Andrew Weissmann
speaker
1,068 appearances
9 recordings
5 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 20 May
Andrew Weissmann’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So that is fairly standard. It's not standard the way it's done. I mean, it's usually not sort of as abrupt, and it's not talking about weaponization and politicization. The US attorneys typically do change over when there's a change in party control. So that's the least of it in my book.
So the answer is yes, but we already have. We have bigger problems. Exactly. We have so many other things that are going on. I mean, those kinds of wonderful norms. Let's just start with President Obama. brought in the new U.S. attorneys.
And what he told them is, I know that I have nominated you and the Senate confirms you, but you need to understand your allegiance is to the Constitution, not to me. That is, which of course is like any fourth grader would understand that that's the way it's supposed to work, except that in the world we're in, that needs to be retaught because that's the opposite of what
Donald Trump, in my view, wants. He wants it first to be, you are loyal to me.
Sure, Mayor Adams is somebody who was charged during the Biden administration with five felonies. He is a Democrat. And so any sort of claim about politicization is a little weird because it was a Biden administration that charged him. He was charged about nine months before the primaries here in New York City. This is what's unusual.
The first way this blew up is that the acting US attorney in the Southern District of New York that has the case sent a letter to Pam Bondi saying, I have been ordered to dismiss the case. And I've been told to dismiss the case, not because there's a factual issue, not because we've got the law wrong,
but because this is going to, among other things, interfere with Eric Adams' ability to carry out the Trump administration immigration policies. And that is a quid pro quo using, from her point of view, using the, um, the criminal case to get somebody to do the political bidding of the president.
Um, and to make sure that he's doing that, she says, uh, they want us to not dismiss the case for good. Uh, and that could be achieved also by the president pardoning Eric Adams, but they don't want that. They want to do is dismiss it without prejudice so that it's dangling over his head like a choke chain. Um, but so that he has to do their bidding and, um, In fact, he has done that.
He then appeared on Fox News saying that he would allow ICE agents to come into New York City to effectuate arrests in locations. That's against the law, right? That's exactly right. So one point I made with Jen Psaki is this. The current mayor of the city of New York is under indictment federally currently with five felonies.
He is out on bail and he is on TV saying ICE agents should come in and violate local law. So that's the state we're in. A motion has been made by the acting Deputy Attorney General to the judge overseeing the case to do just what he had directed the Southern District Prosecutor to do. The reason he had to do it is, I think we're up to eight. I might have my math wrong. I never do math in public.
So it's either seven or eight prosecutors, career people, some with stellar sort of conservative credentials have resigned over this, as they should, because the idea that you would use the criminal law to do your political bidding is, imagine, Dan, that the next step is, I'm gonna ask a Democratic Congress person, I'm gonna say, you know what?
I'm willing to suspend your criminal case, but you're gonna vote with the Republicans during that time. And let's see how your voting record goes and if you toe the line. I mean, that is a quid pro quo also. Or imagine that Eric Adams said to Emile Bovee, I'm gonna give you a bag of cash to do this. I mean, all of those things are why you're seeing so many career people say,
This is not the role of the Justice Department. And just think about that awesome power that would give the president and the Department of Justice to actually bend people to their will on the pain of being criminally prosecuted and going to jail.
So the law is extremely favorable to the government because prosecutorial discretion is something that is recognized as almost uniquely an executive branch function. And as you point out, Dan, if the court were to say you have to go forward,
the Southern District of New York, or now the Public Integrity Section, because the case was moved from the Southern District to the Public Integrity Section by the Deputy Attorney General. Where, by the way, he moved it. And what happened was prosecutors resigned in the Southern District. He moved it to the Public Integrity Section.
The Public Integrity Section people resigned because people are like, I didn't sign up for this. So what can the judge do? He has a narrow ability to say, I'm denying the motion. And if necessary, he could appoint somebody to go forward.
He could decide that he's going to have the case dismissed, but with prejudice, not without prejudice, so that there isn't this sort of Damocles or choke chain component to it. he could hold a factual hearing, that's what I would do, because you need to know, is there a quid pro quo and what's the nature of it? And make people have to testify under oath.
One of the little tidbits that I wanna make sure people understand is Danielle Sassoon, the Southern District acting US attorney who resigned, noted in her letter that when they had a meeting with the acting deputy attorney general, the former Trump criminal defense lawyer a New York minute ago, that he ordered her people to stop taking notes and then confiscated them. And
The acting deputy attorney general has not denied that. He has admitted that he did it, but he says he did it to prevent leaks. That is not facially plausible to me that that's the reason, because you know how you can't prevent leaks by taking notes. People can leak without having notes of their conversation. All it does do is eliminate the written record so that you can lie about what happened.
So the answer is yes, he can demand the notes. And if they have been destroyed, that is... One, it can be used by the judge as evidence that they would have been favorable to Danielle Sassoon's position that there was a quid pro quo. I mean, to me, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand that.
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