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
Just to be clear, the mayor has no power to say violate local law any more than, Tim, you and I saying that. So there is now this standoff because where we are right now is Daniel Sassoon has said, I am not doing this. I'm resigning rather than carry out what she believed, and I can agree with her, is both an improper and arguably illegal order from Emil Bove.
He then says, I'm moving the case, the prosecutor's assigned to the case, I'm moving it from New York to Washington, D.C. to the public integrity section. Now, just to be clear, the criminal case is still pending in the Southern District of New York. You can't change that. The judge who has the case has the case. But it gets assigned to the public integrity section.
And that's why, Tim, each person, like the Saturday Night Massacre, is saying no, no, no, no, no. So you have six people who have now resigned. I'm sure everyone at the Department of Justice is saying, I'm not answering my phone because it could be Maybe I'll say, I want you to go to the Southern District of New York and do this.
So there's a pending criminal case. And in order for that case to disappear from the docket, there needs to be a motion. So somebody has to say discontinue it, and that has to have court approval. The court has limited authority to say no, but if it was shown to be an illegal order or for improper purposes, there are a number of things the judge could do.
The most extreme would be he could hold a hearing to say, what happened here? I want to know if this is an illegal scheme. I think he should have a hearing. And here's the really extraordinary thing that he could do is he could say, no, I am not doing this. I think this is part of a quid pro quo. I don't think you have a valid basis to dismiss it.
At that point, the prosecutors, the plaintiffs in the case are saying, I'm not going forward because Emil Bove is saying I'm not doing it. So what could the judge do? He could appoint an independent team to prosecute the case. That has happened in a case called Donziger. A colleague of Judge Ho, Lewis Kaplan, whom some of your listeners may remember, he had...
the E. Jean Carroll case, where there were two separate verdicts in favor of E. Jean Carroll, and he was the judge who oversaw that case. So, in a separate case, he actually appointed a special prosecutor to go forward with a case which he thought was meritorious.
Let's assume that Emil can't find a prosecutor. He goes through thousands of people. But let's say he does it or he finds somebody to do it. And they go into court and they say, Judge Ho, we would like to withdraw this case. The judge does not have to agree to that. The judge could say, why?
why do you want to do this and if the judge were to hold a hearing and conclude that there was an improper quid pro quo here the judge would be again it's limited authority but he'd be within his rights to say the court is not going to be a part of this and then the case is not dismissed so it's not a unilateral authority for the prosecutors to say we're not going forward.
She isn't. You know, it's so funny. She will be, though, because she is going to be vilified the way Bill Barr is now viewed. Like, Bill Barr and Andrew Weissman are now, it's like they're one in the same. It's like, why? Because we did something that Donald Trump doesn't like.
It is. You know, this is where, I mean, I hate to sound Pollyannish or naive or be on a soapbox, but What you are seeing at the Southern District of New York, at main justice in the public integrity section, and just let's not remember that this is all on the heels of everything we're seeing at the FBI, which is also not a hotbed of the deep state.
It is a conservative organization where the acting head of the FBI, Special Agent Driscoll, was also selected by Trump to lead that agency while they await the confirmation of Kash Patel. All of them have been pushing back. And that's where what I would tell you, and again, I don't mean to sound Pollyannish, but people act out of principle.
All of these people, when I was in the department, their policies you agree with and you disagree with. There are Democrats and Republicans in the White House that come in all the time. And you're used to policy directives that you have to implement. And if you can't stomach it at all, you can leave.
But it is so rare that you ever see a situation where prosecutors and agents are resisting because something they believe is illegal. The last time we saw this was Trump 1.0, when prosecutors resigned in the Roger Stone case. I was so taken aback. It does not happen. And the only other time I can think of of note is the Saturday Night Massacre.
Absolutely. I mean, what you are seeing within the Department of Justice, including the FBI, is a sort of I am Spartacus moment where people are really standing up. And that is why Emil Bove has gone through six, count them, six people who all say, I am not carrying out what has been described as a quid pro quo.
A friend of mine who is a white-collar defense lawyer said when Pam Bondi issued her first day memos that this is the golden era for white-collar criminals. She basically was like, you know what, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, gone. The Foreign Agents Registration Act, gone. I mean, her policies are really favorable for sort of rich white criminals and large corporations.
Public corruption cases, CEG, Eric Adams, and Rod Blagojevich. And foreign nation states, where the Foreign Election Interference Task Force and the kleptocracy unit and all of these things that were put in place to prevent foreign adversaries from acting here illegally, all disbanded.
By the way, he has admitted that. He has not denied that he did that. He has said, I did it because I was concerned about leaks. I'm not really sure how being concerned about leaks is dealt with by taking notes because people can still talk. But just to be clear, he has not denied that he did that.
Well, Danielle Sassoon brings that up. She says the analogy to the Victor Quid pro quo, she said, well, that's alarming because that was the White House. They're entitled to say, you know what, we'll give you this person and we'll give that person. You do a swap. That is not allowed in the criminal law to say you advance our policy agenda and we'll give you essentially in effect a pardon. But
keep it hanging over your head to make sure that you're on this chug collar. She's just like, that makes it even worse. And it's such a tell that Emil Bove in his direction has a footnote, to your point, look at the footnotes, that says, to be clear, this is not a quid pro quo. It just happens to be on his brain that, oh yeah, I need to make sure I say that I'm not doing this while I do it.
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