Time for Pam Bondi Intervention

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Hey everyone, Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday, the last Friday before Christmas. I do kind of love the fact that both Christmas and New Year's fall right smack in the middle of two consecutive weeks. sort of blowing up both of those weeks in the best possible sense. So I hope you do get a minute to take a breather, to take off work, spend time with family and enjoy the holidays.

I do want to say a couple words before we get into this week's piece about Rob Reiner. I do not want to further discuss the president's disgraceful response to it. I think everybody... Republican and Democrat alike, for the most part, is unified in condemning what Trump said. I just don't want to give it any more oxygen. I do want to take a minute to talk about Rob Reiner himself because I came to know him a little bit. I don't want to overstate this, but a little bit.

Here's the basic story. So he reached out to me by DM when I started doing this media stuff. It must have been 2018, 19. It was early on. It was right in the beginning, basically. He reached out to me. There's no way I would have ever just DMed Rob Reiner.

with really nice, encouraging little notes. You know, saw you on air, nice job. I don't remember if he would listen to Cafe or not, but he would just reach out from time to time with positive encouragement, which was great. And we sort of connected. We both are baseball fans. you know, had similar, I guess, sensibilities. And at a certain point, he said to me, do you want to, I'm coming to New York City. I want to record this, basically a PSA. It was this.

video explaining the Mueller report to take you back to that time. And I said, of course. And he gave me, he DM me the address or whatever. And I showed up and I don't think I expected him to physically be there, but Rob Reiner was there as was Michelle, his wife. And he actually directed me. It was just a minute long or so. I had to just read a thing off a teleprompter.

And he was delightful. It was great to meet him. I said something like, oh, you're actually directing this. He was sitting in a director's chair and he said something like, yeah, Ellie, that's what I do. I love it when someone just busts chops. It's a certain way that...

people relate to each other. Maybe it's a guy thing. And then I do remember I said to him, I had come from CNN, so I was wearing a suit. And I said, you know, I never can decide whether I should like tuck the bottom of my tie into my belt and pants. Because you don't want it hanging out the bottom of your suit jacket. I said, but then again, my mom always says when I do that, it kind of bunches up up top. And Reiner goes, Ellie.

Always listen to your Jewish mother, which is very good advice. And then we stayed in touch. He would send me texts and DMs from time to time, same as before. You know, this guy did not have to do this. I mean, he's a man who was known and loved and respected to presidents. I mean, you've seen the story that he was supposed to have dinner with the Obamas on the night that he and Michelle were murdered. He had nothing to gain.

by reaching out to me other than just spreading positivity and encouraging someone who is new to the profession. So there are... Many, many, many thousands of people who knew him better than I did, but I will certainly remember that and take it with me. Just wanted to share that little bit with you all.

Okay, on with this week's piece. As always, send your thoughts, questions, comments into lettersatcafe.com. When Christopher Moltisanti walks into the dingy apartment and sees a gathering of concerned family, friends, and professional colleagues, he wants no part of the impending intervention. The mafia protege, played unforgettably by Michael Imperioli in HBO's The Sopranos, spins around to leave until he's ordered back in by the boss, Tony Soprano.

The assembled gangsters and hangers-on take turns imploring Moltisanti to kick his self-destructive habits. Paulie Walnuts cuts to the chase. I don't write nothing down, so I'll keep this short and sweet. You're weak. You're out of control. And you become an embarrassment to yourself and everybody else. It's time for the Pam Bondi intervention. I doubt that any of the top political appointees at the Justice Department have the chops or guts necessary to tell the Attorney General.

that she's fighting a losing cause with a series of doomed, presidentially decreed payback prosecutions. But she'd be well advised to heed the unmistakable message that has been sent by judges. grand juries, and DOJ alumni alike. The cases are failing and doomed to fail further, and she's doing irreparable institutional harm to the Justice Department.

We're familiar by now with the roll call of names who President Donald Trump yearns to see on the other side of the V in federal prosecutions brought by Bondi's Justice Department. Former FBI Director Jim Comey and current New York Attorney General Letitia James have already been charged, and those cases have backfired fast and hard and predictably.

Last month, a federal judge threw out both indictments because the Justice Department had improperly installed prosecutorial neophyte Lindsay Halligan as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The joint dismissals were a sharp rebuke of the Justice Department, and then Bondi made it all worse still. Two weeks ago, DOJ tried to re-indict James, but a grand jury rejected the proposed indictment. The burden of proof.

is mere probable cause, far lower than proof beyond reasonable doubt. And prosecutors need the votes of only a majority of grand jurors, not unanimity as required in a trial setting. You've surely heard the ham sandwich maxim. I'm here to tell you that it's true. Undeterred and unenlightened, DOJ tried last week to re-reindict James and met the same result with a different grand jury rejecting the case. Fun fact, by the way, yesterday was the first...

Thursday since Thanksgiving when the Justice Department did not have a proposed Letitia James indictment rejected by a grand jury. Congratulations are surely in order. Bondi's bumbling prosecutors can try yet again if they're gluttons for humiliation, unlike a trial acquittal, which bars a second prosecution based on double jeopardy principles.

There's no technical limit to the number of times prosecutors can ask grand juries to indict. But somebody needs to explain to Bondi that as a practical matter. It's over. It's an embarrassment to get rejected by a grand jury once. It's a mathematical near impossibility to flame out twice. Enough is enough. Even if DOJ succeeds in resuscitating the James or Comey indictments.

Fatal flaws abound. Both defendants have strong arguments for dismissal based on selective or vindictive prosecution. Comey has a compelling claim that the five-year statute of limitations has expired on his allegedly false testimony from September 30th.

2020. And even if the Justice Department somehow clears those hurdles, Then there's the non-trivial matter of convincing a trial jury to convict unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt on indictments featuring evidence that ranges from wafer thin. Letitia James stood to make at most a few thousand dollars from her alleged mortgage fraud to confounding. It's not at all clear what exactly Comey testified to at all, never mind that he intentionally lied.

A spate of Trump's other perceived political antagonists, Senator Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, former special counsel Jack Smith, are all under federal investigation at the president's command for various and hazy purported offenses. The indictment of John Bolton, by the way, is different. That investigation reportedly predated the current Trump administration and the charges of mishandling classified information seem serious and well-supported.

DOJ senior staffers would do themselves and Bondi a favor to convince her not to throw still more political sucker punches at the occupants of Trump's blacklist. How much more high-profile losing can the AG tolerate? How much more can the Justice Department take?

Even former Attorney General Bill Barr, the titular subject of my 2021 book, Hatchet Man, how Bill Barr broke the prosecutor's code and corrupted the Justice Department, even Barr. had his limits. Despite public calls by Trump to prosecute Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and other prominent Democrats, Barr essentially ignored the president's fits of pique and let them Tucker out. Bondi, by contrast,

has hopped to whenever called upon by the president. Perhaps an intervention aimed at Bondi would be a bit misdirected. It's plain, after all, that she's largely carrying out the will of her boss. But she's also a deeply experienced prosecutor with enormous power, broad discretion, and ultimately a department to lead and a legacy.

to consider. Bondi isn't some helpless ninny compelled by circumstances to act against her will. She's the Attorney General of the United States. Even if Bondi or Trump can't be convinced that their abuse of the criminal justice process is wrongheaded, perhaps an appeal to raw politics will resonate. Indeed, we've seen meaningful cracks in the unified front of political supporters who typically insulate Trump. He'll never lose his base, but he won't always command unyielding fealty. For example.

Republican-led congressional committees recently demanded answers from the administration on a series of legally dubious bombings of Venezuelan drug boats. After just enough Republicans in Congress defied Trump's efforts to suppress the Jeffrey Epstein files, the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill requiring broad, if not quite complete, public disclosure.

Indiana Republicans rejected Trump's calls for mid-decade gerrymandering, evoking the president's fury. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece titled Trump's grip on Republicans shows first signs of slipping.

And a recent study by Marquette Law School shows that 55% of all respondents disapprove of the administration's prosecutions of Trump's political opponents, including 48 percent of Republican respondents and 47 percent of independents, when nearly half of the president's own political supporters. Think he's out of line? Might be time to listen up. I suspect that any effort to course-correct Pam Bondi would end about the same as the Sopranos' intervention. Insults hurled.

crisscrossing accusations of bad acts and bad faith, hands thrown, little resolved or improved. But even Christopher Moltisanti eventually did get help temporarily. And some effort at self-correction is preferable to resigned acceptance of a mad dash down the path of certain failure. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed. Did you know business cards and corporate cards are different business cards are great for smaller companies.

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