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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. President Trump tweeted

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Speaker 1: this morning the Dems and their committees are going nuts.

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Speaker 1: This follows the new Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,

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Speaker 1: Adam Schiff, announcing a sweeping new investigation into whether foreign

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Speaker 1: governments or individuals had improper leverage over the president or

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Speaker 1: his business interests. Our job involves making sure that the

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Speaker 1: policy United States is being driven by the national interest,

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Speaker 1: not by any financial entanglement, financial leverage, or other form

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Speaker 1: of compromise. Joining me is former federal prosecutor Elie Honig

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Speaker 1: Special counsel Loewenstein Sandler. Ellie, let's start with the basics.

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Speaker 1: What can Congressional committees do in investigations? What are their

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Speaker 1: powers compared aired with say, federal prosecutors. Sure, so the

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Speaker 1: powers are actually quite different, and I think in important ways. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: federal prosecutors have the heavier stick. They can bring criminal charges,

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Speaker 1: they can arrest people, they can send people to prison.

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Speaker 1: By and large, Congress cannot do that. But but the

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Speaker 1: difference is the vast majority of the work that federal

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Speaker 1: prosecutors do, whether it's Robert Mueller as Special Counsel of

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Speaker 1: the Southern District of New York, is done under lock

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Speaker 1: and key. It's done in grand juries, it's done in secrecy,

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Speaker 1: and we the public only learned about what federal prosecutors

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Speaker 1: are doing on the rare occasion when court filings go

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Speaker 1: in or there's a public arrest. But Congress has the

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Speaker 1: ability a to hold very public hearings and we're about

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Speaker 1: to see one tomorrow with Matthew Whittaker and be Um,

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Speaker 1: to do things quite quickly, to serve as a painter,

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Speaker 1: to schedule hearing on fairly short notice, and to do

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Speaker 1: it in a way that really ensures accountability. Also, Congress

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Speaker 1: is really not limited in scope. Federal prosecutors can only

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Speaker 1: look at criminal activity, but Congress can look at any

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Speaker 1: form of way abuse corruption, whether it's criminal or not.

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Speaker 1: So picking up on the scope, is Shift just pursuing

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Speaker 1: lines of inquiry that the Republican led committee did not,

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Speaker 1: or is he opening up new lines of inquiry? It

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Speaker 1: seems like he's doing both. I think Shift has he

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Speaker 1: released in the last day or two a list of

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Speaker 1: the types of questions that he wants to investigate, and

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Speaker 1: I think Shift is being careful. I think he does

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Speaker 1: not want to be accused of overreaching or going into

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Speaker 1: unnecessary areas. But he's made fairly clear what he's interested in.

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Speaker 1: He's interested in collusion collaboration between Trump and Russia. He's

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Speaker 1: interested in Russian interference with the election, which both of

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Speaker 1: which I think are undisputably matters important to the Congress.

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Speaker 1: And he wants to know about Trump's finances, as those

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Speaker 1: finances relate to his potential relationship with Russia, as those

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Speaker 1: finances explain why Trump may have been indebted financially or

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Speaker 1: otherwise to Russia. But I think Schiff has has been

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Speaker 1: savvy so far. I think he's made clear he's going

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Speaker 1: to be aggressive, but I think he wants to avoid

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Speaker 1: being rightly accused. He will be accused, but rightly accused

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Speaker 1: of going on a fishing expedition or a witch hunt.

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Speaker 1: The President has termed a new phrase, presidential harassment, perhaps

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Speaker 1: replacing witch hunt, now that it's not just Mueller investigating him,

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Speaker 1: but Congressional committees and the Southern District of New York

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Speaker 1: and the New York Attorney General. Which of the many

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Speaker 1: investigations do you think carries the most risk for the president? Yes,

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Speaker 1: so this is another effort at defensive branding, I think,

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Speaker 1: and it will go right on the shelf with with

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Speaker 1: the witch hunt. First of all, the notion of presidential harassment,

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Speaker 1: this is what federal prosecutors are bound to do to

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Speaker 1: to investigate the facts, and Congress by Article one, they

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Speaker 1: have oversight authority. I think the Southern District of New

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Speaker 1: York poses in some ways the gravest threat to the president.

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Speaker 1: I'd come out of the Southern District of New York,

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Speaker 1: but I think objectively, and the reason is the Southern

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Speaker 1: District has certain structural advantages that Mueller doesn't have. Look,

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Speaker 1: Robert Mueller is the best prosecutor anyone could hope to be.

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Speaker 1: So this is not a reflection on the quality of

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Speaker 1: Robert Muller. But the Southern District has a couple of

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Speaker 1: structural advantages. First of all, the president can't fire the

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Speaker 1: Southern District. He can't defund the Southern District, as Whittaker

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Speaker 1: once suggested, if he did fire the U. S. Attorney

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Speaker 1: for the Southern District, you'd have a hundred fifty a

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Speaker 1: U S. A S. Which I used to be right

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Speaker 1: there to pick up the banner. The Southern District is

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Speaker 1: not limited in scope. Mueller is limited by his commission

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Speaker 1: to investigating Russian election interference and matters directly arising. The

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Speaker 1: Southern District can go wherever the evidence leads it, into finances,

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Speaker 1: into sanctions, you name it. Southern District is not going

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Speaker 1: to face the same kind of political pressure to wrap

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Speaker 1: up in a certain amount of time that we already

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Speaker 1: see mother facing. The Southern District can take what time

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Speaker 1: it needs. And the Southern districts not subject to the

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Speaker 1: Special Council regulations which require the Special Council to run

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Speaker 1: certain decisions through the Attorney General and ultimately to file

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Speaker 1: his report with the Attorney General. Those don't apply to

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Speaker 1: the Southern District. So on top of all that, I

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Speaker 1: know firsthand that the ethic Southern District is to be

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Speaker 1: really tenacious and relentless until you get to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of whatever was was done ends out among the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Attorney's offices. For sure, going back to Adam Shift's committee

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Speaker 1: for a moment, the committee voted to send Mueller additional

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Speaker 1: transcripts from the interviews the panel has conducted. Among those

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Speaker 1: transcripts of Donald Trump Junior, Jared Kushner, former Trump strategist

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Speaker 1: Stephen Bannon, are they thinking that there may be perjury

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Speaker 1: charges akin to those facing Roger Stone. I do think

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Speaker 1: that's exactly why Shifts sent those over to Muller. Look,

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Speaker 1: we know that Mueller has and will charge false statements

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Speaker 1: to Congress. He charged Roger Stone with it. As you noted,

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Speaker 1: Michael Colin also pled guilty to making false statements to

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Speaker 1: Congress about Trump. Mascow projects, Yeah, anyone who gave testimony

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Speaker 1: to the House and was untruthful should be very scared

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Speaker 1: right now because this is the next step in the process.

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Speaker 1: Mother now has those transcripts, they'll go through them and

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Speaker 1: mark my words, if somebody testified falsely about a material matter,

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Speaker 1: not about some tangential thing, then I think Muller will

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Speaker 1: is very likely to charge them criminally. Speaking about perjury,

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Speaker 1: I'm hearing a lot of the term process crimes. I

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Speaker 1: don't remember in any year of law school ever studying

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Speaker 1: process crimes. What is this all about? That's another made

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Speaker 1: up term, that's a pr term, that's not a legal term.

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Speaker 1: And if it was, the process that we're talking about

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Speaker 1: here is the criminal justice process. Prosecutors and judges alike,

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Speaker 1: take quote unquote process crimes are like, shouldn't even promote

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Speaker 1: the use of that term. But take crimes like obstruction

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Speaker 1: of justice, witness tampering perjury extremely seriously because they threatened

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Speaker 1: the fundamental core of our criminal justice system. People have

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Speaker 1: likened it to in an athletic event, to to tampering

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Speaker 1: with the referees. You're you're messing with the very rules,

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Speaker 1: the very fairness and foundation of our system. So I

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Speaker 1: completely dismissed those efforts to minimize those types of serious crimes.

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Speaker 1: We just have a minute here, quick reaction to the

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Speaker 1: committee putting off the testimony of Michael Cohen. My main

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Speaker 1: question is, well, what's going to happen between now and that?

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Speaker 1: Because the stated reason for for putting it off a

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Speaker 1: few weeks was in the interests of the investigation, which

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Speaker 1: sort of logically suggests to me that something will happen

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Speaker 1: between now and the end of February when when his

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Speaker 1: testimony is slated forward there under look, they're under time

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Speaker 1: pressure he's going to jail in early March. Not to

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Speaker 1: say they can't pull him out of jail, but that's

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Speaker 1: gonna make it a lot more difficult. So I want

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Speaker 1: to see what's going to happen in the next few weeks.

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Speaker 1: All right, Thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to

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Speaker 1: have you on. That's former federal prosecutor Ellie Hoenig, special

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Speaker 1: counsel at Lowenstein Sandler. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg