Speaker 1: Welcome once again to another exciting episode of The Oath
and the Office, inspired by Odysseus. I'm John Fiegele saying,
joined by the great Professor and the author of The
Oath in the Office, Corey Britschneider. Corey, good to see
you again, my highly rated friend.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, and what a pleasure to do this
with you. I did actually see the Odyssey, so we
maybe have to sneak some of that in there.
Speaker 1: I saw an IMAX last night in Englewood.
Speaker 3: Baby.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't get imax.
Speaker 1: Oh, Oh, you gotta go see it again. Now, you
gotta go. That's why they make movies to see that
in imax.
Speaker 2: Oh. We have an amazing show, you know, our own
odyssey against Donald Trump, and we'll talk about the details
what's happening. And then also I just want a preview.
I pre recorded a conversation with Sky Perryman, who is
the CEO of Democracy Forward, and like the ACLU, they
are really at the forefront of the fight to save
our democracy. And we talk about, for instance, their work
in actually succeeding in stopping this slush fund to fund
Donald Trump's allies and to go after his opponents they
were instrumental too and stopping this phony deal with the Irs.
And we talk about, you know, the role of citizens
and fighting back and how we can actually do it.
So we're going to talk as always about the threats
to democracy that we're facing now, this ridiculous speech that
Donald Trump gave that was a sort of speaking threat
to democracy, and then also how we fight back.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a big fan of Skyperry Ben. She's done
my Serious ExM show many times, so I can't wait
for that. And I want to thank you, professor, for
being so flexible now that my Serious XM show has
moved back to the day times, which is where I
was when I first met you. But thank you for
those six plus years you did hard time with us
in late night. It's been a pleasure to talk about
this out with you in the daylight again. And I
have to begin by asking you about Donald Trump's hateful, mendacious,
and not entirely charismatic primetime address last week. I'm sure
you saw it, the state of denial address about the
desperate crisis of election integrity in America, but only when
he's in charge. I don't know if you caught that,
but it's never a problem. Our elections seemed to be
fine if it's Barack Obama or Joe Biden in charge.
But if Donald Trump's president and it's twenty twenty or
twenty twenty six, my god, it's so rife with corruption.
I guess he's saying democracy only breaks when Trump's holding
the keys, Corey. But he did this to revisit his
old grievances about the twenty twenty election while presenting newly
declassified documents that would prove that somehow China rigged it,
And they did the exact opposite. They actually showed that
Russia was colluding to try to overturn an election. But
I mean, where to begin From a constitutional perspective, Corey,
how unusual is it for a sitting president to use
the the institutional authority of the presidency to convene broadcast
networks and do a primetime address on our taxpayer funded
airwaves to relitigate a past election. We know why he's
really doing it, But we've never seen anything like this
theatrically in history, have we?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, I'm usually looking for parallels and finding them,
and threats to democracy and things like shutting down the
opposition when it comes to free speech. We certainly have
seen that from past presidents, from John Adams and Wilson,
But have we ever seen a president use a national
broadcast to undermine confidence in the electoral system itself, at
least again, as you said, when it goes against him.
But yet still, and this is one of the bizarre
things about the speech, have confidence when it supports him.
I mean, right, but you know, the just the bizarreness
of all this, I have to say, let me start
with the idea of the deep state. I mean, the
deep state actually goes back to skepticism about the CIA
and a lot of the secrecy that has existed in
the American presidency, especially in the twentieth century, external skeptics
coming in and saying, hey, there's something weird going on here.
Let's see behind the veil. What's so strange about this
is the rhetoric of the deep state, of people undermining
our elections from within or minimizing you know, foreign threats,
Like yeah, from within.
Speaker 1: His own people, in his own He's literally talking about
the people he hired bringing him his daily briefings, that
it left stuff out and that like literally he wasn't
even trying. I expect much more from the evil mind
of Stephen Miller than this speech provise Cory, because I
mean the smoking gun came unloaded, it was all stuff
like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, let me cite the unitary executive theories.
He has exerted enormous control now over the civil service,
and yet at the same time that he claims, well,
I have control over all of this, and is exerting
control still. He claims there's a secret cabal within the
government going after him. No, it's you. You are the cabal.
And I think what's really going on is you know,
it's revealing of what the strategy is here. Yeah, frame
election interference. Well, who's doing the interference. It is Donald Trump.
He is trying to subvert votes, to undermine confidence in elections,
to get legislation thankfully that I think won't be passed past.
And you know, there's so much going on behind the curtain.
One of the things, just to preview the discussion that
I recorded earlier with Sky Perryman that will hear later,
is one of the things that's great about democracy forward
is trying to pierce that veil of secrecy, and what
we see from Trump what he's already told us makes
us extremely suspicious of what's going on behind the scenes.
And you know what, those are documents, And thankfully, because
of the Foil Law and other ways of getting transparent access,
we consue to get access. So it's one of the
things we talk about.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. I mean, I guess declassified means stuff.
I really wish it actually happened, because there was nothing
there that he said was there. China did not manipulate
a single vote. He keeps on trying to overturn an
election that's like old enough to be in kindergarten, now,
you know. And it's easy and tempting to laugh at this,
but there is method to this batshit, as you say, professor,
And one of the central themes of the speech was
that Americans should doubt the integrity of previous elections, while
also urging Congress to pass sweeping new election legislation that
we don't actually need. There has never been a problem
with voter impersonation in this country. We don't need voter
ID laws. They solve no existing problems. But we know
what the Save Act is all about. The Save Act
is all about the fact that women have been voting
democratics since nineteen ninety two consistently, and that's got to stop.
And they think they found a way to reduce those
numbers for at least one or two elections. So is
there a constitution difference between advocating election reforms and using
presidential authority to undermine confidence and elections without ever giving
any evidence that voting systems or vote counts were actually compromised. Again,
he brought no evidence to justify these laws that are
designed for one thing, to make it harder for citizens
to exercise the right to vote.
Speaker 2: That's right. Well, the speech was about was a smattering
of phrases, deep state, China all, you know, trying to
just prime these ideas. America has all these enemies that are.
Speaker 1: Resulting in master greatest hits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's greatest hits.
Speaker 1: And then with trans children playing sports or hacking our
elections everything.
Speaker 2: Wait, when you look at you know, the evidence of
voter fraud, even the Heritage's database of supposed voting instances
of voter fraud, you know you're talking about in the hundreds. Now,
this isn't even confirming their cases. Nothing that would ever
approximate making a difference in really any election that we've
been talking about, So you know there is no evidence
for this. Now you asked about, you know, the constitutional dangers,
but also the protections. Let me first say just to
reassure people what the protections are, and they are vast
our elections. Thankfully, it used to be that scholars and
politicians debated about whether or not we should have one
national system of elections to better protect it. That debate,
I think has been answered by Donald Trump, which is
a great thing that elections are controlled by local and
state government because he keeps him from doing what he
surely would do if there was national control or control
by the president or thankfully we haven't done this, but
if the Congress would have delegated the power to the president,
if any of that would have happened, he would have
swooped in and assuming that it stood court challenges, if
that was the system national elections, and he would have
stolen all the elections going forward. It would have been
a clear path to a clean coup. Now, the fact
that the elections are local keeps him from being able
to enact his will, so he's got to figure out
ways of shaving off votes, and the same act is
one attempt to do that, and we talked to Stacy
Abrams an amazing discussion. I urge listeners to go back
to that. You know, he's figured out every state in
locality requires some form of identification. But what Trump has
done is figured out the specific forms of identifications like
passports that people don't have right him, don't have so
that's all that.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, and who doesn't have driver's licenses, College students,
especially college students in cities, and seniors and you know,
I mean, who's not going to have a photo IDA
people who are new citizens. I mean, it's just it's
all done to shave a little here, shave a little there.
This was a spray of sloppy lies spread by an
unpopular politician who was impeached twice for trying to cheat
in the twenty twenty election. Let's not for he was
impeached twice for trying to cheat in the same election
that he was talking about in a primetime speech six
years later, and he's been cheating in the twenty twenty
six election, Professor since early twenty twenty five, when he
demanded Texas have a mid decade Jerry Mander to dilute
the non white vote. So what was amazing to me
was the speech had zero mentions of Russian interference in
American elections. He didn't talk about in the speech, but
in the documents he released, it confirmed that the Russian
government was spreading claims that Joe Biden was engaged in
a criminal activity with Barisma with his son. Like they
released the documents and I quote, Russia planned those narratives
with US officials and planned a high profile corruption scandal
at the peak of the twenty twenty US presidential campaign.
This is what he actually released, Corey, to prove the
twenty twenty election was rigged against him, and it actually
shows that no, Russia was still interfering in our elections
to hurt Joe Biden in twenty twenty. I mean, where
does this fit Historically We've never seen a president repeatedly
question the legitimacy of elections after courts and election officials
and Intel Agency have rejected those claims. I mean, is
it just desperate fumbling, Corey? Do I need to be
scared of this because the states do control the elections
and all of this is just lies to try to
get a population worried about gas prices to care a
lot about it election six years ago, so they can
cheat in one in a few months.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we do have to be concerned, and
that's why we have to try to figure out, you know,
what is going on behind the scenes, because this speech
gives us not more than suspicion, it gives us evidence
that he is going to try to cheat in this election.
And his obsession about proving that somehow there is election
interference against him, you know, is all part of building
this case to cheat in the next election. I think
it goes to a kind of psychology which is actually
kind of Nixonian broadly, which is everybody's doing it, everybody's cheating,
so I can cheat too. And how does he show
that he shows that there are forces lined up against
him supposedly, Well, he isn't actually shown. Point about barisma.
You know, let's remember that in the first impeachment of
Trump for the quid pro quo where he was really
threatening Zelensky in order to get information on his opponent.
That was the information that he was seeking Hunter Biden
and Joe Biden supposed involvement with Ukrainian company, and one
the that we've never gotten away with and it's a
president who was obsessed with his supposed opponent who's no
longer president, Joe Biden, and all with an aim of
one thing, which is just like that original scheme in
the first impeachment, getting information that I could use on
my opponents send an election, to cheat, to manipulate the vote.
And that's what this said was really exhibit A in
his attempted coup to destroy our democracy.
Speaker 1: That's what he got impieced for with Ukraine. All right,
really quick, because I know we have to move on.
There's a lot to cover. But during the speech, Trump
criticized CNN and ABC and NBC for declining to air
his lies live on their networks, and he suggested their
broadcast licenses should be revoked because the only thing these
people hate more than the New Testament is the Bill
of Rights. So, Corey, from a First Amendment standpoint, obviously,
the government can't punish newspapers or TV stations because it
dislikes editorial decisions. Can you just explain why editorial discretion
itself is constitutionally protected speech.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we talked last week with the senator
from Oregon, Senator Wyden about his jaw Boning Act, and
we talked to death about this, and I'm so grateful
actually to listeners who keep writing to me, and a
lot of people had never heard this term jaw boning,
but it is so important for the moment because sometimes
you know, in the Sedition Act, which we've talked about extensively,
John Adams signed law that said basically, criticize the president,
you go to prison. The nice thing about that law is, Okay,
obviously that's a shutdown of free speech. And yeah, back
looking back on it, we can see that what about
when the president uses the FCC in order to pressure
private companies to make their own decisions. I'm giving this
the most sympathetic, overly sympathetic way of describing.
Speaker 1: It, to shut it query.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's not the government shutting down your free speech,
and so it's not relevant to the First Amendment, except
that obviously that's not what's going on the government pretending
that private companies are making their own decisions, but really
are pressuring forcing them to do so. So that's a problem.
Speaker 1: By the way, thank you for reminding everybody that Donald
Trump attacked capitalism. I'll be sure to remind the Democratic
Party to not use that at all in their campaigns
this year. You know, please Democrats don't use that and
it's too effective. Please don't go out as hypocrisy Democrats.
Speaker 2: You know, the way he's gotten away with it is
that he pretends somehow that these are private decisions. CBS,
of course, did show the speech, thankfully, ABC and NBC
did not. Even though they are going to have their
licenses threatened. They resisted in the face of it. It's
still a First Amendment violation. I hope that those corporations
do sue because you cannot, through pressure, threaten the licenses
and try to basically shut down the decision making of
private companies. And yes, the Democratic Party better be emphasizing.
I thought cn EN did a nice job. They printed
the speech, but with panditation, that's a good way to
do it. You can cover the speech. We're covering it
right now, exactly, letting it air on its own.
Speaker 1: Well, that was the question I had for you, and
then we'll get off this topic. But it doesn't seem
too tough to balance these two competing journalistic obligations. Right
on the one hand, you have to inform the public
because it's a speech, and you got to tell them
what the president said, but you also have to avoid
amplifying demonstrably false claims, which is the same reason why
if you're hosting a debate and Donald Trump is there,
you really want to call out his lives. But that's
another show. So I mean, that seems to be where
it's at. Corey, I agree with you. I think that
they pulled it off by actually having fact checking for
a speech, and I support keeping that and when there's
a democratic president, I hope they keep it too. I
would love to see these broadcast networks have live fact
checking in the moment to scare these politicians into telling
the truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the only way to
do it, because there is a real story here, which
is that the president is trying to undermine our elections
in order to try to steal the midterms. And that's
about the biggest story that there can be. Now, how
do you cover it? That's a separate question. And if
you cover it by just you know, letting that speech
appear nearly willy with no commentary, is if it's true,
then that's the opposite of journalism. So CNN and ABC
and NBC, great jobs, CBS, you know, Wow, you really
are turning into the next Fox.
Speaker 1: Oh, I got to say, Tony Dekoppele gave Donald Trump
a lovely flot massage later in the evening. I don't
know if you saw it, but he actually cooked him
dinner and then made him a comfortable bed and then
gave him a flip massage with anointed oils from India.
It was beautiful. I wish you'd seen it. It was
really good journalism. Oh, CBS, All right, let's talk about
Todd Blanche has been a few days since the confirmation hearings.
They did not go well. The senators were talking to
him about obviously, the DOJ is supposed to be independent,
and it's being used to pursue Donald Trump's political opponents.
And you were his criminal defense lawyer. Why are we
doing this? I mean, I don't even know where to begin, Corey.
This guy should not even make it to a hearing
and he's most likely going to be confirmed. What constitutional
principles are at risk when concerns are there that prosecutorial
power is being exercised to beat up on a president's foes.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's a lot made of the fact
that I do want to emphasize this that the Department
of Justice is supposed to be representing the people the
cases that brought criminal cases on behalf of the people
of the United States, not on behalf of the president.
And of course, the way that Blanche sees himself is
that he is the personal lawyer of the president. And
I've said that, you know, on CNN and on this show,
but you just said something that I want to emphasize
even more. Mead, Yes, that he sees himself as the
personal defense lawyer of the president. This was the guy
that defends he is defendant Donald Trump. In the New
York case about Stormy Daniels from criminal charges, he went
after Michael Cohen by trying to just accuse him of
lying about everything on the stand, even though a lot
of what he was saying was backed up by evidence.
Of course, Donald Trump was convicted in that case. And
what's going on here too, is that that's the kind
of thud, I'll call it a thug lawyer that we're
getting as Acting Attorney Drenal is trying to be Attorney General,
that he's just going after Trump's opponents, defending him at
all costs, going after his opponents as he would an
opponent in court. It is really such a travesty.
Speaker 1: Chuck Grassley still has not scheduled a vote yet, which
is very interesting. And it's not because Chuck Grassley is
waiting on a case of true blood to arrive to
keep him living. It's because John Cornyn is very far
from a yes right now, and it's only going to
take one Republican no vote in this committee to sink
the nomination and Professor. As we all know, John Cornyan
doesn't oh Donald Trump any favors for the rest of
his life, does he. Donald Trump decided to endorse Nazi
weasel Ken Paxton, and that's why John Cornan is about
to become an ex senator. And now John Cornan's vote
could sink Donald Trump's crooked pick for Attorney General. It's
kind of brilliant, except I don't know who to root
for and who to root against.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, a lot of this comes down to
this slush fund to try to take money that Trump
got in a illicit deal with the Irs, to deal
with himself in order to fund money to his allies,
including those who participated in January sixth. Now that slush fund,
you know, just so not just so happens. We planned
this guest guy Perriman, her group stop that slush fund. Literally,
they are the people that went to court and said,
I don't think so, like you know, this is illegal,
and once they got a court order from a judge,
that started to you know, help get media attention on
it and to get now here's where it's really relevant
to these hearings, to get the Attorney general to back
down or so he says. He said multiple times it's dead.
But now when Corning says, okay, put it in writing,
he refuses to do so. And that's one thing that
really pissed off this senator from Texas that you know,
essentially not just lying, but just rubbing it into the
face of the committee that you're pretending, maybe for a
few seconds, to drop this slush fund and then refusing
to put it in writing. Well, one thing, you know,
I talked to Periman about this. Wait for this in
the interview. Amazing to listen to what's going on with
the case, you would think that if they really dropped it,
they have not dropped the case. They are continuing to
fight for this slush fund against those who would stop it.
And that suggests the Senator is exactly right. What a
news worthy moment for that interview, for this battle between
Cornyan and Trump. You know, let's hope that that Trump
doesn't come up with some deal that makes cornyin back down.
It's too important.
Speaker 1: Well, and there's also the not too small factor of
covering a child rape, which has been Tillis's problem. We
got to take a quick break, but when we come back,
I want to pick up on this note, professor, because
as you know, a federal judge just smacked down this
IRS settlement and I want to ask you about it
back in a moment, donn the oath that in the office.
Speaker 4: The New John Fugel Sang Show every day at twelve noon.
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, John, and welcome back to Afternoon Radio.
Speaker 1: I have missed you. Now you're back into the daylight.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, John. Congraduations on the new show, loving it,
Congratulations on the changes happening with the show.
Speaker 5: Excited for you, Excited for me personally, like, oh my god,
I can call an again.
Speaker 4: The New John Fugel Sang Show every day at twelve
noon on Serious XM Progress Channel one twenty seven, or
on the Serious XCM after.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the oath and the office. I'm John Fiegel, saying,
along with Professor Corey Bretschneider, Corey, federal judge just described
that IRS agreement that would benefit Trump as an improper
exercise in self dealing and pretty much smacked out all
of the corruptions surrounding the entire litigation and even referred
one of the attorneys involved to state bar authorities. A
lot to unpack. We already knew this was corrupt. A
federal judge is now validated that. For those like me
in the audience, what does self dealing actually mean legally speaking?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the way that this has been described
is as a fraud on the court. And that sounds
like a strong way to put it, and for good reason.
The whole idea of a lawsuit is supposed to be
that you have two parties battling it out. Now, think
about it. The IRS is part of the executive branch
and Donald Trump is in charge of the executive branch.
And yet this supposed deal was hashed out between two
warring parties, the IRS and Trump. No, it was Trump
and himself. It was a scam, and that's what this
judge is pulling out. I mentioned the unitary executive theory.
You know, it used to be that there were theories
of the executive branch that said you had civil servants,
the I R. S. Or the Department of Justice is
technically underneath the president, but they really are, you know,
legally separate all of those hurdles. Those barriers between the
president and the agencies are disappearing under the theory that
Donald Trump and his lackeys are pushing the units of
executive So in what way is this really a battle
between Trump and a different entity? No, it's Donald Trump
self dealing with himself, not in the conflict. And that's
the fraud on the court that's been called out. There
isn't a real conflict. I keep mentioning Sky Perryman. I'm
so excited for listeners to hear it. But you know
it's an other place where incredibly, they went out and
they have either people come to them or they seek
out plaintiffs in these cases who are going to have
standing to challenge these bs deals, to challenge the slush fund,
to challenge the needed thing that gave rise to the
money for the slush fund, which is this fake fraud
on the court. Lawsuit. So you know, really it's what's
our guests are often, you know, related to the news
that you know, definitely we had Senator widen As that
we were considering whether or not to confirm the d
n I and the questions of international surveillance. That was
an amazing episode and this one is too really relevant.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let me let me just ask you about this,
because the Catholic Church as a whole policy of their
own on self dealing, but it's got a bit different language.
They're not fans. How How rare is it for a
federal judge to refer an attorney involved in a case
to state bar authorities.
Speaker 2: It's pretty rare, you know, and it's got to be
really bad. But think of what I just told you exactly.
You know, judges don't like being made dupes. And I
want to see more of it fraught on the court.
Speaker 1: I want to see more of this. I hope it's
not too late to dispar Pam bond equory. Do you understand.
I still I'm still holding out hope that Pam BONDI
could be disbarred for this stuff. Like I'm thrilled to
see the judicial branch actually punching back and not just
handing over their money to the ability.
Speaker 2: And I want to say why. You know, judges do
get emotional, they do get angry. And one of the
things I think that really angers them is well, straight
up lying, which we've seen from a lot of the
Department of Justice. And we've talked about why a presumption
of trusting the Department of Justice has just evaporated. That
long tradition is gone, given how much lying there's been.
That's one thing that makes them really angry. But there's
what really makes them even more angry when you try
to give them to rubber stamp a fake agreement with
what you're presenting as two warring parties but really are not.
You know, it's like, you know, me and you John
catch a plot to pretend to have a battle because
we've come up with a way to fraudulently benefit if
it looks like we're in a lawsuit, we're lying the
judge that we get to involve our we're not really
doing this. But if we get a judge to involve
ourselves in that, they're not going to be happy. And
that's exactly what's happened. They're trying to basically rope in
the judicial sherry to make them a party to a fraud.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you my really unpopular opinion about this, Cory, please,
My really unpopular opinion about this is that I don't
want to hear any Democrats complain about it, because the
Constitution already has mechanisms designed to stop presidents from using
the public office for their private benefit. The Constitution has
the emolument's clauses foreign and domestic. As I've told you
many times, we could have impeached Donald Trump one minute
into his first inaugural address in twenty seventeen. Jimmy Carter
gave up a damn peanut farm. Mitt Romney was willing
to put his gazillions into a blind trust. This president
has made more money in the last year off the
office than he ever made on his own in his
entire life. And I don't see anyone ever mentioning the
constitutions of mollument's clauses ever, and it's happening out in
the open, So why shouldn't he do it at this point?
If even the Democratic Party is not going to risk
the bad vibe of using the eyeword related.
Speaker 2: To this, well, it is impeachable. Our whole episode about
the more than two billion dollars that the president has stolen,
not just benefited, using the office in order to profit
himself is exhibit A. And the reason it's like.
Speaker 1: It almost sounds like you don't trust Crypto, professor, It
almost sounds like he's calling Crypto a scam.
Speaker 2: But go on, and you know what's the argument for
why this specifically is a place for impeachment. Well, as
you say, and that it is true, you're not seeing it.
You know, usually in the media you are hearing about
it and seeing it on this podcast. We have two
emolument's clauses, one domestic, one international, and Trump is continually
violating both. And he's doing it for two reasons. One
is he thinks he has immunity. He shouldn't and doesn't
have immunity. These aren't official acts, but he's deluded himself
into thinking that they are. And yes, he can be prosecuted,
I think for some of these crimes after he leaves office.
Except for the fact, and here's the second thing that's
complicated that we don't have laws on the books that
take the emoluments clauses and turn them into criminal law.
This is a subtle point, but I think it's worth making. Yes,
it's prohibited under the constitution, but the way the constitution
works is you need to translate it into laws on
the books passed by Congress, and we don't have enough.
It's possible to do it, but it should be crystal
clause clear. We have prosecuting prosecutors are saying it would
be hard to make the case because they're too weak. Well,
I think there's an obvious answer, and Jamie Raskin has
been one of the people who has done something about us.
You have to have legislation that makes it not not
you know, I don't should we indict him or not?
Should we prosecute him or not? Make the laws so
clear that if you use the office to steal from
the American public, you're going to be prospects.
Speaker 1: The laws are already clear. Financial disclosures last week show
us that Trump's company received millions from foreign business interests
while related trade matters we're still pending before the US government.
Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton had been making money
from foreign corporations while they had legislation pending in front
of her husband while he was president. I think our
Republican friends would have impeached them using existing laws very effectively.
I mean, ethics scholars have always warned us about presidents
having extensive private business interests. But turns out, go ahead
and do it violate all those norms because no one's
going to stop you. I mean, yeah, they could impeach
him for it. They could, they don't want to.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about two things. One is, and this is
we're in heated agreement about this. That the you know,
in the absence of criminal laws, making something obviously illegal,
and that's the situation I think that we're in. We
do have another mechanism for removing a president. That's impeachment.
And when the Constitution says that an impeachabable offense is
a high crime and misdemeanor, it doesn't mean a criminal offense.
It means a crime against the Constitution, against the Republic,
against the people, and the emoluments clause violations are primary there.
So yes, Second, that we have a democratic majority in
the House, I think, in addition to other articles of impeachment,
the first ones definitely should be about these emoluments clause violations.
Now here's the second thing, though, that we need to
do because this is also a problem. When I talked
to prosecutors and we had Joyce Vance on the show,
and just as a reminder, she's one of the people
who think amazing that you know that even the most
seasoned federal prosecutors who agree with us that this should
be a crimer like I don't know that if I
brought that case that I could get a conviction. That
tells me that we need laws on the books to
make it easier. Not just talking about impeachment now, I'm
talking about putting somebody in prison, just to remind people
you impeach and remove a president, they don't go to prison,
they're just out of office. That would be great, but
this is an offense that is worthy of a prison sentence,
and we may clarify.
Speaker 1: Them make Grifter is afraid of prison again. I agree.
And you know, look, my unpopular opinion is Democrats should
be impeaching this guy for something else. Once a week.
Every week, there should be new articles of impeachment introduced
by a new Democratic representative and they will go nowhere
and there should be a lot of hype and news
coverage for it. Because when the Republicans were introducing seventy
plus repeal Obamacare bills, and we laughed and laughed at them.
What they were doing in that doomed Kamakazi legislation was
fundraising and giving a mission statement and reminding their base
of exactly what they were fighting for. In that case,
it was taking healthcare away from Americans because they're evil.
But I think you want to see a Democratic party fighting.
Get in the ring. Now. Let me be willing to
see you take a punch and even get knocked down
and not get there, but you're going to fight for it,
and you're not going to not fight for impeachment because
you know it's going to fail. I think we want
to see that. Al Green alone can't do it, and
I think Democrats, if they did, it would raise a
lot of awareness about this kind of corruption and the
emolument's clause. Most Americans don't know what the emoluments clause is.
They should and I think you can fundraise off it
as well. So I'd like to see them just get
in the spirit.
Speaker 2: There's another really, you know, I'm of the bl be
that although the impeachments didn't result, half the impeachments in
the history of the Republic I should say, we're in
Trump's first term, and you know they weren't a mistake.
They let us see the threat to democracy, both in
the attempt to get dirt on his opponent Joe Biden.
Still relevant to the speech, of course, the impeachment for
January sixth was called for, and one of the things
that it does, and Johnny, I think you're getting at
this too, is not just rise awareness of the general crimes,
but we get information. And so much of the problem
of this presidency is the black box that's hiding the
illegal activity, the fraud. That's part of what sky Perriman
is trying to do after this speech and her lawsuits
with Democracy Forward to get information about what's going on
behind the scenes try to steal the midterm elections. But
it also would happen through impeachment, where we would get
information as we did in the first term.
Speaker 1: So before we hit our break and then the interview,
because now you've got me dying to hear it really quick.
This is really disturbing. After Ice has now officially killed
believe they're eighth person of the Year, the reports are
that the FBI is going to stop investigating confrontations involving
ICE personnel. In other words, no oversight. If these masked
cowards with badges murder people, the FBI, the federal government
won't take any interest in such violence. I mean, Corey,
if ever there was a time for independent oversight being
an important component of constitutional governance, wouldn't it be this?
I mean, Americans might die and the FBI won't get
in the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is, you know, talking about a
veil of secrecy and hiding information. What's happening we know
is that ICE and I'll just emphasize part of the
reason why is structural. They've eliminated essentially the training for
ICE officers, so you know, yeah, grut is a gun
people who really shouldn't be working in these positions. Refusing
to train them, We're going to have not fewer, but
more of these horrific incidents in which people on the
street are having their basic rights human rights abused by ICE.
And rather than you know, who's supposed to be looking
into these offenses, it's the federal government. It's the FBI,
and they are refusing to do it. They are just
adding to the veil of secrecy, as listeners know. And
I'll just emphasize it again. Other entities have to step up.
And I am really an advocate for state attorneys generals,
local prosecutors bringing charges against ice officers. I know about
at least one investigation in Minnesota, but you know, we
now know there might have been a debate about that.
Isn't this a role for the federal government. They have
just abdicated the federal government their role in enforcing the
criminal laws. If you murder somebody, that's a violation of
local Every state in this country bans murder, and you
know what, those laws have to be enforced. They're not
going to be enforced by the federal government, so they
have to be for us well, state prosecuted.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: NPR had an interview with a woman named Ashley Bruyette.
She is the ex wife of the man David Bruyette,
who shot and killed Johann Deran Guerrero four times in
Maine last week in front of his child. This man
was not the target, He had a social Security number,
he was following all the rules, He was unarmed. He
was shot in the vehicle, pulled out of the vehicle
in front of his three year old daughter, handcuffed once
he was pulled out and shot and left to bleed
to death on the sidewalk. And this man's ex wife
told NPR that he called her and begged her to
say positive things about his character. She said that he
was abusive. She said that he's already asked her to
lie for him. His former best friend from high school
testified on his ex wife's behalf when they broke up
because he was so abusive. She played a tape of
this man threatening to have all the women in her
family's throats cut. In a twenty twenty one court filing,
this guy was stripped of his firearms temporarily because of
complaints of abuse from his second ex wife, Corey. I'm like,
is it too much to ask that we screened these people?
The man who describing just shot and killed an innocent
man last week who was getting a citizenship, and they
had the wrong guy, and we're still paying his salary.
He's not even suspended, And the FBI will not intervene
or investigate.
Speaker 2: Yes, as a matter of as a matter of policy,
they're just not going to look into this wrongdoing. As
a matter of hiring and training, there is none There
are no standards, and you know. That's why I should
say too. You could hear me talk shout through the
rooftops about the need for local prosecutors to bring these indictments,
which they definitely can, although they're reluctant to have been
reluctant to do so. But you want to hear the
best argument for it, it's just look at the facts,
look at the brutality, look at the individuals who are involved,
and then you see why we need the criminal law
to be in forced and why the FBI and the
federal government. Well, this goes back to Todd blanche. This
is the guy who's going to be in charge of
whether or not to prosecute Ice. I don't think that
the same person who's setting up a slush fund for
Donald Trump and then lying about whether or not he's
backing off it is going to be the person to
enforce justice for Americans.
Speaker 1: God bless our fascists for being so incompetent. All right,
we have to take a break. Let me come back.
The professor assistant with sky Berravin.
Speaker 3: Don't go away, Heyl Glenn Kirshner here, So, friends, I
hope you'll join me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters.
Speaker 6: Do you care about ethics and government, criminal justice reform,
a conflict free federal judiciary.
Speaker 1: I thought so.
Speaker 6: On Justice Matters, we take on issues involving the need
to reform our government and its institutions, and we talk
about real, achievable reform. I hope you'll join us look
for Justice Matters wherever you usually get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. It's really
my pleasure to introduce Sky Perryman. Sky Perryman is the
CEO of Democracy Forward, and I would call Democracy Forward
one of the premier legal organizations fighting Trump right now
in court, trying to defend our democracy. We'll talk about
what they've been doing, incredible work. It's been my honor
to work with them on the tariff's case. Sky is
a graduate of Georgetown Law School. She was named one
of Time magazines one hundred most influential people, and she
joins me to discuss the legal fight against the Trump
administration and the fight for our constitution. So, Sky Perryman,
Welcome to the Oath in the Office.
Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me, what a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Can you just start off by telling me about the organization,
what your overall strategy, is. I want to get into
some of your incredible legal fights and really legal victories.
Part of our podcast is about the threat to democracy,
but it's also about why citizens need to be fighting
back and the hope that this actually works as worked
in the past, will work in the future. And your
organizations really really showed that. So just start off by
telling us what are you all about and what have
been your strategies in dealing with Trump two point zero.
Speaker 5: We're about making sure that the American people can create
the conditions needed, which are democratic conditions and democracy where
all people can thrive. And what has happened, as you know,
over the past few years in our country, and this
did not start at twenty twenty five when President Trump
came back into office, but we have been for a
variety of years. We've been admitst a democratic backslide in
this country where far right extremism at the state and
local level has done everything from banned books to ban
healthcare to try to prevent people from voting. We have
a rise of misinformation and dism in this country. We
have a challenging Supreme Court landscape where the Supreme Court
has in many instances reversed the rights of people as
opposed to protect the rights of people, and all of
that is happening against a backdrop across the world where
so many countries are facing these backslides. The number of
democracies in the world is declining as a number of
autocracies is rising. So it's against this global context. And then,
of course, a year and a half ago, with the
inauguration of President Trump and the way he has chosen
to govern, we've seen that backslide really accelerate, and so
our organization is about making sure that people in this
country can utilize the power and the tools that our
democracy provides for them to be able to protect their communities,
protect their rights, to push forward when that is possible.
And one of those tools is the ability of people
to go to court and to demand that their rights
be defended. And so we do a lot of court work.
We represent all of our clients free of charge. We
believe that it's important that the American people be able
to access the courts, even if they can't afford excellent lawyers.
We have excellent lawyers here who do that work pro bono,
so that we can make sure that the Constitution is
defended and that people are defended.
Speaker 2: Well, you have put together an amazing team of litigators,
people who are in formerly in the Department of Justice.
I know many people served in the department before it
was taken over by Trump and trump Ism. And you've
been having amazing victories too in the federal courts in
where so much of the pushback has happened. So one
of the things that I know you've been deeply involved
in and have had success, and this is one of
those hopeful moments, is in pushing back against Trump's corrupt
deal with the IRS and also his related creation of
this slush fund, this attack fund on his opponents. So
talk to me about both of these cases and how
your litigation strategy has really helped to stop this in
its tracks. I think that our listeners will want to
know not just what the issues are, but like, how
did you do this? Well?
Speaker 5: We do have such an amazing team and the team
though we have amazing clients across this country. People in
communities are stepping forward even when powerful institutions have been
stepping back or sitting on the sidelines. And so the
slush fund, this creation of the one point seven seven
six billion dollars slush fund, which is a total corrupt
political kickback scheme to use taxpayer dollars to try to
compensate people who have been convicted of in many instances,
people that pled guilty of violent crimes, whether that is
violent restrictions and trying to keep people from being able
to access reproductive healthcare clinics, which is unlawful under a
broad bipartisan act, or people that participated in January sixth
and tried to disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power,
and on and on. This slush fund that the government
creates has been unlawful from the start, but there was
a real question about who would really be able to
step up and challenge it. And so we represent an
amazing coalition of plainffs. We represent a former prosecutor who
was fired by Donald Trump's administration this because he worked
on the January sixth cases. He did nothing wrong, did
his job, but got fired. We represent a coalition of
reproductive health care providers who for many years, even way
before January sixth, when they go to work, they face
violence and threats because of anti abortion extremism that is
so violent, So you know, we represent them. We represent
the City of New haven that's been retaliated against by
this administration because the administration doesn't like the way it
treats immigrants in its community. And then we're really pleased
to represent Common Cause, which is of course, you know,
an amazing pro democracy organization. So we have this big
coalition of plain effs and we were able to file suit.
You know, the president can't do things without acting through
the federal agencies, and here you have a number of
these federal offices that were establishing the slush fund. We
filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia in federal court,
and we immediately were able to get the fund paused
because the government would not even agree. And I think
your listeners would be interested in this, like the government
would not even agree to pause the fund while the
court could set a hearing schedule. So this is one
of the Trump administration's core philosophies has been to try
to outrun accountability, or to try to run so fast
that the courts can't act. And about a year and
a half ago when we started lit getting these cases,
it was very hard sometimes to get the courts to
act quickly because they would you know, they would be
worried that, you know, are they acting to hastily now
that they've seen this administration try to outrun them. We're
seeing the federal courts understand, okay, if you're not even
going to agree to pause something so that we can
get a hearing schedule, we're going to go ahead an
issue in order. So that's what the court did, and
then she had a full hearing on our ow for
pulmonary injunction, where she found that, of course our clients
had made the case that they were likely to succeed.
And so now now the matter is paused, that the
slush fund is paused while we litigate the merits of
the matter.
Speaker 7: Now, what's interesting about this case.
Speaker 5: Another thing that has been quite interesting is that the
Department of Justice has made a range of claims. You know,
Todd blanch goes to Congress and says, the slush fund's dead,
we're not really doing it. And our case has really
been the instrument I think that has shown the American
people what's happening here because he goes to Congress and
says one thing. But then when we say, well will
you will you swear on yours and put put a
paper down in Court. You know, all of a sudden,
he's not interested in that. And so I think that
this is a great example of how litigation can.
Speaker 7: Be helpful to protect people.
Speaker 5: We want to protect taxpayers, we want to protect our clients. Obviously,
we want to protect against corruption. We certainly will our
clients could be harmed if these people go out and
get checks from the government. But we also you know,
this is a good mechanism really exposing how this administration
is operating. So that's been the challenge of the slush fund. Now,
the other piece was this.
Speaker 2: Litigation that there's so important what you're saying and this word.
So if you want an example of where a litigation
group has stopped the government clear in its tracks, this
really is it. And of course on the podcast, we're
talking a lot about the heroic role that federal judges
have played outside of the Supreme Court, but that doesn't
come from nowhere. You need a case and you need clients,
and that's what you've been able to do. But just
to clarify, because I think this is really important and
I'm not seeing it get the kind of coverage that
it should get. We saw the Acting Attorney General say
essentially that the slush fund is dead. But now what
I hear you saying is that he's lying to us.
And maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise, but it
is an important point. So am I right that they're
still fighting you in court at the same time that
they're pretending that it's dead.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Not only are they fighting in court, just to be
very clear, they are refusing to sign documents to say
instead like, if it's dead, then let's move on, right,
But that's not anything that they've been willing to swear to.
And actually the judge in our case gave them a
few days to show up with evidence that the slush
phone was dead, and they couldn't do that. And so
I think, you know, we're we're going to continue to
monitor it day by day.
Speaker 7: We're preparing the case.
Speaker 5: There's a trial date on the case for later this year,
so you know we will we have a schedule and everything.
But part of this really is the American people getting
to see with their own eyes the way this administration
says one thing but then won't really back it up
and tries to outrun accountability.
Speaker 7: And what we know about the American.
Speaker 5: People is that the vast majority of people in this country,
regardless of whether they agree with each other on a
lot of things, they don't think that office holders and
people that are presenting before courts and people that are
presenting before Congress should be making incorrect and untruthful statements.
And so I think this is one of really those
things that's captured the imagination of a whole lot of
people across the political spectrum because of what we've seen,
which just briefly, I think you wanted to talk about
the IRS settlement which emanated, you know, which came out
of this Florida case that the Trump organization filed against
the IRS, and then Trump came out and President Trump
came out and announced I've sued myself. Well, that's not
a real good way to get the federal courts to
be excited. You have to have actual adversity in cases
and controversy in this country. And so what we did
in that case was we represented a range of former
officials that had served in IRS or in Treasury, had
served both Republicans and Democratic administrations to explain to the
court the various options that the court had. The Court
ended up taking those options, appointing Independent and Meki to ride,
you know, really ended up taking a lot of that,
we believe from the briefs.
Speaker 7: And then at the same time, we were very pleased
to see.
Speaker 5: Thirty five federal judges, former federal judges, judges that had
been appointed by Republicans and Democrats file a pay were
in the case, really asking the court to consider whether
the Trump organization had engaged in fraud on the court.
And that's where the fireworks in that matter obviously have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean really seem to I would have said,
stopped them, called in their tracks, but of course they're
pretending that this is over, at least in the slush
fund case, and it sounds like continuing. I mean, how
do you see it seems like an interesting case study.
We talk so often about stopping this administration, about the
role of the courts, but it seems like this is
a case study in both stopping them in court. You
did get this injunction against them, but yet that had
a wider ramification and push politically the acting Attorney General
to at least pretend that he was stopping all of this. So,
I mean, talk to me more. I want to ask
more about how you get clients, because I think that's
an interesting part of all of this and really part
that's often not reported on. But talk to me more
generally about how have you seen this work, the sort
of combo of litigation and political pressure and getting them
to back off, at least publicly as you continue to fight.
I mean, you're not just a litigation group, of course,
you're engaged in trying to stop an administration that's intent
on well destroying democracy, creating a fund to shut down
its critics.
Speaker 5: Every single day we see that, we say it's courts
plus people, and we always are very clear eyed that
the courts are hugely important tool and they're a tool
that we should not underestimate. Even as one may be
frustrated with some of the decisions out of the US
Supreme Court, the courts have been a huge tool. They're
protecting people every single day, and at the end of
the day, it is going to be the people. And
so our work at democracy for it is really aimed
at using both the courts and the people. But to
be clear, for us, the courts are a major way
that people can have their voices heard. Now we have
seen over and over again that the Act, you know,
we have a saying around here. You know, if you
don't fight, you can't win. And we have seen over
and over that the act of filing a lawsuit on
behalf of brave clients who are willing to get into
court with us, that that action has often delayed or
stopped the administration in their tracks even before we get
court orders. So some examples on that. We filed a
case to block the administration's attempt to cut off funding
for K through twelve education and higher education based on
teaching real history. They said, if you don't align with
the White House's views on civil rights or you know
you're you're gonna you don't get your funding. We filed
a case in federal court before a judge that President
Trump himself nominated. We won a court order on behalf
of our brave clients in that case, finding that this letter,
this dear colleague letter, was unlawful.
Speaker 7: But the administration didn't even appeal that.
Speaker 5: They who are the letter up walked it back and
you know everything is blocked now. We see that a
lot with our funding freeze case. We are still actively
litigating it. It's on appeal. We blocked this nationwide funding freeze.
We had to go to court to block it. But
what you saw was that the action of going to
court and having a federal judge very early early days
of the administration say you know what is happening here,
this looks completely arbitrary. That actually put the White House
in a difficult spot in their first White House press
or where they had to show up and start defending
why people's Medicaid portals were closed and why meals on
wheels might not be working in a community. And so
this is really a core tool, and it's a tool
I think that is underappreciated people that say that their
strategy is they're going to try to work with the administration,
They're going to try to do deals with the administration.
I mean, I can talk a lot about how I
don't think that strategy is going to pay off for people.
But even if you have that strategy, the way you
get to the negotiating table is to assert your rights
in court and to file a lawsuit. And we see
that in our courts every single day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've seen that over and over with those
who have tried to negotiate that they think they're giving
an inch. And then of course the administration says, look,
how weak these people are. Let's just ask exactly this
has seen that with the law firms, with the universities,
and your strategy. I think of saying this is illegal,
you know, beginning with that, that puts you in a
much better negotiating place. I mean, I also just want
to emphasize too, what you said, which is, although you
know this is litigation and there is an aspect that's negotiation,
it also is publicity that this is. You know, so
much of the fact that the slush fund is being
covered in this fake deal with the IRS, which is,
as you said, really a deal of Donald Trump and
himself and there's no real lawsuit there. All of that
was exposed through the litigation. So that's why I think
this is so important. I mean this, Yeah, I think in.
Speaker 5: This media environment where there's such sensationalism and their algorithms
are feeding you things, you know, one thing we have
found is that a way, not always but a pretty
surefire way to cut through a lot of the noise
and to really focus the public on what is actually
happening is through bringing litigation. Because the litigation, the facts
come out. A break over Garcia, right, everybody remembers mister Garcia.
His entire story blew up this idea that the White
House had that they were going to be able to
remove people from the country without any process, and that
the American people weren't going to care because people got
to know mister Garcia's situation and this story, and that
doesn't happen if you don't file the lawsuits.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's such an important point that I
want to come back to, and it was one of
the first things that you said that you know, you
need the clients, You need the people, the brave people
who are going to stand up and say this is
illegal and I've been harmed. And I think that isn't
something that maybe even listeners of this podcast or those
who are watching the news more generally always understand about
the way our courts work. You know, it's not like,
at least in this country, that you could come in
and say you've acted unconstitutionally in some abstract idea. You
need an individual who's been harmed. And that's one of
the real successes that you've had in these lawsuits, both
in the irs case but also in the slush fund case,
and finding the actual people who have been harmed. So
talk to me more about that, like how do you
find clients? You know, what's it like for them to
stand up to the administration. They of course need to
give their names. Tell us about that about these hero
kind of unsung heroes of so much of the resistance
to Trump right now, they are.
Speaker 5: The heroes, and we, you know, we really want to
lift up the role that ordinary people.
Speaker 7: Of course I don't think they're ordinary. I think they're extraordinary, but.
Speaker 5: Just people that are living in all different walks of
life who have said, you know, I can see what's
happening to my community, I can see what's happening to
my family, I can see what's happening in my country,
and I want to do something about it. It really
is the thing that motivates us every day, that motivates
our team.
Speaker 7: So sometimes clients, in many instances, clients come to us.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, when Elon Musk was running through
Washington decimating our civil servants, right the people that have
dedicated their careers to serving the American public, there was
a big panic about you know, what were they to do?
How were they to respond? So in many instances clients
do come to us, But in some instances, people don't
know how to find a lawyer, they don't know that
they can be represented free of charge. And also because
of the way and I know your audience follows this,
because of the way the laws have been interpreted, sometimes
a single individual isn't actually the only planet that you need.
Speaker 7: Because we want to make sure.
Speaker 5: That we can get relief for everyone in the country,
and the courts increasingly are looking at sort of like
how widespread the harm is?
Speaker 7: How can we demonstrate that? So we do a lot
of work.
Speaker 5: I mean, we represent a lot of associations, a lot
of groups that have members who are harmed by these
unlawful actions, but that can demonstrate that that harm is widespread,
which helps us when court orders that can help more
people as opposed to just you know, helping one or
two individuals, and a lot of that work. You know,
now it's much easier. A year and a half into this,
when the administration first came on the scene and was
really doing such harm to people, there was a lot
of fear among organizations if we cross them, what are
they going to do?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: What the problem with the way the administration has operated
with their overreach is the only thing that's really won.
The only way you really can get your way with
this administration right now has been to sue them. So
now a lot of institutions or more institutions are seeing that,
which has been helpful in making sure we can make
sure that people and communities can get into court.
Speaker 7: But there is a lot of fear.
Speaker 5: I mean, people are very afraid because the administration is
wanting them to be afraid. But I will tell you
we have seen in our cases that litigation has actually
been a protectant against people. I say all the time,
this administration knows what to do with weakness, they don't
always know what to do with strength. I mean, they
will come after people no fault of their own, including
incredibly buried and courageous people. So I'm not saying it's
one hundred percent, but in general, in general, they are
much more interested in targets that they believe will capitulate
or will pull back, as opposed to people and communities
that will confront them in court. And that's really been
the north star for a lot of our clients.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course the litigation that we're talking about
the creation of a slush fund to aid your allies
Trump allies and to shut down his opponents. What a
perfect example of the threat that people feel. But also,
I mean, what a great point that litigation is actually
what pushes them back. I mean, when you look at
those who have caved in the universities I'm thinking of
in particular, and of course to the law firms, those
universities who have fought back have often won, and those
who behave have been asked for more and more. And
so when people you know that at my university or
at others, are asking should we fight or should we
back down, it's like there is no you know, partially
backing down, there is no compromise. They're going to just
demand more and more. In litigation is the thing that
actually protects you. It's not to say you can't negotiate,
you know, once you begin to litigate and you know,
maybe you could make a reasonable settlement then, but backing
down is about the worst thing you can do in
the face of such a bully that's trying to destroy democracy.
Speaker 5: Well, one thing we say is, you know the cost
of inaction and the cost of action, and right now
there is a lot of people afraid of how costly
what the consequences would be for pushing.
Speaker 7: Back or for acting and their right to be afraid.
Speaker 5: This is a really scary time. But what we know
about this time, and what the real risk assessments would show,
is that the cost of inaction is higher than the
cost of action. And I think that sometimes in these discussions,
whether they're in boardrooms at universities or at companies, the
cost of inaction gets minimized. And when you're looking at
a political movement and an administration in this country that
does not want to be held accountable to the constitution,
that does not want a democracy that is available to
all people, the cost of not doing anything or far
far higher than the cost of stepping up and being
part of the work to defend these rights and this
form of government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about action and defense of democracy. Can
you tell us just some of I mean, of course,
one of the huge stories of the moment is that
Donald Trump has given a speech about threatening our elections,
claiming that they are insecure, and of course using that
as an excuse potentially to continue to cheat himself. He's tried,
through various proposed legislation to limit the right to vote
of his opponents. And I know that you have a
plethora of pieces of litigation, a number of lawsuits that
are challenging this attempt to shut down democracy, both when
it comes to protecting our votes and also to get
transparency when it comes to some of the stuff that's
going on behind the scenes that we got a little
window in his speech recently. So tell us what kinds
of cases are you bringing here to protect our democracy
and our argy?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 5: Main I think, yeah, I think the main thing that's
really important for people that are tuning in to know
is that, largely speaking, the president's attempts to engage in
these conspiracy theories, the president's attempts to intimidate and try
to get voter rolled, all those things, they are largely
being blocked in the courts. And that's no surprise because
the Constitution provides no basis for the president to have
a role in our elections like that. Just is what
happened two hundred and fifty years ago. We didn't throw
off the reigns of monarchy to put a president in
charge of elections, and that's how you know, you know,
and that didn't change within the ten years between the
declaration of independence and when the Constitution comes about. So
there's no real role for the president here, and the
federal courts have been pretty uniformly seeing it for what
it is. So in cases that we are not involved
in that, I'll start with those first. You know, the
Department of Justice, I believe is zero for sixteen in
their attempts to get data from the states. Now we
have blocked alongside we are counsel at Democracy Forward, alongside
our friends at CREWE and the Fair Election Center, we
have blocked the president's attempt to use this modified SAVE
database within the Department of Homeland Security to aggregate information
and potentially to use that.
Speaker 7: To remove voters from the roles. We've blocked that by
a federal court.
Speaker 5: We're fighting literally every day on their complains alliance with
that court order, but that has also been blocked. We
have exposed in another federal litigation that when DOGE was
in Washington, they were accessing individual social security information and
that a DOGE team members signed a voter data agreement
with a third party organization that, by the Department of
Justice's own telling, was engaged in seeking to overturn state
election results. So we have won a major discovery order
to get to the bottom of what's happening there. And
then right after the president's speech, just hours after the
president's speech, we filed suit because the government has been
with holding documents from the FBI, the DOJ, and the
OD and I the very agencies that the President was
trying to put at play. They've been withholding documents about
all of these types of conspiracies that of course we
know the documents will show that these are just conspiracies.
And so you will see that type of action from US.
You will see that type of action from other organizations,
from the state ags. There will be swift legal action
every time this administration seeks to do something to undermine
the elections. And it's not going to be easy for
the president to do this, and our constitution doesn't permit it.
And I think you saw even the US Supreme Court
in this last term in the Mississippi decision.
Speaker 7: I think I think it was an.
Speaker 5: Amy Coney Barrett opinion, you know, really explaining that there
isn't a role for the president in some of these things.
And so I think that we're feeling, you know, the lawyers.
Speaker 7: Are going to do what we need to do.
Speaker 5: But this is the type of election that every single
American is going to have to vote, is going to
have to make a plan to vote, and is going
to have to sort of make up their minds and
with their communities that we're not going to stand idly
by while an administration or any other tripe of force
tries to undermine our elections. And there really may be
actions that people in communities need to take in forms
of peaceful mass mobilizations, education campaigns, helping accompany people of
the polls. Those are going to be actions that we
may need to see over the coming weeks and months.
And at Democracy Forward, we've invested a lot, not just
in our legal work, but also in helping to support
communities be able to engage in those peaceful and lawful
ways to protect our democracy.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in digging into this litigation that followed the speech,
because you know, I think a lot of people felt
powerless listening to this thing. It was so outrageous that
he's making all of these claims, both about the insecurity
of our elections generally when his party loses, but I
guess the security when he wins. And you know, it's
just a sort of mass confusion. And yet you responded
with a legal strategy and with litigation to try to
figure out what's really going on here behind the curtain
that we know just from what we're seeing that there's
pure chaos and there must be even more malicious activity
going on behind the scenes. So how are you going
about trying to get this information? You know, tell us
more about how this lawsuit, in this litigation will work.
I mean, it's one of those areas where I was
especially impressed to see you doing this because I thought, like, well,
you know, the administration at least claims it's a black box.
They don't. The whole way that corruption works, you know,
the Nixon administration earlier is the presidents put veils of
secrecy around themselves, and of course he's both wanting to
tell us about the insecurity of our elections and not
show us any proof of that. And you're really trying
to pierce that veil of secrecy to get transparency, to
get the truth. How are you doing that which we've been.
Speaker 7: Able to do.
Speaker 5: I just want to say that through our litigation, we've
been able to uncover so many things. We've uncovered that
they were intimidating local communities that thought that they had
to turn over voted data. So you know, this is
really important. So the Freedom of Information Act is of
course an amazing and an important tool for the American people.
This is information that's in our government is the people's information.
It's not the information of a particular leader or the
people that follow that leader. This is the people's information.
And so we have had a great success in using
the Freedom of Information Act and the litigation when they
don't respond and don't give over that data to force
production of information. That's been very helpful to protect people's
rights and to expose what is happening our other you know,
our litigation cases that are not litigation under the Freedom
of Information Act. You know, the courts have a way
of shining a light, and so we've been able to
uncover so much of this through that litigation as well.
You know, Justice Lewis Brandeis had said, you know, sunlight
is the best disinfectant. And even in these times where
it seems that these threats are so accelerated, and this
country has faced major threats before, but these are very
accelerated and concerning almost unprecedented threats here, definitely unprecedented to
have a president that's actively trying to keep people from
being able to participate in our elections. Exposure has still
been a key key way that people have been able
to push back and to stop bad activity, which is
of course why the administration is seeking to intimidate journalists,
is seeking to intimidate storytellers, is making outlandish claims that
you can't record what's happening on the public streets of
your community. Of course you can, but making these claims
because they don't want that transparency and exposure. And so
we are really pleased and honor that we can use
the tools that the law provides. Is an area of
law that is still there, that is still providing these
types of tools.
Speaker 7: And we're going to use them.
Speaker 2: Well, what an amazing conversation this has been. I'm going
to ask you one last question before we say goodbye.
I mean, so much of the important work that you're
doing and finding litigants and actually literally stopping this administration.
I just want to emphasize that point that you really
did stop the slush fund in its tracks. And you
know that's led to the administration claiming that they abandoned
it while it sounds like they're continuing, but you did
stop it. This litigation works. You've provided information to us,
You've helped make this a story that we're all aware of,
as you said too, and that's been true throughout this
administration and the Abrego Garcia case. The reason why we're
all talking about the seventeen ninety eight Alien Enemies Act
and their attempt to basically revoke due process off this
ancient litigation is because somebody stood up. There was a
client who was willing to push back. That's true of
a break of Garcia. So tell me though, too. I mean,
just as a part of what we're always talking about
on this podcast is of course the threat to democracy,
but also the future. I mean, this is there legislation.
What would you like to see going forward for us
not just to get Donald Trump out of office, but
to see our democracy restored. I'll just invite you to
speak more generally about what we were Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Mean, I love this question, and I have to say
that we know that it's not just about the restoration
of democracy, It's really about the reimagining of democracy. Our
country is an amazing country and the ideals it was
founded on the way in which it was founded. For
all of the setbacks and all of the injustices. It
was the first country in the world that was founded
on common ideals as opposed to historical accident or necessity
or survival. But from the beginning of that founding, of
course worse the promises and the practices didn't match up.
The country was founded on stolen land. It was founded
and you know, in the midst of human enslavement and
in the disenfranchising of the vast majority of people that
lived within the country's claimed borders, whether they were women,
people of color, non property owners, couldn't vote. And so
this is a moment where we have to be honest
about that history. For all it's good and all it's bad,
and I just listed a lot of the bad pieces
of our history, and we have to be honest that
it has been ordinary people across this country that have
pushed to make promises actually practices, that have pushed to
really realize a democracy that is made to hold all
of us. And this is an amazing moment where as
people are seeing what is at stake, and as powerful
institutions have been pulling back, people have been stepping forward.
Speaker 7: And so what we want to see.
Speaker 5: Is our systems and structures really be set up to
hold all of us. That means that we need to
talk seriously about Supreme Court reform. It means that we
need to look at things like the electoral college, or
the filibuster, or a number of things that exists within
our representative system that was here to try to restrict
democracy as opposed to empower democracy. And then on a
more granular level, there's a lot of work that needs
to be done to make sure that when people dedicate
their lives to serving our country as career civil servants,
that there are protections for them so that they don't
get treated the way our civil servants have been treated now,
and so that a leader can't come in and just
like eradicate the professional civil service and replace them with
partisan loyalists. We need to make sure that there's more
comprehensive anti corruption laws, because this country was not really
did not really contemplate that the government itself would have
widespread corruption. And so, as you know, our laws are
set up for the government to want to root out
individual instances of corruption within the government, set up for
the government itself to be broadly and widely corrupt, and
we now have a lot of challenges as a result
of the deep corruption that we're seeing. So we're deeply
hopeful about what people are doing in this moment. I
think we think that it's a really hard moment and
it may get worse before it gets better, but we
are also deeply hopeful about what this crisis can do
to catalyze real change, not just performative change, but real
change that truly helps to bring about a democracy that
we've never had in this country, but that so many
people across so many generations have been working to achieve.
Speaker 2: What a great place to end. Absolutely in times of crisis,
that's where we often find the moment to not just
push back against the president causing the crisis, but to
rebuild our democracy. And like you, I'm hopeful that we'll
do that at this moment and in the future, and
that we won't just stop Donald Trump, but that will
do much more. But of course, thank you too for
your work in stopping Donald Trump and the Lush fun
case and so many other pieces of litigation that you
and your amazing group Democracy Forward have been involved with.
Sky Perryman, thanks for joining the pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much outstating work, Professor. Thank you very
much for that.
Speaker 2: You know It really is a pleasure to do this
show with you, John every week, because we're documenting what's happening,
we're being honest about it, about the brutality of ice,
about an attorney general who thinks he's the personal criminal
lawyer of the president, of a speech that was meant
to indict the insecurity of our elections, but really revealed
the president's own motivation to try to steal our elections.
And then to combine it with the chance on this
show to speak to, you know, somebody who maybe listeners
have heard on MS now or on your show, John,
but some of them, and many of them will be
introduced for the first time, who's actually leading a really massive, powerful,
brilliant organization with some of the best lawyers out their
former Department of Justice officials. As I mentioned, I had
the chance to work with Sky Perryman's team on the
Terrorist Brief, which I'll add was an instance where where
litigation stopped the president from acting like a dictator. And so,
you know, on the one hand, it's a frightening moment,
but I'm so glad that we got to have that
discussion with Sky Perryman and to talk about democracy forward
and you know, we'll keep going and next week we'll
have David French on the show. An amazing conversation there,
so what a pleasure. John. Thanks, thanks, thank you everyone
for listening, and thanks for making this, by the way,
not just a top podcast, but the number one trending
podcast on Apple Government. And if you haven't subscribed, definitely
subscribe and tell your friends about the show.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Wendy and Beyo Wolf and everyone
who puts the show together, and thank you Professor. As always,
I'm John Fegele Sang. We will see you next time
on the open of the office.