James Comey: We Can't Trust the DOJ

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast.

I'm your host Tim Miller, a quick scheduling note tomorrow. We're going to do something a little different. We're going to be live with one of your favorites at 3 p.m. in the East on Substack in YouTube. And so as a result of that for the audio only listeners, Pod might come out a little late, but if you're desperate to have me on your usual 4 o'clock dog walk or whatever,

come hang out live on Substack or YouTube. And we're going to have a good time and look forward to seeing some of you all there. Up next, I'm super excited for our guests today because I'm pissed at these guys. I'm fucking pissed at these guys and they're coming at him over the stupidest thing imaginable. And he is a better man than I and he's in the middle of two indictments.

So there are some limitations where he can talk about, but man, I do think that we're going to have a lot of other interesting material to mind in addition to his case. And so I'm so happy to welcome back to the show, the former director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017. He's also a federal prosecutor in New York. He also has got a new legal thriller, the latest installment in the series is out today.

It's called Red Verdict. And this time is for tagging us Nora Carlton as looking into some Russian counterintelligence. That's interesting.

We're going to talk about that in a second, but there's some other news going on with you.

I thank you. I've read that. I've read that. I've read that. Thank you.

I love to. I watched you with Nicole Wallace. So I'm aware that you know, you can't talk about non-going case. So we're aligned on that. And I do have to admit that Nicole really kind of monged me by telling you at the start

that she finished your book before the interview. I cannot say that. I cannot say the same. So I could have said the same. Appreciate you.

I appreciate your candor.

“Yeah, radical candor is important on a podcast.”

I want to ask this about the case, which is not any specific about your defense, but

just when you heard about it, when you heard that they were in dining a second time over

the shelves, I'm wondering what your emotions were, what the reaction was. Is there a sense of fear, annoyance, were you laughing at them because of the absurdity, resolve, you know, talked to me about what the interior life of Jim coming? Sort of resignation because I had heard noise from different media sources have made inquiries of my lawyers.

So I knew something was cooking. And so I expected something, if not this, I thought it would be something else. So resignation, a little bit of surprise that is really going to happen, we're really going to do this, but those are the two, those are my two reactions. Your video in response to it focused on kind of in spite of that, in spite of the surprise

about the absurdity and the frustration, like the importance of fighting back against it. And I'm wondering, you know, there's kind of the interior Jim coming me and what you feel like you want people to know. And I'm wondering kind of where your mind is on that now, you know, a few days, weeks afterwards.

“I think it's really important that people not become numb to this, not accept this,”

is just another one of those Trumpian excesses we have to deal with. This is really, really bad. And the danger even for me is it happens enough times that it becomes a little bit of background noise. Oh, oh, come on, he was indicted again.

And he assumes that there's nothing to it, whatever it is, but we sort of move past it. And it's really important that we don't. And so I can't talk about a particular case, but I can and hope everybody else does talk about the danger inherent in accepting that that's how the Department of Justice should work.

I hear you on the not being numb, and I feel that, and it's important. And obviously we think about that a lot of the bull work, how to talk about it and start terms and take it seriously. I also have the personal impulse, though, to want to point and laugh at them. And it is, it is serious business, obviously.

I mean, you have a team of lawyers, like your under indictment, like it's not, it's not a joke.

“But it also kind of is a joke, I don't know, I mean, is there a sense of value at mocking?”

Do you think? Or is that the wrong impulse? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm a, I'm a bit of a mocker, and so I'm attracted to that approach to things. But in this case, because I have such respect for the, both the concept and the reality

of an independent judiciary, I want to make sure that judges know that I take it seriously, because I take their role so seriously. So I worry that if I try to be funny with it, the John Stewart want to meet a come on his program. One of the reasons I didn't was, I don't want to joke about it because I don't want

So then you're not going to go along with me and my idea that the Jan Alfa kind of

“replace six seven with eight six four seven, like you don't, you know, I think that's a good idea.”

I'll let you handle that when I'm not on. And it's just an idea, I'm just spitballing, I'm just throwing it out there, it's like eight six four seven, you know, like do it with a little, little judge on him. I get it though. One last joke in question.

It's been a lot of investigation, so I guess it's maybe not a joke. You're a prosecutor. You're at the FBI. I think you look at your desk. Was there ever a C shell case before?

Is that something that you ever encountered? The case where C shells played the key evidentiary role. No, this is my first, first experience with a sheesh, it's easy, it's not easy to say. What, how did that thing go?

“I think that maybe a good way to talk about this, then, with the context of my stated view on”

this podcast a million times, this is a ridiculous prosecution of you, even, I guess one more

thing with this is that even Jonathan Turley said it's ridiculous, and he's been a huge defender of the Trump, and like every absurd thing Trump said legally, you said on the cold show that made you a little nervous that Turley came to you, and so I'm just, it was just wondering why that why does that make you nervous? Is it just kind of like when Megan Cali retweets me, that makes me a little nervous

that my take it's off, is it just that sort of, that sort of nervousness? That's probably exactly what it is. It's like you wonder, am I a sleep, am I having a Jonathan Turley dream or something, or Megan Cali dream? Yeah, you know, she retweeted my take on the Iran war this morning, and I was like, hmm,

that's concerning. So I guess maybe we can textualize it in a way by talking about like what else they're doing, and some of the other cases. For example, there's one in particular that really grinds my gears, and that is, there's a report that starting an April 2026 Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is investigating

former White House aid, Cassidy Hutchison, for a potential perjury regarding in 2022 testimony. It's been kind of news to me, it's the administration is so, you know, minding their peace and cues on not lying in testimony before Congress, and that would be news to some of the administration officials, but, you know, in this case, not to minimize your ability,

you know, how annoying it is for you to get lawyers, and then in fact, your family, which we discussed last time you're on, and all that's very serious, but Cassidy Hutchison was like a young assistant, but the idea of having to, like, get attorneys and have this on your record and start to get other jobs, you know, some of it's young, it was beginning of their career, and I think it's particularly pernicious, I just want to know if you had

any thoughts about that or the other kind of revenge style cases that they're pursuing. Yeah, I do. I mean, there's a famous speech in my, in the circles in which I worked by Robert Jackson, who is this, the attorney general in 1940, and he called together all the federal prosecutors who were serving under Franklin Roosevelt to the great hall to the Department of Justice to sort of tell them to get their act together and act in a non-political

way. He was really worried about them responding to political imperatives. And one of the things he said is, a prosecutor can do great good in society, but a prosecutor is at his most dangerous. We're instead of investigating crimes. He picks a person and then seeks to find a crime to pin to that person. He said it more eloquently that I can, but that's what you see happening with people like Miss Hutchison, who you're right, is far less

able, probably emotionally, financially, in other ways, to stand up for herself that I am. And it's intended to send a message that, all right, it's the reason that the mob tried

to whack witnesses and why the witness protection program was the most important thing.

We ever devolved in this country in the battle against Kozanostra, because they couldn't

“threaten people who were willing to tell the truth. That's what's going on, is sending a”

message trying to scare people who've spoken out. I mean, John Brennan is a great example, but even something someone like Cassidy Hutchison said is another example. Speaking about the way that they're using the government for intimidation on it to ask you at one other case, Luis Lucas, the state center from Virginia, who was spearheading the Virginia redistricting effort to just kind of return. Her office in Port Smith was rated by the

DOJ. And one thing about that rate struck me is that a Fox News camera was on the scene. And the reporter there, I believe it's from their London Bureau. So it sure seems like they were tipped off. So I was wondering, given that, what you thought about that tactic, obviously they given the caveat that people have sources, that you had to navigate that as director of the FBI when it comes to a free media covering your investigations, even still pretty

have an office there in Virginia Beach.

“Yeah, totally inappropriate. The search warrant is issued under seal to safeguard law enforcement,”

but also to protect the subjects of investigations. So they're not smeared by public shaming. So it's totally inappropriate. But the your questions and my questions about that search, highlight the danger in the way the Trump administration is using the Department of Justice. We just can't trust this. The case involving the state center, maybe legit, but given the track record, reasonable people should have questions about whether it is. And that's a

terrible place for the Department of Justice to be. I say this often, there's a reason we want all of our statues of Lady Justice to have a blindfold because we don't want Lady Justice peeking out to see what color are the hats of the people who are coming up to the courthouse whose team are they on? And they have ripped the blindfold off certainly if the Department of Justice has.

Yeah, I into that point, I wouldn't need to go through all these one by one, but I just made a little less tear. And Tisch James, obviously, they indicted six members of Congress. They're investigating over the video, including Mark Kelly. John Bolton was indicted on

18 charges. He was a never Trump or a critic. They're investigating drone Powell. They were

investigating out of shift. They've said they're investigating Obama and walls and fried. You can fry. I mean, it's just hard to look at that and see anything other than a complete politicization of the Department. Yeah, they're deploying process as a punishment. That their way of sending messages both to the individual involved and to other would-be truth tellers, right? The next fed chair will

to know what happened to Powell, senators who are thinking about speaking out on a particular issue better understand what happened to the others. So it's about a message, but it's the process. They don't they don't expect to charge or convict the chair of the Federal Reserve. They don't care. When they come after a John Brennan, they don't care where the John Brennan gets convicted. Or in my case, they don't care in the eastern district of Virginia case, whether

it's thrown out because then they can blame liberal judges, right? It was an Obama judge. It was some nonsense. The process is their weapon. Isn't it a little disparating and you write in the book in the, in the, in the situation and the acknowledgements and you've spoken a lot about the good men and women in the DOJ and in the FBI who are trying their best doing the right thing.

On the other hand of that, it's like, there are people that are involved in these investigations or people that are writing these indictments that has to be a little bit disparating to think about like the number of people that are working for the government that are involved in saying absurd investigation into the Senate or over a VADL, where they're expressing

“their free speech rights. I mean, that's disheartening, no?”

It is disparating, but then you dig into a lot of the cases and you find, why is it my case in Virginia? The career people refused, sacrificed their own jobs, their own livelihoods because they refuse to be part of it. And so they have to bring in someone who's totally unqualified, who engages in misconduct for the grand jury. And to handle it, they bring in two guys from North Carolina who both quit the government after the thing is dismissed.

And so when you look at them closely, yeah, I wish there were nobody who would do these cases involving the six members of Congress who spoke a trueism about not following illegal orders or these other cases, but if you look closely, you see something that actually is inspiring. Most almost all, I would say it's more than most, people are standing up saying, no, I'm not going to do it. And maybe their motivations are noble. Maybe some

of them know that there's going to be accountability. They'll be bar refuse. They'll be bar. People's tickets will be at risk for the continued practice a law after the Trump administration, which is going to end in 2.05 years. Do you believe that? Like you think

“there'll be accountability for people in the Trump administration? I do. And I think you saw”

it after Nixon resigned. There was a tremendous amount of movement in the bar to investigate and punish lawyers who had engaged in unlawful, unethical conduct. It's going to be have to be part of the rebuilding in the, I'm not a big fan of, let's prosecute everybody, but there should be some form of accountability. I know one of them is your son-in-law, but you can mention all those people that have quit

over your first investigation and bunch other people have quit throughout the Department

of Justice and the FBI. I need to be heard from many of those people. Do you just wonder what you think about and you think about the kind of careers that were sacrificed over this? It's so painful. I've heard from a lot of them. I've tried to help. Some of them I have more money than most of them. And so I've tried to help them financially until they're able to get a job. You saw there was an agent whose wife was dying of cancer and

they fired them anyway. I mean, these are people who don't have who are living paycheck

where if they're fired, then go with that work for three months while they take care of a dying

“spouse. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm just one of many. I mean, there's a big network of people”

that have reached out to help agents and prosecutors who've either been fired or have felt they were duty bound to quit. Well, I know that some of them have good reason to not want to publicize themselves and

good reason to not want to come on the chief podcast of the never Trump movement, but the

Trump derangedments syndrome podcast, and he's not that helpful, but in those cases, if there are people that do want to talk or do or we that we can help or even if there's like an anonymous effort to organize and know that we have a lot of people that would like to help the folks who've been pushed out by this hiring is hard. And to be honest, it's usually a process. I don't like at all. I don't I don't really like one bit. You know,

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“director of the FBI? I just actually only conventions. Never. There you know, really important”

to stay away from them. So I got it. So you never invited somebody that has like a part

as in convention and multiple allegations of sexual assault against them to speak and then you do it. We'll go on stage and then just laugh while your FBI director that wasn't. That wasn't something that happened with you. Did not come up. That's interesting. Well, Todd Blanche was at CPAC. And I want to play a little audio of what he said about those people that have been purged that you were just talking about and that you dedicated your book to.

The other things that are happening. There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions. Over. How many? How many have been canned? Over 200. Director Pateles cleaned house there too. There isn't a single man or woman with a gun. Federal agent still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump. That is pretty wild, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know why a deputy

attorney general would ever say such a thing. And I hope that as I hope for my daughter, I hope all of them continue to pursue lawsuits because they're all going to be vindicated if it gets through the core process. Because you can't fire a career agent, a career marine, a career prosecutor except for cause. And it's really important. It's why I'm so proud of my daughter for continuing to pursue her case here in New York to establish that that the deputy

attorney general was bragging about getting rid of all these people's bragging about conduct

“that is unlawful. Is there anything that's going to say about your daughter's lawsuit?”

I know we have mentioned it on the podcast, but the craziest thing to me about your daughter's dismissal is that she was prosecuting sex crimes, child sex crimes among other things. And like the administration comes in ostensibly, you know, with the mandate to go after the network of sex criminals that are out there in the world. And that was the QAnon theory that there was a big network of sex criminals are being protected by the elites. And to the extent that there were

sex criminals that was your daughter who was going after them. And then they fired her for having the last name Komi. And it's totally outrageous. I'm also happy that she's doing them. I just wonder if you had any other observations about that. No, I'm sure it's a burden for her. But that's exactly who she was. She indicted Epstein. She indicted Glenn Maxwell. She tried pitty. This is her life and trying to help the victims of sex crimes and sex trafficking. And so it's just another of the

obscenities that she was fired for no reason. But again, they've been unable to offer a reason except the president's authority under Article 2 of the Constitution, which does not exist. And so it's really important. She's gotten another job because she had to support her family. But she will continue

going back to the Blanche conversation with Matt Schlapp there. I don't know how else to explain

like he's out of part as an event. And he says the stated reason for the canning to use Matt Schlapp's phrase of all of these career officials of the DOJ and FBI was that they were involved in an investigation of the current president. I keep said it. Like that was the reason. He doesn't say that there was cause. He says that they did it for that reason. So I think it seems like a pretty open shot case to me. Yep. So it strikes me as improper. And yeah, so I don't know what I'll say about it.

It's one of those things that almost takes your breath away. Yeah. You know what I think said in the cold struck me was just thinking about the people that are still working there. And you said though, out of them have go bags. I guess to be prepared for being fired. Yes, because they know

from when we see an avenue to their colleagues that they could be walked out at any moment. And so

you want to make sure you have your personal items. Anything that you're entitled to keep, right pictures of your children's artwork that you have stuff organized that you want to take. And so I just know from talking to a lot of them that they think about it that way. That feels like East German. You know, like the idea that you're working in the federal

“government, that you're trying to, you know, serve the country. That's what these people are”

dealing. They're trying to serve the country. A lot of them could get more high paying jobs, you assume in the private sector. And they're doing it. And they're worried that they might be targeted unfairly because of some revenge campaign. And so they've got to be prepared to grab their personal effects. It feels maybe overstate to say this, but like that doesn't feel like the type of behavior that you would have among public servants in a free country. You're certainly

not in an organization where the employees could be confident that the rule of law would be abided. And so they just can't have that confidence because you could be marched out. Not shot, thank God. But marched out with no notice, with no cause. I guess that's a good caveat. We're not quite done. We're not quite done these Germany yet. I don't know if you ever had this happen, but I bought something recently that looked really great

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“options. It's that it's way too easy to pick the wrong one. That's why it's been great for me to”

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feel confident about what to buy. One of your successors, I guess I did not realize this until I saw some of the current FBI directors branded merch. Did you have any branded merch when you're in there? I had a challenge coin that had my name on it. It said James becoming an

“director. So it was about this big and that's what I would give out to visitors or police chiefs”

that I visited was. So not a whiskey bottle, but okay something. Well, in his brand of merch, it had number nine and I guess just in the current, there have only been nine directors of the FBI. Maybe kind of sad actually that Cash was one of the nine when I learned that. There's been a bunch of stories in the Atlantic about him recently. And elsewhere, among them that he is missing from meetings because he was hung over allegedly that he was flying

using the plane. Now, we should say that as I figured out already, you have to use the plane. I guess what he was using it to fly to see his girlfriend's concerts at a regional wrestling match. It's polygrapping the staff. I wonder if you had any reaction to any of those stories. Yeah, I'm familiar to me. One of the strictest rules in the FBI would be you can't consume alcohol on FBI premises or vehicles or airplane. The day I was fired,

piano noir that someone had given me in California. So I opened a bottle of wine on the plane

and drank, not all of it, but part of it in a paper coffee cup because I was allowed to because

“I was no longer the director of the FBI. And so that's how tight it is. And so the rest of it is just”

unfamiliar to me. And yeah, very, very foreign. And to think about the polygrapses, it's really important you're not sending chilling message through your staff because you need them to tell you the truth. What you might be missing, what you might not be seeing, what you should hesitate before you speak about. And if they're afraid of you, they're not going to give you the truth. And that even if you have no other care for them, that gets in your way of being effective.

But no swag that I remember. And no swag that I recall other than the challenge coins. I'm not a piano noir man, but you know, whatever, if loaded your boat in that moment, you deserve whatever. Oh, I had. I mean, that's pretty striking. And it's obvious. And it makes sense, obviously. It's just like, as FBI director, you don't know when an emergency might come up. I'm for drinking. Like, I want everybody to have a good time. And, you know, if like your job allows

for it, then your responsibilities allow for it. But like, as FBI director, and there's, I assume the rules about not drinking on on property, you know, there for standards reasons that the FBI,

“but just as a broader part about responsibility, like you need to be out in your game, if something”

comes up. Yes, 24 hours a day. It's the reason that the FBI director gets no vacation

because the idea is you're on all the time. And so I could never be intoxicated. I remember I

went to a wedding in Iowa of one of my wife's family members. And I went to the wedding reception, and I'm sure I had a drink or two, but it was really important that I not be intoxicated. So I went back to my room early, left my wife to party with the relatives. She came home and she may have had more glasses than I had, and then she, so she accidentally placed something on top of an emergency button that this security team had placed in the room. And so within ten seconds there was a

pounding on the door. And she opened the door, and there were stacks of agents in there, underwear, down each side of the hall with their weapons, demanding to see me. And, and she said, "He's fine." And she said, "Man, we need to see the director." And then she said, "Okay,

“she'll have one of the agents step in and see me sleeping." I slept with the whole thing,”

believe it or not. And was not drunk, but slept with the whole thing. So to my mind, when I heard stories about it, whether true or not I don't know, of their agents being unable to reach the director, remind me of that story. They found it on the door and needed to see the director. And of course, there I was not intoxicated, but asleep. Well, God, that's one of those stories are true. And I trust these reporters a lot at the Atlantic, and they're very, they're good at what they do.

And they're not the types of people to make unfounded accusations. But, you know, we'll see, I guess they're being sued for the administration. The thought that those stories are out there, the public, what we've seen from the public behavior of cash, and we've seen them drinking at the, at the hockey championship, combined with what you know about the people have been purged. And apparently we've purged some people with expertise and Iran among other things. How worried

are you for our safety in the country right now when you think about that? It's a reasonable and serious worry because the organization has been demoralized, shrunken, deployed in ways that are hard to understand from the outside, moving people to immigration work, or other work away from their core responsibility. When the FBI does, that no one else can do, is terrorism and counterintelligence. So, counterterrorism is obvious, but counterintelligence, which is actually what the newest book is

about, is to meet the threat from Iran, from Russia, from China, requires sustained efforts by highly trained people who have the sources who have the knowledge to meet that threat and defeat it. And the idea that they are afraid of being polygraphed or afraid of being walked out, moved over to do, you know, nighttime immigration, car stops around the country, makes no sense to meet at all. It may will be fine. And actually that would be the best of all

outcomes. There's nothing terrible happens. We don't have another commission to look back on this moment, but I suspect if we got through the, we do and look back on this moment, we'll see, probably things I haven't even mentioned, but lots and lots of, of problems with the way in which the mission is being addressed that trace to the leadership.

I always say when people ring this up on other side and people challenge me on this, I'm like,

you know, maybe I'm maybe nothing will happen. I mean, you can get hammered and drive your car home from a party and get home safe. And like does that mean that, you know, that that was okay,

doesn't mean that that you haven't created a necessary risk. And I guess, and maybe even in the

context, the book, you can tell, but for those of us who aren't in law enforcement have never been,

I talk about what some of those people would do. Like, what does an Iran, like counterintelligence person at the FBI, you know, who has expertise and can speak far sea or whatever? Like, what kind of work are they doing day to day? Most of all, they're trying to understand. So what are the

“Iranians doing here in the United States? That is, what are they doing in the cyber vector?”

What are the institutions that they're trying to break into? What infrastructure they're trying to damage? What are they doing in terms of human sources and human assets? Who's working with them? Where are the Hezbollah connections? Are there people lying in a way looking to do bad things to us? How do I find those people? And then how do we defeat that threat? That is,

can we flip some of those people? Because we're far sea speakers into relationships, can we turn

them? Or do we need to incapacitate them in some way by using the criminal justice system? Or if we can't, do we kick them out of the country? And it's a constant battle against a worthy adversary. And I don't mean an immoral sense, but a very difficult adversary, as are the Russians, as are the Chinese. And so a huge part of the FBI is this work to try and figure out so what are these adversary nations doing? Where are they, what are they looking at? And how do we

get a grip on it? And then how do we disrupt it? And so it requires an ability to use technical assets to use human sources of all kinds to think well, but also to have deep expertise. Because you can't pick up a bank robbery case file and go work the bank robbery. Because you don't

need to know how chase works to be able to do a bank robbery. But if you're going to defeat the

threats from sophisticated adversaries, you need very deep knowledge to be effective. And then just to think about the, like what the director's role is. Again, in that case, just trying to wrap my head around what allegedly cash is supposed to be doing. So one of those people, like, came to you in that, in a situation like that, right, where they're like, okay, we've identified a potential threat in the country, we're trying to figure out what can be done. Can we flip the person we

incapacitate them? All the options between the report and all those options you sent? Like is that that stuff is coming across your task? And you're like discussing it with the agents or that there's middle banishment? Like what kind of stuff it's getting to the director? Right. Well, thank goodness for the current leadership that it's not the director's job to run these investigations. The director's job is to choose a senior leadership of the organization, set the

priorities for the organization, represent the organization, to Congress, to the American people, talk and other outside constituencies, and to make sure that the organization is running in a way that is consistent with the objectives and that is effective. And so the way one of the ways in which you do that is you're constantly trying to find out, so how are we doing? What are the key things that we're doing? Who's doing them? What are the problems I should know about? You want

“to, once had a boss who said, if you're going to run a chain of restaurants, you have to”

taste the soup occasionally, to be effective. You're not in a kitchen, but you ought to, every so often, walk in a restaurant, taste the soup. And so a big part of the director's job is tasting the soup. Thank goodness, we don't depend upon the director to make the calls, about how do we flip some, how do we deter them? But that director picks the people. I bet that's exactly some high level calls to go to the director. Oh, you know?

Well, yeah. And the director is responsible for, for example, approving foreign intelligence surveillance that, that director, a personal involvement by the director. Obviously, the director is also interacting on various significant matters with the president and the National Security Council. I'm not even sure there is a National Security Council and the Trump administration. But knowing what's going on in order to solve problems with those people or to tell them what's going on,

“so they can do their jobs. That's pretty alarming to think about. And I think the soup,”

the cash, is testing is going around and seeing if anyone ever said anything mean about them. I think that's most of the soup that he's testing. So we'll see how that turns out. You mentioned that we don't like the National Security Advisor National Security Council. We don't even know what we had. Another kind of weird thing that happened relatively recently was there was a raid in Georgia on a election center where there are ballots looking into the 2020

election nonsense. But Tulsi Gabbard was there. The director of National Intelligence. That struck me as quite strange, but I don't know. Did you ever have the director of National Intelligence on raids? Is there any possible reason why that would have been usual? Now, I served under Jim Clapper and Dan Coe tonight. I can't imagine a reason they would ever be at a search warrant or closely involved in any criminal investigation activity. No.

of the FBI because the FBI is a major member of the US intelligence community. And so a big

part of the FBI's budget comes to the National Intelligence budget and is owned to use a budget return by the director of National Intelligence. And so a big part of what we would do is make sure the director of National Intelligence knew how we were complying with the National Intelligence requirements. Are we finding out the stuff that our government needs to know? And so I would meet with the DNI on a regular basis to talk about budget and how we're doing against our requirements.

He's put out. Yes. From that context, it is pretty concerning that Tulsi Gabbard would be like there.

“She seems to have been totally cut out of the priorities. And you have to cash. I'm just like”

imagining if this worked as a normal administration, as you just laid out, you would have cash

going to Tulsi to talk about intelligence priorities. And that's kind of a scary thought, even if that was happening. I guess I guess not to talk about criminal investigations. You know, boy, I meant to ask you when we're talking about the the Atlantic stories about Patel. The FBI is now investigating the journalists of the Atlantic the Rothent story as part of a broader leak investigation. There's also a Wall Street Journal story that is out on Monday night

talking about how there's an out effort to looking to leakers around Iran. Obviously, there've been some cases, I'm sure, when they were involved in, where there were concerns about

“the National Intelligence leaks. But it does seem like this administration is broadening that out”

to investigating reporters that are writing things they don't like. To my mind, it underscores

the doubt that this administration has so we can't trust them. But there are lots of good reasons that you might conduct an investigation in National Security case that bumps up against or touches or even requires you to interview a reporter. But you can't have any confidence that this administration is doing it in a principled way, consistent with thoughtful policies. So yeah, every one of them is worried so many, even though they may not be. As I said about the

the senator Louise Lucas investigation, maybe it's righteous. But you can't have who could assume it's righteous given this crowd? That's a tough transition for me. But I was reading a story in Fox

“news this morning. Really serious stuff over there that they're doing. There's something that they're”

looking into that's very popular right now in the maga right and it's called Ball Maxing. Do you know anything about this? See, injection of lube and saline into the scrotum to make balls as big as possible. It's increasingly popular among influencers. It's described as electrifying addictive euphoric and transcendental. And I don't know, just for me, it seems telling an administration that is like targeting all their foes like this, you know, that there might be

some people who are looking into enlarging the size of their balls. And I was wondering if there's any connections you would like to draw there. It's funny until you said that I was not aware of that like altering an opportunity. I mean, it just takes me back to the beginning about like I'm fucking pissed at them. But they are just it is so small, you know, like they are so small and weak that they cannot take any criticism that they cannot like abide a meme. The criticizes

them that they cannot abide people working for them having said something that they don't like about Trump or about their leadership. And so instead they are polygrapping people, they're going after people like you. It's just alarmingly small and weak and it's pretty concerning. And I just wonder like how when you look at all of that, like is there an element of it that makes you just feel like I just want to fucking swirl these guys. Like it's just so embarrassing.

Yeah, it's really dark. It's a dark time and there's going to be a lot of suffering and pain by good people and it's going to we're going to feel that for another 2.5 years and then it's going to be better. I mean, I'm an optimist about America, but I see the darkness. And so yeah, I don't want to not try to, what was the term? I'm not trying to ball-max you on this. It's that there's there's nothing good. You really do feel like we're going to come around? I don't know. I mean,

they reelected them. You know, they're going after people over seashells and over videos. And I mean, like there's a lot to make you think that maybe this whole experiment is on the decline.

are there not any times where you're kind of walking through the woods or walking on the beach

“and thinking that this is not going to get better in 2.5 years?”

No, really not because I know how fucked up we've been in the past and I've seen versions of this in my lifetime after Watergate, the restoration of the Department of Justice by Ed Levy, the President of the University of Chicago after a lot of lawyers were disciplined and went to jail. And so I maybe are wrong, but I think given our history, given our values, look, we're a messed up country, but we are buying large a group of people committed to a set of

values that has sustained us. And I think we're going to look at the mother-of-all U-turns, a hungry type U-turn into an half years. And that's an exciting thing. I wish I was

younger and could go back and work in the government and I hope that my son-in-law and my daughter

and literally thousands of others flow back in. I think they're going to. And then we do our best to rebuild in the wake of this forest fire and do some cool things. So I'm optimistic, but again, I see the pain. We're going to have lots and lots of pain in the next two plus years. What would you besides the accountability stuff we talked about? Like going forward to safeguard against us? Let's say you're optimistic cases true. Like are there specific reforms or changes

that you think would you would like to see in a reborn DOJ and FBI? Yeah, maybe, I mean, at the margins, but it's funny to come back to this Robert Jackson speech in 1940. He said really the only thing that can save us is character. The nature and quality of

the people in the jobs is it. You can build all the structures you want and the rules you want,

but one of the things Trump has taught us is there as, you know, the ropes thrown over Leviathan, if Leviathan is an amoral narcissist. And so I'm not sure, I mean, there are things I would do if I were

“building the apartment justice again, but not in the Trump proofing sense. I think the only thing”

it comes down to is the character of the people. And which means probably after I'll be gone, but we'll experience this again in the next 250 years. And that's all I have enjoyed the show. Yeah, I was ready to be optimistic with the idea to talk about the need for character. I'm pretty that's, okay, well, fingers crossed on that. Do you have any right-hold neighbor wisdom for us, famously a big, right-hold neighbor man? Is there anything in this time of trial?

Yeah, neighbor famously said that democracy is necessary given the nature of man and that people are selfish and narrow and bigoted in all different kinds of ways. And we need to, it's what the founders said too. The way to guard against those things is to try and set as best we can, interest against interest, interest against interest. And that has fallen short in the congressional branch, but I think that what has saved us and will save us for the

next two and a half years is the genius of the founders in creating an independent judiciary with life tenure. Those people do not, in the out of this, is 900 of them. So of course, there's going to be exceptions, but in the overwhelming main, they are not on a team other than then caring deeply about their reputation for integrity and forgetting it, right? Because they can't lose their jobs. And all these people in Congress sold themselves because they want to keep their jobs.

“The only way you can actually lose your job is a federal judge, is to engage in proper behavior.”

Is to betray the, the oath you took. And so it's, it's a genius design and it's what has saved us. Nicole was saying, but it's one leg of a stool. So you have to balance on one leg. Yeah, okay, but it has balanced. It was tested in Trump once, been tested again. And it's what's going to save us. Alright, let's do the book. What inspirations did you have this time for Nora? As mentioned, the book is called Red Verdict. We'll put the, we'll put the link obviously in the show notes for

people who need some quasi-escapism. I was kind of hoping that your fourth book was going to be something totally different, like a romance or something. You know, getting, getting me far away from this world. But it, it isn't. Yeah, we're still in my kids that I should have put sex and dragons in. Yeah, sex and dragons, but anyway, what would you have some inspirations? I should have been between books, you're reading other stuff, whether it be history or other, other novels.

I don't know. What do you do to prepare? What I do with these books is I want to show people with cool stories, what it's really like in different parts of the world that I've seen and and prove that you don't need to make stuff up to be exciting. And it occurred to me I've not shown people the shadow world of current intelligence and the FBI's role there. And I thought I could tell a pretty cool story through that lens and set out to try and do it.

We have the inspiration comes. I mean, I read all different kinds of things. I'm reading

It would inspire me was I want to tell a cool story and I want to show readers this is what

the people of the department just as are really like. Right, they're flawed and they're like all human beings are, but they're fundamentally on this good people working their asses off in really hard circumstances. And so I tell stories about those kind of people in those environments and set with the book is about juvenile teaser and little nugget or anything and he doesn't want to pull the leg up for people about something that happens to Nora.

You know, it opens in my, I'm not giving any away because it's a prologue. It opens in one of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan that I hate in last night up by Columbia when I used to teach there

with a executive out of military contractor eating pen A pasta with two tubes on individual

tines on his fork, which is the way I like to eat it after drenching it with hot pepper flakes. It he doesn't know are full of Nova Chuck, a Russian poison and the guy dies in my favorite restaurant in a morningside heights and the, it begins. So what happened to that guy? Why did the Russians kill him and what's it about? And so my protagonist is trying to figure out what the hell is happening and then to try to defeat that threat and they try to use the criminal justice system

and have a really cool trial to try and prove that the dead guy wasn't the spy that the spy is another senior executive in a major defense contractor. I used to work at a big defense contract for

five years so I tried to bring some of that zeitgeist. I'm intrigued. That's it. So my lesson.

Don't eat pen A pasta. Don't put a lot of pepper flakes on it. Don't eat it at a restaurant

“I'm eating the fucking pepper flakes. Okay. That's why I put the red pepper flakes on there and”

you know whatever. I'm living on the edge. One last thing. The Trump corruption stuff now. I mean like we've spent so much time thinking like talking about you know what what happens for accountability for people that are inside the administration but there's like all the stuff happening outside the administration you know and I'm just wondering like what you think about like how that can be untangled because that also overlaps with counterintelligence role for the conceivably. I mean you

know Trump's family is doing business with UAE with China or people from Chinese nationals at least Saudi. It goes on and on and as soon you look at all that I mean what a bear that will be you know for the next FBI director should there be a new one in 2022 and anyway I was just wondering if you have any kind of parting thoughts about how to think about that the public corruption skills

“corruption were saying. Yeah I think it's going to be important that it be investigated and”

accounted for and as you said it may be just an intelligence gathering exercise to understand who did watch with what relationships if they're outside the United States if maybe appropriate to pursue criminal investigations and some circumstances if Trump tries to pardon everybody maybe that defeats that but what he can't defeat is civil liability for lots of people under something like the federal false claims act and so there will be opportunities for the government to recoup money to hold

people accountable and to just put together a record of what happened because sometimes just that knowledge is power so this is going to be a tremendous amount of work but as I said thousands of good people are going to return to government excited about doing that work. I love it in spite of all the you know you've got a little bit of optimism you know a little bit of skip in your step that this is going to happen I wish you were younger so you could get back in there next time because it's going to

be needed but you know you're booing me a little bit without mindset so I appreciate good time for coming on the show people go support Jim coming go get his book read verdict or if you haven't read the other three go start with one of those and it's plenty of reading it's plenty of hope with be treating for you guys as we get into summer season and hope to talk to you again soon as a free man out here among your fellow citizens all right yeah next book or next indictment I'll

“be with you sounds good I think for seven don't say anything all right we'll see you thanks so much”

to Jim Komi I really appreciate all his time especially with everything's going on with him and his family he's a good sport to deal with my nonsense and we got to stand with the folks that this administration is coming after it is absolutely absolutely absolutely imperative that we do and so I'm happy that he's putting himself out there so a lot of other folks that are being targeted as well so appreciate Jim very much as I said at the top we'll be live tomorrow coming out live 3 p.m.

in the east youtuber sub stack or we'll see you in your ears a little bit after that appreciate you all very much peace the board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer