Yesterday, James Comey, former Director of the FBI, pled not guilty to two charges, making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding, brought by Trump’s DOJ. What happens now?
Former General Counsel to the FBI, Andrew Weissmann, joins Jen to break down the indictment, what Comey’s defense team may be planning, and how this case may be destined to fail. Not only does this seem to be a textbook case of vindictive persecution (which could result in the whole case being thrown out), but the evidence presented thus far is shockingly weak.
Additionally, Weissmann and Jen touch on Pam Bondi’s bizarre performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Not only did Bondi refuse to answer straightforward questions, but she continuously demeaned and attacked the legislators probing her. Congressional oversight is a key component of our democracy’s checks and balances system. As Trump’s appointees refuse to cooperate, we witness the erosion of the system before our eyes.
Andrew Weissmann is a professor of practice at NYU school of law who served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office and as General Counsel for the FBI. Stay connected with Andrew on his Substack here.
The transcript below has been edited slightly for clarity.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We have back with us Andrew Weissman, former General Counsel of the FBI. Andrew, good to see you!
Andrew Weissmann
Nice to see you!
Jen Rubin
So, this week, James Comey was arraigned in federal court. Now, sometimes these things are very uneventful, they just enter a play, and they set some dates, but we found out a bit about their strategy. What did we find out?
Andrew Weissmann
So, you know, I was taken aback by, Jen, when just the statement, this week. James Comey entered a plea of not guilty at an arraignment. Yes. Just that statement alone, you would think, and this is gonna answer your question, you would think, this is so momentous, you are indicting the former general counsel… I’m sorry, the former… sorry…because I’m thinking of myself, so, in sort of my role, the former director of the FBI. And so, you would really have your ducks in a row.
Jen Rubin
Yes. You know.
Andrew Weissmann
You would… you would put your best people on it, you would have really…spent a lot of time thinking about the evidence, and you’d be prepared, and you’d have all the discovery ready to go, and you’d be like, judge, we’re ready to go to trial, you’re in the rocket docket, the government is typically the one that wants to go to trial, defendants are typically the ones who say.
I never want to go to trial. You know, there’s a famous Edward Bennett Williams quip, which is, you know, for a defendant, any adjournment is an acquittal. Meaning, just put any day that you’re not going to trial is a good day. So that’s the norm. This was the reverse. So here, the government… what we learned is the government is just getting their arms around discovery, because the two people on the case, the two prosecutors, are not in the Eastern District of Virginia, the case where… that is where the case is, and normally… not even normally, that is… the prosecutors in that office bring those cases. Well, none of the career people, as the reporting is, would be on the case, and so they had to go to a different U.S. Attorney’s office, which means these people do not know the case at all, which is why the junior person on the case tells the judge, we’re just getting our arms around the discovery in a case against the former director of the FBI. In addition, they did a number of things that made it clear that their game plan is going to be never going to trial, or delaying as long as possible, and that is because they’re sort of delaying the inevitable. If this went to trial, it just seems so preposterous that they would ever, ever either get to a jury, because a judge could dismiss this after the government’s case to say there’s insufficient evidence, or that they’re ever going to find a jury of 12 people who unanimously agree there’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, the government’s strategy is, we’re just getting our arms around discovery. Judge, please declare the case complex under something called the Speedy Trial Act. The government only has certain amounts of time to bring the case to trial, because it’s supposed to preserve the public’s right to a speedy trial. But if the judge declares a case complex, you get more time. So they say, judge, this is a complex case, and the judge, basically, who has been on the bench, either as a district judge or a magistrate for years, as a federal defender, basically is like, I’m not buying, like, what you’re selling. It’s a two-count false statement case. That is not a complex case.
Jen Rubin
They also went through this whole charang that they have all kinds of classified information to discover… no, it’s not! They have, like, two facts and a witness, that’s it.
Andrew Weissmann
And the judge on that was fantastic. The judge says, look, essentially, this is me paraphrasing, I highly doubt that, but he also said, I’ve been a judge for a while. You wanna… you have classified information. I know there’s this process under this statute called CIPA, which is C-I-PA, Classified Information Procedure Act. He goes, this will be the fastest CIPA review and process you have ever seen.
So, he’s basically, you know, I hear you, you want to slow this down on the Speedy Trial Act, you want to slow this down under CIPA. I think what they’re going to do, because the judge isn’t going to have any of that, by all accounts is I think they’re going to really delay discovery, and they’re going to be in this position where the… we know that James Comey has said, I’m going to bring motions, and one of the motions is related to whether the new U.S. Attorney was properly appointed, but the other is an obvious motion for vindictive prosecution. Right. And that they’re gonna say that we either win outright, or we want discovery.
And that’s where the government, you know, and we know this from other cases, such as Abrego Garcia and other, other, immigration cases, that, the marching orders, I think, to the prosecutors are going to be, we are never turning over communications between the White House and, DOJ, because they could be… they could just be horrendous, in terms of what they said to do, and so that’s where I see the government trying to delay this even further, saying, you know what, judge, we’re gonna appeal you, we’re gonna go to the circuit, we’re gonna go to the, to the Supreme Court, and try and get the case delayed past the January 5th date, because you know, this team has to know, they have to really get up to speed, and if you don’t have evidence.
You know, the best strategy… I mean, obviously the best… you shouldn’t be on the case and you shouldn’t have brought it, but it’s avoiding the inevitable.
Jen Rubin
Now, there are a few things that are interesting, more than a few things, but a few things that pop to mind immediately. First of all, you would think that the U.S. Attorney would know the case, but she doesn’t know it either, really. She was brought in, like, 10 minutes before she went to the grand jury. So that’s also beyond peculiar.
And, what is even more bizarre is the most important information about vindictive prosecution is a message that was inadvertently released by the White House that says to… has Trump saying, “indict these guys, go fast.” That’s pretty compelling. I mean, the judge could even rule simply on that and say, I don’t need a bunch of evidence, I’m already dismissing it, I know enough.
Andrew Weissmann
Yeah, look, the judge… let me back up. Vindictive prosecution is a hard area of the law, for the defense to win, and I would say rightly so. And the reason it, in my experience, I’ve never seen it, succeed, is because prosecutors, regardless, by the way, of party, this has nothing to do with that whether it’s a Republican or Democratic administration, you’re bringing a case because it’s righteous, you believe it’s righteous, and you have evidence, and you’re not singling the person out because of any animus towards them, or because they asserted some constitutional or statutory right. You’re doing it because of why you’re at the Department of Justice to begin with, it’s just how you’re built. You know, could you imagine… I mean, I just can’t even imagine under… I mean, I served under Republicans and Democrats. If I had said to Larry Thompson, we’re going to do this case, but it’s because the person’s a Democrat, I mean, he’d be like, you’re fired.
Jen Rubin
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s just not… it’s not possible. We don’t see vindictive prosecutions succeed, because we don’t usually have vindictive prosecutions. Exactly. This is the one White House where this is clearly it.
Andrew Weissmann
Yeah, so the judge could obviously rule based on the current facts, but he… but a lot of judges, you know, this is a tough area of the law, you… you want to build a record. And he could say, look, turn over the discovery. He may also be thinking, you know, it could make it stronger for the defense, and thus I don’t have to worry as much about the appeal. Like, let me have a full record and let me hear… you know, they will… they, the government, will make some argument about why it’s not vindictive.
And he’s gonna be like, okay, I wanna assess that in light of all the evidence. In other words, I wanna, in good faith, take your representation in good faith, and I’m gonna look at the facts on the ground and decide whether that is, to use the phrase of Judge Immergut recently, is it… is your position tethered to the facts, or untethered? And so I suspect that… that they will look… that there will be this sort of dispute over discovery, and that is a… that is a battleground that the administration is not going to want to be on, because of what… what they’re sitting on. And you know, it could just be… this… when this happened, this whole case was brought, I said, you know, this could blow up.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Andrew Weissmann
And we could see the sort of communications, which are, I don’t care about Mr. Siebert, the… my current, you know, the person who I chose to be the attorney. If he’s not indicting him, get rid of him and put her in until we find somebody who is going to indict. I mean, there’s… Exactly. We know that was the sentiment, and maybe that that was written down. Now, obviously, we have the, as you pointed out, the DM to Pam Bondi that the president apparently thought was private, that is public. And I agree with you that if there’s ever, ever going to be a vindictive prosecution case that looks not just meritorious, but sort of like, you know, you look in the dictionary for what is.
Jen Rubin
This is what it is, this is what it looks like.
Andrew Weissmann
Exactly. I mean, you know, Abrego Garcia just got discovery from Judge Crenshaw in that case, which, again, is remarkable, but if this case is even stronger for a vindictive prosecution argument.
Jen Rubin
Now, a couple things. First of all, the defense doesn’t necessarily have to wait for the vindictive prosecution dismissal hearing and that process. They can say, fine, we’re going to maintain this, but in the meantime, let’s go to trial. And they could say, your case is so full of crap, and we’ll talk about that in a moment, that we just want to get in front of the judge and front of the jury, and maybe the judge will have a directed verdict or dismiss it outright. Maybe we’ll be done with this in, you know, 24 hours once we go to trial.
Andrew Weissmann
I agree with you. That did not seem to be their tack, the Comey tack. I was very interested in looking at… for that issue, and as to whether they said, you know what, we do have this very strong, vindictive prosecution claim, we may have a very strong, but I think slightly weaker claim, with respect to the appointment of Lindsey Halligan. But by the way, that… they could win on that. I’m just saying that I think they’re more likely to win on vindictive prosecution because on the theory that… if not here, when? And, but I thought they might… I think it is hard to do both when push comes to shove, because if the government slows down discovery on that, and that goes up on appeal, and there’s all these issues.
Then, remember, the remedy for a vindictive prosecution is we want the case dismissed. Yes. So, at some point, that becomes moot. If you’ve gone to trial and, like, if you… I mean, it wouldn’t be moot if you go to trial and you’re convicted, and then you have vindictive prosecution. But I don’t think that’s what’s gonna happen. I think what’s gonna happen is he’s… at best, it’s gonna go to trial, and the judge, just so people know, technically, when the government has finished its case in chief, like, present their main case, the defense makes a motion saying that they haven’t proved the case, and that no rational jury I could reach a verdict of guilt.
Some judges then say, I will take that and hold that and see what the jury does, but I’m gonna… I may sort of overrule what the jury does. Other judges will say, you know what, that’s absolutely right, I’m going to dismiss the case. And if the judge does that, dismisses the case at that point. That is not appealable. That is over.
Jen Rubin
Because that would be double jeopardy if they then came back and done it.
Andrew Weissmann
Exactly.
Jen Rubin
And that may be politically safer, if you will, for the judge. I don’t want to say that the judge is playing politics, but he wouldn’t have to be at loggerheads with the administration over this issue of executive privilege. And, again, he wouldn’t be subject to being overruled by, God forbid the Supreme Court if it went that far.
Andrew Weissmann
He also, by the way, he could take his cues from the parties. In other words, if the parties are saying, Judge, we want to pursue vindictive prosecution and delay the case, but we, you know, we’re… I know you’ve decided your piece quickly, but the discovery piece now is gonna go up on appeal, and we want that before the trial. I think he’s… he’s not gonna have a dog in the fight.
Jen Rubin
We think, although we can’t get into his brain, that Comey and his lawyer want to go this way because it will show that Trump has been vindictive. They have an interest in exposing Trump on a political, personal basis. It’s not just enough for James Comey to say, well, they had a good faith belief, and look, there really wasn’t evidence, and I got off. This is the point, to show that this Justice Department, this president, is completely out of control, and is doing something that no other president has or would ever do. Is that a fair kind of assessment of what you think he’s up to?
Andrew Weissmann
I do, and I think you can think of it both politically and legally, and they… this is an area where they marry. They’re completely the same. You could imagine, you know, me being sort of a nerdy, you know, lawyer, academic, I think of this as if there is a really valid you know, sort of platonic, ideal, vindictive prosecution case. That needs to be shown, and that is part of what the law requires to call out. And so, just as a legal matter, it’s like, it is not okay for the department to do this, and so it needs to be called out, and as a principled matter.
It’s true that by the same token, it works politically, because it’s like, you know, the president’s saying that’s not what’s happening. You have Pam Bondi saying, oh, no one’s above the law, but if you can show that… by the way, I could go on and on and on about that statement, and why it’s, like…Of course, it’s literally true, it’s just as implicable to this administration. But this is one where, yes, it could also show that is exactly what did not happen here, and we have it in writing.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Let me spend a couple more minutes on the Comey indictment itself, and then I do want to talk about Pam Bondi, because that, in and of itself, was not just horrifying, but I think it speaks to how contemptuous this administration is of the rule of law, and the degree to which they are eviscerating, the first branch of government, which is Congress. The indictment, we think, and again, we think, rests on a supposed, lie that James Comey told in 2017, and we’ll get to why that really isn’t the basis of this, but, in which he said, I never told anyone to… in the FBI to leak. And we think the Justice Department has in mind a guy, by the name of Richmond, who was a, sort of a special counsel brought into the FBI.
Well, it turns out there’s two problems with that. One, Richmond has already told the FBI, no, he really told… never told me. In fact, twice, I know he told not to leak. So, the very premise of what they have to say is a bold-faced lie. And secondly, as we were talking, that’s really not the lie that this case has to rest on. It has to rest on a very, indisputable statement, which he says, I’m not changing my testimony.
Andrew Weissmann
Yup. So, this is one where everyone just bear with me for a moment. Normally, in a false statement or perjury case. An indictment specifies the precise language that you are saying was false. And by the way, the defendant is entitled to that, and here, James Comey will get that from… and if it’s not from the government, it’ll… the court will direct it in what’s called a bill of particulars. That did not happen here, which is why, Jen, when you say, well, we think, and we were all playing this game of, like, well, what is it… what is it they’re really saying here? And James Comey’s lawyer, Pat Fitzgerald, made that point in court, saying, you know, we still don’t even know precisely what’s being alleged.
And then I was thinking about this, and a friend mentioned this, which I agree with. Why is it? Why did they not allege this? Now, the indictment says James Comey falsely said that he did not authorize anyone at the FBI to leak information while he was the FBI director. And… You are right that that is something that James Comey said in 2017. That testimony in 2017 is not what is charged. It could not be charged, because there is a 5-year statute of limitations, meaning that if you wanted to charge that, it would have to be by 2022. I usually don’t do math in public, but I’m gonna try and do the best I can. So instead, They’re relying on a statement, that we believe was made, during testimony in 2020 during the pandemic .James Comey is at home, testifying from his home in the Eastern District of Virginia, and the Senators are in Washington. Presumably, or someplace, and they’re asking questions and Ted Cruz, senator from Texas confronts him with the information from 2017, and James Comey says the following. He doesn’t say ‘I never authorize somebody, et cetera, et cetera.’ He says “as summarized by you, "I stand by my testimony.” Now, the indictment says that’s the falsehood. The indictment says that the falsehood is the statement in 2017.The statement in 2020. I stand by my testimony. How is that false? He is! He is standing by his testimony.
Right, in fact, one, how do you ever say that is false? And so, that is technically what is wrong with this, which is that that is not a falsehood that could… that… I mean, I just don’t even see how that’s… how you begin. But then, even if the government gets through that, they have the problem that you mentioned, which is their… what appears to be their only witness. We’ll see whether they pull a rabbit out.
But Dan Richman is reported to have told the Eastern District of Virginia that is wrong. I did not… I was not told that by James Comey. In fact, I was told the opposite, by James Comey. So, if that is your star witness, just to be clear, the court will dismiss the case.
Jen Rubin
Yes. So, let’s say, for sake of argument, that eventually, he gets what’s called a bill of particulars. In other words, we need to know, like, what the hell you’re talking about here. And they are forced to confess, yes, it is this statement, and they have to submit the videotape or some other record of it. At that point, could Fitzgerald go to the court and say you can’t base a false statement on this, because in fact, he didn’t change his testimony. Could the judge rule on that specifically, and this whole nonsense be thrown out?
Andrew Weissmann
Yes, you know, that is one where the judge could say, I want to see the grand jury minutes. I want to see how they were charged, and, and remember, they can’t go back to the grand jury to fix it, because they’re out of time. The statute if this indictment’s thrown out, unless you can somehow relate it back, they’re done. And so, what exactly the grand jury was told, because I strongly suspect this nuance was not presented to them, and it was presented as if this was the 2017 statement, and why do I say that? Because if you look at the language of the indictment, it says James Comey was representing the 2017 statements, but, you know, and maybe I’m missing something from the 2020 testimony, but he just says, I stand by it. That is not literally false.
Jen Rubin
It can’t be false, unless he did change it. I mean, if he said that, and then he changed his testimony, I think it would be false.
Andrew Weissmann
If he said, I stand by it he knew at the time he didn’t stand by it. They’re never gonna have evidence. I mean, this is… now we’re talking about ridiculousness, and… and Jen, we’re talking about the FBI director.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, and that they insisted upon going forth with this pile of crap, that’s the technical term, because the President of the United States is a psychotic, vengeful character. That’s what is so absolutely absurd and different than anything else. There’s no comparison to this kind of case. People are saying, well, the Justice Department has been weaponized by other people. No, not! This is sui generis! This has never happened.
Andrew Weissmann
This is the answer to the people who are out there who are cynically saying, oh, this happens all the time, and isn’t this just what Democrats do, and now Republicans are doing, and it’s just tit for tat.
First of all, two wrongs don’t make a right, even if that was true. And I would encourage people to look at the facts. Facts matter. Labels and adjectives are not facts. You know, when you look at the Biden administration and ask yourself if they’re weaponizing, the Justice Department, how is it that they prosecuted Hunter Biden, the president’s own son? How is it they prosecuted Senator Menendez, a sitting senator of their own party? This is something that, you know, as somebody who’s a career person, any lawyer worth their salt, a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, knows this is garbage. That is not how the system’s built. I am not saying that there aren’t occasional areas where you go, like, hmm, what happened there? And the reason that you think, okay, there’s a problem with that is because it’s so operational.
And you think oh my god, that shouldn’t have happened. The reason you’re concerned about the… what Jeffrey Epstein getting this sort of, like, real slap on the wrist, in Florida is because you go like, wait a second, that’s not normal.
Jen Rubin
Right.
Andrew Weissmann
That, of course, can happen, and I’m certainly not here to say it never happens. That is not license for the President of the United States to say, now I’m going to weaponize the Department of Justice. The last time that happened. was, when you had Richard Nixon, and that is the reason that you have the policy of the White House not communicating with the Department of Justice is precisely that you don’t want the president going, you know what, I want you to open a tax investigation on Jen Rubin. And so here, it is just out in the open. And if you don’t think it’s out in the open the president has called for the jailing of a sitting governor and mayor.
Jen Rubin
Exactly! He does this all the time! I mean, that’s… the other sort of problem with this, is that he keeps compulsively telling on himself that this is his mindset. I’m the vengeance, I’m revenge, I want this one jailed, I want Hillary Clinton jailed, I want that one jailed. So…
Andrew Weissmann
And I will say, this is. To be a nerd, shame on the Supreme Court of the United States, because you can trace this back to the Trump vs. United States presidential immunity decision where part of that decision said, we’re getting rid of the part of the indictment, which is the President’s communications with the Attorney General, even where the allegation is that the president wanted them to open a bogus, fraudulent criminal investigation. Now, he said, no, those communications are off-limits. Those are being given exclusively and precludively by the Constitution, which, by the way, if somebody could show me the language in the Constitution, where that is, because I’m not seeing it. And that gave license to this idea, which is, how are you actually gonna prosecute this if you were ever gonna say, this is wrong? There’s no… there’s no deterrent to the president thinking I can’t do this, not only because I don’t think he’s thinking about morals and principles, I’m not doing it as a matter of self-preservation. But he doesn’t have to worry about self-preservation, because you have a Supreme Court saying communications with DOJ are off-limits.
Jen Rubin
And we were so naive as to say, well, this means he could fabricate evidence. This president doesn’t need to fabricate, he just has no evidence. So therefore, the communication is not that, oh, we’ll come up with something, we’ll give you something, you won’t embarrass yourselves, it’s, okay, we have nothing, just…Put something in the paper, tell the grand jury whatever, just go to trial.
Andrew Weissmann
Let me just give… let me just give one slight caveat on that, which is, you know, we don’t know… all signs are that everything you’re saying, Jen, is completely right. Just so you know, I think you are going to be proved totally right. And the one thing I think is sort of without question right now is it’s never going to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 jurors.
But, you know, having, I guess having been a defense lawyer and a prosecutor, you know, maybe they have something. I think about what we have seen so far, in any way suggests that, but I just wanted to put that out there.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, absolutely on what we currently know. Thank you, counsel. This is why you were the grand… you were the General Counsel for the FBI. All right, in our remaining moments, Pam Bondi. She went up to the Hill. She was asked a series of absolutely predictable questions about weaponizing the department, about her oversight. A whole ream of questions. She not only didn’t answer them, she instead insulted and barked back at the centers, as if I would say. Mr. Weissmann, what is your name? And you said, oh, you’re a crappy interviewer. I mean, that’s the level of conversation it was, or even worse. What the hell was that all about?
Andrew Weissmann
So I described it… you can’t say that Pam Bondi went up there and testified. You can say that she went up there and gave a performance. Because, so one, it was so offensive to me because…When you’re in the executive branch, you may not like congressional oversight. But if you really don’t like congressional oversight, don’t take the job. That is part of what it means to have three branches of government. And so, that’s sort of step one, and I don’t mean… I know that they sound very naive and, but it’s like I just don’t want to normalize. It tries to happen, and again, by the… just to be fair, like, that…that is something that is… happens in Republican and Democratic administrations over and over again. It is a bipartisan issue. Obviously, some do it better than others, some are more responsive than others. It is not… it is… it is, playground, childish retorts to have an Attorney General of the United States have APA research as their binder, as opposed to having their binder be filled with the answers.
To say, you’re asked a question about, let’s say, Mr. Homans, and what happened to the $50,000 and the answer is, just to give an example, didn’t you… you lied to the public about your military experience, or didn’t you… aren’t you friends with someone who gave… who socialized with Jeffrey Epstein, or you took money from that person? Let’s assume that all of that is true. That doesn’t answer the questions. This is, like, you’re asked a perfectly good question, and, you know, Senator Whitehouse asked a question that I thought the non-response spoke volumes, which was: Have you seen a photo that there were allegations of it, it may or may not be true, I have no idea whether it’s true or not, of sort of, you know, fairly salacious photos involving Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And basically, the attack was…you know, you’re ugly.
It’s like… it’s… it’s where you sit there and you want to go, like, okay, let’s assume that all of those attacks are true. I… let’s assume everything in your oppo research is right, that I am a terrible, horrible person.
Jen Rubin
Right. Now answer the question. Question, exactly, exactly. And we… there are a couple things wrong with… more than a couple things. First of all, this is the Attorney General of the United States, and she is essentially saying. If you are someone testifying under oath, you don’t have to answer questions. What does that say to the rest of the world? Every prosecutor, every witness? It’s basically, we don’t have a system of justice where you have to answer questions under oath, so that’s problem number one.
Problem number two is, they have essentially said, there’s no Congress. We don’t recognize a Article 1 body, we don’t have to explain ourselves to anyone, and we’re not going to ladies and gentlemen, is what dictators do. They say they’re not responsible to anybody.
Andrew Weissmann
So, my big take-home from that point is we know who Donald Trump is. We know who Pam Bondi is, we know who Cash Patel is. I did not learn a single thing knew about them. I… I do not respect the way they are conducting themselves in terms of understanding what it means to be a public servant. The part that is the complete abdication and erosion of checks and balances is that the Republican part of the Judiciary Committee did not say “hold on there you are not… like, is your answer to my colleague, this senator from Vermont? Answer his question.” Let me give you one quick example of this. There was an argument in the Supreme Court where Justice Kagan asked a question and got a very, very dismissive answer from the Solicitor General’s office and Amy Coney Barrett stepped in.
And I’m just gonna paraphrase it to say… I’m sorry, is that your quest… is that your answer to her question? Is that the way you are going to respond to her? And to me, that was what you expected to hear from anybody thinking about the role of the court, the role of the Judiciary Committee and Congress, was… and I gave her a lot of credit to be like, that is not a… that is not an acceptable way to answer here.
I know you don’t think you’re gonna get her a vote. That is irrelevant. You answer the question, and you are respectful, and I, whose vote you are looking for, am insisting on it. And to me, that… you know, there are different committees in Congress, and when I was the General Counsel of the FBI, I had to, prepare various people to testify. I was very often a backbencher to, you know, on those things.
One, you always… you always came with answers, you came prepared, and you tried to deal with their questions. As I said, sometimes it’s more painful than not, but certain committees we’re known as being… Just having very serious people, and more of a bipartisan flavor and makeup. I’m not trying to be, like, a halcyon days, and everyone always got along, etc. But the Judiciary Committee, like the intelligence committees. It’s one of those places, and to see that happen, to me, it’s like yet another domino has fallen, where this wasn’t about Pam Bondi. It was really a hearing about was the institution going to have any self-respect in terms of their role as three branches of government? Because right now we have the lower courts functioning.
Jen Rubin
And that’s it.
Andrew Weissmann
That’s it. I was trying to think of… that’s it.
Jen Rubin
That’s it!
Well, I think if she gets away with this, and it looks like she is, we can forget about any oversight for the next, however many months it is, till January of 2027, when potentially a different party may hold at least one House of the, Congress, because why would any other member of this administration treat any other committee any differently if the Attorney General can get away with this? I agree. And Republicans should be held accountable for that, and frankly, when they start running in 2026, Democrats have to point to these Republicans and say you are a doormat for a despot. You are going along and rubber-stamping every crackpot from RFK Jr. to Pam Bondi to Donald Trump and you don’t deserve to hold the office of U.S. Senator. You’ve abdicated your role.
Andrew Weissmann
And, you know, I do think that that is going to have resonance in terms of the American people, and because, you know, there are… I mean, I guess I still have this faith in that, you know, we do have a country that’s elected. Really wonderful presidents, and wonderful people in both parts of the Congress. And, I think the country also does have, in spite of the president thinking that they don’t care about process, you look at the polling, and it turns out they do.
And I’m going to tell you a really quick story that I may have told you in the past, but when I was a young, young, young lawyer, at a law firm, we had a death penalty case and, we ended up winning in the Georgia Supreme Court. So… and that’s… we thought we’d have to win in the federal court, later. And the Georgia Supreme Court said about, this person facing the death penalty, and he had an IQ that put him in the range of, at the time, was called mentally retarded. That’s not a term we use anymore, but at the time, I’m old, that’s the term that was used. And the Georgia Supreme Court said essentially, we are tough on crime. We… we don’t tolerate crime but we are fair. And we are not going to kill somebody with this mental condition in the state of Georgia, so this would be a violation of our Georgia Constitution. And I think the analogy is, I think that people do care about… yes, you can get people out of the country who shouldn’t be here, but there is a process to do that. You have to make sure… by the way, you’re not deporting an American. That if you say they’re a gang member, they’re entitled to prove? No, they’re not. I mean, it’s like, I just think that people do have a sense of that, and they’re gonna care about substance, which is… they might actually care about vaccines or cures for cancer, or actually having science based on… wait for it…science. And, you know, not based on, like, mesmerism, and other crackpot ideas, and that you should actually have somebody running the Department of Health and Human Services, who actually has a medical degree and understands science, and listens to scientists. So I just think all of that, whether it’s substantive or whether it is sort of a fundamental feeling about due process that is gonna resonate, and I also think the more people can say the words Jimmy Kimmel the better. And First Amendment, and the president has a wonderful way of changing the topic so often. The Jimmy Kimmel thing was a big black eye.
Jen Rubin
It really was, it really was, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann
People shouldn’t move on. You have to ask yourself, what is going on there is what is going on in all of… we’re all Jimmy Kimmels.
Jen Rubin
Yes, exactly, exactly. So, I think we’ve got the slogan for 2026. We’re all Jimmy Kimmels. Facts have to be tethered, law has to be tethered to facts, and science should be based on science.
Andrew Weissmann
I love it! Anyway, sorry to be on my soapbox, but it’s like, you know, it, you know, everything’s so momentous these days that it really does cause you to sort of… or at least me, at least, to sort of go back to, like.
Jen Rubin
First principles, basics, absolutely, absolutely. Andrew, it is always a delight, even when we’re talking about the downfall of Western civilization and the erosion of American democracy, because I actually do have faith that we are beginning the comeback. And in any case, it’s always a delight to talk to you. So thank you once again, and we’ll see you next time.
Andrew Weissmann
Take care.
Jen Rubin
You too.
