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
Let me just give one quick example. Do you want the field offices, of which there are scores and scores of field offices, to be independently and separately interacting with our foreign counterparts? So we have an enormously tight relationship with what's called the five I's. So England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. There's an enormous amount of sharing of intelligence.
There's also sharing of intelligence with other countries. That has to be centrally coordinated, just so people aren't thinking that's to make other countries safe. No, that's to make our country safe. And that has to be coordinated at a national level. That's why you need people like that. Also, you really need to make sure people are taking consistent positions and know what they're doing.
And a lot of the offices around the country have never done a terrorism case. Thank God. And when they get their first one, are they supposed to learn on the job? Or are you supposed to have people at headquarters helping them? The idea of decentralizing all of the FBI, which was Cash Fatale's sort of famous statement coming in, is another way of saying, I'm just going to eradicate it.
So it is in charge of... Any and all prosecutions of terrorists in the United States, even if the terrorism is happening overseas, but it affects, let's say, an American, like a bomb goes off and an American is killed, we have jurisdiction.
If there is going to be a criminal case against that person, if they're going to be detained here under law enforcement authorities, the FBI has to be involved and takes the lead in that.
It is true that with respect to just intelligence operations, if you're trying to look for just what's happening in country X overseas, there are other agencies that have significant responsibilities, including the CIA and the NSA, the sort of alphabet soup of Washington, D.C.
The first thing I just want to make sure people understand is when I first got to the FBI, I was the general counsel. One of the most palpable things about the FBI at that time was how apolitical that institution is. Unlike most agencies in Washington, there is one and only one political appointee, which is the director. That's really dissimilar to a whole range of other agencies.
agencies and the reason for that is it's not supposed to be a political agency it's supposed to just be based on facts and law and that really was felt within the building that it's just like wherever the facts are we don't care you know what the political consequences are
So I think within the building, this development has got to be sending shockwaves, but not in a good way of people thinking, oh, change is good. I think there probably are people who have been politicized, which is really unfortunate, and who... are going to be sort of mega loyalists. But I think there are other people who are just going to be like, I don't need this.
And there's another acronym that is a FBI acronym, which is the people who've put in their 20 years. I remember a friend of mine who was there and she said, you know, I'm KMA. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what is that? And she's like... kiss my ass. And I said, well, what does that mean? And she said, it means that I've done my 20 years.
And so I'm here for the mission, but any day I don't like it, I can retire with full benefits because I'm at that point. And I'm only here because I believe in the FBI and the mission. And I think for those people, the KMA people, they're going to be, I'm out the door.
I think the way I think about that, which is maybe sort of a pipe dream at this point, is I'm an institutionalist. I still think facts and law matter. I hear you that those checks with respect to judges and juries doesn't come until... later, in most instances, unless you're Donald Trump. So I sort of count on that in that if there's nothing there, then a lot of this will be wasted time.
I mean, it's not a crime to be on cable news. Last time I checked, even though Kash Patel famously has said he's going after the media, whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll deal with that later. Interesting thing for the head of the FBI to say. I
Of course, capitol is a huge concern, but I actually think one of the bigger concerns is watching these hearings and watching the complicity of various senators and congresspeople in the lies. It's just appalling. And that, to me, is a concern that when you're thinking about the checks and balances, you're like, oh, well, there's no check there.
they're perfectly happy to go along with things that they have to know are not true.
Right. And the thing I'm worried about, and I think it's because I've been on the inside in the intelligence community, is I keep on sort of saying this word is Katrina. Right. I mean, do you remember when that happened that there was rightful sort of outrage and pushback because the head of FEMA was not ready for the job? He was learning on the job.
And you cannot put in people who are the kind of nominees that we're seeing and think there isn't going to be a crisis. I mean, the Department of Defense, the FBI, the head of intelligence, HHS, and these are the people who are going to be handling a crisis involving our security, whether it's health security, whether it's
physical security, the idea that there isn't more outrage at this and a sense of like, can you please find some more competent people? And a real misunderstanding of what these organizations do. I have to say, if I had to go back and say, what do I think was like a Biden administration flaw.
And I know there's like a ton of, there could be a big list, but I just think there needs to be a lot more public speaking. And it couldn't just be business as normal, which is that we don't speak. We only do stuff through public filings. There just needs to be a greater education of the public that institutions with all of their flaws do really good things for us.
The actual firing of people who worked on the Trump cases is, completely violates the civil service rules. So that's illegal. That's the kind of thing that if these people sue, it goes to something called the Merit System Protection Board.
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