GG85: Return of the Mecklenburg

Transcript

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

0:00:27 Thomas: Gavelinos, I'm Thomas, that over there's Lydia, how you doing?, or should I call you Cheryl?, the

0:00:30 Lydia: Oh, I'm good, because I'm so excited, I have to, like, do my little acting, yeah, my little acting warm -ups for a second, zip -zap -zop, you know, it's

0:00:41 Thomas: Greatest character ever written by anyone, returns, and also returning is Matt, how are you doing, Matt?, yeah.,

0:00:48 Matt: Core, that's what we're doing here We have bravo performance, uh, by

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah., I for sure would have shouted encore if I were, god, this is the best, I am so excited about this.,

0:00:57 Matt: Popular demand, we are returning to the Broadview Six, and we have some updates, uh, and we're going to have to return to the well of one of our favorite Gavel Gavel moments of all time, no reason not to, to reread it, but we're also mostly going to focus on what has happened in the last couple of days, really, but, uh, there has been a lot going on in the Broadview since we last talked about it this summer. So, uh, yeah, no, exciting stuff. It really enough. Yes.

0:01:07 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I pulled a Matt, it's Sherry, sorry, I said Cheryl. I, I, that makes more, I. It's, Sheri Mecklenburg, uh, didn't correct me, so you're not in character enough, that was a test. You need to be so in character you're like how dare you and my home address is, yeah, uh, no, this was for people who I don't, for some reason, are not as into the fandom, uh, you know, of, of this whole case. This was the amazing character that, again, it was too good, it's too good to be, that's the thing, it's too good for reality, but it's also too good to have been written. It was sent to us by God, the character of Sheri Mecklenburg. I, I honestly I don't remember all of the details, I'm excited to get back into it, but it was after I was just marveling at how many, like, you know, we, we do a little bit, and you know, you do a little bad acting here and there, and you read stuff, and there's better and worse scripts. You

0:01:29 Lydia: True, she would have, she she would have like jumped right in. Yeah.

0:01:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah

0:01:51 Matt: Yep. Yeah.

0:02:07 Thomas: Know, there's there's stuff we're like, oh my god, this sucks, oh boy, and then the really good stuff, you're like, I don't know how people are that good of writers, it's really impressive to me, but when they can, like, communicate, like, all this subtext and then have, like, you know, like, multiple motives that people are going with, and it's just like, it's so impressive, and this was just perfect. It was so well written, my, my compliments to the chef, whoever did it, and we're gonna get more because she, uh, as we referenced here, she all over the news, apparently, big news that she's just kind of resigning in a big filing that she, she's doing? Has this ever happened?

0:02:07 Lydia: Yeah.

0:02:38 Matt: Yeah.

0:02:37 Lydia: The title of her letter though is re my forced retirement. So she's not happy about this. And she's letting everybody know. Oh

0:02:42 Thomas: Oh, it

0:02:45 Matt: Yeah. She's trying to buddy up with the defense here, and the defense is happy to have her because obviously, you know, this is really good for them, uh, and we're in contempt proceedings now.

0:02:53 Lydia: My gosh Amazing.

0:02:54 Matt: And So I'm going to kind of take you through a little bit about how the defense has treated her and what the real question, at, I think, the center of this episode, we're not just gratuitously rereading our favorite transcript part, because that actually, the, the juror that, that was

0:02:55 Lydia: Oh.

0:03:08 Thomas: Would be fine if we were, Matt. I'm just, just going to say, yeah.

0:03:09 Matt: True. That would be We love gratuitous rereadings, but, uh, is actually directly relevant, because a lot of the promotion has to do with that moment, uh, with that juror who

0:03:18 Thomas: The one where she like said, like, you can go, but not, it was like the unclear. Oh yes, that's right. It's coming back to me now.

0:03:21 Matt: Exactly. Like what happened in that moment right, because there's some open questions about what that was about and her authority.

0:03:26 Thomas: You can, you Canleaf if you're so dedicated

0:03:28 Matt: That's right, right, excuse yourself that's right. So the only way to actually understand if she's telling us the truth or not is just to reread the part and see what we think, so we'll do that, but the real thing here is, should we be welcoming Sherry Mecklenburg to the resistance? That's the question for today's show. No.

0:03:29 Thomas: To not doing fascism.

0:03:39 Thomas: Darn. Ah, twist my arm. Absolutely not. But also, I don't know. She was funny enough that I won't be so mad when people inevitably do.

0:03:47 Lydia: God No.

0:03:55 Thomas: You know, that's where, that's where I stand on it all.

0:03:49 Matt: Yeah. Well, because she would like us to, I think, and, uh, she is, is definitely trying to salvage her career. And I understand that. And I also think that she is trying to be a bit of a whistleblower now that she can be, now that contempt proceedings are underway. But the office, you know, so a little of both. It's a little yes, a little no, I think. And we'll debate it at the end. We'll see how we think after we've looked at the evidence. But obviously, I don't think any of us are quick to welcome her to the resistance. We've seen, she was a 20 -year prosecutor, and the stuff that we saw her doing on this record was not great.

0:04:10 Thomas: Right, you know sure No.

0:04:25 Lydia: Yeah.

0:04:26 Matt: Not just in the one part that we liked, but, you, you know, where she's vouching, where she's referring to her colleague as, you know, Professor Skiba or whatever, and talking about how he's the authority on the law when and Yeah.

0:04:32 Thomas: Yeah. Dr.

0:04:33 Lydia: It was egregious.

0:04:36 Matt: And what that's right, and

0:04:36 Lydia: Seer

0:04:36 Thomas: Lord Jesus, tell us. It was so over the top, yeah. She like bowed as he came in

0:04:43 Matt: Just the way that just

0:04:42 Lydia: Of all Exactly. There's an entire ceremony they do every single time he comes in, but

0:04:52 Matt: The way that she's acting like we're all friends here, and you can trust me, and I wouldn't bring a, bring you a bad case, and then of course bringing the case multiple times, like, there's all kinds of things here that are problems, and she wants you to believe that this was all at the direction of Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney, and that might be, we'll see, we'll debate that as well, about how much agency she really had here. Um, yeah, a lot to talk about. Yeah.

0:05:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:11 Thomas: When the Nazis said they were following orders, the disagreement wasn't like, oh, I don't believe they would order that, like, no, I do believe that those are probably the orders, but it's the following them that was really what did it, right? Isn't that, yeah. Wait

0:05:17 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. How you carry them out also matters a lot too. Yeah.

0:05:26 Lydia: Like, compare, if were the case, compare how she reacted under that kind of duress versus, like, how some of these other lower-level attorneys have reacted under their, you know, pressure that they've been experiencing, like with, um, in Minnesota with immigration, all of that stuff, right? And, like, you had the attorneys that were literally just calling things out in the courtroom, being like, I'm sorry, this has just been really ridiculous, I can't do my job appropriately and being asked to do stupid things.

0:05:51 Matt: Yeah. I'm and mass resignations. I mean, Dj's lost so many people, and you look at what happened in New York City just at the very beginning of this term, when Eric Adams, all the way back then, was, was making the corrupt deal with Todd Blanche, and they lost, lost most of the leadership in, like, a whole section of DOJ, and in the premier U.S. Attorney's Office, SDNY, the Ábrego García prosecution, when, when, like, the U.S. attorney resigns instead of prosecuting him, knowing that that was a completely fabricated prosecution, over and over again you can see principled people leaving the DOJ, and I want to really focus on her timing here, because it really matters, like when she decided her limit was up. Because the Broadview Six case, just to remind everybody as we get going here, was bullshit from the beginning. It always was. And they went after people who were names. Every one of the people that was charged here was known to people in Chicago. Abughazaleh, of course, herself was running for Congress.

They tried to come up with some kind of conspiracy they'd come up with in the moment to stop ICE, sort of to push a car, to block a car or kick a car. Who knows what? Right. But it's like the whole thing. No reasonable prosecutor should have brought this case to begin with. I think that's the starting point here.

So we'll kind of take it down from that, but just reminding everybody that this was not a righteous prosecution and that she shouldn't have been doing it, I don't think. That's the place to start. But we'll go through what's been going on in the docket in this case since the last time we talked about it, then kind of these chain of events that led up to her filing this incredible motion, which it's a very unusual motion that she's filing.

She's intervening in the, the proceedings, it's a motion to intervene, she's stepping in after resigning, and then of course her resignation letter itself, we'll take a look at that too

0:05:53 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

0:06:26 Thomas: The Hell

0:07:21 Matt: So lots to talk about. Yeah. Go

0:07:22 Thomas: Okay yeah you have to explain this to me. So I thought that this will be a reference none of you get, but I thought it was like the Kobe, Kobe Bryant, Dear Basketball letter. Like, I thought that, I think that's what it was called.

0:07:30 Matt: Basketball he wrote a letter to basketball he

0:07:34 Thomas: Yeah. When he retired, let me check to make sure this is right. Kobe, dear basket. Yeah.

0:07:39 Matt: Wasn't, he's breaking up with basketball

0:07:41 Thomas: Dear basketball is it might've been his retirement announcement. I don't know. I'm not like super into basketball, but it's just a famous thing where he wrote like a whole, like, I know if it's a poem, but It's like, it's halfway between a poem and a letter. I thought that was like her version of dear fascism prosecutions. I sadly am.

0:07:57 Lydia: Yeah.

0:07:58 Matt: Yeah. Pretty much. You're, yeah.

0:08:01 Thomas: The game's passed me by. I haven't just been able, you know, I've been a step slow on the fascism lately. Haven't been able to keep up.

0:08:01 Matt: I I uh

0:08:08 Lydia: Of make way for the new talent. Yeah, yeah.

0:08:10 Thomas: God, the up and coming fascist, you know you're going to be okay. You're going be okay, there's the young talent coming up through here. The game of fascism will be fine, you but I'll no longer be a part of it. All right. Well, I'm excited to get to all of that and all of that. I was gonna say more, but I don't think we're gonna be able to fit anymore.

0:08:24 Lydia: Uh

0:08:27 Matt: There's plenty, there's plenty here.

0:08:28 Thomas: We'll get to all of that right after this break. Hey, support the show, patreon.com/gavelpod. I'm, let's take a break and get to the best written character in the history of cinema. Okay. Let's dig into it. Yeah.

0:08:28 Matt: Yes.

0:08:45 Matt: So let's go return to, now, Chicago, uh, are moving past the summer when we were, when we saw this dismissal, and and we covered it, and we're getting into contempt proceedings, the good stuff, because you remember, of course, that Judge April Perry at the end of this case. Now, this case was ultimately dismissed at the request of the U.S. attorney Andrew Boutros because he had no choice. It became extremely apparent that not only was there misconduct, but then they had had redacted the transcripts in ways that infuriated the judge, rightfully. They tried to cover it up. And yeah, exactly.

0:09:13 Lydia: Disappointed Mom situation coming from April Perry that was also great. Yeah, yeah.

0:09:17 Matt: Right. To be fair, up front, I will say Mecklenburg had already, it was not part of the team at that point. She had nothing to do with the redactions. So she's, we're only talking about what she did on the record, which is bad enough. So Judge Perry, at the end of this hearing, said in no uncertain terms that I fully expect we'll be be having contempt proceedings, or that you'll want to file some motions. So I'm going to go ahead and let you file some motions. Whatever it is you'd like to bring in front of me, I'm ready to hear them.

0:09:36 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:09:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:39 Matt: And so I'll take a look at one of those motions, the most important one here. I've sent you here. The defendant's motion to designate a special counsel to investigate and, if warranted by the facts, underlined, prosecute responsible persons for criminal contempt. Pretty good. Pretty good. So this is June 16th, 2026. This was filed. This is how, how we're going to be laying into this now. Notice Mecklenburg's treatment in here. I wanted to read a little bit of this because it's very interesting, the way the defense is framing this. They were very much on her side in this, and I think this is very strategic. Um, trying

0:10:09 Thomas: Well, you're trying, to yeah, it's like you're trying to get a, uh, know what the word is, a rat, a double agent. Yeah.

0:10:15 Matt: To flip her. Yep.

0:10:16 Thomas: All

0:10:16 Matt: Because, you know, she's, she wants to get out anyway, so, um, don't know if she'd been in touch with them, I doubt it, but, uh, let's just, let's read the first couple pages of this motion because it is relevant, and then I'll get you the Mecklenburg part.

0:10:25 Lydia: To Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42, defendants Michael Rabbit, Catherine Marie Abughazaleh, Andre Martin, Brian Straw, and Catherine Sharp, defendants by and through undersigned counsel, respectfully request this court appoint special counsel to investigate the misconduct of certain individuals from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois and, if the evidence supports it, prosecute such individuals for criminal contempt. Those who should be investigated for their conduct during the grand jury proceedings and the ensuing cover-up before this court begin with the line assistant United States attorneys assigned to prosecute this case, and further includes unidentified supervisory and advisory employees of the United States Attorney's Office and the front office, which includes Andrew Boutros, the United States attorney, as well as his supervisors in Washington, D.C. Indeed, these steps must be taken in large part because of what appears to be a determined effort to blame a single prosecutor when the misconduct now known, particularly in this case, runs much deeper and indeed to the highest levels of the Chicago U.S. Attorney's office and likely to the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

0:11:25 Matt: See the strategy here, she is of course the single prosecutor we're talking about. Check out the footnote.

0:11:29 Lydia: Additionally, much of the misconduct at issue took place after one of the initially assigned AUSAs left the U.S. Attorney's Office for special detail in Washington D.C., thus the attempt to assign all blame to her is misplaced and inconsistent with the timeline of even more egregious misconduct that took place after her departure.

0:11:47 Matt: So she went on to a special detail with the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that was pretty bad timing.

0:11:51 Lydia: Hmm.

0:11:52 Thomas: Sherry Did, yeah.

0:11:54 Matt: Sheri Mecklenburg, yep. And so Dick Durbin actually fired her after this all came out in May, so she didn't have that job for very long. But that was her special detail. So that is important for the timing of everything that reading, and I think that's an important footnote. Still, you know, we know that there's plenty more to talk about with her. But just to remind everybody, they have a pretty good summary if you go into the introduction. If you keep going and then enter the introduction, we'll remember what happened.

0:11:58 Lydia: Oh.

0:12:15 Lydia: To not appoint a special prosecutor here would enable the government's strategy to lay all that has happened on a single scapegoat, a convenient outcome for those who are eager to turn the page. The court has the authority, and we think the obligation, to ensure that those responsible for this unique and sorry chapter, a chapter which has dramatically impacted the lives of multiple defendants and enduringly sullied the reputation of the U.S. Attorney's Office earned over decades, are held to account.

Support of this motion, defendants state as follows. The government's gross misconduct before the grand jury shocks the conscience, and its extraordinary efforts to conceal such misconduct are even worse. Unredacted transcripts from the three grand jury proceedings it took to finally cajole a true bill reveal astonishing wrongdoing in each, including inappropriate vouching, ex parte communications with grand jurors, and the targeted and public, before the other grand juror's, dismissal of grand jurers who voiced objections to the proposed charges. Even with all of this misconduct, the U.S. Attorney himself decided to intervene personally and make an appearance before the grand jury on the morning of the third presentment of this troubled proposed indictment. Even more troubling, the U.S. Attorney's Office then engaged in more than six months of concerted efforts to hide the misconduct from this court and defendants. Despite multiple requests beginning in December 2025, the government steadfastly refused to provide defendants with transcripts of the proceedings, all the while vehemently and falsely denying any irregularities in the grand jury process.

When faced with an order to submit the transcripts to the court, the governor willfully hid the misconduct from the court by submitting redacted and incomplete transcripts. When again directed by the court to produce unredacted transcripts, the government continued its orchestrated and ongoing effort to hide the scope and breadth of the misconduct by dismissing the indictment and arguing the dismissal mooted the need to review the transcripts. Staying silent about the serious, serial misconduct it always knew lay beneath the redactions.

Throughout this time, including even in the hearing in which the court finally asked the government to submit unredacted transcripts despite the dropped felony, the government knowingly misled this court by failing to correct its misunderstanding that the redactions were few and immaterial, likely the product of an IT or technological glitch. A misunderstanding stated on the record and in front of the very same prosecutors who had both engaged in and covered up the misconduct.

0:14:34 Matt: That's a great summary of the misconduct in question. Now they're going to go on to say that they believe that Boutros, the U.S. attorney, knew a lot more than he's saying that he knew, and there's a really good reason to believe that that we'll get into. Let's just see how they address Mecklenburg in this motion. If we go down to page five of the, that's right, pretty much.

0:14:49 Thomas: Mecklenburg is a gentlewoman and a scholar. Yeah.

0:14:53 Lydia: Professor Mecklenburg.

0:14:58 Matt: So the other paragraph there, equally troubling, page five.

0:14:59 Thomas: That

0:14:59 Lydia: Equally Troubling to his personal appearance and plea to the grand jury is Mr. Boutros's continuing and unqualified support for the prosecutors in this case, except for the chosen scapegoat, Ms. Mecklenburg, without any inquiry or investigation into the misconduct. Indeed, on the very day this court addressed the broad misconduct revealed by the unredacted transcript and Mr. Butros was forced to personally dismiss all charges with prejudice, Mr. Mr. Boutros voiced his unqualified support of the prosecution team involved, stating, quote, "It is my very sincere belief, Your Honor, that no prosecutor acted intentionally in misleading you and that there was no desire to mislead the court and no deliberate misconduct on the part of the prosecutors. Not being enough to confirm he remained in league with the wrongdoers, except Ms. Mecklenburg, of course, in an office wide email sent later that day, Mr. Boutros again publicly heaped praise on the prosecutors, describing them as, quote, courageous and, quote. Having fought for the rule of law.

0:15:57 Matt: So they're really standing up for her, except Ms. Meckelenburg, of course, in parentheses. They really want you to know. And

0:16:03 Lydia: Boutro's truly just learned of the redactions made by his underlings to cover up the grave prosecutorial misconduct revealed by the transcripts, one would think he would be outraged or at least inquisitive. Instead, he went out of his way to commend the very prosecutors who engaged in misconduct before this court and shirked his responsibility to refer such individuals to the office of professional responsibility. His unqualified support without any such referral to an investigation begs the question of the extent of Mr. Boutros' knowledge of or involvement in the underlying misconduct and or subsequent cover -up, to include vindictive or political motives behind that conduct originating in Washington, D .C. Notwithstanding the government's efforts to lay everything at the foot of a single convenient scapegoat, what occurred over the course of this deeply flawed prosecution clearly goes well beyond the mistake of any single assistant United States attorney.

The calculated and sprawling nature of this misconduct, which occurred both outside and before the court, cast serious doubt on the government's representations regarding a lack of outside influence from administration officials in Washington, D .C. in bringing these charges, another topic that defendants have asked the government to disclose since December 2025, only to be roadblocked by the exact same blanket denials they received to their request for grand jury transcripts. This

0:17:16 Thomas: A lot of big words, man. What did all that mean? Hmm.

0:17:18 Matt: So they're really swinging here. They're their big swing that this is definitely something that Boutros knew about, that he was trying to blame Mecklenburg for everything, and that he was, and there is reason to believe, that he was well aware of these transcripts, that he knew exactly what was in them, and that he was allowing his prosecutors to do this and possibly encouraging it. It's kind of strange, because they are taking this position that Meckelenburg is basically not responsible for this, but at the same time, they're saying some things in here, a little further down, if you go to, for example, page 14, they're making it very clear that they don't think she was always acting appropriately during

0:17:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:52 Lydia: The third grand jury session, which occurred just a few hours after Mr. Boutros' appearance, AUSA Mecklenburg acknowledged engaging in inappropriate ex parte contact with one or more grand jurors, notably including that she had accepted apologies from the grand juror's whom she had improperly expelled from the room the week prior, rather than the apologies going from her to them.

0:18:11 Thomas: That's right. Enforced.

0:18:13 Lydia: This underscores The fact that Mr. Butros' statement to the grand jury's earlier that day was understood as a reprimand that they, they were acting improperly by not returning the indictment sought in this case. Only after this third attempt and after U.S. Attorney Boudreaux's deliberative comments quoted above, the grand jury returned an indictment requested by the prosecutors.

0:18:14 Matt: So, yeah.

0:18:31 Matt: So there's that. And then they also mentioned that Mecklenburg initially didn't think there was any kind of misconduct in her own proceedings, which is a little suspect. And they mentioned the October 16th thing that, of course, we'll be talking about with the excusing the grand juror. And they named Mecklemburg and Skiba, but they don' t really mention that she's the one that basically told them to leave. So they're playing a game here. They're definitely setting up their strategy that they want to have her more or less on their side. So this is continuing.

0:18:55 Lydia: But I think that it's also smart, though, because they're not absolving her of the misconduct that she obviously engaged in, right? Like, it all feels very, like, living in reality, right, that I'm reading from this motion.

0:18:58 Matt: Right. Right, exactly. Right? Yep, that's right. I know that's it's pretty smart. This is good stuff. And she is not also not going to absolve herself completely, which is also credible. So let's skip ahead now to this week, when, know, as these proceedings are continuing, she wants to defend find herself and she wants to get involved. And she believes that she has a defense, just to set this up, under section 4.4 of the DOJ's grand jury manual. And we'll talk about what's in there. But is what's going to lead to her forced retirement. So let's pull up this letter we'll just read this. This is to Andrew Boutros, the U .S. attorney, dated September 24th, 2026.

0:19:11 Lydia: Yeah Mr. Boutros, pursuant to this letter, I retire under protest from DOJ effective immediately. To avoid any misunderstanding or misstatements about the reasons for my forced retirement, I set them forth in this letter.

0:19:51 Matt: You know, Mr. Boutro seems a little passive of aggressive, doesn't it? It should be. It shouldn't be. U.S. Attorney Boutros. Not just mister.

0:19:56 Thomas: Wait

0:19:55 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. That's funny, uh You learned on September 22nd, 2026, I intended to seek leave to intervene in the Broadview Six case to defend myself against the continuing allegations of, quote, pervasive misconduct in the defense lawyer's reply brief and against the false and inflammatory accusations in that brief. Those

0:19:58 Matt: Yeah.

0:20:14 Matt: Now this is something we're not reading, but you'll get the relevant part right here.

0:20:16 Lydia: False accusations Accusations include that, one, I, quote, sat silently by while the court addressed transcript redactions when I was unaware of both the redactions and the hearings, and two, I quote, outright lied to the grand jury, which I did not. Learned of my intended motion when I sought permission to alert Judge Perry to section 4.4 of the DOJ's grand jury manual. That provision of the manual directs prosecutors to ask whether any potentially biased grand juror can set aside any any bias and decide the matter fairly and objectively, and if not, to advise that the juror should self-excuse. The provision strongly supports my handling of the situation at issue in the Broadview case on October 16, 2025. The government's submission omitted any reference to this relevant and critical provision.

0:21:01 Matt: To be really important about this interpretation. We'll talk about the language in this grand jury manual, but she's going to say that it completely excuses and defends what she did with this grand juror. It does not. And this is interesting, the contrast between the letter and then what you'll see in her motion, because she's taking, this this is her PR, right? She's, she's, this is the thing she's intending to publish. Obviously she knows the motion is also going to be public, but she knows this is a thing that people are going to read. So she's giving the most PR-friendly version of what the manual says and why it would be okay for her to have done this. So, she asked DOJ if she could bring this to Judge Perry's attention and she's going to explain what happened after that.

0:21:09 Thomas: Wait,

0:21:21 Lydia: Required me to sign a confidentiality agreement covering the manual and other materials, I requested authorization to cite it in the motion should intervene. The

0:21:42 Thomas: What is that normal? You

0:21:44 Matt: Know, I couldn't find the latest version of the grand jury manual. I found one from 1983, so maybe it is normal.

0:21:48 Thomas: Have to you have to be signed confidentiality about a manual, a government manual?

0:21:50 Matt: Yeah. How they proceed in the grand jury, because grand jury things are secret. Maybe we don't want to know exactly how they're supposed to proceed, yeah, it just seems strange. I know It's a good point, yeah.

0:21:55 Thomas: No, but what about a man Okay.

0:22:02 Lydia: Senior U.S. attorney's office official coordinating my access to the materials initially advised my attorney that he did not believe there would be any problem with my citing to that provision of the manual. A short time later, however, that same official informed my counsel that he had consulted with the front office who advised that, as a current DOJ employee, I am prohibited from filing anything to defend myself and will be disciplined and or terminated if I do so.

I therefore am retiring under protest effective immediately because Because retirement is the only way to preserve my continued health care benefits earned over decades of service. This is not a voluntary departure. If you carry through on your threat to terminate me, I will lose those benefits. If I do not retire now, I cannot defend myself. You have forced me to choose between remaining silent while my professional reputation is destroyed and prematurely surrendering my cherished career. I choose the latter.

Preventing me from defending myself is particularly reprehensible given the office's failure to adequately defend me. The office's tardy acknowledgment in its response brief that I did nothing to warrant sanctions was incomplete and does not erase the incredible damage caused by your prior statements. Omitting the key grand jury manual provision, the the fact that I repeatedly sought guidance from, kept informed, and followed the directions of the front office, including you, at every consequential stage.

It is telling that neither you nor anyone preparing the office's response consulted with me or my attorneys about the relevant facts and defenses before filing it. Office did not fully present the facts supporting my conduct. It now seeks to prevent me from presenting those facts myself.

0:23:34 Matt: So I will just point out, I just triple checked this, so I want to make sure I got this right. Uh, so the grand jury manual is considered to be a training thing, it's training, internal, right? So it's considered basically a playbook, and they, they have taken the position, and I just confirmed that this is something they're allowed to do, uh, this is FOIA exempt because it's attorney work product. That's the way they do it. That's why this is so, she's going to cite the exact quotation, you'll see it in her brief, but apparently that's not something that's publicly available to us.

0:23:50 Thomas: Wow.

0:23:58 Lydia: Interesting.

0:23:58 Thomas: Seems really weird.

0:23:59 Matt: Yeah, news to me too, like

0:24:00 Thomas: Is that a new thing or is that how it's always been? I

0:24:03 Matt: I said I found the grand jury manual from 1983, so at some point they thought we could read it. It's very different back then. It was typewritten. Yeah.

0:24:07 Thomas: Guess, but so not, I just, it's

0:24:09 Matt: It isn't now.

0:24:10 Thomas: Not like a Trump thing then. It's like been this way.

0:24:10 Matt: No. Yeah, I think it's been that way for a while.

0:24:13 Thomas: Okay. All

0:24:13 Matt: It looks like I can find at least going back to 2016 this has been this way, so

0:24:14 Thomas: Right. Okay, yeah, guess I could, like if there's some sort of mob thing where they need to keep stuff under, I mean, I guess it's like, I'm not sure. I don' t know. Why would this matter? I don', I don''t get it. Weird.

0:24:17 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, just playing, I mean, it's like any other playbook, you know, you don't want the other side to know how you do things and what your strategies are and, uh, you know, what you're allowed to do or not do, I guess, right?

0:24:32 Thomas: Huh, okay.

0:24:33 Lydia: This to keep me and my attorneys in the dark was consistent more

0:24:35 Thomas: Wait, Matt, you're not, the other side's not allowed in the grand jury, right? So so other side, I

0:24:40 Matt: But just generally speaking, like, they think they just want. And that's all the more reason to not have it be public, right? I mean, this is a private proceeding, then we get to proceed as long as we're following the law, more or less, right? I don't know, I mean it's just, I'm

0:24:53 Thomas: I I don't know why you're taking this on. Like, this makes sense? Why, why does this happen, do you think this makes sense, or are you just arguing for them for some reason? Yeah.

0:24:53 Lydia: Or less

0:24:59 Matt: Just telling you what their is, I think it does make some sense, I means it's never been litigated as far as I can tell, I was looking into that before, essentially a practice manual, it but, to grand juries.

0:25:08 Lydia: Yeah. Man.

0:25:08 Thomas: But there's no, no other side to this transaction, right? Like, are the judges gonna read it and be like, ah, this is what they're doing when they go in there to me, oh

0:25:18 Matt: There are still things you could learn, though, if you know exactly what DOJ can and can't do or how they proceed in grand juries. There are Still things you can learn as a defense attorney, even if you're as a criminal. Yeah.

0:25:25 Thomas: As a criminal to like not

0:25:27 Lydia: But something just feels really off about that, that, like, you can't even see, like, a training manual. I, like, why can't that be known as

0:25:34 Matt: I think most things should be subject to FOIA. So, I mean, I certainly agree overall, but I don't know. I don' t know what's in there. So, that might

0:25:36 Lydia: I know, yeah. Fishy. Fishy. Um,

0:25:39 Thomas: All right huh

0:25:48 Lydia: Decision to keep me and my attorneys in the dark was consistent with your handling of this matter from the outset. No one consulted me about any transcript redactions. I had nothing to hide and in fact demonstrated quite the opposite in memorializing brief and incidental interactions with two grand and jurors. You declined to notify me about the May 21st, 2026 court hearing, which I had the indignity of learning about after the fact from the media.

0:26:10 Lydia: Would have expected the leadership of the office to ensure that a career prosecutor whose conduct and reputation were about to be publicly condemned received notice and an opportunity to be heard. Had I been afforded that basic fairness at the outset, I believe matters would not have reached this point.

0:26:09 Thomas: Wait,

0:26:24 Matt: 21, 2026 was the date of the dismissal, we read from that transcript, Boutros showed up, tried to defend himself pretty badly, didn't work out, but she didn't know about this entire date apparently, and again she was on assignment in DC at that point, and she was fired the next day after this on on May 22nd. So I can see why she's upset.

0:26:41 Lydia: I was not present. I was a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified. You recklessly agreed in court that I had committed misconduct without even asking for my account, fully reviewing the record or briefing the law. Evening, you sent an office-wide email laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges. Yeah.

0:27:03 Matt: News, I think. I don't think we knew that.

0:27:05 Thomas: She can back that up then, that's, you know that's something

0:27:05 Lydia: Yeah.

0:27:07 Matt: Yeah. And obviously she's right. It never should have been brought as a felony ever. Should have been bought at all, but between

0:27:07 Thomas: Yeah. That's

0:27:38 Lydia: To rebut the false allegations and bring additional matters to the court's attention. You remind me that I am still a DOJ employee when you want to silence me, but you have not treated me as a DOH employee throughout this matter, including when, in May, you placed me on leave and cut off my devices and credentials without any notice.

Your adverse actions from the beginning have forced me to retain personal counsel to defend conduct undertaken as part of my employment, yet you have refused to indemnify me for the substantial resulting expense.

Expense despite the adverse impact on my finances. You cannot buy my silence by dangling continued leave. The threat to terminate me also disregards my civil service protections. For instance, I have never received written notice explaining the basis for placing me, and only me, on leave. I was given no meaningful opportunity to respond before being publicly condemned by you. The full record resoundingly refutes the false accusations that I acted dishonestly, in bad faith, or with any ill, ill will, or animus.

It would be false and profoundly misleading to suggest that I am retiring because of those false accusations or any investigation. I am retiring specifically because you have made retirement the only way for me to defend myself without forfeiting the health care benefits I earned through decades of government service.

0:28:48 Thomas: An interesting distinction. Do you, do you buy that, Matt? Uh, she's not resigning because of the allegations, she's resigning because of not letting her defend herself while still being in the job. Is that

0:29:00 Lydia: They're not doing it either. Yeah.

0:29:00 Thomas: Hmm.

0:29:02 Matt: And And because she doesn't want to be fired to lose her benefits. Yeah, no, I mean, and I think that she has a point here because it also doesn't say if she asked for representation, because they do have the right. I was actually just going to check the regulation about this. There's a federal criminal proceeding, they have the right to ask the government to appoint or to give them an attorney if there's a federal criminal proceeding brought in something that they, so she doesn't mention whether she asked for that or not. Oh, not, but I don't know what she doesn't say. Um, I do think that they probably could have defended it a lot better from what I can tell. I think she may have a point here, and we can read the motion, which has a lot more detail, and we'll get a, we can maybe come back to that question. So

0:29:18 Thomas: Jeez.

0:29:34 Lydia: Repeatedly describe me as a, quote, by the book prosecutor, including in an email dated December 21, 2025. That is what I have always tried to be. I do not contend that every word I used or everything I did before the grand jury was done perfectly, and I remain prepared to address legitimate scrutiny of my actions. But legitimate scrutiny is not the same as scapegoating, and accountability does not require silence in the face of demonstrably false accusations.

Still expect a full and fair opportunity to address the allegations against me and restore my reputation. I also would have expected, at some point during the past four months, that the leaders who directed or approved the prosecution would accept responsibility for their own roles and decisions rather than assigning the consequences to me alone. Been a public servant for more than 27 years, serving almost the last two decades as a federal prosecutor. I have served well and I'm proud of my public service.

Treat this letter as notice of my retirement under protest, effective immediately. Please advise my counsel whom I should contact to arrange for the retrieval of my personal belongings from the office. Sincerely, Sheri H. Mecklenburg.

0:30:33 Matt: There you go. Just for context, of course, on the day that she's submitting this, she has already retained outside counsel and they are about to file this motion for leave for intervene. So she had this locked and loaded. Uh, outside counsel from Ackerman LLP. And so we can pull up that motion now and the The styling of this motion is very unusual. This does happen. I could not find an instance of this particular chain of events because, of course, everything about this chain of event is pretty unusual. This thing where a prosecutor, a prosecutor in which a grand jury case ended up having to be dismissed, is now potentially on the hook for some kind of sanctions or contempt, comes in and tries to intervene. I can tell you about some of the comp cases.

0:31:07 Thomas: To Intervene? What does that mean? What's a normal, like, version of the, just the intervening part, I guess. Yeah.

0:31:09 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very unusual in a criminal case to begin with, that you are filing a motion to intervene. So I'll say that. Usually it's because I actually should be a party here, let me in, because I've got things to say. And that's what she's saying, right? Like, knock, knock.

0:31:21 Lydia: Right. Uh,

0:31:19 Thomas: I'm Spartacus! It's the, I'm Sparticus motion. Oh.

0:31:26 Lydia: Those

0:31:25 Matt: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. The really unusual thing about this is that she's trying to intervene front of the hearing, like before there's going to be a hearing on contempt. The closest thing I could find was US v. Shagan from the 11th Circuit, and I was looking for anything involving AUSA is accused of misconduct. And so they appeared in the 11th Circuit on appeal when this had already been through the system, right? We already had the hearing.

And they're saying it denied them of any chance to, any of the charge of misconduct and opportunity to be heard. So they're seeing we should have been heard earlier. She's coming and saying I should be heard now. She's saying that it's, let's read what she's seeing.

I think it'll make make more sense. I can explain a little better. So this is her motion and she's responding to, uh, there's going to be reference to ECF document 226 and 227, which are the two motions, um, of them looking for evidentiary hearing about sanctions, the other one about the one we just read with special counsel and trying to prosecute people from for contempt. Um, let's start sort of page two. It

0:32:17 Lydia: Motions placed Miss Mecklenburg's professional conduct and integrity squarely before the court. Miss Mechlenburg recognizes that there are issues arising out of her grand jury presentations and she does not seek through this motion to minimize those issues, but former defendants go much further. Their filings attribute to her conduct that occurred months after she withdrew from the case, describe her jury collaquy without addressing written Department of Justice guidelines that directly bear on it, and now falsely accuse her of, quote, outright lying based on video evidence that does not arguably support the accusation and that she herself obtained and produced to the defense. Sorry, the semicolons are like off of the sentence, like the alignment is weird, so it really threw me off while I was reading. Don't know why that is. Chronology alone demonstrates why she should be heard.

As set forth in more detail below, by February 13th of this year, Ms. Mecklenburg had formally withdrawn from the incident case when she left Chicago for a detail in Washington. That point forward, she was no longer assigned to this matter, received no electronic notifications, and was neither notified nor otherwise involved in the later redaction of any grand jury transcripts or hearings the court held after her departure. Fact, Ms. Mecklenburg only learned of the court's May 21, 2026 hearing and the events that transpired that evening when she received a call from a reporter. Order. Based on former defendants' filings and on other events discussed herein, it is clear both that Ms. Mecklenburg has direct and distinct personal interest in the outcome of these motions and of any ensuing proceedings the court authorizes or conducts, and that no other party to this case, including the United States, can fully represent those interests.

While the response of the United States addresses some of the factual and legal issues that implicate those interests, clear, in light of false assertions made about her in former defendant's reply that there are still factual and legal points Ms. Mecklenburg needs to address in her individual capacity.

0:32:56 Matt: Yeah, of

0:33:58 Thomas: Okay, so I'm getting it. So it's like the whole, the government isn't defending her properly, like, if to her, if the government's trying to throw her under, under the bus. This is crazy. Yeah. So she's like retiring so that she can then file this other, like, motion to get involved in the thing, say I'm Spartacus, but here's a better defense that they aren't doing. Yeah.

0:34:18 Matt: Me. Yep. And that they, and I I'm on the hook because I could be held and contempt or have other sanctions or lose my law license, right? So Yeah.

0:34:19 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. This is weird. Okay. Yeah.

0:34:26 Matt: It's very strange.

0:34:25 Lydia: And they're aware that there's a better defense of me and they're not putting it up. Yeah.

0:34:26 Matt: Right.

0:34:29 Thomas: Would that, now if that were true, would that put the government in any more trouble, or is that just like they can do what they want regarding their, their own personnel and how they're going to defend them, unless they're, like even if they're like lying or leaving out stuff, you know, like, could this further implicate them in terms of, like, sanctions and all that kind of thing, or no, if

0:34:32 Matt: Exactly. Yeah. I don't there's really any. It's already, I mean, it's a strategic defense decision how to defend themselves. It's an, it's really interesting question. I can't really think of how that would come back that way, but this is, we're getting to be a really interesting part to me legally, which is her justification for why she gets to do this. And this is, again, as she's going to say up front, this is unprecedented. A

0:35:05 Lydia: Just from intervention in a civil case is expressly allowed and governed by federal rules, blah, blah.

0:35:11 Matt: Civil procedure. That's very important. Civil procedure. So

0:35:11 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Federal Rules Civil Procedure 24. I'll get that citation in there. The criminal rules have no corresponding provision. Nonetheless, the Seventh Circuit has recognized the authority of judges to allow a non-party to intervene in a criminal case when that non-party has its own interests in the outcome of the case or in proceedings being conducted in it, and when asserting those interests requires party status. And then it's citing, uh, what's his face?

0:35:34 Matt: Yeah. Book of Voyage.

0:35:37 Lydia: Yeah, I know, that's why I skipped on saying the name.

0:35:37 Matt: Book of which, sorry, the governor of Illinois. Yeah. It's but this is important because this case, this is the best precedent she has, is the media trying to get jurors' names in the Book of Voyage, Voyage trial, sorry. I'll just, whatever, we all know the name. I know why I've been able to say it in my life before, but that case the judge denied, this is untimely, but he did find that there is possible intervention in a criminal case, and she's going to cite it elsewhere, but I have it here. When the potential intervener has a legitimate interest in the outcome and cannot protect that interest without becoming a party.

And they found that the media qualified in this case, that they have an interest in the outcome of trying to cover this and say it was going out of the trial. They're acknowledging that. But if we go down to, and so the rest of this is legal argument. We can skip a couple of pages here. There's the test about whether you should have intervention as a right. But again, this is as to civil rule 24. So she's trying to map on some sort of equivalent right under criminal rules. Um, now we go down to, uh, page five and we get to her description of her intervention. So

0:35:51 Lydia: In this case, as to the two motions identified above, which raise the only issues on which she seeks to intervene, Ms. Mecklenburg will, if either or both are granted, qualify for both intervention as of right and permissive intervention.

0:36:48 Matt: This is interesting too. She's saying this is almost like a, like a, an advisory conditional thing, right? Of, like, if you go this far, if you grant the motions, it might have waited made it, and the court may well find it might had made more sense.

0:36:58 Thomas: You grant my motions three, then I that

0:37:00 Matt: That's right. Then, uh, then intervene will me. I don't know, but that's best I got, best I get, got.

0:37:08 Thomas: Was Good, Matt.

0:37:08 Lydia: It's good.

0:37:09 Thomas: Damn.

0:37:09 Lydia: That was good.

0:37:09 Thomas: On a Friday after a hard week of deportations and fascism, Matt just nails it there.

0:37:16 Lydia: .com slash gavel pod.

0:37:17 Thomas: You go.

0:37:18 Lydia: That's what you get.

0:37:17 Matt: It's Terrible grammar, but that worked. Uh,

0:37:20 Lydia: No, it's perfect for how it always is. Yeah.

0:37:20 Thomas: That's that's how it always is. Finally.

0:37:20 Matt: Yeah. That's True. That's true. That straight. Yeah. But this is interesting because it's not only our issue saying that I'm basically trying to stick myself into these proceedings where I don't belong, but I'm only going to do it if you grant the motion like I'm asking you to do along with. So it does actually kind of, it temper is like how you see the entire motion about, like, if this person is going to be involved. Seems very early. And I could see the court dismissing this for earliness and saying, come back when we actually make a decision in the motion about whether we're going forward. But she's saying, basically, I'm this concerned about my reputation and the consequences. I want to be informed now. So I just want to point that out.

0:37:54 Lydia: Yeah. As to the former, Ms Meckelenburg has applied in a timely fashion. Indeed, able to assess the positions of both the former defendants and the United States on these two motions once they were fully briefed in order to determine whether intervention would be necessary in order to properly assert her interests. If either motion is granted, she will plainly have an interest in subsequent proceedings, as it seems readily apparent that she would be someone against whom former defendents would seek sanctions in the proceeding requested in ECF and the docket number. And because she figures prominently by name in their request to appoint, quote, special counsel to investigate criminal contempt, consideration of an award of sanctions against her or an investigation and possible prosecution of her for criminal contempt both plainly contemplate, quote potential impairment of Ms. And while she agrees with the now expressed institutional positions of the United States that neither sanctions nor criminal contempt inquiry are warranted based on the identified conduct, she still has a direct and personal interest unique to her in proceedings expressly and directly seeking relief against her.

0:38:59 Matt: So, I know this might sound pretty standard, but this is wild. Because what she's says is, I might be a defendant and I might be sanctioned by the court and have professional consequences. And she's going to to get plenty of due process if either or both of those things happen, right? And I think that the court could legitimately say, why don't you wait and see if you become a defendant, because then you don't have to be an intervener. Then you're definitely involved.

0:39:05 Lydia: Yeah. Right. Then you're a party. Yeah, yeah.

0:39:19 Matt: Yeah. But she's trying to intervene before she gets charged, which, again, makes sense because obviously nobody wants to get charged with federal contempt. It just seems very privileged in the same kind of way that we see the privilege that she shows all the way through the transcripts, right? It just seems like I should have a right to do this. I just can't imagine a non-U.S. attorney trying to do this. Maybe some particularly wealthy or famous attorney who might be about to be sanctioned, I don't know. I could see it. It's weird. I

0:39:19 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:41 Lydia: Yeah, that's interesting, like, it's think it's just primarily from this concern of I don't want to be named in that way, like I don't, I don't want to be on the receiving end of this at all.

0:39:50 Matt: Don't want to go through this, right? And I should get to participate from the beginning in all of this instead of being on the receiving end once it is determined

0:39:56 Lydia: But But how would this stop it necessarily? Because if they grant her motion to intervene, like, she could still be named as someone to be investigated. So, like, it might not necessarily prevent that.

0:40:01 Matt: Right, right. And Even if she's not allowed to intervene, she can still be called as a witness by other party, right? And presumably the defense is going to call her after she retires and is ready to talk about this. So it does seem a little strange. I think a lot of this is just to, to get ahead of the story and build the narrative.

0:40:16 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:19 Matt: Right, so we have waited long enough. Let's go down page nine, very bottom of page nine. Yes, so now she's gonna say, the additional legal issues and facts that she would address if permitted to intervene, including the following. So now we get to you the part we wanna talk about. Yeah.

0:40:24 Thomas: Okay.

0:40:33 Lydia: October 16th grand jury session and DOJ grand jury guidance. Respect to the claim that Ms. Mecklenburg improperly, quote, excused grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case, the United States did not point the court to the Department of Justice Office of Legal Education's 2023 federal grand jury practice manual. Manual.

0:40:51 Thomas: So is this the top secret freaking document? That, okay.

0:40:53 Matt: Yes. So this is interesting because, you know, in the letter, she didn't say that she's received authorization to disclose this manual. I think she's actually doing this like she's gone rogue. Even though she's not an employee anymore, she still signed the confidentiality thing. And I don't think she ever got permission. So she's going to.

0:40:54 Thomas: Hmm.

0:41:05 Thomas: Is there any sort of like litigation privilege, anything with that or

0:41:10 Matt: Yeah. Well, no, I don't think so. I think that I mean, maybe because it's something she thinks she can use in her defense, but I think they could still come after her for violating her confidentiality agreement.

0:41:17 Lydia: Yeah. Interesting. Huh?

0:41:17 Thomas: Really?

0:41:19 Matt: I'll see see why not.

0:41:20 Thomas: But it's the government, isn't the thing that They do. Yeah, but isn't it the thing they do is like fire you? Like, what can they do after, like, what would the penalty be after you don't work there anymore? Huh.

0:41:22 Matt: She signed the agreement.

0:41:33 Matt: Oh, there's probably civil penalties for violating confidentiality. I have to check that out. But I mean, there has to be something more than you'll lose your job.

0:41:37 Thomas: Interesting. Okay, yeah.

0:41:41 Lydia: Because like what's to prevent someone from spilling things after?

0:41:44 Thomas: I mean, I get it with, it's like criminal stuff, like you can't share state secrets or something. I just wasn't, yeah, I've never thought about that, like a, like a civil thing for spilling policy something. Yeah.

0:41:44 Lydia: Yeah, a

0:41:54 Matt: Basically an NDA, right? So, you know, consequences.

0:41:57 Thomas: Get all that in the, in not government. I just didn't, yeah, again, when it's not government, it's just like, yeah, a corporation, you can't share their secrets or whatever. It's just, I've never thought about this with respect to the government, especially just like the DOJ.

0:41:59 Matt: Sure.

0:42:08 Lydia: Training manual.

0:42:09 Thomas: Yeah, it's just so weird. I don't know. Yeah.

0:42:12 Lydia: Section 4.4 of the GJM instructs DOJ attorneys, and pertinent part that quote, any jurors who indicate an interest that may interfere with a fair and impartial and just decision concerning indictment should be asked on the record whether they can put aside any personal bias or prejudice and decide the matter fairly and objectively. It further instructs that, quote, any jurors who are unable to do so should excuse themselves from deliberating on the case. If a juror declines to do so and the prosecutor is convinced the juror should be removed, the prosecutor should request that the district court remove the jurors from the case."

0:42:43 Matt: So this is it. This is the heart of our argument is here's the super secret language from the manual you can't read. I'm willing to risk whatever it is I'm risking by violating confidentiality by making sure you this part of the episode, we're going to be looking at, is what she's saying in this manual match up with her conduct? Because first of all, you can see at the end, she's supposed to request the district court remove the juror, not to tell him to leave, right?

0:43:05 Lydia: Right, right.

0:43:05 Thomas: Exactly.

0:43:05 Matt: So that's pretty important.

0:43:06 Thomas: Sort of taking matters into your own hands there. Oh.

0:43:10 Matt: But also, any jurors who indicate an interest that may interfere with a fair and impartial and just decision concerning indictment and about personal bias and prejudice, we are going to go back and read and see now, I think, about how much that might show.

0:43:30 Thomas: Right, well, what a cliffhanger. We, we got to cut off there. We end up, uh, reading a lot more, so, yeah, you just, you, just want your time in the spotlight, you know, such a, ah, primadonnas, you now, stupid, ah man, yeah., but, no, it is really that good, it's so fun, ah Boy, cut our mic off, everybody. No, um, no, I can't wait. We're going to, Matt did such a natural teaser there, there too. We're going to go back. We are going

0:43:34 Lydia: But I wanna know more, Thomas, I do, it's the role of a lifetime, I'm ready for my close -up, Mr. DeMille, You've created a monster, He's a pro,

0:44:05 Thomas: To rewind the tape and find out whether or not she's being straight with us about how she dealt with that juror. Was it just totally above board? Everything cool? Does anyone remember how it went? We remember it a little bit and it didn't go quite like that. So I'm excited to get to that actual reading. Gosh, it's my favorite. I love it so much. Was fun. All right. Well, that'll be the next part. So thanks so much for listening, everybody and as always if you want to get stuff right away be on that patreon patreon .com it's probably already there right now so I'll see you over there patrons everybody else smell you later

0:44:16 Lydia: Copacetic, Do it, it