Yesterday, Trump confirmed he submitted two claims demanding that the Department of Justice pay him $230 million as compensation for multiple federal investigations against him. Notable federal investigations are probe into Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election and the Mar-a-Lago raid. Trump himself admitted to the bizarreness of the situation, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Andrew Weissmann joins Jen to discuss the absurdity of the case and what, if any, merits Trump has to bring it.
Jen and Weissmann also spend time analyzing the next steps of the case against former FBI Director James Comey. Will the case be dismissed on the grounds of vindicative persecution? Will the judge grant discovery? If so, how much will the prosecution agree to reveal? No, this isn’t a thrilling courtroom drama — this is just a normal day in the Trump Administration.
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, it’s Jen Rubin, Energy Chief of the Contrarian. I have back with me the wonderful Andrew Weissman, the former General Counsel for the FBI and the lead prosecutor for Robert Mueller. Welcome, Andrew!
Andrew Weissmann
It’s nice to be here.
Jen Rubin
We always say that.
Andrew Weissmann
I know, it’s like, you’ve noticed there was a slight hitch in my voice.
Jen Rubin
I know. It always comes with an asterisk and a footnote. Let’s talk about James Comey, this very, kind of, half-assed, you know, indictment, very vague, we’ve only… recently been able to piece together what the supposed lie is, is supposed to have been. Two motions were filed. One claiming that the prosecutor was not properly appointed, and therefore this is void, and that’s incredibly important, because they just snuck in under the statute of limitations. And the other has to do with vindictive prosecution. Let’s take the last one first, the vindictive prosecution. How strong a case is it? What does he have to prove? And what would be the next step if the judge at least wants to entertain this?
Andrew Weissmann
Sure. So, so the motion is, for vindictive and selective prosecution. There’s slightly different legal standards, for vindictive versus selective, but I’m not gonna… I bore people with all of that in the podcasts I do with Mary. It’s not that important for these purposes. And what Comey has said is that, I win outright, you should, based on the record that you have, you should dismiss the case because of vindictive and selective prosecution. And in the alternative, if you don’t think I win outright now, you should give me discovery.
Because I’ve met a sufficient threshold that entitles me to discovery. People who are listening to this may recall that Mr. Abrego Garcia made a similar motion, and he won that first stage. The court said, you’re entitled to discovery, which has to be unbelievably painful for the government to provide. And so, if James Comey were to just get that first stage discovery, that would be a huge victory, because you can imagine the kinds of things that would be there. So, you could get the internal, or he would try to get the internal communications within the Eastern District of Virginia saying the case should not be brought.
And they could be talking about vindictive and selective prosecution. They could get the communications with the Department of Justice, like Pam Bondi and Todd Blanch, if those exist, and particularly, they could get communications with the White House. Where you can be sure, because we know of the DM from the from Donald Trump to Pam Bondi, that there will be other things like that. So, that’s… that’s sort of, the… he can… wants to win outright or not, he wants to get discovery. If he were to prevail on either of those two things, the, it could drag the case out, because you know, the government will appeal that, it’ll go to the Circuit, it may even go to the Supreme Court, and even with discovery you can imagine that the administration is going to be claiming all sorts of privileges, and so I actually think that this motion could end up delaying the January trial date, because that is certainly what the government’s going to be seeking to do, because they didn’t seem particularly anxious.
Jen Rubin
Let me stop just on that point, on the objections to the discovery. Trump already, albeit inadvertently, released this communication to Pam Bondi. To what degree has he then waived any privileges for other communication, by doing that? And what kinds of privileges, if any, operate within the Eastern District, not involving the White House? Yeah, so.
Andrew Weissmann
I don’t think he’s waived it. One, if it was an inadvertent statement, then that definitely is not a waiver. You know, in civil litigation, for instance, very often one side or the other makes a mistake, and there’s sort of an agreement that isn’t a waiver. It wasn’t intentional.
Even if it was intentional, there’s an argument it’s not a waiver beyond the scope of that particular thing. So I don’t think… I mean, it may get argued, and I, you know, a judge could find it, I don’t find that to be terribly strong. In terms of privileges, deliberative process is one of the big privileges, because the idea, and there’s an equivalent of this within the White House as well, is that, let’s say. Jen, you are… I am reporting to you, and you call a meeting, and you want to know my and other… all of the deputies to… that report to you. You want their frank assessment on something, and there is a deliberative process privilege that says this shouldn’t all be released. It’s a balancing, it’s not an absolute, because it interferes with your ability to just get a fair and candid response if everyone knows that everything they’re gonna say is just gonna be subject to release in the future. So, those kinds of things. Sometimes there’s, so there’s executive privilege, there can be an attorney-client privilege claim, I actually think the attorney-client is a little weak because it’s not… it’s not a typical relationship of a private attorney to a private client, and that was litigated, actually, in the Bill Clinton context, and lower courts at least had rejected the idea that this was privileged. So there will be those kinds of claims of privilege. We saw it a little bit in the January 6th hearings where certain people in the White House, said, you know, I’m not going to talk about X, Y, or Z because of executive privilege. So… all of that, though, is why I think that this could get delayed, because if you’ve got a particularly damaging document. CEG, the Epstein files, if, you know… I mean, my view is, like, it doesn’t take a rock scientist to know that there’s something damning in there, or else they would have released everything. Yes. So, it’s similar, which is that if there’s something particularly damaging, they may not want to… they may want to fight like crazy to not have it released. And there is also a principled argument, not… not a… which is, you can imagine a situation where…and you saw this a lot of times…Like, you could have a Democratic administration who goes to bat for why something shouldn’t be released that was part of a Republican administration, because they’re thinking, this is not institutionally what should happen, and it doesn’t matter what party is involved. And by the way, I took Democratic and Republican, but you could switch them. In a normal administration, people are thinking about the institution. Even if you don’t really care about the document. It’s that the principle is that it shouldn’t be released.
Jen Rubin
Now, I’m sure Donald Trump doesn’t care about any of that, he’s just very concerned about what’s in there, but be that as it may. Now, before I add… before we go into, what Comey will actually have to prove to succeed on that claim. I want to ask you, remember during, I’m sure you remember, that during the entire January 6th investigation, we learned about the crime fraud exception, that a lot of these privileges flow, you know, fall by the wayside if you’re plotting a crime.
Now I don’t know if this were a crime, but if you’re plotting to prosecute someone for specious reasons, is there anything analogous there that would be used to vitiate some of these privileges?
Andrew Weissmann
That’s a great question, I’m just thinking aloud on this. I… I have not seen the crime fraud exception applied when it’s not a crime, right? The crime fraud exception, you know, we litigated that in the Manafort case.
Jen Rubin
Right.
Andrew Weissmann
And for there to be a crime fraud exception, the lawyer does not have to be in on it. Like, it’s a way of defeating the attorney-client privilege. Obviously, if you can show the lawyer was in on it as well, that’s, that, you know, that will get rid of the attorney-client privilege. But it’s enough if the lawyer was just used unwittingly to, to engage in that. So that’s what we alleged in the Paul Manafort case, that he had sent of false communication through his counsel who we took the position, the lawyer did not know it was false, and trusted that Paul Manafort was telling the truth, and that what was submitted by Paul Manafort to the Department of Justice was false. Ultimately, by the way, he ended up admitting that, and, but before that, the judge said, yes, you’re entitled to this, because of the crime fraud exception and other exceptions as well.
Jen Rubin
Got it. All right, let’s say, the judge is looking at the… he will look at the papers. What does James Comey actually have to prove under one of these theories in order to, have this thing go away, and what is the standard? We know that reasonable doubt applies in the criminal context, in terms of a conviction. What does he have to prove, and what’s the standard of proof he would have to prove in order to prevail?
Andrew Weissmann
So, for… let’s just take vindictive prosecution, because I think that’s probably the stronger of the claims. It’s also, if you notice, that James Comey and his motion sort of leads with that one, and has selected… Yes. I remember I said there was a slight difference, so let’s just talk about vindictive, because that’s the one that I think is the strongest. He has to show that, first, the president was acting, or that the prosecutor at the President’s behest, was acting out of animus towards, James Comey. But for that animus, the case would not be brought. Normally, that second prong is a real problem.
Because normally, so many people have approved something. Like, you know, if I’m in the department and I’m a line attorney, let’s assume I have that animus. You’re not gonna win the second part, because the government’s gonna come and say, well, Jen Rubin, his supervisor, didn’t have that animus, and Jen’s supervisor didn’t have that animus, and then that and Jen’s supervisor’s supervisor didn’t have that animus. They were all basing it on the facts and the law. So, and so that’s where usually you get hung up, is that you can’t really show that there was any—that it caused the harm. There’s no… it didn’t actually cause the problem. Yes, somebody may have had bad reasons. But there were all these people with perfectly good reasons who signed off.
Jen Rubin
Right.
Andrew Weissmann
Here, you don’t have that problem, because here, that’s one of the things that we learned from the motion, is that Lindsey Halligan, according to the papers, was the only person, not only who signed the indictment, even though the papers say, normally, a career person signs an indictment, that’s, by the way, not always the case in all U.S. Attorney’s offices. But they say the normal practice is not just the U.S attorney, but also the career line attorney signs off. Well, that didn’t happen. Only Lindsey Halligan, the political appointee signed off on it. And they say she was the only person in the grand jury, which I have to say, I was… if that’s true, I was… kind of… I wouldn’t say shocked, but let’s just say.
Jen Rubin
What else went on in there?
Andrew Weissmann
Right, because what else went on there? And if I were somebody who did not know criminal procedure, and I was being asked to do that, I would find some career person, because there, as we talked about, I think, last time, is that there are all these very strict things you have to do, and so I’m sure that there’ll be motions that ask the, at the very least, the judge to look at the grand jury minutes, because it’s all transcribed. Make sure, just so everyone knows, in the grand jury, it’s only the grand jurors and the prosecutor, and if there’s a witness, the witness goes in, testifies, and leaves. The defense lawyer is not there, the judge is not there. So there’s no judge, no defense lawyer. It’s just… it’s just…grand jurors, and the prosecutor who’s presenting the case. And then for deliberations, the prosecutor leaves, and it’s just the grand jurors.
So, so the other prong, the animus prong, that’s… that is where this case doesn’t quite fit into the normal case, and the issue is sort of, like, what’s the… what is it? Is it a violation of his First Amendment rights? In other words, is it that he was… the president’s taking this action because of Comey’s speech? But it’s also the case that Comey, may have been targeted not just because of his speech, but because of his lack of loyalty, and sort of the resulting, what the president calls the Russia, you know, investigation, which he disparagingly calls the… was it the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?
And so that is obviously not a constitutional right that James Comey has, but it does, suggest in animus that you are targeting him because somebody was a government employee doing their job, and you have an animus as a result of that. So it doesn’t fit into the normal way in which you see vindictive prosecutions. Maybe I can give you just an example of the typical way that… I mean, these motions rarely, rarely, rarely succeed, but the classic example would be, Jen, you were convicted. You say, you know what, I’m appealing this, and I’m going to make a claim that the government withheld Brady, and I actually think they did it intentionally, and I am the prosecutor and say you know what, if you do that, and you win, we’re gonna charge you with more crimes. Like, and let’s say you do win, and then it’s like, and now you’re gonna face more crimes. We’re not just gonna reinstitute the case, we’re gonna pile on. That’s vindictive, because it’s taken to deter you from your right to appeal, and your right to make those claims. So here, it’s not on all fours with that, but on the other hand, it is also one where the law just has to accommodate it.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Andrew Weissmann
I think I keep on saying this. If not here, when?
Jen Rubin
Exactly, exactly. Now, does… Comey have to prove this by a preponderance of evidence? What’s the standard approach?
Andrew Weissmann
You know, I don’t know definitively, but the standard, I think, is preponderance, but having said that, I can imagine a court wanting there to be what’s called clear and convincing evidence, which is the standard between… preponderance is an easy one. 50% and a hair. Preponderance means just slightly more than 50-50 clear and convincing, there’s no magic formula for percentages, but maybe think of that as, like, 75%, and then there’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Well, it doesn’t have to be proved to that extent. And again, there’s no numerical… the courts do not give a numerical, but that’s 90… whatever it is, 80, 99%.
Jen Rubin
Right. Right. Now, obviously, we can’t predict what the judge is going to do, but would you anticipate that he wouldn’t throw it out, but that he would order and some discovery? What do you think, is the most likely outcome at this stage?
Andrew Weissmann
And I think discovery, because I think the judge I think, absent this legal issue that we just talked about, I think, the judge is gonna, I think, have a clear record to show that he has met the standard for discovery, that he’s made a prima facie showing. In other words, he’s met… it’s not a… it’s not just a fanciful claim, he’s put out facts in front of the judge, that, which, if true and certainly, if not disputed, would tend to show it’s true, and that entitles you to discovery. And that’s basically to say, you know, you can’t just say, oh, I’m making this claim and get discovery. The courts require some showing to be made so that you’re not just giving discovery all the time to everybody. That’s understandable. I also think if the judge is trying to protect his record.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Andrew Weissmann
I’m thinking, I know I have a… he may be thinking, I know I have a strong case now, but one, let’s have discovery, because that’ll also go two ways. I mean, let’s… it may be discovery that helps the government, but let’s let everyone get the information and put their best foot forward, and then I will have a much fuller record, and also, the appellate courts will have a fuller record, to make that decision. So I just think it’s a safer course, and this is a high-profile matter, and so, you know, that is what happened with Abrego Garcia, and I think a logical first step. The judge also has to know that it puts tremendous pressure on the government because of what may be in there.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Now. Before we get to the other motion that Comey made, which in an interesting way, may also have something to do with vindictive prosecution, because it involves the circumstances under which this prosecutor got there, and why she was brought in. But just put a pin in that for half a minute. The government is trying to disqualify Comey’s lawyer. Why is that?
Andrew Weissmann
Well, can I just… can I just, maybe pull back slightly from that? Yes. Which is, there was a suggestion.
Jen Rubin
Okay, fair enough. Is that what the motion said?
Andrew Weissmann
Yeah, they didn’t actually make a motion to disqualify him. You’re right. But it was odd. I mean, and it’s… it was in their… in a separate motion where they wanted more time, which, by the way, the judge denied. They made some claim that Pat Fitzgerald was somehow in cahoots in a criminal way with James Comey. The response that was submitted within one day by Comey and Pat Fitzgerald, his lawyer. like, went through all of the facts to just be like, this is, I think they said, provably false. And, and it… it’s just so irresponsible, Jen, to… If you make a motion to disqualify counsel, And first of all James Comey has a constitutional right to not just effective counsel, but to counsel of his choice.
Jen Rubin
Choice, exactly.
Andrew Weissmann
If the government were to Wrongly get him disqualified. Like, they get a do-over. That is… that is, by the way, that is per se reversible. That is not harmless error. There is a Scalia decision on that, that, like, that is a absolute constitutional right. So you don’t see these sort of cavalier suggestions on that. I mean, to me, it was like there’s no adult in the room.
Jen Rubin
By the way, it’s really poor form when you’re facing an accusation of vindictive prosecution to make an utterly frivolous motion. You think?
Andrew Weissmann
Yes.
Jen Rubin
Yeah, you know, this is not helping their cause, you know?
Andrew Weissmann
No. It’s just, you know, and it’s… just to be clear, the judge, who’s an experienced judge, like, already has to be like, what are you talking about? Those are very, very serious things to say about any lawyer. You have to have all your ducks in a row. So anyway, they haven’t made that motion. I suspect they won’t. If they do, it’ll be very interesting to see what happens. So, so we go to the, the Lindsay Halligan motion.
Jen Rubin
Yes, absolutely. So, Halligan, remember, folks, never tried a criminal case. Was an insurance defense lawyer, love insurance defense lawyers. There are wonderful lawyers out there, I’m sure. But she was brought in, quite clearly, because the U.S. attorney who was in that position, who was a Trump appointee, would not bring this case. And a bunch of other people have gotten fired, from that office as well.
But it’s not the circumstances of her, per se, that is the basis of that motion. What is the basis for disqualifying her, and then saying, you know what, you never had a legitimate indictment brought under the statute of limitations, so your case is gone.
Andrew Weissmann
So, this issue as to her appointment is one that is being litigated in a variety of different districts, and district judges are ruling against the government. And Alina Habba being the most, sort of, prominent of those people, she is currently under a court order that says she was improperly appointed. That is now being heard by the Third Circuit. The argument apparently did not go well for the government. But, you know, remains to be seen.
Jen Rubin
And that’s New Jersey.
Andrew Weissmann
So here’s the issue, in a nutshell, to not get too complicated. The president gets to nominate a U.S. attorney. After 120 days, if that person who is serving in this interim position for 120 days, if…the Senate has not confirmed that person, because remember, the President nominates, but the Senate has to confirm. So if the Senate hasn’t done that within the 120 days, then the choice of who sits as the U.S. Attorney goes to the judges in that particular district. So, in here, it would be the Eastern District of Virginia. When we’re talking about Alina Habba, it would go to the judges in the District of New Jersey.
What the, government cannot do is basically run up 119 days and then say, oh, I’m now gonna withdraw that person and put a new person in and run another 119 days. Like, you can’t get around the structure, at least this is what the district judges who are ruling this way are saying, you know, that’s not allowed. And here, the 120 days was eaten up entirely by Mr. Siebert, where he served, and then, there, there was… the 120 days passed. And that meant that the judges had to appoint the next person, and they didn’t. They did not appoint Lindsay Halligan. Now, here is, again, where… remember we talked about the second prong of the vindictive prosecution? This is where it’s gonna come up again, because in the Alina Habba case, a judge could say when defendants said, you know, I was wrongfully indicted because she is not the proper U.S. attorney, a judge could say, she is not the proper U.S. attorney, but you don’t get your case dismissed because lots and lots of other people approved this, and a career person signed off on it, and the first assistant signed off on it, the number 2, so that there is sort of no harm, no foul.
And here, we don’t have that, because not a single career person was willing to bring the case. Not even, as you pointed out, Mr. Siebert, the political person was willing to bring the case. So the but-for problem is sort of, like, is there… for the government, is there, because but for Lindsay Halligan, this wasn’t going to happen. That was, in fact, the whole reason.
He shove her in there, because no one else was willing to do it. So, you know, would someone rid me of this meddlesome priest was Lindsey Halligan. Yes. And so, that is… that is why the… that sort of connective tissue of there was a cause and effect is something that is going to help the Comey motion to say that she was wrongly appointed, and it affected me. And just to be clear, because the statute of limitations is run.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Andrew Weissmann
The case had to be charged within 5 years. That means that they can’t go back and say, okay, now we’ll appoint somebody correctly and bring the case. The only argument the government would be able to try is to say, we will do it, but it should… the improper indictment should somehow toll the statute of limitations. And relate back to, like, you know, let me just say…
Jen Rubin
Unclean hands. Yes. Talk about unclean hands, which is sort of an equity principle that says, well, you get a break, you know. But if you’re operating like this, no, you don’t—You’re so filthy, you don’t get another shot at this. So… And on that basis, given the, obviously, different circuit, different facts, given the way the Habba court hearing went, and there were…there’s another one as well. Do you think that Comey could prevail on that?
Andrew Weissmann
You know, I do, it’ll be interesting to see whether the judges reaches both of them, you know, both of those issues. And, but just to be clear, the Lindsey Halligan motion that has been referred out to not the judge who has the Comey case. The chief judge of that district has said, because it involves, sort of, the whole district, and, and this is, this happened in the New Jersey case with Alina Habba as well, is referred out to a different senior judge in a different district. So, you could end up with, you know, both of those two judges deciding both of those issues. You know, James Comey has a good argument on both of them.
And you know, it remains to be seen. We haven’t seen… we don’t have a Court of Appeals decisions yet on this issue. Obviously, the Supreme Court could weigh in and try and salvage the government’s cases. And it’s because of that, it’s because we don’t have a lot of appellate decisions or a Supreme Court decision, that I could see both of these district judges, the one that has the vindictive prosecution motion and the one that has the Lindsey Halligan motion, both going forward and deciding their issues, because you can’t really be sure, like, is it gonna… what part’s gonna come back? And you might as well just decide as much as you can now, and do your job. And that way, again, the appellate courts will have a clear record, and they’ll get to decide what they want to decide, based on the law.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Well, those are two very detailed motions. We’ve looked at all the analysis. Now I just want to ask you about a jaw-dropping…I don’t even know what the legal basis for this would be. Donald Trump wants the Department of Justice, which he controls, to write him a check for $250 million. Actually, I think it’s $230 million, but let’s not quibble. For what? Because they prosecuted him? Well, they did, but he wasn’t exonerated. They kind of ran out of time. So what’s the basis for even making such an outrageous claim? And how could anyone working for him sign a check to $230 million to their boss? This strikes me as, like, thievery from the taxpayers.
Andrew Weissmann
Yes, and that last part is really key. This is one where the victims here would be—
Jen Rubin
That’s me.
Andrew Weissmann
—Every taxpayer. In other words, this is not the Qatar plane, which was already, sort of, smelled to high heaven. This is where the victim are American citizens at a time when there is a government shutdown, at a time when you have career employees at the… all over the government not getting paid, but you have the president saying, I want $230 million. And you had 7 million people just this past weekend protesting for no kings. And this looks like another exhibit for We Have a King.
Jen Rubin
That’s fair.
Andrew Weissmann
As I noted, by the way, kings don’t get to do this. Like, like, you know, the King of France in the 18th century! Was that lawfully supposed to be able to, like, oh, you know what, I’m just going to take the gold out of the treasury and take it.
Jen Rubin
Right, right. And by the way, if we’re looking for president, we can actually go back to running mead in London in 1215. Congress is going to control the money. You can’t just take stuff. You know. So what’s the basis?
Andrew Weissmann
If you are a defendant, and you are… you make a motion, you’re acquitted at trial, and you can show that this motion… that this case was brought in bad faith. If you could, make a motion and you win on vindictive prosecution. There is a congressional statute that, assuming you meet a very high standard, you could show that you’re entitled to some form of compensation. And here. I sort of have two thoughts. One is, of course, it shouldn’t be decided by people who are conflicted, who also used to be his personal counsel.
It would be… should be decided by… even if it’s a… it probably shouldn’t even be any political appointee, because it’s the… you would be appointed by the person who was making the… the motion. So a career person should decide this, and they would defend it. They would… they’d defend the government, because it’s based on things like the Mueller investigation. Well, he wasn’t… he wasn’t exonerated, he wasn’t… it was just an investigation.
There’s no criminal statute that entitles you to anything. The, Mar-a-Lago case was the other one, and he, again, was not exonerated there. There was no trial. In fact, the issue, even the Judge Cannon issue about whether Jack Smith was improperly appointed, you know, she’s the outlier. And my… the thing that would happen under a normal time, and what I would do if I were the career person, is say, you know what?
First, let’s go through all the things that are out of time. You should have made these earlier, that you haven’t met these legal standards, but let’s assume he could show that it was timely, and he made enough of a threshold showing. Let’s have a hearing.
You know what? This is a guy who didn’t want to ever have a trial on the insurrection. Didn’t want to meet with the Mueller team to be interviewed after saying he did, he did, he did, and then he didn’t. He didn’t want to have the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case go to trial. So, he now wants to be the plaintiff and say that he should prevail on those, that there was no merit? You know what?
Let’s talk about Like, as James Comey said, let’s have a trial. You know, this is… just reads like extortion, except that there doesn’t have to be extortion, because he’s on both sides of the issue.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Now, you know, there is a tie between these two issues. You know the guy who would have a great case for a $230 million settlement would be James Comey. After he’s exonerated, he could say to the government, you know, I’ve really… you made my life a living hell, and I’m gonna get damages, maybe not $230 million, but a few million.
Andrew Weissmann
Right, well, so that’s… that is the type of situation where if you could meet the prerequisites and he were to prevail, that’s when it comes up. It’s… it’s… there’s a statute, it’s… I think it’s called the Hyde Amendment, because of the person who… Who promulgated it. And so, again, just to be clear, it’s a very, very high threshold. And, there’s… again, I don’t think that Donald Trump has met it legally or factually, but, you know, a career person could say, you know what, you want to have your day in court? Let’s have it, because I just think that’s the last thing he wants.
Jen Rubin
Right, exactly. Donald Trump will probably say he’s a little busy. He’s busy destroying the White House, so he’s got to manage the project of destroying the people’s house, a piece of American history. So he’s a little too busy to have a hearing on his request to rob the taxpayers of $230 million. I think that’s where we are, right? I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. You can’t make this stuff up. So, once again, Andrew, thank you for coming to the rescue to explain the inexplicable, the inexcusable, the unjustifiable, and the unacceptable.
Andrew Weissmann
And, you know, there’s been so much bad news. The one thing I… and, you know, I just did this podcast with Mary, and we sort of ended on all of this bad news, and the one thing I would say is, in the Comey case. stay tuned. Stay engaged, because these motions and the… are gonna be very interesting. You know, you never can predict exactly what’s gonna happen, but these are strong motions. And so, let’s see what happens, because, you know, I still think that the chances that there is a conviction… they may not even get to trial, and if they get to trial, I think there’s not a snowball chance in hell that there’s going to be a conviction. And so, these really could end up backfiring on this sort of, like, you know, I’m going after all my enemies, it’s like,
Jen Rubin
Yeah, well, you know, it turns out, in this country, you need to have the… You can’t.
Andrew Weissmann
And you need to have the law, that there still are backstops. You may be able to get Lindsey Halligan to do this, but you don’t actually control the judges, and you don’t control the juries, at least at the trial level.
Jen Rubin
And folks, as much as the Supreme Court has gone to hell in a handbasket, has become a bastion of partisan hackery, the lower courts have been doing their job. So, I think that’s been the one big relief that lower court judges, Republican appointees, Democratic appointees, have really been rather heroic during this time, so let’s hope they continue to hold the line. Thanks so much, Andrew. We’ll look forward to next time, at the next inexplicable, unjustifiable, unacceptable episode.
Andrew Weissmann
Can’t wait.
