The Daily Blast: Trump Reflecting Pool Arrests Take Unnerving Turn—and Officials Go Mum

Wow, Gid with you for a year in the third city.

A couple of years after the high school.

“I don't know if that's what I wanted to live.”

Stream up to the 13th April, parallel to U.S. I really want a new episode. That's a problem. And you're a part of the title track. There's no way back.

Before I go outside, I'll be home on the Dragon and Wicked. It's just about two or eight and ninety minutes. Screaming, but not so, wow! Meditants, yoga, jogging, not excitingly. Really? I'm excited about my story. Stoyer? How do you feel about the stoyer?

Yeah, I've been coming to you for a while. Do you have any connections? No, just like Stoyer. Wow. And that's easy.

Of course, everything is automatic.

Absolutely, I feel like I'm so excited. Hold it and get to go. Teeth and expand with Wiesel Stoyer. This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic,

“produced and presented by the DSR network.”

I'm your host, Greg Sargent. The saga involving Donald Trump's reflecting pool renovation is getting stranger and darker. Federal prosecutors are now saying there are aware of citations that have been issued to the supposed bandals that, according to Trump,

have sabotaged the renovation. But no details and no records of any kind are being released. Meanwhile, Trump is rambling in a truly crazed way about this, describing the people who have received citations or have even been arrested as enemies of our country.

This is really taking on the cast of an unhinged tyrant, and while it's tempting to laugh at the story, there's something about it that signals a profound degradation that's underway. Former Federal prosecutor, Ankush Karduri,

has been writing well about how Trump has been degrading the rule of law and arguing that we need to be thinking now about how to address that down the line. So we're working through all this with him. Ankush, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me.

So we know very little about this right now. Trump is very angry that the reflecting pool has gone off the rails. There's been the algae and the peeling paint. Trump has posted on truth social that six people have been arrested and seven others have gotten citations.

Some he says for cutting a 350 foot gash in the pool ceiling with a knife or with razors, but there doesn't seem to be any clear evidence of these arrests. Ankush, this has gotten truly weird, hasn't it? Yes, this is quite strange.

Or nearly you would expect a little bit more clarity from the federal government in a situation like this. Be sure of wood, and there's one guy we know of, who says he's gotten a citation. The former Olympics canoeist David Carter Hurn,

he's 67. I believe there's another woman who's been quoted saying something similar that she got a citation or was temporarily detained. I mean, a 67 year old former Olympian who was biking on the national mall doesn't seem like an antifa vandal.

Does he? No, this thing seems like it's gotten quite out of hand and that the federal law enforcement, the park police in particular, seemed to have been dispatched to preserve the president's ego, I guess.

Can you talk about that a little, in other words, like you think that maybe the park's police were in some sense directed to find something wrong out there? It kind of seems like they were directed to watch things very, very closely

and to behave in a way that they were nearly wouldn't. Right, and we should just clarify for people that the reflecting pool is on the national mall, it's in front of the Lincoln Monument,

“and that's why the park police are, I guess,”

have jurisdiction or something. But here's where it gets murky. The New York Times just got a statement from the US attorney's office in Washington, which handles prosecutions in DC, and all they said was, you know,

we are aware of citations being issued, meaning by the park police, but the US attorney's office provided no specifics, no number of people given citations. Here's how the Times put it, quote,

"No records of arrests or citations have been produced by the administration or law enforcement officials to support the president's claims." Close, quote. Oncush, he said six people were arrested

and seven people were given citations for serious vandalism. And they're not putting out anything about this, the Washington office, the US attorney's office, what on earth could this possibly mean?

Look, I think my first suspicion

out information that would contradict the president's claims

“about what's happening there because bear in mind”

that the US attorney's office in Washington is see under Janine Piero has been more than happy to speak publicly on pending matters when it serves the administration's preferred narrative. I think the most prominent example

that comes to my mind is when they arrested the sandwich guy. Janine Piero put out a video, taunting him, now that video is deeply hilarious for the wrong reasons for her in hindsight, since they totally flopped on that case,

they couldn't even get a misdemeanor conviction on the guy. But of course, that's just to say that when there's a thing of public interest for them, the word they want to produce information and make a show to the public, they will absolutely do it.

So we should infer that the facts would not reflect well upon them if they were being forthright about it. It's such a good point. The US attorneys have been willing

to bend over backwards to support even the most tenuous and ridiculous things that Trump wants to make true. And here he is out there saying there have been six arrests, seven citations or whatever.

And now they've just gone completely quiet. I guess if I understand you correctly, you think that if they were to say and some form on the record,

here's what's actually happening,

all of a sudden the Trump claims about these arrests would fall apart. In other words, Trump got it into his head somehow that there were six arrests. And now nobody wants to contradict the best pod.

Is that the basic likelihood here?

“Well, I think maybe more than about the numbers”

is about what the arrests would have been for. Right? Because Trump has been claiming that there's this serious vandalism of gashes through this covering

or whatever. And that should be readily provable whether there were arrests or citations for that. So just to give you, you and your listeners a sense of what should be

at hand for the government to produce if they want to. The citations are just tickets, usually, right? So they're in the possession of the park police

who maintain their half of the ticket.

They have to be provided the federal government eventually when the people show up in federal court and they can be provided or summarized at any point in time after the citations have been issued. So the part of the lease can give this information

of the U.S. attorney's office. Your attorney's office can ask for it in any moment and provide it to the public. But when we're the citations or for what the citations were issued for, all readily available information

if they wanted to make it public. And arrest canode something different, right? Now, I don't know if they're actually properly dividing these things up. Whether they have the numbers right, the buckets right.

And arrest, however, canode an actual physical detention of some sort, whether it's in arrest on a complaint, on arrest just in plain view, and that they have to show up at a later date

on something like a criminal complaint. A arrest could happen if there's an indictment, but it doesn't seem like anything like that has happened in this context. Now, in either of those contexts that I just described

was complain or indictment, there's paper that is produced, right? To, for the public and for the defendant about what the arrest was for and about, right? We don't have secret court proceedings,

where supposed to have court proceedings that, make these things available to the public. So none of this should be needs to be a secret.

“I think it could produce this information easily”

if they wanted to. And I think reporters have been beating down the doors of both the Washington office, the U.S. Attorney's office, and of the park police, saying, provide us with evidence.

Tell us what is happening here, and they're getting little to nothing back. I'm really taking with you a point about these secret arrests, you know? We don't know that anything like that happened here.

In fact, there may not have been any arrests at all, but it's really got that vibe, the situation, where all of a sudden stuff is really preceding undercover of darkness in some sense. I mean, it's literally preceding undercover of darkness, right?

Yeah, well, look, we know very little, and I think broadly speaking, there are two possibilities. One is, you know, the worst case scenario, which would be, you know, something like

to your point, to get arrested, arrest that the details are not being processed from the courts correctly or made public correctly, in the ordinary fashion. The other is, which is my suspicion, candidly,

is that they're withholding this information because if they were to make it public, it would contradict the president's claims about what's actually been happening at the pool. And, you know, he's got this theory that there was this

vandalism, and now he's trying to sort of hang all of the sort of messiness around the pool around this vandalism, there's just not, I've seen any evidence that this actually happened. And the most readily available evidence

would be to produce arrest records for it, a criminal complaint, a citation, whatever. And what I, my operating hypothesis, is that this information is not being produced to the public because it would not support

the president's claims about what's been happening.

but we have some exciting news at the DSR network.

Our sub-stack is now live.

“Our sub-stack is going to be the new home”

for free and paid content here at the DSR network. The best way to support us over our new sub-stack is by becoming a member. Right now, there's an early bird special until the end of the month where you'll get 30% off

of a new subscription with no code required to sign up for either a free or paid subscription to our sub-stack, you can go to DSR network.substack.com that's DSR network.substack.com

We're super excited for our new sub-stack and feeded join us there. We have a lot of things coming that we're thrilled to share with you in the future.

We appreciate your support

and thank you for listening. Now back to the show. A perfect free-links tack. Sonne. Park.

Picknick. Picknick. And so, Philip. Puy. Shoppapoteca's act,

juice, eleg and hello, free-links. Here, if you're interested in the world of all kinds of content, as new content, you'll get 10% off of 30 euros.

With the code, new 10. You have your own set, just go to the app, and select the right one.

Good bye,

“your opinion on shop-minus-appoteca.com/goodshine.”

Our recommendation for your podcast, free-links and snackiest meals from Aldi. Always good. Always delicious.

Cut. Just say free-links for Aldi. This week, Minnie Wassermilone, the kilo for only €1.29.

Or nectarines. The one kilo sale for only €1.80. In a decade now, many of both of you are in your Aldi Nord. And wait for it to be finished.

Aldi. Good. For all. And Trump is very visibly invested in these claims. Let's listen to something Trump said about the situation.

Here he's talking about the 350-foot gash that he says the vandals cut in the sealant of the pool. Listen. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it.

And it's in great shape now. They're terrible. They're vandals. They've caught six of them, I guess, maybe more. They've got others in line to be caught.

But we just didn't expect it. It will fix it right after the fourth of July. Got to let the water out just fix it. But we caught them. They would cut it.

And they would grab this very expensive and very good material. Totally waterproof. And they're ripped. These people are sick. They ripped a scar.

350 feet long through the side of the reflecting pool. These are the people we're dealing with. These are the people that wanted to destroy our country. Now someone with the National Park Service has said in a court filing that there was some kind of cut to the sealant. But it's not clear what evidence the park service has according to CVS.

And, critically, I think Trump is saying here that the vandals who have been arrested are basically enemies of the state.

What do you make of what you heard there and this business of there being a filing that the National Park Service put in saying there was some kind of cut? Look, maybe there was some kind of cut. But by the way, I think the number of feet he's been using is also grown as he's been telling this story. More and more, I think it was like 200 and 250 now, I guess we're up to 350. Look, I don't believe it.

I just be honest, I don't believe him. And at a minimum, I'm unwilling to take his word for it. And I will not take his word for it unless and until the government produces records from the criminal system that would back it up. And thus far they're not doing that. And what I've inferred from that is I just said is that like if they were to produce it, it wouldn't corroborate the president's claims.

And it would have been very, very poorly on him because either he is fabricated this claim or he's incapable of sorting truth from fiction. Maybe he was told this and doesn't know what's false. I mean, all of the possibilities are just different forms of bet.

“Yes, I think that's an essential point about this because if you listen to Trump talk about this topic, it's now clear that he's grown quite obsessed with it.”

And he has turned it into a matter of intense public interest by talking about it all the time. This is the president of the United States who's kind of toggling back and forth between talking about war in the Middle East and talking about deep 350 foot gashes that he thinks were cut in his reflecting pool. And so this is what I find troubling here, given that we really need to know what the hell he's talking about. Whether there's any kind of, you know, reality to this at all, you'd think the government would be forthcoming, but they're not.

That's what I don't get about the situation. I agree with you, right?

Well, let's step back and talk about the big picture.

You did this very good piece for Politico laying out the extent of the degradation we're seeing to the justice department and to the rule of law. Can you just recap that big picture case for us?

“Oh gosh, yeah, you know, I think in some ways the degradation of the justice department has been underappreciated.”

We have seen this administration really aggressively shift law enforcement priorities away from what we typically associate with sort of high operating federal law enforcement to what they, you know, basically street crimes and many respects. That's been a massive shift. So that means there's less prosecuting of public corruption, less prosecuting of financial fraud, white collar crime, all that sort of thing.

All that is being borne out from data and reporting.

But what has happened also within that framework is that the professionalism and the compartment of the prosecutors and the department has just, you know, dramatically declined. Way more people have left than I anticipated would leave voluntarily, right? There were a lot of fireings, but most of these people left voluntarily the prosecutors. And, you know, the staffing of these offices, the U.S. attorneys are on qualified often, and they're making major mistakes. And you're seeing prosecutors in these cases, some of the more high profile ones like the broad view six case, making out of Chicago, making extraordinary missteps in their cases,

engaging what we would ordinarily describe is intentionally or unintentional prosecutorial misconduct. And, you know, we've spent at least I spent, I've been thinking about this last year, a fair amount of time thinking about what's happening in Washington, D.C.

“But I think, you know, we have underappreciated what's going on in the U.S. attorney's offices, which is, you know, these major metropolitan jurisdictions,”

where the U.S. attorneys are offices are vitally important, Manhattan, Northern Virginia, Chicago, LA, Miami, all in all on. And these, you're seeing really, really bad conduct on the part of prosecutors. We've seen a fair number of judges in these jurisdictions, saying to line prosecutors, well, you've done here as an appropriate, and you've totally, um, cratered the credibility that your office has earned over the decades. Well, a big part of the story, of course, is Donald Trump essentially turning DOJ into an instrument to go after his critics.

This is a very much a department that is operating under Trump's thumb. And what we've seen as you alluded to is a series of politicized investigations and prosecutions, including, you know,

“the, um, uh, indictments against Latisha James and James Komi that got thrown out, because the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan,”

another Trump sort of a private lawyer, um, was improperly appointed to the position. And she was improperly appointed to the position, because the actual, um, prosecutor who held the position was unwilling to indict the cases. And the career prosecutors were unwilling to indict the case. So the indict the case is the cases are silly, then they get thrown out. Um, they had since come back with a new indictment against James Komi, um, for his, uh, C shells, um, the 8647, um, business. So, you know, James Komi, the C shell, scoundrel or whatever. I mean, that seems like a ridiculous case.

Um, there was an effort to prosecute six, uh, members of Congress who issue, you know, who put out a video, telling members of the military reminding them in their words that they should be disobeying illegal orders. Now, setting aside the wisdom of that, uh, video, um, there is nothing illegal about it. And prosecutors again under Piero, right, the same office that is now not giving us the information on these arrests at the mall. Um, took a case to the grand jury and got zero votes to return that indictment against those six numbers.

I cannot even begin to tell you how remarkable that is. A high profile case, inviting high profile defendants, um, which, uh, presumably attracting the highest level of attention with the US attorney's office.

Uh, getting zero votes to grand. I've actually never heard of a indictment of any kind getting zero votes in a grand jury.

Any kind. And so for it to happen, I mean, it's just remarkable and it tells you that this was an absolute piece of junk. I mean, I use a different word in another study, but actually a piece of junk. Like, there's that case. And, but just to, you know, to, uh, a slightly more broader picture as we're talking here today, John Bolton has pled guilty to, um, Miss handling classified information. Um, a lot of people put that under the route rubric of a revenge prosecution because the motive of, of resurrecting that case does appear to have been because Trump hates John Bolton.

So we do have to keep that possibility in our mind, but I kind of suspected Bolton did it actually when he was when the first reporting, you know what I mean?

I was like, I kind of think that of the cases like this is the one that maybe they're going to get a conviction on. Um, but no, for the most part, it's been a series of very, very, um, aggressive politicized prosecutions.

“I was just talking about sort of the big names, but I would place the broad view six case that Chicago case involving, um, protesters is also a politicized prosecution, right?”

Um, political motives, political interest in a, in a deeply politicized process that produced a, and a while, Liam Bear is saying outcome government had to dismiss the case itself. Is it fair to me to say that in some basic sense? The, what we're seeing from these prosecutors right now, there are refusal to level with the public about this.

They're willingness to, I guess, keep, uh, a sham going in order to protect the despot from embarrassment.

Is that in some sense another form of corruption and degradation? Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Uh, I think when you have the president going out, saying that criminal con has occurred, and you're not producing in from readily available information, either to back it up or information that you believe would contradict it. Yes, um, this is not appropriate. It's not leveling with the public.

That's not how cases ordinarily proceed. You don't normally have the president talking about that.

Once that has happened, you've hit a very, very tiny subset of criminal cases where yes.

The public expects and deserves an accounting of what has happened.

“And the government, even though is, you know, there's this, you know, I think too often repeated notion that the government only speaks through its filings.”

It's not really true. Um, when there are public cases or cases that are of significance to the sitting administration, the justice department is more forthright. They produce more material. They make brief, you know, they make themselves available to answer questions. They provide documents.

That is what the government does when there is a criminal prosecutorial effort that they want the public to know about and pay attention to. And this seems like if Trump had the facts to back him up, this would be one of those. Well, there you have it. Where do you think this is going to end up? I, I gather that in your interpretation of the events at some point, because people will have to have their moment in court, I guess, because we still have that as part of our legal system. When that happens, maybe we'll see that there was no actual arrests.

Or we'll see that these 350 foot cuts maybe didn't exist or something made by construction workers. I don't know. What do you, what do you, how do you anticipate it unfolding sort of in a practical sense at this point? I think it'll kind of, there's a lot actually is what I suspect. I mean, of course, people like you and me will want to see how this action unfolds to complete the record, so to speak. But I think the government's move here is kind of just to hope that people stop paying attention.

Trump will be the biggest obstacle to that. Or now you're just going to go away quite, you know, it just kind of fizzles out, because eventually, you know, they've issued citations. People will have to show up, but usually this is just money. Like we're talking about tickets. Right, like 100 bucks, whatever, 75 bucks, I don't know. And, you know, assuming that there were actual arrests of any consequence, that will become public at some point, too.

“That's why that is not happened. So I expect that we, you know, one way or the number, we will get clarity, even if it's bio-mission.”

And I remain very skeptical. I don't believe the president, I'll just say it for the, I don't believe the president about this gigantic gash. Maybe there was some small little thing he's blown it out of proportion or someone else has lied to him, and he's just running with it. I don't know. I mean, I don't have to tell you, I mean, after the 2020 election, we all learned the man is capable of zeroing on a lie, queuing to it tightly and then persuading a large number of his supporters that it's actually true. And it seems like he's kind of trying to run the same play here, except it's lower stakes.

So to speak, but the same modus operandi. And by the way, he persuades himself that something's true and then all bets are off and it just stays true no matter what in the entire world needs to sort of bend itself around that. I think there's a point at which, and I think we're maybe there on the 2020 election, he loses the ability to tell the difference himself, which is very disturbing. I think that's exactly right and I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that no matter how hard the justice department tries, it's not going to be able to protect Donald Trump from embarrassment at the end of the day here.

I'm Chris Carduri. Great stuff. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.