"How far will Trump's foot soldiers go to bend the rule of law?"

The filings also reveal a far-fetched effort to attempt to prove that James Comey knew the term 86 meant murder because of his work on mob cases. It's a theory, again, so bizarre and so legally dubious that it caused Trump's first attorney general in his second term, Pam Bondi, to push the case and keep the case on the back burner. In fact, it's only revived. When acting Attorney General Todd Blanche starts to really audition for a promotion in earnest, the effort included this. In May 26, an FBI agent and the first assistant interviewed Salvatore Gravano, a former member of the Gambino crime family, and key government cooperator in the Gambino trial, who was involved in the murder of at least 19 people, among other crimes. Gravano did not recall ever discussing the term 86 with Mr. James Comey or otherwise ever hearing the term uttered in connection with trial. While Mr. Gravano claimed that all law enforcement agents would be familiar with the term's alternative organized crime meaning referring to murder, he also claimed that a gangster would never use the term because they knew that law enforcement knew what the term meant. Gravano then told the FBI to corroborate his view with his longtime prosecutor, John Gleason, who told the FBI this in an affidavit, quote, The claim that 86 is mafia jargon for kill is preposterous. If it weren't made in the context of seeking to deprive a man of his liberty, it would be laughable. And it actually gets wackier and more desperate from here. The FBI also bases its case on this estranged acquaintance of Jim and Patrice James Comey, labeled Person 1 in the filings. Person 1 says that they told James Comey's wife about the terms meaning soon after the Instagram post. But here's where... that person's understanding of the term 86 comes from. Quote, person one noted that they had listened to an episode of Rudy Giuliani's show, where Rudy Giuliani claimed that the term 86 appeared in transcripts and tapes from organized crime cases prosecuted by Mr. James Comey. It's a claim that the FBI had determined to be false, but that person one believed to support their conclusion. Following all of those bombshell revelations, a DOJ spokesperson tells MS now this, quote, a North Carolina grand jury indicted James Comey and he'll have his day in court just like any other defendant. The complete and brazen perversion of the rule of law and the Department of Justice by Donald Trump and Todd Blanche is where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters in front. MS Now Senior Investigative Reporter, Carol Lennigas here. Also joining us, the founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias, is back with me, plus former CIA director, now senior national security analysts and intelligence analysts, John Brandon is here. And with me at the table, MS Now Senior Legal Reporter.

Lisa Rubin, I'm going to start with you, John Brennan, and ask you, I was thinking about you and Mark, because you don't often get to see inside the architecture, sort of the legwork of a manufactured and corrupt political prosecution. But these three pieces have the surveillance, the known. illegality of warrantless surveillance of James Comey as a starting point. Did it make you feel any differently about the attempts to harass you with threats of investigation? Well, Nicole, it makes me wonder what's in the files about me as well as others. It's only through the discovery process after an indictment, James Comey, that his lawyers were able to access this information. But just shows you how broken the executive branch is because of the actions of Donald Trump. I mean, this whole thing is just so, as we said, bizarre and absurd that James Comey, a former U.S. attorney, former deputy attorney general United States and director of the FBI. really meant those seashells to say that the president should be killed. Absurd on its face. But then the lens to which the White House and Donald Trump would go to and getting the secret service involved, and this is the concern I think that so many former professionals, national security, law enforcement and intelligence have, is that what is happening right now to the members of the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, Department of Justice. who is being directed to do things that not only are unprincipled and unethical, but also blatantly illegal. And these are things that are going on behind the curtain. And the fact that you have a Todd Blanche who authorized these things up for the Attorney General of the United States. has been nominated to be in a very, very solemn position. It just, again, underscores just how dangerous Donald Trump has been to this country and how he has just pushed aside the rule of law and how many people are going along with it. Yeah, I mean, Mark Elias, I want to drill down on this going along with that piece because Todd Blanche's before. the Judiciary Committee for confirmation right now. And I don't know who wouldn't want to subpoena that Secret Service supervisor today who knew in the moment at the time. that these were, quote, likely illegal orders for warrantless surveillance. And then another supervisor said, quote, but we'll probably do it anyway. I mean, who in either party doesn't want to subpoena both of them and ask them about knowingly carrying out conduct warrantless surveillance that they know ahead of time is illegal?

I mean, the Republican Party doesn't want to subpoena them. That's who. I mean, the Republican Senate doesn't want to subpoena. John Thune doesn't want a subpoena. Mike Johnson is definitely not going to allow them to be subpoenaed. The Republican Congress has given up its constitutional obligation to do oversight. And it has even given up. its human decency of expressing outrage in circumstances like this. The Republican Party is along for the ride. But, you know, one of the things that I think we have to take away from this is we oftentimes look at this and we look up. And believe me, I believe that Donald Trump is ultimately accountable for the corruption of his administration and what he has done to the Department of Justice. We look at Todd Blanche, who is, as Director Brennan said, should be nowhere near being the next attorney general of the United States. But I think this is a window into looking down. And, you know, because the fact is Donald Trump is not tailing James Comey. Now, Todd Blanche is not in and of himself able to execute these warrants and is not able to put evidence before grand juries. He is relying on, they are all relying on, a large number of people in the federal government, in agencies, in the FBI, in the Secret Service, in the Department of Justice, in U.S. attorney's offices, to just say, as they did, it's not right, but eh. We'll just do it anyway, and it will be someone else's problem. And at the end of the day, if that is how the federal government works, and it is, unfortunately, how it is working right now. It is a danger to all of us. It's not just a danger to James Comey. It's not just a danger to Director Brennan. It's not just a danger to me or others. It is a danger to everyone. Because once you have that mentality in the government, then truly the idea that, you know, was expressed by Stalin's head of internal security that you show me the person and I'll show you the crime becomes not just a theoretical possibility, but becomes a reality. I mean, Carolyn in journalism, the crime of libel or slander probes in a legal context known falsity. It's the threshold that Fox met. That's why they paid almost a billion dollars to Dominion. Mueller spent 23 months trying to get it. Donald Trump's state of mind when he was tweeting about all the things he was doing when he was obstructing justice. in the specific, I think six acts of obstruction of justice detailed in volume two. A murder trial, a conviction usually hinges on state of mind. I mean, this is alleging known illegality of warrantless surveillance. Secret Service is an institution you've covered for a long time. How does that land with you?

You know, when we were all reading these filings late into the night and early into this morning, Nicole, I was thinking two things. One, woe is the government to be against Patrick Fitzgerald, James Comey's lawyer, and these horrendous facts. Horrendous, I say, because who is going to go into court and defend the motion to dismiss on selective and vindictive prosecution? It's almost... overflowing with evidence. The second thing that landed with me to your question was I immediately began calling sources this morning about what was really going on inside the Secret Service. We're getting a great window into this from James Comey's motion to dismiss and these new internal disclosures that are really gobsmacking. But when I spoke to the sources, it was much worse. At headquarters, we learned and sources told me there was an internal internal hand-wringing about what are we going to do because this just doesn't seem legal and the boss, meaning Donald Trump, wants us to do it. And what are we going, how in the world are we going to not be wounded? reputational and professionally and in terms of our truthfulness and candor with a court if we say that we have emergency reasons to without warrant surveil the former FBI director when we've all concluded he is not an imminent threat to the president of the United States. One of the discussions in that internal room that I heard about this morning when this was all going down, Nicole, was that One of the assistant directors said, let's think about how this lands. This is going to be terrible for us. We have got to think hard and long about whether or not we go along with this. Now, ultimately, the number three official at the Department of Justice, according to these revelations, said, you will do it. And that's what happened. You will do it. And some people could say DOJ gave the Secret Service cover. How specious can it be because the Secret Service not only concluded that day on May 15th that James Comey was no threat to Trump, no threat to anyone. And within days or hours of interviewing him on May 16th concluded there was no further investigation needed, no criminal probe to continue, no case to be made that he made any threat. Yet, again, ordered by the top levels of the Trump administration, the Department of Justice went ahead and sought to indict him and succeeded in doing so. These are the facts as I remember them. He was driving from North Carolina to back to his home in Virginia, and he stops in Richmond where he lived to visit the grave of a young child of his and Patrice's that died. So that's what they were surveilling. And to Mark Elias's point, we cast 99% of the blame atop. But...

There are people carrying out these things. And in this instance, with carrying out orders that they know are illegal. Absolutely. And I want to double down on that because Carol is illustrating what happened inside the Secret Service and sort of the foot soldiers on the ground who were executing on those orders. I want to go to the sort of more recent times where the FBI then picks up the investigation after Todd Blanche is the acting attorney general. And Nicole... They investigate the claim that Rudy Giuliani made on that radio show in May of 2025 that the use of 86 is replete all over transcripts and case files that James Comey handled when he was a young prosecutor. What does the FBI do? They then go get those transcripts. They get the case files. They look in their own threat database to see how 86 has ever been used in nearly 20 years of history of having this threat database. They find nothing. They go out and talk to two veteran former FBI agents who prosecuted, who were involved in the prosecution of mob cases here in New York. Both of them say they never heard of it in that context. Then they go and find Sammy the Brol Gravano literally a couple of weeks before indicting this case. And he tells them, yeah, I think it means to kill someone, but we would have never used it in that way. And you should go talk to John Gleason. They don't go talk to John Gleason. You know who does? John Gleason calls Maureen James Comey and says, I'm an expert in how mob terms are used. And if I can be of help to your family in this, I'd like to be. And he says in his declaration, James Comey and I are not friends. I have not been in the same room with him or communicated with him since about 1993. We were competitors. We even had a dispute that was so ferocious that it went to the top levels of the Justice Department. We were both young prosecutors. I'm not doing this as a favor to him. I'm just telling you that as a veteran mob prosecutor, I've never even heard of this. And then what do they do? They interview the same person who sends a nasty text to Patrice James Comey, basically saying, Jim should go to jail for his crimes and you should be ashamed of yourself. And they don't tell her that their investigation... doesn't turn up any corroboration. Instead, what they say is that the Comys had gone on all of these shows and then all of the sudden their explanation for the 86 restaurant story comes out. That's a reference to James Comey being on late night television and explaining that to him and his wife, 86, meant the restaurant term to mean to kill an order. But that's not how it happened at all. In fact, Patrice James Comey told the United States Secret Service on May 17th of 2025 that she had worked in the hospitality industry. That's what it meant to her. When did James Comey show up on late night TV? Two days later. And yet you have an FBI agent misleading the allegedly central witness in this case about how James Comey might have been familiar with it and how he and his wife are manufacturing their stories. Really shameful behavior. Shameful and...

and that I'm still able to be shocked might be sort of ancillary thing for me to work on. I want to press on this open door. I also want to Just to ask if it's normal. I mean, is this Director Brennan what happens? You go and try to manufacture reverse engineer a case. I know at least one judge in the Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia case has already accused Todd Blanche of reverse engineering criminality. This feels like the exact same architecture. Throughout my career when I worked with FBI professionals, they would never have done something like that. It's inconsistent with their oath of office, inconsistent with their responsibilities, inconsistent with the law. I'm glad Mark mentioned Stalin, because these are Stalinesque tactics that they're employing. And again, it's very unfortunate that they're putting secret service agents in a situation where they have to either follow or say no and risk being fired. And, you know, for young agents who have families, who have livelihoods, I mean, these are really difficult times. And so therefore, they're trying to navigate this and balance, you know, their obligations to the law and to their profession with the orders that are coming down. But it is that, you know, maybe middle management or senior management within the Department of Justice, FBI, or whatever, they're the ones that really should be pushing back against any orders like this that are unethical. are unprincipled and illegal even. But unfortunately, now that they see that this is coming down from above, too many of them follow with it. And again, we are sliding down a very slippery slope, just like we saw what happened in Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and other places, where the instruments of governance of law and of repression and security are used against the people. One thing that James Comey said to me after the Seychelles incident was that the rule of law is a three-legged stool and even without the executive branch in Congress, he trusted that the judiciary would hold it up. I think, I don't know if it was you, Mark Elias, or I don't remember who has said, well, a stool on one leg falls over. I wonder, Mark, if you think we're close to falling over. See, this is the thing. I think we have fallen over. Like, I understand the impulse. I get it. Nobody wants to say we're at the bottom of the slippery slope. They want to say we are still somewhere near the top. They, you know, the very premise of your question, Nicole, with all due respect to you and the CIA director, about whether this is normal. Yeah, this is totally normal. Like, this wasn't normal. This wasn't how these agencies did act. But for the last year, totally normal. Like, this is the world we live in. We don't live in the world in which the President of the United States does not tell who, which of his enemies should be politically prosecuted. We don't live in the world in which the acting attorney general and likely the next attorney general wasn't his personal lawyer and willing to do anything he wants.

We live in the world in which a whole lot of people who, you know, as the director said, you know, maybe they have families to feed. Maybe they, you know, they struggle with it. But you know what? I got a message for them. The I'm just following orders is neither a legal defense nor a moral defense to doing what is clearly wrong, right? We expect government officials to honor their own oaths. It's not just the President of United States. It's not just, you know, the attorney general has to honor their oath. It's all of these folks who have to honor their own oaths. And if they can't do that, they need to leave government. And if they stay, then they are just someone who is executing an order that they know is illegal and immoral. I think the other thing is the fork in the road that takes you out of government, maybe the path that lets you go back into it. in 25 months. I mean, this conduct that is, quote, knowingly illegal by the people who almost two years in are still there, if you've stayed this long and you are doing things that you put in writing are, quote, probably illegal, then you already know you're on the wrong side of the ledger and you make it probably harder for yourself to go back in two years. if there is something different on the other side. There's so much more to dive into. No one's going anywhere. There's a lot more in the story. Donald Trump's far-reaching campaign of retribution, the efforts he has gone to, in this case, to weaponize the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, and the FBI will get to the other story breaking the John Sauer on Capitol Hill. We're waiting for news about the man who spearheaded the whole thing, as we've been discussing Todd Blanche, and whether or not he'll get... his committee vote in the Senate tomorrow. Plus, Trump's temporary intelligence slash housing person is reportedly now so happy on the job he wants to stay longer as he purges staff from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. We'll get to that and later in the broadcast, congressional Republicans bracing for what can at best be called. an impossible midterm election political climate in November. They seem to be stuck in the year 2020 focusing on just about anything else other than what voters in the year 2026 say they care about. We'll get to all that and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

Have you ever wanted to share your opinions with MS Now about our TV programs, podcasts, live events, and more? Now's your chance to have your voice heard. Join the MSNow Insights community at MS. Now slash insights. We're back with Carol, Mark, Director Brennan, and Lisa. Let me read a little bit more from the filing on their irregularities of the investigation. Quote, federal officials acted irregularly across the course of this investigation. Immediately after Mr. James Comey's post, the Secret Service changed its policy to newly treat 8647 as a threat. Secret Service agents were also ordered to conduct unlawful surveillance of Mr. James Comey and share their interview notes with the president. When the Secret Service declined to open a full investigation, the DOJ instructed the FBI to pick up the baton, which Director Kash Patel eagerly did. The FBI acted irregularly too. When the FBI applied for search warrants in March and May of 2026, Long after the social media posts, those applications distorted the facts of the case. The newly installed political officials in the DOJ strove to accomplish what their predecessors could not, namely effectuating the president's desire to punish Mr. James Comey. There is a long list of people, Carol Enig, who touched this case and left. The prosecutor who secured the indictment has since removed himself from the case. The people who have signed on to this have also left the department to say nothing of Eric Siebert, who was the first person who brought a different case to a grand jury or refused to do that because he said there was not enough evidence. Just talk about the blast radius of everyone inside the Department of Justice and the FBI and the Secret Service now who's been forced to touch the stove that is this case. Well put, it's almost pyrotechnic what they're touching. And I would estimate that this is now in the hundreds of public servants that Director Brennan and Mark were describing who have been given the choice. Sign on to the president's desire to punish James Comey. The facts be damned. The predicate be damned. Or else. face a question about whether or not you're going to have a pension, health insurance, and a career. I understand why people feel really strongly that resignations should be the answer to an illegal order or an instruction that rubs people as inappropriate. But if you were a Secret Service agent, your chances of resigning from this job and having any kind of income in the near term and getting back into government later, it's really small, really, really challenging for people to leave that security clearance and that position. And I feel for them. But it's hundreds of people now, Nicole. You mentioned Eric Siebert involving that case. I want to just quickly say two things about that, that this was the case of lie, allegedly lying to Congress, which on its face,

We said at the time here at MS Now, and I reported, was illogical. And the facts did not actually justify any of those claims. Two different people were prosecuting that case, and they are no longer in government. They had serious qualms about it, we've heard from sources. But let me emphasize somebody who's really important to discuss about this matter. Pam Bondi, the former Attorney General who was fired by Donald Trump because she wasn't moving with the quick enough pace that he sought to go after his so-called villains. Todd Blanche took a lesson from that when he was named the Acting Attorney General. She had not wanted to pursue this Seychelles case in 2025. She felt like it was weak. She felt like the lying to Congress case was better. Okay, but she can have that view. She was not wrong. Neither case was particularly strong, but you can see why the Seashell case would not be a great one. When he was named Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche fast-tracked. this case to a grand jury. He instructed that it would move quickly, despite what Pam Bondi had said before and her assessment. This was a case pushed by the guy who is up for a vote to be our Attorney General. And we just can't lose sight of, you know, the sea change that he has made possible at the Department of Justice and the people he has sort of forcing to come to heal. It's such an important point. And the other piece, I guess I would say, and I know this is foolish given who the Republicans are and what they do every single day, they do still have agency. I mean, if any of this is a bridge too far for any of them, you can always wake up. And again, not that I think they will. But this is not on autopilot. I mean, someone could decide that manufacturing an indictment against a former director of the FBI isn't a good idea. And maybe there's somebody else who could. leave the department. Tell me what to make of the mob piece of this. What are they trying to do? They're trying to get someone who was a government cooperator in the Gambino prosecution to say that James Comey threw around the word 86. I don't even understand. It's so bad shit crazy. I don't even get it. Let's talk about where it emanates from. So first of all, in order to treat this as criminal, the government has to overcome First Amendment protection. It's political speech unless they can show that this constitutes a true threat against the president. But hasn't the Secret Service already decided that James Comey is not a true threat against the president?

Yes, but nobody took no for an answer. So to Carol's point, right, the Secret Service, there's a document attached to these motion filings that show that the Secret Service treated this as what's called a non-referred matter, meaning they did not believe that there was criminality here to pursue. Notwithstanding that, that's when the FBI picks up the baton very willingly. They continue to try to investigate it, and then it appears as if that investigation sputters out until Pam Bondi is separated from her job. Todd Blanche is promoted as the acting attorney general, and then all of a sudden, things start happening with a rapid, rapid... pace. They go to interview for the first time, two weeks before the indictment, the person who is the alleged central witness in this case. And let me just describe who that person is. We were talking about them in the last segment. As a person, we don't know who this person is or what their relationship to the James Comey's is, but the person sent Patrice James Comey a text to describe her really strong displeasure with James Comey's post on May 15, 2025. Patrice tells the U.S. Secret Service about that because that is what causes her to revisit her assumption that 86 is a restaurant term. She goes, she does some Google searches, and then she goes to her husband and says, you know, there are some people on the right who think this means something really different than what you and I think it means. I think you should take it down. When she talks to the Secret Service, she tells them about that text message from a former friend it appears, and then they go and interview that person. But what the person says initially is revelatory of the fact that they have political animus towards James Comey themselves. Let me tell you a little bit about what Pat Fitzgerald says about that person. When they go to talk to her for the first time, she says she hasn't spoken to James Comey in two to three years, that she expressed disagreement with the role that James Comey's son-in-law, who is himself a prosecutor who has since been fired. We know that, thanks to Carol's reporting, that he was a prosecutor of crimes committed on January 6, 2021 in the U.S. Capitol, and she has a problem with that. And then the person expresses regret to the Secret Service agents that they didn't have, quote, Something more, end quote, to make the James Comey's, quote, face consequences for this, end quote. And then they added, and this is the quote, I guess there's nothing that I can share that isn't just speculation on my part. But then they add that they hope Jim goes to jail for the things he did when he was the FBI director. Notwithstanding that, they go to visit this person again four days later. And that is a day after this person hears Rudy Giuliani on his. broadcast, I guess a podcast or something else, where he repeats something he has heard on Newsmax, that James Comey must have been familiar with what 86 meant from all of his experience as a mob prosecutor. That's what causes the FBI to try and shore up this theory. Here's the problem. Nobody tells them that except maybe Sammy the Bull, and he's not exactly credible. It's insane. Carolyn, thank you so much for you're reporting on this story and for starting us off on it.

Everyone else sticks around a little bit longer. We need to sneak in. A quick break, we'll all be right back. Listen to your favorite MS Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoying new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline White House, and the Rachel Maddo Show. Every small D Democratic muscle that we have is flexing. Plus the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell, the beat with Ari Melburgh, the weeknight, and more. On the go, wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts. I haven't seen a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I've requested. I think they realize now that we're serious, and I think Thom Tillis is pretty much on the same page that I am, so they better get real, and there's not much time left. If it stands as it is now, right now, would you vote? Well, I'm not prepared to vote yes. Let me put it down. That was Senator John Cornyn earlier today. Not being prepared to vote yes is the same as a no vote. That's where he currently stands. I'm Todd Blanche, the Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and another key Republican Thom Tillis are all meeting right now in John Cornyn's office. We're back with Mark, Director Brennan, and Lisa. You know, Director Brennan, I'm with Mark Elias, that one, we don't hold our breath for Republicans to do the right thing. My only point earlier was that they can, they choose not to. And two, we're already there, right? You know, I think we all, between the re-election of Donald Trump and the beginning of a second term, wondered how bad it would be and how quickly, and it was the worst it could be immediately. I spent about an hour and a half with Brian Driscoll today, and what's happened inside the FBI's. The only thing that rivals what's happened inside the Department of Justice. And the only thing that rivals those two sort of political calamities is what's happened inside ODI and I. And the only thing more alarming is what's happened inside the Pentagon at the Department of Defense, which has been oddly renamed the Department of War. I mean, they've turned the government upside down and on its head already. And I wonder what you make of this sort of inability to grasp that. Well, it's not exactly a profile and courage for John Cornyn to show a bit of backbone on the way out the door. Like Mark, I've given up on most Republicans, you know, finding the integrity and the decency that really should be a testament to the type of work that they should be doing, but it's not. And so therefore, you know, I'm glad that, you know, John Cornyn is pushing this issue. I'm hoping that others will do it as well. As we said, Todd Blanche should not be confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States, given his track record as acting and before that as deputy. But also, again, as we talked before, the position that they're putting people in in these organizations. And I do say that professionals, whether it be in OD&I or law enforcement, FBI, Department of Justice, wherever, they do have options. There are inspectors general that they can go to.

There are whistleblower channels they can go to. There are members of the Oversight Committees that really take seriously their responsibilities. They happen to be all on the Democratic side at this time. But if individuals are being asked to do things unethical or illegal or something that puts our national security at risk and endanger, they can go there. There's also responsible members of the media that would love to be able to expose the corruption, the fraud, as well as the dangerous actions that are taking place. So the impact that this administration has had on the professionals in these various organizations and institutions is profound. And unfortunately, I think it is lasting. And I really do wish that some more Republicans, even the ones out the door, would show a bit more courage in terms of pushing back against this administration. Mark Elias, I feel like today we have the smoking gun evidence of the damage done by one of the chief capitulators, and that's big law. Because if they hadn't capitulated, paid bribes to Donald Trump and agreed to work for Boris over at Commerce or wherever else they're doing their pro bono work. then everybody targeted by Trump might have the kind of legal representation that James Comey does. You know, James Comey knows these three things about the Secret Service carrying out warrantless surveillance that they know at the time is illegal because he has the kind of lawyers that he has and David Kelly and Pat Fitzgerald. James Comey will probably prevail in the judicial branch, that one leg of the stool, because he has... Not just good lawyers, not just great lawyers, but the best of the best. A lot of people at that caliber go work in big fancy law firms to make money, which is their right. But when their law firms capitulate to Donald Trump to save their M&A businesses, it's really hard for those best of the best lawyers to represent people like Brendan Ballou or Brian Driscoll or others who get targeted politically. Yeah, I think that's such an important point. And it's part of the reason why I get so exercised about this topic every time we talk about it, because it is, of course, not just the people at the top of government who have capitulated. And I think that we need, as lawyers, myself included, we need to look at the legal profession and ask ourselves what the hell happened. I mean, how did we wind up in a situation in which the largest, most profitable law firms in America have turned out to be total cowards. In fact, worse than cowards. In many of these instances, they have not just capitulated. They've become collaborators. They are sort of in joint venture business with this administration. And this has downstream effects. You know, I'm old enough to remember that when... government employees. And I don't mean the people at the top who, you know, could always get top-notch lawyers. But I remember, you know, when rank and file White House officials or career civil servants got caught up in something and they needed lawyers, big law firms would provide pro bono or very, very reduced rate representation so that all of these people could have lawyers. None of them are doing that now.

None of them are willing to do that. In fact, we just watched, I think today or yesterday, one of the largest, most prestigious law firms in New York, enter an appearance on behalf of Donald Trump in a case involving, you know, Gene Carroll. I mean, it's going the opposite direction and the impact that is having. on real people, on exactly the people that Director Brennan is concerned about, that, you know, I don't want to seem unfeeling about, but the impact it is having is horrific. And the law, the legal industry has not done self-reflection. The American Bar Association has not done the self-reflection needs to do. And so I'm 100% with you. Well, I'm not worried about their feelings because, again, I spent an hour and a half with Brian Driscoll today who does this TED talk and says, it is what it is, is something that people who have stopped fighting say, right? It isn't what it is. And Kevin Warsh knows who won the 2020 election. And if he can look in the mirror and feel good about himself because it gets to be this big fancy job he's always wanted. He shouldn't be so proud of himself. He couldn't tell the truth about who won the election. So good luck running the economy. I hope for all of our sake, it goes well. Jay Clayton knows who won in 2020. And if he can look in the mirror, if he thinks his kids are proud of him, I hope he's right, right? I want that for him. But I wouldn't be proud to have him as a neighbor if he couldn't say the word W-O-N about Joe Biden in 2020. And if you are looking at an offer from one of the law firms that capitulated and you think you can do anything else at the beginning of your career, go do it. Because you are in bed with people who will not have your back if you do something hard. Because if they don't have their own backs, when Donald Trump comes knocking, not because they did something wrong, but because they did something that pissed off Donald Trump, right? They got involved in causes that are associated with things that these firms have believed in. And now, again, they work for Boris, and they do pro bono work for the Commerce Department. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. And I think that... the asymmetry of people not wanting to call out, people at their beginning of their careers and say, you don't want to be associated with these things, is having this downstream effect of letting people say, oh, it is what it is. It isn't what it is. But like none of you have capitulated and here we are. And it's halfway over. Like I think on the other side, it's going to be equally unemployable to have been a part of these. Abominations. So I appreciate all of you having this conversation. And thank you for listening to the event. No one goes anywhere. On the other side, the housing guy, speaking of abominations, wants more time over at the intelligence agencies. Of course he does.

It's an acting position. It's not a permanent. He's not going to be permanent because, you know, I don't think he'd want to be permanent. But he's a very smart guy, and he may find out some things about the re-delections, et cetera, et cetera. He'll be very good. Again, it's not a permanent position. We're interviewing people right now, but it's somebody just to take it over for a little while. Never let that be normal, right? When you're so bad that even Donald Trump says that you're only good enough for the acting spot. It was Trump talking about Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence whose only qualification is unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump, which even Donald Trump seems to know. And even Donald Trump promised that he would be there temporarily. Late last night, the Senate voted to confirm Jay Clayton as the country's new DNI to relieve Bill Pulte of his doing double duty because he kept his housing job. Bill Pulte has spent the last few moments of his time at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, hollowing out his own office of actual experts in intelligence. But as Politico reports, quote, Trump's favorite fixer is biting for more time to tinker atop the nation's intelligence apparatus. From that new report, Bill Pulte is pressing Trump to, quote, delay Jay Clayton swearing in. or at least trying to stay in the job a while longer, White House official told Playbook. And Bill Pulte's recent burst of activity, ramping up social media posts, declassifying material, and announcing additional sweeping layoffs as part of an effort to get Trump on board with that plan. We're back with Mark, Director Brennan and Lisa. So, Director Brennan, the problem with Jay Clayton not being able to utter the word W-O-N-1 about Joe Biden 2020 is because once you... relinquish your credibility and your independence on the big things, it's very hard to say no to keeping Bill Pulte around permanently. So how do you think this effort on Bill Pulte's part to stick around a little longer is going to end? He was clearly trying to suck up more to Donald Trump because I think he's trying to angle for some type of cabinet position or something else and to demonstrate just how much he's willing to do and how far is willing to go to satisfy Donald Trump. And even though he has not been acting director for that long, he does seem to have done a lot of damage. And it's unknown exactly what type of damage was done by the declassification of a lot of those documents that were put out in support of Donald Trump's press conference. but you can bet that the russian and chinese and other intelligence services are now mining those documents to see whether or not they can find additional insight into exposing human sources of technical collection systems the united states or whatever but also the purge of individuals including on the national intelligence council so this damage is being done in terms of our capabilities our personnel the expertise that are out the door i mean this is something that is going to last far longer than you know bill pulpy's tenure there

But again, the fact that Jay Clayton couldn't say that, you know, Joe Biden won the 20 election. It's, you know, the question of, you know, worse and worser. And, you know, Jay Clayton obviously does not have the intelligence background experience that's required in a position. But Bill Pulte is absolutely awful and needs to get out of there as soon as possible. And so, you know, I'm hoping that Jay Clayton is going to go in there and find some measure of backbone or integrity that's going to allow the intelligence community to not to be damaged further under him. Lisa, Senator Mark Kelly posted this, quote, I voted against Jay Clayton today for the good of our nation. Jay Clayton needs to be able to tell the president when he disagrees or when evidence points in a different direction. It's clear he's unwilling to do that. Well, I mean, one of the key episodes of that, Nicole, is the most recent one, which is the New York Times subpoena. That happened under Jay Clayton's leadership while he was still the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was asked about that during his confirmation hearings. He recited to senators that he believed that they had followed the law. to the book with respect to the application for those subpoenas and yet I learned sitting in a hearing last week in the Southern District of New York that that was absolutely not the case, that not only had the SDNY not followed case law about when you can serve process on reporters, they hadn't followed still applicable federal regulations. It got so bad that a junior prosecutor was called from the gallery of the courtroom to be dressed down by the judge about why he had misled a magistrate judge about the need for a non-disclosure order when they subpoenaed phone service providers and Google. And he wrote in an application that that had to be done for the integrity of the investigation. Jake Layton says they followed the law. Why wasn't that reason alone to vote against him? Exactly. Mark Elias, Director John Brennan, and Lisa Rubin, thank you so much for spending the hour with us. After the break, Donald Trump and the GOP with a laser focus heading into the midterms on absolutely nothing that the American voters say they care about. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere today.

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