In This Episode
Alex digs into the destruction of due process and rule of law under the Trump administration. First, she hears from Judge Anam Petit, a recently fired immigration judge who explains how the legal system is being quietly dismantled to prioritize deportations. Then, Alex speaks to Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office, about whether our system is forever changed, and what it’s like to be in President Trump’s crosshairs.
TRANSCRIPT
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Hi everyone, welcome to my new show, Runaway Country. We are less than a year into the Trump administration and I don’t know about you, but I barely recognize this place. National Guard troops are invading blue cities, citizens are being snatched off the street, and the East Wing of the White House is being ripped off and turned into apparently a corporate event space. What the hell is happening here? Everything is unfolding at such a rapid clip that it all just bleeds in together into one extended chaotic moment and one that you might actually become a little numb to. And when you hear the same voices weigh in on all of this and when the cycle of outrage is never ending, well, then we miss what’s really going on. This show is about shaking that up. I’m Alex Wagner. I am a Pod Save America contributor and a senior political analyst at MS Now. And on this show, I’m gonna bring you voices you don’t often hear from. People whose experiences at the center of these headlines will offer you a way to shake off that numbness and to better understand the seemingly incomprehensible moment we all happen to be living through. And then we’re gonna pair that storytelling with analysis from some of the smartest people I know in order to put it all in context. All of this so that we can keep this country within our grasp. This week, we wanted to start with a minor development, President Trump’s full-blown assault on the Department of Justice and the crumbling authority of rule of law. Between the president’s political hit list and ICE agents in courthouse hallways, all of a sudden, it feels like we are in an inverted America, where justice has basically left the building. Faith in institutions has been sliding for some time now, but at the end of the day, It seemed like most of us, Democrats and Republicans, were operating under the assumption that ours is a country that guarantees due process, a place where the courts and the political motivations of the White House were separate things. Well, not anymore. [music plays] This is Runaway Country. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how Trump is abusing the government, and specifically the Justice Department, to consolidate power, to target his critics, to purge his enemies, and to line his own pockets while he’s at it. Here’s the latest from CNN.
[clip from CNN]: The New York Times is reporting this afternoon that President Trump is moving to demand that the Justice Department financially compensate him for the various federal investigations into him. What exactly does he want? Nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. $230 million, to be exact.
Alex Wagner: We’ve seen Trump replace DOJ officials with lackeys and use bogus lawsuits to go after political adversaries like former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. And we’ve seen him threaten a whole lot of other people just for what they’ve said about him publicly, including former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who worked on the Mueller report and who we’ll be hearing from later on in the show. Andrew shared with us his story about being personally targeted by Trump.
[clip of Donald Trump]: I hope they’re going to look into Weissmann, too. Weissmann’s a bad guy.
Alex Wagner: And what it’s made him think, not just about his own future, but the future of the justice system and rule of law in America. But even Andrew’s story has a lot more visibility than what’s happening much more quietly and much more insidiously every single day. The firing of not just career prosecutors, but the judges themselves, the very people who uphold the rule of laws. You almost certainly already know that the immigration court system here is a nightmare. There are masked ICE agents standing outside of courtrooms, terrorizing the people who are just trying to follow the rules. Those wrenching clips have gone viral. [overlapping screaming] That was an ICE agent in a New York City immigration court tackling a woman whose husband was essentially stolen from her as he showed up for his scheduled court date. But that drama does not begin and end in courtroom hallways. The Trump administration is working to make the hearings themselves increasingly difficult, if not actually impossible. They’re overwhelming judges with thousands and thousands of more immigration cases, and then they’re pushing the judges to dismiss the cases. So that the migrants can be put into expedited removal hearings. And then they have those ICE agents in the hallways ready to grab those migrants, almost all of whom have no criminal records. So judges see all of this happening and they are in a bind. Most of these undocumented migrants after all have no legal representation and judges are not allowed to give legal advice. If all of that sounds insane, there’s also this. The Trump administration is firing these immigration judges at a rapid clip and working to replace them with military lawyers. As of this week, there are only 600 immigration court judges left for a backlog of cases that number somewhere around 3.8 million and is just going up. You can do the math here. The system, as it is now, cannot hold. So to understand what’s happening on the front lines of all of this, we’re gonna talk to immigration judge Anam Rahman Petit, who worked for the executive office for immigration review. That’s the agency at the Department of Justice that oversees the immigration courts. Like many others in her line of work, Judge Petit was fired in September, seemingly for no reason or for no reasons having to do with her actual job performance. But obviously, there is a whole lot more to the story. Here’s my conversation with Judge Anam Petit. [music plays] First of all, just based on the videos, it’s been wrenching to see what’s happening in these courtrooms. So let’s start there, I guess, which is you were up until very recently an immigration court judge. What has this year been like at immigration court?
Anam Rahman Petit: It’s been a lot, you know, watching a video is one thing. Those are traumatizing enough just as a bystander, let alone imagining what that person is going through who’s being detained, the family members who are crying on the sidelines. I mean, that’s the principal person being affected by that, right? But then it widens. There are the immigrants who are appearing in court who are also watching this happening, which creates a chilling effect, right. It. Affects people’s ability and willingness to come to court to show up for their hearings. It affects the interpreters who have to interpret really difficult discussions. It affects the attorneys, including the ICE attorneys who are there kind of following orders and coordinating with ICE about the detentions. And then of course, it affects the judge who’s presiding over this hearing, which is supposed to be a neutral and fair and just proceeding. But then you have this, like you said, heart-wrenching, traumatizing incident that’s occurring and disrupting what is supposed to be happening.
Alex Wagner: You’re like in there trying to give people due process effectively, right? These are huge life decisions. Do you stay, do you go, whatever.
Anam Rahman Petit: Right.
Alex Wagner: And like children are screaming, people are sobbing and you’re, it’s your courtroom. What, what is that like on a human to human level?
Anam Rahman Petit: Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to wear all the hats that you kind of need to as an immigration judge. There’s the hat, which is the neutral arbiter who just needs to stay unbiased and give objective, fair advice and reasoning in a case. But you can’t separate that from being a human. And as a human, it is devastating. And I’ve been a practitioner in this field for a long time. They never did this. There was never a risk of detention when you went to court. You knew that when you go to court, you have your hearing. There’s a very low risk of detection, if any. The only people who really had a risk of detention were people who had really serious criminal issues or national security issues. But for everyone else, you knew that there was a protection there at the court and for you to just be able to appear for your case. And so it’s this new era of immigration court where enforcement is front and center. And what used to be a protected space for justice just isn’t that anymore.
Alex Wagner: I mean, you talk about other immigrants, even ones who aren’t being targeted by ICE, as they watch people get seized in the hallway and ripped away from their families. Can you just describe what those reactions are like from people who were not even centrally involved but are just part of the same process?
Anam Rahman Petit: I mean, I think the primary reaction is fear. When you see that happening, you don’t know the difference between that person’s case and your case or your family member’s case. All you see is the detention, all you see is the crying. And so then when your case gets set for another hearing, that image, that visual is going to be running through your head when you’re deciding, do I go back to court? And I think that’s an especially difficult decision when people have family members. In a lot of these cases, there are children. Who are dependents or writers on a parent’s claim. A lot of us judges wave the appearance of these minors so that they can stay in school. They don’t have to come to court. The parent can focus on their hearing. So for a mother or a father who has children at home, who’s also in that case, it has to run through their head. I could go to court today and I could never come home and see my child.
Alex Wagner: I have a question. About the ICE agents, you know. So these ICE agents are masked outside of the courtroom. Are they masked inside the courtroom? And did you recognize, I mean, would you recognize them from time to time? Did you, were there familiar faces among them?
Anam Rahman Petit: So. You would see the same ones occasionally, but there are just so many ICE agents now that you wouldn’t necessarily see repetitions. I mean, they just have a flush of money right now and they’re hiring ICE agents at such a fast clip. Generally, in my courtroom, if anyone was wearing a hat or a mask or anything, I would ask them to remove it. I think a lot of judges were in that boat as well. But there is this unsettling feeling to have anyone in your courtroom who isn’t there for a case and isn’t there to support someone on a case, because you don’t really know who they are. And in these times where there’s an increase in political violence, there were times where I was very uneasy and scared, because you don’t know if they’re actually even ICE agents, they can be anyone. And one of the issues at the immigration courts is that there isn’t a high level of security. There aren’t bailiffs in every courtroom like you have in other courts around the country. So for a lot of these cases, it was just me and the people appearing before me. Oftentimes I didn’t even have a law clerk or a legal assistant. And so you feel quite unprotected in those moments, especially when you kind of hear the commotion in the hallways, which are quite disruptive to cases, not only to me and to the attorneys and interpreters, but also to the respondents who are here testifying. About really traumatizing parts of their lives and they can hear someone getting detained right outside the courtroom.
Alex Wagner: Like crying and screaming.
Anam Rahman Petit: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Wagner: I guess I’m wondering if the new dynamic in these courtrooms, you deny someone or you dismiss their case because that’s what the law requires and they walk out unsuspecting and get taken by ICE. Do you have, like are there moments in that new dynamic that stick out to you?
Anam Rahman Petit: So I had one of the first detentions in the country. So this was when people didn’t really know that this was happening and that this was going to be a new policy that really defined the Trump administration with enforcement. And so I showed up for a hearing expecting the respondent, the immigrant in the proceedings to appear. And instead I’m told by the ACC, the ICE prosecutor that they were just detained. Instead, I have to have a conversation with his sobbing, wailing mother who accompanied him to court. And I’m talking to her through a Spanish interpreter. And again, I, I have to be quite careful in what I’m saying because DOJ and the immigration court isn’t a part of that arrest detention process. And… You know, to just be able to answer her questions and say, you know you can follow up with ICE to find out where he’s detained. I really don’t have much more information for you. And just think this was a time where this wasn’t really happening. So everyone at my court was kind of surprised that this had even happened when a person was just showing up for their final day in court. And it was the last step of the process. It was a case that had been pending for a long time. I had prepared the case, I had reviewed it. I would have almost certainly been able to make a decision that day, instead that person was detained, they were sent to the detained docket of the court, and then another judge would kind of have to start that process all over again. So in addition to the detention being what it is in and of itself, it’s also just inefficient for a system that has a crushing backlog.
Alex Wagner: Can we talk about that backlog because you are one of many immigration judges who have been fired. The Seattle Times is reporting this week, I think, that the Trump administration has fired more than 83 immigration judges since Trump took office. There are less than 600 immigration judges nationally to hear, I think, roughly 3.8 million pending cases. So you’re talking about math that in some parts of the country could look like one judge for 42,000 cases. Do you have any idea why you were fired?
Anam Rahman Petit: I have no idea, and no reason was given to me. I was a probationary judge, so they were looking at my performance. I had multiple performance reviews over the two years. I received nothing but glowing feedback. And even after I got fired, I had a conversation with my assistant chief immigration judge, who was my direct supervisor, and he advised me that there was no performance-based reason for my termination. So that kind of leaves the agency needs bucket. And there’s no agency need to fire immigration judges. We had a crushing backlog.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Anam Rahman Petit: We received so much training and by all accounts, I was a high-performing judge. I had a high number of completions.
Alex Wagner: I have a theory on why you were fired. I mean, it’s just like, well, what we know is that in the absence of having enough judges, the Trump administration is calling up military lawyers who haven’t been trained in the, you know, the skill set that you were trained in, the law that you are trained in to with the shortage of immigration judges. I mean… They’re decidedly less qualified, the requirements are lower, perhaps they’ll be more allegiance to the goals of this administration. And there’s no better way to creating crisis on the bench allows this administration to come up with a solution that serves their purposes. I mean, I guess I wonder if you think overwhelming the system was maybe sort of the point of your dismissal.
Anam Rahman Petit: I think you’re right. You know, the cynic in me believes that this is all being done very purposefully and that they’re trying to break the system so that they are able to implement whatever reforms they see fit, which will be at the expense of due process.
Alex Wagner: And it sounds like even when you were on the bench, the directives you were getting from the Department of Justice about how to adjudicate these cases was changing, right?
Anam Rahman Petit: Absolutely. So we are completely at the political whim of who is ever in the White House and then who the AG is. There were so many policy memoranda that completely undid what our prior guidance was on a full range of issues. And so we just have to keep up with all of the changes. But literally overnight, a decision could be issued and has been issued that completely upends decades of jurisprudence in asylum law or other areas of immigration law. So there’s a lot of legal whiplash within judges and attorneys who have to appear in the system.
Alex Wagner: Did you at any point feel pressure to be more hardline because of the directives coming out of the attorney general’s office?
Anam Rahman Petit: No one ever explicitly told me, you have to rule on this case in Y way, or if not, you’ll suffer A, B, and C consequences. Thankfully, that never happened to me. There is an unspoken pressure to abide by the agenda of this administration. I mean, we are part of DOJ, Pam Bondi’s our boss and you’ll you see the decisions coming out of the Board of Immigration Appeals or from the AG’s office that greatly limit certain relief paths to immigrants and are just stricter in general on a lot of procedural issues. You also see the and feel the unspoken pressure of a lot of the policy memoranda that are issued which tell us to decide cases in certain ways and identify issues. That they see and really put a lot of those errors on the backs of the immigration judges and not leadership or directives that kind of control our dockets. But I never was told to decide a certain way. And when I look back on every case I’ve decided, there isn’t one case. That I ruled on because I felt like I had to rule a certain way based on leadership. I always decided every case based on the law and the facts. I felt more stress and anxiety when I had a week where I may be granted more cases than I had the week before, or if I didn’t get every case done that week because I needed more time for testimony or decision knowing the emphasis on case completions. So I put more pressure on myself and I worked my butt off all year. Just to make sure that my case completions were good. I worked so much more outside of hours than I ever had because I knew I was on probation and I didn’t want to give this administration any reason to fire me. Turns out that didn’t matter anyway, but there is that unspoken pressure for sure and a lot of judges are feeling it right now.
Alex Wagner: Were you relieved when you got fired?
Anam Rahman Petit: There was a slew of emotions, as I’m sure you can imagine. I was devastated. There were a lot of tears the day that I got fired. I was furious and angry at the injustice of it all, like knowing that I was a great judge. And I did walk out of that courthouse with my head held high. But I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t a little bit of relief that was contingent to that. Because I lived the last several months with a lot anxiety, with a heaviness that any day I could be fired. And so I was thinking what that would look like for me and my family, but I did feel some relief. At least I knew, right? At least, I knew okay, I’m fired. I need to focus on the next chapter instead of wondering whether that would happen on any given day, which was not a good place to be in.
Alex Wagner: What’s your assessment of if you’re in this country and you’re trying to get due process? Like, is that possible? I mean, how much has this administration eroded that?
Anam Rahman Petit: Due process still exists. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain in a courtroom because judges are bound by presidential decisions and directives from the DOJ and leadership. What I worry is that the emphasis in this administration for case completions and the number of cases you get done are going to override those due process protections that every immigrant is entitled to under our constitution. And it’s hard—
Alex Wagner: Well, also maybe don’t fire the judges if you want the cases to be completed. It’s insane.
Anam Rahman Petit: We need judges to get through the backlog and we need qualified judges who have the experience and expertise in immigration law or litigation or administrative law. And they’ve gotten rid of all those qualifications. They’re posting for immigration judge positions right now. And they have gotten rid of all of the requirements that have always been required for that position. So I’m a little worried about the folks that they’re going to be hiring to replace me.
Alex Wagner: I mean, I feel like that’s the point, right? I mean what’s your level of confidence about the rule of law in America?
Anam Rahman Petit: Any public trust or confidence that people had in the immigration court system and rule of law in general in the United States has greatly eroded. You know, the question I’ve been asked is, would you become an immigration judge again? And it was a dream job for me, but I would be so reluctant to accept that job again, because it used to be such a stable position. And now it’s just anchored in instability. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get trust back in that federal sector employment. And then I don’t know if wherever going to trust back in justice and the rule of law and to know that, you know, all of the checks and balances and the levels of review are going to work the way that these democratic institutions are supposed to be working.
Alex Wagner: Geez.
Anam Rahman Petit: That’s the cynic in me. You know, you caught me at a bad time. I just got fired. J
Alex Wagner: Judge Petit, thank you for answering these questions and sharing your wrenching experience. I started with the word wrenching. I’m ending on the word, wrenching, good luck out there.
Anam Rahman Petit: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.
Alex Wagner: We reached out for comment from the executive office for immigration review where Judge Petit worked, but they have not responded as of this recording. And we should note that Defending Our Neighbors Fund is a sponsor of this podcast. When we come back, my conversation with Andrew Weissmann.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Andrew Weissmann, it’s always a delight to talk to you, even under duress, which is where the country is. And to some degree, maybe you are, given what Trump has been saying, but we’ll get to that in a second.
Andrew Weissmann: Okay. Well, it’s nice to be here.
Alex Wagner: Um, so we just talked to Judge Anam Petit, who is a now-fired immigration court judge, uh, who has let go for seemingly no reason at a time when immigration courts are in crisis, um, literally and figuratively, about 60 other judges have been fired or forced out over the last few months. That leaves, I think, roughly 600 judges nationally to deal with a backlog of nearly 4 million cases. In some areas, you’re seeing single judges have a caseload of like 42,000 cases. The Trump administration strategy here seems to be overwhelm the system and hollow it out at the same time, which I don’t know, I don’t know anything about war strategy, but I feel like Napoleon probably had this strategy. Like it’s a full on assault on the justice system. Immigration court is housed at justice. Um, is it a foregone conclusion that this is all it’s going to work? The strategy.
Andrew Weissmann: Well.Yes, let’s start with, it makes no sense whatsoever to sit there and say, we really, really want to get these people out of the country, there’s an immigration process, and we’re actually going to get rid of immigration judges. That’s usually when you want to have more immigration judges, so the theory has to be on the most optimistic, positive, Pollyannish. The theory, which obviously you can tell I don’t agree with, is that the judges who they let go of are somehow slow, not doing their job correctly, and they’re replacing them with just more efficient and better judges. But that does not seem to be the facts on the ground. So that’s like the only positive theory. The other theories are you want people in there who are just gonna do your bidding and you’re gonna have the veneer of due process without actual due process. And you’re going to stack the courts in some ways like putting Emil Bove on the third circuit in my view is a way of hollowing out the courts in a way if you if you think about there’s a three three parts of the government so there’s you know there’s like going back to grade school and you have the executive the judicial the legislative well they’ve gotten rid of congress right because they’re just asleep at the switch as they’re republican controlled.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And if you’re trying to deal with the pushback that we’re seeing over and over again by lower court judges who whether they were whether any president has appointed them, including Donald Trump himself. If you’re trying to deal with that, one way is to just put in people who are just going to do exactly what they’re essentially hired to do. And then the other, so that’s one, a terrible theory, right? And then, the third theory is that it doesn’t really matter if you have a court system because they’re not really planning on using it. And that is what we saw. And I, that’s actually my, I think it’s a combination of two and three because I they think there’s just so many times. We’ve seen as Judge Wilkinson, a very conservative judge in the Fourth Circuit said, as we’re just seeing people being extracted. He wouldn’t even use the term sort of legally removed, like going through the legal process. He was saying they’ve been extracted and stashed in a prison because you don’t even wanna sort of give it the veneer of the legal system. And so if you’re not really planning on using the legal systems, you can go ahead and fire good reputable judges like the person that you just spoke to.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, and they’re bringing into your sort of second point, they’re bring in far less qualified military lawyers to do the work of these judges and to expedite the process. I mean, it’s the veneer of due process without the actual practical process itself.
Andrew Weissmann: So the one thing I will say about military judges and sort of military justice is, and I don’t know if it will play out here, but I do want to speak up for JAGs and military courts.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Because sometimes people might think, oh, they just railroad people, and oh, they don’t really understand rights. That’s not my experience. Um, and I, I do think that they, this could backfire, um, like they may be planning to do all that, but you could end up with people who are very much like Mr. Reuveni, the attorney who was, you know, fired in that Abrego Garcia case because he was not going to call Mr. Abrego Garcia a terrorist without there being evidence of being a terrorist and he was fired for that. And so, I think military people… Are trained in the rule of law, it’s not exactly the same system as ours, but they may not get what they’re thinking they’re going to get at the end of the Trump administration.
Alex Wagner: But it does get to your broader point that, you know, there’s the question of whether they’re actually that interested in the courts to begin with, right?
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
Alex Wagner: Because you put all of this together and I was talking to this judge and it’s like, you don’t even have to be one of the people that’s on having a hearing. You could just be there in the courtroom and you see what’s unfolding, both in terms of the judges being overwhelmed, the length of time it takes to even get there, and then these ICE agents. Who sit and prey upon people who are trying to work within the system to gain asylum. And at one point she says it’s incredibly disruptive to the process to literally hear the screaming and crying on the other side of the wall as these families are ripped apart. And if you’re like debating, do I stay in the system or go outside of it? The system clearly is stacked against you or you’re gonna end up getting fucked in that system in ways you cannot even imagine. And that then encourages people to just miss their court dates and then we are left with the reality that we see now, which is people just getting snatched from on the streets outside of their workplaces on their way to drop off their kids to school.
Andrew Weissmann: Absolutely. I mean, we’ve had this situation where courthouses have said, and judges, including chief judges, have said that’s not happening in the courthouse. There is a legal process here. People should feel like they can come here and have their rights adjudicated without having to worry about being arrested outside. It’s going to interfere with. Um, not just the peace of mind, but like, can you imagine if you’re a witness and.
Alex Wagner: Exactly.
Andrew Weissmann: So, so that is something where we are seeing some, some pushback. I, I’m told the Southern District of New York, uh, or it’s a heard, um, that the U.S. Attorney there has a commitment that those kinds of things won’t happen. Sort of on his watch while he’s the U.S. Attorney. We’ll see how much that lasts. But with immigration, I think the administration is banking on the fact that they think that Americans won’t care about due process if we’re talking about people who they can label as bad people.
Alex Wagner: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Weissmann: And that they’re not sort of rich white Americans. They’re people who are more disadvantaged or from Black and brown communities, and people will be thinking, well, if they say they’re bad people and they don’t look like me, that somehow the Americans won’t take it as seriously. I actually, and this is my Pollyanna part, I actually think Americans do care about that. Um… I can tell you really, when I started out as a lawyer, I was not a prosecutor. I was just starting out at a law firm and we had a death penalty case and our client was on death row and we were making this claim in Georgia State Court and we’re trying to get to federal court without unscathed because it’s very hard, state court we thought would be terrible for us and eventually you got a federal court. And we were—
Alex Wagner: Oh, we remember the tension between Georgia courts and national courts. [laughs]
Andrew Weissmann: So this is a really interesting story that might sort of be appropriate for today. So we’re in Georgia, the Georgia State Courts, and we have dispositive proof that, and I’m going to use a term that we don’t use anymore, but it was the term at the time, so I have to use it, that he was diagnosed since he was eight years old as mentally retarded. I know that’s not the term we use, but that was the diagnosis that he given. And even the state had to concede that, in fact, he was mentally retarded. But this is what the Georgia state judge said is, you know what? In Georgia, we protect our communities. We care about crime, but we’re fair. And the Georgia State Court said it is unconstitutional under the Georgia Constitution to kill somebody who is mentally retarted.
Alex Wagner: Hmm.
Andrew Weissmann: And you know, so meaning that there was a sense of fairness. And it somewhat goes to my point about the military tribunals. A friend of mine had the first ever cooperator out of Guantanamo in the suite of sort of 9/11 cases. And when he was sentenced, there was an advisory jury of just people from the military. And he described what had happened to him. It’s the first time ever, it was on the front page of the New York Times, described what happened to an black site. And the jury wrote this lengthy letter to the judge saying that this was completely un-American, what had happened to him, and recommending that he be given leniency. And it wasn’t because they were embracing his acts, they were deploring what had been done to him. And, to me, that I do think that it questions if there are enough people like that.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: But I do think that there are people who can, you know, who are principled, who were sitting there going, that’s not how we behave.
Alex Wagner: It’s so, it’s so heartening and important to hear about your sort of fundamental belief, which I agree with, that there are good people in the system and that a sort of the agreement we have about what it means to be in this democracy still holds even in like corners that are under greatest stress, right?
Andrew Weissmann: Yep.
Alex Wagner: There is though, I mean, I guess you talk about the chasm that separates people who the victims in a lot of these cases and the rest of the American public. And the thing I worry about is that even if you aren’t paying attention to what’s happening to undocumented migrants and you’re not particularly engaged in how that’s tearing apart communities where they’re mixed families or people even who are American citizens. There’s this unbelievable effort on the part of the administration to destroy the notion of trust in the justice system as being an impartial one and one that operates with integrity and I point you know further than that Trump is demanding the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him. I mean, this is literally the like dictionary definition of the fox guarding the hen house. I mean Trump’s own lawyers who now run the DOJ are the ones that I think have to sign off on this to begin with and Donald Trump not known to be a particularly introspective person recognizes how on its face corrupt this is. This is what he said in the White House. Let’s just take a listen to that sound.
[clip of Donald Trump]: It’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself. In other words, did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you’re paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly, and any money that I would get, I would give to charity.
Alex Wagner: Um, even Trump recognizes that it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself. First of all, what was your reaction to that?
Andrew Weissmann: Why doesn’t he just go rob Fort Knox? That was my reaction. [laughter] I mean, he should just be like, you know what?
Alex Wagner: Go to the Fed.
Andrew Weissmann: I’m the president, it’s all mine, right? And I get to decide. So you know, that was his view in Mar-a-Lago where the cases, when he had the document there, he was like, well, they’re all mine. As a friend of mine said, why doesn’t you just take out the portraits from the White House and take them with him and just say, well you know I just decide they’re mine. And this is one where I have to say, I mean, I don’t think Todd Blanche Pam Bondi are going to do it, but they have no business sitting and deciding that. The idea, you know, this happens a lot where people who are the subject of criminal investigations will at some point say, you, know, I’m entitled to money because I won. Now, he did not win on the merits, so he’s not going to be able to claim that. And the standard to be able to do that is not one he’s going to meet. But this is where what I actually think should happen, it’s not what’s going to happen, is I think I would be, you want to make these claims, let’s leave aside that the statute of limitations, like the time to make some of these claims is run, but you want to make this claims, let’s have a hearing. With evidence. So let’s, you know, you put off, you didn’t want to have the insurrection case, you didn’t want to the Mar-a-Lago case, but now you’re the plaintiff, and you’re saying that you want to get $230 million, let’s have a factual hearing just so that the public can see and the judge can decide what’s going to happen. That’s what would, that’s the kind of thing that would normally happen in these kinds of situations if you were making sort of credible claim. But I just can’t imagine that, I mean, there’s so many ways that this should not pass muster. And it’s just such a wonderful example for any dispassionate person.
Alex Wagner: Mm hmm.
Andrew Weissmann: To understand the personality and the corruption that is going on, I mean.
Alex Wagner: Right. If the crypto hustle didn’t get yet, like this is—
Andrew Weissmann: It’s so easy to see. It’s like the plane. It is like the plane, but worse.
Alex Wagner: I thought the same thing. It’s way worse. He’s paying him, trying to pay himself.
Andrew Weissmann: And it’s our money. Wait, let’s just remember this is our money, the funds that would be used. This is not Qatar giving the money, this is us—
Alex Wagner: No. American taxpayers lining the pockets of the president and precisely the moment that inflation is ticking up, groceries are more expensive and people’s health care premiums are about to go up. Great political strategy.
Andrew Weissmann: And there’s a shutdown.
Alex Wagner: Yeah. Federal employee’s not being paid.
Andrew Weissmann: And right, so you have career people not getting paid where the president is going to get and would get an unearned $230 million. And we just had seven million people approximately marching against having a king. And then you have somebody’s acting exactly like a king.
Alex Wagner: Yes, as a king would, to go into, you know, wherever in the castle they kept the gold bullion and saying, you what, I think this, I’m entitled to all of this.
Andrew Weissmann: Just to be clear. If you’re thinking about Western countries like England and France, even a king couldn’t do that.
Alex Wagner: I know. They don’t have that much capital at their access. I mean, that is just…
Andrew Weissmann: Surreal. Surreal, Alex. I mean, I’m sorry, but like, did anyone have this on their dance card?
Alex Wagner: No.
Andrew Weissmann: When it’s like, this is what a president of the United States is going to do is be like an extortionist. It’s sort of an extorsion artist, but he doesn’t even need to do the extortion here because he’s the he’s on both sides.
Alex Wagner: He’s writing a check on on our on our account. I mean, what I don’t I mean. I think the thing I worry about is if you’re on the outside of this, like it’s disgusting, it’s so Trump. But what does it mean that the Department of Justice would sign off on this? Right. This is to the larger question of like the utter corruption of these institutions at the same time that they’re launching political hits on Tish James and Jim Comey and. You know, to some degree, John Bolton, there’s a looming one from about Adam Schiff. I mean, can I ask you as someone that go just as someone with people who still maintains like a line in like, how what’s happening in there? Like, what are people saying? How are they looking at all this.
Andrew Weissmann: Well, the career, I mean, for the career people who are still there, it is the most demoralizing thing ever. And what people need to understand is these are people who have served under Republican and Democratic administrations. And they just put that aside. And people are used to the idea that, you know, elections have consequences, policies change. There are priorities that might change. Sometimes you’re going to do more drug cases, or more immigration cases, or more civil rights cases. That happens. And people are used to implementing the policies within the law and within the ethical norms and constraints. But those just are not being followed. One of the things I was thinking about, if this happened in any other administration, and obviously this is like a crazy thing because it’s like, when would this ever happen? But there would be a professional ethics officer who you go to at the Department of Justice who would say like, okay, these people are recused. They can’t decide it. This has to go to an independent person, and it will be handled in an independent way. It won’t be from a former defense lawyer for the president who’s got a continuing duty of loyalty. Because just when you’ve represented somebody, it’s not like it ends, you actually have a continuing duty to your client. And so this is just so beyond the pale. And so for career people, this has to be just unimaginable pain. But I would say the same for, I do this podcast with Mary McCord.
Alex Wagner: Oh yes, Main Justice.
Andrew Weissmann: And collectively, we were like, it’s like a gazillion years, because both of us are old. Or least I am, or I make up for hers not being so old. And it’s incredibly painful to experience. But again, I actually think it’s important to not have the story be just about the Department of Justice.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Because I think the bigger story is the Department of Justice. Yes, it is terrible what’s happening, pet. It’s terrible because it affects the rights of people. I mean, the people who are being harmed, like in this situation, yes, there’s ideals and principles being harmed. But my view, if it goes forward, it’s theft from the American public. I mean you’re creating victims. And we talked about immigration and the issue that’s going on with the judges there. Again, the issue is the people who are getting affected by it. You’re creating a class of victims. That’s why Abrego Garcia is such a great illustration of the problem of somebody who was extracted against a court order, removed from this country, shoved into a prison, and his rights continue according to different judges, continue to be violated. Sometimes you need an example of one to make people understand the systemic, a little like your having on a judge who’s been fired so they can sort of put a face to—
Alex Wagner: Exactly.
Andrew Weissmann: —a huge problem.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that is most useful in this moment is having a real human being who’s at the center of it explain to you what it’s actually like and what it is like to hear those screams, what it it’s like to deal with families as they’re being ripped apart, trying to manage a caseload of some 10,000 cases, and what it means when the system cannot hold, right?
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
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Alex Wagner: You interviewed special counsel Jack Smith in London a few weeks ago. First of all, amazing, but also why did he do it? And what were you most surprised by in that conversation?
Andrew Weissmann: So, you know, I don’t know exactly why he did it. But I do think it helped that it was an academic institution. It said that, you know, a lot of times it really helps when there’s students there and you want to impart to them and model for them normalcy and being upstanding. I I’m not sure, but when I was deciding when I left the department and I came to MSNBC, part of the reason was I was like, if I’m going to be vilified, I’d like to be vilified based on who I am. Maybe people won’t like me, but I’d like it to be based on me.
Alex Wagner: People like you.
Andrew Weissmann: And people assess me for who I am and not a caricature. And the reason I thought it was so wonderful he spoke is that more than any substantive thing he said and there was a lot. I mean it was an hour-long conversation but I thought that I thought the most important thing is that people could get the measure of who he is.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And you know, I Actually think the department needs to be doing more of that and speaking out even when they’re in the department—
Alex Wagner: Can they do that though? I mean—
Andrew Weissmann: Yes, that’s like, this is what’s so crazy is, let me just, there’s like a little bit of a bugaboo. Obviously, they, they they should not do the following. And you know, we see it all the time now, but they should not do that Jim Comey. Let me do we’re not charging Hillary Clinton, but let me just tell you why she’s such a bad person. That is violates every the sort of put up or shut up rules, which is like you don’t get to do that. No one, you’re not there to give your personal views and opinions. That is totally wrong. So you can’t do that, but remember Archibald Cox during the Watergate investigation gave a very famous press conference that I, you can still watch it by the way on YouTube. So if people who are not as old as I am and don’t remember it, that you can go and listen to it. And again, what was so great is it turns out he wasn’t this horrible figure that was being portrayed. He was this very mild-mannered, thoughtful Harvard professor who was explaining why the tapes were so important and why he was getting them. But at no point did he say, let me tell you why Richard Nixon’s guilty. This is the crimes he committed. That’s the line that you shouldn’t do. But my example, which I wrote about, was, I thought, for instance, that Jack Smith when he when the Mar-a-Lago case was indicted and people were talking a lot about is the selective prosecution. I thought he could have talked about, you know, I just want to talk to you about what’s in the public record about what the Department of Justice has done in the past. These are the kinds of cases that we have brought that are commensurate with what’s been alleged here Instead Ryan Goodman and I at NYU did something like that for just security this legal forum—
Alex Wagner: A great forum, but that’s not quite the same thing as Jack Smith, at no disrespect to just security.
Andrew Weissmann: I mean, we were trying to make that point, but it’s like that we don’t have the megaphone. And I thought by having him make that point and then also being himself an exhibit. In other words, having people be able to see him would be useful because all we were getting is one side of the story, which in terms of vilification.
Alex Wagner: And Trump wins from the abstraction of the enemy, right? He just gets to superimpose whatever he likes on that person and says, Jack Smith’s a wacko, complete lunatic, he’s off the rails. And then when Jack Smith isn’t out there showing us that he’s quite clearly not off the rails, some part of the American public accepts that.
Andrew Weissmann: By the way, I don’t think I answered your question, which is what most surprised me.
Alex Wagner: What surprised you the most? Other than saying, sure, Andrew, I’ll do it.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, I was going to say that, that might have been the—
Alex Wagner: You’re like, here goes nothing.
Andrew Weissmann: I think that that probably was the biggest surprise because, you know. You know, he’s a career DOJ—
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: —person to his core. He comes off as an Eagle Scout because I think he is an Eagle Scout. And so I’m not sure I really was surprised by that. I think I can tell you something that sort of moved me, which was at the end, I was asking him about sort of what it’s been like for his team or himself in terms of the sort of the aftermath once he ended. And he choked up when he talked about Walt Giardina, the FBI agent who was fired in spite of the fact that senior people at the FBI pleaded with Kash Patel not to do it because his wife was dying. I know Walter, he worked also on the Mueller investigation. I can’t put myself, I can’t fathom the cruelty. That goes into that kind of determination. I just can’t even, I can’t, a lot of times you can sort of see, oh, let me try and understand why somebody’s doing something. I just can even begin to understand how you would make that decision cons—
Alex Wagner: I think it’s maybe if you can successfully dehumanize other people right like I New York magazine has a spread of pictures of these immigrants at the courthouses being ripped from their families and that to me is the like the same kind of narrative like disassociation that you have to do to be like Walter is his wife is dying he has served this country remarkably but we’re gonna fire him because he’s not convenient to her as we’ve successfully as a sort of monolith the Trump administration managed to make our enemies subhuman and so we can dissociate the wrenching decisions we’re making about their futures and their present and be completely cutthroat. I guess I guess. I don’t know I don’t know the particular and twisted psychology of all this.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. So the other thing that Jack said, because he was only talking about other people in his team, and I think I might have said something like, and you? Like trying to, and he just said, well, the one thing I will say is, you really end up learning who your friends are. And I could relate to that, this idea of the people who rise to the occasion. And surprise you in rising to the occasion, even if they’re maybe not people who know you that well and other people who you are surprised the other way.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And it sort of hurts because you always thought they were a different type of person.
Alex Wagner: I do want to turn to that because you have been singled out by President Trump by name, saying he hoped that you would be in the he hoped, aka issued a directive that you should be investigated along with special counsel Jack Smith, first of all. How’d that feel? And how is it going?
Andrew Weissmann: Well. So it’s interesting. So let me just first say, I generally tried not to talk about that. I’m going to answer your question, but let me just tell you why I don’t like answering that question is when I decided to work for MSNBC, I’m obviously, you know, I was not in the media, I wasn’t a journalist. But you know I took seriously like my role as a legal analyst and trying to be objective and impart to people what I think is going on and that means you’re not the story and you’re not part of the story. And I don’t want Donald Trump to steal that from me. And so that’s why I’ve I’ve usually just tried to explain that up front like as to why that’s not sort of front and center of like what I deal with because I feel like that’s taking something from me that he has no right to take. And so that sort of and then the thing that makes it more targeted this time, because he has been saying that with respect to me and frankly a whole host of people, I’m like extremely good company. And there are lots of people with much more exalted people than me, is that you see it in action now. I mean, you know, I think of the three charges that we’ve seen in the last, you know, two weeks, the James Comey case in particular strikes me as no, they’re there.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And that’s why you saw not just every, every single person in the Eastern district of Virginia, every career person is not on this case. I mean, the people who say they need to speak up, oh, they’ve spoken up. If people aren’t focusing on this it’s because we’re not picking up what they’re putting down, which is they are not on the case. They had to staff this case from another district because the career people could all be fired. And by the way, a number of them have been because they’re not willing to do this. Even the Trump appointed US attorney resigned under pressure. If you ask the president, he was fired. And so. He stepped down rather than do this. And so, um, you know, now the targeting becomes a lot more. Sort of like, you who cares? He, you, you go, he goes off on all sorts of people, but, you know, there, there’s no facts and there’s not a law to support it except, except, but see James Comey. Um, but you know what, I still think let’s, let’s take a deep breath because I, I think that the Comey case is going to implode. Um, I think, I think from a Trump perspective, he wins no matter what, because he gets to say, I, I inflicted pain, I have a chilling effect on people. And if it implodes, he’ll just attack the judges or juries who will—
Alex Wagner: Another part of the justice system. [laughs]
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. Exactly.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, I’m so, um, thank you for putting into context why it’s difficult or why you’re reluctant to talk about your sort of centrality in this. I mean, I’ve talked to judges who feel the same way, right? They’re impartial. They don’t want to be the story. I’ve talk to reporters at the local level who’ve said, I am not the story, I’ m reporting the story and the very, the discomfort and I think the real apprehension. That this moment requires people to get over is that people who are not in it for themselves and who don’t want to talk about themselves and who do not want to be in the center of it are increasingly, for the sake of the larger system, being forced to get personally very honest about and put themselves in the story. And I think that it’s like, it’s an incredibly unfortunate development, right? Like you shouldn’t have to do that. And he is stealing that from you. He’s stealing that from the journalists in the fourth estate and he’s stealing it from our blind system of justice.
Andrew Weissmann: Yep.
Alex Wagner: But I mean, hats off to you for saying what you do say and doing podcasts and also going out there and being like, I’m gonna interview Jack Smith, knowing full well that that could bring. You know, an unwanted attention on you, but that the words that Jack Smith has to share with those students and the world are important enough to warrant that kind of event, you know.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. And this is where what I would say is like, you know, facts matter. So I would say for people who are listening to this, you can go find it on YouTube. The UCL, the University College of London was the sponsor. As I said, it was an academic event. Go listen to it and see just how, you how incendiary it was. I mean, this is an hour that’s quite I mean, Alex, you know me well enough to know—
Alex Wagner: Quite polite.
Andrew Weissmann: Like I’m not well, it’s very it’s a little dry, you know, it s like, I mean you have two [laughter] you know, people who are career—
Alex Wagner: Law nerds.
Andrew Weissmann: —people. Yes, exactly. So it’s not exactly you know made for TV. [overlapping speak] Exactly.
Alex Wagner: But that’s the point. It should be boring. All of it should be boring. All of this should be very regimented. There are very clear rules of the road where all this stuff is concerned. And that’s it should be in many ways not formulaic, but like, the parameters have been established. This is not a time for coloring outside the lines or like ripping off the guardrails as it were.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: Let me just ask you one more question. Like, what’s your level of confidence as we go through? You know, the erosion of due process as we go through the corruption of the Department of Justice, at least at the top tier of it, as we go through, you know the acceptance of the president executing on a targeted hit list of enemies. What’s your level of confidence about rule of law here in America?
Andrew Weissmann: Not good. [laughs] Let me just tell you the things I’m worried about. I know that I could be thinking about this from a law point of view, and I know one answer deals with what to expect from the Supreme Court, et cetera, but I don’t really think that’s the… The more that this past year I’ve been on, the less I’ve viewed. I always come on and talk about the one expertise I have, which is the law part. But I feel like that misses the bigger picture. I am particularly worried about whether we will ever have a free and fair election again and whether there will be steps to gerrymander. Whether there will be the military called out in to press the vote in cities in Black and brown communities, whether arrests will be made that are illegal but by the time they’re adjudicated, the damage will have been done because it will be a deterrent for people to show up. And I’m worried about the Department of Justice seizing uh, ballot boxes claiming that they’re evidence of fraud and the votes don’t get counted. Um, and so, uh, by the way, I’m not saying any of this is going to—
Alex Wagner: No, I, I thought the same thing. I thought the same things.
Andrew Weissmann: That for the same reason that I was extremely worried in the past election that I’m thinking you know what if Donald Trump doesn’t win this he knows that there’s a very very good chance that he is going to go to jail in the Manhattan case where he had been convicted and understandably there’s an appeal and you know he would have every right to say it was an improper conviction. But then he was also going to be, I think, facing not just the DC trial, but I thought the Mar-a-Lago case was clearly going to be resurrected because it was improperly dismissed by Judge Cannon, in my view. So I just thought that he had every incentive to not abide by the law and the rules. And let’s remember, he’s an adjudicated criminal. I mean, it’s like this is, I’m always surprised when people just don’t say that. Which is, I mean, he is a, at least until he is his appeals over, he is currently a convicted felon.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And so we’re not dealing with the most upstanding person. And again, I’m just basing that on just taking what’s been adjudicated, we can add in all of the things that we know, which is you know, the what is the Washington Post reported? Was it 30,000 lies during just his first term?
Alex Wagner: Oh, I mean, good on them for trying to keep track. [laughs]
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, exactly. So anyway, that’s a long way of saying there is a lot to worry about.
Alex Wagner: Okay, well, I mean, I think the first step to getting a better solution is to be engaged in it and maybe to worry about it. So that’s where we are going to leave it.
Andrew Weissmann: I totally agree. Well, I this is my big thing to I’m constantly telling people stay engaged.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, do not turn it off.
Andrew Weissmann: I don’t think people understand even if you’re in a blue state, there’s like speaking up is really, really—
Alex Wagner: The immigration judges we’re talking about are in New York City, so it is all happening right at our front doorstep. You’re a busy person with a lot going on, and I’m so grateful.
Andrew Weissmann: You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.
Alex Wagner: You’re doing more important things. Thank you for doing this and really good luck out there. It’s great to see you.
Andrew Weissmann: Take care.
Alex Wagner: Before we go, I wanna hear from you. Have you been impacted directly by the Trump administration and or its policies? Maybe you’ve experienced changes to your job or to your healthcare or stuff happening at your kid’s school. If so, I want to hear it all, whether these policies have impacted you for better or for worse. So send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. Thank you in advance for the help. [music plays] Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.
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