Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: You know what? I'm dismissive. How are you? Not of you. I'm not feeling dismissive of you, I do want to know how you are.
J. Aughenbaugh: Me, I'm feeling a little irritable because listeners, this is generally when I hibernate but alas.
N. Rodgers: What's up with people making news?
J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, in the middle of July this summer.
N. Rodgers: Listeners, Aughie sent me a text and the tone of it was, really? I'm like, I know. I'm sorry. But you have to explain this because I don't really understand. The thing about the dismissal of the case in Florida.
J. Aughenbaugh: Pause. Listeners this is another one of our in the news episodes.
N. Rodgers: It won't be super long, but half an hour.
J. Aughenbaugh: We are recording the day after federal district court judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case that was occurring in Florida against former President Trump.
N. Rodgers: Listeners, I called Aughie and I ranted. I was like, it's obvious. There are pictures of taking the documents. No. Here's the thing. I'm a government documents librarian, don't take stuff that belongs to the American people. Don't break into the library of Congress and take documents, don't take documents out of the president's office. Don't take documents you chucklehead. They belong to all of us. I was very angry, very upset, and I was [inaudible]. Aughie said it's not about that. I'm like, what? He's like, it's not on the merits of that part of the case. It's not even about that, Nia. I was like, well, no. I'm really mad. Then he had to calm me down because I just spent another 10 minutes yelling at him and bless his heart, he just listened.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, you're welcome. But listeners, what's really fascinating is this phenomenon actually generates, shall we say, rants from both Nia and myself. Nia has already given the broad contours of her rant.
N. Rodgers: This is my rant. Don't steal my stuff.
J. Aughenbaugh: By the end of this episode, you will actually hear me go off on a rant, but it's unrelated to that.
N. Rodgers: Because yours is an administrative rant.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. In about how courts operate and how they're covered in the media but nevertheless. Let's deal with the facts. Aileen Cannon, federal district court judge, held that the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith was unconstitutional. As such, the federal indictment against former President Trump had to be dismissed.
N. Rodgers: Not because of the merits of the case, but because Jack Smith should not have been a prosecutor.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, if you're having a hard time keeping track of all the Trump legal cases, this is the case where the federal government alleged that Trump illegally retained presidential and classified documents after he left office. Doing so violated numerous federal laws.
N. Rodgers: There are actually rules that presidents have to hand things over. There's a whole bunch of boring rules about what has to go to the national archives because it belongs to the people and what belongs to the president, it's similar to gifts that are given to the president when he's out of the country. Here, president, this giant sword for you, like they gave Bush, and Bush said, I have never gotten a sword, thanks, and he handed it off to somebody who took it over to the Smithsonian or wherever it is that we keep all of our stuff. It became a sword that the United States owns. It's that kind of thing.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's one. The second is classified documents. Government officials, whether you are still employed or used to be employed by the government you just can't walk out with classified documents.
N. Rodgers: They're classified for a reason. Thinking that you've unclassified them does not unclassify them because there are actual rules about how you go through an unclassified documents.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct.
N. Rodgers: Otherwise, it's redacted.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, in a previous podcast episode, Nia and I talked about how of the four cases against Donald Trump, the New York, Hush Money case, the DC Trump's role in the January 6th, 2021 riot/insurrection, the Georgia election case and this case. Of the four, legal scholars including yours truly thought this was the strongest case against Trump, simply because the laws he was alleged to have violated are so well established.
N. Rodgers: The evidence was pretty strong.
J. Aughenbaugh: They've been used so many times that this wasn't a novel legal argument or an unusual case.
N. Rodgers: Unlike the hush and the DC. Both stretched the law to its outer edges of whether you could take it there or not. This was pretty clear. Don't take stuff, you the took stuff.
J. Aughenbaugh: Even the Georgia case is a Rico case, a racketeering influenced organization case. Those cases are incredibly difficult to bring and be successful in getting a conviction. This one was straightforward. The laws in regards to presidential records, which Nia talked about just a few moments ago, have been on the books since Nixon, post Watergate. The laws and the rules about classified documents have existed in some cases since before World War II. This was pretty straightforward. However, this case ends up being dismissed because the Trump legal team made an argument based on a dissenting opinion in a case that was decided in 1988, Morrison versus Olson. Now, for my former students who may be listening, if you're having flashbacks or post traumatic stress, I'm sorry. I'm once again going to talk about Morrison versus Olson but this was a case that arose when we still had an independent counsel law. The independent counsel law was passed after Nixon to take the appointment and termination of independent counsels out of the hands of the president. This position was created by this law to investigate wrongdoing occurring within the executive branch. Congress wanted to avoid what happened during the Nixon administration when Nixon ordered the attorney general of the United States to fire the special prosecutor that was looking into the White House's role in the Watergate break in and cover up.
N. Rodgers: Nixon comes under pressure. He appoints a special counsel to investigate so that people will lay off him.
J. Aughenbaugh: But when the special prosecutor started getting close to what Nixon's role was, Nixon orders the attorney general to fire [inaudible].
N. Rodgers: To fire the independent counsel the attorney general says, I'm not feeling it.
J. Aughenbaugh: The attorney general refuses and resigns. His deputy attorney general also refuses to fire the special prosecutor. He resigns. This led to the third person in the food chain of the Justice Department, the then solicitor general, one Robert Bork, to finally agree to do what Nixon wanted. He fires special prosecutor Archer Borkrost.
N. Rodgers: Which if you don't believe that actions have consequences, go listen to his senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court, and you will see that they do have consequences because he was ruled over that for half a day. Ultimately why he was not on the Supreme Court probably.
J. Aughenbaugh: There were a number of reasons, but that was one of the big ones because his view of the office of president seemed to run counter to what senators wanted, which is how do we investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch when the president might actually be involved? In Morrison versus Olson the independent counsel law was challenged. Now, unfortunately, for Olson, who was an attorney in the attorney general's office, he lost his appeal.
J. Aughenbaugh: An overwhelming majority of the Supreme Court, the vote was, what was it? Eight to one, held that the independent counsel law was constitutional, did not violate separation of powers. Because in the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Renquist, Renquist concluded that an independent counsel was an inferior officer. Now, for listeners, you're like, what's an inferior officer? Unfortunately, the US constitution makes a distinction between principal and inferior officers. Principal officers, like the heads of departments, like Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, those are principal officers. If you're a principal officer, your appointment process has to follow the well known two step process. The president nominates you.
N. Rodgers: The Senate grills you.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and hopefully confirms you.
N. Rodgers: There's a grilling first. There's always a grilling.
J. Aughenbaugh: But if you're an inferior officer.
N. Rodgers: You don't fall under the two step process.
J. Aughenbaugh: Congress can create any appointment process it wants. When Renquist deemed the independent counsel as an inferior officer, then the selection of Morrison in this case, was deemed constitutional. But the Constitution doesn't necessarily define who is or is not a principal versus inferior officer. It all falls upon the shoulders of the Supreme Court to make that determination. Now, you might be thinking, well, why would Aileen Cannon rely upon Morrison versus Olson? Well, she didn't rely upon the majority. She relied upon a dissent Authored by Justice Antonin Scalia.
N. Rodgers: Did she not clerk for Scalia?
J. Aughenbaugh: No. She did not clerk for Scalia.
N. Rodgers: She did not clerk for Scalia. But that dissent even though it's 8-1.
J. Aughenbaugh: It became extremely influential.
N. Rodgers: Because didn't a lot of people say that dissent actually probably accurate?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. This is one of the more remarkable things, listeners. Scalia goes ahead and says, independent counsels are principal officers because they have so much independent discretion on how they conduct their investigations.
N. Rodgers: Yeah, because independent counsels can spend all the money. By all the money, I mean all the money. There are no limits on their money on their subpoena. They don't have any real limits.
J. Aughenbaugh: The number of staff, how long the investigation takes.
N. Rodgers: You can have a star three-year investigation.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, independent counsel Walsh, he is Iran Contra investigation.
N. Rodgers: Oh, my gosh. Eight years or something.
J. Aughenbaugh: Eight plus years.
N. Rodgers: Seriously.
J. Aughenbaugh: Bush 41 was in office, and Walsh was still investigating Iran Contra for an event that happened back in '84.
N. Rodgers: What happens is in my opinion, is that either side of the political aisle likes.
J. Aughenbaugh: Independent counsel.
N. Rodgers: Independent counsel to have maximum power when they are investigating someone that that group does not like?
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. Yes.
N. Rodgers: When it's reversed, then they say, Oh, man, these independent counsels have an awful lot of power. Maybe we should do something about that. Scalia's dissent gets used by both sides.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Whenever it's convenient to them to do that because politicians are like that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners what was fascinating was, I started doing research into who actually spoke favorably about Scalia's dissent in the Morrison versus Olson case. What I came across was to Nia's point in the 1990s, who spoke favorably about Scalia's dissent?
N. Rodgers: I would imagine the Democrats because Bill Clinton was getting investigated.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. They were just appalled by the fact that Kenneth Starr was initially appointed to investigate a bad land deal that the Clintons engaged in when he was governor.
N. Rodgers: It turns into this whole big long involved I did not have sex with that woman whole thing and they didn't like it. They were like, this is too much. Scalia's right. This is too much power. This should have been approved by the Senate.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Jump forward. Merrick Garland is attorney general in the Biden administration. They receive reports that former President Trump is bragging to his golfing buddies that he's got presidential records and classified documents.
N. Rodgers: Hey, want to see the nuclear codes. He didn't do the nuclear codes. I'm being facetious. I do not have any reason to believe that he directly endangered national security. Please don't.
J. Aughenbaugh: But he's bragging to his golf buddies.
N. Rodgers: Look at this report about North Korea. Look at this, blah.
J. Aughenbaugh: Down in Mar-a-Lago. Okay. Merrick Garland is getting pressure by Democratic representatives and senators to investigate.
N. Rodgers: Sorry to interrupt you, Aughie. From the National Archives, because the National Archives politely said to Donald Trump, sir we seem to be missing some documents we sure would like to have them. Donald Trump was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have any documents.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Then his lawyers said, Oh, we found some documents, and they handed over a few, and they signed a thing that said, there aren't any more.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Then they were like, Oh, did we mention the boxes in the bathroom? Because we got a bunch of them too. Sorry about that. It wasn't just Democrats in the Congress. It was also the National Archive saying, really we would like to have our documents, please.
J. Aughenbaugh: Merrick Garland's trying to be, "apolitical".
N. Rodgers: It's his first mistake. I'm kidding. It's not a mistake. He should be apolitical.
J. Aughenbaugh: But this is one of the great ironies about this case, and about Judge Cannon's ruling. Merrick Garland goes ahead and says, I'm not going to use a US attorney who was appointed by Biden and confirmed by the Democratically controlled Senate. I'm going to go ahead and appoint a special prosecutor. But in appointing a special prosecutor.
N. Rodgers: He ran completely a foul.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. He runs into a buzz saw.
N. Rodgers: Of this idea, he'd have been better off just appointing the State Attorney General in Florida.
J. Aughenbaugh: The US Attorney down in Florida.
N. Rodgers: Because he's trying to look like a good guy.
J. Aughenbaugh: Trump's legal team is like, but wait a minute here. This entire case should be thrown out because Jack Smith was appointed unconstitutionally. The shock, for many, because of the Supreme Court's ruling in Morrison was Judge Cannon said, I'm going to entertain that as a motion. We're going to hold a hearing on that. She holds a hearing, actually allows not only the parties in the case, but constitutional scholars to go ahead and present arguments. She starts taking this seriously. A whole bunch of folks were just like, hey, wait a minute here, oh oh Shaggy.
N. Rodgers: Exactly.
J. Aughenbaugh: For Scooby Doo fans, oh oh Shaggy
J. Aughenbaugh: While she is writing up her decision on this motion, the United States Supreme Court issues its decision in Trump versus the United States, in the immunity case. Now, we will talk about that case in an upcoming Summer of Scotus episode. To be released soon. But in that case, there was a concurring opinion written by Justice Thomas. Justice Thomas' concurrence, didn't disagree with the majority's logic, but he writes separately to say, no only do I think that presidents have very broad immunity, I actually think that special prosecutor Smith was appointed unconstitutionally in the lower courts. Should look at this. Now we have momentum. Judge Cannon goes ahead and issues her decision. The case has to be thrown out because it was brought by a government official who was unconstitutionally appointed, because they are a principal officer and principal officers have to be appointed by the president, and that choice has to be held accountable via the Senate. Separation of powers, checks and balances, 101. This is potentially, a game-changer for a number of reasons.
N. Rodgers: If this becomes the standard, then all special prosecutors will have to go through.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: The two step process.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: There's good things here and bad things here. If the president controls the Senate or if the president's party controls the Senate, you could get an investigator who's investigating the president, but wink wink nudge nudge won't find anything.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or, you could get a president who appoints a special prosecutor, and if the president's party controls the Senate, then you could get a special prosecutor who has been given Carte Blanche to engage in a witch hunt.
N. Rodgers: If they're investigating something else.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: A previous president there's some real danger here in this. Or alternatively, this is the third possibility. You could get a president appointing a special prosecutor and then having the Senate kill it and say, wasn't my fault. I tried to do the right thing.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: There was some real danger here.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, what you got here is independent counsels arose because the United States Congress concluded that it could not effectively hold accountable the executive branch. They wanted to take politics out of these investigations into wrongdoing in the executive branch. The problem as seen in Scalia's dissent in Morrison, and Judge Cannon's ruling of recent vintage is that the US Constitution doesn't contemplate that novel creation. It has to follow separation of powers, if not, then it's unconstitutional. But the ruling is a game changer for a lot of reasons. We just talked about one. The second is, by the time the appeals of her ruling conclude, we're going to be well beyond the November election. Because Jack Smith has already announced that he's going to appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Let's say he wins.
N. Rodgers: He won't, but let's say he does.
J. Aughenbaugh: The Trump team will appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court doesn't sit for its next term until the first week of October. Even if they do an expedited hearing, it won't be before the election.
N. Rodgers: Then the president will stop the prosecution?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, let's say, for instance.
N. Rodgers: If Donald Trump wins.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: He would stop the prosecution.
J. Aughenbaugh: But let's give you another hypothetical listeners. Let's say Joe Biden wins this fall, and the Supreme Court overturns Judge Cannon's dismissal. At that point, the case could continue. Or let's say the Supreme Court rules in favor of Judge Cannon. At that point, Joe Biden, whoever his attorney general is, could then refile the charges using the US attorney down in Florida.
N. Rodgers: Well, even if the US attorney down in Florida, that doesn't change with the presidency, does it?
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, technically, yes. Because presidents frequently ask the current US attorneys because they were appointed positions to resign.
N. Rodgers: They don't always because that guy in New York didn't. He had to be booted.
J. Aughenbaugh: He had to be booted, but that was only after Trump initially reappointed him, and then concluded, I don't want to reappoint the dude.
N. Rodgers: But let me ask you a question Aughie, could the US District Attorney in Florida bring a case now and Jack Smith remove his case?
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, Jack Smith's case has already been dismissed. Now, Smith could just go ahead and say, send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and say, I am stepping down. But my recommendation is you turn over the indictment to the properly appointed US attorney down in Florida. That person could then refile the charges.
N. Rodgers: Okay.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Do we think that that's a possibility?
J. Aughenbaugh: It's a possibility. But if that happens, that just gives further narrative meat to Trump saying this was a political prosecution because the US attorney down in Florida who would bring the charges was appointed by Biden and confirmed by a Democratically controlled Senate.
N. Rodgers: Yeah. But it would make my heart glad because you shouldn't be able to take go documents.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is true.
N. Rodgers: Withhold them.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Please, I'm going to rant about something and then Aughie is going to rant about something. I'm going to rant briefly about the fact, yes, Biden also took documents. But as soon as Biden realized he had them, he turned them over, and he said, sorry.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Donald Trump was neither repentant nor did he turn them over in a timely fact, he dragged that out as long as he could.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: I don't know why. I'm not going to cast dispersions on his character by deciding that I know what Donald Trump was thinking. But I do know that that took a considerable amount of time to get those documents turned over.
J. Aughenbaugh: I think what is motivating Trump is what motivated Richard Nixon, which is that until or after Nixon, the practice in the United States was that presidents could take whatever papers they wanted absent classified documents with them when they left office, and if you think about Trump's experience before he was president, you get to do whatever you want as CEO of a corporation.
N. Rodgers: Yes. But Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton.
J. Aughenbaugh: I get all of that. But you asked the question here, or I posited why Trump would do this.
N. Rodgers: I think it's because when somebody said give those back, he said, I'm not going to and you can't make me. But whatever his motivation is, they're not quite apples to apples. I personally and this is because I'm a librarian, I'm like give me my stuff. That belongs to the people and I am one of the people. But I agree with you on your rant, and I think you should now tell the peoples.
N. Rodgers: Stop saying Trump appointed judge. Stop saying she's needing it. Please stop saying those two things until you have read this opinion. Aughie, how many pages was this opinion?
J. Aughenbaugh: Nearly 93 pages.
N. Rodgers: Did you read the whole thing?
J. Aughenbaugh: I read the whole thing.
N. Rodgers: Is she an idiot?
J. Aughenbaugh: No, she's not an idiot. She quite clearly acknowledges why special prosecutor positions became necessary. She readily goes ahead and acknowledges that the controlling precedent is Morrison versus Olson, but she contends that the court in Morrison got it wrong, and that Justice Scalia's dissent is more persuasive than Renquist majority opinion.
N. Rodgers: Does it read like she's a Trump supporter?
J. Aughenbaugh: No. It reads as though she is a strict constructionist in regards to the US Constitution. Now, you can disagree with that particular methodology. Mind you listeners, if you've been listening to us at all, you understand that Nia and I are not necessarily huge fans of strict constructionism. That said, the media has portrayed her as being out of her league, out of her depth, that the case should have been assigned to a judge with more experience. I don't see evidence of that. She took very seriously a case against the former president, and she forced the special prosecutor to defend his appointment and his various actions. Mind you, listeners, an argument could be made, and I hinted at this, and I will hint at this in an upcoming podcast episode. One could argue that special prosecutor Jack Smith was the wrong pick to prosecute Donald Trump.
N. Rodgers: Hey, listener, just a side note Aughie is not a huge Jack Smith fan.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm not a huge Jack Smith fan. In part, because he has already been chastised by the Supreme Court because he was the lead prosecutor in the Bob McDonald corruption case. The Supreme Court has already told him once before, you need not get so creative in using federal laws. He's a zealot. I got a problem with zealots as government officials, particularly government attorneys.
N. Rodgers: In Merrick Garland's desire to not seem political, he chose probably exactly the wrong person. He probably should have chosen Aughie to prosecute this case.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because I wouldn't care if it was Donald Trump, or what the crimes were. If you break the law, you break the law, I bring the case. I don't pick and choose, who based on who the defendant is, etc. I'm with you, Nia. Donald Trump quite clearly broke a number of federal laws in regards to how he retained government papers when he left office. Likewise, if I was Robert Hur, who is the special prosecutor investigating Joe Biden and how he.
N. Rodgers: Documents came to be in his closet at home.
J. Aughenbaugh: In his garage stored right beside his infamous treasured Corvette. Again, the facts of these cases are you can't make these up. Here's the other thing I want to go ahead and say about the media, in particular. Aileen Cannon, again, is obviously suggesting to the upper appeals courts, whether it'd be the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, that they should revisit Morrison versus Olson. That's the thing that State Court judges and lower Federal District Court judges did in wanting to get rid of decades long precedents that maintained segregation that said women were second class citizens, that criminal defendants could be beat until they provided confessions. This is how law gets to be.
N. Rodgers: This will continue until morale improves.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: But it's what courts do. We always think about the Supreme Court pushing down on the lower courts, but the lower courts push up on the Supreme Court. That's part of the judicial system is that you get the push and pull in both directions so that you can revisit. Hey, did we make a mistake? Is there room here for a discussion. Clearly, I'm going to tell you what. I'm not a huge fan of Antonin Scalia but Scalia had a brilliant legal mind. Even people who would not spit on him would say, well, but he was a brilliant legal scholar. If he has a dissent where he's written a cogent and apparently it's one of his best opinions.
J. Aughenbaugh: Hold on, because this is the dissent Nia that has the infamous. I got to read it. This is from Scalia's dissent in Morrison versus Olson. Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the court, clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing. The potential of the asserted principle to affect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident and must be discerned by careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.
N. Rodgers: I like it.
J. Aughenbaugh: He was basically saying.
N. Rodgers: Sometimes it's questionable, this isn't.
J. Aughenbaugh: Isn't questionable.
N. Rodgers: His point being that prosecutors have such unbridled power that they need to be vetted in some way. You can't just hand unbridled power to somebody and say, now, be good. There needs to be a process through which that person is vetted and through which they can be held responsible. That's the other thing is if you're appointed by the Senate, the Senate can then remove you. If you go bonkers and you start doing stuff that's McCarthy ask up in here. We don't want that to happen, they can then say no. They can impeach you. They can remove you.
J. Aughenbaugh: To your point Nia, the media is saying that Judge Cannon dismissed the case based on a legal theory, that is.
N. Rodgers: Fringe.
J. Aughenbaugh: Is fringe. This isn't fringe because anybody who's been teaching constitutional law since 1988 is well aware of the debate. For that matter, it was accepted wisdom among Liberals and Democrats in the 1990s, their independent counsels and special prosecutors had run a mock that it was time to rein them in. This goes both ways, and this goes back to your previous point.
J. Aughenbaugh: Liberals hated it when independent counsel was investigating their president. Conservatives hated it when Walsh was investigating Reagan then Bush. If both sides have issues, we can fix it.
N. Rodgers: Congress can fix it.
J. Aughenbaugh: Congress can fix this. In particular, it would force Congress and I apologize listeners, if you've heard me say this on the podcast. If Congress wants to fix this, Congress can. If Congress wants to actually reign in the executive branch, Congress has the authority to do so. Which would require congress to actually provide more meaningful oversight over the executive branch.
N. Rodgers: Which means they'd have to stop sniping at each other and actually do something.
J. Aughenbaugh: Work together. Because I got it. Yes. Go ahead.
N. Rodgers: All this being said.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Part of the problem here is what you get is the partisan. You're going after Trump because he's.
N. Rodgers: Yes.
J. Aughenbaugh: Republican. You're going after Clinton because he's Democrat. There's always going to be some of that in politics.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Maybe I have not read the 93 page opinion on my list, but who knows when. But my guess is that what Cannon is saying is, you can clean up a lot of the backbiting and the sniping around these investigations by making them a formalized process.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Which would help pull out some of that crap from politics of it's a political.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, because you got to think.
N. Rodgers: Residents would be much more careful about who they chose.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: It should be as right. They would probably choose people who were known more for their neutrality or more for their moderation. That's the old school way of picking somebody, but we seem to have gotten away from some of that in the more recent years. Pick somebody who is relatively unassailable to have an investigation, instead of people who, as you mentioned, maybe zealots or maybe just highly partisan. There's no place for that. I do not want Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whoever, President Obama to be prosecuted by somebody who's out to get them personally. I don't care who took these documents. I don't care if it was Tiffany, I don't care if it was the cat. I want the documents back and I want somebody to apologize. That's it. That's all I need. I don't need Donald Trump to go to prison over classified documents. I just need them back.
J. Aughenbaugh: I don't even care what the motivations were.
N. Rodgers: Right, me neither. If you were absent minded Joe Biden and you just took him home in your Corvette because you don't think about things, that's fine. I don't care, give it back. Just give it back, but this is a special case for me. But I also think that it does. With four prosecutions out there, it does look.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Awfully partisan. I don't think that people should be surprised that supporters of Donald Trump think that people are out to get Donald Trump. It looks a little bit people are out to get Donald Trump.
J. Aughenbaugh: At that point, then you need to dot your eyes and cross your Ts.
N. Rodgers: You need to pick the ones that really matter.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: You need to let the other stuff go. Election fixing is a concern.
J. Aughenbaugh: A serious one.
N. Rodgers: The Georgia case is a concern. I don't know if it'll go, but it's a concern. The documents thing is a concern. I'm not sure how much money really applies. Wait, a politician paid somebody to be quiet about something? Say it isn't true. Come on, how long have there been politicians? Greece interviews?
J. Aughenbaugh: At some point.
N. Rodgers: I'll slip you a few NRs to just look the other way.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because I got to be thinking right now that there are members of the Senate in the House of Representatives who are just, I hope that God we didn't do any of these transactions in New York because I'm going to [inaudible].
N. Rodgers: Exactly.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm going to get prosecuted here.
N. Rodgers: This is a sweating ball. Really, come on. Just anyway. There's some stuff I think you can really prosecute, and there's some stuff that I think probably I don't think you can prosecute people for being dumb. Well, you shouldn't prosecute people for being dumb. You shouldn't have to stretch the law really out of shape in order to be able to bring a prosecution. If you can't get them cleanly, you can't get them. Al Capone got killed how many people and they got him for tax evasion. Sometimes you just got to go with what you have. We'd like to ask the media. Aughie and I would like to ask the media to lay off Judge Cannon. She's blonde, she's not an idiot. Quit acting she's a dumb blonde. She didn't get there by being a dumb blonde. She didn't get there by not knowing how to do this work.
J. Aughenbaugh: Would it surprise me Nia if the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court overturn her decision? No. But would it also not surprise me if the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court agree with her decision? Why? Because it's a difficult question. Who is or is not a principal or inferior officer? This comes back to the old saw that listeners, you've heard Nia and I know lament, joke about. Yet another thing that was not clearly defined or described in the [inaudible].
N. Rodgers: If I could go back in time. People are like, I would go back and I would buy a winning lottery ticket. I would go back and slap the founding fathers so hard upside their heads and say, ''Could you just put in a glossary or a definition? ''
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: What the heck?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: You mean when you say and also, I would like some clarification on the Second Amendment. Do you mean everybody should own a gun? I want you to think about that before you answer. You know some crazy people. Do you want them to own guns? I'm just saying. In all seriousness, let us do remember that Justice Cannon went to Duke for her undergraduate and University of Michigan for her graduate, and she has been on the District Court for the Southern District of Florida since 2020.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: She didn't wake up yesterday. She's also not blind. I had the wrong mental picture in my head. But she didn't wake up yesterday and just make this decision and she's got a lot of pressure of people looking at her because of this case. Because Donald Trump is the plaintiff in this case, the defendant.
J. Aughenbaugh: The defendant in this case. It's a difficult case. But anyways listeners, if you get a chance, read the Opinion.
N. Rodgers: If you get a chance send Aughie email, tell him that you read the Opinion whether you did or not, because it'll make him feel good.
J. Aughenbaugh: Some of you are, we listen to the podcast so we don't have to read the same.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. You read it, so we don't have to. That's how I'm going to have you as my vice president. When they send me treaties, I'll be, ''Can you read that, make sure it's okay before I sign it?'' Then you'll read it and you'll say," Look, Canada wants part of Michigan and part of Vermont." I'll say, ''I don't like that.'' You'll have to rewrite, make little notes in the side margins.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia will be at a press conference after a NATO summit or a G8 summit and say, ''I'll get back to what we actually decided after Aughie gets done reading it.''
N. Rodgers: Exactly. If he writes me an executive summary.
J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, he reads slowly. He sometimes actually speaks the words as he reads. Anyways, thanks, Nia and listeners. Thanks for listening to our in the news segment about Judge Aileen Cannon's dismissal.
N. Rodgers: We'll be with you soon for summer of [inaudible].
J. Aughenbaugh: Let's do this, so take care.
N. Rodgers: Thank you.