What Happened to You, Todd Blanche?

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Matt: This is exactly the guy that Trump wants, and for very good reason. The guy will just do whatever. The question stands. What happened to you, Todd Blanche?

0:00:17 Clip: That's how I want the world to know my father. Not as someone who got shot and killed, but as a family man, a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work. I am calling for a full investigation into the events that transpired yesterday, July 7th.

0:00:38 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1279. I'm Thomas. That over there is real life immigration attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:46 Matt: Greetings from the dark and spooky Boston, Massachusetts, where the skies have been ominous all day, just weirdly filtered through. Canadian wildfires are messing up our skies.

0:00:54 Thomas: Oh, they don't do that.

0:00:55 Matt: I assume it's just God's vengeance for the hearings today.

0:00:57 Thomas: They just, they haven't been raking well enough. Invest in a rake, Canada.

0:01:02 Matt: At least one between you. There's some strange doings in DC today with the Todd Blanche confirmation hearings that were finally upon us. We got a lot to talk about there. There.

0:01:10 Thomas: I just can't get over the soccer game that just happened, man. I am so sad that you weren't able to watch it. It was so good.

0:01:12 Matt: Oh, yes. No, I had to work.

0:01:16 Thomas: It was so good.

0:01:17 Matt: Yeah, I really wanted to see that one. England, Argentina. Yeah.

0:01:20 Thomas: It was pretty much exactly how I kind of thought it would go, you know, could have been anyone's game, but man, they just brought the heat. England just decided to sit back on a lead. You can't do that against Argentina.

0:01:31 Matt: I can't root for the underdog and that's Argentina here.

0:01:33 Thomas: You can't root for the overdog. I can't root for the like imperial overdog of England. Okay.

0:01:37 Matt: I know. I know it's tough. Yeah. Especially once I found out about Harry Kane, which is a great football name. That's a fantastic soccer name.

0:01:45 Thomas: I can't stand that guy. Is there something that additionally that will, cause I can stand him purely on his look, his name and everything about him.

0:01:51 Matt: He looks like John Antwilson to me from The Who, which is kind of an unfortunate association, but he went golfing with Trump and liked it and talked about what an honor it was to golf with the president.

0:02:01 Thomas: Oh my God. I mean, I already was not rooting for them, but now I'm even more not rooting for that.

0:02:06 Matt: Yeah. I found that out halfway through the last england game and I really lost my my appeal there finally getting to the finals it's all coming

0:02:14 Thomas: It's, it's so much fun. And we are now a soccer podcast. No, it's okay. But anyway, no, crazy stuff going on. We've had this date on the calendar for the hearing for a while. How'd it go, Matt?

0:02:17 Matt: Down I didn't have a chance to watch the whole thing but I've been keeping up on the highlights and clips we got a couple today we'll talk more about it soon there's gonna be another day of testimony that's gonna be after we record before this comes out in which among other things they're gonna bring in somebody to talk about how they got fired because they refused to help mel gibson get his gun rights back so that should be fun

0:02:44 Thomas: Forgot about that whole thing. It was very important that Mel Gibson have the right to own a gun. So important that they had to intervene.

0:02:51 Matt: If you can't do personal favors for an australian actor what are we even doing like what is the point of the the government.

0:02:54 Thomas: Yeah. America first, man.

0:02:56 Matt: Yeah, concierge

0:02:57 Thomas: The point of America is doing favors for a wealthy wealthy Australian asshole, racist asshole.

0:03:04 Matt: Service. That's DOJ part. That is true. Rupert Murdoch has taken us a long way.

0:03:05 Thomas: Literally the backbone of our country is wealthy, racist Australian assholes. That's been how it is.

0:03:13 Matt: Today's show, as usual, is going to be all circling around the DOJ because that is a lot of the news these days. We got to talk about the hearings, but before that, I got to explain this decision. Now, we are going to talk in a gavel -gavel pretty soon. We are going to go deep on it, but this decision of Kathleen Williams out of the slush fund case, it is incredible. It is one of the most incredible singular decisions I have ever seen. I have I've read a lot of judicial decisions, just completely tears apart what's going on in this obvious collusion between the parties and really calls it out for what it is. Also makes, she makes some points I hadn't even thought of about this that are fantastic that we can talk about, but we're going to do a reading with Lydia of the best parts of this because it really deserves the attention. It's great stuff.

0:03:49 Thomas: Over on Gavel Gavel, folks will have to make sure to check that. I'm excited. Yeah, I saw the headlines. I was very excited for you to break that down. Was this the one where it felt like maybe the judge won't really even have the right to kind of say much about it? Am I remembering right? Because it's It's like they decided like, oh, no, we're good here. We're all settled up.

0:04:05 Matt: We've reached an agreement, but the thing is, as she's going to point out, she has authority to look behind that when it looks like there might be some collusion going on. I mean, it looks Like there's maybe some rule 11 violations when you've brought a fraud upon the court or otherwise brought an improper case. So she gets into that in detail.

0:04:22 Thomas: Thank God.

0:04:22 Matt: The timing couldn't have been better because this came out a few days ago. And of course, today, the day we're recording, which is a Wednesday, Todd Blanch had his confirmation hearing and the first part of it in which he testified. So we're going to play some clips from that after we go through the decision so you can see just how bad it is after hearing Kathleen Williams, what she has to say about it.

0:04:38 Thomas: I wonder if she made sure to get it out in time for that.

0:04:41 Matt: Yeah, could have been actually. I mean, really could have. Also some unprecedented bar referrals in there too. We'll get there. And then we've got to talk about the, unfortunately, the two most recent ICE murders that happened within the past week. Really sad stories. And I want to make sure that these names are out there just the same as Alex Pretty and René Goode, because they're just as important, if not more so, because these are the people that are most vulnerable to ICE violence. And I think these stories have to be told. These names need to be known.

0:05:04 Thomas: Yeah, it's so hard to even tolerate. I mean, to even get it's I say it every time I say again, not only defund ice, not only abolish ice, prosecute.

0:05:07 Matt: It is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:05:13 Thomas: That's just somebody run on that, please.

0:05:16 Matt: Abolition is the moderate perspective. It's the moderate position at this point. We'll talk about that, but then we'll finish up, of course, as always, with a fun footnote. And it is a meta footnote, this is one of my favorite kinds of footnotes, a footnote about footnotes. It is about one particular judge, a judge who we have given a lot of praise and who I still I think very highly of, but his particular hatred of legal footnotes and where it comes from and what he's been doing.

0:05:36 Thomas: I might have seen this headline to someone wanted to take away your joy.

0:05:38 Matt: Yeah. I had to cover it as soon as I saw it. This is a Reddit user brought this one to us and I appreciate it for as annoyed as it made me, but you know, no judge is perfect. So we'll see. We'll talk about it. I won't even say that he's got a point. I don't think he has a point, but I think he's lots of other points. It doesn't make me reconsider everything else he's ever done, but. I dunno, man. You know how I feel about footnotES.

0:05:51 Thomas: Which is worse if if Harry Kane had played golf with Trump or said to get rid of footnotes which

0:06:07 Matt: If Harry Kane had said to get rid of footnotes, I could write that off. Cause what does he know? But that's true. No, Oh, he knows more about feet than I do. That's true.

0:06:10 Thomas: Is well he plays football I don't know that's something yeah all right well a lot to get to it sounds like a really important and packed show I can't wait so why don't we take that first break support the show get the goodies we're recording a lot off of movies this week, tomorrow, or the next day, or very soon, one way or the other, as you're hearing this probably already recorded. So, patreon.com/law is where you'll find that. Love law-awful movies.

0:06:36 Matt: We got a real turkey this time.

0:06:39 Thomas: So much fun. I haven't yet.

0:06:39 Matt: Man, this is, I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it is bad. It really is a lot of movies for a reason. This is one of those classic shows that got made and they tried to bury that you have to work really hard to find now.

0:06:48 Thomas: Oh. Well, why don't you tell people if we're...

0:06:50 Matt: If you want to check it out, the first two episodes are actually on YouTube. Lydia found them, which is very lucky because you can't even buy them if you want to. It's that bad. At least if you are in the United States, apparently. But the show is called Outlaw and it stars Jimmy Smits as a Supreme Court justice. Who quits the Supreme Court and goes back into private practice, you know, the way Supreme Court justices do, and it's just a thing that happens. And it's so bad. It's just monstrously bad.

0:07:15 Thomas: I can't wait. Well, all that, patreon dot com slash law. Support the show, avoid the ads. We'll take a break and get back into it.

0:07:24 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:24 Matt: So we've talked already at length last month about the extremely collusive and unprecedentedly corrupt decision to not only not fight Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, but to completely give in. Now, this is a reminder, this has to do with the disclosure of Trump's tax returns by a concerned citizen named Charles Littlejohn, who was working for the IRS as a contractor at the time. And Trump brought suit under 26 U .S .C. 7431D. There are damages authorized, including $1 ,000 for each act of unauthorized inspection or disclosure. So Donald Trump, of course, was seeking billions of dollars, not $1 .000 each. He's trying to claim that he's bringing this as a private citizen whose taxes were disclosed. They were disclused in 2023. He sent Elena Haba to the plea hearing, one of his attorneys who's done a lot of work for him in lots of different places, who of course became the New Jersey U .S. attorney, I believe. One of the many problems with this lawsuit is that it was more than two years before they actually did anything about it. You're supposed to bring the claim within two years of becoming aware. His personal attorney was at the plea hearing. She certainly knew that there was a man who was going to prison for having disclosed Donald Trump's tax returns. So the obvious thing for the Department of Justice to do at that point, as soon as the plaintiff filed, would be to try to dismiss it because it's late.

0:08:32 Matt: He had every reason to know and he should have done it sooner. And he's not doing it until he's president for for some reason. Strange how that works. Judge Kathleen Williams, who's an Obama appointee in 2011, this is inside the District of Florida, just gets into this because what they did is the DOJ, not only did they not fight the timing of this case, which was the easiest way to kick it out, they did not file a response. They gave in everything the plaintiffs wanted in extending this case until they had a chance to brief it more. They didn't respond when the court tried to get briefing on if she even had jurisdiction because it appeared that there wasn't actually any kind of case or controversy before her because you've got the government completely completely controlled by Trump. And you're talking about at the time when little John disclosed this, Trump was running the government and it was Trump's IRS that disclosed it.

0:09:13 Thomas: Wait, really?

0:09:14 Matt: Yeah, at the same time, it just gets dumber and dumber. And then of course, as we know, Todd Blanch signed off not only on this ridiculous anti -weaponization fund, basically to allow anybody to come in and try to claim that their government was weaponized against them. And the fund was supposed to be funded in the amount of 1 .776, right? You know what it was, a billion.

0:09:31 Matt: She even notes that that number is clearly a branding issue and not like any kind of actual number that represents anything. Yeah.

0:09:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't give you confidence in like how you know meaningful that

0:09:40 Matt: She notes it's risible to suggest there was ever adverseness between the parties. She makes the point, which I love, she makes so many awesome points just drawing from the government's own arguments. She cites Slaughter, the case that, you know, the unitary executive case that just came down to the Supreme Court. And she's like, you know you've been telling everybody, you've done the Supreme court that you're in charge of the entire government. So yes.

0:09:54 Thomas: Is oh right he's literally been saying by the way that donald trump is the chief client of so it's like oh okay so you're the client and the other side that doesn't

0:10:06 Matt: And he said, and she quotes this, I'm suing myself. He said that in public several times because he always has to come in and say it. She also, I thought this was is really brilliant. She cites the executive order near the beginning of the administration and the memo that Bondi put out basically saying that all of the president's lawyers had to do what the president wanted and said that they had to. And she said, well, how could they possibly? This is completely consistent with that order because they didn't fight the case at all. They're just doing what the President wanted. We'll go deeper on some of the excellent language in this, some of great logic she's using. This is so unprecedented in so many different directions, the things that's happening here.

0:10:12 Thomas: Work yeah hmm

0:10:43 Matt: The guise of this, as you said at the beginning, there was a volunteer dismissal. The parties came and said, we've reached an agreement, agreement, but under Rule 11, she's allowed to look under the hood of that agreement and make sure that it wasn't collusion, that there was actually a case or controversy, and then they're not just trying to put a fraud on the court. And she's leaving it very open as to the idea that this is a fraud in the court, and it is. I think we all understand that. And it's just so gratifying once again to see a judge seeing what we see, and not just seeing what we see, but just taking it apart piece by piece by piece. And this is an interesting use of Rule 11 because she's the one who raised it. It wasn't one of the parties. Often it would be the parties that's wronged in this that wants to raise it. The rule does say under 11CB that when she raises the idea after voluntary dismissal, that the judge can't impose monetary sanctions. And money isn't really what this is about, but there are fees probably owed here. And the taxpayers have been ripped off by this whole thing, obviously, just the time that DOJ spent doing this. She appointed Amicus in this to come forward and try to help and brief this.

0:11:38 Thomas: Well wasn't there a bunch of judges too that wrote a thing yeah

0:11:40 Matt: Yes, that's right. She mentioned them too. I think something like 65 judges also came forward and said, this is completely unprecedented. You can't do this. This is an insult to judging, basically, like the entire concept of federal courts. But she can find non -monetary sanctions. She's leaving the door open for monetary sanctions, and she's inviting within 14 days anybody who feels like they're due monetary sanctions to come forward. So if you want to give a crack at it. The thing that really made headlines here, because this is, okay, so it's not that unusual if you're doing a Rule 11 motion, when you're looking at a frivolous filing, when you'RE looking at wasting the court's time and bringing a fraudulent case, it's NOT unexpected that you might refer the attorneys to the bar that brought that case. And she does, in fact, refer Alejandro Brito, who is Trump's local counsel in Florida, to the bar, just directly says, I'm sending this to the Bar. She bans Trump's other former White House counsel, Daniel Epstein, who was also on this, from appearing in the court for a year.

0:12:29 Matt: So he just can't appear before her for here or in that court at all. And then the best part, of course, is she bars both sides from ever calling this a settlement, ever citing it anywhere, ever using it as authority. So that completely ends the immunity deal that Trump thought he made in this case. We're going to hear Blanche talk about that immunity deal in his hearing pretty soon here. And you can imagine what he's going to say about it.

0:12:48 Thomas: Boy yeah very curious what he has to say about

0:12:50 Matt: Yeah, it's really something. Then the really unprecedented thing in this direction is that she says she's going direct the clerk to mail copies of this decision to the New York bar in support of the pending bar complaints that are already in front of the bar for Blanche and Stan Woodward, the other former Trump defense attorney who's now top of DOJ.

0:13:07 Thomas: That finally a judge is freaking doing

0:13:10 Matt: Yeah. It's not a direct bar complaint, but it's enough that she's saying this belongs in the record. This should be part of the bar complaint. And of course, lawyers defending American democracy will probably revisit some some of this pretty sometime soon, but they filed a massive whopper of a bar complaint. It's like 70 pages and it's just so detailed, but you have to pay more attention to it when you've got a federal judge behind it saying everything about this is a disgrace to the department and Todd Blanche shouldn't be doing any of this. It is quite a decision. It''s well worth reading. We're going to go deep on it for gavel gavel. And it's one of those that I think there's a big difference between just reporting on a decision and actually hearing the way the judge has constructed it and how she says it. And I think that's really the point of gavel gavle. So we'll be doing that over there.

0:13:28 Thomas: Stuff what's the next step though is there some bullshit way that they can get around

0:13:51 Matt: Blanche is going to be asked in the next segment here about the appeal. So I'll wait wait for that part when he talks about the possible appeal here. But there is the thing with the monetary damages where we still have 14 days for people to come in and say that they think they should get paid.

0:13:56 Thomas: This okay who would that be oh

0:14:04 Matt: The people who are appointed to do this, they've actually specifically said they don't want to be paid. So she mentioned that in the decision. Usually this would be lawyers' fees because one of the sides would be bringing this and saying, you got to pay my fees, but neither side is looking for that. So potentially the amicus, or even she mentioned the judges, like she said, if you want to get compensated for your time, go for it, you know, for just taking the time to tell me about this. There's so many different ways. There're like four different places, which we'll talk about on Gavel Gavel, where she uses the government's logic against them, uses statements against them. Even something as simple as like, you've gone and said that I should be taking judicial notice of all these out -of -court statements. So I'm going to do that. You said this in another case. I'm just going to do it here. I've got it here as executive order 14215 forbids any executive employee from taking a litigation position that contradicts the president. So you're just both sides of the chessboard at that point, right I mean like it's just obvious and as we discussed at the time nothing like this has happened before ever

0:15:01 Thomas: Nobody had the pure arrogance and corruption and gall to do this it's so open

0:15:09 Matt: Yeah everybody thought it was shocking that nixon was recording himself but he wasn't suing himself he managed not to do

0:15:13 Thomas: Yeah so pretty much an a plus out of that judge you know a plus plus yeah just I can't wait I'm I had to read more of

0:15:16 Matt: That oh yeah absolutely a plus plus yeah good stuff it's a good one well worth getting into so we'll get to it but now we've got that background we can talk a little bit about this confirmation hearing now we were expecting fireworks unfortunately the democrats did not bring everything I would have wanted because they just can't help themselves with asking these long multi -part questions that give Todd Blanche every opportunity to dance around the answers. But there are a couple of moments and we'll play some of those. Let's start with my favorite.

0:15:43 Matt: Todd Blanch has asked about being the president's attorney.

0:15:46 Clip: Are you and President Trump friends? I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer. And now I'm the deputy attorney general. So I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I'm not sure there's very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend. I now have a... Well, let me put it this way. Are you enemies? No, we're not enemies at all. No.

0:15:51 Thomas: That no is

0:16:12 Matt: I just love that. I'm his lawyer. Oh, I was his lawyer, that's right. I was as lawyer. I'm supposed to say that. I had to really laugh when I heard him say that about criminal defense attorneys not being friends with their clients because you might remember one very prominent instance of a defense attorney being friends with his client and publicly talking about being friends of his client. And that, That of course was Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Epstein. That would have been a great counter example.

0:16:28 Thomas: That yeah yeah oh

0:16:35 Matt: Yeah, that's true.

0:16:36 Thomas: Yeah oh boy wait what about the time where he said thank you I love you sir you're my

0:16:36 Matt: Yeah. But not friends, just he loves him. I guess you can, it's an unrequited love, I think is what's going on there. That kind of set the tone there. He got flustered a lot during this hearing from what I saw. And again, I wasn't able to watch all five hours, but I was able to kind of skip around and look through the transcript of the parts I wanted. Let us go to the next one. That was Senator Kennedy. There's a Republican asking him that question. So now we've got Eric Schmidt from Missouri. He's a republican and he's going to to be providing very helpfully, basically, the articles of impeachment for Todd Blanche as soon as he becomes attorney general. It's not what he's trying to do. He's trying to present his accomplishments. But go ahead and tell me that any of these are accomplishments, any of the things you're about to hear. Let's just list them off. Let'S do it.

0:16:39 Thomas: Dad yeah yeah it's more of a father -son relationship wow Wow.

0:17:15 Clip: So you have a very important job. I want to highlight a few things that you've done in your time as acting Attorney General, hopefully as Attorney General you're confirmed. You created the National Fraud Enforcement Division. I think this is very, very important. I that that I think the work will continue carried out the the largest health care fraud takedown in department history expanded the fight against medicaid fraud after the 90 million dollar minnesota fraud take down you secured six fraud convictions involving more than 1.1 billion in less than three weeks cleared the backlog of immigration cases allowing for deportations more deportations. You filed a historic number of denaturalization cases. You secured major

0:17:38 Matt: Racist prosecution. Okay. Check.

0:17:54 Thomas: The one that Biden started? Jeez.

0:18:05 Matt: By putting massive pressure on judges. Great work.

0:18:11 Clip: anti-DEI wins against IBM and PayPal. You ended the EEOC's racist disparate impact regime. You secured 450 years of prison time for Antifa members involved in the terrorist attacks against ICE. You prosecuted the Southern Poverty Law Center for secretly funneling millions of dollars

0:18:26 Thomas: Jesus. Wait, prosecuted?

0:18:35 Matt: Prairieland.

0:18:35 Thomas: They are really into that talking point, by the way. Didn't we break that down?

0:18:39 Matt: They're going after him criminally.

0:18:40 Thomas: Where is it right now?

0:18:41 Matt: It's pending.

0:18:42 Thomas: I guess if you indict them, I would have thought you'd just say indicted.

0:18:45 Matt: I guess you would say you are prosecuting would be the better use of the verb.

0:18:47 Thomas: Sure, sure. Yeah, because I was like, I was just wondering if I missed something, if something else happened in that case. It seemed really stupid and thin. And they keep saying millions of dollars. We went through that, that, didn't we?

0:18:59 Matt: Yeah, we did.

0:18:59 Thomas: Wasn't it like very little money over the course of a decade?

0:19:03 Matt: Well, and it's also doing something that journalists do, which is creating shell companies so that you can do investigations like they were doing journalism. The idea they were funding neo -Nazis, like, come on.

0:19:12 Thomas: It's so stupid. Well, to the point where I'm just interested in how they believe and use their own bullshit, because they make a lot of bullshit allegations about stuff, but certain stuff is sticky and certain stuff isn't. I listened to the Ezra Klein, Chris Ruffo thing, and Chris Raffo just cites that as, you know what they did is they uncovered the fact that there wasn't any racism, so they had to to actually fund racism.

0:19:35 Matt: Right, to make it, to create it.

0:19:35 Thomas: Southern Poverty Law Center, yeah, they're like, shit, there's no more racism. It's solved in this day and age, post -Trump one. So we need to fund it ourselves.

0:19:45 Matt: We're going to kickstart the racism factory, get it back to work.

0:19:47 Thomas: Yeah, that's how they present that. It'S just this conclusory stuff that's like, yeah of course we discovered that, we discovered they were actually the ones funding racism. And they're able to just like, oh okay good, that writes off all racism in their minds and writes off everything the SPLC ever did. And, you know, we've talked about complicated organization, obviously.

0:20:06 Thomas: If they can find some little shred of misinformation, it shows how much harm that Blanche has done and that Trump has done by legitimizing so many bullshit conspiracy theories just by putting them on government paper.

0:19:59 Matt: Incredible. Yeah mm -hmm. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just to be clear, as you know, those were informants within existing racist groups that they were paying, as You Do as an investigator.

0:20:26 Thomas: Yeah. The police pay informants, right?

0:20:28 Matt: Right.

0:20:28 Thomas: Does that mean they're, oh, there's no more crimes? Well, okay. That's kind of a bad example. They do try to create crimes sometimes, but like you wouldn't say that there's No More Crime. And like they're only, Only the police are creating crime. That's not happening.

0:20:39 Clip: To the KKK and neo-Nazis. That's a pretty, that's a hell of a record. You made the decision to not

0:20:44 Matt: Yeah. It's always good every time they talk about this stuff. They remind me of a few more things I'd almost forgotten about. There are just so many things.

0:20:49 Thomas: Yeah, it's a hell of a criminal record. Wow.

0:20:51 Matt: Yeah, articles of impeachment right there for you. Let's get into Adam Schiff now, who of course is a very talented lawyer, litigator, knows his stuff. This is kind of a long question, but it is asking something that I think that we all would like to know at this point, which is what happened to you, Todd Blanche? That is literally going to be the question here to his face.

0:21:10 Clip: Defend the IRS and the Justice Department. You Made the decision and said to sign this slush fund agreement. We made the president to settle the case. Correct. Yeah. And in doing that, you basically decided that you were going to be the lawyer for the president and the lawyer for the IRS and the Justice Department. There was no adversarial relationship. The court found it was a sham. It was a collusive relationship. And what I don't understand, Todd Blanch, what happened to the Todd Blanche who was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York? What happened to The Prosecutor people had respect for?

0:21:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:52 Clip: Who once respected the rule of law? What happened The Proseculator who said that there wouldn't be a whiff of political partisanship and then prosecutes the president's enemies over seashells, cases, over making a video stating the plain law and constitution. What happened to the Todd Blanch of the Southern District of New York that could convert him into you? Someone willing to say the president has both the right and the duty to prosecute his political enemies. I cannot imagine that Todd Blanche of the old days would have ever done that. What happened to you, Todd Blanch? I'll tell you this, I think Robert Carrow had it right when he said that power doesn't corrupt as much as it reveals. I suspect it has just revealed who you are and who you are as someone willing to sacrifice everything you once believed in for that title, for that position of Attorney General. And it is a sad story that we have seen from Trump appointee after appointee, after appoint-ee. We have seen people compromise themselves little by little and then a lot by a lot until they're sitting before this committee and trying to justify the unjustifiable.

0:22:59 Thomas: I was going to say. Lying their faces off. Yeah, that pretty much puts...

0:23:06 Matt: Yeah, his answer is kind of funny.

0:23:08 Clip: You asked me what happened to Todd Blanche. I am still here. I am the same exact person I was when I was a federal prosecutor in the SDNY, which is do the right thing and do everything you can to keep communities safe. So when I as a line prosecutor, when I I was a supervisor, when I was the head of a division, my motivation and my goal was the same thing with the people who worked with me and worked for me, which is do the right thing, enforce the laws, and put bad guys in jail. And so you spend time talking about, I did not interrupt you, I didn't interrupt you.

0:23:44 Matt: Well, you did, but did

0:23:45 Clip: So when you ask me, what has changed, okay, and you talk about a single document that I signed. Okay. And somebody had to sign that document and somebody had

0:23:53 Thomas: Just one little slush fund.

0:23:56 Matt: You hear what he just said?

0:23:58 Clip: To sign the document when the president sued. Okay, so I tried to do the right

0:24:00 Matt: Somebody had to sign it.

0:24:02 Clip: Thing. What I do every single day and what the prosecutors in this country do every single, day and the nearly hundred thousand indictments and informations that have been filed since January 20th is exactly what everybody in this building should want the Department of Justice to do, which is to make our community safer, enforce the laws both civilly and criminally, and always do the right thing with integrity which is exactly what I'm doing so I'm the same todd blanch I was when

0:24:18 Thomas: Just to help enrich Donald Trump.

0:24:30 Matt: Sure, man.

0:24:30 Thomas: Sure, Jan.

0:24:32 Matt: I'm still Toddy from the black. That's so unconvincing. And just the idea that, well, somebody had to, I mean, that poor document was just laying there unsigned. And you know this incredibly corrupt thing that basically excuses trump and arguably excuses him from like anything and all of his companies and any companies associated with him and his entire family they keep reporting on as being from tax audits but

0:24:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. There's some documents that don't have any parents. Someone had to sign it, Matt.

0:24:55 Matt: Arguably you could that's right you can stretch it to a lot of other things it's true just orphaned on your desk maybe even just trash it yeah I

0:24:57 Thomas: Would you, you heartless animal, you would let a document go unsigned? Have you no heart?

0:25:06 Matt: Might just yeah so that I thought that was a great series of questions I mean again these questions are too long but I'd really appreciate it just saying it to his face like what happened into you, man. He used to be somebody. He was a pretty respectable prosecutor in SDNY to the extent that federal prosecutors can be respectable people. That's that. There's one more clip here from Sheldon Whitehouse, who of course is always on the judicial beat.

0:25:30 Thomas: Oh yeah, I love him.

0:25:31 Matt: This is him confronting him about the Williams decision that we were just talking about up top.

0:25:32 Clip: I was a federal prosecutor in the sdmy senior doj officials have never in the history of the department before faced a judicial inquiry into a fraud on the court participated in by the department of justice that was the inquiry opened in florida the question about fraud on on the court committed by the Department of Justice remains open in the judge's decision. Here's what she did find. Of Justice colluded with the Trump plaintiffs, that the department of justice violated DOJ policies that department attorneys were derelict in their responsibilities as DOJ attorneys, that the department failed to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States of America, And as I said, the fraud on the court question remains open, an unprecedented

0:25:47 Thomas: Yeah, I bet.

0:26:45 Clip: After that, the order was transmitted to the New York State Bar for potential disciplinary I would like to ask, in addition, since this is new news, the decision was what, two days I would to ask that you say to us that you will be willing to provide all of the documents and communications between the Department of Justice and the Trump plaintiffs in that I'm not aware of any communications. I didn't have any so if you put a request in we'll look at it I mean obviously that's active continued litigation. I'm in in the Southern District of Florida It is plain explain how it is active Continued litigation in the District of, Florida Well, there's been several indications that the parties of I never entered notice of appearance, but that the party's intend to appeal

0:27:39 Matt: So Weasley. Whoever these parties are, they're going to be appealing.

0:27:45 Thomas: He's like laughing.

0:27:46 Clip: Well it'll be interesting do you intend to appeal the Department of Justice we weren't really even part of that decision so to the extent there's something that we we can't appeal I very vigorously will encourage the department to do so well here's the tell in that case the Department of justice filed no answer filed no agreement with respect to the extension of time filed no response to the case or controversy amici filed nothing related to the withdrawal of the complaint filed no settlement and filed no to the fraud on the court inquiry to me as a one-time litigator that looks like really weird behavior and when for the first

0:27:54 Thomas: Oh, that's weird.

0:28:35 Matt: Good

0:28:36 Clip: Time in history there's inquiry into fraud upon the court committed by the Department of Justice the silence from the department in response to that is deafening mr. Blanche deafening that's how I want the world to know my father

0:28:47 Matt: Stuff. I mean, I really thought those were worth playing in full because that's such a good summary of the situation and how nuts this is when you you really step back from it. This is just one piece. There's so many things in that bar complaint. There are so many Things we've been talking about since the beginning of this term, because Blanche has been there the whole time in the top of DOJ leadership. Now they're trying to put him at the very top. The summary of something that came out two days ago, which was based on something we already knew was a problem, but just the fact that this judge came out with such a fiery decision. Perfect summary of that, I thought. And he has no answer for it. I mean, just the way he's trying to distance himself and say, well, I don't know, maybe the parties will appeal. I don' t have anything to do with it. Of course he didn't put his appearance into the the case.

0:29:24 Thomas: Yeah, what? What does that mean?

0:29:26 Matt: He wasn't a lawyer who's registered in this case because yes, it's, yeah, he is in charge of, he's the acting attorney general. It would be very unusual if the acting Attorney General put his appearance in under these circumstances. Yeah. I think with Eric Adams, like the whole leadership, because nobody in SDNY would do it because it's so corrupt. And that should be, I mean, he was part of that too. Like that should all be part of this. Bouvier was more on that one.

0:29:28 Thomas: But it was DOJ, right? Didn't it have to happen that one time when no one else would? Eric Adams? Yeah.

0:29:51 Thomas: Oh, Beauvais? Is that what you're trying to say?

0:29:53 Matt: Yeah, Bove, we still don't know. Bouvier, I don't know. Yeah, I know. Well, it's very subtle.

0:29:54 Thomas: Beauvais. Okay. You said Bowie, so I don't know what that is. Yeah, Beauvay. Emil Beauvays. That's Judge Beauvais. God.

0:30:03 Matt: Don't remind me. This is somebody who never should have been nominated. Obviously, we already know that. This is exactly the guy that Trump wants, and for a very good reason, because he's proven it again and again. Even as the White House is saying here, the guy will just do whatever. The question stands, what happened to you, Todd Blanche?

0:30:18 Thomas: You can say a lot about Todd Blanche. I don'T think he's stupid. I actually think he'S pretty intelligent. And I think he... He's so calm. Because I think He knows that this doesn't really matter.

0:30:22 Matt: No. Yeah. It's pretty savvy. Yeah. Yeah。 That's fine.

0:30:29 Thomas: It doesn't really matter. Like, unfortunately, I hope Democrats did their best. And you never know, you know, if something maybe breaks through. But it just feels like the old paradigm in which there were these fiery hearings where like stuff would happen that mattered. Like I just I don't I don'T KNOW ANYMORE. He knows that his best option is to have his line of bullshit for each thing and calmly say it with an attitude of like, wow, you're you're crazy if you don't agree with me. And then that gives the people who don't really think about anything enough. It's based on vibes and like, well, the vibe was, you know, he seemed like he's fine.

0:31:03 Matt: Yeah? Yeah? No, it it's true.

0:31:03 Thomas: So, you Know, it's just too bad that that's the world we live in now.

0:31:07 Matt: But I have to say, with the recent sudden departure of Lindsey Graham, it is down to one Republican vote that could keep him from regressing here.

0:31:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I hope that they won't do this. I don't know. What are you thinking on that? That. I guess I couldn't say either way, just because on one hand, it feels like obviously he's terrible. On the other hand, he's been running the thing anyway. So it feels like are they really risking much by allowing this in their minds what's already happening to continue? I don't know.

0:31:37 Matt: You can stop somebody who's definitely proven to do whatever Trump wants, and you can stop it with one vote. And Kennedy is in nothing to lose mode, right?

0:31:44 Thomas: Yeah, but who wants to do that? Which Republican wants to do that.

0:31:47 Matt: Kennedy doesn't love Trump, doesn't know what's going on. I mean, maybe. I don't know. I would hope that there's somebody that would have... Well, again, I'm not even going to say some conscience. We're way past that point.

0:31:55 Thomas: Yeah. It's just the pure calculus of like game theory.

0:31:57 Matt: Yeah. Or spite.

0:31:58 Thomas: You're just hoping the numbers line up for somebody.

0:32:01 Matt: If it comes down to personal spite, I don'T care against Trump. Just vote no. Get him out of here.

0:32:05 Thomas: All right. Well, I kind of want to watch all that now. You You know, the soccer came first for me. I'm sorry.

0:32:10 Matt: No, I get you.

0:32:10 Thomas: It was a really good game I had to watch, but I'm going to, I'm going to watch the rest of that to see, but thanks for picking those highlights. And what happened to you, Todd Blanche? Since we covered the trial on Gavel Gavel, I mean, we've really been on the forefront of that. What happened to Todd Blanch Brigade?

0:32:25 Thomas: All right, we're going to take a break and then we have to talk about the murdering fascist assholes that should be nowhere near freedom. Really? There should be no word. I was going to say nowhere near a gun, but it shouldn't really be out in the world. Anyway, the ice murders. All right, we'll take a quick break.

0:32:24 Matt: Yeah,

0:32:43 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:32:44 Thomas: Oh, man, this is just so hard to talk about. But yeah, another awful killing. It's so hard because we do the thing where the headline says, hey, turns out this guy wasn't even the guy they're after. And then everyone's got to be like, yeah, you can't even shoot the guy you are after. And I get it, but also I just like, I'm so tired of any criticism of anyone other than the people who are making this happen.

0:33:05 Thomas: You know, I've just like I don't have enough. Yeah, we all know we all know you shouldn't be killing anybody. I shouldn't say that. There are probably some people who think if he was the guy they were going after, it would have been justified.

0:33:00 Matt: I know. No.

0:33:15 Thomas: But I just feel like I'm tired. I'm just tired of the worst things in the world happening. And I just don't I don' have any patience for anything other than get these people in prison like it just shouldn't be happening yeah

0:33:28 Matt: Yeah truth and reconciliation is what we're going to need. And we've, as we'll talk about, we've got some great witnesses potentially for those trials, but no, I totally agree. I was going back and forth, you know, cause again, what we're talking about here is two straight up murders in the street. In one case in front of his family and the other case in front of multiple witnesses, he was driving in his truck, completely unjustified. We're now up to the 10th murder in Trump's term, straight up, just shooting. We've had 38 people shot, I believe, and 10 of them were killed. Even as we're recording this now, the 22nd person has just died in custody, which is just an unprecedented number. Basically, since you have to go back to the beginning of ICE when they're just setting things up to see that many people die in custody. I think we've probably surpassed that now. I was kind of going back and forth though about, is it, what do you lead with here? Is it worse to say that he wasn't even the guy they're looking for? Because obviously there's just an extra level of recklessness. They shouldn't be shooting people that they're not. These are civil warrants. They're trying to enforce civil warrents. These are not criminal warrants if you're talking about somebody that you know to be armed and dangerous or a terrorist or whatever, again, I don't believe that police should be shooting people, but if you actually have a reason to be afraid for your life, maybe I can understand it. But in one of these cases, the main case, the justification was that he shot him to death because he was concerned about public safety. He doesn't even try to say it was for his own safety. Yes. Yep.

0:34:35 Thomas: Yeah didn't even have and that's crazy you know because they usually have some bullshit about how I feared for my

0:34:43 Matt: That should be used at his murder trial, the fact that that was his only justification, justification because that is not a reason to shoot somebody.

0:34:47 Thomas: Life boy I think what annoys me about that little argument is I get it but also I think it's the information is important in that it's even worse like it's it's not like oh it would have been okay if it was the guy they were looking The point is, no, these people are so incompetent and out of control and fascist that they're even killing people they're not even looking for.

0:34:57 Matt: It is. Yes. Right.

0:35:10 Thomas: And I think that's worth emphasizing.

0:35:10 Matt: Right, that's right. FBI certainly has, there's no official tracking for how many people the FBI has shot. I tried to go looking.

0:35:17 Thomas: Matt, it feels like there should be that.

0:35:20 Matt: There definitely should be that too. And it's also hard because right now the FBI is doing so many immigration arrests, as we talked about on Wednesday's show. The FBI, you'd expect, would be more likely, in the same way that like rural cops in a place with a lot of guns might be more unlikely to shoot something. The FBI is generally going to arrest people who are dangerous, not always, but more generally. But overwhelmingly, the people being arrested by ICE were going to work. They're going to drop their kids off at school. They are people who have never threatened any public safety whatsoever. So let's talk about the two people here. I want to make sure that these names are as known as Rene Good and Alex Pretty. I understand that obviously we're all still in shock about the Pretty and Good murders because those were people that would never have been targets of ICE. They were not even people that would have been racially profiled by ICE. There are people who voluntarily were getting in the way or standing up for their neighbors in one way or another, not even getting in a way that should have come close to justifying what happened to of them. But these two people here, the more we're learning about them, the more of a tragedy this becomes. Tuesday, July 7th, we've got Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. He's a 52 -year -old Mexican man, father of three. He built hundreds of homes, including his own, I believe.

0:36:21 Matt: Really hard worker, really well -known to his family, been in the U .S. for 35 years, no criminal record, working on his status. It's really a testament to how long it can take, that he's been here for 35 years and you can't just walk up. And I'm sure he's probably spent thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to get things going. It's very hard to find any way to legalize your status, even after that much time. I believe from what I read, his brother actually was able to benefit from the Reagan amnesty, but he just was cut off just a bit. This is the usual thing where DHS says he tried to ram them, but he's got three passengers in the car who are saying that the ICE officers were never in front of the car. Shots came from the passenger side, like very clearly, no instance of ramming. He was trying to comply. The surveillance footage that is available at least so far supports the passenger account. But then very much like with Rene Good, they waited a good long time before calling the ambulance and blocked people from getting anywhere near the body or the person they'd shot.

0:37:10 Matt: They took took his ID and had him admitted to the hospital was a John Doe, which is just awful. I know. It's just awful, I mean it's just like completely dehumanizing him even at that point. His family wants to know what's happening, his son had to find out about this from I think a social media post, had to see the video of his father dying in the street, hours of waiting for the family to actually find out he was dead because they had to do biometric testing to identify him because he didn't have ID on him.

0:37:13 Thomas: What

0:37:34 Matt: I just wanted to play a clip from his son Ronaldo here, this is well worth watching. His son is a teacher I should point out, that's

0:37:32 Thomas: Oh my god jesus

0:37:42 Clip: Not as someone who got shot and killed but as a family man a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work I am calling for a full investigation into the events that transpired yesterday yesterday July 7th He did not deserve to die. He did to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ice. He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream. I would be doing his memory a disservice if I didn't recognize the other three men who were with him, one of which was my uncle. All three men were rounded up. I have not heard from them, but I hope that they are able to provide their own statements to prove that my father, feared for his life as unmarked cars, followed my dad, who only wanted to get back to work and back to us.

0:38:39 Clip: My dad, because he had been in the process of getting a work permit, he knew what to do in case he was stopped by ICE. What happened, though, my father was being followed by two unmarked cars. Had my father seen an emblem of ICE or an emblem that says anything about law enforcement agency, my father would have complied, he would have stopped, he Would have not ran away because he feared for his life.

0:39:08 Matt: So hard to hear but I wanted to make sure we heard from him directly. The only thing approaching good news out of this is that the county DA in Houston has opened an investigation of the shooting, which is promising considering it's Texas. And most importantly, has certified new visa requests to potentially have the three men designated as bystanders to a crime, like potentially, you know, maybe victims themselves potentially. And that keeps them from being deported.

0:39:29 Matt: It should, although I'm sure they're going to find a way to try. But, you Know, as he said, they've been disappeared and they're facing removal proceedings now. There might be some justice there for them. Once again, the government in a position to be able to deport the witnesses that might actually be able tell tell the court what happened. We have to talk as well about what happened on Monday, July 13th, unfortunately. We had Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, 26 years old, father of a three-year-old DoorDash driver and a janitor living in Biddeford, Maine. A little closer to home here for me. This is a very similar situation where he was being pursued by unmarked ICE vehicles. They were looking at the last known address of somebody with a final order of removal. And of course, his building has three units.

0:39:34 Thomas: God that's insane yeah

0:40:05 Matt: So they just followed, I guess, the first guy coming out of it. Wasn't him.

0:40:07 Thomas: Oh the first guy just the first random guy or or maybe the first guy who's had a certain non -white appearance

0:40:15 Matt: Matches the description in a certain way. Yeah that's true. He was shot five times. That part isn't on camera, but there is a video footage from seconds after the shooting. I want to play a clip here of an eyewitness. And this man is such a perfect witness. And then this guy's also a great meaner. He's got a very slight New England accent I really like. And he's just so straightforwardly telling exactly what he saw. This is Daniel Boucher. And if this ever is going to go to trial in any kind of truth and reconciliation Nuremberg situation, I hope that Daniel's able to testify.

0:40:39 Clip: Well I heard the pop pop pop sound and I didn't know what it was because I thought it was fireworks and it didn't make any sense. So I went to the third floor window that overlooks that street and I could see a small sedan turned 90 degrees to the curb and an SUV like behind it but kitty corner to it. He started coming down the street again driving I don't know how and then the SUV hit him again they try to and and then that's when he stopped ice agent got out tried to open the door and had a difficult time but eventually opened it and pulled the guy out his face was bloody his head was bloody and I clearly heard the victim say I tried to stop clearly heard him say that the ice agent that shot him walked right in front of me and I of course I had him oh I was emotional and I just let him have it and he looked at me and he said he tried to run me over or something to that effect I don't remember his exact words there was another ice agent with him that was trying to comfort him and they walked

0:41:57 Thomas: Man

0:41:58 Matt: And Bouchet has also said that he really wants to make sure the story is out there because he knows that ICE isn't going to tell the truth. This this is a man who you know is determined because he knows what he saw and I just love the way he's so matter of fact it's like I got emotional and I let him have it that's a hero what a great witness unfortunately his girlfriend and three -year -old daughter in her pajamas came out and watched their father die bleeding on the sidewalk they were handcuffing him as he's dying because that's what they do this is too completely I mean I hate how even you use the word innocent because it's just it's ice people that should be with us and never should have been bothered I'm used to these kinds of realities but having it happen twice within the space of seven days is extra

0:42:38 Thomas: Yeah I just... it's like as a society do we have tears left to cry and attention left to pay it's Like this just has to stop at a certain point it's just it's overwhelming that's what the fascists do it's They can overwhelm us where we hit a maximum and then everything... it's... it's the... it's... I keep making this reference but it's the Chernobyl problem all over again well we've maxed out our lying detector we maxed our our violence detector, our fascism, injustice detector.

0:42:45 Matt: Hard yeah yeah yeah that's

0:43:06 Thomas: And it's kind of peaked out at 3 .9 or whatever the hell it is. And then they can go as high as they want. And the highest we can manage is the 3 .0. We can't do more somehow as a society. We just can't like process it. There's so much room for them to go worse and worse because we're at maximum capacity all the time.

0:43:05 Matt: Right

0:43:22 Thomas: And it's somehow we have to keep this all in our heads. We have to keep active on it. And it's an outrage. These are murders. This is not the society anyone should want to live in.

0:43:32 Matt: Yeah and this

0:43:46 Thomas: Was she concerned? Okay. Well, that's something.

0:43:47 Matt: Is inevitable if you want to deport a million people a year which is what we were promised on the campaign trail and if they're nowhere near it yet I mean just imagine if they quadruple quintuple the efforts here you're going to see a lot more of this it's going to get worse the response to this of course is susan collins and her milquetoast way she was very concerned I'm sure she voted for all this funding and had no idea this was possible at the time she had some urgent questions and urged Mark Wayne Mullen to cease all non -urgent vehicle stops. Of course, letting ICE determine whether or not they're urgent.

0:44:00 Matt: So they're doing that. They're giving a short pause just to make sure we're doing the right thing, said Tom Homan.

0:44:04 Thomas: That ought to do it. Yeah.

0:44:05 Matt: There's no risk of that happening, I don't think.

0:44:07 Thomas: You were already should have that. You already should have been doing that. So I don't think, I don't trust you to do that. What is the change or the reasonable change? You already were operating in the way you thought was appropriate. So why would this be better?

0:44:24 Matt: I think the odds are about the same as Todd Blanche going home tonight and asking, what did happen to me? Yeah, yeah. That's where we're at with these. And unfortunately, I can guarantee these will not be the last, even with this short pause and vehicle stops, we're going to keep covering them because we have to, and people should know these names and these stories.

0:44:27 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Taking a long, hard look in the mirror.

0:44:40 Thomas: Yeah, just terrible. All right. Well let's take our last break and then Matt can bring us back with a meta footnote.

0:44:47 Matt: That's right. A little fun, at least on the way out.

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0:44:52 Thomas: All right, Matt, footnote to the footnote, yeah,

0:44:54 Matt: All right. Well, I'm going to try not to get too horny on Maine here, but we're talking about footnotes. My footnote fed is coming out full on because first of all, we're talking about James E. Boesberg, who you'll remember that name very well, of course, DC district court. He was right in the middle of the alien enemies in that case at the beginning of this term. Of course, it was ICE and CBP that defined his court orders in sending people to Central America to rot in the sea cot to contempt proceedings. We've talked about all this. He's had a number of other remarkable decisions along the way. Obama comma pointy. Fun fact is his initials are Jeb, James E. Boesberg, and that is his nickname, Jeb. It's pretty solid.

0:45:29 Matt: I like everything I've seen about James Boesburg, except this one really unfortunate fact, which is that he hates legal footnotes. And this came out in the news most recently. And then I started looking back at his history and yeah, bad news about his hatred of footnotES. Now I know that you might share this opinion and that's okay. Maybe other listeners share this idea as well. I happen to love a footnote, a good footnote like a solid footnote that does something, that can do something in the margins that you can't do in the text. I think we all know that by now. I don't know if he had anything to do with this, but each federal court has its own kind of local rules on top of the regular federal rules of filings. You have to kind of get to know your quirky local rules. And in DC, the district court has a local rule that all footnotes have to be in 12-point font, which I think is obscene. They should be in 10 -point. They can't be quote -unquote excessive, which is of course up to the judge to determine. It turns out James Boesberger and I have very different ideas

0:46:19 Matt: Of what excessive footnotES are, but he's been on a rampage.

0:46:19 Thomas: Matt a footnote shouldn't have its own page, it's a foot page,

0:46:25 Matt: Disagree. Strong disagree. I actually, I have been guilty more than once of filling my page with footnotes and having three or four lines of text. It does happen sometimes. Sometimes it's a good reason for it, especially if you have to really quote something that you just don't want to put in the text.

0:46:39 Thomas: Yeah but then just put it in the text though because if you're taking the main page real estate,

0:46:41 Matt: No, it's not that important. His objection appears to be the best I can tell that you are trying to get around page limits, which yes, obviously we are. But I'll cop to that. But it's also just rhetorically, there are things you can do in the footnotes. As I said that you're not going to deal with the rest of the brief. He has been so strict about the successive footnote thing. I was able to find, at least without even trying, I was able to find a half dozen examples of Boesberg striking briefs and motions, just striking them from the record and making the parties refile.

0:47:09 Matt: Ah, yeah. Basically saying you've got until tonight or tomorrow to refile with no more than five footnotes or 10 footnotes. He'll just give some completely arbitrary fascist number.

0:47:08 Thomas: The whole thing,

0:47:17 Matt: Rampage, just a rampage of strikes on these things. Stricken briefs in motions.

0:47:16 Thomas: Wow, it is like footloose but for footnotes or something, a footnote loose. Yeah.

0:47:24 Matt: Not in this town. That's right. That's a footnote like that. He's an equal opportunity enforcer. He does this to the the government quite a lot, not just the big law people are in front of him, not just, you know, anybody else. He really has stricken quite a few government briefs. I could find it going back to 2017, and there have been multiple news stories about Bosberg doing this. Like, this is pretty well known at this point. I just missed it before.

0:47:42 Thomas: A footnote news story that you missed. I don't believe you.

0:47:45 Matt: I know, I know. Footnotes in the news. I should have a Google News alert for footnotes. I can just get that going. His crusade, it looks like it kicked off in 2017. It involved something called the Comptroller of the Currency, which I didn't even know was a government position, but apparently it is. Really boring banking case from what I could tell, but he decided that, you Know, 300 lines of text over 48 footnotES was too many. I I thought that looked nice. I took a look at it and nothing really jumped out. There was no like full page, but there were like half pages of footnotes. I'll give that. Some of them might've been a little much. There was one as a meta filing in 2022, 20 page filing, 19 footnotES. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. But he told them no more than five. This guy has a master's degree in European history. You'd think you'd be comfortable with a footnote.

0:48:25 Matt: I mean, come on. And a JD from Yale. It's an academic institution. I don't know. He has every right. He's a judge. He's the one who has to read this stuff. So if he doesn't want to have to read a lot of footNotes, and if he thinks that you're limits. I guess he has a right to do that. But I think that you're denying yourself and you're denying the system the opportunity to have a better brief by not allowing that many footnotes.

0:48:45 Thomas: Wow, I mean, this sounds like maybe moderation. It's a moderating force in the footnote battle. So he's not banning footnotes per se, right?

0:48:54 Matt: No, no.

0:48:54 Thomas: He's just saying maybe ease up a little bit.

0:48:57 Matt: He's just being like, yeah, it's not my kink. I understand it's your kink, but let's just keep the public kink down a little bit. We're not kink shaming. We're just moderating.

0:49:05 Thomas: It would never work between you two.

0:49:08 Matt: That's true. I think a Reddit user is Zobort for this one. I did not catch this story otherwise. I've been trying to follow so many other terrible things happening in the news that I almost missed the the meta footnote. So very much appreciate that one. And we'll keep a watch on Judge Boasberg's crusade. Again, fully support him. I hope he stays in office as long as he wants to be in office. He's doing a great job, but nobody's perfect.

0:49:29 Thomas: He's doing a great job footnote, but he has some flaws. Oh boy. Well, man, hold your footnotes close.

0:49:30 Matt: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That would be a long footnote, yeah, yeah.

0:49:37 Thomas: You know, just know it's one of the, it's one of those scary stories that just makes you hug your own footnotes that much closer. Yeah. All right. Well on that delightful note, I'm glad that you're not coming on too hard. Is this just like a gentle

0:49:45 Matt: You see them stricken and chopped? Yeah, no, it's violence, footnote violence.

0:49:58 Thomas: Nudge? Like, hey, it's an appeal. Please just don't go too far with the footnote hate.

0:50:02 Matt: Yeah I mean, if this were Reed O'Connor or somebody, I'd be going hard, but you know, I can't do too much friendly fire here.

0:50:07 Thomas: Thanks so much for the breakdown, Matt. And hey, thanks for listening, everybody. This is a really important show. We got to keep the victims of ICE in our minds and hearts and in our actions and stuff. So, you know, what would go a long way is winning control in the midterms. It's hard, but we got to find a way, you know, if we had control, if enough people could, you know work against the very rigged system, I get it, it is possible it is doable by voting. It's not the only thing we should do, but it is a necessary thing. It is coming up sooner than we think, right?

0:50:40 Matt: Yeah. And Todd Blanche is not going to impeach himself. So we've got to get that house.

0:50:43 Thomas: Thanks so much for listening and we will see you next time Invest in a rake, Canada

0:51:26 Matt: We're going to kickstart the racism factory, get it back to work. He went golfing with Trump and liked it.

0:51:33 Clip: Away somebody had to sign that document