Barbara McQuade

And one of the provisions in that DIOG, one of the main and first provisions, is the need to have predication before you can start an investigation.

Predication means that we have some factual allegation that we've received and in good faith we are going to open an investigation.

It is a good faith allegation of a crime

or a threat to the national security.

So it would be improper, for example, for me to say, I want to look at everybody on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and I'm going to dig into their backgrounds until I find something they've done wrong.

And then I'm going to use that to prosecute them.

Instead, what you're supposed to do is...

find an allegation of a crime.

Perhaps a bank reaches out with a suspicious activity report and says, here is an irregularity in a mortgage application.

We want to share that with you for potential investigation.

That would be appropriate predication.

That recording you just played of Pam Bondi, what she alleges that George Soros is responsible for doing is being a billionaire funding campaigns to remove President Trump from power.

But

Well, is that not exactly what Elon Musk did in reverse?

I mean, yes, that is currently how our campaign finance system works.

Boy, I don't know if we've ever been here.

I suppose there may have been other examples where we have seen that.

But it is contrary to this idea of predication, which is designed to eliminate all that sort of stuff.

I can remember when I was serving as U.S.

attorney, we would frequently get calls saying,