Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced shurpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on ex at FDR LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is doctor Matt Mehan, Associate Dean and
Assistant Professor of Government, Graduate School Government at the Hillsdale
College's Washington, d C. Campus. He joins us today to
talk about something that I think is extremely important as
we look to the next administration. That's accountability in government
and in justice in what has been an unjust age
for many reasons. Matt, thank you so much for joining
us on the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is an important conversation to have, I believe because
of what this country and what many have experienced over
the last four years. In particular, and that is the
constant use of lawfare against political opponents in what seems
to a lot of people like more like a banana
republic than a constitutional republic. And as we turn the
page on the Biden years, there are a lot of
people who are calling for heads in conservative movement in America,
and their anger is understandable and I think in many
fronts well justified. The question we begin with today as
we talk this through, do you believe there will be accountability?
And what will that accountability look like for the abuses
of government of the last four years.
Speaker 2: So I do believe there will be accountability. What it
will look like in a certain sense is what we
should talk about, because I do think there are a
lot of forks in the road that the Trump administration. Pambondi,
who just had her hearing this morning, recording today and
Cash Betel and a list of important people in the administration,
They're going to have a lot of these decisions to make.
And so how they go about establish some accountability for
the law fair? And the once it's lawfair is it
points out the victim in this case, you know, former
president and soon to be president Donald Trump and others.
But but but it almost goes beyond that to basically
just a kind of wholesale violation of many laws, and
and that in and of itself. It's not just that
in order to turn the law. Shakespeare has a great
line that you lead the law in liem, which is
to say, you hold it like a dog on a leash,
that you just stick on people, as opposed to it's
a measure by which you sort of you hold the
whole populace accountable equal under the law. Instead, you just
use it like an attack dog, and you know, go
get them Fido. We've got to prevent that. But I
think the way to prevent it is to focus on
the law is broken, to commit the law fair, and
then focus on the most important laws broken in the
commission of these these acts of lawfair such that you
disincentivize it in the future and set an example of
how not to do it. But again, and I think
we should talk about this in more detail, But there
has to be a way back from the appearance of reprisal,
revenge and the sort of what I refer to as
a kind of carousel of death that leads to a
kind of late Republican you know, prescription lists and triumvirates
and counter triumvirates, and we get after your bad guys
and you get after ours like we have to find
a way out. And that's what I've been thinking and
talking a lot about lately.
Speaker 1: That that's the billion dollar question, isn't it. I mean,
how do we find a way out? Because I mean,
take a look at what's happened over the last four years.
You have an outgoing president who came in by saying
that he was going to be the great Unifier. And
I guess what he meant by being the great Unifier
was trying everything in his power under the executive branch
to try to unify the American people against Donald Trump,
who was his principal, number one political enemy, the left's
number one political enemy. And so all of these mechanisms
were used. We saw them before us in the American people,
slowly by degree, I think the vast majority woke up
to what was happening in this country. But the other
side of that is, if it is this tit for
tat as you talk about back and forth, how do
we ever get out of this place of lawfare and
using extra constitutional powers, to say the very least, to
put it generously, to go after and target political enemies.
Speaker 2: So I'll say stage one, I think we can reliably
count on being done which is the kind of rhetoric
that Trump employed last time in office and that he
is employing now, and that Pambondi employed today. And what
I'm hearing generally from different, you know, lower level people
headed into the administration is all the right kind of
language and the opposite of what I refer to, and
I really do think that historians should refer to as
Biden's red speech. Do you recall this political speech in Philadelphia?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, it still creates nightmares for some people before they
close their eyes and go to sleep at night.
Speaker 2: Yes, Baglin in bloody red, presumably for red, white, and blue,
but it was basically a kind of like trigger color
to get you angry. He had the Marines in the
background for a political speech for the chem pain. It
wasn't an official, uh you know, rhetorical duty of the president.
It was a political campaign using silhouetted menacing back red
lit marines, where he called half the country a bunch
of basically domestic terrorists.
Speaker 1: Yes, we already know.
Speaker 2: That that's not what Trump's going to do, right. He
might isolate certain people that he hates that are malefactors,
but he is not going to try to castigate anyone
who's his political opponent in a broad breaststroke as as
the enemy, not just not just in like rhetorical colleges
like Trump will say to oppresses the enemy of the people, right, Like,
that's a pretty insidiaran hilarious, you know, game to play
with the old Stalin phrase, et cetera. Whether it's true
or not, you know, it depends on which media, but
but the but the But that's different than saying you
are domestic terrorists, I e. I am going to send
DHS and the FBI after all of you, which is
what he did. So we kind of know already that
Trump's not setting the rhetorical table for that kind of
weaponized to doj and weaponized FBI, which is great, and
that's one. But step two, I think is what you
heard today from Pam Bondi about that we're going to
equally enforce the law right and in good faith. And
I think that's a really key factor. Is it going
to do it in good faith? And what is good faith?
What does that phrase mean in Republican American government? Is
something that we should talk about further. But you know,
she had a lot of questions asked of her from
was it Herono? Is that the Hawaiian senator? Am I
saying her name correctly?
Speaker 1: You absolutely are Mazy Herono? Who is That's another topic
for another day altogether, but yes.
Speaker 2: But she basically asked, what if Trump gives you a name,
are you going to go after it? I e use
the law in liam and Shakespeare says and sick the
doj upon an enemy named by Trump. And you know,
in one sense that's a trap because she is an
official of the Trump administration, appointed in serving at his
pleasure execute the laws. So what Trump should never do
and she shouldn't respond to and she should correct him
when he asks, right as a sort of good and
loyal counselor. But what Trump should be saying is this
kind of crime needs to be prosecuted. I don't care
whose party, I don't care who comes up on the
drag net from this, but this is a first order
magnitude prosecutorial discretion number one list. And I think that
in order to re establish good faith and stop lawfare,
the number one crime that is, I think enabling law
fair and enabling or rather disabling any trust or any
good faith kept between political parties or between disagreeing American
people and politically misaligned you know, governmental officials, be it
one party or the other, be it leadership or civil
service appointees or politicals or not. Is good faith and
that that crime that violates good faith is perjury. That
is to say, I think the Trump administrations should say,
we're going to really go after perjurers, right, because if
you can't count on a testimony under oath, right, that's
five years in prison under the Section eighteen of the
US Code, right, like maximum five years in prison if
and I noted that Pamboni mentioned Kevin Klinsmith this morning,
if you commit perjury under oath before a finds a court,
a secret court, the Patriot Act says it's ten years maximum. Right.
So I think you have to go after perjury because
if you really think about it, if you go down
the list, right, there are some Republicans that might get
involved in that kind of prosecutorial issue, and there are
lots of Democrats, and they are a lot of the
type of people who manipulated the legal system, evidentiary records,
et cetera in order to do so, and they often
did it through perjurist means. So I think the idea
that we're going to re establish trusts and the rule
of law. I think you have to go after and
re establish good faith, go after perjury, and that's like
job one, and that will take out a number of
lawfair participants into you know, I think investigations likely prosecutions
for some. I mean, maybe some are innocent, and it's
very you know, a confusing cloud. I have my doubts,
but but you know, everybody gets their day in court
and it's until proof and guilty in the courtroom. But
I can still suspect you for a while. So that,
to my mind, I think is a way to do it.
Because it's one thing to say we're going to do
equal justice under law, but you still have prosecutorial discretion.
And how do you do that such as you stop
all this crazy lawfare, but you don't look like you're
doing lawfare again and taking vengeance. And I think perjury
is a really good way to frame it for people
that this has to stup. We have to trust one
another again.
Speaker 1: I think you raise some very good points with perjury
and putting an emphasis on that. But to a lot
of conservatives, particularly over the last four years in this country,
it feels like the people who are being held accountable.
More so, the people who are being targeted, in too
many cases unjustly targeted, are conservatives or people who lean
to the right, where the left seems to get a pass.
And I think you can definitely see that in some
of the most high profile cases. I mean, look at
the lawfair against President elect Donald Trump, and then at
the same time, look at the David Weiss report, and
now this guy basically trying to cover his tracks because
he was covering for the president's son. I don't know
how else you see what went on in this country
and some very serious charges against Hunter Biden for a
long time without seeing really two tiers of justice. No,
that's right, we talk about two tiers of justice, Matt,
But really that's a misnomer because there's really only justice
and injustice. So how do you get to a state
of mind where conservatives say, Okay, finally someone's going to
be held accountable here?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I do think that a lot of the
Democrats hide behind our love of equal justice and our
realization that we have to both be just and a
peer just right, because you actually have to do both,
or you give license to people to be unjust next time,
and not care about appearing just so they can actually
be menacing to their enemies. Right, That's what the Democrats
actually gave up on appearing just in the last four years.
I think that trump victory is in a certain sense
payback by the American people for them saying, we're not
even gonna try to look just anymore. We're just going
to be ugly attackers of our political enemies. So I
do think you have to go after them because they're
actually hiding inside this propriety of well, you wouldn't go
after your political opponent. So what I think I'm putting
forward is a kind of mean between the old fashioned
sort of like it's all water under the bridge, Like
who cares that they did all these horrible things they
got punished at the ballot box. Like that's not enough, right,
this is this is too this has hit critical mass,
this is too endemic and systemic. You have to actually
punish some people and draw a line that said. I
think the kind of line I've I've outlined is is
a good one for starters. Obviously, there are other crimes
that you're gonna have to deal with in a general way,
but in terms of dealing with this upper level sort
of political lawfair shenanigans against the opponents. I think this
is the mode in which you do it is to
re establish trust. That said, with regard to how they
persecute people, just sort of Joe schmoe. You know some
guy you know trying to start a five oh one
c three in the irs is messing with them, or
some grandma praying rosers in front of an abortion clinic
or what have you. That kind of thing. I think
is that is that is solved by the absence of
that kind of bizarre persecutorial business. And the payback is
Congress doesn't fund stupid leftist NGO George Soro's backdoor garbage.
So I think that's the tit for tat there. But
in terms of prosecution, I do think the lying has
to stop. But it's fundament You cannot have republican self
government without good faith, without fee day, says Cicero would
call it. You have to have this. You have to
rely that people are gonna say what they mean and
mean what they say, especially under oath. Otherwise everything breaks
down and the people can't know what's going on, and
the people can't actually make decisions, and Congress can't oversee
anything in the government, and they can't even make law properly,
and enemies can do whatever they want and destroy people's
careers or attempt to thank God in this instance. But again,
I think there's still yet more to say about you know,
because if you just punish them, and you just go
after them in the way I'm describing, you still look
like you're on the carousel of reprisals unto the end
of the republic. So we should I think we should
talk about clemency, which Biden is putting on a kind
of masterclass in how not to do that right now.
But Trump really needs to be laying out a full vision,
and I think Pam Bondi and Cash Betel, everybody needs
to be on the same page about here is the
arc of strictness and clemency, the two balanced together, right
where we're going to have a reckoning for these evil lawbreaking,
perjurist things you've done, right, but we're also going to,
on the back end of it, have some reasonable hope
of clemency and restoration. So it's not vengeance, it's not
I get to sort of hear the lamentation of the women,
the screaming of the children, and the burning of my
enemy's villages. Right, Like, it can't be that. It can't
be Oda Walker the third taking vengeance right upon the
Roman outposts. Right, it's got to be. We're the civilizational
force and we're going to quell the barbarians who held
office for four years, and we have to be the
bigger men. How to do that? We can talk about more.
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Speaker 1: We will, Indeed for barons is a difficult thing. I
want to get into that because Shakespeare wrote a lot
about governments and compacts between peoples as a marriage, and
that's what we have. That's the Republic. It's a marriage
of the people, and it's government and a very precious
and particular system of government, which we will delve into
further here momentarily. Our guest today is doctor Matthew Mehan,
Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government, Graduate School of Government,
hales Hillsdale College's Washington, DC campus. We're talking about accountability
and justice in a day and age where accountability has
been difficult to find, and sometimes too often so has justice.
So let's dwell on that point again. That you know,
I think about the president that, without a doubt was
a master at forbearance, someone who was not necessarily someone
who was devoid of anger. He certainly had his moments.
But Abraham Lincoln and the concept of forbearans in a
marriage that absolutely fell apart in the Republic in eighteen sixty.
I don't believe we're at that level. We certainly have
a bad marriage going on in this country. And it
does come down to the principles that you talked about, Matt,
faith and faithlessness. So how you've kind of expounded upon
this clemency is a good way. But where does clemency
begin and rebuilding faithless relationships?
Speaker 2: So I think clemency begins. Actually, as I briefly mentioned
in strictness, a lot of people think, oh, if you're
strict or you're lenient, like those are those are those
are sort of antonyms, but they're not. Actually if clemency
or leniency with regard to punishment is different than strictness
with regard to establishing facts, right, raising the specter of
guilt and punishment and you know, compelling confessions of wrongdoing
such that people restore themselves in good faith to the community. Right. So,
and then clemency is granted when people are contrite. They
admit their wrongdoing, they say they've done wrong, they admit
to the facts. I think people are watching Biden basically
give clemency like blanket clemency for eleven years to Hunter
Biden for basically a ton of things which he's not
sorry for, hasn't confessed, doesn't care about, doesn't admit right,
and is basically saving his own hide and you know,
others of his family and et cetera. So although as
some people, my friend and colleigue Henry Olsen is noted
if you do have blanket pardon for those eleven years,
I don't believe you can plead the fifth anymore. Right,
so you actually have to testify. Yes, that's worth noting everyone.
But but that's the wrong approach. The right approach is
we're going to be very strict on this perjury problem.
But if you confess to it, right, then then clemency
will be offered if you are sorry and publicly contrite
and say I stepped away from the marriage as you
put it earlier, I left the faith of society where
we trust one another and we do things by the book.
I left that. I am sorry. I want to come
back right, I want to be rehabilitated. And then I
think clemency is especially preferred for people of high profile
who are political opponents. You say, that's not fair, It's
like life ain't fair, right, But justice right does recommend
that you also have the appearance of clemency for people
at the top that everyone can see, right, but only
if they come clean. And I think they still have
to do something, a little community service, a little right,
you know, maybe, and some of them are going to
be or calciltorned about things, and some of them are
going to go to prison, for sure. But I think
you opened the door and say, look, you, I am
not trying to bring you to punishment. I do not
want to see you rot in a jail for three
years for perjury or for subordination to perjury, as some
of these people are guilty of and basically cajoling others
to commit perjury or helping them. Right, I don't want that.
Here's what you can do. I also think that's why
prosecutorial discretion on perjury should be really pick the high
profile cases that you can demonstrate without the need of
their testimony, because otherwise it feels like you're sort of
torturing them with prison to get them to say something.
Maybe that's not true or they don't believe. But you've
got to pick the high profile cases that are like,
we've got you dead to rights. Look at this, it's
so clear. Here's the video and audio and recordings and documents.
You perjured yourself. You know you've done wrong, and you
can say all you want and pretend all you want,
but here it is you're going to prison unless you
cop to it, say you're sorry, and then that we
can have restoration. I think Trump needs to be in
the mode both rhetorically and prosecutorially, that my former enemies
are my future friends. Right, that doesn't destroy the friend
enemy distinction. That I know some people who are really
keen on you know, you know, retribution or even revenge,
and I don't think that language is appropriate, the revenge
and vengeance language that vengeance's mind says the lord. But
justice and retributive justice is okay provided it's done correctly.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But you know, those people who have done grievous harm
to the political system to equal justice under law and
personally Donald Trump and others, I think they they need
to be understood publicly as potential future friends. If they
come clean and admit they're wrong and come back into
community with everybody.
Speaker 1: That's the big issue. I mean. I point back to
Abraham Lincoln his first and inaugural address and his second.
It was exactly what you just talked about. We are friends.
We are tied together by so many things, and the
principal thing that ties us together is that our forefathers
fought and to the death for everything. It came down
to their their treasure, their lives, their very lives, so
that this nation of freedom could be born, and I'm
just curious if you see that kind of rhetoric coming
out of a new Trump administration in his inauguration.
Speaker 2: Speech, I mean, we'll see. I know some speech writers
in Trump's orbit, I know a number of them understand
these things well. And I know that Trump has said
from the very moment it was a parent that he
was going to take the electoral College. He said, hey,
I'm very forgiving. I'll give you a third chance. You
know I've given second chance. I'll give third chances. And
then he goes but not a fourth typical Trump. But
but but I do think I do think he's up
for it. I think what you heard from Pam Bondi
this morning was very promising in this way. And I
think Trump Trump's general, he's you know, former Democrat. He's
kind of a huggy beard guy who wants everybody to
be pals, and he wants you know, he wants to
be a populist. He wants the majority of the population
and then some. He wants everybody to be to be healed.
And he wants America to love itself and love each
other and love him right. He wants all those things.
So I think he's he's he's in that direction. Uh,
and he's up for it. The and Cony and you know,
you brought up the Civil warris and we're not that bad.
I think we're not that bad in one sense, but
in another sense, we're passive, aggressively worse. Right, there's something
sort of innocently and simplistically candid about just like, well,
if we didn't get we wanted, it's a shooting war. Right.
There's something grotesquely duplicitous about like, well, we didn't get
we want, so we're going to malign you, change documents,
spy on you, illegally, frame you for for crimes you
didn't commit, bleed your finances unjustly, et cetera, et cetera.
Right Like, and I think I'll take that hypocrisy over
a shooting war. But it is bad, It's real bad,
and people need to stop it. And so I do
think that there needs to be the specter of real
prosecution needs to be brought forward and and and laid
equally upon perjurers. I think think this will hit a
couple of Republicans, right, I mean, I don't think it's
just democrats. I think it's a crime. You know, show
me the crime, and I'll show you an equal enforcement
of it. That's the model, right. I don't want to
show the man and find the crime. But it just
so happens that the lawfare people did do a lot
of this perjuriousness. And so I do think it's two
birds one stone, but you actually do the work of
justice while not framing it as a reprisal, because it
isn't because you have to stop this kind of criminal perjury.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important as well, and I agree
with you. I mean, you have to stop the perjury.
You have to stop this game that we've been playing,
and really the left has been playing it better than
the right for a long time, because I think there
are a lot of people on the right who still
believe that, you know, there is such a thing as
a moral compass, you know, a golden rule based on
you know, values that have been so important to this country.
You know, treat people the way you want to be treated,
that kind of thing, and that it's equal justice under
the law. Well, as we know, that's simply not the
case from what we've experienced over the last four years.
And I get it. I understand that people are angry
They're not satisfied simply that their guy won. They're not
satisfied simply that they may have you know, the trifecta
in government when it comes to control of the Senate,
the House, and the White House. They really truly want
to see people go to jail, and they never really
see that. They never see people on the left, in particular,
go to jail. If we're talking about accountability, how how
else do you you walk that line and with that
the whole clemency notion. Do you believe that President Trump
should begin with the victims of the law fair, with
the victims of the weaponized judicial system.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think certainly anyone who's been hit like that.
I know there's talk of the non violent jaystixers. You know,
you've got these these people who've been hauled in using
rico when they're like praying in front of an abortion
clinic or like absolutely bumped into someone. The sort of
man on the street who's been lawfaired for political reasons.
I think that's right. I think I don't know what
the how the law shakes out with regard to you know,
civil suits against the government for some of this, you know,
miss this miss misappropriating of DJ and FBI personnel to
go after people like this. But I think there should
be payouts if appropriate, you know, like I think all
of those things are true. But listen, I want to
back up on one thing. I'm talking about what Trump, Pambondi,
and the administration ought to do. But there's another party here.
It takes two to tango. I think some on the
left are so proud, so entrenched in their vice of
lying and their bizarre and unwarranted moral sanctimony, that they
will go down and try to again lie as Fae
martyrs in prison. I think we will see some people
go to prison if what I'm saying is done right.
But I think that the Trump administration is responsible for
setting a table such that we can have a Thanksgiving
feast again right and knowing full well that some people
won't take it right. Some people that's that's the kind
of criminal that doesn't get clemency. You don't give clemency
to hardened thugs who are smiling, grinning and perpetuating their
lives even though they've been proven powerfully and beyond the
shadow of a doubt that they did the wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, we we don't Matt Joe Biden does, as the
record shows record number of commuted sentences or you know,
clemency orders or absolute pardons to people who did some
very very horrible things to other people.
Speaker 2: I justly corrected, Matt. I'd say that that's a normative statement,
not not a not a reportorial statement.
Speaker 1: Certainly, certainly so.
Speaker 2: But but we are the good guys and we need
to remain such. And I do think that this country
is still in a state of flux, and it's worth noting.
This feels like a big victory, but I warn everybody
that one of the things that every wise man predicted
centuries and centuries ago, and you know, ten years ago,
is that the people, when they're frustrated, they carene They
can change their mind more quickly than we would like,
and they will part ways if we get ugly and
start looking like what they just rejected. So we have
to both be just and appear just. And it's not
enough to say, well, I am doing justice because they
did wrong. It's like you've got to do it in
just the right way, because if you look unjust by
the way, you are unjust. Because you're teaching everybody that
it doesn't matter whether you're just or not because they
can't fully understand your argument, so you have to do both.
And it's the hat trick of the good guy, but
it makes you for it puts you in a much
stronger position in the end, which is why the left,
having departed from this, are in the weak position they
are in now.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely right, and that brings us to a
point I think we would be remiss if we didn't
bring up, and that is the storytellers. And you who
have been in the practice of the humanities and literature
for all of your academic life, the storytellers have lost
their influence. And when I say the storytellers, I mean
the main storytellers in corporate media. I like to call
them the accomplice media, prov de press, however you want
to say it. But they've been in on this heist
for some time. And that's not just what a lot
of Americans think. That's what we have actually experienced, and
we know that by you know a lot of evidence
showing that to us. We know that through things like
the Twitter files, and we know about the congressional hearings
and the documents that have come out of the censorship,
all of that sort of thing. But how do you
get at that balance that we're talking about holding wrongdoers
accountable but also that sense of we may be enemies now,
but tomorrow we very well could be friends. When you
have such an aggressive corporate media that has done and
will do everything it can to paint Donald Trump as
the tyrant that the Democrat Party in this country tried
to make as the main talking point in this last
presidential election.
Speaker 2: Well, one, they're going to keep trying. Two, I do
think there has been a sea change that no one
believes you anymore, No one cares.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What you're telling us is basically what a group of
leftists think, and that's not politically germane anymore. And that's
why you see their ratings is tank right now, sure
in large parts. So in one sense, they're still going
to try that. My point is, don't give them any
meritorious attacks. Uh And and you know, try to go
for revenge. Uh And because that would be tyrannical. I
think actually to do that, that's not what justice is
and it's not how it should be applied. But but uh,
I with regard to that, there were a couple of
things in your in your your question one of them
was what do you do with the big tech media collusion? Right? Well,
in a certain sense, like if somebody, if somebody is
doing something like that, then they should be hauled up
to Congress and asked questions like, hey, you said this
and the other thing can lead this any other thing
and blah blah blah blah blah, and you were working
with the federal government, yes or no, zuck. And if
they lie under oath, well, hey, we just established like
let's imagine they took my advice or something even better. Uh,
guess who's guess what he's not gonna do next time,
or guess what the Twitter CEO is not gonna do.
They're not going to lie about what's going on, and
then those things will be exposed more efficiently and more quickly,
because the risks are much higher deceiving people while they
do these kinds of underhanded manipulations of media, which I
think inevitably always require lying, and then when you actually
investigate them. And this is why the oversight power and
under oath testimony before Congress is such an important instrument
that we have under law and according to our constitution.
Right like that is a very powerful antiseptic, it's daylight.
But if you can't trust oath sworn testimony, daylight can't
get into any of that. So that's why I do
think that's another part of the benefits of what I'm
suggesting here.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, but your Mark Zuckerberg's and others in the
social media sphere, they saw the writing on the wall,
they saw it growing and growing, the momentum for Donald Trump,
and then they certainly saw the election results. Do you
believe the mia culpas coming from big tech, from the
likes of Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2: And those look believe them? It depends on what I
think they are, But I believe them for what they are.
Every political community has really good people, a bunch of
good people, right, and then a bunch of goodish people,
and then some bad people.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The goodish people and the bad people will look and
see what the really good people are telling the good
people that we're all going to do together, and if
they think they can get away with something else, they'll
try it. But if they realize they can't anymore, they're
gonna pretend to be like the good people. Right. So
I don't know what's in Zuck's heart, but I'm very dubious,
But I don't mind if he wants to play sort
of the hypocrite and tack. But my point is, let's
say we really want him to never do this again. Right, Well,
it seems to me that if there is a sort
of rollout of like if you perjured yourself, you're sort
of unnoticed for prosecution, and you know, prosecution, prosecutorial discretion,
right looks around and says, who's really sorry? So if
Zuck goes on Joe Rogan and says some like gen
X right of center bro stuff, that might not be
quite enough to demonstrate that maybe you maybe you don't
need prosecution or investigation. And I don't know what Zuck did,
and I'm not trying to say he's clearly a perjurer,
as my dim memory serves that he was pretty shaky
about what was going on testimony before Congress, but I
don't know which ones were under oath. So don't get
me wrong, I would want to make sure I get
my ducks in a row before calling him a perjurer.
Say it's the case, like you know or someone else
I do. I do think that even the specter of
this kind of sort of thoughtful here's a crime that
we're going to manage because it's so serious that that
that will have a salutary effect. And you know, people like,
let me demonstrate how much, Let me change even more,
let me put my money where my mouth is, because
so far all he's done is put his mouth where
his money is. But putting your money where your mouth
is a different activity. And we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1: A close with with this point, and get your your
thoughts on it. The editor in chief of this fine publication,
the federalist Mally Hemingway, wrote this recently on a actually
it was an ex post on a conversation that you
had just like we're having today. You know, justice in
in unjust time for barons in a in a time
period of deep division. She said this, dismissing the corruption
is not justice, but neither is vendetta. Justice is showing
that corruption has consequences. I think everything that we've talked about,
that we've laid out over the last forty minutes comes
down to what Molly has sent out in this sext message.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a wise woman. I agree. I know. I
can't stress enough what happens when government doesn't do its job.
It's misrule, mischief and injustice right mischief. The chiefs aren't
doing what they're supposed to do. Right. And if we
don't actually say that really serious crime, and I can't
think of a more serious one, then perjury, to be honest,
really serious crime will not be tolerated and will be
punished to the full extent of the law or prosecuted
to the full extent of the law, and then the
book will be thrown. And if you are contrite, there
will be clemency. That's the process right by which you
actually I think, show everyone that their demands we talk about.
The punishment is the process that's real. Is the punishment
to put someone through a three year trial and then yeah,
you might commute the sentence or reduce it, shrink it down.
Maybe in certain proper instances, it's totally plenary, given clemency
and the person has no further repercussions because they were
so contrite and it was so clear. But that's I
think what needs to happen something like that. There has
to be strictness in the prosecution of certain high crimes,
and then there has to be clemency after the strictness.
But there is justice and then mercy like that's how
it should go. There's an order to things and people
often and why so many people are dissatisfied is they
put a fake version of mercy first, and there's no
justice to follow.
Speaker 1: Everything that you just said there reminds me that it
is difficult to have faith in your government, in your society,
in your life if you do not have a faith foundation.
That's a conversation for a different time. It's a bigger
thing than you and I, and a bigger thing even
than what we've been talking about. But it is at
the heart of all that we talk about. But these
are faithless times.
Speaker 2: Yes, I can't help my Much of the teaching I
have done and the reading I've done in the tradition
tells me that when you keep lowercase F faith, as
you put it earlier, when you keep lowercase F faith,
it is the training for upper case F faith. Yes, right,
it is actually the practice of the one, and I
think the two are mutually reinforcing.
Speaker 1: Indeed, very well said, well, I very much appreciate your
time today. It's an engaging conversation, it's a critical conversation.
It's something that we are going to see unfold before
our eyes in the coming days, weeks, and months. But
I very much appreciate you joining us to talk it
all out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thank you for having me you be.
Speaker 1: That's what this is all about, to talk it all
out the big issues of the day. Thanks to my
guest today, doctor Matthew Mehan, Associate Dean, Assistant Professor of Government,
Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College's Washington, DC campus,
you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the frame.
Speaker 3: Do do