We've Had One Jack Smith Report, Yes. But What About Second Report?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Clip: You must never, ever give up or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is you mission. That is moral obligation. That is mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. The people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this live a wonderful adventure.

0:00:38 Clip: I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no child is left hungry, no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. Country is always worth it.

0:00:57 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1113 or I'm Thomas. That over there is real life attorney Matt Cameron. How are you doing?

0:01:05 Matt: Thomas, I think my four-year vacation has ended. I am heading back into it in a real way here. I shouldn't say vacation.

0:01:11 Thomas: What?

0:01:11 Matt: Obviously, ICE has still been pretty active. There's still plenty of immigration enforcement, but it has been a much different environment than we're heading into. And I'm already seeing that just in the last few days with how stressed out everybody is and ready to go. So and actually is at the end of show I will provide a footnote about something that's happening in your backyard that people should know about yeah I want to look out the window

0:01:24 Thomas: And not even what we're talking about today, is it? Mine. Oh, okay. I don't see anything now, but yeah, I can't wait for that. What an interactive experience for me anyway. All this is one of those weeks. There is so much, so much happening and it was hard to narrow down. But Um, we the choice was actually mandatory, even though I wish we had time to talk about a number of things, but the report dropped, uh, uh. The report, one of two, maybe and we gotta cover this I have been waiting to hear matt's breakdown of this so that's pretty much it then I apparently we're getting a bonus uh footnote about my yard so we'll see what that is but uh that's the agenda all

0:01:44 Matt: Much yeah part one yep yep well also have to talk about part two which you may not be surprised to learn uh we got one more cannonball in the chamber here big big eileen cannon news So we'll talk about that, too.

0:02:14 Thomas: Right we'll take our usual break please support the show patreon.com/law hey I will also say this if you can't support the show a please talk about the show share it with somebody um you find this show useful, please. Of mouth seems to be the best way these days. It's a saturated media environment full of people both And you don't get that here. So if you care about some more accurate objective coverage, objective in a real sense, then please spread the word about opening arguments. And we really appreciate you. Thank you so much. All right. After this break, week. We'll get to it.

0:02:34 Matt: A whole lot of that. And this is a very historical week because John Luman Smith has retired. As of January 11th, Jack Smith is no longer a special prosecutor. He resigned in a very Jack Smith kind of way, basically in a footnote, in a brief. Didn't release any kind of statement. He didn'T have a press conference. He did not.

0:03:03 Thomas: It's It's like he was just telling you. Matt, I'm sorry. I got it.

0:03:06 Matt: It wasn't quite a footnote, but yeah, you

0:03:08 Thomas: It was in Garamond. He's like, ah, it's the secret message that only you and a couple other people will read.

0:03:08 Matt: Got to get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. On January 11th, the day he resigned in one of the briefs he filed, he wrote, the special counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on January 7th, 2025, and separated from the department on January 10th. Excuse me. So, yeah, that is it. He did not put in any other kind of statement,

0:03:27 Thomas: Okay. Conscious uncoupling or whatever. Whatever. God, that's an old reference now. Holy shit.

0:03:32 Matt: I remember that one. I thought it'd be good for just a second to appreciate the work of John Lumen Smith, because, you know, as you know I'm not a big fan of prosecutors, I don't actively stand them as the kids say But this man has been doing some incredible work, and he is now potentially in legal, physical, and maybe other kinds of risk For having done his job, and I have to tell you that having read so many of these filings over the course of his entire appointment He's done a very good job, man, I have give him credit as a prosecutor here.

0:04:00 Thomas: So I terms of, hey, this all should have happened faster, this should have happened sooner. That mean, A, that that complaint is not valid or B, that blame rests more with like, what, Merrick Garland rather than Jack Smith?

0:04:11 Matt: That's that's more on the department of justice I have to say that when Jack Smith got this appointment on November 18, 2022, he started issuing subpoenas within days like literal days he had a flurry of stuff out and by June 8, 2023, Donald Trump was indicted in the Mar-a-Lago case which was a very complicated case involving a lot of classified stuff and a a lot of things that we still don't know, and maybe we won't know as we're going to talk about. Then just two months later on August 1st, 2023, Trump was indicted on the January 6th charges. So that is a lot work very quickly in very complex cases. And of course, the January 6th charges in particular, as we'll talk about, were structured in a completely, this is a completely new set of cases, like nothing like this had ever been done before. Certainly people have been prosecuted for holding onto documents before. I wanted to get Jack Smith's voice in here. We'll hear him in a second here, but he has been so reclusive as is appropriate in a case like this. Obviously a prosecutor should always be hanging back. They should be doing their work quietly. There's no reason they should be holding press conferences every day. That's not a good sign when they're doing that. Jack Smith is a tough guy. I just want to point out he's a triathlete and he

0:05:09 Matt: Broke his pelvis in a truck accident. He was hit by a truck while he was riding his bike in 2008. And he was back to doing triathlons within 10 weeks after that. He admitted in an interview that was a little too soon. I want to point out this interview because this is the only public interview he's ever done was with the Nashville Aquatic Club in 2018. only one I could find. Yeah.

0:05:27 Thomas: The only public interview wow jeez

0:05:30 Matt: He's generally don't do like interview interviews, right? They'll take some statements or whatever, but like an actual interview about your life or what you're up to. You know, he's very likable in this interview and very human. I don't think he's thinking he's going to be this far into the national stage at the time that he's doing this interview. His wife's a documentary filmmaker. He's a very accomplished triathlete. And he actually said that this truck accident took his triathlon speed down from 10 hours to about 12 to 13 hours after shattering his pelvis. That's very impressive for triathlon Ironman competitions. You know, he said at the end of the interview that, want I to devote my energies to making the world and my community a better place for my daughter to grow up in. So this is who Jack Smith is. He is a very decent guy. And you can tell that from these filings. And most interesting think about this to me was actually he put in at the beginning to explain to Maryland Garland about his work because it's the only time we've really gotten to hear him talk about what it is and what it means to him and who he is. Second most interesting is the response letter from Todd Blanch that's at the end of this, which I will get it too. I want to give everyone an opportunity to hear Jack Smith's voice before we close out the Jack Smith story, because it's just, you haven't heard it very often. And he has been so reclusive, in fact, that I was reminded today of a very funny thing that CNN did on the day that the indictments dropped. I sent you a clip there if you want to play.

0:05:58 Thomas: I think sure

0:06:43 Matt: This is the closest they could get to finding him.

0:06:46 Clip: And welcome back to our continuing special coverage this new video that we had just been get into CNN special counsel's that's Jack Smith getting lunch at Subway spotted on this historic day coming out of Washington, D.C., subway earlier this morning senior confirmed Smith's team notified he's a target of the far-reaching investigation into a protest deal the 2020 election mr smith did not answer the questions that were uh asked of him as he was getting into his vehicle.

0:06:59 Thomas: What did he order? Looks like a foot long. I see the bag. It looks like a foot long

0:07:07 Matt: That was news that was and they had a panel later that night in which john king commented that jack smith going to subway was a message to donald trump that's how desperate they were it's just super desperate trying to find anything they could to that they could read into

0:07:26 Thomas: Please tell people about our show folks. Please, please spread the word about meaningful analysis and not Subway sandwich orders.

0:07:34 Matt: I don't think the five dollar foot long was a code but who knows was.

0:07:37 Thomas: What would the message be like? It like a Subway versus McDonald's rivalry message? Is that That was honestly, that might be what that guy was trying to say. Whoever that analyst was, rather than the unhealthy Big Macs and fries, he's getting something equally unhealthy, but that society thinks is more healthy, which is a Subway sandwich.

0:07:56 Matt: Totally. Yeah, I just thought that. I was remembering that because just very much similar around the thing with Robert Mueller, where people kind of built him up as this mythical figure. And of course, he did not do the greatest job in the end. But Smith, I will say, acquitted himself much better in the ending. And I'm comparing these reports, the Mueller report and the Smith report, Smith comes out much better. Now, Smith has the advantage of having actually prosecuted these cases, which Mueller did not get to do obviously so he has a lot more to work with but still um an enigma so I just wanted to play a quick clip of him announcing these indictments you can get a sense of how he talks and just his voice because I think it's interesting to hear people's voices after all this time uh

0:08:30 Thomas: Crunching some chips from Subway while he's doing it. He's got the value meal. He got the valley. It wasn't just the sandwich. Everyone got the Valley meal.

0:08:39 Clip: An indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring to attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

0:08:55 Clip: The indictment is issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.

0:09:08 Thomas: And like and subscribe.

0:09:24 Clip: Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. The many men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are heroes

0:09:44 Matt: Things to point out here obviously I think he just kind of sounds like your neighbor he sounds like a pretty average dude uh

0:09:49 Thomas: Be honest, from one person who gets nervous public speaking to another, he sounds really nervous. Can hear him like his breath and stuff. He's just probably just, yeah.

0:09:51 Matt: Little bit yeah yeah he's catching a little but I will the thing I noticed that when I went went back back and watch the press conference, because these are the only press conferences he's given, he gave one for the previous indictment, and then one for this one. He's wearing the same suit and tie in both. And I think that says a lot. And maybe I'm going with subway analysis here. But you know, it's, but

0:10:04 Thomas: Love it. Yeah, it's definitely a message to Donald Trump. Not wasting any time with laundry. I've just focused on prosecutions.

0:10:16 Matt: Right. A very modest suit and ties got like a button down collar, I'm sure the menswear guy could go nuts on it. But and he's not tying his tie very well. Like lot of this kind of garbage around Mueller. I don't want to be doing this about how he wears a digital wristwatch and his shoes don't match or whatever, but career public servant.

0:10:30 Thomas: I missed out on all that because I just don't watch cable news. That's the thing.

0:10:34 Matt: No, it was bad. He is a career public server and he's a career prosecutor. He spent his early years in the Manhattan DA's office, which we're certainly familiar with after our gavel gavel experience. He was prosecuting cops. He Was prosecuting politicians in the DOJ's public integrity unit. A guy who doesn't back down. And so again, this is kind of out of character for to be celebrating a prosecutor this way, but he has truly done something, I'm not going to say heroic because it's his job, but He's done something very good here. This is a very important document. This Is something that everybody should take a look at. This IS something that you should be familiar with the contents of, and that you Should make sure that people around you are familiar with The contents of because right now the former defendant, Donald J. Trump is trying to rewrite this history, just as we were talking about with John Eastman, who of course prominently features. I promise we won't have too much Eastman talk today.

0:11:17 Thomas: We're having to wean Matt off of eastman it's just you know you don't want to go cold turkey gotta do a little bit

0:11:23 Matt: But I just can't get another to go. They are really, and I mean it when I say this, they are trying to write the history right now. And of course, you know, the famous Orwell thing about he who controls the past controls the present and he who controls the present controls the future. That is what is going on right now. I will read you, for example, from the 13th of January in a supplemental motion that the Trump team filed with Judge Cannon in Florida. Listen to the way he characterizes Smith in his work. Before in our nation's history has the Department of Justice attempted to interfere with an incoming presidential administration in this manner, let alone on the very eve of inauguration by means of a false report issued by a discredited prosecutor who has now resigned in disgrace. A false report issued by a discredited prosecutor who has now resigned indiscrease. Of those things are true, but

0:12:07 Thomas: There an official designation of how you can resign you know yeah I'm resigned yeah disgraced or non -disgraced I'm doing disgraced I am yeah yeah discharge

0:12:09 Matt: Yeah. Did you check the box? Yeah, right. Dishonorable prosecutor discharge. Yeah. I mean, is what they're going to be saying over the coming days and weeks and months. This is the story they're gonna write, and it's gonna become a major right -wing talking point that this entire Jack Smith thing was just as bad as Russia, Russia, Russia, whatever he's going to call it. And the truth is right here in this report. And if you care to read it, and I really hope that people do, and if you don't read the report, at least read the letter and get a sense of why Jack Smith did this and who he is. I'm just going to read you just a very basic thing here. In the letter, he points out how unusual this whole situation is that we have the executive branch headed by the president who's going to be running against potentially his newly declared challenger, who's now being indicted for multiple things that he did. And he's talking about the history. He cites Robert Jackson, of course, the great Supreme Court justice who went on to prosecute at Nuremberg. Talks about how he is of this team and the work that they've done, how they've been above any kind of influence. Takes full and complete responsibility for the investigation. Again, just contrast the defendant against this kind of thing. While I relied greatly on the counsel, judgment, and advice of our team, I wanted to be clear that the ultimate decision to bring charges against Mr. Trump was mine. Is a decision I stand behind fully. To have done otherwise on the facts developed during our work would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and a public servant. After nearly 30 years of public service, that is not a choice I could abide. You know, just very straightforward, clear language. That's what he's doing all the way through this, talking about how the rule of law matters and how important it is that he provide this report to the attorney general now. He also notes that he has, though not required, and I don't think I agree with this decision necessarily, but he did provide an opportunity for Mr. Trump to review both volumes. So

0:13:49 Matt: He says that, to be nice, he's allowing Todd Blanche to file his extremely angry 12 -page response to this whole thing, which we'll get to.

0:13:57 Thomas: That's weird when you mentioned that I was like is that normal yeah I

0:13:59 Matt: There's no normal here. Uh, no, that's that's not required, it's not normal it's certainly not the regulations the most part the factual stuff that's stated here there's nothing new this isn't like the muller report where they're dropping a bunch of new information after a long investigation we weren't sure exactly what was going to happen I mean I've been following these filings pretty closely you know for work and as it is uh lot of this stuff came out in the october immunity brief which we talked about at the time back in october where he laid out like a novel and this This is actually shorter, I think, than that is, but that's right. Might be better, but the book is pretty good reading, I have to say. It's pretty compelling, and it really takes you through, and because they never actually charged co -conspirators in this case, unlike in the Florida case, he doesn't name any of them, so you have to do the thing where you have figure out that co - conspirator one is Giuliani, and co - conspirator two is Eastman, right? And I was able to mostly work it out. I think three is Powell. And just a very thorough very straight ahead reports but I will say that just so everybody is absolutely clear because maybe you haven't been following this that closely maybe you did not in fact listen to all of Johnny's one week, go back and listen uh

0:14:25 Thomas: Waiting for the movie it comes once a year so make sure you

0:14:59 Matt: True that's It's true. Is, he lays out the exact scheme and all of the many, many, many ways that Donald Trump knew that this was not a fraudulent election, that he had in fact lost fair and square. All the different people who told him that, all the private communications that people like Johnny have been rescinding, where he said, I know this is never going to hold up. This is not necessarily true. When they were filing in certain places and they just, they knew that things were false, that they were fine. Own words, their own emails. I think that's really important that he's drawing from all of that. Extensive footnotes. I mean, this is my man right here. And on page six,

0:14:59 Thomas: Listen

0:15:32 Matt: He does the thing that I love so much that makes Casey absolutely nuts. He's got three lines of text and all the rest are footnotES on page 6. I love it so much.

0:15:40 Thomas: My god it's my nightmare too don't they make the whole the the plane out of the footnotes oh

0:15:46 Matt: Course he gets into the superseding indictment uh is as we talked about back at the time a few months ago after the immunity case they had to change strategy they had to sort of find where the immune and non -immune conduct might be that would survive all of this he talks about how complicated the immunity decision made everything um much what you'd expect to hear uh the legal stuff let's talk about that because this is the thought that was particularly interesting to me. The Mueller report, you might remember there was this very kind of weaselly language about how if after investigating all of this, we thought the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state, right? Right. Why not just say he definitely committed a crime, right, we think we would have reason to charge him if not for the fact that he's immune and we can't prosecute him, he's the president.

0:16:16 Thomas: My God it was the worst he tried to perfectly not say anything there

0:16:28 Matt: Right, right. It was really, I mean, and I think he was being extremely lawyerly. And as good a lawyer as Jack Smith seems to be, I think he understands that he's writing to the public here. And it's written very much in a readable way that anybody could pick up. Department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical. Does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the the government's proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind. Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. We could have got him.

0:17:01 Thomas: We go thank you Jack Smith that's what Mueller should have done Mueller

0:17:05 Matt: Could Have Had It All.

0:17:06 Thomas: Did some bullshit by my memory I the logic My memory is he was like, well, since we can't make the decision to indict, we're going to also not give an opinion on if we would indict. Like, it was just the weaseliest thing for no reason. Didn't make any sense. Ruined the whole thing.

0:17:23 Matt: Blank twice, if you might indict, right? I mean, it's like really, like completely. Completely. Get it. Like as a lawyer, I understand what he's doing.

0:17:28 Thomas: Bend over backwards, I guess.

0:17:30 Matt: Yeah, basically.

0:17:30 Thomas: But Jack Smith didn't do that. You don't have to. The I time. Please correct me if I have the wrong logic. But I seem to remember it was like, could you just make that determination and put it in your report and then you still leave it up to whoever makes the call to make the call. It doesn't mean you have to pre, like, not indict him in the, it didn't make any sense. It struck me as really weak.

0:17:46 Matt: Now, as I said, it was a slightly different thing. Just to compare. Obviously, when Mueller was doing this investigation, Donald Donald Trump is a president. When Smith is doing his, he's not the president. So he's free to indict him. And he did, in fact, indict him So there's a different standard here. And what he's saying in this is that Mueller was trying to be careful because he's talking about somebody that he knows he can't prosecute and he doesn't want to come out and say that he committed a crime. But he also, again, he's just kind of dancing around it all.

0:17:58 Thomas: I see. Look, in the same way And this will be on a gavel gavel at some point. In the same way that I really don't see why Judge Marchand couldn't have said, here's what my sentence would have been. Here's what the sentence would've been. What is the harm of that? In the sam way, here is what the thing would've be. Muller didn't do it. Sounds like Jack Smith did a little better. Not only say, what I love is, he didn't only say like, he said like get a conviction as well, right?

0:18:33 Matt: Yeah. That this evidence was more than enough. What he's say is we were ready to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Yep. Beyond a reasonable doubt.

0:18:37 Thomas: He did it. Yeah.

0:18:40 Matt: That's what we've got. That we could have convinced the jury easily. And I think we all understand that because the things that he was charged with are pretty easy to prove, based what we had. Now, he does explain thinking about some of this. It's interesting to get this inside view after all of this time trying to speculate about how they came up with this indictment and their thinking. And obviously, he was being very careful in all of this. He wanted to make sure he could bring something that could stick. And he talks about in the conspiracy charge about how the mens rea was well established. And that's where we kind of get into the fact that he knew that he was lying, that he new that he is working with other people who knew that they were lying, and that they are doing everything they could to deny the outcome of the election and to deprive people of their votes. That's essentially what this case comes down to, is the fact that by engaging in this conspiracy, they were trying to deprive us, the people who voted, of our ability to have that vote count. And that's a conspiracy against civil rights, basically. He also talks about Fisher v. U .S., which we talked about for a while on a couple of different episodes in the last year. That was a Supreme Court case that came down in June. It's about 18 U. S. C. 1512 C., which is about interfering with an official proceeding. You might remember that all that language and discussion we had about that. But that was an open question about how much they thought they could prove after Fisher v. U .S., because the Supreme Court really narrowly limited this in a way that ended up pretty much keeping the U.S. government from being able to prosecute people who had just gone into the Capitol and hadn't done much else or had caused problems in a riot just with that charge of interfering with an official proceeding. Proceeding. But Smith points out that he still thinks they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that anything to do with the electoral certificates, because it's paper, because it's creating false evidence, that introducing those false certificates would be enough. And that was what I was thinking that they were thinking in the way that they did all this, but it's good to see him actually say that. Goes through an analysis about corrupt intent and about why it was very easy for them to prove corrupt intent, that he knew that, know, that they were acting dishonestly to try to influence people obstruct proceedings. Now, the most interesting thing to me legally starts on page 62 when he starts talking about why he chose not to prosecute Trump under 18 U.S.C. 2383, which is most generally known as the insurrection statute. Now had he prosecuted and convicted Donald Trump of the the Insurrection Act, we could have been spared the next four years because the insurrection statute specifically as part of the sentence, if you are found guilty under this provision, you shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. So he could have actually been kept for serving as president, even apart

0:21:01 Thomas: What if he's like, joke's God, on you. I've already been incapable of holding these offices. I mean, OK, is capable the right word?

0:21:06 Matt: From I'm already very bad at it. Yeah. Incapable. I know that it should be disqualified really, but it was written a long time ago. You know, Smith does a very thorough analysis of the language here about whoever incites, assists, engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States. And he doesn't say this directly, but what Smith is saying is, I don't want to bring the test case here. I don'T want to be the first person to try to prosecute someone out of the insurrection act and fail. He's got plenty of other stuff he can get Trump on.

0:21:33 Thomas: It. I'd be tough. It's already tough. Like just the way the Trump did the thing. I mean it's like any other thing he does where there's not he he doesn'T use email. There's not a lot of like it's already hard enough I I do feel like that would have been tough

0:21:46 Matt: And just getting people to march on the Capitol is not enough. He didn't tell them to go break in, right? And that's part of what he's saying is there's no statements directly to the crowd that stirred them up. A point in Trump's brief where he talked about how insurrection is a spectrum of conduct. I like that idea of the insurrection spectrum. He says, basically, they have no guidance on what the difference is between an insurrection and a riot. And they didn't want to have to try to complicate the case by introducing all of that. Other issue, of course, being the Brandenburg test, which he gets into, to, and that is the First Amendment test about whether you're actually inciting or producing imminent lawless action. And you have to know that what you're saying is likely to incite or produce. And Brandenburg, of course, was a KKK leader in Ohio who gave a speech where he said a lot of horrible things about the kinds of people you'd expect a KKK leader to be talking about. And he was talking about the suppression of the white race, and he was charged. And the Supreme Court overwhelmingly, I think unanimously per curiam, found that he was not directly advocating for violence and they set this brandenburg test and they said you know unfortunately this is protected speech right when you're just getting up and saying horrible racist things because you didn't actually say let's go out and burn some houses or you know hurt people

0:22:47 Thomas: And uh my opinion time I think maybe the dial could have been a little further toward uh restricting that kind of thing in retrospect but that's just me yeah

0:22:55 Matt: I mean, especially given the kind of platform you can have now, because of course Brandenburg, it was a big deal for him because this this kkk leader was inviting somebody to come and film his rally otherwise just a local rally that he was giving to you know a bunch of jackoffs in ohio and nobody cared but But, you know, when you've got this thing with all the different platforms you have now, I think I could agree with you. I am pretty protective of this stuff, but yeah. So, you Know, he's making the point that even though they were not doing the usual kind of political corruption kind of thing where they're stuffing ballot boxes and some smoky back room, that that's what it comes down to. So this is corrupt and election interference. I think he did a pretty good job of laying out why they charged what they charged. Charged, he does talk a lot about the co -conspirators and why main reason the co conspirators weren'T charge was because they couldn'T make progress and get too far on the actual Trump prosecution. They weren 'T going to continue to develop those cases, obviously, if they didn'T think they could prosecute him. That's I wish he'd explained that a little bit more about why he did not actually bring more charges against people that were known to be conspirators, such as John Eastman. And Rudy Giuliani. That's his prerogative not to tell us. Talks a little bit about how they actually examined the defendant's possible defenses to this, to be sure that they're not bringing something that would be easy to defend or that they shouldn't be bringing. Make a point of saying that there is no reason to believe that Donald Trump was operating in good faith when he talked about fraud. And generally speaking, there is No reason to believe that this man is operating in good Faith. He

0:24:14 Matt: Says directly that Donald trump spread lies. He talks about how he was told by multiple Republicans in high -ranking positions around the country in different states, of course, by his own attorney general, by its own vice president, that none of this had happened and there was no actual fraud that would change the outcome of the election. And Smith said, this is not a case where he just misstated a fact or two. This was straight up fraud. He knew he was committing fraud and he was spreading something for the purpose of trying to overturn an election. He gets any advice of counsel defense, which Trump likes very much to say there's attorney He said he could do it. He makes the point, of course, that his counsel were accomplices in this case, unfortunately, that know, you got Rudy leaving voicemails for senators on the night of January 6th, including, I believe, a couple of wrong numbers, which is kind of funny. There were just some random D .C. residents that got...

0:24:57 Matt: And then, of course, as we talked about, John Eastman was around the country organizing electors and trying to get the pressure campaign going on Pence at the same time. These attorneys were part of the conspiracy.

0:24:55 Thomas: That's right yeah

0:25:08 Matt: They were very much part of it.

0:25:08 Thomas: It's like hey I hear you on the defense the um advice of council defense. Only problem is when your counsel is Saul Goodman, that doesn't work. I

0:25:17 Matt: Yeah. And the relevant law he just mentions in D. C. Circuit, you have to rely in good faith on the counsel's advice, and you have made full disclosure of all material facts. Also, it's interesting that divisive counsel is not like a full affirmative defense that would keep you from actually being convicted. It's really just something that you can introduce to a jury to introduce reasonable doubt, to say, well, here, I had some reason to believe this. So all around, they just found that wasn't really something, and that the co -conspirators were providing him legal cover, as we talked about last Monday in the episode about how the lawyers were responsible for January 6th. Then, of course, he touches on First Amendment things because, you know, that's what they've all been saying is that they had every right to talk about how the election was a fraud. But he said that it amounted to aiding and abetting because he was out there promoting things he knew weren't true and trying to move along this criminal conspiracy. An interesting section at the end where he just talks about why they're prosecuting him. You wouldn't think they'd need to do that, but he spends page after page after age talking about how important it is and how there was no alternative but criminal prosecution in this case to make the point and how important that is to protect our elections. And just a very thorough report so

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0:27:51 Matt: Of course after all of this we get the Todd Blanche letter which could not be more different from the Jack Smith letter let me just flip ahead this could be its own reading honestly it's a 12 -page letter I'm not going to read very much of it I'll much the like sore winner theme that we saw in last Friday's sentencing let is writing this letter to the public, obviously, but it's addressed to Merrick Garland. And he's trying to convince Merrick Garland that, hey, you should fire Jack Smith right now.

0:28:13 Matt: It's January 7th. This is days before he's about to resign. And his saying, you never release this report. It is just too harmful. It's going to interfere with the peaceful transition of power. Here's some more of this kind of language like I read you before. The release of any confidential report prepared compared by this out -of -control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor, would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of tax paramoney. It was about $50 million, to be fair, Smith unconstitionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases. I mean, it's just, it's a lot of work to, there were a lot lawyers on staff and it was a pretty long investigation. We still don't have the final, that's the estimate from Newsweek. We don't don't have the final set of reports from the last half of this year but uh yeah I mean they had a lot of transcripts and a lot of things to serve and he also had to pay for bodyguards unfortunately he had to have uh quite a lot security for everybody so

0:28:44 Thomas: Took that much? Wow. What took that much money?

0:29:03 Thomas: That explains about a couple hundred thousand dollars. So where's the 50 million part? But whatever.

0:29:09 Matt: I'd like to see the budget at some point I'm sure it'll be released but um he just spends pages talking about the island canon argument and how this is so obviously wrong and he should never have been appointed. And he has a presumption of innocence and we can't just go releasing this thing. He required by regulation to do it. He's required not only to provide a report as special counsel when he's wrapping up the investigation, he's required to provide report about declination decisions, which is what he's talking about when he saying about the cases that they chose not to bring. And that is a very important part for the public record. So we understand what his reasoning was. He goes so far as to say that Smith's proposed plan for releasing a report is unlawful, undertaken in bad faith, and contrary to the public interest. It's astonishing to call this bad faith. But contrary to public interest? I mean, it's just upside down land in all of this. This is just how they do it.

0:29:55 Thomas: Game. Just say the opposite of what things are. Also,

0:29:57 Matt: Right, Smith, to his credit, immediately responded in a rebuttal letter, a two -page rebuttable. So he gets the last word in his he goes to great lengths to talk about the access he gave Trump's counsel to all of this and how disingenuous this all is. You can read it for yourself, but it's very well done. Finally, Mr. Trump's letter claims that dismissal of his criminal cases signifies Mr. Trump's, quote, complete exoneration. That is false. The office explained that his dismissal motions and its report, the Department's view is the Constitution prohibits Mr. Trump's indictment, et cetera, et cetera. So that's the last word we have from Jack Smith at the very end of this, is that he has not, in fact, been completely exonerated. He dropped this case he didn't want to have to drop that he could have convicted this person on. So very important document for history. Like I said, not a lot of new facts, but some interesting new information about the choices they made and how Jack Smith approached his job as a prosecutor. So we'll look to it. Make sure everybody take a look if you're interested. But you're going to be hearing a lot a lot about what's in this. You might as well take a Look at it for yourself. Self. Volume one, which of course is all about election interference,

0:30:04 Thomas: Yeah. Do we get access to their DMs? I don' t understand. Can't

0:30:55 Matt: But we have got to talk about part two, the exciting sequel now.

0:30:55 Thomas: Wait for volume two. Do you have it?

0:30:59 Matt: Nobody has it. As talked about last week, Merrick Garland has it, and Merrick garland has committed to releasing it.

0:31:05 Thomas: Buddy.

0:31:07 Matt: I do have have a ProtonMail account if anybody would like to send that along.

0:31:12 Thomas: You bring enough report for the whole class? Or is

0:31:16 Matt: As we talked about last week, there's been a lot of back and forth about this report because the cases against Trump's co-conspirators, former co-conspirators in Florida, because of course the Trump case in Florida is gone. Co-conspirators' cases were dismissed along with his by Judge Cannon, but then the Department of Justice withdrew the cases against Trump so that only the co-conspirators Baltinauta and Carlos de Alvarez remain. Those cases are on appeal because they are officially dismissed. And the whole question is in front of the 11th Circuit now about whether or not Jack Smith was lawfully appointed. Just to remind everybody, it's a very unusual procedural history. 11th circuit has not ruled on that and almost certainly will not rule on that by the end of the week. I really wish they would, because what is almost certainly going to happen at 1201 or whenever on Monday, the 20th, is that these cases, yeah, we're just about there. I know. These cases that one way or another are going to go away, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Trump has a pardon ready to go along with all the other pardons he's probably going to be signing on Monday. He just immediately pardens these people, then those cases disappear and we don't get to get the 11th Circuit's decision. We will never know what they would have said. The alternative, Pam Bondi could just drop the cases one way or another, but I think they're going to want to try to broom those as quickly as they can. So we're up against a hard deadline here. And as we discussed last time, Merrick Garland, for his own reasons, which I don't really understand at this point, is saying they want to continue to prosecute these people rather than just doing what everybody knows is going to happen. I guess maybe he's still hoping the 11th Circuit somehow is goingto come through and release this decision. He thinks that's worth it. So of going forward as criminal cases, is he is withholding at their request and generally it's just the right thing to do as we talked about last time for defendants' rights. Not going to be releasing this part.

0:31:58 Thomas: That already happening? Just drop it. Drop the charges, man.

0:32:48 Matt: Drop it.

0:32:48 Thomas: Just do it. It. That's going to happen anyway. Like you say, it's inevitable.

0:32:49 Matt: Because yes, this is the only way. Right.

0:32:53 Thomas: What is the point?

0:32:54 Matt: I part is very, very frustrating because this is The Report that's going to have the new information. This is the thing where we're going to learn because we didn't get that far in Discovery because as we've talked about before, Aileen Cannon did everything she possibly could and now is as of today as of this week doing everything she possibly can to keep this report from coming out she's this is her last thing though oh oh she can do things okay

0:33:13 Thomas: Else can she do? What did she do, man? We have an unrelated judge from our side do stuff? Like just some random judge just be like, okay, well, I say we do release it.

0:33:23 Matt: Just should just go ask a california judge if they'll jump in why not

0:33:27 Thomas: I enjoy you not releasing the report.

0:33:30 Matt: Yeah I mean at this point because as we've discussed she does not have legal jurisdiction. And the 11th Circuit is not doing anything about this. They've mooted the previous appeals that were taken because the first report was already released. Course, there's really no time at this point. Now, Jack Smith could make an emergency application, as we'll talk about, and try to get in front of the 11st Circuit and get them to say that she never had jurisdiction to do this. I'm honestly not really... I mean, this whole thing is so weird. She is completely out of pocket here, even for her. Procedurally, I'm not even sure how this is supposed to work because she doesn't have the case. It's not her case. She dismissed the case, the case was appealed. It's with the 11th Circuit. We've talked about this, but it's very important that everybody understand that, that she does not have jurisdiction. So of course, not having jurisdiction. She's considering a ridiculous motion from Trump's team. It'S a motion to intervene. Donald Trump, no longer a defendant in this case, is trying to intervene. This is unheard of to so he's saying that this is so important to him for orderly transition. It really makes you wonder why he thinks the release of this report would be so harmful to the order way transition to his presidency, right? I mean, he

0:34:29 Matt: Knows what's in here. Strange if you're completely exonerated, right. And remember, what Merrick Garland has agreed to do is to release this report to four people, the chair and ranking members of the judiciary committees in the Senate and the House, That is, four people who are going to be under secrecy. Defendants have been trying to argue that this is going to leak one way or another, and obviously we all hope it does.

0:34:29 Thomas: That's weird. No, it's definitely not going to leak.

0:34:51 Matt: Actually, in support of that, cited the New York Times comment section at one point in one of their briefs. I don't really understand why.

0:34:56 Thomas: Like someone's saying it's going to leak.

0:34:59 Matt: Basically.

0:34:59 Thomas: They tend to do that. Like, could okay. Cite real things. That would be a thought.

0:35:03 Matt: The zeitgeist, I guess, the New York Times comment session. That's where the real people hang out. Uh the they would be doing here how secret this actually would be this is what trump is trying to oppose the chair and ranking members of judiciary committees would be required to agree to specified conditions of confidentiality for example they would not be permitted to retain a copy of volume two to take notes to bring in any devices that could be used to photograph or communicate about the volume the review would also occur under the supervision of a doj official to ensure compliance this

0:35:22 Thomas: Why? Where's this coming from? I'm sorry. What is that all regulation? Like what? Is that?

0:35:32 Matt: Is What I think that they were hoping that that this might assuage Judge Cannon and her to just say, sure, let's just let these people see it.

0:35:37 Thomas: So it's a made up thing they're making up for a made -up judge that's not a a part of this made -up thing.

0:35:41 Matt: Who has no jurisdiction and she doesn't even go here. I don't know what's going on here. These precautions significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the chances of prejudicial leak of information. And Trump is still saying, this is not enough. This is going to hurt me. This going to be very bad. This is something like so many things that that Eileen Cannon has received in the last couple years. Is something she could have resolved on paper. This was something that she could have disposed of within 24 hours after receiving briefing from both parties. But no, after receiving this, she decides, know, this is all very interesting. Let's set this for a hearing on, can you possibly guess, January 17th, the afternoon of January 17. We're going to have a hearing on Trump's motion to intervene. So she is pushing this as far as she possibly can. Monday the 20th is Inauguration Day. And obviously, we know that we're coming up on a hard deadline here. And I don't think she could justify setting it much further out from that. Going to invite arguments from both parties to come in and talk about why this is not acceptable. She also has ordered that she be given a copy of the report. So she now has it. She gets to read it and we don't. She's reviewing it in camera because she just wants to see what's in it, I guess. Concerns, I guess, about her leaking it.

0:36:50 Matt: I don't know. Yeah, it's so frustrating because, you over the weekend, there's some possibility that this might all get resolved and somehow the report still comes out, but it's not looking good. And if it doesn't come out before Monday, I don'T know that we're ever going to get to see it, at least within the next four years.

0:36:50 Thomas: That's bizarre. Jeez.

0:37:06 Matt: Not sure about the scenario in which that happens. So that's a really important thing for history, and I hope that there is something that can be done. Merrick Garland, to you.

0:37:14 Thomas: What a failure Merrick Garland has been. I resisted it. I withheld judgment. Didn't really say either way for the longest time, but yeah, you want to reclaim your legacy, Merrick garland, maybe make the right choice here.

0:37:25 Matt: It's very disappointing. Obviously, it's very disappointing that it took this long. It is very disappointing that the Supreme Court obviously took their sweet time to appointing the President -King, but every single thing about all of this, this could have been done sooner and we could have had some different for now comes.

0:37:37 Thomas: What would happen to Merrick Garland if he just released the report?

0:37:40 Matt: It's a good point.

0:37:41 Thomas: Did he get fired from his job he has for five more minutes?

0:37:43 Matt: Well, I will say he'd be guaranteed to be prosecuted by the next administration. I don't think there's any question about that. He'd be setting himself up to pursue...

0:37:49 Thomas: What? Thought it was his choice whether or not to release the report. Is it a crime?

0:37:53 Matt: Me take that back. Merrick Hold Garland is the one who said that he wasn't going to be releasing this for the defendant's rights, but he was doing that voluntarily. Voluntarily. Cannon's order that finally allowed Part 1 to come out was conditioned on the idea that he was saying that it was only going to release these members of Congress. But no, he could absolutely, preferably in connection with dropping the charges would be the fairest way to do this, but drop the charges, release the report at the same time, and then be done with it. And maybe we'll still get a Friday surprise. We'll see. I don't know what to tell you.

0:38:17 Thomas: Just do it, man. Just doing it. Doesn't It matter. None of this matters. If you're going to get in trouble, if you're gonna get prosecuted by the fascists, you're going to prosecute anyway. As long as it's not a literal crime, which I can understand, I still don't think you should do, but I understand not doing. Like if it's not a little crime, you're already in trouble enough as it is with the new fascist administration. At least do a good thing.

0:38:39 Matt: This is history. This is very, very important. Because as I said, they're going to be doing everything they can. We've already seen it happening to write this history in front of us and to rewrite it as we go. We have got to get something out there that is objectively something we can point to that is, you the actual facts, the way this report is. So, yeah, yeah.

0:38:56 Thomas: A hero in history and not a disgrace. Seriously, just do it. Come on. You'd at least, I say hero. I don'T know what it'll accomplish, but you'll be in history for a good reason. It'll be a good mention in the history books. Books.

0:39:09 Matt: For sure. For And, you Know, these are things that people deserve to know about the person who's about to become the president. It's about as important as anything yep

0:39:13 Thomas: On, Merrick. Do it. I'm not getting off this call, this podcast until you do it. Do It. I got all day. I'll

0:39:20 Matt: Have to eat dinner at some point, but okay.

0:39:22 Thomas: No. You're staying, Matt.

0:39:25 Matt: To me all right uh

0:39:27 Thomas: Oh, boy. So, okay. I mean, maybe I don't want to say a letdown, but like, well, we kind of predicted there wasn't much new in that first one, I Guess. So in of expectations Expectations and hopes. What do you think? It's pretty much like on par.

0:39:39 Matt: I think this is it's a good solid succinct statement and there's nothing in here that let me down I mean I think that it was very well done and honestly because I've been reading this all along you know it's nothing new and I didn't expect anything new because they've already I mean in that we talked about was at the time. But the October brief and the immunity arguments that they're making, he already put the whole case out there because he knew that was it. That was his one chance to put the case out There to the court. And now, of course, he gets to do the same thing and copy and paste it into this report, basically. And there's nothing wrong with that. It should be out there.

0:39:47 Thomas: We'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, well done, Jack Smith. I think you've, you like you did a pretty good job. To your boss. Ex -boss.

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0:42:00 Thomas: Right, Matt. Time for a footnote. Matt gets weird, everybody. Here we go.

0:42:05 Matt: Well, this one's more of a public service announcement. This one's very important, I think. Heading into a time when I think the advice I'm going to give you today is going going to be very relevant. I'm not sure you're going to hear this advice from many other people.

0:42:12 Thomas: It's about my yard. That's right. Okay. So it's landscaping advice. Device.

0:42:15 Matt: That's right. Yes. Yeah. Yard care. Now, this is a story out of the Central Valley of California, which I understand is not too far from you.

0:42:20 Thomas: That's my yard. It is. Okay, we are talking about my yard, got it.

0:42:23 Matt: That's you. Yeah, this also ties into the terrible things that are happening in Los Angeles. I know that the whole country is thinking about Los Angeles right now and recovering. I don't know if that's pretty far from me, but it's a tough time for California. And some things have just happened that I didn't think really made the news is enough that do not help. People are not helping. So I want to tell people about the easiest possible thing that they could do to help immigrants in their community right now, which is nothing. Don't do anything. Me tell you how this works.

0:42:47 Matt: So a thing that happened earlier this week, and I'll tell you as much as we know, and I'll tell you this is not that unusual, this thing that happened. People right now are extremely attuned to immigration enforcement, obviously. Everybody's waiting for what we expect to be a very large -scale operation. We still don't know what it's going to look like. We'll be covering as it comes. But as discussed, CBP CBP exist, And they are doing their jobs, which is going out and, you immigrants. And for the most part, when they do this, under Biden, especially, but generally speaking, they know who they're looking for. And if they don't know who are they looking for, they're working for people with criminal records and deportation orders. There is no such thing as a general sort of ICE sweep. Sweep. Now, what happened in Kern County is still a little unclear. CPP claimed that it was part of what they call a return-to-sender operation. They always have these dumbass names for these operations. Return-

0:42:47 Thomas: I'm an expert at this.

0:43:34 Matt: -to sender.

0:43:35 Thomas: It's and dehumanizing.

0:43:36 Matt: Yeah, right. It's like a package. It is like a bomb they were sending back or something like that. So they did a three -day sweep in Kern county and they were doing some random stops. They were doing some things that appeared to be targeted. Claimed that they picked up people with serious criminal records, including a couple of people with child child sex offenses, including people with other serious drug charges and who knows what else. Immigration advocates that I am aware of in the area are saying that there was also some pretty random enforcement against farm workers. It seemed like it wasn't very targeted. The point is that they detained 78 people out of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Valley they could have gone after. What starts to happen is that the rumors start sweeping and this is what I want to talk about because every time there's any kind of immigration enforcement operation you get a lot of very well -meaning people including people who I know are listening to this podcast who want to help I I completely understand and I appreciate you. We've got a lot of allies listening to the show who want to do something. But sometimes the worst thing you can do is sharing this information. And I'll tell you about how this works. This got really bad this week because of the overlap with LA. So the story on the Sacramento Bee indicates that there were just like cycle after cycle of rumor that started kicking off because you have the kernel of truth. You have something that actually did happen that wasn't great that people might want to know about. But then it becomes, you know, I saw a mysterious white van over here. Arresting people over here, I think it was ICE. And I've seen this happen again, where people even think they see something where they don't see it. Misinterpret what they're seeing, or people see ICE show up at someone's house where they're coming to serve an actual arrest warrant, and that becomes some kind of rumor about a general ICE raid or sweep. The reason I'm talking about all this is because it terrifies people. It keeps them home from work, it keeps them home with their kids, not letting them go to school, it has them missing medical appointments. There was a clinic that at one point people thought that ICE was at, and it just didn't happen. The clinic had to release a press statement saying that people, it's safe to go to your clinic. What got really bad was in Los Angeles, where FEMA unfortunately has the DHS logo. So people started reporting that all of these FEMA operations were actually ICE. And I've seen this happen during hurricanes or around hurricane preparation, where people are saying there's going to be ICE raids around this hurricane. So don't stop in at these different shelters. Careful around evacuation routes because ICE is going to stop you there. That's just not happening. That'S not something they do. ICE is not great, but they're not actually trying to target people who are fleeing for their lives. Not within the United States, at least. I'll put it that way. Had to release a statement saying that they don't do immigration enforcement during disasters and that the sites that are used for shelter and distribution are are are not where they're going to be looking to pick people up. And I'm not defending ICE at

0:45:59 Matt: All. I'm just saying that is what they do. That's how it is. And I'm mentioning this because we had a similar situation in Boston, in my neighborhood, in East Boston, which is a majority immigrant neighborhood at the moment. And there was somebody who didn't even live in East Boston. I think it turns out that they lived in North Carolina and they just had a friend here or something. And they tweeted about how there was a raid happening in East Austin. And again, I live here. I know what happens here. There was not a raid. It was one person was arrested in their home by ICE in a targeted operation. And this tweet took off. It just became an incredibly viral thing in the entire New England area. And it caused wave after wave after wave of panic. And I know because we were getting so many calls in my office, which is in East Boston, people asking, is it safe? What's going on? What'S happening with this raid? People were talking about it for weeks. There's a similar thing that happened with a rumor about ICE at a subway stop. There was one tweet where somebody said they thought they saw ICE at the subway stop, it was actually TSA doing random checks of bags at a subway stop in New York City. And it was shared hundreds of thousands of times. And I saw that thing shared in so many different places, just talking about one day, like one afternoon where TSA was searching bags in a subway stop. And that kind of thing really scares people. People need to be able to use the subway. They need to be able trust their public transit. Now, obviously, if ICE is doing random raids at subway stops, that's something we can start talking about. But I just want to really encourage people to be careful because the net effect of all of this is to do ISIS psyops for them. You are amplifying their message and especially heading into what we're heading into here. Be very careful and think very carefully about if it's worth sharing something about immigration enforcement, especially if it is not in an area where you live, if it isn't somewhere you don't really know much about, and especially if there are no pictures, if there is no proof, if it just repeats a rumor that somebody might have heard. But even if there ARE pictures, honestly, all that does is just terrify people. And I'm trying

0:47:39 Matt: To strike the balance here because I want to encourage people to share information and help protect their neighbors. But one of the best ways you can protect your neighbors is to help protect their mental health. Because immigrant communities, I can tell you from our clients, from the overwhelming volume of calls that we're getting right now, and from the panic that I'm hearing everywhere, immigrant communities are terrified right now. And we have an obligation as allies not to make that worse, if we can possibly help. And doing nothing is the way to do that. That. A strange thing to tell you, because I want people to feel like they can be empowered to help. And you can be impaired to help. There are lots of ways to help, and we'll be talking about them. Will suggest that most of the ways you can help are helping lawyers. And of course, I would say that, but that is really the point of contact right now for actually being able to do direct action in our courts, at least. There's going to be plenty more opportunities coming up. To get this message out there as a public service thing, because Because I this, especially when it pertains to people feeling like they can't access emergency services

0:48:31 Matt: During a wildfire, a massive, horrible, widespread disaster event. Not something we want people to feel.

0:48:39 Thomas: So what people think they're doing is saying, hey, it's speed trap ahead or something. They're like, hey look out for the ice here and that'll help but it sounds like what you're saying is they don't do a whole lot of like general raids or sweeps and they just don't for now and we'll let you know obviously if that changes but Matt's an expert in this everybody so please actually listen to experts on this and so it's that could possibly potentially be done by warning someone about a thing is almost nil and the bad that can be done is people don't access emergency services people you know don't go to doctors people don'T go places they really need to go and uh that just sounds like a nightmare all around so

0:48:56 Matt: They don't. They just don't, right? Oh, sure. Sure.

0:49:20 Matt: Yeah. They miss days of work, and their kids miss school. I've seen the consequences.

0:49:26 Thomas: Which I'm sure they can't afford to

0:49:27 Matt: Consequences. And the mental health, I mean, I've had so many people break down in my office within the last couple of months, just absolutely terrified.

0:49:28 Thomas: Miss yeah yeah

0:49:35 Matt: People that, honestly, some of these people really don't have that much reason to be terrified. And I've been trying to triage these things and tell people when they actually really do have good reason to Be Concerned and what we can do to help them. Yeah, I guess just because, again, this isn't about me, but all of us here who are doing this kind of work are getting the secondary trauma of all of this. And that was the first thing I thought of when Trump was reelected is that we're in for four more years of sort of experience things in a way. I don't want to say we're experiencing what our clients are experiencing. I do not want to Say that what they're going through is unimaginable if you're facing the kind of terrorists that they think they are. We you are still witnessing it. We're still part of it. And, you an aggregate kind of way, I feel like I'm absorbing all of this and I just have to tell people don't make it worse because I is going to start pretty quickly. We know that Stephen Miller has been pretty clear that they want to do some shock and awe. They want to come in and they're going to pass a bunch of stuff very quickly. We'll talk about some more legislation that's coming. They're goingto try to do a bunchof big raids, a bunch big operations to make it seem like this is the new normal, that this is a big new wall of enforcement that's happening. Time that you have tweeted out that picture of the arrest that is happening in another time zone and it's gone viral, those people have already left. That raid is over. That person's already been arrested. Be shared for weeks and weeks to come, months to come in the case of that subway tweet. It's a balance because, again, I want to be careful about this Because if you're talking about the speed trap kind of thing, like you're saying, because sometimes CBP does do random traffic enforcement. Well, they'll just sit there in a highway and do ID

0:49:35 Thomas: Yeah wow

0:50:59 Matt: Checks and look for people with warrants. And that's kind of what happened to some of this. That kind of think might actually be useful. If you have a picture of it and you know it's happening right now at 3 p .m. on January 16th, then that's something maybe you can tell people about in your area. But make it very clear and be careful and put orders around it. And if you are not anywhere near that area, maybe don't mindlessly repost it is all I'm saying.

0:51:19 Matt: That doesn't really help anybody necessarily. I hope I've been clear about this. It's a balance I'm trying to strike here.

0:51:24 Thomas: Absolutely. And it, sounds uh, like, again, if this changes, you'll be the first to know everybody. Um,

0:51:29 Matt: Be talking about it. Hoping when I started on the show last February that I would not end up having to report from the ground from another Trump administration, but that's what I'll be doing for as as I'm on this show. So we'll

0:51:39 Thomas: Right. Well, um, safety tip Egon. I like that. I, uh I hope people take that to heart. Uh, appreciated. Shoot. That's the show, Matt. Um La oh boy. Well technically this, the Monday one releases before inauguration. So we get, Oh,

0:51:55 Matt: Technically. And actually, we've got a great one planned for Monday. I'm very excited about what we're going to be doing. We're going do some counter -programming to the inauguration, and I think it'll be inspiring, I hope, for everybody. What we want to be doing here.

0:52:05 Thomas: One more technical podcast release before Trump 2 .0 officially begins. So, boy, that sucks. But hey, we have each other, folks, and we really appreciate you. I've been really enjoying interacting on Patreon lately. Of great comments, including this listener, Matt Cameron, said a nice thing the other day. That was nice. But yeah, let's stick together as a community. Community going we're to get through it.

0:52:24 Matt: We are. And we're going to keep it positive. We're not going to be naive, as

0:52:30 Thomas: Well, all right. Well don't commit me to anything that I can't follow through on. All

0:52:31 Matt: I gotcha. But, you know what you're saying about sharing the show with your friends, I want to make sure you can tell people this is not just another show where you're going going to hear about everything sucks. I want to make sure that we're telling people things that they can actually do and what we need to know and find the hope where we can, because there always is. And as going to continue to repeat, as Sonja Sotomayor has reminded us, despair is not an option. And I'm taking that very seriously.

0:52:53 Thomas: Right. Well, thank you so much for listening. And like we said, we'll see you on that last technical release before inauguration. You have a good weekend until then.

0:53:02 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.