Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The impact of
Speaker 1: the government shutdown on the concealed operations of the intelligence
Speaker 1: community it's hard to measure. FBI Director Christopher Ray summed
Speaker 1: it up this way in his testimony to the Senate
Speaker 1: Intelligence Committee. Needless to say, we're still assessing the overall
Speaker 1: operational impact of the shutdown, but what's quite clear is
Speaker 1: that it was incredibly negative and painful for the thirty
Speaker 1: seven thousand men and women of the FBI and their families.
Speaker 1: In fact, years of work on terrorism investigations may be
Speaker 1: wasted due to the government shutdown. Here to tell us
Speaker 1: more is Jordan Reuben, Bloomberg Law Legal Editor. He's coming
Speaker 1: to us from the Bloomberg Law Studio in Arlington, Virginia.
Speaker 1: Jordan's explain how the shutdown effect did intelligence gathering and
Speaker 1: counter terrorism efforts. Sure so, one of the most noteworthy
Speaker 1: and really even scary negative impacts of the government shutdown
Speaker 1: was how it affected operations of the FBI as a whole,
Speaker 1: And one important facet of that is, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: how it affected counter terrorism counter intelligence investigations. We have
Speaker 1: word from the FBI Agents Association, which represents thousands of agents,
Speaker 1: which reported that in at least one investigation, they obviously
Speaker 1: wouldn't go into the details, but they lost sensitive intelligence,
Speaker 1: sensitive sources, and that essentially led to months of work
Speaker 1: for some sources, years of work for others, essentially being
Speaker 1: down the drain. It may seem ironic to some that
Speaker 1: drug and immigration cases at the border were affected negatively,
Speaker 1: and those are the two areas the President often points
Speaker 1: to in support of the need for a border wall exactly.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I took a look
Speaker 1: at was at a border state like Arizona, for example,
Speaker 1: drug interdictions saw a drop during the government shutdown. Certain
Speaker 1: filings in for example, a district in Tucson near the
Speaker 1: border saw a drop in illegal immigration cases. And that
Speaker 1: was something that was surprising to people who follow these
Speaker 1: sorts of things. And so the question is whether that
Speaker 1: was a direct impact from the government shutdown, and it is,
Speaker 1: as you point out, ironic, because that is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that the President does talk about as a
Speaker 1: need for a southern border wall to stop these sort
Speaker 1: of things. There's a cascading effect. The shutdown didn't directly
Speaker 1: affects state and local law enforcement, but it indirectly affected
Speaker 1: them and their relationship with the FBI, and that affects
Speaker 1: the future relationship with the FBI. Explain how that went
Speaker 1: down or didn't go down, Sure So, one of the
Speaker 1: many complaints that we had from FBI agents. One of
Speaker 1: them was, for example, a call to the FBI to
Speaker 1: assist on a local homicide investigation, but due to lack
Speaker 1: of funds during the government shutdown, the FBI could not assist.
Speaker 1: And so the concern from the FBI there is not
Speaker 1: only that they weren't able to help out on an
Speaker 1: important investigation, but going forward, that could harm the relationship
Speaker 1: between state and local officials and the FBI when there's
Speaker 1: help needed going the other ways. That's again one of
Speaker 1: the many negative consequences from the FBI's point of view
Speaker 1: of the government shutdown. Your story mentioned something which I
Speaker 1: didn't think about, which is paying snitches. I guess it's
Speaker 1: what you'd call them. Sure So, the lack of funds, touches,
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. It's not just a matter of
Speaker 1: employees not getting their regular paycheck, which obviously is incredibly important,
Speaker 1: but the FBI requires operational funding to actually go and
Speaker 1: do things that are needed for investigations, whether it's paying
Speaker 1: informants to do buys of drugs for an undercover investigation. Again,
Speaker 1: that's something that's hurting the drug prosecutions that a southern
Speaker 1: border wall would supposedly help to stem. As we also
Speaker 1: discussed paying confidential sources when it comes to terrorism type
Speaker 1: of investigations. So that's one of the many facets of
Speaker 1: the government shutdown that harmed FBI investigations. Are some of
Speaker 1: those source is perhaps lost forever or can they pick
Speaker 1: up and start paying them now, Well, at least some
Speaker 1: of them, according to some FBI agents, are lost forever,
Speaker 1: and of course even for the ones that aren't lost forever.
Speaker 1: Like anybody else who relies on a steady paycheck, whether
Speaker 1: you're a regular government employee or whether you're drug buying informant,
Speaker 1: you need a regular source of income. And so if
Speaker 1: the government isn't going to be a steady paycheck, then
Speaker 1: you might look elsewhere in order to get your regular money.
Speaker 1: Not only the FBI, but prosecutors, public defenders and other
Speaker 1: judiciary employees that it takes to run the system orn't
Speaker 1: being paid. So I take it that's a hit too morale.
Speaker 1: But what about retention and attraction of people in the future. Sure,
Speaker 1: So that was one concern that was sort of a
Speaker 1: constant across all facets of the justice system and people
Speaker 1: that I spoke to. There's the uncertainty, there's the low morale.
Speaker 1: There's a concern that people will look at this situation
Speaker 1: who maybe have other options in the private sector and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't need to go through this.
Speaker 1: I could be making more money in some sort of
Speaker 1: private sector job. And maybe this is someone who does
Speaker 1: think that public service is important, but it's just too
Speaker 1: uncertain if they're going to not be able to rely
Speaker 1: on a regular paycheck from the government and you know,
Speaker 1: the justice system and counter terrorism or their contractors involved. Sure.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the many indirect impacts of the
Speaker 1: government shutdown. And the worst part about it is for
Speaker 1: people who are contractors as opposed to employees, is that
Speaker 1: they won't necessarily get back pay. And so whether it's
Speaker 1: someone like an interpreter who might be contracted out, whether
Speaker 1: it's through a prosecutor's office, whether it's through a court,
Speaker 1: whether it's through a public defender's office. That's the type
Speaker 1: of service that's needed in order to, for example, carry
Speaker 1: out certain investigations. The FBI mentioned that that was a
Speaker 1: problem as well, whether it's in terms of a gang
Speaker 1: investigation or a drug investigation. Interpreting services are something that
Speaker 1: the government relies on a lot. And that's one example
Speaker 1: of someone who could be a third party contractor who
Speaker 1: is also affected by the shutdown indirectly. And another thing
Speaker 1: didn't think about until I read your article was the
Speaker 1: gathering of evidence crimes that were committed. There might perhaps
Speaker 1: be evidence that's lost now or was collected sloppily. Well. Sure,
Speaker 1: when there's a strain on resources, whether it's in terms
Speaker 1: of not having the regular amount of personnel, whether it's
Speaker 1: the personnel that you have worrying about where they're going
Speaker 1: to get their next paycheck from, things inevitably are going
Speaker 1: to fall through the cracks. And so the concern obviously
Speaker 1: in part stems from things that we can point to,
Speaker 1: but one of the most concerning aspects are the things
Speaker 1: that we won't be able to point to the cases
Speaker 1: that won't be able to get made in the first place,
Speaker 1: the strain on the public defender, who isn't able to
Speaker 1: put forth as vigorous a defense of their client as
Speaker 1: they would like to. And so these are the sort
Speaker 1: of things that, whether you can quantify them or not,
Speaker 1: everyone who's involved in the justice system seems to agree
Speaker 1: was an extremely negative impact of the shutdown. It was
Speaker 1: amazing that the courts kept operating. Were there any courts
Speaker 1: we have about a minute here, were there any courts
Speaker 1: that closed down during the shutdown? I would say the
Speaker 1: main issue wasn't necessar fairly so much the outright closure
Speaker 1: of courts, but they just weren't really necessarily operating at
Speaker 1: full steam at all facets. The criminal cases did take
Speaker 1: a priority. Some civil cases were put on hold, and
Speaker 1: they're very important consequences to there too. So from some
Speaker 1: people's point of view, if their case wasn't heard at
Speaker 1: the time that it was supposed to be, then in
Speaker 1: some ways, you know, they didn't really get the sort
Speaker 1: of justice that they had anticipated from the system due
Speaker 1: to the shutdown. It's amazing all the indirect effects that
Speaker 1: we don't think about Thanks so much. Jordan's that's Jordan Reuben.
Speaker 1: He's at Bloomberg Law, Legal editor, and he's coming to
Speaker 1: us from the Bloomberg Law Studio in Arlington, Virginia. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and
Speaker 1: on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Basso. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Ye.