Author Talk: Andrew Weissmann — Liar's Kingdom - with Carol Leonnig

追加: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Okay, it's nice to see uh so many people actually interested in the truth um and uh fighting off lies. Um good evening and welcome to Politics and Pros at the Warf. I'm Brad Graham, the co-owner of the bookstore, along with my wife, Lissa Musketine. And we are very delighted to be hosting Andrew Weissman, who's here to talk about his new book, Liars Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America. Uh, Andrew is is now an NYU law professor with a very distinguished uh previous track record in both uh government and the private sector. Uh after starting out as an organized crime prosecutor in Brooklyn, he served as leader of the task force that uh investigated Enron, later as um FBI general counsel and then chief of the Justice Department's fraud section.

[00:00:59]And after that, he was a senior uh prosecutor on Robert Mueller's special counsel team investigating uh Russian interference in the 2016 election. These days, Andrew appears frequently as a legal analyst on MS Now and co-hosts the podcast Maine Justice. He also writes a Substack newsletter uh Behind the Headlines. His previous books include a memoir about the Mueller investigation, Where Law Ends, and a collection of the charging documents in the uh indictments of Donald Trump uh with commentary by Andrew and legal scholar Melissa Murray.

[00:01:41]Um Andrew also has the uh distinction of having been targeted not just once, but twice by Donald Trump's executive orders last year. One revoked Andrew's security clearance, although he no longer held the clearance by then.

[00:02:03]A second order targeted the law firm Jenner and Block uh that Andrew went to work for after departing Mueller's team.

[00:02:10]Uh although Andrew had since left the firm.

[00:02:15]That order described Andrew as unethical and dishonest. Trump added bad guy and scum.

[00:02:24]and Steven Miller piled on with and degenerate.

[00:02:30]So, you get the idea. I mean, yeah, it's fun to sort of chuckle about it.

[00:02:34]However, there were serious consequences, it turned out. Uh, one of which was the original publisher for this book after all this uh dumped Andrew.

[00:02:45]Uh, and so did the law firm that was representing him. Fortunately, uh he's found new lawyers and uh he's found he found a new publisher, which is why he's here tonight. And we're very very happy uh about all that. Anyway, Andrew has had lots of um personal experience with politicians and others telling lies, not simply about him, but about much else.

[00:03:09]and his book sounds an alarm about how a wash America has become in untruths, especially those told by politicians uh without any accountability.

[00:03:21]Uh this is now Andrew argues with good reason one of the major factors gravely eroding American democracy. And yet, as he notes, there's plenty of precedent in other areas um for legally uh punishing lies. Consider, for instance, the laws that we have against perjury or laws that exist against lying to Congress or or telling falsehood to investigators.

[00:03:47]Corporate executives can be sued for lying to shareholders. So, so why then can't presidents or presidential candidates be sued for knowingly lying to the public? They could and should be, Andrew argues, and he proposes ways of doing so. Uh and by the way, some other countries have imposed such such sanctions and Andrew describes what they've done. Uh there's urgency to Andrew's argument and his case is very compelling. Read his book and you'll understand if you don't already the need for action now and what specific measures must be taken to stop the widespread deceit undermining our democracy.

[00:04:34]In conversation with Andrew will be someone who has spent a career searching for truth and digging up often hard to get facts. Journalist Carol Lennig. In her 25 years with the Washington Post, Carol won a mere five uh Pulitzer prizes uh once for revoly coverage of misconduct and security failures within the Secret Service and four um as part of Washington Post teams. She's also written four great books, Zero Fail about the Secret Service, two on Donald Trump's first presidency co-authored with her post colleague Phil Rucker, and most recently a book entitled Injustice about the Justice Department under Trump and Joe Biden. She's now a senior investigative reporter for MS Now.

[00:05:23]Please join me in welcoming Andrew Weissman and Carol Lenick.

[00:05:42]Well, thank you, Brad, so so much. Um, it's always Can you guys hear me? Um, uh, it's always so lovely to have Brad do the introductions. Um, he's he's kind of also my neighbor. He lives in a slightly bigger house than me, but um it looks like an Episcopal school actually.

[00:06:02]But uh I love his introduction because he's part of the original the OG Washington Post that I joined uh 26 plus years ago. It's an honor to be here at the Warf with you all. It's also a personal treat and an honor to be interviewing Andrew Weissman.

[00:06:22]He is somebody whose work I admired for a long time uh as a little nobody covering my beat in the federal court.

[00:06:33]Um and eventually learning more and more about the Enron case and being fascinated by what was going on down there. Um, and then I got to know him sometimes in secretive ways, but I got to know him and really and and now he is in in essence a colleague because I work as a reporter for MS Now and Andrew's been quite an important legal analyst fixture there um before I arrived. So, I'm I'm delighted to be here. I also have learned something from Andrew when he interviewed me for a book I wrote called Injustice, which is when you like the book, hold it up and say, "Buy this book."

[00:07:20]And apparently Lawrence O'Donnell did this for Andrew um with great genuiness.

[00:07:26]And I honestly am telling you genuinely, if you're looking for a p, this is not mutual admiration society, he didn't offer me any money.

[00:07:37]This book is something I've been kind of asking sources about for a long time and not getting a clear answer. What is your plan for dealing with um what appears to be a lot of criminal conspiracy emanating from the White House and a series of lies that somebody's getting away with and all of his allies are getting away with. What are you going to do? And this book actually starts to spell that out. But I'll I'll shut up with this and say, >> Andrew, pleasure to be here with you.

[00:08:11]>> So nice to be here. Thank you all for coming.

[00:08:14]Um, I love to start a book conversation this way, which is how did you decide to write this book? Where were you? What were you thinking?

[00:08:26]>> Well, I was like I'm sure all of you thinking about the problem of political lies and how much uh there were sort of day in and day out there was that drum beat. Um, little did I know that we would have conquered that completely so my book would be out of date because we don't really have that issue anymore.

[00:08:51]But I thought I'd address it um uh nevertheless. Um, so I was thinking about political lies and I was thinking about as sort of one truism, one thing that was a a fact is that we were just seeing so many lies um by politicians.

[00:09:10]uh and obviously I think principally from uh our president and um second I was thinking about our media environment that it's so bulcanized and that we weren't we weren't in this stage of you know the sort of Walter Kronhite world of three networks and there's sort of a shared uh universe of core facts then you have a debate what to do based on those facts um and that that sort of a was a second problem that we weren't able to sort of say don't worry the marketplace of ideas will deal with the lies and that this will all sort of uh be the way to deal with that problem and that's sort of a traditional response that I talk about in the book. So these were sort of the two givens and then I really thought about my personal experience. Um and I was just thinking this is just so odd that you can and I take I take as an example the sort of what I view as the biggest lie and the sort of most clearcut one because we have such a good record on it which is that there was material fraud in the 2020 election. Um, and I decided to pick that one because um, as a friend of mine said, if you were going to cover all lies, this this would have been like, you know, the this would have been the introduction. Um, so I allude to that and talk about other ones, but that's sort of the for purposes of understanding the issue. I sort of take that as the a core one to focus on and thought about why is it that you referred to Enron um Ken Lelay and Jeff Skielling uh were charged criminally and were sued civily for lying about the internal health of that company um and presenting a false portrait of how the company was doing and based on their public lies about shares of stock. They um both were found guilty. They were there were enormous uh financial penalties.

[00:11:21]Uh and then I thought about other things in my life. I organized crime figures.

[00:11:26]Uh Roger Stone lying to Congress as found by a jury. Uh Paul Manifford having admitted under oath that he lied to his lawyers. He lied to DOJ. He lied to banks. He lied to the FBI. Um >> and also his wife as I remember.

[00:11:47]>> So um so um so I'm going to stay with the ones that are criminalized.

[00:11:54]And I don't go that far yet. That maybe will be volume two will be that. But to be serious, I was thinking about all of these ways that we have sanctioned um making false factual statements. not false opinions, false factual statements. And then on the civil side, I mentioned obviously Enron, but also Rudy Giuliani was sued successfully for false statements that he made about Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss, the two Georgia election workers. Um, Eugene Carol um sued um our sitting president not once but twice and and won and the core of that was defamation.

[00:12:39]um and and other things. Um but meaning that we have all these ways to have civil and criminal sanctions for making false factual statements. Um and and a court system to adjudicate that with due process, whether it's in the civil context or a criminal context. Then I thought, isn't it just so odd that like that we can say that if you lie about a share of stock, you can go to jail, but if you lie about something so core to our democracy that it's the ballot box.

[00:13:16]We have absolutely no civil or criminal law that deals with that. So that was sort of the genesis of and I wanted to explore why are we doing that? Um and that the part I found sort of most interesting was I really started looking um overseas because I really wanted to see what have other societies done and other societies that are like you respect that there is not uh countries where you think there's going to be a show trial. Um so I started looking at that to see does that offer some possible models for what we might do.

[00:13:53]May I ask you something so much more prosaic which is where were you in this in stage of your life when you decided to do this book and how did it correlate to what was going on in the country at that moment?

[00:14:07]>> Um so I was teaching at uh NYU where I still teach. It was last year. This book was relatively fast. I started writing in June after a little hiccup which I can discuss. Um >> I will ask you >> and um uh so uh I was living through the beginning of of Trump 2.0. Um there were various executive orders that had been issued with respect to law firms, some that were very personal uh to me. Um, and uh, so that's sort of where I was.

[00:14:47]Um, I no longer was a a prosecutor or a defense lawyer. I was teaching and as you mentioned, I was doing work at at MS Now as a legal analyst.

[00:14:58]>> And this is I'm sorry I can't help but ask this question even though this wasn't on my list. What's it like being the person that is the object of an executive order uh from the president that targets you personally, targets the firm that hired you some eons ago? Um what's that like for your actual life?

[00:15:21]>> Um you know, uh I had various reactions to it. One was sort of not personal. one was just the disbelief as to the um not just that the president would do it but the complicity. Um so I'll relate that to Enron.

[00:15:46]I can I I can say all of us on Enron, the the prosecutors, the agents, I think left with this view of how to think about Enron. And I think it's applicable to your question which is um when I think about the lesson from Enron, it is not about Jeff Skielling and Kenlay and Andrew Fast out because there are going to be um bad or corrupt people in every single walk of life.

[00:16:18]There's nothing that insulates business or journalism or um universities or just it it just that will happen. But the moral I think of Enron was the complicity. Um like how did they this happen when so many people could have prevented it and either knew or closed their eyes to it? And so to relate this to the executive orders, the idea that there were, as one of the federal judges said with respect to the implementation of the Alien Enemies Act and saying that there was uh this was being done because there was an invasion uh of Venezuela in this country, which I think probably most people were going really cuz I didn't see that. um that so a federal judge who was appointed by a Republican um said where were the lawyers in the room and so >> just to remind in case you guys weren't following that you know Donald Trump's justice department declared that anybody almost anybody from Venezuela was a member of this crazy gang and in order to to remove all of the Venezuelans from our country I'm sorry that might be a little bit of a stretch but in order to remove people um they were declared as having invaded our country, a war against America.

[00:17:42]>> Thank Thank you. No problem.

[00:17:44]>> So um so that was sort of one take and then obviously watching law firms cave which you know is the sort of complicity component although I did I do think and I I wrote about this which is you know they are victims. They were singled out in a way that they didn't deserve but they still can be judged for the way they reacted to it even though they are also victims. Um, and on a personal level, um, and this is may sound, um, too polyianish, but I I felt so awful for Jenner and Block because I felt, you know, but for me, this wouldn't be happening to them. And um, I truly loved my experience there and the people there and the ethics of that place. Um it is known for doing the most extraordinary proono work year in and year out and has received all sorts of awards um for it deservedly. So feeling responsible for that is is awful. Um I should say the the good news is I think everyone here knows there were four executive orders against four law firms that were challenged. Um there were other executive orders where which were withdrawn after there was a caving Paul Weiss being the most notable. Um but those four orders by four separate judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans because I keep on repeating that because this is not a partisan issue. All four of them within I think one week were struck down as unconstitutional.

[00:19:23]Judge Bates, who had the gener block uh executive order, found that my my personal first amendment rights were violated. And so that order was struck down. And so it's sort of remarkable to me that you have within, you know, months of Trump 2.0, four judges finding that they had violated the Constitution.

[00:19:48]the the admin that this is like our government has violated the constitution um which is still something that it's you don't want to normalize even thinking or saying that >> I have so many more follow-up questions not on my list now that you said that but um I'm going to try to distract myself and say um I think it's probably pretty important to talk about how some of your DOJ or or um prosecutorial experiences shaped your this prescription but also kind of led on a path an arc if you will to you being in this place where you're targeted. Um you worked for Robert Mueller. Can you tell people a little bit about um what that experience was like and also why it was singular? I know that I know that from you and your friendship group that it was um really special. help help people get a feeling for Robert Mueller and also for for I'm trying to think of the way to say this how it redefined kind of your own personal goals in your work and forgive me I'm diabetic. I'm going to run get a bar and be right back.

[00:21:12]>> Okay, I'll hold down the fort.

[00:21:16]Um so, um >> can you hear me? Uh, Carol has heard me say this, so I'm going to start cuz she she knows my um views of of director Mueller. Um so one thing that's very hard to convey to people is um in the world of uh people who worked at the Department of Justice uh there there was no person sort of more revered and looked up to than um Robert Mueller. Uh, I mean he was he was just a legend in for so many reasons and so before I ever met him I knew all about him and it was you were sort of in awe of him. So that sort of started with that which was this sort of incredible figure. Um some people know um he was came from enormous privilege. uh he um went to Princeton and then uh he volunteered during the Vietnam War and served in the Marines.

[00:22:26]He was decorated. That was a deeply deeply formative experience for him at the FBI where I was privileged to work for him twice, once as a special counsel and once as the general counsel. Um at his desk in on the seventh floor uh to his left on the wall were the um pictures of the people who served under him who had died. Um and um there were there and it was it was just such a huge part of him that he was a marine. Um, one other thing is that although I wouldn't say he himself was funny, he had a extremely good sense of humor and enjoyed that. And so the image of him that at times is seemed so sort of cold and sort of aloof was not at all who he was. Um, and incredibly caring. Um, he at one point had had cancer. He made a point of if anybody had any illness, it wasn't that he just called them. He would want them. And there were 35,000 people at the FBI and he would meet with them personally and talk to them and as if there's nothing else he had to do that day and it just just a remarkable human being in terms of living his values.

[00:23:56]It's very convenient for me to bring up the experience that Andrew had with Mueller and get him to talk a little bit about this because to me um it's a interesting contrast. you worked for somebody who was the model of rectitude um who would rush and I know this from people who worked for him besides you um rush to admit an error rather than cover up something that was a mistake.

[00:24:27]>> Can I I'll tell you an anecdote that's public. Um so during the uh Boston uh marathon bombing um we all got calls in the middle of the night. I was went to SCIA which is the sort of the beehive within the FBI and already the director was there, the deputy director, the head of national security and just people running around. Um and uh I was there as the general counsel. Um obviously there not a lot of legal issues that that come up, but there were some about using emergency powers um that need to be signed off on. And in the middle of at at the moment, we did not know whether there were any other people who were participating. We did not know if there were other um pressure cooker bombs that would go off. We were getting all these leads incoming. I mean, so there this was truly dealing with sort of life and death issues and so much going on. And I still remember the director out of the corner of his eye saw me, comes over and says, um, I need you to get together everything we have in our holdings about the two lead suspects. Um that's there was the Cernay brothers and um it had already been out that there had been not that long ago an open sort of a preliminary assessment of one of the brothers and we did not know at that point had the FBI screwed up. I mean in other words did we know enough that we should have missed a lead and that we could have stopped this and of course that's you know what everyone is thinking. Um, and we didn't know the answer to that. We we just knew that we had that lead and we didn't know what the paperwork would show and we didn't know whether the FBI had done a really good job or not done a really good job. And this was the director's comments to me, I need you to get all of that paperwork. I need you to take out the personal identifying information.

[00:26:32]So, which I was I remember at the time thinking he said PII and I was just surprised he even knew the the minutia, but of course he did. He was like a steel trap. Um, I need you to take out stuff like, you know, social security numbers, bank account numbers, because you're not supposed to reveal that. And I need you to get it together and we need to make press packages because it needs to go out tomorrow morning to the press. Um, meaning that in the middle of all of this, he understood that the FBI's obligation was transparency and whatever it is, wherever the facts were that we had messed up or not, the public would know.

[00:27:10]Um, it was not to hide it. It was not to wait to see till we knew the answer and figure out how to spin it. It was whatever it is, it's going to be out there.

[00:27:21]>> A great example. And again, back to the contrast. You worked for someone who would have committed, sorry, this is going to sound so dramatic, would have walked off a cliff to his death rather than lie. Um, and and now you're dealing with a book that is about how to address lying.

[00:27:43]Do you think having worked with Director Mueller on the special counsel investigation that he was naive about what he was squaring off with in the in the form of Bill Barr, the attorney general, and um a very successful um president with a megaphone for lying.

[00:28:06]So um so I think with respect to well let me start by saying that as I wrote my first book on I wanted to to sort of recount at least from my perspective an historical record of what happened which right now I'm extremely happy I did for a whole variety of reasons but I think there's this effort to whitewash history and we're living through a continuation of that with respect to January 6. So, I'm very happy that I recorded at least what I perceived um with um so I and I didn't agree with all of his decisions, but it's also like of course not. I mean, that that's and and you know, Robert Mueller's fine with that.

[00:28:51]That's you know, he's the boss. He makes the decisions and he expects people to say what they think. Um and he then decides what to do. Um, I think that he was completely aware of uh the president and also his motivations and what he was capable of. I don't think he was naive at all. I think he had was a deep understanding of the situation. He also had a deep understanding and commitment to due process and the facts and the law and also internal rules that he was bound by. And you know, a lot of people um may not understand that, but when you're a prosecutor um you know, I prosecuted organized crime figures. I didn't sit there and say, "Well, this person did something really terrible and it's then going to change all the due process they're entitled to." Like, that's part of the our system. It's like um judges do the exact same thing which is judges make sure that a trial is adheres to to constitutional norms and everyone gets a fair trial. Then they have to switch to the sentencing phase if there is a conviction and then they judge that person. But it doesn't mean that they didn't give the person a fair trial.

[00:30:09]It's just part of what you do. Um, I think the the area where I won't I really don't criticize uh Robert Mueller for this is that I don't think he was naive with respect to Bill Bar because I think one thing you really have to remember is that they were personal friends and their families were personal friends and um that the the personal betrayal is not something that I think you could you could anticipate or should have to anticipate. And when I think about it just in my own life and I think about the people I'm close to, I would never anticipate that. I would think that they're going to be completely loyal. Um and if uh Bill Bar I I talk I write about this quite a lot in my book um the where law ends. Um, if Bill Barr had wanted certain things to happen, he could have easily have voiced it. If he had said, if he could have if he said, "I'm planning on not putting your introductions to the two parts out. I'm going to write my own conclusion." He could have told us that. And there all sorts of things that I think were um, to put it bluntly, duplicitous about it. So, I don't fault um uh Director Mueller for for that.

[00:31:35]>> You know, I'm rewinding this time with Mueller because with with a with a purpose, which is he was an institutionalist and there are a lot of institutionalists um in the Department of Justice sort of clutching their pearls a little bit about Donald Trump and about now acting attorney general Todd Blanch. Do you think institutionalism needs to be modified? Do you think, and I don't mean due process, out the window?

[00:32:06]>> I'll leave it there.

[00:32:08]>> So, you know, one of the things when you're when you're talking about these contrasts of, you know, somebody who, you know, is a model of rectitude and somebody might think is the complete antithesis.

[00:32:21]um you know what the point of this book was thinking about structures because one of the things I would say one of the the benefits that we get from Trump 1.0 and 2.0 know is seeing what norms um do not work. Um and that how much that the constitution as great as it is and in this 250th anniversary of our country, we get to see what structures um have are not working now and what we need to put in place because the answer can't be well let's just hope that we get somewhere with rectitude. That's not a system. Um, and so I I'm not naive enough to think that that we that a structure is the only answer. I mean that human beings are going to figure out ways um to find um fissures in that um Donald Trump has. But um this was something that the 9/11 commission was very focused on for instance which was how do we build structures to make it more resilient um or as we used to say in in the intelligence community to harden the target so that um and that by the way was the design of the framers.

[00:33:43]The whole idea of divided government, ambition against ambition was to say liberty is best preserved by divided power. Um, and we're not seeing that in place. And so what I was thinking about, and this is not obviously the only way to do it, and there are many, many other things to do, but it's how do you build a structure that can deal with when you don't have Robert Mueller as, you know, as the decider chief and you have somebody um who is more like Donald Trump. And the reason I think this is so important is if Donald Trump um is, you know, is is gone from the political scene, it is this is the legacy we have to deal with because there are going to be many knees following his footsteps because he has shown how it can work. And so people are going to emulate that. And so if we don't have structures to deal with that, you know, we are not going to make it to another 250 years.

[00:34:51]>> So you identified something in your book that I found riveting. Um, and it was the Enforcement Act, I think, of 1870.

[00:35:01]Do you want to tell the crowd a little bit about this act? Because somebody thought, hm, maybe we don't want an insurrectionist becoming the president.

[00:35:11]So um there there have been efforts in this country to deal with that the problem I'm identifying which was post civil war um there was an effort to say um in depending on the exact circumstances but if you are found to have engaged in insurrection after having taken an oath of of office um that you are disqualified from holding office. Um one of the things that is fascinating and I'm going to say this as a New Yorker um although I'll tell you a funny anecdote because I lived for 10 years here in Washington DC and I was on some something like this and I said you know well I'm an ineterate New Yorker and a friend of mine said not anymore. Um, which is, you know, as somebody who grew up in New York, it's like a dagger to your heart.

[00:36:09]I was like, I really need to go home.

[00:36:12]Um, so, um, New York has, um, two statutes, uh, that deal with a similar problem that are in effect right now. Uh and one of them is that if you are convicted of a felony, you are automatically without any further action, you are automatically removed from public office. And that is for elected officials and unelected officials. So anybody who has is in a public office, if you are convicted of a felony, you're out. Um there also is a provision um that for certain other types of crimes, not all felonies, um that you can be prohibited from holding elected office. The idea being under state law, not federal law, under state law that New York considered that so antithetical to what it means to have the privilege of doing public service that it is forfeited um by that conduct. But again, after due process, you know, that none of this is the government just saying you you're out and you you're in.

[00:37:29]>> Um, your book through either great luck or great planning on the part of your publisher and your agent uh landed at a perfect moment, like a little bit of a perfect storm in Washington DC and in this White House. It landed the week that we're all learning that Donald Trump um ordered the Department of Justice, coordinated with the Department of Justice to create um a $1 billion fund so that people um can who attacked the capital on January 6th or feel that they were unfairly the subject of the Department of Justice's wrath or charges.

[00:38:16]um can seek some sort of reparation.

[00:38:19]Tell me what you think about that fund and how your prescription deals with it or does not.

[00:38:26]>> Um so I mean there's a lot to say but I'm going to pick out two things. Uh I think I think something that's missing from the conversation is that what is going on is predicated on two falsehoods. Um and so the first one is that the entire um fiction of this being a settlement agreement um requires us to ignore the fact um that there's this is not a settlement between any adverse parties. This is just one party saying I'm going to get one one point blank um billion dollars.

[00:39:18]Um because Donald Trump, as he said, is on both sides of the equation. And so the it is just not true that it is a settlement um uh or frankly an agreement. It's just a direction um by the same party. The federal judge who had been overseeing this raised the same issue. She she had said, "I want to have briefing on the issue of adversity because it seems like it's the same person on both sides." Um, one of the things that I thought was extremely telling is during that briefing, the government never put in a brief, the government just moved to dismiss the case. But one of the briefs that was put in as a amicus, a so-called friend of the court was from former uh tax division authorities um people who are either the former commissioner u people at DOJ um in the tax division pointing out um the various defenses that the IRS has to that lawsuit, one of which was dispositive.

[00:40:26]Um and they pointed out that Donald Trump to bring that claim had to have brought it within 2 years and in fact other people for the same leak had brought their claims within two years but he didn't. So assuming that is true and it's hard to see how that those facts could be disputed. The amount of money that was owed to Donald Trump was zero. And as I have joked many times, I really don't do math in public, but I can do sort of what's greater than what.

[00:40:58]And zero is not as big as 1.776 billion.

[00:41:04]Um, and so sort of thing one is the falsehood that this is a settlement agreement and that's sort of the mechanism, the fig leaf to be able to say this is how the fund is even created. And then second falsehood is the idea that this money is needed for weaponization redress. Um and there um this is another example of facts and law should matter. Um and it's one of the reasons I looked so much probably because of my background to the courts as a way out of the situation we're in.

[00:41:43]But the the issue of um weaponization of January 6 is part of this whitewashing of what happened before our eyes. And this is where it's it is great to be back here in Washington. Um and know I worked out of the you know right next to the DC courthouse. This was happening here. Um, everyone in Congress is was a witness to it and a victim of it, which is so remarkable. They're not, you know, that they need to stand up to it. But we're supposed to pretend that what we see and hear before our eyes didn't happen. And the the answer as somebody who's been a prosecutor and also for 10 years I was a defense lawyer is there is an incredibly good court system here.

[00:42:36]The people that we're talking about can raise all of these issues in front of a judge and all of them that were pardoned and now are seemingly unless Congress steps in going to not only be pardoned but paid for their illegal conduct. um had the ability to challenge their charges to um to testify at trial and were either found guilty by a jury, were pleaded guilty, or awaiting trial.

[00:43:06]>> I'm going to do a lightning round last question and then I'm going to open it up to you all. So, get ready.

[00:43:11]>> Okay.

[00:43:12]>> Um the light lightning rounds that's not fair. Quickly, I want to ask you, what do you think the chances are of a law?

[00:43:20]Sorry, I'm not talking loud enough. What do you think the chances are of a law being passed in the vein that you propose?

[00:43:28]>> What I would say is at the state level, I think that there's depending on you all. I think at the state level um if people demand it and are vocal about it, I think it's more likely. I obviously in right now in this environment that's there's no way. Um but I wasn't writing for that. I was running for how are we going to get out of this and one of the ways is to use a term that I'm old enough to remember is consciousness raising and sort of putting out there an idea and you know this is one where the one thing I will encourage people to think about is um whether you think this is a great idea or a mediocre idea or a bad idea is that we have got to think about structural change because the um the Biden approach, which I don't fault him for thinking perhaps that could work, but if we get out of this and we have an administration that we think is in the Robert Mueller vein, it is not a solution to close your eyes and pretend that nothing happened. um because it's, you know, we're going to have to deal with it over and over again and we need to think our ways out of out of the situation we're in.

[00:44:50]>> Andrew, thank you. Um I would love it if I don't know what your situation is or your strategy, but I'd love to take questions from the audience and I'm happy to point at people.

[00:45:02]>> So, if you raise your hand, we've got I've got a mic and she has a mic. So, >> great. Okay. when you were doing the Russian investigation, did you know at that point in time that no charges would be brought by Mueller?

[00:45:17]>> Um, with respect to the president, um, so we brought lots and lots of charges and you know, I was in charge of team M and we charged a number of people. Um, with respect to the um the president, this is the I have a direct answer and then something I wish had happened. Um, the special counsel is part of the Department of Justice. They're not independent of the Department of Justice. And part of the rules are that the special counsel has to adhere to Department of Justice rules and policies. One of which is the office of legal counsel that had issued um a policy that you could Mueller could not um go against which was that you cannot indict a sitting president. So from the moment we started we knew that we might be able to write a report. Um there are all sorts of things we can do but the one thing we could not do was indict a sitting president. And the wish that I had was that that was better known at the time because to this day the number one question I get or or um the number one sort of fingerpointing I get is you know why didn't you indict him? And I was like, you know, so that, by the way, I I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about this when Jack Smith was the special counsel about the need for um the model here. I will criticize Robert Mueller, the need for a different model in speaking to the um the press, which is um there's the Robert Mueller approach, which in so many ways is right and good.

[00:47:02]But there's also another model um which is >> Robert Mueller's model, by the way, was a reporter came up and he turned away as fast as he could, >> right? People People joke that the press officer at the special counsel's office had the easiest job ever cuz he could just sit at home and go no comment. Um >> oh that happened to me so many times.

[00:47:23]Keep going.

[00:47:24]>> So um so but Archable Cox is the other model and you can go to YouTube now and hear his press conference where he explains to the public why he was going to the Supreme Court. Um, and he was very cognizant of and he says there there's limited things I could say like he did not talk about why he thought somebody was guilty and he didn't do what like James Comey did when he gave you know a very famous and my view completely improper use of the press um in the um with respect to Hillary Clinton. Um and that's not saying anything about what she did or didn't do was about Comey's behavior. So there are other ways for the Department of Justice to speak publicly and that's one area where I will say that Pam Bondi, while I disagree with her in so many ways, I don't in any way um falter for being more public about why they're doing things because I think that's necessary.

[00:48:24]we're going to have.

[00:48:26]>> Do you see the possibility of any consequence and I'm thinking mostly of the state bar associations taking actions against the government lawyers who signed off on this agreement or you know signed the executive order against you anything like that. So, um, without doing the the me one, but um, the the state bar associations, yes, I do. Um and uh there is currently and I'm glad you're all sitting down or many of you are sitting down which is um uh Todd Blanch uh has filed a brief in the with respect to the DC disciplinary committee saying that they should not have a role in overseeing the ethics of uh members of the department of justice. And that falls into the category of you've got to be kidding me. Um, as and for anyone who has worked at the Department of Justice of any political persuasion, the idea that you don't and wouldn't want yourself to be held to the highest possible ethical standard and that you would be fighting it is is so anathema to what you've you are all of us were brought up to believe, which is that you work for the people and if and your conduct you know, if you don't is going to be subject to scrutiny and if you don't want that, don't work for the public.

[00:50:01]The >> gentleman in the black, Brad, I called on him and I didn't get him.

[00:50:07]>> Hello. I was curious um you talked about uh uh Director Muller's personal relationship with um Bill Bar and um I was just curious if there was any awareness from Dr. Mhler of uh director Muller about Bill Bar's history issuing pardons with the Iran Contra affair and if there was any awareness of his reputation as being a coverup guy when he was brought on um as attorney general if uh the team had any awareness of that reputation or if the director had any awareness of that. I >> I don't know the answer. Um, I know that they were personal friends, but I don't know um what he knew about all the details of his prior work or his opinion of it. So, I I can't help you.

[00:50:57]>> Yeah.

[00:51:02]>> Oh, Professor Weissman, thank you so much. I fought you on Substack and I just love listening to you. I have one question. I live right behind the cap uh 12 blocks away and during January 6th it was absolutely terrifying and when some of my family call from you know South Carolina or excuse me said um South Dakota and say oh well you know you're not having anything I just said let me tell you what it was like to live here and while the January 6th um commission was going on um I wondered why we weren't included you know as in some way about, you know, talking and going in front of Congress and saying, you know, it was real and we were really scared.

[00:51:47]At least I was and I saw it was happening and where the National Guard when we, you know, and then the park I live on, Lincoln Park, was completely taken over. Um, and the other question is we're not a state.

[00:52:03]>> Yeah. So, the the you're not a state.

[00:52:06]Um, that's an easy one. That's true. Um, I mean obviously that that's a long conversation, but I mean this is a good example of like taxation without representation. And you have the same thing in Puerto Rico. I mean there's there there's things that are so anathema and vestigages that need to be corrected but in this political environment are not going to be. Um I don't know the answer but with respect to uh the January 6 commission but I am going to say something positive about that which is that they they really put the issue back into the public stream to to and also showed discipline about how to do this because you know I'm again I'm uh I'm not somebody who's ever worked on the hill but I can you know is just a consumer.

[00:53:03]this idea of just like five minutes per um you know member of Congress where you don't really get any substantive questioning and everyone wants their you know YouTube or Instagram hit um was something that they put to the side and um and I as I understand it Liz Cheney was extremely instrumental in doing that and in hiring people to make sure that this was really they focused on the communication of the information and I think they actually shamed the Department of Justice into actually doing something because they looked so ridiculous which um I also wrote an op-ed about because that's just not how it works. The Department of Justice almost always is going forward first and Congress is second and you and here was the exact opposite. Um I don't know why they didn't um include more community members. They did, and I imagine they may have decided there was more sort of resonance by having um police officers talk about their their experience being physically attacked. But you're absolutely right that the harms, you know, are are much wider than that. But I suspect it was a question of, you know, allocating the time to so many different aspects of what had happened.

[00:54:22]Um, but I think it had a huge impact on how we think about that that day and it and not thinking of it as the beginning and end of the plot, but it was actually um the sort of culmination of a long um uh plan as to what needed to be done to have an insurrection and be effective.

[00:54:46]>> Um, right here.

[00:54:48]>> Yep.

[00:54:51]>> Thank you. Uh, I know you know a lot about lies and talking about lies and and I think the thing that's most disturbing to me is how truth is no longer a fixed thing. More cons disturbing than that is how AI allows us to manipulate video. And when I see someone on video saying something, it's hard for me to say, well, they have to be telling the truth. So, how do you address that going forward? Because that's something that's just developing now. How do you deal with that? Um so I don't have the answers for that but the one so and I do talk about that which is that the problem we have um where the traditional answer that was given by Oliver Wendell Holmes and is still from time to time pared by various Supreme Court justices justice who I respect um is well the answer to false information is just more true information that works in an environment where everyone is going to be exposed to it and we're not in that environment and it's only going to get worse and the answer um isn't going to be well we just can't have AI or we can't have a social media. I mean that that there are huge issues there but it's not going to be the answer to be um like when I went to college and it was like well you you know don't get reliant on on calculators because you know that's not that's going to be forbidden um that gives you a sense of my age. Um meaning it's like fighting the t the tide or or you know the the wind. It's going to be here. And so what I was trying to figure out is because we certainly can't count on that model of the sort of so-called marketplace of ideas. Um what is another forum? And one of the things that I recount that stayed with me from when I was working for special counsel Mueller was the words of Amy Berman Jackson um who oversaw several of the cases, the criminal cases. And um and there was a lot of attacks and things going on at the time.

[00:57:04]and she said, "One of the things about the courts is this is a place where facts and law still matter." And we see that day in and day out. And one of the institutions that is held up fairly well is particularly the federal district courts. Um, and including judges who you may completely disagree with if you were talking to them, you know, privately about their personal or political views.

[00:57:35]Um, they're really adhering to their oaths of office. There are a number of judges who are appointed by Donald Trump in his first term who have issued scathing decisions about what they're seeing using phrases like um that everything that you were saying is untethered to the facts which is that's judge talk for your lying.

[00:57:57]>> We can take one sorry we can take one more if somebody has one.

[00:58:06]>> Yeah. Uh I heard today or yesterday that the uh two of the cops that were heard in January 6 have brought a lawsuit. Can you speak a little bit about what you think their chances are uh in succeeding?

[00:58:24]>> Sure. Um so yes, they brought a a civil lawsuit. It's before Judge Leyon uh in uh federal court here. Uh I think that it's principally focused on sort of the allocation of the money as opposed to the actual um creation of the fund.

[00:58:45]Although there are some parts that some of the um uh this the complaint is is focused on that. Um I think there a there's going to be I think uh other lawsuits that will not be the only one.

[00:59:01]Um my biggest concern about that lawsuit is not the merits of it. It's something called standing. Um and the and it's I address that actually in this book which is um in order to so I let me give this as a model. Ruby Freeman and Sheay Moss could sue Rudy Giuliani um because he singled them out. um Dominion Voting could bring a lawsuit against Fox because they were singled out. But if the um if the statements that were false were made in the passive voice to say there was fraud in the election, but you leave out who did it.

[00:59:43]The law in this country is even though we are all victims of that falsehood, all of us. everybody who votes would be a victim. That it does not give you standing to complain. And the courts don't want to open up the courts to say that anybody can just bring a a a suit.

[01:00:04]I mean, we're already incredibly religious um society compared to other countries. And so, it's not enough if you're just a voter. It's not enough if you're a taxpayer because here you'd be saying why how can they spend $1.776 billion dollars of my money which looks a whole lot like in my view like theft um than a proper allocation. Um so you need to have standing and I think that the standing argument of these two um people is not the strongest. Um, and so I I am hopeful that we see other creative lawsuits with plaintiffs who can pass that hurdle because I think that's the biggest one. I think there are lots of good arguments. Although I think this is one where Congress could fix this any day of the week. I mean, they have the power of the purse. This is this is not hard. They made it they stood behind Jerome Powell and and made it very clear that they weren't going to tolerate that kind of interference with the Federal Reserve. Um well, this is a moment where they have lots and lots of levers that they can pull that would make litigation, you know, needless um to prevent what's happening.

[01:01:24]>> Can I just ask a quick question before we close? Andrew, how do you square the um argu arguable need to sanction false political speech with the principle of free speech?

[01:01:40]>> Um that's a great question. So um I think I would um so the the concern is um the chilling effect. Um the Supreme Court and many justices have said that false speech is not itself protected by the first amendment. And but the concern is that if you prohibit false speech, are you going to have somebody get too close feel like they're getting too close to the line? Um, but we don't say that with respect to all of the other examples I gave about people who are prosecuted for false speech. Um, we don't say that with respect to defamation law. We don't say what about the chilling effect. And I will give an example that is directly related to my wonderful wonderful interlocature which is journalism. So I'm at the Washington Post. I'm even sure even now I would have suspect that's my little dig um at not at you but at your former institution um but at MS now at any reputable media organization right left middle there's um a standards group and they will review what is goes out from that organization. Um, part of it is they're doing it for the admirable and obligation that they have to make sure that the information that you get is accurate um, and truthful and supported.

[01:03:13]Another reason though is to make sure that they don't get sued. Um, in other words, they're thinking about the law and no one says, "Wait a second, we need to get rid of that because there's a chilling effect." It is considered a good thing that you have a standards department. So, I agree with you that that is a downside. There's there's no question that you you should be thinking about that and should be thinking about it, especially when you're talking about political speech because you want people to be able to express their views. But that's where it's really important to remember that what I'm talking about is false factual speech. It is not about saying I'm pro-abortion or I'm against abortion or I think what we the war in Iran is a good thing or a bad thing or I'm for more im immigration or less immigration. All of those are opinions.

[01:04:05]Um that is different fundamentally different than saying um that there was material fraud in the election if it can be shown that you know that that is intentionally false.

[01:04:19]>> Way to go Brad by the way.

[01:04:22]I I I didn't ask you that question because I guess I got too deep into the book. Um but um it is really interesting the the Supreme Court case that you talk about in Alvarez and and the Stolen Valor case, but we can't go there. You have to buy the book and read it.

[01:04:42]>> Thank you guys so much for >> Thank you very much.