressional district,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: there's a primary candidate who's jumped in suggesting of tax
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: in New York. And you know, these are not normal times,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: and these are not normal suggestions a tax on a
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: specific recipient of federal money. And the abstract sounds like,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: you know, what are you doing? That's targeting individuals, But
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: when you see how illegal the payment is, how it's
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: also part of his scheme to undermine our democracy perfectly,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you know, right, And you know, I think it's over
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: ninety of the potential people who are going to get
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: paid under this slush fund. We're in New York, so
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: this isn't a small no way of port to be creative,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: you know. That's what this is all about. Fight back
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: multiple fronts. You know where we can.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Well, the founder has built so many multiple layers of
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: government partly because they distrust they distrusted concentrated power. I mean,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: if these states are trying to neutralize a correct federal program,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't that say our institutions are healthy. If the states
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: are treating federal programs as potential threats requiring defensive action,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that looks like the body protecting itself.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Look, we're all in this giant nightmare.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I call it a log exam. It's more like the
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: kind of exam loxam you're taking a nightmare because it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: all real. And what we're really asking is whether or
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: not the system can survive and whether or not the
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: pose the checks and balances really are checks imbalances. The
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: anti federalists, by the way I keep bringing up I
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: should say, their view was, no, we're not going to survive.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: The democracy is too weak to survive a criminal president.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And don't ratify this constitution because it's going to collapse,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: and it's going to collapse, they argued, on behalf of
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: a president who's going to use crime and the pardon
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: power to collapse it. Now, you know that's not the
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: end of the story. Madison and Hamilton and others said, no,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: we've designed this thing with multiple mechanisms to stop excess
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: in power. One thing is Article three the courts, which
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: we've been talking about in this lawsuit. And here's another thing,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: and Madison and Jefferson I mentioned particularly, we're interested in
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: the tenth Amendment, the idea that there are powers reserved
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: to the local and state governments to resist That later
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: gets co opted by anti civil rights forces, but much earlier,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Madison and Jefferson themselves use it because when John Adams
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: tries to shut down free speech, what do they do,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: They say, well, you know, good luck and enforce that
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: against us. We're going to use the states to fight back.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: We're not going to comply with demands to shut down
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: political opponents. It was a very different time and a
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: different set of circumstances. But these kind of proposals of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: using taxation on illegally gotten gains to destroy democracy, I
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: think you know that's using the same techniques, the balance
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: of power. And we're always in this moment in a
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: battle between the anti federalists who say, no, we're not
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: going to survive, and the federalists who said, here, we
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: gave you all these gifts, all these separation of powers,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: this federalism, use it, fight back and win.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I can I stretch out a lot? Could I stretch
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: out this chadenfreud a good news act a little bit longer?
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I think, because we've got a great end too.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: It got better on Friday. I mean, you'd think it
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't get better. But then, and this is before Milli
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Vanilli dropped out to the concert, This before Milli Vanilli
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: decided Donald Trump's concert was inauthentic. Before all that happened,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It seems like last Friday, the week ended with the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Judicial deciding to schedule a group project on humiliating Donald Trump.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Because this is the most interesting story of all for me,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Professor of Federal Judge decided to reopen scrutiny into his
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: really weird, bizarre ten billion dollar IRS lawsuits settlement slash
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: self pardon slash billion dollar money vacuum that he just
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: set up. This was the case that he agreed to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: close this really sussed ten billion. He was suing his
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: own government to have his lawyers pay him from our money,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and then oh, I'm going to compromise and just make
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: this two billion dollars for my henchmen. Right, this is fascinating, Corey.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Thirty five retired federal judges. I've been waiting to ask
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you about this. Thirty five retired judges. I guess they're
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: on a group chat. They got together, looked at this thing,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and they were like, this is a fraud wrapped at
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a scam dressed as a lawsuit. And this thing was
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: so cartoonishly crooked. It's like a late eighties Scooby Doo episode.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Sue your own government, dismiss your own lawsuit, create your
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: own mega account controlled by your own people. Sounds fictional,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: But thirty five retired federal judges asked for scrutiny, and
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a sitting federal judge just reopened that lawsuit that was
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: only a pretense to get this whole scam going. Where
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to begin from a constitutional perspective? How extraordinary, crazy and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: batshit professor is that sequence of events?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: But I love this. I loved starting with Scooby Doo,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: maybe before we.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Go to the law I haven't waited on this story.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: This is my favorite of all the stories.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: I was just think, if you're in the Scooby Doo
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: writer's room and somebody comes up with this scheme, you know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: the mystery van being solved back you know to who.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: But then you know, Trump is like, this is a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: brilliant idea, and Scooby says, ruddy rum and they throw
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Scoopy out the mystery van.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And Scooby went at it kind of. Scooby went along
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: with everything, and that's what Trump wants to the Department
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: of Justice to do. Scooby was always like, okay, it
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: was up for anything.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm like, this is crazy. It seems like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: this judge is opening reopening this lawsuit that he only filed.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Let's get it to mess with the system to create
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: this corrupt slush fund. And now a judge is like,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: was there ever a genuine adversarial dispute? I mean, it's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: a constitutional question. Can the president effectively sue himself? They
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: are calling bluff on his scam?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the answer is no. You know, just to
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: get into the details, these former federal judges looked at this.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: They urge reopening the case, which looks like the judge
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: is doing. And let me just say what the basic
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: you know, we've given our Scooby Doo analogy at length. Yeah,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: let's get it here for those issues are here, because
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: what's being claimed by these judges, and what I think
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: eventually this federal judge will say is that this is
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: what's known as a fraud on the court. And let
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: me just lay that out. It doesn't mean, you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: that Trump cheated on his taxes or something like that,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: which is what it sounds like. It means that when
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: you go into a court, which are going back to
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: this idea of the separation of powers distinct from the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: executive branch, this is now Article three the courts, you
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: can't lie and you have to have a genuine conflict.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So this was set up as some sort of fake conflict,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: supposed conflict between the president and the irs, but of
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: course it was anything. But it was really, you know,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a scheme where different parts of the federal government were
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: being pulled on by Trump in order to orchestrate a
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: fake settlement of essentially Trump with himself that then could
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: be turned into by the Department of Justice. This slush
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: fund through you know, lots of supposed you know, arguments
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: and conflict. There was no conflict here. There was a
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: president and his minions organizing a way for Trump to
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: take money and give it to his supporters. And this
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: idea that there was some sort of lawsuit here that
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: was settled. That's the fraud on the court.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And then that's what I believes. They finally believe in reparations,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but only for terrorists. I'm sorry, professor, go ahead, so
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I know we're going to talk about this. But Trump,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: after all of these attacks and maneuvers, saw the writing
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: on the wall and is now pulling out of this
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: slush fund. But what was happening, I think, was that
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: minimum that this judge was going to put the kibosh
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: on all of this on the grounds that it was
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: a fraud on the court and that you know, you
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: have to have a real conflict. You can't by the way,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the lawyers are going to be at issue here, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I'll talk about how this is even going to be
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: ongoing even if Trump withdraws now that he's in the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: right go into court and lie. They can't play the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: role of we're having a conflict and really be secretly
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: talking to each other and engaged in a conspiracy that
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: is not allowed. And the sanctions could range from fines
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to disbarment. And my hope is that even though the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Trump administration is going to say, oh, we change our mind,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: you know, no such fun, that this fraud on the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: court will be identified, called out, and that this judge
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: will defend the Article three branch with sanctions on those
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: who are involved in them. And you know, this involves everyone,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the IRS, the Department of Justice, Trump himself, to the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: extent that Trump's family is involved in the IRS lawsuit self,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: which is originally about closing their.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Tax His two sons, Hunter and Hunter are both involved
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: with us.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, everybody I think is don't you mean.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: But again, Corey, again, if they're robbing us, it's a kleptocracy,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: incompetent crooks, cacistocracy. Like they couldn't come content with just
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the bribe scheme. They had to build into this deal
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that the IRS was never allowed to scrutinize any of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump or his two hideous sons, Fredo and Shechem's
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: business dealings. They're literally guilty of fraud, and the IRS
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is never allowed to investigate them for all they got
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Joe Greedy, They're just too stupid with their greed, Corey.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: If both sides of a dispute are ultimately controlled by
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the same person, that means there is no legitimacy to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: our legal process. And I think the hero here is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: these thirty five retired judges who I hope I use
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: my retirement years so well. They used very strong language.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: How rare is it does he dozens of retired federal
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: judges from very different ideological backgrounds feeling compelled to intervene.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, you keep using this phrase fraud on the court.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to think of an instance where
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: you see not just some petition but a very direct
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: appeal to a judge that then it looks like works.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And this language of fraud on the court is extreme,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: and you wouldn't say that, and it's not like in
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: a normal lawsuit, even one that involves Trump and the
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Department of Justice, that's what you'd say, which is essentially
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: that the whole thing is made up, that it's all
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: a lie. So you know, it was an extreme circumstance.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: It was done again, they didn't even try to hide it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: The fact that they did this all in public, you know,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: anybody who they were Essentially, you know, we can see
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: with our own eyes what's happening. It's obvious, yes, and
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: these judges had the willingness to say what was happening,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to call it out, and you know that's why I
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: think it was stopped. And you know, I don't know
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: without them. We had the other lawsuit that I talked about,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: you know that that was progressing nicely, but this was
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: really powerful. I will say these were in ordinary judges.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Some of them have been, you know, in the forefront
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: of speaking out against Trump and were Republican appointees too. Yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: we were judges.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean, you know again, I mean, if
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Alien Cannon can do her corruption in public, these judges
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: can call it out in public. And exactly one of
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the fascinating parts of this story here for me, and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I know we have to have a break soon, but
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the Republican opposition to the slush fund appears to have
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: increased after the judges intervened. We've talked a lot about
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the cowardice that's going on here with men and women
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: who know what's being done is wrong, but they're too
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: terrified of being primary and getting a one way ticket
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to Thomas Massey Island. It seems like it's easier for
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: elected officials to oppose a corrupt president once courts establish
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: legal legitimacy for that opposition. Right, this is about the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: spell breaks.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: The theory is that political strongmen are all always invincible
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: until institutions resist them publicly, and then the supporters suddenly
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: discovered these magical limits they didn't know they had inside
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: them before.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a good way to describe it. You know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I want to praise Congress, and it looks like Republican
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: members of Congress were willing to say I've had enough.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why Trump backed down was
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that he realized that he was getting into a confrontation
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: not just with these two judges, with Article three courts,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: but with Congress as well. And so, you know, look,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: what's happening is the separation of powers is now working
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: as it was supposed to. Think about it, think of
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: all the levels that we've talked about, the States resisting
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: with their threat of the taxation, the two court cases
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and the irs, and in the slush fund case itself
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: being directly challenged courts were starting to say, I don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: think so fraud on the court, that this is all
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a scam, that you're not really involved in a conflict.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And then as that built, now you know, a little
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: late to the game, but it still matters, Congress came
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: in and said, look at all the evidence, Look what's happening.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: You know, law is a teacher, and it began to
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: teach Congress what was happening. And I just believe it
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: got not that they're heroic, these Republican members of Congress,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: but that they just got too embarrassed to go along
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: with them. And after all, it is the Congress that
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: allocates the money, so they were implicated. If they were silent,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: they would be complicitic.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And they all know how this movie ends, Corey. Let's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: be honest, they know this movie End's like the last
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Scena Scarface, right. I mean, I just want to thank you, professor,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: because I know we've covered a lot of ground here,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but like America is so at risk of becoming numb
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to these stories that would have been front page constitutional
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: crises back in the nineties, And I thank you Corey
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: for not normalizing conduct that earlier generations would have called
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: out as being crazy. We have to take a break
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: or Wendy is going to beat us both up. But
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: when we come back, let's talk a bit more about
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the bad news this president has received, namely, he doesn't
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: get to name John F. Kennedy's things after himself. This
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is the Oath in the Office.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Fiegel sang along with Professor Corey Bretschneider and Professor I
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: found something else that you and I both have in
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: common with Donald Trump. I know there's so little that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: we have in common with him, and we don't want
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to be haters. We always look for any signs of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: common ground to see, oh we we could be brothers.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: We see eye to why on this and I found
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a great area of common understanding with you and me
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and Trump. You and I didn't want to go to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: his firstborn son's wedding either, so that's something we share
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: with the President.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Corey.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: We can't stand being around that guy.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Well, you know Freda. I always protested that he was
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: smart and that he was underappreciated, and that he was
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: passed over, passed over. He complained to Mike Laws, Why
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: did that that care?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Jesus you taking care of me?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: That that's pretty good.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I shipped your ex off to be ambassador of Greece.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I wantn't more than that. I'm smart, smart, all.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Right, So first I apologize. I apologize to the ghost
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of the great John Cazal forever comparing you to this
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: cocaine scarecrow of Donald Trump Junior Corey. The Kennedy Center humiliation.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: It's maybe the most Trump story imaginable. Imagine being so
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: pathologically desperate for validation that you slap your name onto
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a national arts institution that was named by a griefing
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: nation after a murdered president. Imagine your parents withholding that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: much love from your infant self. So late last week,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Judge Christopher Cooper ruled against Trump's proposal to add his
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: name to the Kennedy Center. He's got to do this
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because he knows no one's going to name anything after
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: him once he's dead, so he's got to force it
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: while he's alive. But the judge was, like, no Congress
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: named it after President Kennedy. Trump, you don't get to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: rename American landmarks after yourself, like you're changing the WI
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: fi password at mar A Lago. I kid, Trump doesn't
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: know how to do that, but I mean Trump had
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: an absolute meltdown afterwards. Corey. Why do institutions like a
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: John Kennedy Center for Performing Arts matter in a democracy?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I think they matter as a symbol, you know,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: And they matter too because of the way the symbol
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: was created. It was an act of Congress meant to
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: honor an assassinated president with a dignified center devoted to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: the arts, and of course John F. Kennedy lover of
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: the arts. This was a way of in trining his legacy.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And I think too the fact that it was done
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: through the law that it was congressionally created, allocated, and
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: the terms of how the Kennedy Center is supposed to operate,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the obligation of the government to run it, all of
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: that really are a tribute. You know. One thing that
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: we do on this podcast, of course, is that you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: as listeners just heard, as we report the facts, we
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: talk about why things are done, but we also talk
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: about hope and we laugh and you know, this is laughable,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the idea that this guy was trying to destroy this
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: kind of perfect symbol of American democracy by just sticking
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: his name on it Mount Rushmore too hard. But you
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: know now, but we can, we can laugh about it.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But if Mount Rushmore was dedicated after Roosevelt and Lincoln
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and Jefferson and Washington were tragically murdered, and then he
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: tried to put his face on it, it'd be just
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: as ghost remind everyone. You know who should be really
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: offended here as people who care about English grammar because
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: they literally labeled the building the Donald J. Trump and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the John F. Kennedy memorials. There's two us, there's two Thus,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the Donald J. Trump and the John Kennedy.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Said grammar was never the strong respect for constitutional democracy.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: You have written repeatedly about how authoritarian minded leaders always
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: try to seek influence over not just the political institutions.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Why are strong men so interested in universities and museums
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and arts centers and cultural centers.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that government and democracy doesn't just
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: have policies and laws and allocation and bills. It has symbols.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And we define ourselves as a democracy through our symbols.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: The state literally expresses the ideas or speaks in favor
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: of the ideas of democracy with its symbols. So the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Kennedy Center was one way that you know, think of
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the national monuments on the mall, the Martin Luther King Memorial,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: a testament to the civil rights movement and the battles
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: for democracy. The complexity of the Jefferson Memorial, you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the acknowledgment of course of his heinous ownership of other
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: human beings, but also the aspirations of Jefferson. You know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: that's what we do with our public monuments.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: America and debate with itself. That's what it is.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what is this guy? He is a want
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: to be dictator and so the ball of him just
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: trying to stamp his name with no congressional authorities in
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: this awkward ungrammatical I like the way there's not there's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: not grammatically correct.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: There's two those they can't even against English.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: What a symbol you know that that he just wants
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to what he wants to rewrite history. That's the January sixth, that's.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: The historical pattern though right with the leader allies. The
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: strong man has to rewrite history. That's January sixth. That's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: putting his own name on the Kennedy set. I mean people,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: people imagine if he if he renamed it the Donald J.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Trump Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Do you know what I'm saying? Like,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: maybe the people would have cared. I just think it's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: not I gotta say.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I just that image popped in my head of him
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: taking his face and it's the Martin Luther King and
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Oh yeah, Jefferson and Trump. And that's what
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I want to dictator does is Donald J.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Trump Black History? Yeah? Yeah, the Donald J. Trump Museum
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: of the American Indian I mean, he'll do it for anything.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, And the president doesn't have any inherent authority
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: to rename congressionally created institutions. We have to talk about that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: It's not just that normally in a free society, people
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: don't try to do personal branding on national institutions. He's
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: not legally allowed to do this. What would be the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: constitutional danger, Professor Bretschneider, if presidents could just rename public
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: landmarks and cultural institutions or federal facilities that Donald J.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Trump Grand Canyon, Like, what would be the danger of this?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that it goes to the heart of
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: democracy that it's Congress that allocates the funds. It costs
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: money to build these memorials. In the way that our
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: system works is we don't just give us slush fund
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: to the president to do whatever he wants with, whether
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: it's to reward his insurrectionists or to build monuments to himself.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: And so each of these symbols that we've talked about,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: the Jefferson Memorial, the Kennedy Center, they are created through
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: democratic decisions. And part of the democratic decision is also
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: in what it's going to say. The point of it is,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: and that's why Congress is so important. And this is,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: you know, in some ways a small story, but it
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: is a symbol of all of it because this center
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: was created by Congress with very specific requirements that then
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: this want to be dictator just came in and tried
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: to literally ride out by sticking his name on it,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: by undermining those trustees who were trying to defend it,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and you know, looks, thankfully like he's backing down because
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: he's realized that, just as in that other story, that
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the courts are eventually going to stop him, and he
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't want the headache. And it really is, unfortunately, the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: whole story of these two terms, his first term and
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: this one, are the story of a struggle of authoritarianism
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: versus democracy. And one reason why I feel like we're
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: in a good mood today is because democracy this week
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: looks like it's winning. Yeah.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you're right. I mean, this whole thing
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Center, it's not about a building. It's
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: about whether a ruler can override congressional intent. Right. It
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: would take an act of Congress to do this, because
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: it took an Act of Congress to set it up
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: in the first place.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's that simple. You know, there are all
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: these stories that Americans don't know the three branches of government.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Some people are saying they're increasingly learning them.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: President doesn't know them. Trump didn't know the three branches problem.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then when the president tries to stamp his name.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: But you know, we're we're heading, in real time a
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: stress test of the Constitution. And you know, the other
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: story that we were talking about was much more serious one.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about something else.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to fund insurrections. But this is symbolically serious and
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: that it's the same question of whether or not we're
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: going to allow him to destroy laws passed by Congress.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Let me bring up something that's symbolically serious and also
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: just terrifying because it represents a predator punishing his adjudicated victim.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Reports are that the Justice Department is going to open
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: up an investigation into Ejen Carroll, the woman whom a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: jury found Donald Trump legally liable for sexual abusing and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: later defaming. He's lost a cup the trials with Egene
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: on a couple of different cases. A full disclosure. I've
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: known Egene Carol since I was very young. One of
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: my first broadcast jobs was doing an NBC morning show
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with her in the nineties. She has made sixty eight
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: million dollars in these lawsuits and he is still refusing
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to pay. And now that he is an adjudicated rapist
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and we can say that a civil jury found him
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: liable for sexually abusing her, juries have already weighed the evidence,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and he is opening up the government to try to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: say this woman somehow committed perjury and lied under oath
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: because he's determined to get revenge, no matter how evil
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: it makes him look in the history books.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: It is amazing. You know that it's an ongoing story
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: that we've been covering his attempt to prosecute his political
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: opponents we saw it with James call me, and now
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: we're seeing it here, and she embarrassed him. She got
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: the facts out, as you know, we've we're very carefully saying,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: in adjudicated rapist in a civil suit who has found
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: that she was credible and he was not, and he
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: wants his revenge. Now here's the problem. The Attorney General
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: of the United States also has been his personal lawyer
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: working on the deal in this case, so you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: he's at least had the recognition that he better recuse himself.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: But the fact that the Department of Justice is looking
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: into this, that they're considering it is itself a tragedy,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: and you know, part of the demise of that once
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: great institution that it's being used as the personal, not
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: even personal lawyer, personal attack dog of the President of
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: the United States, not just against his enemies, but against
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: his victims. That's part of the story here. I've got
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: to ask you, John, since you do know Egene Carol,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, and I think listeners would be interested, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: you've worked with her, tell us about her. What it
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: was she like as a colleague of somebody.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Beld I mean, I've never I've only spent time with
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: her in TV studios and radio and on My Serious
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: XM show. But I mean, you know, she was quite
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: a personality in television in the nineties, and I did
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a show on NBC called Real Life with her, and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you know, everyone in New York media knew who she was.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: She was very, very well known. She's not the kind
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: of person who had come out and create a false accusation.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And technically, if you go through the rather grueling details
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: of her allegations against Donald Trump, he did to her
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: exactly what he's on tape bragging he likes to do
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: to women, which is why this is such a chilling case,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: because I don't know. I mean, I know there's historical
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: examples in this country of elected leaders who are trying
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to use government power against personal adversaries. And god knows,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the media has been trying to paint eg and Carol
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: as a kouk. You know, from the very beginning. They
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: have to discredit the victim anyway they can, which is
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: what people do in these scenarios. But I mean, I
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: just thought of you right away because it's so dastardly, professor.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, what were the first constitutional questions that popped
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: into your head? That an administration is investigating someone who
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: successfully sued the president. It's so much more cartoonishly dumb
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: than what they did.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: You know, it is. And I was thinking about the
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: history of this Department of Justice, created during the Grant
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: administration in order to protect civil rights. The first prosecutions
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: really brought by the Department of Justice were the prosecutions
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: against the Klan and other white supremacists who threatened Vibes
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: and killed and attack black voters. The kind of heroic
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: recovery from Trump and the prosecution, such expense and work
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: of the insurrectionists, finding you know, over a thousand of
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: them and prosecuting them. And now what it's been turned
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: into is the personal tool of this president used to
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: go after I mean, we've been talking about going after
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: his political opponents. This is something different.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: This is why women don't come forward. This is why
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: women don't come forward, because, yes, because he's using the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: instruments of government to pursue his own victim after she
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: got justice.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Right, And of course there's no political anything here. It
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: really is just a private vendetta. And as bad as
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the attack on Komi is, and before this, I would
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: have said, wow, this is in history, one of the
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: worst abuses of the prosecution power of the federal government. Well,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: now she's really become the chief victim of his Well,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: want to be dictatorship. The thing about dictators is they
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: don't distinguish between the personal and the political. Their political
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: opponents are personal, and their personal opponents are political. And
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: that's what we're seeing here.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Imagine explaining this story in nineteen ninety two, right, Imagine saying, so,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the president was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and then his administration launched a criminal probe into the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: woman he's sexually abused. Imagine saying this thirty Every Republican
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: in Congress would have called it the ends of the Republic.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Now they'll just nod solemnly, and they'll ask if she
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: was woke. But I mean, what would James Madison say,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Professor seriously about a president using state power against a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: citizen who had successfully challenged him in court.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we go back to that debate
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: between the federalists and the anti federalists, and I think
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: that what the anti federalists, people like Patrick Henry, would
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: have said is this is possible. I think they imagined
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: that a criminal president couldn't be prosecuted because he controlled
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: or she controlled the mechanism of prosecution. That was their
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: main argument. The stuff about the pardon power is part
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: of it, but their main argument is they're in charge,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and they're in charge of who's going to be attacked
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: as unlawful, and that can be manipulated by a criminal president.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: I think the response of people like James Madison and
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Hamilton was that would never happen. We're going to let
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: people of virtue into this office. Well, we were really
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: in a challenging moment because this is not only not
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: a person of virtue, I should say what they meant
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: by that a person of virtue, somebody respected the law. Yes,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: is somebody who the law is of his own weapon.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: And wow, it is the anti federalist nightmare come to life.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Before it's my job to ask the dumb questions here,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and this is just so huge, Corey. Let me just
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: let me just take one for the team. If a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: president does use government machinery against private citizens because of
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: personal grievances. We began this with him using the machinery
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of the government for his henchmen, but if he uses
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: it against private citizens, he hates what constitutional principles are
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: being threatened right before our eyes.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the idea of the rule of law. You know,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I think certainly it's selective prosecution. That's what call Me
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: is going to argue. And if this suit has ever brought,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: if she's ever indicted for this, not just investigated, then
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: that's I think the argument is selective prosecution. But of
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: course it goes well beyond that. The President of the
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: United States is really committing a fraud on the courts,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: on the American public, and attacking a political opponent in
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: the next administration. You know, one question will be of
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: the crimes, and I think there are many crimes committed
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: by the President's why I refer to him as a
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: criminal president. This might be one of them. Trying to
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: weaponize a public institution for private gain. Now he'll of
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: course claim immunity, immunity, immunity, but this is not a
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: public role. He's doing this, you know, in response to
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a private vendetta. So it might be an interesting issue
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: in which immunity might not apply.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Did you send a gift for Don Junior's wedding to
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the Epstein account's daughter Because I totally forgot Corey. I'm
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: so sorry. I know I told you I would send
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: a gift from both of us. I totally forgot send anything.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I try anything. What would we get him?
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Something, something that humiliate Eric.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I think he'd liked that.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: We have to take a very quick break when we
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: come back. I got to ask you a little bit
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: about what's going on at sixty Minutes here and as
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: well as seems like a lot of lawyers don't want
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: to work for this administration. Back in just a moment
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to wrap it all up on the Oath and the Office,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fugel, saying, okay, Professor,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of stories to wrap up this crazy week.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: We've been reading a lot about the hellscape at CBS News.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Scott Pelly is getting a lot of accolades for the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: way he laced into their new executive producer and Barry Weiss,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: But a lot of it has to do with the
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: firing of this journalist who accused Sixty Minutes of political meddling,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Sharon el Fonsi. She had a piece. They killed it.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: They killed it for political reasons. They didn't give any
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: reason why. She's been with the show since twenty fifteen,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: She said she would not resign and would only leave
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: if she was actively fired by CBS. One of the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: recurring themes in your work that I have learned is
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: that democracies don't lose press freedom all at once, they
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: lose it incrementally. And boy, looking at CBS, this is
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the week after Colbert goes off the year because of
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: this government. How should Americans think about this dispute between
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Sharon el Fonsi and CBS or the network formerly known
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: as CBS.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Now, this is the most hard hitting news program, you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: maybe in our history, and certainly at this moment. Its
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: role is not just through print journalism, but by showing
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: us abuses like what was going on in that Glulag prison.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm sorry. Sorry, it was about the Seacock prison, YESNL.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Salvador, Yeah, the Seacock prison, right exactly, and that we
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: see it with our own eyes, the human rights abuses,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: and this administration with dictatorship is about is not wanting
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: us to see things with their own eyes, to see
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: it through their eyes. And I think this also, you know,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: we talk on this show a lot about oligarchy and
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: the way that private corporations get co opted, and we've
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: seen that with Jeff Bezos and his editorial page really
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: disappearing from opposition. Democracy dies in darkness has become one
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: of the worst jokes in American history, that paper just
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: abandoning its role and holding the president to account. And
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: you know, Trump is nothing if not tenacious. And he
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: looks and he looks and he looks, and he found
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: this show that will not relent in calling him to account,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: and so he wants to destroy it. What does he do?
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: He you know, has his his ally, Barry Wise, installed
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: in the head of CBS. Now we've talked a few
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: times about sixty Minutes in particular, and you know, these
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: stories were coming out although she was trying to stop
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: that one or delayed or claim she had editorial suggestions.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I remember she said it was political. Now again, folks,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: this was about Seacott, that Gulag prison in El Salvador,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: where they're sending people in rendition flights without any due process,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: where people are tortured. And Corey, I get it. The
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: First Amendment protects journalists from government censorship. It does not
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: protect them from corporate executives who write their paychecks, who
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: are worried about political repercussions. I totally get it. It's
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not government censorship. It's something we've talked about this more
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: like a stochastic self censorship. But when a news organization
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: pulls a story involving a politically sensitive subject because they
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: say it would be political, what questions should a population
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: be asking?
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. A fired reporter can't just
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: say my First Amendment rights were violated because I was
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: fired by CBS or the exactly my contract. That's definitely true.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: But there is a First Amendment story here, which is
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: the use of the FCC to target Colbert and to
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: target CBS, which then in turn is limiting and maybe
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: even firing and getting rid of its most hard hitting journalists.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: So you know, it's a complicated First Amendment story, absolutely right.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: It's not as simple as that CBS is somehow violating
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: the First Amendment rights of journalists. But is the government
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: is all violating our rights by going after CBS.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, The CBS is a private company. They can run
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: their newsroom however the hell they want. Constitutionally speaking, that
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is the end of the discussion, right, I mean, they
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: there seem to be very committed is driving all of
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: their viewers away from the CBS Evening News and sixty Minutes.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: This is only going to hurt the ratings for these shows.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, the new EP just said, well, broadcast
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: is like an ice cube melting anyway. So it seems
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: like they're just going to let the entire organization whether
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and die on the vine. And maybe that's why Ellison
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: hired these people.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's the end of the First Amendment story.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know whether or not this
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: is going to be successful in court, But you have
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the head of the FCC, you know, really saying that
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: he doesn't want comedians criticizing Trump.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: That's why sarcastic self censorship, That's why they're scaring the
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: networks into doing it on their own.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I'm torn about it. I
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: think I would call it in some ways, it's indirect,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: it's subtle, but there is a First Amendment violation, certainly
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: in a government agency like the FCC threatening networks to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: not criticize the president. In some ways, it's almost the
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: paradigm of the First Amendment. The problem is, you know,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: who brings the case, Where do you find it. It's
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Brendan Carr who's doing a lot of the dirty work here,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: and he's the culprit, he's the he's the state censor.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: But if it's CBS and this is what you've been
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: saying and pointing out who's doing the firing, it gets
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: very thorny and who you sue. But I don't want
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: to lose say to the fact that, yes, the First
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Amendment is about government censorship and although this is indirect,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: you know that is ultimately what's going on here.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and I don't want to lose sight of
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the fact that you're right. But there, how do I
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: say this? There's still a there's there's a difference between
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: legal rights and democratic responsibilities to society when it comes
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to journalism and major news organizations, right, Like, I know
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: there's lots of examples through history where political leaders didn't
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: directly censor journalists but created incentives for media to avoid
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: certain stories. But Corey, what should we be watching for
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: over the next two years in the relationship between political
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: power and major news organizations? I mean, what comes next?
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: You know this is a thorny story. I mean, part
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: of where the First Amendment challenge would come from is
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: if CBS were to fulfill its obligation as a media
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: organization and stand up for itself, and they, for instance,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: could sue the federal government could claim violation of their
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: First Amendment rights. But what makes this so thorny, and
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: this is why we're getting into it, is that they've really,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: you know, become part of the corporate oligarchy that by
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: putting Barry Wise there, they've essentially given up. They've joined
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Team Trump, and so that destroys the First Amendment claim.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: It's not like journalists have a First Amendment claim against
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: their weak bosses. And I think the real story here
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: too is, you know, the same story that we saw
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: with the law firms, where they were not all of them,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: but some of them were so quickly giving up when
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: the President's read them. And you know, can those lawyers
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: have a First Amendment claim against their own law firms
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: for giving up? No, the law firms had to fight back.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Those firms that did fight back were winning in court
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: over and over again. And you know, I think CBS
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: could have done that, they could have stood up for themselves.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's more like bezos where they are
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: just bowing down before the King, and as great as
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: the victories have been and the heroes that we pointed
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: out have been, this week, this is a you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: a depressing story.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Well let me let me close out the show asking
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: you a lawyer's story, because I don't really understand how
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: you lawyers live your lives. I don't hang out in
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: your lawyer bars and you know your lawyer neighborhoods. But
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: something's going on with the legal profession and this White House, Corey.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: If you go back to the end of twenty twenty four,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: one in five lawyers who were working for our government
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: at the end of twenty twenty four have left as
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of March. This is slowing down this particular president's agenda
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. But more than ten thousand lawyers have
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: left the federal government since Donald Trump took over in
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Ten thousand lawyers have left the federal
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: service in less than a year and a half, Corey,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Why should we care about that number. We don't think
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: about government lawyers very often in day to day life.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: What role do these people play in protecting our government?
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people might have seen this story and sort of
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: the eyes glazed over, But I think it's so important,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: and it was you know, we've been talking about hope,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: and sometimes we show joy on this podcast when people
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: fight back and when we see the checks and balances
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: working people winning against this dictator. This is a subtle
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: story too, but it is a story of fighting back
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: because what law students are deciding. It was always when
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: I was in law school at Stanford Law School, if
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: you were getting a position either after graduating or a
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: few years after graduate, the Department of Justice, wow, that
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: was like a golden position. You were doing something of
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: such a high integrity, high level. And that was true
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: whether it was the Republican administration or you know, George
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Bush Junior was president. It didn't matter because.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Now it's like a degree from Liberty University. Right now it's.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now you know what's happening. And this is
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: what's It's not just at top law schools, although that's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: happening too. It also is at conservative law schools. So
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: if you look at the students, for instance, who were
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: interviewed by The New York Times in that story about
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: the exodus from the Department of Justice, it included George
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Mason's law school. It's named after Justice Scalia and they
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: were saying, you know, I don't want to taint my
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: resume by being part of something that I know is dirty.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: And when you have conservative law students saying that, you know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: despite the prestige of the Department of Justice, it shows
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: you that the next generation is getting it, that they
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: are seeing that this isn't normal, that this is dangerous.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: And here's the best part that in the long run, right,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: it's going to taint your resume because this is going
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: to be seen as a sad, pathetic moment in American history.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: So if you want hope, look at that indicator that
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: conservative law students are like, I don't want any part
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: of this administration. That's a great thing for democracy.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: What a time to be in law school and watching
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: all this plague out while you're taking your tests. I mean,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: we also should stress that career attorneys are necessary to
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: maintaining stability in our government institutions. You talk about how
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: the largest number of these ten thousand quittings came from
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. Like when you think about institutional
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: knowledge and what gets lost when ten thousand experienced lawyers
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: walk out the door, I mean, can the government function
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: effectively if veter attorneys are replaced faster than agencies can
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: train new ones. I know there's no evidence that these
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: ten thousand people left because they don't want to defend
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: something illegal, but I mean they certainly are slowing down
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: the machinations of this government.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that can only be a good thing,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: because what this government is trying to do is destroy democracy,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: and you don't want lawyers that are signing up to
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: do that. And where are they going. They're going to
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the nonprofits that are fighting back. There is a story,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: for instance, about a government lawyer that left a job
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: in which his job was to defend the EPA, to
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: defend the Clean Air Act. And what did he do.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: We went to a nonprofit that was suing to enforce
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: the Clean Air Act. Because the defenders of our laws
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: are no longer in the federal government, they've got to
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: pop up in the other centers of power, in the nonprofits,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: in the state's state attorney generals is another place where
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: they're recruiting right out of the Department of Justice. So
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: the tragedy is, yes, the federal government's going to have
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: a hard time functioning, but in some ways that's a
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: good thing. Exactly functioning in the way they want to do.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: It is destroying democracy. We had pre Perarra, as you
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: remember on the podcast, and an amazing discussion with him.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: And this is somebody who you know, was US attorney
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: in New York and played a huge role in the
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Department of Justice. And he was like, it's not a
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: hard question anymore. Resign, don't be part of this. And
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: that's what these law students are doing. They see the
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: danger implicit here.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: That's what Thomas Masseew did. There are some people on
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the conservative side sane enough to realize how this thing
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: is going to play out, and it's not going to
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: look good for them, which is exactly what happened last time. Corey.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: If you were teaching a constitutional law class using just
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: the last week's events, what lesson would you want your
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: students to take away. I mean, it seems like it's
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: all about the importance of maintaining institutions that are willing
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: to tell powerful people no.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, every week we're engaged in a constitutional
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: nightmare with all these hypotheticals that come up. Ten years ago,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: I would have said, you know, it's too far fetched,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: not just for an episode of Scooby doo but for
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: a logxam, Well, it's happening. But here's the good thing.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Sometimes in the middle of a nightmare and you can
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: engage in lucid dreaming, you can control the nightmare, you
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: can rescue yourself, you can start to do things to
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: make things better. And that's what's happening. We're taking this
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: nightmare and we're starting to win. And that's what this
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: week has all been about. So what's the constitutional lesson
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: of this week? That although the anti federalists were right
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: about the dangers and they were underappreciated by those who
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: defended the Constitution, the framers did give us checks and
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: balances that work, and we're using them to great effect.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Professor Bretschneier, it is a pleasure to do this show
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: with you, especially in weeks like this where it looks
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: like the resistance is starting to catch. What is the
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: best way for our listeners to follow you and keep
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: up with your brilliance the other six days of the week.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: And when are you coming back from Italy? By the way, Jesus,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: you're turning into a merchant IVerd story. You're gonna fall
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: in love and never come back.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I think that's why The Godfather has been on my mind.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: It's really in Tara Mina, and you know, not far
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: from where Michael fled to when we left the United States.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: And who could forget.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Out Marlon Brando. Yeah, it didn't go well for Apollonia,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: where Marlon Brando came back as the young Don Corleone
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: to avenge his earlier wrong that was done to him
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: and his family. So I'll be here for another week
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: and then I'll be back, but I'll in the meantime
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: urge you all to subscribe to The Oath in the
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Office to leave us reviews. They've really been coming in.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: This podcast is growing. It's such a phenomenal rate. We
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: were number four last week on the Apple Government charts.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: So also tell your friends and you can find us
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: too on substack The Oath in the Office substack if
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: you want to watch us, we're on YouTube, and you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: thanks so much. I have to just say the listeners,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I am collecting your questions your mail if you want
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: to email me at Corey dot bretschnein Er at gmail
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: dot com. We'll continue to take questions and respond to them.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much to the listeners for making the show
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: such is great success, and of course John, thanks to
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: you for doing it every week.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Thank you Corey, and I want to thank all
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: of our listeners as well, and I want to thank
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Wendy and Beowulf and everyone who helps put this monster together.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: My name is John Fugel Sing. I host the evening
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: programming on Sirius XM Progress Channel one twenty seven. If
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you don't have SiriusXM. We were also a free podcast
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: called the John Fugal Saying Podcast. I am on substack
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: because I am a carbon based and my book is
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: called Separation of Church and Hate. Professor. Thank you for
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: a week filled with so much good news, so much resistance,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: and so much reminder that the courts, the states and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: the citizens have not given up. It's really nice to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: see it catching. I can't believe the incompetency. I can't
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: believe they seem to want to fail this bad but
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get in their way and I
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: can't wait to see what comes next.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you, John, what a pleasure.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next week on The Oath and
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the Office.