Speaker 1: My expertise is getting secrets from the government, and damn it,
Speaker 1: I was going to get those Muller records first.
Speaker 2: That's investigative journalist Jason Leopold. These days, he's reporting for
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. But on Saturday, November two, twenty nineteen, Jason
Speaker 2: and his team were waiting impatiently for documents from Robert
Speaker 2: Muller's investigation into Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1: It was the first tranne from thousands of pages of
Speaker 1: interview summaries that the FBI had tried to keep secret,
Speaker 1: but we managed to pry them loose.
Speaker 2: Jason was certain there'd be important information in these pages
Speaker 2: and he couldn't wait to break whatever news they contained.
Speaker 2: You see, CNN was also getting these records. The issue
Speaker 2: was that Jason's copy was supposed to be mailed to Chicago.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, CNN is in Washington, DC and the records office
Speaker 1: is in Virginia, so they're going to get it first.
Speaker 1: And I was like, there's no way I will accept this.
Speaker 2: So after some hounding, the government agreed to reroute the
Speaker 2: package in get it to Jason's team as quickly as possible,
Speaker 2: and then on this Saturday. In twenty nineteen, the race
Speaker 2: against time began when Jason's colleague in DC received a
Speaker 2: package with.
Speaker 1: A CD inside a CD like it was nineteen ninety nine, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is how they still do it to
Speaker 1: this day.
Speaker 2: But with the records firmly in hand, the gravity of
Speaker 2: the situation set in.
Speaker 1: It was like, holy, we just got the first release
Speaker 1: from the Mauler investigation and immediately just went crazy and
Speaker 1: saying that like, all right, we have this. We don't
Speaker 1: know if CNN has it, but we have an advantage.
Speaker 1: It's Saturday. We're willing to work on a Saturday.
Speaker 2: It didn't take long for Jason and his colleagues to
Speaker 2: find something that public deserve to know.
Speaker 1: There was this conspiracy floating around as it related to
Speaker 1: the Democratic National Committee and the hack of their emails.
Speaker 3: President Trump asked President Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike. He
Speaker 3: was referring to a cybersecurity firm at the center of
Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory that suggests you the Crane not rush Up,
Speaker 3: was behind the DNC server hack in the twenty sixteen elections.
Speaker 1: And so these records revealed that it was actually Paul
Speaker 1: Maniford who was pushing and floating.
Speaker 4: That conspiracy theory. It was such a big deal at
Speaker 4: the time, you know.
Speaker 1: So we got the first story up just honestly, within
Speaker 1: an hour, and then just kept filling it out.
Speaker 2: Sure enough, Jason and the team beat CNN by ours man.
Speaker 1: Everyone there was just so excited, and that evening it
Speaker 1: was MSNBC that had a segment on it, joining us
Speaker 1: now senior investigative reporter BuzzFeed News, Jason Leopold. The documents
Speaker 1: provide a window into what was taking place behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and it allows the public to see what the FBI
Speaker 1: memorialize firsthand.
Speaker 2: And boy was there a lot more, so much more.
Speaker 4: Than we can fit into this episode. But the thing is.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't know any of it, not one bit, if
Speaker 1: not for a little thing called the Freedom of Information
Speaker 1: Act the FOIA.
Speaker 2: It's something Jason and I know very well because we
Speaker 2: both thought to get these documents released, which is what
Speaker 2: we do together every.
Speaker 1: Day, and that's what we're here to talk about. Cue
Speaker 1: the music. I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most
Speaker 1: of my days getting documents from the government.
Speaker 2: I'm attorney Matt Topic, and I fight them in court
Speaker 2: to open their files when they don't want to.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg and no smiling. This is Disclosure, a podcast
Speaker 1: about crying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act,
Speaker 1: and the unexpected places that takes us.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'll just say it, Matt.
Speaker 1: I never thought that the Russia investigation and the Mueller
Speaker 1: investigation that looked into Trump would have such a long life.
Speaker 4: We're seeing that in the news all over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, enormous news. The Trump Justice Department has now indicted
Speaker 2: former FBI director James Comy Jim Comy, charged with lying
Speaker 2: to Congress.
Speaker 5: Just days after the president publicly pressured Attorney General Pam
Speaker 5: Bondi to pursue case against his opponents, including Comy by name.
Speaker 1: The indictment is tied to Comy's twenty twenty testimony in
Speaker 1: front of Congress about Russian meddling in the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: presidential election.
Speaker 2: In about what three days before the Statute of Limitations
Speaker 2: was going to explare.
Speaker 6: My family and I have known for years that there
Speaker 6: are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. But I
Speaker 6: have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I'm innocent,
Speaker 6: So let's have a trial.
Speaker 1: It's funny because anytime there's something that is related to
Speaker 1: a hot button issue, I immediately think back to did
Speaker 1: I file a Foyer request for anything related to that
Speaker 1: person or anything that they did. And when the news
Speaker 1: broke about Comy being indicted, I immediately thought back to a
Speaker 1: request that I filed in twenty eighteen. So back in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Trump said during an interview with the Daily
Speaker 1: Caller that he had one hundred pictures of James Comy
Speaker 1: and Robert Muller hugging and kissing each other. When he
Speaker 1: said that that was a Foya opportunity. So I filled
Speaker 1: a Foy request with the FBI and said, I would
Speaker 1: like to have pictures of James Comy and Robert Muller hugging,
Speaker 1: kissing each other.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's just so good.
Speaker 1: And the FBI responded by saying they couldn't locate any
Speaker 1: photographs of Komy and Muller hugging and kissing.
Speaker 4: So I wrote a little story about it and tweeted
Speaker 4: that app Matt, can you read what I tweeted?
Speaker 2: I would be honored. Jacob Foya update, the FBI has
Speaker 2: not been able to locate any photographs of James Comy
Speaker 2: and Robert Muller hugging and kissing parentheses. Trump City had
Speaker 2: one hundred. My favorite part is you got a response
Speaker 2: from Komy that says, my wife was so relieved, crying
Speaker 2: laughing emoji.
Speaker 1: But Matt, as far as that recent indictment from this
Speaker 1: year is concerned, I'm not going to get into whether
Speaker 1: Kobe should or shouldn't have been charged, but the history
Speaker 1: leading up to it is worth discussing. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons why the effects of the Russian investigation are still
Speaker 1: being felt now is because at the time, it was
Speaker 1: an investigation that just dominated Trump's entire presidency, and Trump
Speaker 1: was outraged that he was under federal investigation, which is
Speaker 1: why it also became such a big bite for us
Speaker 1: to get all those records that might never have seen
Speaker 1: the light of day. So we're talking about something that
Speaker 1: dates back to twenty sixteen when Comy was still in
Speaker 1: charge of the FBI, right where the FBI was secretly
Speaker 1: at work on an investigation called Crossfire Hurricane, and that
Speaker 1: name was chosen as a homage to the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: What's the song I forgot anyway, We'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: It's jumping Jack Flesh.
Speaker 4: Jason Poser, Matt stop. Don't listen to him. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's right, but don't listen to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am right.
Speaker 1: So the investigation was to essentially look into Trump's ties
Speaker 1: to Russia's campaigns ties to Russia. It was opened after
Speaker 1: if anyone recalls Trump saying Russia, if you're listening, I
Speaker 1: hope you're able to find the thirty thousand emails that
Speaker 1: are missing. The investigation also centered around the sources of
Speaker 1: information that we're coming into the FBI, including what we
Speaker 1: know now or very suspect sources that were essentially saying
Speaker 1: Trump has these ties to Russia, campaign has these ties
Speaker 1: to Russia. There's these communications that are taking place with
Speaker 1: people at the Kremlin. FBI opens up this investigation. Trump
Speaker 1: gets elected president, and immediately after he's elected, multiple congressional
Speaker 1: committees start these Russia related investigations. There was lots of
Speaker 1: leaks taking place that kind of forced the Attorney General
Speaker 1: at the time Justice Department, Jeff Sessions, to ultimately recuse himself.
Speaker 7: My staff recommended recuse them.
Speaker 8: They said that since I had involvement with the campaign,
Speaker 8: I should not be involved in any campaign investigation.
Speaker 1: And then Collby is fired from the FBI by Trump
Speaker 1: in May twenty seventeen, which Kobe ultimately claimed was related
Speaker 1: to his handling of the Russia investigation.
Speaker 6: I take the President's words. I know I was fired
Speaker 6: because of something about the way I was conducting the
Speaker 6: Russian investigation was in some way putting pressure on him,
Speaker 6: in some way irritating him, and he decided to fire
Speaker 6: me because of that.
Speaker 1: So, with Sessions recusing himself, this led to Robert Muller,
Speaker 1: former director of the FBI, being appointed as special counsel,
Speaker 1: you know, to make sure any investigation was independent.
Speaker 2: So really the person we have to thank is mister
Speaker 2: magoo aka Jeff Sessions. I keep handy for these occasions.
Speaker 2: The Wikipedia page for a list of nicknames used by
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, I had to look it up at The
Speaker 2: nickname for Jeff Session was mister McGoo.
Speaker 4: By the way, no nickname for Robber Maler on the list.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly, fast forward to March twenty nineteen, we heard that
Speaker 1: the Mala report was going to be submitted any day
Speaker 1: to Bill Barr, the Attorney General at the time, who
Speaker 1: told a Senate committee months earlier that the public deserved
Speaker 1: to know what the results of the investigation were.
Speaker 7: My goal will be to provide as much transparency as
Speaker 7: I can consistent with the law, and I will not
Speaker 7: let personal, political, or other improper interests influence my decision.
Speaker 1: I wanted to put that to the test, so I
Speaker 1: called Matt, my attorney, also known as the Foya King
Speaker 1: of Chicago, as his coffee mug says, Matt and his
Speaker 1: team have gotten the government to release documents hundreds of times,
Speaker 1: like when he forced the release of the Lakwan McDonald
Speaker 1: dashcam footage.
Speaker 3: Mayor Manuel and the prosecutor battle for months to keep
Speaker 3: the dash cam video under wraps. They lose when a
Speaker 3: judge orders the release of.
Speaker 1: The video, and he helps me pry things lose from
Speaker 1: the government, regardless of which party.
Speaker 4: Is in power.
Speaker 2: So the plan was that Jason would submit a FOYA
Speaker 2: or Freedom of Information Act request for the report. And
Speaker 2: let me just explain a little bit. You're going to
Speaker 2: hear an awful lot about FOYA. So, FOYA is a
Speaker 2: statute that says the public is entitled to government records since.
Speaker 1: It's a government of the people and for the people, right.
Speaker 1: And this law says that the work of all these
Speaker 1: government agencies, they're emails, notes, meeting man, it's all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It should be available to the public if a member
Speaker 1: of the public asks.
Speaker 2: Except in certain circumstances where there's something like personal privacy
Speaker 2: or an ongoing investigation, or national security or a long
Speaker 2: list of things where the government can keep information secret
Speaker 2: from you. But when they do that, you have a
Speaker 2: right to go to court to challenge that. And Jason
Speaker 2: and I have done that countless times in order to
Speaker 2: get access to all kinds of records. But the first
Speaker 2: step in using the FOYA is always the same. Make
Speaker 2: a request, right.
Speaker 1: Just request the docum from the government agency that would
Speaker 1: have them. I do these requests as a journalists all
Speaker 1: the time. It's my thing, but really anybody can do this,
Speaker 1: and the law says that the government has to respond
Speaker 1: within certain.
Speaker 2: Timelines in the request either has to be denied, or,
Speaker 2: as happens all the time, the agency just blows you
Speaker 2: off and doesn't actually comply with their legal obligations. So
Speaker 2: once that happens, then you can go to court to
Speaker 2: challenge it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I wanted to use this process to get
Speaker 1: my hands on the Muller Report as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2: So he makes the request and then like the next thing,
Speaker 2: that happens publicly is that Bill Barr sends his letter
Speaker 2: to Congress with the quote principal conclusions.
Speaker 1: So what's out in the public is not the Muller
Speaker 1: report itself. At this point, we couldn't see Mueller's take,
Speaker 1: just the summary from bar.
Speaker 2: They wanted to get their version of what the report
Speaker 2: said out in the world and have it get some
Speaker 2: traction before they release the report. Yes, yes, and this
Speaker 2: is like, this drives me nuts. I'm sure it drove
Speaker 2: Jason nuts. It drove a lot of people nuts. That
Speaker 2: to me is like FOYA is screaming like, let me in,
Speaker 2: let me in. This is my job. Now they're saying
Speaker 2: one thing. You want to know what it really says.
Speaker 2: Then you got to get the documents.
Speaker 1: And for just a second, it looks like we might
Speaker 1: get a FOYA compliant version of the report quickly because
Speaker 1: the DOJ granted expedited processing to my request. Well, except
Speaker 1: that they almost immediately tell us that it'll take them
Speaker 1: even longer to process the report under the Freedom of
Speaker 1: Information Act because it fell within quote unusual circumstances. So
Speaker 1: we sue the government to get that report. Oh and
Speaker 1: while this is all going on, something a little weird happens.
Speaker 2: So about a month after Bill Barr released his initial
Speaker 2: summary of Mueller's findings, they finally released the first version
Speaker 2: of the mull report itself, but it wasn't actually processed
Speaker 2: and redacted. According to the FOYA stachues, it was FOYA esque,
Speaker 2: so they were deact to things like grain jury stuff
Speaker 2: and like harm to ongoing investigations, or they just use
Speaker 2: their own kind of shorthand for it instead of the
Speaker 2: actual FOYA statute.
Speaker 4: Harm to ongoing matter, sorry andthrow matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right right, that's the right, right. So we got
Speaker 2: into court and we're immediately like they got to release
Speaker 2: the FOYA version like now, like next week, two days,
Speaker 2: like really really fast. They shouldn't need that much time.
Speaker 2: They've already been through the report. They're already telling everybody
Speaker 2: what the report says. Like they need to release a
Speaker 2: FOYA compliant version of this report like as soon as possible,
Speaker 2: because every day that goes by is another day in
Speaker 2: which there's a story out there and we don't really know.
Speaker 8: If that's what the report says or not, which it's
Speaker 8: important to note, is creating an environment that the judge said,
Speaker 8: quote I think is going to cause a significant portion
Speaker 8: of the American public to be concerned about whether there
Speaker 8: is transparency.
Speaker 2: So we're basically putting the title of the metal, trying
Speaker 2: to make this lawsuit go as fast as we can
Speaker 2: get the judge to go, and he was willing to
Speaker 2: go pretty fast. So they get a deadline by which
Speaker 2: they have to properly review and reject the report.
Speaker 1: Then our Foyer redacted report comes out May sixth, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: But all the redactions were largely the same. The big
Speaker 1: difference is that instead of the weird shorthand, they were
Speaker 1: now citing Freedom of Information Act exemptions to justify what
Speaker 1: they would keep secret.
Speaker 2: But this stuff was really important because that's how we
Speaker 2: make sure the government is complying with the law.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, Matt Accountability. Plus, now that we knew how
Speaker 1: they were trying to justify the redactions, we could challenge
Speaker 1: those in court, which we did and.
Speaker 4: You'll hear all about that after the break.
Speaker 1: Before the break, we had just gotten our hands on
Speaker 1: a Foyer process copy of the Mola report where the
Speaker 1: government has said, here's what we want to keep secret,
Speaker 1: and here are the exemptions that let us do that.
Speaker 1: So now it's time to go back to court where
Speaker 1: we say, oh, you want to keep that a secret
Speaker 1: because you think the Freedom of Information Act allows you to, okay,
Speaker 1: prove it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's what FOYA is like. Stuff gets withheld,
Speaker 2: stuff gets rejected. But the law says that the government
Speaker 2: has to prove in court, if challenged, that everything that
Speaker 2: they withheld, that there's a basis in the statute to
Speaker 2: do that, and they have to prove that with some
Speaker 2: level of evidence, and they have to show how the
Speaker 2: exemptions actually apply.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really wanted to challenge a lot of the
Speaker 1: redactions that were hiding the reasons why Muller concluded that
Speaker 1: some people Donald Trump Junior being a big one here,
Speaker 1: wouldn't be charged with crimes even though some of their
Speaker 1: conduct was already publicly detailed.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me explain a little bit more about
Speaker 2: how this works. Normally, the government just explains everything they withheld,
Speaker 2: and they put it in these declarations to describe what
Speaker 2: they withheld and explain why it's exempt like it rises
Speaker 2: and falls with that. But sometimes the court will actually
Speaker 2: say no, I want to look at it, especially if
Speaker 2: there's kind of reasons to be concerned about whether the
Speaker 2: government is really being straight about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really weren't sure what the judge in our
Speaker 1: case was going to do at this point.
Speaker 2: And so the next big thing that happened in the
Speaker 2: case is March fifth, twenty twenty, which is like just
Speaker 2: before the world shuts down for COVID. I remember, I'm
Speaker 2: in New Orleans for the Nikar Conference, which is a
Speaker 2: conference of like mostly data journalists and alta foya stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'm there when we get this decision, and the judge,
Speaker 2: who's a Bush appointee just like demolishes Bill Barr and says,
Speaker 2: I'm going to read this report myself because of this
Speaker 2: super shady way that the Justice Department went about first
Speaker 2: releasing like their summary and other things. And then there
Speaker 2: were disputes between Mueller's team and the Attorney General Bill
Speaker 2: Barr about whether Bill Barr was mischaracterizing things like that
Speaker 2: whole ball of X turned into the judge saying this
Speaker 2: is all fishy. He writes a very scathing opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a couple of excerpts here from it,
Speaker 1: and we've asked comedian Kyle Kanane to read it.
Speaker 4: All right, give it a shot.
Speaker 5: The inconsistencies between Attorney General Bar's statements, made at the
Speaker 5: time when the public did not have access to the
Speaker 5: redacted version of the Mullor Report, caused the court to
Speaker 5: seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt
Speaker 5: to influence public disclosure about the Mullor Report in favor
Speaker 5: of President Trump.
Speaker 2: He's calling into question the credibility of the sitting Attorney
Speaker 2: General of the United States. Like that's a big deal.
Speaker 2: Bear in mind, this is Bill Barr, So this is
Speaker 2: Trump version one. This is when like most of the
Speaker 2: cabinet people, you know, most of the people in positions
Speaker 2: of power, they are people with like long Republican pedigrees.
Speaker 2: And I remember calling Jason and we were both like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Oh my god, did you see that part?
Speaker 2: Can you believe what he just said? And you know,
Speaker 2: it was, oh man, it was unbelievable. But what that
Speaker 2: meant was that the DJ had to send over a
Speaker 2: secret package to the court. Then, after looking over everything
Speaker 2: for a few months, the judge granted summary judgment on
Speaker 2: September thirtieth, twenty twenty, which mostly upheld the redactions and
Speaker 2: effectively ended our case at the district court level. So
Speaker 2: with that lost stinging a little.
Speaker 1: We looked ahead to the appeals process because there were
Speaker 1: things that we felt like we had a.
Speaker 4: Good shot at challenging on appeal.
Speaker 2: And in particular, we really wanted to better understand why
Speaker 2: certain people weren't charged with any crimes even though they're
Speaker 2: mentioned in the report and there's information about him in
Speaker 2: the report, there wasn't an explanation about why, for example,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump Junior wasn't charged with any crimes despite things
Speaker 2: that were found in the investigation. So we kind of
Speaker 2: zeroed in on what we wanted to do next, and
Speaker 2: that's what we were focusing on when we looked ahead
Speaker 2: to an appeal. And a reason that that was really
Speaker 2: important was because there was this constant drum beat out
Speaker 2: of Trump World that this was an illegal political witch hunt,
Speaker 2: and we thought that a real good way to get
Speaker 2: to the bottom of that, whether that is true or
Speaker 2: not true, was to take a close look at how
Speaker 2: they handled Donald Trump Junior, which would tend to show
Speaker 2: you if this was an illegal political witch hunt, then
Speaker 2: you would think that they went out of their way
Speaker 2: to investigate Don Jior when there was no basis to
Speaker 2: do so. But conversely, if they had the goods on
Speaker 2: Don Junior and they didn't charge him. That would suggest
Speaker 2: it's the opposite of a political witch hunt.
Speaker 1: And there's a huge public interest in knowing did Mueller
Speaker 1: do a good job or not.
Speaker 2: And so we took that up to the DC Circuit
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals and we argued over that like pretty
Speaker 2: narrow issue, which we.
Speaker 4: Actually have tape of the government.
Speaker 2: Is withholding not only the names of Trump campaign officials
Speaker 2: who were investigated and not charged, but also the justification
Speaker 2: for those decisions. Oral arguments are really fun, but the
Speaker 2: most rewarding thing is when the other lawyers arguing and
Speaker 2: the judges are taking the stuff that you wrote in
Speaker 2: your brief and they're using that material to pound your
Speaker 2: opponent into the ground. And that's exactly what happened. They
Speaker 2: completely understood our theory of how to look at all this.
Speaker 9: The public's need for understanding is really high. Here the
Speaker 9: president is saying it's a scam, and.
Speaker 2: They just rampaged on this government lawyer who was evading
Speaker 2: their questions and just trying to like make the thing
Speaker 2: go away.
Speaker 1: A clear evid insury showing is required to establish government
Speaker 1: misconduct for purposes are not.
Speaker 9: Talking about misconductor. This rationale it says the public is
Speaker 9: entitled to understand.
Speaker 4: And it didn't go away.
Speaker 9: The individual has been identified, The facts with respect of
Speaker 9: that individual are in.
Speaker 4: The public record. They just they really beat them up.
Speaker 9: The only thing that's missing that you've redacted is the
Speaker 9: explanation for why the government took the position it took
Speaker 9: in the report.
Speaker 2: And the outcome was because of our lawsuit, the public
Speaker 2: got to know why Muller didn't charge Donald Trump Junior
Speaker 2: with any crabs because what got unredacted was the portions
Speaker 2: that said we looked at Donald Trump Junior for sort
Speaker 2: of computer hacking type of crimes.
Speaker 1: Let's turn again to our friend Kyle Kanaane for the
Speaker 1: exact wording from the report.
Speaker 5: The office considered whether Donald Trump Junior intentionally accessed a
Speaker 5: protected computer without authorization in violation of Title eighteen, United
Speaker 5: States Code, Section ten thirty, subsection eight, paragraph two, sub
Speaker 5: paragraph C.
Speaker 4: At subsection C, paragraph two, sub.
Speaker 5: Paragraph you get the point providing penalties for quote whoever
Speaker 5: intentionally access as a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized
Speaker 5: access and thereby obtains information from any protected computer.
Speaker 4: All right, mac continue.
Speaker 2: So they believed that they had sufficient evidence to charge
Speaker 2: him with a misdemeanor, but they decided in an exercise
Speaker 2: of discretion that they weren't going to charge him, and
Speaker 2: they decided not to charge him with the felony version
Speaker 2: because they didn't know definitively that they could prove that
Speaker 2: the value of that information exceeded I think it was
Speaker 2: a five thousand dollars threshold in order to argid as
Speaker 2: a felony.
Speaker 4: So what's your read on it?
Speaker 2: Then it showed me, and this is just my opinion
Speaker 2: that Mueller handled Trump World with kid gloves in the
Speaker 2: course of this investigation and didn't go at them as
Speaker 2: hard as I think prosecutors often do in other cases.
Speaker 1: But you know, I do think it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: these things we were able to probably lose from the government.
Speaker 1: Those reactions were originally agreed upon by Robert Muller's team
Speaker 1: and Bill Barr's team, So this wasn't just Bill barrside
Speaker 1: trying to keep things secret.
Speaker 4: This was also mullerside trying to keep things secret.
Speaker 2: What's your takeaway there, Matt, These are institutionalists who are
Speaker 2: primarily concerned with preserving the reputation and integrity of the
Speaker 2: institutions that they're working for, which is a different question
Speaker 2: from like serving the broader public interest of the United
Speaker 2: States of America. And that is why we have a
Speaker 2: FOYA statute, because we know that that's what government officials
Speaker 2: are very often going to do. In fact, a lot
Speaker 2: of times they can't help themselves. I don't even know
Speaker 2: that I would be any better if I was in
Speaker 2: those shoes. But that's why we have to have a
Speaker 2: law that drags these documents out of them, because they
Speaker 2: don't want to be scrutinized. So the conclusion I would
Speaker 2: draw is that Muller didn't want to be scrutinized about
Speaker 2: why he didn't charge Donald Trump Junior, which means there's
Speaker 2: a good chance that's why it's actually been redacted. It's
Speaker 2: something they just don't want us to know because they
Speaker 2: don't want us to be able to scrutinize them and
Speaker 2: question their work and hold them accountable. But that is
Speaker 2: something that we as Americans deserve to know and have
Speaker 2: a right to know. So this is a perfect example
Speaker 2: of like what FOYA does, why it's important, and what
Speaker 2: it can get you.
Speaker 1: These cases were to me the best example of how
Speaker 1: powerful FOYA is and keeping the public informed about what
Speaker 1: their government is up to and alerting the public to
Speaker 1: what was taking place behind the scenes, which was capped
Speaker 1: off by literally unredacting that section of the Mulla Report
Speaker 1: and seeing Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Junior's name there.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was incredible, but I will say not
Speaker 1: as incredible as it could have been, which you'll hear
Speaker 1: all about after the break. So on the other side
Speaker 1: of the break you heard about some of the big
Speaker 1: wins and big news that came out of our attempts
Speaker 1: to get the Mullo Report unredacted. All in all, we
Speaker 1: ended up filing five different lawsuits for information from the
Speaker 1: Muller investigation. But God, Matt, do you remember the time
Speaker 1: we thought we might just get every single thing we
Speaker 1: could have ever wanted from the Maller investigation, and then
Speaker 1: some mark meadows this was awesome. Here's what I remember.
Speaker 1: I remember that Trump tweeted.
Speaker 5: I have fully authorized the total declassification of any and
Speaker 5: all documents pertaining to the single greatest political crime in
Speaker 5: American history, the Russia hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton emails scandal,
Speaker 5: no reactions exclamation point October sixth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So I read that and immediately reached for my phone
Speaker 1: to call Matt, and I said, Matt, we have to
Speaker 1: file an emergency motion in court, and like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know what an emergency emotion is, but the fact
Speaker 1: that that was that immediately popped into my head.
Speaker 4: I was like, we got to do this. Did you
Speaker 4: see what Trump tweeted? This relates to everything.
Speaker 1: That we are asking for because we are still battling
Speaker 1: the government in terms of trying to get some of
Speaker 1: these records released.
Speaker 4: Matt, do you recall that phone call in your response?
Speaker 2: I mean, I got really excited because I thought it
Speaker 2: was a great idea. There's all these records that are
Speaker 2: being with Hell's remos based on them being classified or
Speaker 2: for other exemption claims, and here the president, who has
Speaker 2: the authority to declassified documents, is saying that not only
Speaker 2: are these declassified, he's saying he has already ordered them declassed.
Speaker 2: It was like a cry for help, and it was
Speaker 2: like we were going to help him, Like this is
Speaker 2: what he he wants all this stuff declassified and released,
Speaker 2: and the quote unquote deep State won't do it. Well,
Speaker 2: Like we'll help, right, Like we can help make that happen.
Speaker 4: I'm not even sure if it was a strategy at
Speaker 4: that point.
Speaker 1: It was honestly wanted to get you know, I certainly
Speaker 1: just wanted to get these records, but I was also thinking,
Speaker 1: what could the response by the government ultimately be to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because even if you don't get records, you can
Speaker 2: learn a lot from the response itself. They'll give you
Speaker 2: declarations and descriptions of records that lets you understand things
Speaker 2: like what's the volume of communication on this issue, who's involved,
Speaker 2: when were they involved? And sometimes those things are newsworthy
Speaker 2: even if you can't get all the details. So it
Speaker 2: was exciting and look like it was going to be
Speaker 2: great for the public, but also a lot of fun
Speaker 2: to make the government answer for this and say, the
Speaker 2: president is saying these are declassified and you're not releasing them,
Speaker 2: like explain yourself. And in terms of timing, we're like
Speaker 2: a month before the twenty twenty election. Russia hoax kind
Speaker 2: of language is all over the campaign. This is a
Speaker 2: huge campaign issue, and like we maybe have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to just blow open like a whole bunch of additional
Speaker 2: documents right before the election, because the president says that
Speaker 2: he wants them all released.
Speaker 1: So follow this emergency motion and what's the process, Matt,
Speaker 1: you know, and an emergency motion? Right, so so because
Speaker 1: that's what those are the words I use.
Speaker 4: That was that right? Was it right? An emergency motion?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you called it the right thing. That tweet was
Speaker 2: October sixth, and by October eighth, we file what's called
Speaker 2: emergency motion of plaintiffs for court order requiring defendants to
Speaker 2: reprocess the Muller Report before the November third, twenty twenty
Speaker 2: presidential election in light of the president's recent declassification in weiver.
Speaker 2: And then we spend just like two pages explaining what
Speaker 2: the case is about, in reminding the court that it
Speaker 2: had repeatedly recognized the importance of these records to the
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty election. And then we laid out the tweets,
Speaker 2: and we said, this should be pretty simple. It doesn't
Speaker 2: require any analysis, it doesn't require any consultation with anybody else.
Speaker 2: The President said to release this, he has the authority
Speaker 2: to release it. So order them to reprocess it, you know,
Speaker 2: we have to like sort of confer with the government,
Speaker 2: and they indicated, not surprisingly, that they would oppose and
Speaker 2: that they didn't read the tweet the.
Speaker 4: Way we read the tweet.
Speaker 2: But we filed the motion, and then we're in court
Speaker 2: I think just a few days later. We have a
Speaker 2: zoom or a teleconference court hearing to argue all this,
Speaker 2: and the judge is asking the government. He's like, I'm
Speaker 2: looking at this like it looks to me like that
Speaker 2: might be what he's saying. And the government saying, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's not what he's saying. He's not saying he classes
Speaker 2: by anything. And the judge says, well, did you ask
Speaker 2: him what he meant? And no, nobody actually asked him
Speaker 2: what he meant, So he orders them to go ask
Speaker 2: the president what he meant by this tweet. What we
Speaker 2: did force the government into actually getting an answer from
Speaker 2: the President of the United States about whether he was
Speaker 2: intending to declassify all these records, because the judge was like,
Speaker 2: you can't just come in here and see what you
Speaker 2: think he meant. You have no basis to know what
Speaker 2: he meant. Go ask him what he meant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, essentially the first response by the government
Speaker 1: was just ignore Trump's traits.
Speaker 4: He doesn't mean what he tweeted.
Speaker 2: So we go into court. The judge says, no, Justice Department,
Speaker 2: you don't just get to guess what he needs. And
Speaker 2: so the order says that the Justice Department within like
Speaker 2: four days shall file a declaration by the President or
Speaker 2: an individual who has conferred directly with the President regarding
Speaker 2: whether the President intended to order the declassification and release
Speaker 2: without reaction of the report prepared by the special coultul
Speaker 2: mull or blah blah blah blah blah. So the judge saying,
Speaker 2: I want a statement under oath by the President or
Speaker 2: somebody who directly talked with the President about whether he
Speaker 2: intended to declassifying. The task falls to Mark Meadows, who
Speaker 2: is chief of staff at the time. So he's got
Speaker 2: to go to President Trump and asked, did you intend
Speaker 2: to declassify documents when you made this tweet? And Mark
Speaker 2: Meadows puts under oath.
Speaker 4: And again our friend Kyle Kanane.
Speaker 5: The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter
Speaker 5: were not self executing declassification orders and do not require
Speaker 5: the declassification or release of any particular documents.
Speaker 2: Kind Of doubtful to me that the word self executing
Speaker 2: declassification order passed through the mouth of President Trump. Maybe
Speaker 2: maybe it happened, I don't know. We don't know, Like
Speaker 2: that I would have loved to go another round and said, well,
Speaker 2: what do you mean indicated? What did he say?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Not? What did he indicate?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And did he really say the word self executing declassification order.
Speaker 2: I think this is where we kind of reached the
Speaker 2: point where, like, I think we're going to be pushing
Speaker 2: our luck if we're like, no, judge, go back again
Speaker 2: and make them, you know, make them ask more definitively.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: But at this point we knew, or at least I
Speaker 1: was thinking it that that Trump although he tweeted that,
Speaker 1: and it was it seemed like, I don't know, some
Speaker 1: red meat to his supporters perhaps, but I also knew
Speaker 1: that we're not going to see these records come out.
Speaker 4: So at this point, like, this is what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I wanted that declaration, that signed declaration where Mark meadows
Speaker 1: in his first paragraph.
Speaker 5: I am chief of staff to President Donald J.
Speaker 4: Trump.
Speaker 5: I conferred with the President concerning his attentions with respect
Speaker 5: to two statements he made on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And I just I was happy that we got this declaration,
Speaker 1: and I think the headline, oh, yeah, here it is
Speaker 1: Trump told his chief of staff he didn't mean what
Speaker 1: he tweeted that was the headline, and that was true,
Speaker 1: and so those documents were never released. But that I
Speaker 1: think that's also just a good example of how filing
Speaker 1: itself becomes news in a FOYA case. God, that was fun, man,
Speaker 1: Remember that that was so much fun. We had a
Speaker 1: blast just kind of marching in there been like hey,
Speaker 1: Mark Metal said it.
Speaker 2: Jason and I both have distrust of authority at times,
Speaker 2: So that's why this is fun.
Speaker 4: It's so true, that's what makes it fun.
Speaker 1: But that healthy distrust of authority we have is also
Speaker 1: why we do what we do and why forcing the
Speaker 1: government to abide by the Foya Statutes is so important.
Speaker 1: The government in America is accountable to American citizens. We
Speaker 1: don't have to accept whatever explanations they.
Speaker 4: Want to provide.
Speaker 1: They owe us this information, whether they want to give
Speaker 1: it to us or not. Coming up on the next
Speaker 1: episode of Disclosure, how the hell was he duped by
Speaker 1: Russian paranksters? This is Jerome Powell, He's the chairman of
Speaker 1: the FED.
Speaker 2: Did that actually happen?
Speaker 4: We've even invited a few comedians to read the emails.
Speaker 2: Dear redacted, there will be only one winner who has
Speaker 2: big gun. Could you please send us some Printy Press,
Speaker 2: the week in prime American dollars.
Speaker 4: From Bloomberg and No Smiling. This is Disclosure.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Matt Topic and me Jason Leopold.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Heather Schroering and Sean Cannon. For No Smiling,
Speaker 1: our editor for Bloomberg is Jeff Grocott. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg are Sage Bauman and me Jason Leopold, and
Speaker 1: our executive producers for No Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather
Speaker 1: Schrowing and Matt Topic. The Disclosure theme song is by Nick,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Nick An Epidemic Sound sound design
Speaker 1: and mixing is by Sean Cannon. Documents were read this
Speaker 1: week by Kyle Kanaane. For more transparency news and important
Speaker 1: document dumps, you can subscribe to my weekly Foier Files
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Speaker 4: We'll see you again next Tuesday.