Jack Smith and Brian Driscoll on the Weaponization of Justice

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This will air Wednesday, July 8th.

“We're not going to talk about the 250th celebration.”

We're not going to talk about the U.S. men soccer teams. It's truly just disappointing performance in their game against Belgium. All those things were the episodes not going to be doing it because we have today an unusual opportunity. We have two gentlemen on the show who really should not be the show. They have lawsuits pending against our federal government.

One of them is seemingly in the crosshairs of the newly weaponized Trump Department of Justice under the auspices of Mr. Todd Blanch. As you know, an independent observer of law and not in fact the president's former lawyer who is just working on his behalf. Well, U.S. yes, he is. And I will just get to it. We are surprised and delighted to get an opportunity to speak with these two gentlemen.

And we'll get to it right now. All right. So we're going to bring in our guests immediately. We've got Jack Smith obviously former special counsel on a classified documents case in the election interference case. We've got Brian Driscoll who's a former FBI agent who in 2025 was serving as the acting director of the FBI until being let go by the administration. Brian Jack, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your service to the rule of law. Let me start with this. I am under the impression that you are. Well, Jack, probably more than Brian, but under some legal peril in terms of what you are allowed to talk about what you are not allowed to talk about.

Brian, I think you have a pending lawsuit. Jack, obviously the president has threatened you specifically. Why are you here? I'll start with Jack. Yeah, sure. Well, first off, John, thanks very much for having us on your show. Brian and I are here because we want to talk about the attack on the rule of law, and specifically how that attack is played out against public servants, the people that we spent decades working with. The things that we're seeing over the last year and a half, you know, you can see the output of that right. You can see people being targeted. I think Brian and I have a unique perspective and we understand what's being done to the people who enforce the rule of law.

“The rule of law in our country does not enforce itself. It takes people of character and integrity to do it and to undermine it. You have to attack those people and why I wanted to be here today, John, was to talk about those people.”

How much we should be valuing them, how much we lose when people like that are targeted and not just the people who've been fired, but also appreciating the sacrifice of the people who are still Manning their posts still doing their job. I feel like a lot of that is getting lost and I think more of a discussion about that is part of the solution what we're going forward. Brian, you obviously, you're one of those people. You know, Jack was special counsel over the DOJ, you were in the FBI.

Give me a little bit about your background real quick about being one of those individuals who's working for the rule of law and had never had a problem before. In fact, was moving up the chain.

Yeah, I mean, as far as my background's concerned, I started straight out of graduate school. I went into the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as an agent for about three years and came over to the FBI. And then I served for about close 18 years with the FBI as a doer, you know, as a special agent. You're a hostage, you're a hostage in rescue guy. Yeah, yeah, for a time. During my career, I was an operator.

So I went up through the crack, and as an operator and a sniper and a team leader with the hostage rescue team working embedded with our military on some significant operations as well, but mostly domestically, more than just hostage hostage rescue.

“Very, what I like to say is we solve problems like the wolf, you know, from, from the African, the movies, you know, and I'm talking about. I know it's your time, but I was sure that was the wolf or the jackal.”

I didn't know what the jackal was, but the reason why I want to establish these sort of bona fides and credentials is that so Brian has worked in busting up child exploitation sex trafficking and terrorism rings. Jack Smith was at the Hague working on crimes against humanity and genocide. These are universally respected and admired members of, first of all, those are things that almost everybody in the world thinks it's heroic to try and tackle and to try and break up.

And yet you have both become embroiled in the political collateral damage of, I guess, our dysfunctional system at this point.

“So I just want to do establish what your careers were before all this occurred. Neither of you are partisan political actors would that be fair to say correct 100% accurate.”

Jack, let's start with you. You came on people's radar as the special counsel investigating the cases about election interference and the Trump administration and the classified documents cases. For that, what were some of the things that you were working on before you had been tapped by I'm assuming Margarlin to take those cases. Sure. I think, you know, overarching John the thing to understand is Brian and I had similar career paths and then, you know, we may be known to people for the last job we had, but the truth is Brian and myself, we were guys on the line doing the work for the mass majority of our career.

I started as a local prosecutor in New York City at the District Attorney's Office, prosecuting domestic violence in sex crimes cases.

I then became a federal prosecutor for nine years in Brooklyn and again, the majority of that time, I was trying cases. I turned down promotions because I like doing the actual work of me in a prosecutor. After that, I was overseas at the International Criminal Court. I was then the chief of the public integrity section, which oversees corruption prosecutions around the United States.

Then I moved to Nashville, Tennessee with my family and I became first up was the first assistant U.S. attorney, which is kind of the second in command in the office.

And then during the first Trump administration, I was named the acting U.S. attorney in Nashville. After that job, I went into a private sector job for very short period of time. And then the Trump administration asked me to come back and serve in the State Department overseas running a war crimes tribunal. And that was what I was doing before I became special businesses.

“And this is so clearly, that's not the career path of let's say a James Carville or somebody along those lines. So how did you get tapped to become the special counsel in these classified documents cases?”

When did Mayor Garland reach out to you or is that not how this works? Yeah, I had had a career public service. Why they picked me? You'd have to ask Mayor Garland about that. I was asked to serve. And my career has been about service. And I think Brian and I again have very similar kind of life and kind of use about this. I've been the best part of my adult life working shoulder to shoulder with people like Brian. And when I was asked to come back and serve in this role, there's no way I was not going to do that.

And when you're asked for it, do you say, is this a prosecutable case? Is this a partisan case? Is this too political? Or do you just say this is my assignment? And now it's time for me to go in and start gathering the information with all the tools that I have at my disposal. Yeah, I went into it with no preconceived notions. I was living overseas in Europe in this state department job for the last four years. And so my job was to get up to speed on the facts and on the law and to make a call. And you know, I listen, I've done big public cases before big corruption cases before I knew that no matter what decision I was going to make somebody was going to criticize it. And I think people who have experienced doing those cases, they know that all that stuff, the people, what people say in the media, people like you, people don't like you, you're a villain, you're a hero. It's all noise, just noise.

The way I did cases throughout my career. Same way, same investigative techniques, same ways investigating, same ways of making decisions. And at the end of the day, we felt we could prove that case in court. And that's why we charge the cases.

And for you, a similar path I'm assuming you're working your way up all these different areas within the FBI. And you are tapped to be the director, I guess of the FBI.

“Or I guess you were tapped to be the deputy director. Is that what happened first? And they screwed up. There's a bit of a clerical decision here. And so you just ended up being the acting head for a little while. Is that how you came to your role?”

Exactly. So I was tapped to be the acting deputy director. And then on January 20th, there was a clerical error in the publishing coming from the White House that had my name as the acting or interim director of the FBI rather than my partners. So they were just flipped. So then you became that. Then what happened in Brian's case is, so at a certain point, you were asked to compile a list of investigators that had worked on the cases that they deemed were going after Trump or people within Trump world. Would that be accurate to say?

Yeah, yeah, in someone's substance, that's absolutely accurate. And it's all detailed in the complaint that the attorneys put forth as well.

And so when you were asked to compile this, you did not do that. You said you gave them an anonymized grouping. You felt that that was they would be targeting people politically if you were to give that list and for no reason. I mean, it was fraught with risk. But before I did that, which is accurate, I offered that asked for process existing process to reinvestigate or look for any of the alleged corruption or bad intent.

“When you say asked for process, what do you mean by that? Not that I'm not up on the law stuff. Trust me. I watch a shit ton of SVU. So don't think that I'm this, not if this is going over my head, but what do you mean by that?”

So there are existing processes in the DOJ that are purpose built to investigate internally and externally any violation or misconduct or a corruption.

And those processes are what I articulated when asked for a list based off of just what they were assigned to work on and investigate because agents and analysts and members of FBI don't get to choose you are assigned. And so what you're basically saying is, what are you accusing these people of before I give you a list of this kind of a thing? Are you just accusing them of weaponizing? I'm assuming this is about they're accusing you or these people of weaponizing the DOJ against Donald Trump with that be fair.

“I think that's fair and I was not going to get into an argument about those allegations. I wanted process articulated process in writing. So I'm not just leading these people to the edge of an employment cliff just to watch them get kicked off.”

And this is after Cash Patel took over that job or before before as well. I was the acting director earlier. So he came in and replaced you and then at that point they let you go. I lasted a few more months. So the current director got in there and the February I believe and then I was shown the door on August 8th. And what was the reason they gave you for showing you the door? And it was a one page memo and there's nothing of substance and there was no process. So I don't. I'm still not clear. There's nothing in there that says like you were late. You weren't wearing your FBI issue polo shirt or jacket.

No, none of that. None of that. So just let go. And that's I assume the basis of your lawsuit, which you probably can't discuss. Correct. Fair enough. I can discuss other things. And I want to and we will young man Jack Brian just said something interesting, which is you don't get to choose. You you got to choose whether or not to accept the role, but the investigators that are assigned to you or the people in the FBI. I assume you use all the different tools that are available at your disposal at DOJ.

Those individuals are not given the opportunity. If you're assigning them a task, they can't say this feels political or I don't think I want to work on that because I'm a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter.

That's correct. And I think again, for people like Brian and I it is just 101 justice department FBI politics doesn't play a role in these things people don't talk about stuff like that people don't bring up stuff like that.

The team of agents who worked on the cases I investigated John I've been doing this for 30 years. These people were superstars. They were the best of the best. A lot of them were veterans.

People who serve their country in all different sorts of ways and to see those folks demonized and cash decide. I just you know one of the reasons I've been so lucky to me Brian and get to chat with him is Brian's a perfect example of. If you think our country is safer when we get rid of people like this, you don't know anything about national security, you don't know anything about fighting corruption in our country. And I think it's very easy to demonize people as faceless bureaucrats when you know they're not there to tell their story, but when you can an example of the sort of people who worked on my case, the people Brian spent his career with.

“It becomes very hard to defend the actions against these people. I have seen this attack on the rule of law. Brian used the word process. I think if you want to use one sort of metric to measure this, it's.”

Are you going to get pre determined outcomes, no matter what, hello, high water, or are you going to follow good process? We follow process when we did our investigation, just like I had throughout my career. And the outcome of that process and those facts is what it is and whether people like it or don't like it. That's how you do the job well, and it's the same thing with these agents who were fired. There was no process. Brian was trying to protect these agents and he lost a career that he cherished that he devoted his life to for doing the right thing.

I feel like stories like that, we need to talk about it more because to me, in my career, the rule of law was never a partisan thing. It wasn't a Republican Democrat thing. And I just can't imagine that people of good will could hear stories like Brian's story, the stories of the agents who worked on my case and say, no, that's okay. I'm down with that, that's good. People who these are role models, you want to raise your kids to be like these people. And to have them victimized, it's unfair to them, but we're all going to pay a cost for it both in the short term and in the long term.

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That's groundnews.com/stored or scan the QR code on screen. Thank you to Groundnews for sponsoring this episode. Well, let's try and tease apart sort of the idea of special councils and then just the general DOJ operations, because I do think there are slight differences in special councils are.

“I think more inherently political, maybe then, you know, just the general workings of the DOJ in terms of the types of prosecutions that they do.”

So, Brian, first of all, the first question I would ask is, do you feel the difference when you're working as an FBI agent?

Or, you know, Jack, when you're working just as a regular person within the DOJ, when administrations change. Do you feel the difference between an Obama administration and a Trump administration or first Trump administration and second Trump administration or Biden administration?

With it, every administration has their priorities and that's okay. That's a part of doing business in America and that's one of the beautiful things about this country.

“I think the best way I could answer that question is very rarely did I and I my career as well as the careers of those senior engineering have transcended administrations.”

It has not changed the way we go about doing the job and I think the best way to illustrate that and kind of demystify what it's like to be an FBI agent for the general American or otherwise out there is to talk about what's on the center of the FBI badge itself. It's a depiction of Lady Justice. She's adorned with three things, scales, a sword and a blindfold. The scale symbolize careful weighing of evidence and process and fairness and balance. The sword is the authority and the very serious and respected power of enforcing that law and the blindfold is the ideal of performing that job with impartiality, objectivity and without favor.

And when that blindfold is removed and the scales are disregarded or are tipped because of an agenda or an influence that's inappropriate and the sword swings wildly, then we have some problems. I want to give people a fuller picture because I think everybody understands that people that are working in these public services are doing so probably with less financial reward than they would if they were going off and doing it in a more mercenary type. But everybody also has concerns about the excesses and abuses of the legal system of the DOJ. I want to see if we can separate out political abuses and power abuses if that makes sense.

So we're discussing our, you're seeing now political abuses. How do they internally remediate other kinds of abuses? Because there's certainly a lot of people out there who might say, when I go, if I had to go up against the FBI, I couldn't do it. The resources that they have everything that they bring to bear, whether it's fair or not, you know, with with Rico or they might want to squeeze somebody at a low level to get somebody higher.

People are always concerned about overreach within legal jurisdiction.

So I am not concerned about the FBI employees abusing their authority and power. There are at full strength, 38,000 FBI employees that are there for a reason and it is to protect the American people and uphold the constitution and everybody has a line and I have never met anybody in 21 years, as almost 21 years as a federal agent, that has or would be willing to cross that line.

“And how does the FBI police that within its own ranks?”

Oh, there's layers. There's an entire inspection division. There's all of some professional responsibility and the DOJ, there's treks and balances throughout. And these are put in, I assume, after sort of Hoover's reign, where, you know, trust within the FBI plummetts when they find out, oh, they're getting recordings of Martin Luther King and all these. So they've, they've layered in a lot of safeguards for that type of abuse. Right, and it's, it's an imperfect organization with a sorted history led by imperfect men and women.

But I've never met anybody with malicious intent to leverage the FBI to corrupt or violate the rights of the American citizens.

And Jack, same, same question for you in terms of more of the DOJ aspect of it and the authorities, because, you know, look, there is, and I think a fair criticism to be made that, when the federal government brings to bear all of its resources against a citizen, that citizen is, is up against it.

“I believe the phrase is "shits creek without a paddle." You know, it's very difficult to go up against it. How, how does DOJ protect against those kinds of abuses?”

Yeah, so I think these are really important topics. You know, first is just my experience.

I've been in the department as a prosecutor for decades. To your point, John, I'm not saying the DOJ has been perfect at every step. It's a human endeavor, right? But what, what I saw is similar to what Brian saw. People of good will try trying to do the right thing. Do our mistakes make sure, but good prosecutors, they correct it when they make a mistake. In terms of the power that that goes back to the point I was making earlier that to be a prosecutor, you have to make choices. You have to make judgments about to bring this case. Don't bring that case.

And they're not doing it for political reasons. They're doing it because they looked at the facts and they didn't have a pre-deceived or preconceived notion of the outcome beforehand.

That's always going to be tough. And no matter what decision I make is a prosecutor, if it's a big case, there's going to be certain people who think it's unfair and certain people who think it's great. We can't get away if we're going to have a justice system of having prosecutors have a discretion about which cases to bring. One of the, and there's a we can talk a bunch about the different ways we can make the department better, but the biggest one is to put people in the roles making those decisions.

“Who have experience and expertise? One of the things I think we see today is the attack on public services and attack on expertise that you actually don't need a lot of experience or judge or to do this job right.”

So making sure that people are qualified for the jobs they have, that they've earned the responsibility they're being given in significant cases, and then to protect those public servants.

I think the thing now that's different than any time in my career is the idea that you can make a prosecutorial decision and because of that just because someone later didn't like it, you get fired or maybe even you don't make a decision. You just randomly get assigned to a case. What kind of randomness that chills people from doing their job and my view is it's intentional. They're trying to chill people and they're trying to send a message that if you come, if you investigate people who are my friends or my allies, you're going to pay a price for it.

And it's interesting you talk about the power dynamics because I think what you're saying is real and as a prosecutor, I always felt it very important to to think about that think about like if I'm going to issue a subpoena if I'm going to investigate this.

“This is a big thing in this person's life and being thoughtful about it and following the process to make sure I treat person A the same as I treat person B.”

But at the same time, we have a situation now where these public servants who have devoted their lives to the craft of doing this the right way and they're not getting any process whatsoever.

And I again, I'm my biggest concern is that we're not highlighting that enough because if those people can't do their jobs right the concern that you have John, it's exacerbated. The whole thing becomes politicized. It politicizes and also or just fear, right? I mean, there's so many knock-on effects. You have people who like we should totally open this case, but I might get fired for doing it. I'm not going to do it. Then you have people quitting right because they're like, I can't be a part of this. I don't want to be labeled as someone who is so different than how I was raised as a prosecutor.

“And for me, the biggest concern is that we have young people who were, you know, when Brian and I were 20 years old and I wanted to be a prosecutor and he wanted to be an agent.”

I have a concern right now that the people who are that age and are thinking about what they're going to do as public servants, they're like, no way, no way I'm doing this and I'm going to lose my job for nothing. And we will suffer a much greater cost for that than anything else going on. That's the hardest thing if we, if people are driven away from public service, non-partisan people who just want to serve, that's the hardest thing to correct for. Well, how can they not? I mean, I want to talk about your case for a second, Jack, and then we'll go back to you, Brian, but when I see the just level of abuse that was leveled at you as somebody who was doing that special prosecution case, we can talk a little bit later about some decisions that maybe were questioned or not question, but the threats that came down upon you.

I would think would be enough to discourage almost anybody, whether it be somebody within the DOJ that's going to take case or somebody that's being asked to work on that case, it would discourage them. I mean, the president of the United States was calling you a psycho who should be in jail. I don't understand how anyone in their right mind would want to take on that kind of potential for abuse. Yeah, I mean, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the names I'm being called by the president, and for me, I mean, we talk about like overcoming things or facing things.

I'm a guy who just did my job, right? I've been doing it for a long time. I followed the same traditions, and I worked with the same sort of people I had all through my career. There's nothing really special about that. Got to like Brian on the other hand, is a guy who could have went along, could have said, here you go, here's the names. Right here you go, fire these people. People like him and there's others, Brian's an example, but there's many others stood up, lost something that they built their lives around because they wouldn't do the wrong thing and add to do the right thing.

Brian, I thought Jack was the hero here. Turns out you're the hero. I actually, I was, no, I was going to check the hero.

“I was going for Jack here. I'll turn to Brian to go.”

Jack is too kind. He is, he is absolutely a hero. Jack, I appreciate you. You know that brother. I do want to add something to what Jack said before is where I find peace and hope with those of us who have been either forced into retirement or wrongfully terminated or otherwise. I talk to most if not all of those people whose careers and their frankly their life's purposes were disrupted or interrupted during this period of time and to a person, each one of them intends to go back and serve. And I'm one of them, obviously. And these are people that were just doing their job like Jack said, we didn't sign up for praise or awards or chess candy, medals or stuff.

We signed up to do our job because we believe in it and we believe in doing the right thing. That doesn't change. I've never said to how many how many people have been removed because of working on cases that the Trump administration deemed partisan and how many of left just because they didn't want to be a part of this and how many that are left there have their work chilled because of what's happened.

“I don't have a number but one is too many, right, but it's significant. You would say there's been a significant drain absolutely with experience as the acting director.”

I watched my mentors, a lot of whom were my mentors and people who helped raise me in the organization get forced out and then people started to be fired just because of the case they're assigned to. Like I said, they all want to go back. These are veterans. These are agents. They're analysts who were at the top of their game, but also some newer employees who were assigned to these cases. That were that want to go back to be an analyst. I got to email yesterday from a guy who was a new analyst. The final one of these cases was fired and hitting me up for guidance on once he does get back in.

It's a new apply to be an agent because that was his goal. It's not everybody's goal, but it happened to be his and these people are motivated.

“I feel like a calling. It is a calling and a service. Yes, and that is why like Jack said he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about, you know, the things and arrows that that people like us can can be the recipients of.”

That matters not because we are on a freight we just want to serve. Well, I want to ask you a question to you were asked specifically about they basically said to you, you'll be okay.

As long as you've never donated to a Democrat or voted for Kamala Harris, is that did they ask you that specifically, or is that something you're not allowed to talk about.

It's documented in the complaint. That was asked me specifically prior to going back down to headquarters as the acting deputy director, it was referred to as a vetting interview. And I want to make very clear the vetting to become an FBI agent is unbelievable. I mean, in terms of they'll interview everybody you've ever met they'll put you through lie detectors, they'll they put you through a process of making sure that there is nothing within your background that could be considered controversial or easily blackmailable or any of those other kinds of things.

To do that is that the first time in your service you were ever asked about a political affiliation. And had never been asked before never. Jack Smith's same question had you ever been asked about your political affiliation before getting a case had you ever been asked who you donated to as has there ever been a question in terms of politics. I'm trying to get to the difference between when you start to remove everybody can be considered a partisan depending on where you vote, but not everybody's an ideal log.

And I want to get to a little bit of the difference between that jack was there ever a partisan tilt to how you were asked to operate.

Never even in the first Trump administration even in the first Trump administration look at John I was working in Nashville as the first assistant right and it's the it's before Trump selected.

Trump gets elected I become the acting US attorney the office did not change. Trump the we still did our job and just to go back to a point you raise earlier you know if a if a new administration comes in and they want to change policy they want to say. We want to focus on immigration enforcement we want to focus less on civil rights we want to do. Environment we don't want we don't want to do less a corruption they get to do that that is why elections happen and I I tell young people all the time.

And but at the same time.

“If you want to do those things you want to change the policy that's fine but you have to follow the law and you have to follow doing things the right way.”

You don't investigate the victims of of of police shootings right you don't try to smear them and call them domestic terrorists to to set it a narrative.

That is so far removed from anything I've experienced both as a line prosecutor or in leadership positions it's just never been even anything close to that.

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They have weaponized it it's very clear and he they've said it explicitly they are going to go after those that they felt.

Weaponized the deal against Trump so if you're working there now how how do you respond to that. Do you just should everybody quit I mean clearly there's probably partisans there but how do they deal with that Brian I'll ask you that. I think if it's pretty black and white if you receive a legal order or if it's in furtherance of a properly legally predicated investigation. Then that's the job.

“If you're asked to cross that line into what is unethical and moral and illegal then you have a decision to make and that that's what I face as well.”

But there are judgments associated with this there are judgments in terms of when to bring a case you know there is discretion. And I think you saw it when they brought in Lindsay Halligan there was cases that career prosecutors felt were not had not risen to the level of. Being a charges being brought and that that's the decision point and that that is not unilaterally decided like by the FBI the FBI doesn't make prosecutorial decisions we work hand in hand with the DOJ. And then if it makes it to court and then it needs to go through the process right jack out how do you think people should handle that.

Yeah sure and this this is something I talked to young people who are thinking of being prosecutors or people who are still in the department of talk up to them but all the time and my view is very similar to Brian's. If you can still do your job DOJ even today does a lot of good things a lot of important things protecting communities around our country protecting the safety of Americans protecting our national security. And a lot of people can do their job now it could be in this administration you're going to get asked to do something that is just wrong just illegal just corrupt.

And if that happens your numbers up and it's interesting the people who I've talked to who are experienced serious prosecutors they know the difference between those things. The prosecutors in Virginia did this is not a case anyone would ever bring and then you might get fired for it for telling the truth about how a case should be handled. And I think my view is that prosecutors and agents do should try to stay and do the right thing and then this isn't a matter you know I've heard people say this isn't a matter of throwing sand in the gears just do your job do what you've done all along.

If they do it's much harder to target people that's why you see a lot of these prosecutions or attempts to indict centers and congressmen for reciting the uniform code military justice.

And that's not all the part because a real prosecutors won't do it and therefore the people they get to do it aren't competent they don't actually know how to prosecute a case the real estate lawyers right they don't they don't have any experience I mean and I think that's that's part of what we see that I think folks like Brian and I find very frustrating is this idea that you can do something that took us decades to learn how to do well. Yeah, I can just walk in and you know I can investigate this incredibly complex case followed department policy follow the rules do it the right way and and I think one of the thing that's important to understand John it's like a hallmark of this of this weaponization is what's happening in the courts.

I mean the decision just seeing from judges about the positions that the OJ is taking corrupt illegal improper I mean there was a decision recently regarding subpoenas to officials in in Minnesota for a sham investigation the judge found that that that was not a legitimate criminal investigation and that it was unlawful it was meant to retaliate against people.

And you know again just the narrative that judge the judge was appointed by George Bush that judge was a Scalia clerk.

Okay, so this is not you know radical left lunatics making these determinations this is the rule of law kind of right in front of us having that battle and my view is that the most important thing we do now is when we see public servants and we see good people standing up. We support them. Those people need our support and our support will make a difference whether those people can continue to stand up.

Is that the way you feel also within the FBI brand 100% the amount of sacrifice that the people in any agency but on speak for the FBI are making on a daily basis.

And who are willing to trade all their tomorrow to save your today is in measurable they are they're incredible human beings that are going through a lot and they go through a lot they always have but they continue to every day and they don't complain about it they make the sacrifices whether that's being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for somebody else or to navigate. This different environment in which they are working to get the job done right not for themselves but to protect you and me.

“Let's talk a little bit about this different environment and in terms of how you know Americans faith in our legal system I think is is waning would be putting it politely.”

And I want to talk a little bit about the systemic changes that I think have have caused that you know jack you hit on a little bit right there he said well this is a judge that was appointed by Bush and this was in a lead o clerk. But think about that. We're so politicized to the point now I mean you face this jack there was criticism that you brought the classified documents case down to Florida because there was a chance you might end up in judge cannons court judge cannon is a trump.

“I think people would say not just partisan but ideologue and she would make decisions purely based on protecting her person we've got the point now where.”

We have teams judges are on teams they're on the democrat team they're on the republican team and you can expect fair justice if you're on the opposing. The squad is the entire system so politicized that there's and we'll get into the Supreme Court of it all after this but. What do we do about the fact that we now look to when decisions come down whether not that judge is an Obama judge a trump judge. Part of justification well that that was a great decision because a trump judge went against trump world or an Obama judge went against the democrats you know what do you do about that.

“Yeah I think you know the first thing is that.”

That you know this judge was appointed by this person this judge clerk for this person I think it's a and I raised it as it's sort of a response to the claim that they're all political radical people against this particular president. For my point of view in terms of getting credibility back not only for the courts but also for the department of justice I think about it the same way I think about my work as a prosecutor and I am going into court.

I act with integrity I tell the truth I treat people with respect whether they deserve it or not I show kindness and I show courage if I need to.

Those sort of values those sort of traits that's the fabric that binds us together and my view is that we have to lean into that. More than ever and that we should be looking for people in positions leading these institutions or appoint judges who have not just will voice those traits but have lived those traits but that's how the public sees what the public sees is a judge in Florida that delays the case that makes rulings that make it impossible for you to file. And then they see a prosecutor yourself release a hundred and sixty five page document about election interference right before the election that they feel is a political move on your part so the tough part is everybody who's within those institutions can say look we're working through process and we are doing it.

The values and morals that we think are fitting to the stature of the organizations that we're in but the public isn't that's not the experience of with this. Their experience with this is it is a political game being played out through processes that we normally thought were a political.

“Yeah, I think that gets to that's the next layer right that's like communication and to me you know I was a prosecutor right my career I was a guy I spoke in the courtroom not on the courthouse steps.”

If I did press conferences I said the absolute minimum I had to say and I got back to work I didn't see that as part of my job I saw my job is working with people like Brian to actually do the work. So I don't want to get where the next leaders of the Department of Justice or comms people right and they they don't know anything about prosecuting cases. People look at the people who are good prosecutors they are good communicators they have to win juries over they have to win judges over I think in the past we just haven't taken it as part of our job.

I have this larger conversation I mean for me you know I grew up in upstate New York I grew up outside of Syracuse I think a lot of folks in Washington and like don't think that they need to communicate necessarily to those people we talked to people in Washington I would love to see.

“I think if you don't communicate with the leaders of the justice department trying to explain what they're doing to people outside of just the legal community outside of just Washington DC I think it's hard to be to be real fair like.”

You got to write to a fair trial right you can't be talking about you shouldn't be talking about a case. So the case while it's pending but I do think there's more we can do if we all agree that if you don't communicate these things that show integrity because if you have integrity and you have competence. It doesn't mean much if people don't know that and you can't communicate that but is it just a do you really think it's just a communications problem jack because.

“You know and Brian I'll ask you this too you know the FBI doesn't communicate their methodologies and their things but I think people look at the way that these institutions I'll go back to.”

Brian when you were first there when Trump was going after the two FBI agents during the Russian investigation that he thought where it was page and struck I think that we're.

Had in a fair and he was ridiculing them is it enough for the FBI to just communicate better. What they're doing or do we need to really look at the totality of a system that's been politicized. I think there's value in looking at the totality but you can't look at the totality without a clear and depth of understanding of the process and I think the FBI.

Has it interesting history of how they communicate those processes when they can and they can't always but I think it's a jack's point.

You can rarely in my experience gain and earn trust and credibility through chess beating and being the loudest voice in the room and you know being the voice when we're living in these 18 inches between our phones and our faces with just clicks and then content.

First is January 6 so the big story on the right is January 6 actually wasn't what we all saw that it was it was an FBI op.

There was a guy who was an FBI plant and he urged people to go in there and there were 600 FBI agents that were there that day and they're the ones that stirred the pot and they did all that and so our entire understanding of this was actually the feds. We're getting an insurrection on January 6 and that's their. That's their storyline as they're going to get through and I'll give you the flip side of that on on the left which is James Kome who was the head of it at the time announcing that he was going to do an investigation or reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

“A month before the election and that's what some curve chances you know those are the narratives that you're fighting and I have not heard you know Kome has come out and said a few things about well.”

I might not have done that but I thought it was important you know he's explained certain things the FBI hasn't really talked that much about. What those who those agents were what they were doing there or any of those other situations. Yeah, listen, what I'll say about that is that if the FBI expended its resources tracing down or debunking every conspiracy theory they would be spending much less time focusing on national security and mitigating.

“I think that's the most serious crime. Just some though, raised to the level that need to be that need to be addressed more forcefully. Yeah, I think and that comes with close and continuing communication with the public and a responsible manner.”

I think that could that could fix a lot of the things that you're addressing and and honestly when you're speaking about director Kome and the others say I I can't and won't speak for them right and they have their choices to make on there not only their. And how they communicate with the style and what they do so and they're surrounded by very smart people. How hard is it now when the director the FBI cash Patel is one of the people who propagated the January 6 theory that now you have somebody leading the FBI who was a proponent of that conspiracy yet you know there was a guy ray up you know they've never brought charges against any of those people they've never actually.

Information out there they've never released certain files you know how do we retain faith in an institution that in some respects won't defend itself forcefully.

Or in this particular case is being led by someone who was one of the leading proponents that we shouldn't trust this organization. Yeah, so I understand that a fish thinks from the head kind of concepts so I've heard that however you know I was only the head of that is for a very short amount of time however I spent a lot of time with the people that and shared risk of our lives with the people that actually work that organization.

“Like I said 38,000 at full strength one guy named as the director right now and I think.”

People need to trust that those people they're not appointees they're civil servants they've given up a lot. To be able to serve in their capacities and work their asses off to do it and their families are given up a lot and that's where I find trust in them because I was one of them and it was with them and I'll do anything for them.

Now as far as the current director is concerned that on his first night after he he was confirmed he came to the office and I had a few minutes with him and I made him a promise in that moment.

Not knowing how long I had left there and not you know I'd have a crystal ball had some some feelings about it but I promised him that I would do everything in my power and whatever influence I had to make him the best director we've ever had because we need him to be and if he fails we fail. That has not changed I despite what people want to assign to me as far as my opinions and thoughts my opinions are unproductive I hope and route that he will be better every day I hope that those in leadership positions not just in the FBI but everywhere else that serves our our country.

I understand that having authority and being an authority are not the same thing and surround yourself with people that are smarter and better and more experienced and we'll all be better all for it.

cadre a kind of adjacent office that is more focused on these partisan endeavors. Well let me caveat this with the amount in these streets just so I'm not in there but.

“Well you said is accurate the majority of the people there are doing their job and the priorities they might shift to drug introduction or they might shift to.”

And the process is that we're putting place to protect those to us. Yes and if there are priorities or. We're moving a bunch of FBI agents to go to Atlanta and and they're going to go and they're going to raid election offices and they're going to do all those things and by all accounts they're moving a lot of manpower to do that.

How are we supposed to have faith in that organization anymore when that's so clearly a partisan endeavor and ideological endeavor.

“But listen I'm not going to be cute about it that is troubling to watch from the outside I don't know what's going into that those decision matrix that are driving those investigations so I won't speak to.”

You know the credibility of them that said like I will go back to what I said before if it is legal if it's predicated if all the things have been done properly. And you know even if look even if just by the very nature of doing it that puts a chilling effect on the electoral process in that area the people that work there you know we saw the hell that they put.

Two election workers through when they were looking there you know these are the things that.

“I think very much undermine that credibility that you guys are talking about and the story that you guys are talking about in terms of the individuals and the sacrifices they're making to protect us.”

I mean and I think what's what's most vexing on top of that is not just how the resources are being allocated and what they're being allocated to but. Crime is going down. He's speaking globally or nationally which is great like I'm not going to sit here and be ignorant enough to say like everything that these people are doing is bad. That's just not okay and it's irresponsible to say that however from what I worked when I was in the bureau with Jack working in parallel intersecting sometimes through through people we shares friends and colleagues.

There are threats that we could use more resources pointed at you know especially with the global. The environment and what's happening all over the world right now like terrorism didn't stop. Right and those threats don't stop Jack I want to ask you about you know when DOJ when you got the DOJ is headed up by the president's personal lawyer but I want to talk about other structural things. You always look at as you're fighting corruption right it's influence pedaling bribes the types of white collar crime that is difficult to get your arms around and handle but it it seems as though the Supreme Court has made that job forget about Trump and politicizing these things.

It seems as though corruption as we typically understood it has been redefined by the Supreme Court over the last 15 years and I want to know how that affects your ability. Do the job that the DOJ is supposed to be doing so just as an example in the McDonald case I did you did you work on the McDonald case in Virginia. I did I was one of the supervisors of that case yes okay so that's a case where a guy is paid money and gifts and bribes to give access right. You guys bring a case against if he gets convicted the Supreme Court says actually it's not bribery if it's just for access you know there were other cases I've got some written down the Snyder case which I thought was a fascinating one.

Every turn the Supreme Court is redefining what public corruption is to the point where I don't even know how you would prosecute public corruption unless someone is holding a giant bag that has a dollar sign on it and on it it says for helping me with that thing.

“Well john it's actually even more dire than you can't be more dire than that Jack. Well but before we get to the Supreme Court and yeah and I'll come back to that you know we're in a world right now john where.”

If there is corruption at the highest level of his off our government there is nobody to look at it nobody congress is not going to look at it the DOJ is not going to look at it. There's not going to be any outside prosecuted to look at it and so before we even get to bringing a case there's no one who would be allowed to investigate it. Do you think you're right what when you say nobody is allowed to investigate it how do you mean well you know can you can imagine if there was you know take a look at the signal date thing right with the.

You know sharing battle plans classified information over up right and the attorney general the time attorney general bondy immediately without any facts said there's not going to be an investigation.

Comes out later from the inspector general that in fact it was classified information and it endangered the lives of service members. If that's not being investigated. You know we don't have to worry about what the Supreme Court says because we're not going to get to court and have a case.

“They are investigating Renee good I mean they are investigating they're just it seems upside down to some extent right and again that my point is that.”

That judgment to investigate real corruption and not investigate shooting victims family members.

You need good people in these roles you know just again in terms of as we go forward. I hear a lot of people talk about you know how we're going to fix the FBI how we're going to fix the department of justice and like the idea I've heard someone say you know the the. Next director the FBI really needs to have smart people around them who really know the bureau and how it works people like Brian Driscoll my response to that is my response is what how about we just have one of those people run the FBI someone who actually knows it not a politician.

Not a person with a political stake in the game but people who actually have done the work since they were young people how about that and you know I I agree with you John the winning back credibility is not going to be easy but I don't think we shouldn't try to do it and again I think that. Driving into that I my life when I interact with people in the world I hear people all the time who want to go back to having normal people make these decisions. Oh dear God yeah people are exhausted they're absolutely exhausted and so the way I think of it is we have the people who work in the justice department.

In the FBI the everyday line prosecutors and agents which Brian and I spent most of our career doing people know their story they're going to they're going to like that they're going to respect it I mean just go back real quick John on the. Issue a communication and the issue a January 6 there is a inspector general report that exists that debunks everything you said about like the FBI setting this up it's in detail and if you take the time to read the hundred whatever odd pages it is.

“No person could come away and think that's what happened the problem. Nobody's ready nobody knows about it nobody took it is their job to go out to the public and say hey this is a big deal.”

People are going to believe this narrative unless I explain this to folks and so that that's what I say about leaders on issues like that they can cause huge distrust taking that on as part of the job I certainly didn't do it in the DOJ before but I think that's the thing we need to change going forward.

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I think it's designed to not be able to understand your phone bill all the the right and then things in the gimmicks I want to curse to be honest with you I'm not going to do it. I generally want to curse but I'm not going to do it about this because there's a solution to this nonsense meant you know I'm talking about m in mobile wireless plant no gimmick high speed data reliable coverage on the team mobile 5G network. You get rid of your over-priced wireless with me mobile you can sign up online you know me I'm terminally online I live my life on the on the web to they still call the web my children literally think I'm a caveman.

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How do we change when the Supreme Court has made the bar for public corruption so I look. You know, it was a problem because it all felt like it was beyond it was a problem beyond the scope of our standard system so you had the watergate special prosecutor you had. Iran contra was a special prosecutor and and and they looked into it and they found evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the case of watergate. That's interesting that jadevans said watergate today would be a twelve hour story and nothing would happen and I don't disagree with that not because it's not in egregious abuse of power.

“But because the levers of accountability that we have seemed diminished.”

And I wonder if special you know special councils played a role in that and I want your opinion on that you know if you think about let's look at the.

But the Mueller case with Russia had a lot of convictions but very few of them were about. Election year interference it was mostly obstruction or perjury or those things. We had. I guess the next one was the classified documents case then they had the Biden documents case it looked like he also had classified documents then they had a hunter Biden special counsel where we finally got him on. Biden's charges you know.

White water was another one. Where the special councils also.

I guess at fault in some ways because they never really got to the crux of what they were investigating.

They were only able to spring.

“Process traps and that's how they ended up catching a few low level fish.”

So if if that's not there. What levers of accountability are we left with and and I you know I know that's a lot to answer but I just I wanted your opinion on that. Yeah sure so I think of it this way. You've got a situation a highly sensitive situation with high level people in the government it could be my case it could be a rank contract could be watergate any the one you talked about you've got three options. One is you say this is too sensitive we're not going to really look into it you know corruption at the highest level of government it doesn't happen very often and the executive needs a lot of power to do their job so we're really not going to even go down that road.

There are people who take that position. On the other end you say you know what the justice department run by a political appointee of the current president can totally do it and people will find it credible because the justice department does this every day and we don't have to do anything special. The middle ground is to appoint somebody outside the government and how much discretion and power that person has depends on whether you're talking about the independent council statute which was a rank contract or the special council regulations that I worked under and the balances.

The balance is you want independence so that person can make a call and call balls and strikes as they are. But you also need accountability right because you don't want to have a and I think that was the concern with the independent council statute is some felt that the independent council was accountable to know one and could go on forever. And could catch a lot of people in situations where they don't have the resources look I'm no fan of general Flynn but it's very different for Donald Trump to have to defend himself I mean that guy had to like sell his house.

You know when somebody is in the crosshairs whether it's a pop a doppelis or a a Carter page or a you know hunter Biden has resources but you know Latisha James now you know these people don't have the resources to go up against it. Clearly abuses have been taking place. Yeah and I guess one thing I would just add to that to that and to the framework is is how we judge it right. Like I think when you're dealing with these situations these complex difficult hard to prove situations.

Not happening.

“And so I think what we need to do and my view is in those situations.”

You hue to doing things the right way the way they've been done in justice department for generations at least since Watergate. That is a credibility enhancer.

I think again communicating how you're doing that is going to be helpful but you're never going to get a hundred percent approval.

And you're never going to get an outcome that everybody agrees with sometimes the outcomes are more complicated than can be explained in a short narrative. I feel like a job of a prosecutor is not achieving a particular outcomes how many conviction you got how many people were charged that sort of thing. It's doing it the right way you do it the right way and you let the chips fall where they're going to fall.

“Not every profession is like that and and I think the thing that's from the perspective I have I think Brian might share this is the way the public judges.”

A lot of the criminal justice system is outcome based and good prosecutors don't do that. So our internal metric for doing the job the right way is one of like I did things the way they're supposed to be done. Of course, if somebody thinks someone's guilty, I want to get a conviction and I'm going to try to do that but it's much more important to me that I do it the right way.

Then I get a particular outcome and I would never want to have a prosecutor who had cut corners because.

He wants the public adulation and support because you got an outcome a lot of people wanted. And so that I guess I'm long way to say that is like. There's sort of ceilings on how much you can have everybody really happy with the outcome of these things. Right, built to be difficult from the start. Well, I'm I'm not even talking about they're happiness with it. I'm more talking about the broader sense of accountability that doesn't seem look. I'm on the macro view of this and Brian, I think I'd like to get your opinion on this. January six was a rubicon for me in terms of democratic system being subverted.

You know, we can always the Supreme Court can say the president is basically has absolute immunity and you can't find anything and basically makes him beyond the scope of the law.

If he's, you know, doing the duties of his office. But January six was the crossing the line that I thought this is a person that needs to be held to account for trying to subvert. You know, it's peaceful transfer of power. That's the line. We can all there's different corruptions within it, but if you won't leave when you're supposed to leave, that's when we turn from a democracy into an autocracy. Like that's the dividing line black and white. Our inability to hold that president to account through a political process impeachment. That was clearly partisan.

“People that said, yeah, that was egregious and you should never hold office against still voted not to impeach because they said, well, he's leaving anyway little did they know.”

So the political process proved itself to be, uh, not up to the task. The legal process, I thought, also proved itself not to be up to the task. It took Merrick Garland, I don't know, years before he even asked you to do the investigation. I don't know why. I don't know if you have been opinion on that Jack. Listen, I, my view of my work, I got appointed to do a job and I did it. When I interacted with Merrick Garland, he's not a guy who put the finger on the scale. He didn't try to push me to do it, right, bring a case, not bring a case.

But he didn't bring it for years. He didn't even ask you. Yeah, I mean, I got appointed when I got appointed and like my, I guess my point on that John is there. I understand that that's a narrative that people want to talk about is like, you know, why didn't he move faster that sort of thing. I feel like, from my perspective, having been someone who's done this job for a long time, I've been and cares a lot about where the department goes going forward, cares a lot about the people who work there. I'm much more interested in finding people who are examples of

courageous people who are standing up who are making sacrifices. If we're looking, you know, if you're, if you're a sports team and you're trying to do well, right, you look for ways that you can succeed. You look for plays that work. I want to see people and I want to raise people up who are could be part of the solution rather than kind of looking backward. And I completely agree with that. I'm talking more about sort of how the system is perceived even with those good people in it. Marigarland takes two to three years to do it. I'm talking about how the legal process seemed to not be able to hold him to account for what I thought is the most egregious moment in my lifetime in American history.

Latisha James prosecutes him for, I think his business and mortgage dealings, Alvin Bragg prosecutes him for the stormy Daniels payments. The government goes after classified documents, which is something that I think most people were like, I never even heard. I didn't even know that was a thing. I always assumed, you know, because in this country our classification system is also broken. It looked like to fair appearances that the system did turn its eye to getting this guy any way they could. And so if the political process failed us and the legal process seemed to have failed us, I think that's the question of how do we rebuild trust in that system.

Even though it's staffed with really good people, Brian, you were going to say, yeah, no, I'm going to take jack off the hook for a second. Please.

“I'm not saying that you're saying this, however, yeah, I think it's important for people to know that we didn't do nothing.”

We investigated the people who perpetrated to January 6 crimes. We, myself personally were part of arrest teams that took off some of the most violent and dangerous offenders affiliated with some very violent groups. And these things, they do take time. I can't speak to the decision process of aging Garland at the time and any delays in the same thing, but the D.O.J. didn't sit on our hands either.

We were hostile and we were working to hold the criminals accountable and did now going all the way over to protest. I can't speak for that.

But I felt like Jack needs some help. I think Jack will be fine.

“I mean, am I being unfair? Am I being unfair in saying that to my mind?”

And again, I'm not talking about the guys who, like you say, you know, that storm the capital and got arrested and were given sentences like, and we're held to account, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the ring leaders and the people that pardon those same people and were never held to account for anything either through our political means.

Our only political means is impeachment. Our only legal means is through the, the D.O.J. So am I being unfair to say that those systems were unable to operate and at this point have been through whether it's the Supreme Court or whether it's through the ability of Donald Trump and his allies to delay have we failed? Yeah, I mean, John, I would say first, you know, on the political part, you're probably talking to the wrong guys for that. We're criminal investigators who work on criminal cases. I just want your opinions. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah. So on on the on the other part in terms of the cases against Trump, I can speak most directly to ours.

And when I took that job, I would have been perfectly happy if the facts and law didn't didn't justify it to not bring those cases. And I'm sure if the facts were different, John. I'm sure a lot of the people who think I'm great would not think I'm so great. And some of the people who think I'm bad would think I'm really nice.

“The truth is very good when you're, yeah, when you're a prosecutor, right, you all let sort of things in terms of perceptions and people feeling this way in this election.”

That is noise. That is things that I didn't consider when I'm doing my job. And, you know, I brought those cases and I moved them forward because I thought I could prove them in court. And I thought I'd went on appeal. That's the same. We don't change the metric once it's someone who's a high profile case. And again, I was just to just to pose what weaponization is right. For three decades, I'm not a political operative who was brought in from outside because they couldn't get a line prosecutor to do it.

People didn't resign because I demanded that they do things that run so counter to the traditions of the department. I mean, just think about today, John, if you had an allegation of corruption, can you imagine this administration bringing in someone like me who's got no political allegiance? Can you imagine that happening? No. And that's why, you know, we come back to this issue of process.

I mean, they're they're bragging about no longer investigating white collar crime. Yeah, and again, that's why I go back to this issue of like how we talk about it because when you talk about John, like the fact that, you know, people don't believe this and people don't trust that it's not an evacuation, right?

There are people with very powerful megafones using repetitive messages over and over again that have no factual basis, but they get out there and they become part of the public discussion.

The history before before these last couple years is prosecutors just sat on their hands and let that be said and we didn't worry about that.

“I think the credibility issues you're talking about are because one side was telling a story divorced from the facts and the other side wasn't telling a story.”

I think if you lean into the facts, in the cases we do, I could justify them in court and I could justify them publicly. I think going forward, that is the recipe, that and having the people who are telling the stories be from the rank and file and be people who've lived the values that they're asking the teams to follow. And Brian, I'm assuming you feel the same way about within the FBI because what it feels like is you now have an organization that is generally built apolitically built through merit built through whatever methodologies they think gives them the best chance to get the best agents and the most selfless people being utilized and weaponized by partisans and with very little recourse I would assume.

Yeah, I'm 100% no surprise you're aligned with what Jack just said.

It's going to take you make a formidable team to you appreciate that. Jack's a ton of top and so. Robin Batman. All right, fair enough. I don't dare you, sir.

I don't know that great in tights.

“So again, like what Jack said, it's going to take people from the rank and file who cannot speak for themselves publicly, right?”

Not allowed to.

But people like Jack and I and I don't want to put words in Jack's mouth or speak for him.

But I can speak for myself when I say, I am. Have been and continue to seek purpose to fill the purpose that was taken from me. Part of how I'm fulfilling that purpose is trying to be that responsible voice. I'm not annoying to it by the men and women of the FBI to speak on their behalf. However, I can offer perspective that most don't hear and like I said before, like demystifying some of the thought processes, some of the experiences we've been through and some of the ways things get done.

“It's a responsibility and I think all of that noise, all of the dynamic opinions regarding it.”

Jack and I talked about this the other day. Like we're like Joe Fridays, it's just the facts. That was our career was not about credit was not about getting the awards. It's about the facts doing the job because what we signed up for and now we can represent hopefully. But it's a no fail task when Jack and I speak, we cannot fail. We cannot allow our words to be twisted because we speak and stand for something bigger than just ourselves because that's the part of the organization. It's great to be a part of where proud to be a part of something larger than us.

They could be deeply uncomfortable to do this kind of this type of stuff. No offense. Thank you so much for having us. By the way, I am, I'm deeply uncomfortable as well doing this. I happen for years, 30 years. I told this to my teammates when I was in that period of time where I was the acting director.

There's nothing I wanted more when that period was over than to just disappear into anonymity and continue putting points on the board on behalf of the organization on behalf of the American people. Now, I understand that I can be and put myself under a level of pressure to do things like this. But to me, pressure is a privilege because it means something is expected of me even if I'm the only one that might expect it of myself. It's finding purpose even after you've been sort of let go from the place where you found that grounding and you found that relevant.

Because I believe in them, I believe in the organizations. I believe in the American people. I had an experience last week that that reinforced it in a very real way. I told Jack, I remember motorcycle to work. I don't say money on the easy person. How much cooler than me can you be? No, this is really, now it's just now you're just talking me. I promise I ride my electric bike sometimes it gets the mail. So don't think you and I aren't the same because we're the same.

But so I was riding the work and I was going to speed limit. I promised 50 miles an hour and two way length or two a street hit a deer. I had no time nowhere to go and so at 50 miles an hour I took a short flight and then a longer slide and tumble.

Bike is fine. Importantly for me. My mind's here. I'm fine too. I don't it's probably ran off and never saw it again.

So what happened next after I realized that I was okay. I stood up and traffic stops on both sides of the street and everybody emptied those cars. It was rush out in the morning. The first person to me was an African American female in our 50s. Second person, young blonde woman in scrubs.

The third, fourth, fifth people were in the car that would have killed me if I went into all coming traffic filled with Hispanic laborers.

None of them asked who I voted for. What I, you know, my sexual orientation, my religion, they didn't ask my name. All they saw was a dude in America who needed help and they helped me. And that in that moment and every moment in the last week and a half has kind of like cleared the fog for me as far as all of the things I consume responsibly. And I think it is on those consumers. It's on the communicators as well and the organizations you talked about and it's on us.

But it's also on the consumers to be responsible and don't just believe the first headline that you see, but read diversely broadly.

And don't just get sucked into what the algorithm is telling you how to think. Brother, preach, preach. I'm telling you. I feel bad. Listen, it's it's very easy to have your perspective skewed.

“And it's an important remembrance there. And I think that's endless. And I appreciate both of you guys time so much for this.”

And I think probably a great way to end is is in that sense of so how do we get back to that without sort of the idea of, you know, just believing in the goodness of us. And how we can reclaim the accountability so necessary for this system to function properly and not be co-opted by bad actors. Or part is in actors. You know, people will say like, well, the real elections are the real accountability. That's ultimately where it all ends up. But I'm watching our electoral process. Be co-opted now through part is in measures where even that the thumb is being put on that scale in in very bad ways.

Or do you have ideas about beyond trusting the integrity of the rank and file where we can start to bring a little more accountability to the system. I'll ask you Jack. Well, in terms of the justice department and I think the bureau as well, I think the one thing we can say with certainty is when there's been more politics, it's been bad and when there's been less politics, it's been good.

“And so I think a thing that we should be looked at is whether there's ways, you can not just get the justice department back to what it was when I work there.”

But are there ways we can make it better? You know, John, after a water date there was a bunch of reforms that made our government better and a bunch of different ways. Very much so. And it was a dark time after Watergate, right? And people took that darkness and the pain they were feeling and the, you know, negative. Outlook for the future and they turned it into things that made our country better for a good long time. We have an opportunity to do that right now. I think getting people, there are so many people out there who feel alone and feel isolated and feel like nobody is standing up for them or speaking for them or exhibiting the values that we're talking about.

I think that's a foundation and I think you start with that and then the justice department of all the things that the government does to me is the one thing where politics can't have a role. We have to find reforms where it makes it harder and harder to do what's happening right now. Brian. Yeah, Jack is so much more articulate. Look, come on.

“That's what he said. No, I think it comes down to not taking trust for granted, people with credibility and real experience.”

Maybe a little bit of scar tissue, but don't have an agenda that are ready to serve and bring trust in the institutions.

And I think it's probably going to come down to that is, you know, you said it earlier, courage and the courage of individuals in Jack, when you talked about the reforms after Watergate.

It struck me so much of that was rebalancing the branches of government. And it does feel like we're moving, you know, this idea of a unitary executive and a president as much more forceful as a king, you know, until that changes. It's very difficult to rebalance this because now we are going to be much more so and DOJ being, you know, under that auspice. It's going to be much more difficult to do it until we rebalance the branches again. And it's right now it feels like we're in an outsized pre-watergate mindset.

Yeah, I mean, I would say one thing about that is that when you think about like how change comes about like you look at the times in our history, right, where something really bad happened and we got better, whether it's abolishing slavery, woman suffrage, civil rights movement, right?

“They, there were moments when no one knew if what they were going to do was going to make a difference and they did it anyways, right?”

I think about the likelihood of success, you just think I'm going to be on the right side of history, I'm going to behave in a way that's going to make my kids proud, my parents proud.

And you just do that and you don't worry about consequences, I think in terms of a mindset for our society. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I think most people know the right thing to do. They really do. The problem becomes when they factor in the consequences for doing the right thing. Because then people, if the consequences are too high, they start rationalizing ways where they don't quite have to do that and maybe they do something short of that. As Brian said, if we start taking a mindset of it's our country, we own the problems.

If you want a solution, you got to be a part of it. I feel like that happens and if that becomes our national dialogue and integrity is a more central part of it. Some of the things you're talking about, we can elect people who will not do those sort of things. I have a big concern, I don't want to have a situation where we've had these abuses and that becomes a new normal for any party. And we've seen that other times.

“And the key to remember is it doesn't have to, that it is like you say, that action against this corruption is necessary.”

And the courage to take action against that corruption is all of our responsibilities. Absolutely. Well, I can't think of three bigger heroes than the three of us. All right, just you two, dammit. Jack Smith, former special counsel Brian, just go former at the age and who in 2025 was the acting director of the FBI. Thank you so much for spending the time and pointing out the great stories of the integrity of the people in the rank and file of law enforcement and of our department of justice.

And all those things, we have to keep highlighting the good work by the good people and those that continue to stand up against corruption and all of its forms. And so I appreciate you both being here for that. Thank you sir. Thanks for having me, John. Appreciate it.

“Those guys have balls. You know, can I say something?”

Is what I'm hanging out with guys like that? I'm literally like, so you guys wanted to shots? Do you want to go to a giant scheme? What do you want to do? We're gonna hang out, right? We're gonna hang out, right? Guys, like it's so like you're overwhelmed by manly madness.

Yeah, that was also, that was a three like New York, New Jersey, Tri-State Area Actions. That was here too. That's terrible. You know what, that should have been the whole conversation. You believe these fucking guys at the DOJ. But you know, it is a little bit like, you know, the Jimmy Cagney movies were like,

One brother's a priest, the other's a gangster. They're, they're the brother that like went into law enforcement. Yeah, my brother on the street. Yeah, he's in trouble all the time, but I went the other way. But I honestly like, I can't imagine they keep talking about it, like trying to divorce themselves

from the madness, but the madness, the circus is all that we experience from them.

And it's incredible, like, there's a certain zen-like, they have, I guess, kind of accepted.

Yeah, I think it's almost maybe, I don't know, I'm just sort of thinking out loud, but like, they really harp so much on how important processes in their work. And I almost think it's like hard to then remove themselves from just like, well, this is how we do things. You know, this is, we just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

We just keep keep their eye on the ball. Well, I also think, you know, it got to it a little bit at the end, which is like, they live in a world of standards, evidentiary standards. And the Trump administration lives in a world of, you know, hyperbole.

And so, and hyper, the world of hyperbole never survives.

It's contact with the world of standards.

“And so, I think that's, it really is that strange dichotomy.”

I think they're more comfortable in that world of like, well, you can't really just make shit up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to actually have to then put this in front of a judge in the diary and actually have to prove our case. Whereas the Trump administration can just say, surely you can all agree with us, that somebody took a razor blade to be reflecting pool because I feel that way. And stole 13,000 votes. Yeah.

And there were 500,000 people on the mall watching this beat and just not sense. Yeah. And what's your evidence? I fuck you. Right.

Fuck you. You're done. That's a terrible question. Yeah. Next question.

All right. Well, I'm definitely, I've got to make sure I've got a big motorcycle ride planned. I was actually, I was reminded what he was saying that when I was looking into Jack Smith. He took the role as special prosecutor while he was recovering from a bike accident in the Netherlands. And they were concerned that him sort of agreeing to it.

It would be an issue that he was on pain killers. So he went like cold turkey for several days in order to, I mean, integrity is so important to these people. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about that during when he was talking about the bike accident.

I love to also, like, that that's crazy Jack Smith. Like, yeah. It's during Jack Smith. And he's like, you know, for me, it's really about processing. Like, he's like the Bob Ross of law enforcement.

He's like, I take a little bit of why. A little bit of blue. My back through the Netherlands. What is his morning meditation? I need to know it.

He should just stop it. No question.

“What are the kids want, Bernie, after our week off?”

John. Uh-huh. Do you think Trump is happy? Oh, boy.

That's, you know, I never considered that pretty.

I poor poor little billionaire president. Being rich or by the minute. Poor sweet little. Um, I think he is animated by vengeance. And so paradoxically.

Yes. I think he is happy that his body is a bio-production facility. Whereas you and I live aerobically. He lives anaerobically. And therefore is happy in his oxygenless world.

Yeah. But like, even just coming off of this week and like, that wasn't a success. He's happy by how this week and went for him. He's happy with all of his renovations. Do you, do you believe that that is how he's interpreting the weekend?

He put on the greatest American fair ever since the expo. Since the world expo and like 19 whatever. Mimi and St. Louis, yeah. He, uh, he put that, he posted that photo where it's like, um, I don't know.

It's like, is there a distinction between like,

“believing your own lies and just like, I think he,”

I don't know if he believes him or if it even matters to him. Like, it's enough to have that photo. I guess. Even though it's completely made up. I don't know.

It's pretty sick. I think when you say, is he happy? Is he the center of attention? Yes. He's happy.

That's it. Because he is animated only by our eyes. And our focus and our attention. He's the original algorithm. He drives us to his embrace.

And we all revolver. He is the son and we are, but the stars. He, it's Romeo and Juliet. It's about Donald Trump stepping out over the balcony. And it is the least.

I've always got more of a lear vibe.

I can't do this. Both. Well, she's our jeopardy champ. She's got to know that shit. I only have to know the titles of a couple of plays.

She's got to know what they're about.

John, when do you think Democrats should start campaigning for 2028?

Oh, my God. I thought they already had. Oh, you know what I think?

“I think when they come up with like a plan.”

Oh. I don't want to do that. But when they come up with like an idea about what they want to do when they govern. That isn't just like, what if we just extend that one housing tax credit?

Like a, when they develop a theory of the case of government.

And how and how to make it actionable to people's lives with value. Instead of just platitudes about we got to get back to affordability. You know those kitchen table issues. You're like, kitchen. What are you fucking talking about?

Yeah. But have some specifics.

“You don't have any chat GPT could come up with a pretty nice platform probably in a minute and a half.”

Yeah, Andrew Cuomo tried that. Exactly. Oh, he did those AI commercials. Well, he tried. He also like there was a housing plan that it seemed put out.

That just had like, jibberish in the middle. Yeah. That's hilarious. What's that guy up to? And that's why he won.

That's lovely. But how hard can it be? Uh, all right. Very good.

“Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us?”

Twitter. We are weekly show pod Instagram threats. TikTok blue sky. We are weekly show pod cast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel.

The weekly show with John Stuart. Fantastic guys. Thanks very much.

Uh, as always, producer, bringing him a metavick producer.

Jillian spear. Video editor and engineer Rob Vatolo who types faster than you think he does. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boys and our executive producers Chris McShane. Katie Grey. We shall see you all.

Next week. Bye-bye. [MUSIC] The weekly show with John Stuart is a comedy central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Fustboy Productions.

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