A Nation in Decline

a really the word is sad? Is grief struck? Just demoralize feeling in my soul that as we are watching the dysfunction continue need to play out on the House floor at the hands of Republican insurrectionists and anti democratic figures.

All of this, all of this could have been stopped if the Department of Justice, led by Merritt Garland had done its fucking job over the last two years, had held any of the architects of the insurrection accountable, had pulled out the Republican members of Congress who provided recognisance tours to the insurrectionists and actually pointed out the offices of their colleague so that harm could come to them.

If this Department of Justice had done its job, we wouldn't be in this current shit show that we are witnessing, which is in large amount, folks, the unraveling of our democracy. Sure, folks want to pop popcorns and send memes because you know, we need to assuage our anxiety and fear that. You know what, the insurrection still continues two years later because we have a dysfunctional, fucking Department of Justice that is

too chicken shit to do its job. And so today, on this day that should be covered wall to wall, should be on every cable news station, every news station, on the front of every goddamn paper in this country, we are watching them rewrite and derace history and to

make us believe that this day never happened. Well, I for one will use whatever microphone I am in front of whatever platform I am on from now until the end of fucking time to mark this day because it is one that should go down in infamy in our history. If we have the ability after twenty two years of the horrific nine to eleven attack on this country by foreign terrorists, you tell me why we can't commemorate and lift up and acknowledge the attack on our democracy by

white domestic terrorists. So I, for one, choose never to forget and to honor those that defended our capital building, that defended all of the members inside, and our right to vote and our democracy every year on this day until justice is served. Coming up next, my conversation with our dear friend Glenn Kirshner. Friends, I am always very excited,

particularly as we start this new year. Glenn, I cannot believe that it has been almost three years since we have been in conversation, talking about so many things over the course of the last three years. But as we enter twenty twenty three, wishing you and your family a

happy new year, I am filled today. Folks. You'll listen to this on Monday, but Glenn and I are recording this on the actual anniversary of the insurrection, the two year anniversary of January sixth, and Glenn, I know before we delve in deeply into conversation, how are you feeling today? I want to get your thoughts on how you feel

waking up on this anniversary two years later. So on the one hand, I want to make sure we honor the heroes of January sixth and not only on that sort of everything surrounding Donald Trump's efforts to end our

democracy and the people who stood up against it. I am thrilled that President Biden is giving a Presidential Citizens Medal not only to Capitol Police officers like Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonnell, Metropolitan Police Department officer Mike fin Own, and importantly Georgia's state election workers Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman and others. I think we need to make sure that every year we honor their sacrifice what they did

on and around January sixth. But I'm pretty disgusted that there has been not one minute of accountability for Donald Trump and his criminal associates and his co conspirators who committed crimes that would be easily proved in a court of law, and yet nothing has been done to hold them accountable. That I will never understand how we've gotten to this place where a Department of Justice that was my professional home for decades has failed in its responsibility

to protect our nation and its people. You know, so I don't want to be all gloom and doom on the anniversary of January sixth, but you know, it doesn't really feel like much of an anniversary because I have yet to see any public display of the acknowledgement of the attack on our democracy on January sixth, and the

fact that this is the two year anniversary. You know, maybe it's early in the day and we'll see something later today, but you know, the the attack on our nation on January sixth, I believe was far more damaging to the health of our republic than the attack on nine to eleven. I mean, there's no two ways about it. And yet we still seem to be in denial. And I hope as time progresses, you know, we move beyond that.

You know, I woke up this morning in kind of thought, in deep thought about the way in which we have commemorated and honored the victims of nine to eleven, the heroes of nine to eleven, for the last what now it will be twenty two years. And we have no problem in this country rallying together and pointing fingers when those those that perpetrate violence against us are foreign, right, we have had no problem. We had no problem after nine to eleven rounding up Muslim Americans, right and making

them register because of the acts of a few. But when it pertains to holding white Americans accountable for their violence, their anti democratic ideology. We seem not only Glenn, do we not have any laws. We don't really even have any conviction in terms of how we discuss and how

we name this day. The Washington Post and I don't know if you saw it, but the Washington Post put out a piece and I couldn't believe it that the US Capital Visitor Center, which I'm sure you've been to, I've been through many times, has no plaque, no remembrance, no nothing as it pertains to January sixth. The tour guides that provide the tours around the Capitol Building to mark and denote all the history that is there are told to stay silent about January sixth because it's too

quote unquote political. So I'm just wondering, you know, as as somebody who lives in the DMV area, as somebody like myself who has worked inside of government and believes in its structures and believes in history and the constitution, what does it say that we are, in real time watching the whitewashing and erasure and the rewrite of this monumental day. You know, it says that we are a

nation in decline. That's what it says, Danielle, Because not only are we whitewashing it, not only are we failing to acknowledge it, but we are also in the process of reinstalling in Congress insurrectionists, the very people who aided and embedded and gave aid and comfort to and some who engaged in insurrection. If and when the Congress can, ever, the House of Representatives, can ever elect a speaker, those

insurrectionists will be sworn into Congress. Again, let me just read twenty five or thirty words from the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, because they're unequivocal, and if there's anybody that loves them some strict construction of the Constitution, it's the Republicans. Yeah, So let's let's read what the Constitution says about the members of Congress or the members elect who are about to be sworn in, who engaged in insurrection.

No person shall be a representative in Congress who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection. That is not may might can, that is shall, Danielle. The Constitution prohibits insurrectionists from being sworn in to Congress. What what is our government going to do about that? Are they going to passively let you know, members of Congress who were elected after having engaged in insurrection be sworn in so

they can continue to destroy us from the inside. That is so far beyond us refusing to acknowledge in capital tours that the insurrection even happened. That is us, the people who are not doing anything about it, basically continuing to give aid and comfort to the insurrection. I don't understand any of this. I don't understand any of it.

You know, I couldn't help too, but think to myself, because not only are these insurrectionists being sworn in, these are people there, And I want folks to remember this is not just These are not just people that stood up on a dais and repeated Donald Trump's treason as talking points. These are people that gave recognisance tours inside of the Capitol Building to point out the offices and the spaces that their colleagues held so that harm would

be brought to them. That's what I want people to remember. That I think is just entirely glossed over. They knowingly gave tours well aware of what was coming the following day. Because of all of the chatter that had been happening in their own feeds on these social media sites, in their chat groups, they knew what kind of harm and

damage could be brought. And these are the people that right now, Glenn have But I don't know who voted, and I don't know who gave the direction to remove metal detectors all around the house floor that we're put there after the insurrection in order to keep members, all members safe. I don't trust any of these people to not do what happened to Harvey Milk so many decades ago and be shot dead by one of your colleagues.

It's you know, I think that because we are not talking about this, because we are not naming this, because we're not embedding it as a part of our history. My feeling, Glenn, is that what we saw on January six, two years ago, was indeed address rehearsal, and that I don't know if it is, you know, as had said, a lack of imagination on the part of the Department of Justice, the FBI and whomember else, or if it is just going along for the get along because they

too want to see the demise of our democracy. You've worked inside of this the Department of Justice for three decades, and I have been told on so many occasions that we need to just be patient. Tell me, has the patients run out yet? Oh? It ran out for me a long time ago. You know, once you have probable cause to believe someone has committed a crime. Now, mind you, we have that back during the Mullah Report and even before for things like campaign finance crimes that Donald Trump committed.

Once you have probable cause, you have a responsibility. You have a responsibility to assess each and every day whether you need to make an arrest because there is a danger, there's a da you're in leaving folk out in the community like Donald Trump after you know, he tried to kill our democracy, and yet they've left him out in the community month after month, year after year, and you

see the result. He continues to tweet lies about you know, those two women down in Georgia who were simply trying to serve as election workers and were doing their honest best, and he put their names out there and their lives were threatened. And just when you think Danielle It had calmed down, he re ups what he knows to be lies about those women, puts them back in harm's way in the Department of Justice has failed has failed to protect them. By holding Donald Trump accountable for his crimes,

they are enabling the very crimes Donald Trump continues to commit. Danielle, It would be no different if the Department of Justice said we're done prosecuting bank robbers. What would that do? It would inspire all kinds of people to jump into the bank robbery game. When they refuse to prosecute ruling class criminals for trying to kill our democracy, they're sending the signal to the round the santisis of the world

a sport. You get to do it all over again to unlawfully retain power because we ain't holding Donald Trump and company accountable for it, so we're giving you permission to do it. This is not rocket science. This is law enforcement and good government. One oh one. I don't understand how our country has fallen so far, so fast.

I mean it, really, it is really shocking. When we think about two hundred and forty plus years of this country's independence and you think about the rot that has has been born out of the last seven it is really shocking to think just how fragile our democracy is.

And you know, Glenn, before the holiday, before the break, and before the new year, the January sixth Committee had to wrap up, and because of the razor thin margin that the Republicans won, that they clearly as of right now, as of this taping, have had eleven votes for Speaker and eleven failures on the part of Kevin McCarthy, eleven failures on the part of the Republican Party, and eleven failures towards keeping our country safe. And we just continue

to go on. They release their final report, which laid out their reasoning, their evidence behind the four criminal referrals that they have provided to the Department of Justice. I know that you haven't read the entirety of this voluminous report, but I wanted to give you space to offer some of the highlights because I know that right before the break and during the break, you were speaking about the

report it's importance and the importance of these referrals. That again, seven years prior to Donald Trump, this would have been wall to wall coverage news day in and day out. But we know in the current climate, Nixon would have gotten off and probably lived out a second term so tell us some of the highlights that you have seen and read from the report. Yeah, so let me hit three things, Danielle. First of all, we're forever conditioned to

look for the smoking gun, the blockbuster piece of evidence. Right, That's why we watch Law and Order, forever read crime fiction novels. I'm a crime fiction junkie. It's kind of fun. The reality is, in my thirty years prosecuting cases, I rarely had a smoking gun or a blockbuster piece of evidence. I built cases on a thousand points of circumstantial evidence that I had to pull together for the jury into one cohesive picture. It's a picture of guilt beyond a

reasonable doubt. So first of all, Donald Trump and his criminal associates understand the value of flooding the zone because when everything is criminal, then nothing, no one thing persuades people. Right that, because there is the missing smoking gun. The reality is all of the evidence in there is smoking guns. I mean, Donald Trump is shrouded in gun smoke and

will always be shrouded in gun smoke. But first of all, the one overarching observation about the report is it is like what we call a case impression memo, a prosecution report, because all of the evidence that you need to convict Donald Trump and his co conspirators are right there in black and white in the report. The only impediment to a Trump conviction right now is a Trump indictment. All

we need is an indictment. We walk into court, we firmly plant our feet in the well, and we argue to twelve citizens in a jury box sitting as the conscience of the community, and they will vote guilty. They will vote guilty as long as we can impanel a fair and impartial jury, and I believe we can for a lot of reasons. Here are some of that. So

that's the overarching observation about the report. Let me use two pieces of the report to compare and contrast two things that we learned from two people inside Trump world. One is Hope Picks and one is Cassidy Hutchinson. Let

me start with Hope Picks. Hope Hicks, who was a long time Donald Trump loyalist, a member of his inner circle, who knew she could be so compelling because in just a couple of text messages that she sent on January, as is revealed in the report, she tells us everything we need to know about the Trump administration and the insurrection. She on January sixth, while the attack on the Capitol was ongoing, she said, Oh my god, now everybody is

going to look at us like domestic terrorists. Check. That's because the Trump administration launched the attack on our democracy, and they are domestic terrorists. So what she announced, number one is that everybody on the inside Trump's in her circle knew Trump was responsible for the insurrection too. She said, the only people that will have us now for speaking

engagements are the Proud Boys. So she announced who Donald Trump's allies were in the insurrection, A white supremacist nationalist group, the Proud Boys. Check. And then she said something that is in some ways even more disturbing than those first two things, because we already knew those first two things.

She said, while police officers were being attacked, while they were looking to hang Mike Pence, while they were hunting for Nancy Pelosi and our other lawmakers, Hope Hicks said, man, I am never going to be able to get a job again in the future. She was more concerned about her own job prospects than she cared about the people putting their lives on the line at the US Capitol. So what that shows us is that Trump and his

inner circle were never there to serve the public. They wanted to know how the public can serve them and their interests financial and otherwise. That's the takeaway from Hope Hicks text messages on January sixth. Let's go to Cassidy Hutchinson because she was also part of Trump World. She was Mark Meadows right hand, you know, Gal Friday, and she saw a lot of what was going on in the Oval Office and in the area surrounding the Oval Office.

And first of all, Trump World forced a lawyer on her, the guy named Yestefahn Passantino get this for Irony, a White House ethics counsel, and she kept asking him, Stefan, who the hell's paying for you? Because you're my lawyer, but I'm not paying for you. He wouldn't tell her. He wouldn't tell her that it was a Trump pack,

a Trump affiliated organization that was paying for him. He did tell her at one point, listen, we are here to focus on protecting the president, do you know That's what her lawyer said to her, not that we are here to protect you and make sure you don't go to jail, but we're here to protect the president. Focusing on protecting the president, do you know what a legal transgression that is for a lawyer to represent the interests of somebody other than his client. I mean, that's an

instantly desborable offense. But setting that aside because he's got criminal exposure, in my opinion, He then was urging her. You know, you can say you don't recall things. She's like, but I do recall things. And her first few appearances in front of the J six Committee, she was on the Trump train, being represented by a Trump loyalist, and she was all about, I don't remember, I don't recall.

I don't Oh jeez, I don't know. I can't. And then she had to look herself in the mirror, she said, and she reached out the family, and that's a whole other story and a very sad story. And she finally said, I can't do this anymore. She fired Stefan. She hired an actual lawyer who had her interests at heart. She went back into the J six committee and she corrected the record and started telling the truth. And one there was one moment when she said, you know, when I

was on the Trump train. I came out and I said to Stefan, oh, my effing god, I just committed perjury because I said I didn't recall something that I do recall, and he said, I can't quote it, verbade him, but he basically said, yeah, but they you know what they don't know what you recall and what you don't, so don't worry about it. And then he said something that I want to finish with because this comes back to the Department of Justice and its failure to hold

folk accountable. He said, at one point to Cassidy Hutchinson, while he was still her attorney, why don't you just start defy the congressional subpoena because you've already appeared a couple of times. Basically, she'd been towing the I don't know party line. Why don't you just defy the subpoena? You know why, Cassidy, Because Mark Meadows and Dan Scovino defied congressional subpoenas and the Department of Justice did nothing

to them. What does that doesn't that kind of go back to the whole If you stop prosecuting bank robbery, everybody's going to jump into the bank robbery game. That highlights Danielle and I can't be more emphatic about it.

That highlights the danger of the Department of Justice refusing to enforce the law against the ruling class criminals like Mark Meadows and Dan Scovino, because it inspires others to say, oh, they didn't get punished for defying congressional subpoenas, for hiding the evidence of Donald Trump's crimes, for refusing to testify.

I'm going to do that too. That's why the Department of Justice has to enforce the damned law against the ruling class criminals more importantly than frankly, the purse snatchers or the car thieves, right, because the ruling class criminals are the ones who do large swaths of damage to our democracy. So, you know, Cassidy Hutchinson, thank goodness, came around and told the truth, and as a result, I absolutely believe you will see Jack Smith drop indictments for

conspiracy to tamper with witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson. And I was thrilled to see in the J six report that they didn't just refer Donald Trump for prosecution for the insurrection, which he did. They didn't just refer him for conspiracy to defraud the United States, which he did, and they didn't just refer him for obstruction of official proceedings trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden's win, which they did.

They also referred him and this was the sleeper charge for conspiracy to tamper with witnesses, more specifically, conspiracy to make a false statement. That is the conspiracy he seems to have been in with, at a minimum Stefan Passantino to try to shut up Cassidy Hutchinson. He's going to be indicted for that. I mean, Glenn, last question for you, and I appreciate so much you laying out these highlights that the fact that you know, oftentimes there isn't a

smoking gun. But I don't know how much more smoke the Department of Justice is looking for. I really don't. It's like a fucking bonfire at this point. Jack Smith was appointed at the end of last year to be the special counsel when we knew that the Department of Justice didn't need a special counsel. We have been told time and time again. Oh, he's come back to the United States from the Hague. He's prosecuted war criminals, and mobsters and all of these things, and he's not afraid

to lose. I mean, I am running out of faith right as I know that you are, because I remember, I remember you telling all of us be patient. This is going to take time. We want to get this right, all of these things. And here we sit two years later, it's twenty twenty three, Glenn. Are we saying that this is going to be the year? And if it's not, I'm going to assume then it will never be because twenty twenty four is the presidential election. Yeah, we have

hero fatigue, Danielle. I think both you and I have hero fatigue. I don't have a lot of heroes. I am exactly one picture on my desk in a frame. And to the extent I have any heroes, I mean, this is maybe the guy Abe Lincoln. That's it. So yes, I worked for Bob Muller. I looked up to Bob Muller. I learned from Bob Muller, and I had high hopes for Bob Muller's report. I think when you read the report, let's never forget that he documented several felony crimes committed

by Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. And he handed it to Bill Barr, and Bill Barr lied about it and basically killed any opportunity for Trump to be held accountable by his lies. That's one of the reasons the Republicans in the Senate killed all of the other opportunities to hold Trump accountable politically in the impeachment trial. So, I you know, Bob Muller, I don't believe let the country down the way some people now come to argue he did, because he gave and don't forget he said.

Oh and by the way, Trump could be indicted the day he leaves office, and nobody has done that. That's not Bob Muller's sport fault. I'm not here arguing that he did the perfect job. I'm arguing this is why I have hero fatigue. I thought Mueller would bring it home.

I think he was prevented from bringing it home. I thought Merrick Garland, given his history, given his backstory, given his work as a prosecutor and his twenty four years as a judge, and the fact that both Obama and Biden credited this man as the right man for first the Supreme Court and then the Department of Justice, how can that not give you confidence. How can it not

give you confidence? If it was Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham saying Merrick Garland's the right man from the job, I would say, everybody run in the other direction away from Merrick Garland, because you know he can't be trusted and we were let down. Yep, we've been let down. I'm not prepared to say, Jack Smith, here we go. Third times a charm? How many times

you're gonna fool us? Right? However, if anybody has the actual bona fide days in recent history, not ancient history, like Merrick Garland twenty five years before four he was nominated to be ag you know, the guy is not only a war crimes prosecutor, but he goes after political criminals, criminal politicians, and he has prosecuted them over and over

and over again. Left, right and center, right, Bob Menendez, Bob McDonald, John Edwards, that Arizona Republican representative who he convicted of bribery, CIA officer for compromising classified materials, over and over and over and over. I mean you can look at his body of work and say it's there, it is verifiable. And I love that he's lost some cases and won some cases because he's not afraid to take politically charged cases that are really difficult to prove.

Give me a prosecutor who is fearless, a real without fear or favor guy or gal. That's who I want to be in the prosecutorial trenches with fighting shoulder to shoulder. But I agree with you, Danielle. If twenty twenty three isn't the year, and if Jack Smith isn't the guy, then our republic is limping toward extinction, and better republics than us have fallen. We can fall to if we don't take seriously the responsibility to hold the ruling class

criminals accountable. At least Jack Smith has shown he has tried to hold ruling class criminals accountable, including senators who are running for president of the United States like Bob Edwards.

So he's our last best shot. Yeah, Glenn, you know, I tell you that I really appreciate your insight, and I actually and I really appreciate you today Again, folks who were recording this on the anniversary of January sixth to two year anniversary, because frankly, I don't know if anyone else is going to have an in depth conversation about the real danger that this country remains in today,

which is going to be a tragedy. So Glenn, thank you as always for joining Woke app and sharing your analysis and your passion for the law and for justice. We really appreciate you. Thanks, Danielle, I'll see you next week. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke App. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.