Andrew Weissmann: A MAGAtocracy and a Babytocracy
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January 31, 2025
TLDR: Republican senators protect Kash Patel from answering tough questions during his confirmation for the FBI position. The new administration is dismissing seasoned FBI officials, Elon Musk seeks private financial records, Paramount concerned about a Trump-blocked merger deal, and Tim Miller makes an appeal to Senator Bill Cassidy.

In the latest episode of the podcast featuring Andrew Weissmann, host Tim Miller dives deep into the complexities and implications surrounding Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing and broader political maneuvers of the second Trump administration. Here is a concise summary of key insights discussed throughout the episode.
Key Discussion Points
The Struggle Against Nihilism
- Tim Miller reflects on his ongoing struggle against nihilism and the temptation to lose hope in politics.
- Highlighted the importance of encouraging politicians, like Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, to make principled decisions amid pressure.
Kash Patel's Confirmation Hearing
- The hearing raised eyebrows as Republican senators avoided directly supporting Patel as the suitable choice to lead the FBI.
- Weissmann criticized Patel's testimony, specifically his inconsistency regarding his involvement in the January 6 choir and his claims about the declassification of documents at Mar-a-Lago.
- Patel's evasive responses included using terms like "we" while denying his personal involvement in controversial actions related to Trump.
Concerns Over Leadership at the FBI
- Weissmann expressed deep concerns regarding the impact of appointing Patel as FBI director on the organization’s integrity, particularly given current leadership dismissals.
- He emphasized the importance of seasoned officials at the FBI for maintaining public safety and effective national security operations.
The Importance of Experience in Government
- Consolidation of seasoned professionals is vital in federal agencies to combat misinformation and ensure the rule of law.
- Discussed how widespread purges of experienced officials can jeopardize investigations and diminish accountability.
Political Calculations and Legacy
- Tim discusses Cassidy’s political calculation amid ongoing challenges, noting importance for him to oppose RFK Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services with an eye on his political legacy.
- Weissmann suggests that doing the right thing could enhance Cassidy’s reputation and future re-election bids, contrasting concerns of losing party support.
The Broader Implications of Political Trends
- Weissmann shared thoughts on the dysfunction of political accountability when positions of power remain unchecked, emphasizing a need for informed decisions guided by facts and legality.
- The potential impact of the current administration on civil service protections was noted, suggesting possible repercussions for career FBI officials involved in high-profile cases.
Insights on the Trump Administration
- Discussions also touched on the implications of having Trump allies in key positions of power, evoking comparisons to previous administrations that acted counter to public interests.
- Weissmann highlighted Elon Musk’s influence over governmental operations, raising alarms about privatization of services and information control.
Call for Greater Accountability
- The episode culminated with a call from both Tim and Weissmann urging citizens to demand accountability and transparency from their elected officials, particularly in the context of the FBI and government health agencies.
Conclusion
This episode of the podcast provides an in-depth analysis of the current political landscape, focusing on the implications of personnel changes in federal agencies and the ongoing struggle for democratic values amidst rising political extremism. With the examination of Patel's confirmation and the need for principled leadership, it serves as a reminder of the fragility of political traditions and the critical role of public service in a thriving democracy.
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Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We've got my friend Andrew Weismann up here in a minute to talk about Cash Patel and the various legal issues swirling around the second Trump administration. But I wanted to talk first about my senator here in Louisiana, Bill Cassidy. I frequently
been talking about avoiding the temptation to slip into nihilism. As many of you have probably figured out as much about you as it is about giving myself a pep talk as the siren song of nihilism is quite appealing to me. But when there appears to be an opening for anyone
but particularly an elected Republican to do the right thing. We should encourage it. We should not despair and be without all hope that somebody might do the right thing in these moments. And I think we should be gullible or take an advantage of or be loosey with the football here, but
in strategic moments and moments of conscience and crisis. Sometimes people do the right thing. We saw it with Mike Pence. We've seen it before. And I think that there's a chance that my Senator Bill Cassidy might do the right thing. So I want to send a message to him and to you guys. But first, let's listen to a little bit of his closing statement from the RFK Jr.
We're about the same age. Does a 70-year-old man, 71-year-old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines and who's financially vested in finding fault with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States? Will you continue what you have been or will you overturn a new leaf at age 70?
I recognize, man, if you come out unequivocally, vaccines are safe, it does not cause autism, that would have an incredible impact. That's your power. So what's it going to be? Will it be using the credibility to support lots of articles? Or will it be using credibility to undermine?
And I got to figure that out for my vote. But if there's someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or attitudes you bring to the department. And there's another 18-year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease. Helicopter away, God forbid, dies.
It'll be blown up in the press. The greatest tragedy will be her death, but I can also tell you an associated tragedy will that will cast a shadow over President Trump's legacy, which I want to be the absolute best legacy it can be. So that's my dilemma, man, and you may be hearing from you over the weekend. You may be hearing from me over the weekend. I once again thank you for your time. So Cassie is a doctor, as he said, and
he voted to convict Donald Trump in the second impeachment. Those are the two key facts here. And I think that it's pretty clear that he's weighing what to do. And so my message to Bill Cassidy is just go out with your head held high, man. You can do the right thing here. I think that opposing
RFK and preventing him from becoming the Secretary of Health and Human Services is something that is both the right thing for him to do for the country, for the health of the people that live in this country, but also maybe for him politically and certainly for his legacy.
Let's just kind of go through all this. Look, Bill Cassidy broke it down in the hearing. He knows that RFK Jr. is not the right person to believe HHS. He knows. I mean, he said it clearly, that it is irresponsible and dangerous to have somebody that is a vaccine conspiracist running these agencies. He gave you an example of what the consequences of that might be, of deaths. Tommy Vitor talked about this yesterday, of what we saw in Samoa. We've seen the increase already
in instances of whooping cough and some of these other diseases that we have immunizations for. If that proliferates, there will be young people to die. If that proliferates the country, all of us, all of our kids will become less protected from disease. Like Bill Cassidy knows this. He does.
And so just from a medical standpoint, from a health standpoint, the obvious vote here is no. From a political standpoint, if you're Bill Cassidy,
right now you're going to be up for senate for reelection the way that elections work in louisiana senate and federal primaries are closed primaries traditional primaries so it's just republicans who can vote in that there's already a guy uh... john flamming that is said that he is going to challenge castley there's another guy that is uh... the maga local elected official that's looking at challenging castley there was some there's a drama down here in louisiana that uh...
Cassidy had denied that guy and black in his name, but had denied him tickets to the DC Mardi Grasball. That's how you do hardball politics in Louisiana. Rep Clay Higgins, who's made one of the most insane members of the House of Representatives, who is from down here in Louisiana, sent a threatening tweet to Bill Cassidy yesterday with his picture. It says RFK is going to run HHS, whether you like it or not.
So these guys are going to try to bully them and they're going to run against them. And it's just hard for me to see, even if Bill Cassidy comes around and does the right thing, we've just seen too many examples of this. Like Brian Kemp is like the one example of somebody that bucked Trump and survived. And I'm just telling you, the electorate in Georgia is different than the electorate in Louisiana.
And I just, I don't see how somebody that voted to convict Donald Trump and ban him from running for office again is going to win a Republican primary in Louisiana. So politically speaking, like doing this because he thinks it might help him win reelection to the Senate, I think is foolish.
I think that there's potentially a political feature for him if he wants it to try to run for governor here. He thought about doing that in 2023. He considered that. I haven't heard anybody speculate that he might run in 2027, but who knows? Governors races here are different. It's not a cause Republican primary. Everybody votes. It's an open to call a jungle primary. Everybody votes in the first round. The top two go to a runoff. So in theory, two Republicans could get to a runoff and the more normal Republican could win with votes from Republicans and Democrats and independents. It's possible.
It's an outside chance. But if you're a Bill Canosity, that is a more conceivable path to me than running for reelection to the Senate for him.
And doing that, I think you would benefit him to have a more of an independent reputation. And then there's the legacy. This is a person that's been a conservative senator. He could leave and retire and be proud of his career as a doctor and as a conservative senator who was somebody that represented the interests of Louisiana and only bucked the party line two times, one time when Donald Trump attempted a coup
And one time when Donald Trump tried to put an insane person in charge of the health agency in this country. And that is the type of resume that eventually, when the dust settles on all this, gets you a statue or an airport name or something. That is the kind of thing that is in the top of your obituary.
So if you're a Bill Cassidy, you have the chance to do what you know is right, to do what is right politically, to do what is right for your legacy if you oppose the nomination of RFK to be the head of HHS. So I hope you do that, Bill Cassidy. I hope you do the right thing. And if you're listening and you do not live in Louisiana, I asked my husband a lot of the obvious about this. If you do not live in Louisiana, do not call Bill Cassidy's office. If you're a lib in California, do not call Bill Cassidy's office, that is not helpful. If you live in Louisiana,
If you live here or if you have family that live here, call them to do this, call his office, email him. If you happen to be a big money donor, maybe send a text message through that you'd love to support that governor's campaign. If you live in Louisiana.
do what you can to encourage Bill Cassidy to do the right thing, because the way that the math works, it becomes very challenging for RFK to get through if the committee chairman, the Republican committee chairman, I posted something. So not getting our hopes up and not being loose here at the football, we're saying, come on, Bill, you can do this. You got it.
Go Tigers, big win for the women's basketball team last night. I'm gonna be there on Sunday watching the game. Do it, be proud. You got this, Bill Cassidy, say no to RFK. All right, up next, Andrew Weisman. All right, I'm here with former FBI General Counsel and former Justice Department prosecutor, also lead prosecutor in Bob Mueller's investigation of Russia interference in the 2016 election. He's now a professor of practice at NYU Law School, co-host of MSNBC's podcast, Maine Justice.
And he started a substack. Who hasn't? It's behind the headlines with Andrew Wiseman. Hey, Andrew. Hi. How are you? What's happening? Oh, nothing. There's nothing keeps me up. It's such a slow news period. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have much on your plate. You know, it's kind of hanging out decorating the apartment. Yeah.
I was hoping this would be like remember what Biden was elected one of the great things about it was like every day you didn't wake up and look your phone and just be like i don't want to wake up today i just want to go back to sleep. Yeah that was nice and then the inverse of it like last night between i don't know.
10 30 and 11 30 I was angry tweeting like that wasn't something I didn't do that really that much in 20 in 2022 I wouldn't say but such is life I have you here because we want to talk cash in the cash Patel Hearing yesterday and then the various other legal Bruhaha's but before we just kind of get into your wheelhouse I think we just have a little moose-boosh can we just do one for kicks
Let's go for it. Okay. The vice president of the United States, one of the most appalling people in the country, I want to play a little audio of him talking about. He's a, you're not a Catholic. I don't think Weisman, I'm stereotyping, but as a cradle Catholic, sometimes we get a little.
a little bent out of shape about the adult converts. I like that cradle converts. Yeah, we're the OG here. And so I don't really like being lectured by people that decided that they were Catholic two seconds ago. But let's listen to JD Vance's understanding of Catholic doctrine.
But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.
And then after that, that's very common. Jesus was talking about this all the time. It's really funny. I saw that in the Bible. There was a whole sort of like hit list of where, you know, with charity, there's a whole sort of waterfall. Jesus was like, Bethlehem first. The immigrants come last. Bethlehem first. Egypt last was a very common thing. So he got made fun of on the internet for this. And our vice president was tweeting a lot yesterday. He was tweeting.
If you don't agree with me, just google ordo amores. I did google ordo amores. I think he should google it. I think he needs to read, take a second look at that. Then he went after the British guy that does, this is politics UK, Rory Stewart, and he said, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110, and he thinks he has an IQ of 130.
This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years. Who even knows what IQ numbers are? And then just his little bonus for him on his tweet storm. He also started weighing in on taking down of the Mark Milley picture from the Pentagon in favor, obviously. And he writes this, the Vice President again,
Imagine having lived through the last 10 years, the desecration of Washington, Jefferson, Lee, Roosevelt, and even Lincoln, and then drawing the line up Mark Millie. I'm going to read that list one more time, in case you missed it. The desecration of Washington, Jefferson, Lee, Roosevelt, and even Lincoln. You just snuck Lee in there. Just like right in the middle of the list, just those little winky wink to the Confederates. Which one of these things is not like the other?
Don't you think, Tim, you're the political guy, I'm the legal guy. Don't you think this is J.D. Vance is so irrelevant to the administration in terms of, I mean, he's there for a reason, like the tech bar reason, that's sort of hit the play there.
He just seems like that is not where the action is in terms of, I think he's going to be a much more traditional vice president, which is like out of sight, out of mind. And this is his effort to somehow be relevant. But it reminds me, he famously was said, the J6 defendants, we obviously need to separate out the violent ones from the non-violent ones. And about a New York minute later, the president pardoned everybody.
So he's just clearly out of the loop and not being sort of respected as part of the team. Yeah. I mean, he's third at best because we've got the shadow president that we'll get to in a little bit. That's true. I hear everything that you said except for more traditional vice president. Traditionally, vice presidents aren't really shit posting. Honestly, if you told me,
Like if the New York Times Maggie Haberman dropped a story tomorrow and she was like, I got this big exclusive. And she like gave me a little tip and it was like JD Vance is actually behind the Twitter feed and wokeness. He's like tweeting from from the vice president's office at and wokeness. I'd be like, okay, that sounds right to me. And he is indistinguishable from like a random mega troll. Fair enough. She's a little unusual, I guess, for the vice president.
Sorry to nitpick. Words matter. As some evidence for that, I want to start with one clip from the Cash Patel hearing that really tickled me, and then we'll get into the more serious matters from the Cash Patel confirmation. Let's listen to him and Adam Schiff kind of having a little linguistic battle over the word we. I did not have anything to do with the recording.
I did not have anything to do with the recording. Do you stand by that testimony, Mr. Patel? Senator, what I said was I didn't do the recording. You said you didn't have anything to do with the recording, which is interesting because here's what you told Steve Bannon on his podcast. So what we thought would be cool is if we captured that audio and then, of course, had the greatest president, President Donald J. Trump recite the Pledge of Allegiance
then we went to a studio and recorded it, mastered it, digitized it, and put it out as a song now releasing exclusively on the worm. We, we, we. If you had nothing to do with it, Mr. Patel, why did you tell Steve Bannon all his listeners that you did? That's why it says we as you highlighted. Yeah, and you're part of the we, right? When you say we, that includes you, doesn't it, Mr. Patel? Not in every instance.
It goes on for like another minute. Obviously, we're talking about the J6 choir there that Cash was a producer of and we found out that Bullwork reporting actually found out that some of the singers in the choir were among the violent insurrectionists, not just the insurrectionists that we're wandering around. So I don't know, you are a prosecutor, not me. Would that really work for you? You know, if somebody was talking about how like we robbed a bank and then he's like, I was talking about the editorial, the royal we, not me.
It's kind of my people. I used to when I was a prosecutor and defense lawyers would come in and say and make presentations. There's a certain point where you'd say, you know what? Good luck to you with the jury. Make that argument to the jury. You want to say that we does not include me?
Go for it. The problem for Cash Patel is, he tried to every time he was confronted with his own prior words, he would do this kind of dance, or he would say it's out of context when the senators were actually reading his exact words. And it also misses the entire import. The import of everything he was doing for the last few years was to say, I am fully embracing, along with Donald Trump,
the politically oppressed January 6 defendants. They are political prisoners. And then he turns out in his confirmation hearing and says, no, but I didn't mean the violent ones. And also, I'm not really aware of everything everybody did. So when you're showing me bad people, well, maybe I wasn't including theirs. I mean, it's just a completely different story.
than what he was saying and has been saying, and is in his book in writing. I find the whole thing sort of appalling when you looked at what he was saying now versus what he was saying a minute and 32 seconds ago.
Also, there's one exception to the Wii situation for sports fans out there. I do sometimes call the Denver Nuggets Wii, and I'm not playing for the team. I think this is maybe a little bit different, but maybe that's cash is out. The problem, though, as you mentioned, is the whole testimony was not convinced. He was just obviously lying throughout the entire testimony. He was like, oh, I don't believe in QAnon anymore. I wasn't even involved in conversations about who to pardon.
And I had no idea what Trump would do about that. And the testimony was like, I just need to lie enough to give the handful of Republicans who are pretending like they're still normal and care about the rule of law a fig leaf to be able to confirm me. That was just the whole thing. I totally agree here. Let me give you an example of sort of very specific, which is he was asked a lot about having been in the grand jury
in connection with the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Why was he put in the grand jury? Well, presumably it's because he was on a podcast on May 5th, 2022, where he said, I know that Donald Trump
issued in order to declassify documents that are at Mar-a-Lago. I was there when he ordered the declassification of those documents. So he's there to sort of provide some kind of defense. And so the government puts him in the grand jury. He asserts the Fifth Amendment, which as Adam Schiff pointed out, must be the very first time that somebody who's being proposed to be the director of the FBI has taken the Fifth Amendment.
Fifth Amendment means that you have a good faith belief that a truthful answer to the questions would incriminate you in a crime. He is then immunized and forced to testify, and he's asked sort of over and over again about that and dogs and weaves and he gets the law wrong about whether he can speak, but ultimately he says,
I have no idea what documents are at Mar-a-Lago. So I wasn't there. I don't know what documents are there in Mar-a-Lago. How do you square that with I know that Donald Trump declassified the documents at Mar-a-Lago with a statement that I don't know what's at Mar-a-Lago?
I mean, completely inconsistent. That's, again, as a foreign prosecutor, that's exactly what you look for. You look to defend and you're like, I can't wait for this cross-examination. There's no way that you can say, I know he declassified documents of our logo when you simultaneously, under oath, say, I have no idea what's at our logo.
So you take just after the hearing it started, so we played the one club about him being asked by Durbin about Stupeters. Have you heard of Stupeters? No, I don't know. It doesn't ring a bell. And it's like, well, you did his podcast eight times. And who is Stupeters? It was a far-right podcaster that I spoke at Nick Fuentes' anti-Semitic Hitler youth group that he has. The lies were just so obvious and blatant. And they were reminiscent of a child's lies.
You know, yes, they weren't like high quality, like little lies where it's like, you know, trying to shade language one way or the other is just like, the word we doesn't mean what it means. Or I've never heard of this person that I've talked to eight times on camera or whatever. I said clearly that Donald Trump declassified the documents. Now I don't even know what the documents are.
How about Grassley saying, you know, we're looking forward to restoring the reputation and integrity of the FBI, which is, you know, has its reputation right now as its historic lows. And thank God we have this white knight coming in to save it, which is
So, Alice in Wonderland, when the reason it is in that shape, in a large part, is because Cash Patel, for the last four years, has been denigrating the FBI and making up a false story that they were the ones behind January 6. And so, you're sitting at a hearing where it's just as people in MSNBC say it's Earth 2. It's just divorced from reality. It seems to me like he's going to get through him.
I talked about at the top, and then there's a Cassidy situation that's kind of interesting with RFK. The buzz from Tulsi is not that great. I kind of will believe it when I see it as far as these guys actually opposing, these guys being the Republican senators actually opposing any of Trump's nominees when the rubber meets the road. But the buzz on cash is not that. It seems like we're in a Hegsef type situation where they're going to jam him through.
that somebody that was there in the building, like what worries you most about a cash Patel bureau? Well, one, there's already reporting that senior officials at the FBI are being told to either resign. If they don't resign, they will either be fired or they'll be demoted.
And he was just as a quick aside, Cash was asked about this by Cory Booker yesterday because the report leaked out before the hearing was over. And Booker said, are you aware of these plans to punish in any way, including termination FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations? And again, another like obvious lie, but I'm not aware of that Senator, which is just kind of
beggar's belief. And also did you see the grassley said, you know, if you want to answer because if not, we can just move on. I mean, what the hell is that? I mean, it's like, let me just step in and protect you from a hard question. I mean, I was, it was just shocking. I mean, there either is going to be a true hearing or not. But I want to make sure people understand
That does not happen at the Bureau. These are career people. They're protected by all sorts of civil service requirements. Obviously, if somebody is not doing a good job, then they can be demoted. But the idea that
you just get rid of your senior leadership that have been there for years and years have tons of experience there in those positions, because of that longevity of knowing what they're doing and the so-called seventh floor is typically filled with the best at the bureau and you need them.
for a whole host of reasons. You think that there are mistakes that the FBI makes? Well, you know what, if those people on the seventh floor weren't there, there'd be a whole lot more. And so this is really unheard of. Institutional knowledge. Exactly. And just judgment.
Good judgment is so important and a lot of that comes from the experience of having lived through lots of cases, also just how to be effective. I mean, people, I don't think understand when this whole idea of like anti experience that anybody can do the job. No, that's not true.
The judgment and ability to be able to sift through what is noise and what is real is critical in all sorts of ways, but particularly in national security where there's tons of noise and the art, I remember Robert Mueller saying this, the art is knowing
what is the thing to focus on? What is the thing that causes the most concern? And that is what we count on to prevent bombs going off. I mean, there's not a single person at the hearing, and Cash Patel's hearing, who had the audacity, no Republican at the audacity to say, no, this man is the best person for the job. Of all of the people in the entire country, this is the guy. But you know what? That's supposed to be the standard.
Right. Who is the best person? Well, I mean, I don't know. It's a meritocracy now. We've gotten rid of all the DEI and everything. So you would think that maybe this is, maybe this cash, maybe they've looked at it. They looked at everything and made decisions just on merit. Is it mega, mega talk? It's merit only. It's all they're looking at.
I'm just such a neophyte in this. I don't really know how these investigations work. I don't know how the building works. What are some negative consequences of having senior officials fired, having a total clown, be it in charge of the bureau, putting in Trump's sick offense? What are some things that worry you?
Big pictures and small pictures so obviously big pictures you need a director and a bureau that's going to be governed by facts and law so you know if you believe that the fbi is the one that fomented january six so that's just not true.
And so not being governed by facts, that's how you do an investigation. You're ultimately going to need to go to court and prove things. So you need to know what the facts are and be able to establish it. It's all good and well to spout off things that are hearing, to write whatever you want in a book. That's not the way the FBI works and it's not where the courts work.
at least so far, in terms of specifics. So this idea that we can just take everybody from headquarters and move them to the field. Having been in both situations, been in the field and been at headquarters, I mean, obviously there's great work that happens in the field, but again, from a national security perspective and the intelligence community.
that really has to be coordinated through headquarters. Let me just give one quick example. Do you want the field offices of which there are scores and scores of field offices to be independently and separately interacting with our foreign counterparts? So we have an enormously tight relationship with what's called the Five Eyes, so England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
There's an enormous amount of sharing of intelligence. There's also sharing of intelligence with other countries. That has to be centrally coordinated just if people aren't thinking that's to make other countries safe. No, that's to make our country safe. And that has to be coordinated at a national level. That's why you need people like that. Also, you really need to make sure people are taking consistent positions and know what they're doing. And a lot of the offices around the country have never done a terrorism case.
Thank God. And when they get their first one, are they supposed to learn on the job? Or are you supposed to have people at headquarters helping them? The idea of decentralizing all of the FBI, which is cash for tells sort of famous statement coming in, is another way of saying, I'm just going to eradicate it.
And just for people, because sometimes it's hard, unless you're really watching a lot of spy movies or deep into the news, like the FBI's remit, as opposed to the other agencies when it comes to terrorist threats. So it is in charge of
any and all prosecutions of terrorists in the United States. Even if the terrorism is happening overseas, but it affects, let's say, an American, like a bomb goes off and an American is killed, we have jurisdiction. If there is going to be a criminal case against that person, if they're going to be detained here under law enforcement authorities, the FBI has to be involved and takes the lead in that.
It is true that with respect to just intelligence operations, if you're trying to look for just what's happening in country X overseas, there are other agencies that have significant responsibilities, including the CIA and the NSA, the sort of alphabet soup of Washington, D.C. Talk to me about the morale inside, unlike your thoughts on X. That's the other thing that's kind of hard for me to get a sense for, because I don't know. There's a part of me that says,
Like, if I'm a career FBI official who's been nonpartisan, investigating domestic terrorists, investigating big drug gingpins, you know, investigating whatever murders and, you know, have moved out the ranks.
And now this clown is in charge. Part of me is like, I don't know. I wonder how much I could get paid to go do some private security for some famous people, because this seems awful. But maybe that's wrong. I don't know, maybe that's wrong. Maybe there's a lot of MAGA people that are excited about cash, or maybe their mindset is so much different than mine, that they're just like, whatever. It doesn't matter who's in charge. What do you think about the morale?
The first thing I just want to make sure people understand is when I first got to the FBI was the general counsel, one of the most palpable things about the FBI at that time was how apolitical that institution is. Unlike most agencies in Washington, there is one and only one political appointee, which is the director. That's really dissimilar to a whole range of other
And the reason for that is it's not supposed to be a political agency, it's supposed to just be based on facts and law. And that really was felt within the building, that it's just like, wherever the facts are, we don't care what the political consequences are.
So I think within the building, this development has got to be sending shockwaves, but not in a good way of people thinking, oh, change is good. I think there probably are people who have been politicized, which is really unfortunate, and to
are going to be sort of mega loyal loyalists but i think there are other people who are just going to be like i don't need this and there's a another acronym that is a fbi acronym which is the people put in their twenty years. I remember a friend of mine who is there and she said you know i'm kma and i'm like i'm sorry what is that she's like.
kiss my ass. And I said, well, what does that mean? And she said, it means that I've done my 20 years. And so I'm here for the mission. But any day I don't like it, I can retire with full benefits because I'm at that point. And I'm only here because I believe in the FBI and the mission. And I think for those people, the KMA people, they're going to be, I'm out the door.
A lot of KMA's probably. The other thing that I want to ask about Cash and just sort of his remit and the scariest thing, and I guess we'll do a little macabre humor to start this question, but obviously there is the enemies list. He pretends like he didn't have an enemies list, but I mean, he literally had one and it was an appendix in the book and he talked about it all the time on all the various podcasts that he forgets that he was on now, apparently. I interviewed Steve Bannon about this about two months ago.
and asked him, I was like, are you guys serious about this? Like, who do you want cash to target if he's in there? And then, you know, then it's like, yeah, I'm serious. And I was like, okay, well, who do you think should be targeted? He starts listening names and he lists you. Andrew Weisman is right there on the list. Andy McCabe, these guys watch a lot of cable.
So then cable news lawyers were the top of the list. Those are the real guys you need to go after. And then we'll figure out who else is in the shadows in the deep state to figure them out later. But we're coming for the cable news lawyers first. That's a great motto. Go for the cable news lawyers. So this next question might have some implications for you. But the thing that worries me about cash is the FBI has pretty broad remit to make people's lives miserable before you get to a lot of checks.
I'm curious what you can think about that, what your worries are about the investigations and whoever has the old Andrew Weisman job as the general counsel, what kind of oversight they'll have over just sort of opening up the book on people's lives and making things hard for them.
You know, I think the way I think about that, which is, you know, maybe sort of a pipe dream at this point is I'm an institutionalistic, still think facts and law matter. I hear you that those checks with respect to judges and juries doesn't come until
Later in most instances unless you're Donald Trump So I sort of count on that and that if there's nothing there then a lot of this will be wasted time I mean, it's not a crime to be on cable news Last time I checked even though Cash Patel famously is that he's going after the media whether it's criminally or civilly We'll deal with that later interesting thing for the head of the FBI to say I mean my biggest concern is
Of course, Capitol Hill is a huge concern, but I actually think one of the bigger concerns is watching these hearings and watching the complicity of various senators and congresspeople in the lies. It's just appalling. And that, to me, is a concern that when you're thinking about the checks and balances, you're like, oh, well, there's no check there.
They're perfectly happy to go along with things that they have to know are not true. So you're not changing your day-to-day life thinking about the Cash Patel FBI.
I'm still here doing my thing with the bulwark. All right. Have you done any googling of expatriate loss just in like your darker moments? I have not. Okay. Keep me posted. The first time you do that Google, because I think you're kind of higher up the list than me. So, you know, the first time you start thinking you got to start googling about it, then just give me a heads up so I can.
Are you jealous, Tim? I'm joking about it. I'm with you. I'm joking about it. I know I'm joking about it. This is the joke, but I'm with you. I am way more worried about incompetent people being in charge of our security and what the impact could be.
On that way more worried about many of the stories out one of the things i was raised posting about last night was a story about a guy who is undocumented immigrant but he's married to a american citizen so he's in the green card process is kids that are american citizens they were going to buy formula.
for their baby for one of the kids, the husband and wife, they got pulled over allegedly for speeding or running a stop sign or something, and the guy's in ice detention now. The cop called ice. I'm way more worried about people like that than the cable news lawyers. The thing I'm worried about, and I think it's because I've been on the inside in the intelligence community, is I keep on saying this word is Katrina.
Do you remember when that happened that there was rightful outrage and pushback because the head of FEMA was not ready for the job? He was learning on the job. You cannot put in people who are the kind of nominees that we're seeing.
and think there isn't going to be a crisis between the Department of Defense, the FBI, the head of intelligence, HHS, and these are the people who are going to be handling a crisis involving our security, whether it's health security, whether it's
physical security, the idea that there isn't more outrage at this and a sense of like, can you please find some more competent people? And a real misunderstanding of what these organizations do. I have to say, go back and say, what do I think?
was like a Biden administration flaw and I know there's like a ton of, it could be a big list, but I just think there needs to be a lot more public speaking and it couldn't just be business as normal, which is that we don't speak. We only do stuff through public filings. There just needs to be a greater education of the public that institutions with all of their flaws do really good things for us.
Yeah, if you think there was a lot of elite failure the last few decades, just wait, y'all just wait till the adocracy comes forth. And then you'll really see the new elite failure. I want to also ask you about the DOJ firings because it's related.
You know, some of these 74 FBI officials, like you said, are going to be pushed out, but people are investigating Trump as part of Jack Smith, et cetera. I guess there's some questions about whether this is even legal. So it's a two-part question for you is just like, what's your sense for what's happening and whether they're going to get away with it? The actual firing of people who worked on the Trump cases
completely violates the civil service rules. So that's illegal. That's kind of thing that if these people sue, it goes to something called a merit system protection board. The merit system. That's interesting merit system protection meritocracy. Yeah. So Tim, these are people who are
protected they're not at will employees you have to have a reason a good cause reason to fire them why is that why do we not want and we want a civil service protection precisely so that every four years the change of administration.
you don't just put in a bunch of loyalists because the idea is the facts and the law don't change. And people are just going to be there doing their job based on the facts and law and not based on being a political crony of what the next administration wants. That's the ethos. That is why this all came to existence at a post-Tammany Hall. So to fire those people, you have to have good cause.
So if they bring a lawsuit, I think they win, but the damage is done. But to me, one of the first things the acting attorney general did was fire these people. This is the head of our law enforcement agency. As a first step is just saying, I don't believe in civil service.
I'm getting old, so I can kind of remember things. I know you can remember things now. I want them to remember Alberto Gonzalez getting run out of town. Exactly right. That's exactly right. And there was more grounds legally for what they did. It was more sort of politically
hideous. One of the things that was part of that scandal was with respect to removal of US attorneys, they sort of heads of various prosecuting offices around the country. But there also was somebody on staff who was stripping out, at least it's the accusation, stripping out from the honors program, people who were identified as sort of liberal or Democrats.
That's totally improper to do that. And here, one of the things that's happened, and I noticed because I'm now teaching a law school, is summer positions, all on hold, people told, the offers are rescinded. The honors program, which is new attorneys, it's a huge, wonderful way for DOJ is to get us as a pipeline, the very best and brightest from clerkships. This is going to be somebody close to me. We just got frozen on this thing. Exactly.
done. Employees who are still in their first year probationary period all put on a list to see who's going to be fired. The idea then is to really strip out as much as they can the civil service protections to create room for, in my view, it's like a bunch of loyalists. It is wild just when you think about that trajectory though, like
Alberto Gonzalez was forced to resign over something that was the first act, basically the same exact, actually a worst version of that was the first act of the incoming Trump Attorney General. So this is happening across the board. And just stuff keeps leaking out. There's post story this morning about someone, a senior official at Treasury, who I guess was in charge of
payment systems, how people get their Social Security checks, etc., and Elon, our shadow president, wanted control of the payment system. I don't know if he was going to pay people in Dogecoin. I don't know exactly why he wanted the system, but the guy is saying that he's going to quit. This is sharing government information with private
citizens, the reporting on that is particularly shocking. I mean, this is a kid into saying, oh, you know what, Elon Musk wants all of our healthcare records. I mean, I'm sorry, he wants all of our financial records. Like, I mean, talk about big brother.
What is your sense for the SCOTUS? I ask every actual lawyer, actual SCOTUS watcher that comes on here, like what they think. So it's just a range of views. But when it comes to all these sorts of challenges, I don't know. Like to me, it's like birthright citizenship. I feel pretty good. SCOTUS will uphold the just plain text or the constitution. But on all this kind of stuff, impoundment, firing of career civil servants. Cause that's where this is all going, right? Isn't this all going to the spring court eventually?
Yes, a lot of this is going to end up there. At some point, you wonder just how much the Supreme Court's going to try to keep their head down. And if, for some reason, let's say in birthright citizenship, if the appellate courts are all sort of uniform, then they may not need to step in on it because they're going to be sort of front and center. But essentially, their decision last year in the presidential immunity case, where they basically had this vision
of an all-powerful executive branch is one that Donald Trump is taking to the extreme, not just saying there's a unitary executive, meaning that he's in charge of everything that happens within the executive branch, but he seems to have a view, which is I'm in charge of everything that happens in every branch. So I can do things and I can actually say things violate a congressional statute because it violates my presidential powers.
So he is sort of this really beyond maximalist view, and it's been now just a dictatorial view. I don't think at that maximal level, I'm not sure he's going to have five votes on that. I think Roberts, for instance, as much as he has this view of an extremely broad executive power,
I think that's a bridge too far. And so that's just for though. Yeah, well, it's for I think he's foreign and Amy Coney Barrett, I think is five, you know, on the presidential, again, there's all speculation, but on the presidential immunity decision, I actually think her concurrence was a very rational
way to try and deal with the issues. And if that had been the majority opinion, I think we all would have been like that made a lot of sense. I mean, I really do think she's somebody to keep an eye on. And just one more data point for her. You may remember there was a case called Fisher, which had to do with the obstruction statute that was charged with respect to
many, many, many January 6 defendants. She wrote the dissent in that case. She actually authored the dissent saying that the statute as written completely supports what the government did here and the charges here. That was the charge about like interfering with the proceeding, a formal proceeding. Exactly. With the obstructing sort of the congressional effort and whether it was enough to
sort of be physically attacking and physically disrupting what Congress was doing, or whether there had to be some effect on papers or records. And the majority sort of narrowed the statute. And she was like, that's not what the statute says. And it makes no sense. And she was very cogent to sense. My big point is not whether you agree or disagree with her on that decision, is it was interesting that she was writing the dissent. Just two other legal stories related to the media, since you know,
lawyer in the media. A rage over the possible paramount CBS settlement over 60 minutes is unbounded. For people who have not followed this, 60 minutes aired an interview with Kamala Harris, where they had a preview of the show that showed in exchange with her and Bill Whittaker that looked one way.
And then in the actual program, the exchange was different. And the reason for this is because previews of shows are very short. And people that are making commercials are trying to cut up very long interviews in ways that make it coherent and make an enticing for a viewer to come watch. It's something that is just totally standard procedure in every interview, particularly in a long magazine show like 60 Minutes. Like what 60 Minutes did was totally pro forma
If it's happened at one time, it's happened a million times. Donald Trump sued over this because, who knows why, sued for 10 billion saying that CBS was biasing in favor of Kamala because they made her answer more coherent than it really was. That was the claim. It is a preposterous lawsuit.
And a report out yesterday says that many executives at CBS's parent company Paramount believed that settling this lawsuit would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multi-billion dollar merger. If they fucking settled this suit and you are a Paramount Plus subscriber unsubscribe, maybe unsubscribe now and start sending them a message. I don't care if you like Yellowstone or whatever's on there. Like this is fucking outrageous. So I don't know if you have additional thoughts about that.
Well, it's Russia. This is the patronage oligarchy. This is why Putin's fabulously wealthy. It's like he's got the levers of power, and he's got the ability to decide how difficult your life's going to be. And you have Paramount saying, well, I'm concerned about a merger, so we're basically going to pay abroad.
That is the way it reads. And you have other examples of that, whether it's CNN settling its lawsuit, whether you have sort of capitulation issues with Jeff Bezos saying, you know, we're not going to take a position on endorsing a presidential candidate because you don't like the fact that it would make us appear to be biased one way or the other. But at the same time, he then goes to the inauguration and is in the front row, which of course, that would have no appearance.
So you're seeing over and over in these kinds of examples, but the idea of the lawsuits is really an example of just a patronage system that is exactly what happens when you have oligarchs, where you're just paying off that money. And let me just give you one other scary piece on this, which is during the campaign, the president gave notice to the Department of Justice that he was going to bring a lawsuit for $100 million in connection with the search at Mar-a-Lago.
So he can bring that lawsuit. And since the Department of Justice is now under his thumb, he can order them to settle it, his own lawsuit. And so there's nothing wrong with the search. The search has been a court ordered and authorized, even Judge Cannon said that that was an appropriate search.
So, there's more to come on that. I don't know, we'll watch it. The ABC, the Stephanopoulos suit was at least kind of an in-dye of the beholder type like lawsuit about, you know, whether somebody was slandered. I think that ABC and Disney would have won that suit.
The 60-minute suit is a category difference from that. The 60-minute lawsuit was written in crayon or like smeared with poop onto a piece of paper. And it is the stupidest fucking thing that I've ever seen. And the idea that they would settle- Tim, what do you really think? I'm having trouble understanding your opinion. Again, I didn't know that much about the FBI, I think, so I couldn't be quite as outraged as you about the Cash Patel.
I've, I've worked on 60 minute stories. I know how this works. Like this is, this is a 10 billion dollar lawsuit because they cut a preview of an interview. It didn't include the full context. Like it is just, it is.
idiotic. We can say the R word again. I don't, but that is really what it is. Anyway, I don't know if you have anything else on that, but no, I don't. I'm done. I'm feeling your pain though. All right. You never know because you might get targeted. Who the hell knows? You might get sued now over the end and maybe so. I think civil suits are definitely going to be a way forward for this administration. No question bullying people. I mean, because it works because all these gazillionaires are folding.
Because they want their merger to happen, they don't want Mr. Trump to be mean to them about their merger.
These paramount executives, you better not settle this suit. FCC is also opening investigation into the NPR and PBS. Brendan Carr, the new chairman, sent a letter this week to the heads of NPR and PBS announcing an investigation into the public outlets for airing sponsorships, a longtime practice. Trump had pleaded in April in all caps, no more funding for NPR. A total scam editor said they have no Republicans. I don't know if that is...
that's related, but I don't know. Cash Patel during the hearing was saying that they were not going to politicize anything. There are not going to be any more political investigations. What do you think? You think that this is on the up and up here, this FCC investigation? Well, of course not. I mean, it's just happening now that this is some horrible wrong, which is that instead of commercials, they've got sponsorships. And even if you thought that was a practice that shouldn't be engaged in,
by public news outlets. I mean, the fact that it's happening right now is so and it's targeting just them. All of this is what we've been talking about is just this is the hungry playbook, hungry with the country. This isn't subtle and this is one where for a while people like you and me have been saying, this is what's going to happen, folks. This is what's going to happen, folks. Well, it's happening.
That's an uplifting place for us to close for the weekend pod. Andrew Weizmann. Have a good weekend. Welcome to the Bullard Podcast. Thank you so much for doing it. Let's do it again sometime. Remember his podcast, Main Justice, can check that out if you want to nerd out with Andrew Weizmann and does sub-stack behind the headlines with Andrew Weizmann. We'll be talking to you soon. Thanks Tim. Everybody else, we'll be back Monday. Bill's on a little holiday, so I got Will Salatin Mondays or back. We'll see you all then. Peace.
You touch the side like a pile of leaves I got to find some better ways For about me to run around the bend The government may just surround you again If Daniel won't change my mind Better baby baby baby
Don't you want for me? Don't you wanna change my life? Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby
The Bullwork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.
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