The corrupt New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Corrupt person. No American should be okay with a political party being weaponized against their enemies. This is not constitutional. This is wrong in every aspect. And the judge and the A.G. [00:00:15] Should be arrested and punished accordingly. This woman should be under investigation for what she did. She's a disgrace. Well, Donald Trump is getting what he's long called for. And yet another example of the Trump administration abusing their power [00:00:31] to target enemies of the president. The Justice Department has announced that they are opening a criminal probe into New York Attorney General Letitia James. Jank I feel like this was only ever just a matter of time, but what do you think? Is this investigation actually going to go anywhere? [00:00:48] Yeah. First, I'd like to note the irony of that great clip. The law should not be weaponized against your political opponents. And these people that are my political opponents should be arrested. Wait, what? Okay, so we'll come back to that too. But one of the things I care a lot about in this story is separating out [00:01:06] the two different issues, which is did folks charged with a crime actually do it? And should they have been investigated in the first place? And that's where it gets really difficult to discern what we should do in terms of targeting your political opponents. [00:01:23] Not difficult. But wait, we have to be consistent when it comes to Trump as well. So we'll talk about that a little bit later in the story as well. Yes. What else do you have first? Okay. Well, the DOJ has issued two subpoenas to James in recent days as part of an investigation into her successful civil fraud case against Donald Trump. [00:01:42] So Attorney General Pam Bondi has also appointed a special attorney to probe the New York AG. It says Bondi tapped Ed Martin, a conservative activist and former interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., as special attorney to investigate James. [00:01:59] The investigation is focused on whether her office used its authority to violate Trump's legal rights through its civil lawsuits against the president and his businesses. And as a reminder, James, a Democrat, successfully sued Trump and his company over what her office said were fraudulent misrepresentations [00:02:18] of his wealth and financial statements. A judge awarded James's office over $300 million in the case, an amount that since swelled to over $500 million with interest. Trump is appealing the judgment. The investigation is also looking at whether the National Rifle Association's [00:02:37] rights were violated by James civil suits. She unsuccessfully tried to secure the dissolution of the NRA. However, in 2024, James's office did win its civil fraud case against the longtime head of the NRA, Wayne Lapierre, [00:02:53] with a judge convicting him of diverting millions of dollars from the gun group from his own personal lifestyle. So it's not clear what evidence, if any, the Justice Department has gathered in the probe. Abbe Lowell, an attorney for James, said that the probe of her office's fraud [00:03:11] case against Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration, carrying out the president's political retribution campaign, weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official [00:03:26] for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration. And of course, the Trump administration is not just going after James. They've also announced that they're targeting Democratic Senator Adam Schiff [00:03:42] over allegations of mortgage fraud. The Federal Housing Finance Agency alleges that Schiff falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, which Schiff denies. So, you know, like it kind of to what Jake was teasing earlier in the story. [00:04:02] Yeah. Do some people deserve to be investigated? Right. And in the case of Adam Schiff, you know. Sure. Investigate it. And if it turns out that he did something that he shouldn't have done, then he should be prosecuted for that. I have no problem with that. And I imagine that a lot of Americans wouldn't have a huge problem with that, [00:04:18] regardless of what side of the aisle they sit on. But as far as Letitia James, these are cases that have already gone to trial, have already had verdicts. And yeah, that case against, not just Trump specifically himself, but the Trump, the corporation. [00:04:35] Right. The whole Trump business. Right. They were allegedly falsifying, their, their documents to make their number. They're fudging their numbers so they would get better terms. And they were found to be guilty of that. And the thing is, now that Trump is there and he has like the Justice Department [00:04:52] just working as his own personal team of attorneys. He can say, you know what? I don't like that past ruling. Let's go back and undo it. And it's very frustrating because right now we're seeing things that have already gone to court, that have already been tried, that have already been heard by juries, and it's [00:05:08] just everything is getting undone. And so it almost feels like, what was the point of any of it? You know, these were hard won victories, a lot of them. And now it's like none of it mattered for anything. You know, like Ghislaine Maxwell even is in a very, very low security prison now. [00:05:24] And she's about to probably get a pardon. So, Jake, what are your thoughts on this? And, what do you think is going to come from any of this? Yeah. So I look at it first as a shoe on the other foot. What would I do if it was me? So if they targeted me with a whole bunch of, terrible investigations, [00:05:41] in fact, here, you know what? I could do a specific example. So it's not a criminal or legal proceeding, but the New York Times targeted me when I was running for Congress in 2020 and told about a half a dozen outrageous lies about me. Right. So in return, would I want someone at TYT to tell half a dozen outrageous lies [00:06:01] about the reporter and the editor at the New York Times there? No. No. What I would prefer is that they actually do great journalism. Right. And that they fix themselves to do great journalism, not more shoddy journalism. So when you apply it here, what if you're talking about legal issues? [00:06:20] I wouldn't go after my political opponents legally. I wouldn't try to protect myself. I'd try to protect the rule of law. Okay. Now, did is Trump doing that? So if you're a Trump fan, you're thinking, well, of course, you know, these are very grave offenses. [00:06:35] You know, hurting Trump's feelings and such. No, I get it. You think that they wrongly, illegally targeted Trump. So that's why it's important to look at the details here. So one separate out whatever they're being charged with and why they're [00:06:51] being investigated and charged. So I hate when there are political investigations. So you say, wait a minute, wait a minute before you even get to the details of this, how about the political prosecution of Donald Trump? Well, look, I think that he did do all the things that he was charged with. [00:07:06] But as we said on the show at the time, there was something deeply problematic with Merrick Garland waiting two and a half years before charging those crimes, because then it made it right in the middle of the political cycle. If they were going to charge the crimes, they should have charged it [00:07:22] right in the beginning. So when he charged it that late, he made it political. And that was a problem. And we said on the record at the time that it was a problem. Right. So now when you turn to this, you look at the Letitia James example. [00:07:38] So did she do anything wrong? Well, guys, when you break it down, it's preposterous. They're saying she targeted Trump and the poor little NRA in a political prosecution. That's why she should be prosecuted. Wait a minute. She didn't prosecute the NRA. She prosecuted Wayne Lapierre, who actually misused funds at the NRA. [00:07:59] And he was guilty and he had to pay $5.4 million. That's actually protecting the NRA. That's deeply ironic that you would say that's targeting the NRA. And people at NRA at the time thanked her because he was misusing funds. [00:08:15] He and they did find him at fault for it. So if you say, I don't care, I don't care that she actually helped NRA, I don't care. I just want to use it as an excuse to target her because she targeted Trump. Well, then you're not for the rule of law. You're just for endless back and forth violations of the law and destruction [00:08:34] of our system of government and our law and order, really basically just to carry out political grudges and grievances. And that's not what this country should be about. Maz. Yeah. Jake, you said that you would not have people from TYT make up lies [00:08:52] about the New York Times to, reciprocate what they had done to you. That's because you have integrity, which is what Donald Trump does not have. He's a vindictive bully. And, it's, you know, and then Jack and Yasmin had said earlier that Yasmin, [00:09:10] when you brought up Adam Schiff, you said, if there's something there, you would want it investigated. I agree with you 100%. However, this Department of Justice can't be trusted because it's all just, you know, what Donald Trump wants them to do? They're doing it. And, you know, it's it's it shows you how because he's able to he's [00:09:30] always played this game, right. He just keeps delay delay delay appeal appeal appeal. And in this case, he got the ultimate pun intended trump card which was he's president now. And so it shows you if you have the money, if you have the power, if you have the access, you can continue to do these types of things and break the laws. [00:09:48] And in this case, get away with it or at least try to reverse it. And it's like, you know, it's as if I got a speeding ticket. And then I decided to investigate the cop, even though I was going fast. We all know Donald Trump does shady business. We all know that he lied in those documents, for for his business [00:10:08] and even if we assumed it. But we weren't sure. Well, the jury or the judge found it to be true after the trial was done. So you can't then in retrospect, go back and say we're going to, you know, investigate the investigator, but that's what's happening. [00:10:23] And be honest with you. When I hear these news, when I hear these types of news stories, I'm really starting to for a long time, I've started to just not believe in karma anymore, because in a, in a just world, Donald Trump would be in prison right now [00:10:38] for trying to overthrow the government on January 6th, and, and we wouldn't have to be dealing with any of this crap. Yeah, it does throw a lot of your beliefs of what the world is and what it could be into question, and you just have to kind of, like, vibe with it and be like, this is fine. [00:10:55] It's a lot worse than what I had hoped it was. But this is fine. But that is a good point that you made Maz about, you know, like this particular Justice Department investigating somebody like Adam Schiff, because, you know, at the Justice Department, they have seen a lot of turnover in the few months that Trump has been president. [00:11:11] Right? There have been, I think, like over like 60% of them, if not more by now, has resigned from that department because they don't want to lie on behalf of Donald Trump. Right. They don't want to do the things that he and Emil Bove are asking them to do. [00:11:28] They're asking them to lie under oath. There was a whistleblower who came out and he was talking to The New York Times, and he said, you know, I've been here for at the Justice Department of Justice as an attorney for 15 years. And I think you mentioned this. The job was always to defend the Constitution and to defend the law, [00:11:45] not to defend necessarily a particular policy or president or whoever. But now that has very much changed to the point where they were asking them to lie under oath. And the thing is, like once this administration goes away, right, and once it's in memory, and we'll look back on these years [00:12:02] and be like, you know, that was crazy. I can't believe we made it through that. Those attorneys, now, when they go to, you know, try and get a job, they're going to say, did you comply? Did you lie under oath? You can't be trusted anymore. That is their word as an attorney. And if they don't have that, then they don't have a whole lot [00:12:18] in that role anymore. So I think going forward, like it is going to be a very rough until, you know, some I don't know, like it's yeah, I feel bad because I always want to give people hope, but like, I don't know what or when things are going to get better, but they have to get better at some point or they'll just completely implode. [00:12:37] - Sorry. - Yeah. So there's some places where I do have a little bit of hope, like the MAGA rebellion on Epstein files, etc.. This is not a place where I have a lot of hope. Like they when Trump goes after his political opponents. A significant portion of MAGA, celebrates that very enthusiastically. [00:12:54] But, okay, I'm going to ask them to try to be unbiased one more time. Okay. Because breaking news, this just happened. So former acting director of the FBI, Brian Driscoll was asked, a little while ago by Emil Bo, the person that he has just referred to, to fire everyone who was involved in [00:13:15] the January 6th prosecutions at the FBI. He refused that order. And the reason he refused it is, well, first of all, because it's absolutely the wrong thing to do. Those people had assaulted cops. They had broken the law. They had done breaking and entering in multiple crimes. [00:13:31] But most importantly, those are decisions made at the top. The people who prosecuted them were literally doing their jobs. They had no choice but to do those jobs. As it turns out, what they were doing was perfectly fair and just, in my opinion, right? [00:13:46] But either way, they were good agents doing what their bosses asked them to do. There's no question about it. And Driscoll, who's known as Drizz, refused to comply with an order that was [00:14:02] that unfair and that against the people that served underneath him. Right. So they fired him. And the breaking news that just happened is a 200 FBI officers came out and gave [00:14:17] him a standing ovation as he was leaving. It was like, if you've watched Dead Poets Society, it's a little bit of, oh, captain, my captain moment. For for Driscoll as he was leaving the FBI office just now. Yikes. Yeah, that really brings it home. [00:14:32] That that image of that, that moment is so iconic. And it's it's iconic for a reason, right? Because it's like, here's this guy. And he was so revered in that role. And then he was taken down by the man, you know, by the system, by a corrupt system that was not looking out for the best interests of the students in that case, [00:14:50] or for the American people in this case, you know, but this is kind of what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of really, really good people having to step out of roles. And the flip side of that is that a lot of good people are trying their best to stay in roles and do what they can from the inside, to kind of mitigate a lot [00:15:07] of the damage that is wanting to be done. But, you know, with the first Trump administration, when they might have been successful doing that to a certain extent with this administration, they're they're just getting rid of people, you know, like if you're not on board, they're getting rid of you or they're encouraging you, they're making [00:15:23] it very hard for people to stay in their jobs and do their jobs without, you know, getting prosecuted themselves or fired or whatever. Yes, man, I love how you're trying to be optimistic and you're really trying to give hope. And we all are. We're all constantly like, oh, no. [00:15:40] - And and then it falls. - At the end. Yeah. He also said these lawyers are going to try and go get work and they're going to be like, you lied. Lawyers lie. That's what they do. And especially these lawyers lie a lot. Yeah. So yeah, I, I love I love optimism and I want to be optimistic. [00:15:57] But it's really hard, especially to Jenks point when you have MAGA celebrating these types of things. You know, I used to say like, where are the Republicans who care about America and the Constitution? And apparently there's just none left. I don't see any. I don't hear any. [00:16:13] Just what if there were just one guy or girl or whatever in Congress who came out and said, this is not right. And they just they they don't do that on the Republican side. They're just not doing that. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. [00:16:28] But it does keep you updated on our live shows.