Happy Friday to us all.
We have made it.
Thank you so much for joining us.
You can also be a big part.
Call us, text us, 855-752-4842-855-75CIVIC.
We got Jess P.S.
working hard on the board, on the sound, on the phone.
Thank you, Jess.
Happy Friday, and of course...
Jazz is held to introduce to you by a co-host for today.
Former U.S.
Attorney James Santel, host of Amicus, a law review broadcasting right here on the Civic Media Radio Network on Saturdays 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
Jim, happy Friday, man.
Welcome back.
I normally don't like starting to show up on the weather, but I just got to tell you, a beautiful sunny day here in Southeastern Wisconsin.
My car temperature hit...
73 degrees on
the way in today, man.
I was like,
whoa, this
is fantastic.
Let's just skip the show, go to the park now.
But here we are.
We're
Pie day.
Yes.
3.14159.
I can't go beyond that.
It goes on into infinity.
And we don't have pie.
What did you bring in here, man?
This is an eclair, which I think if you figure out the circumference of it, somehow pie could be related to this delicacy coming in from.
from the east side of Milwaukee and Ken Gloriosos.
They do the best.
They are the best.
I love Ken
I appreciate that.
I had that great opportunity to sit in your chair and
And and not not simply to talk about things but also talk about with your great guests We had tremendous numbers of callers and we'll anticipate that again today lots of wonderfully good thoughtful precise focused questions comments and It was a full full a couple of hours, right Jess.
We had a good
excellent Well, we're gonna try to repeat that today with your help today folks eight five five seven five two four eight four two and since we haven't spoken so long very a lot of what
catch up on.
And love it, former U.S.
Attorney, your legal opinions on many of these very important issues.
But I think, let's start where the news is today.
Donald Trump was speaking today, Jim.
Now, apparently this is...
not uncommon that Donald Trump speaks, he does that quite a bit, but where he was
Maine Justice, the RFK building, not the RFK Junior building, but the RFK building changed its name during Janet Reno's term administration there when I was there.
It is a marvelous building.
You would not go there if you are a tourist, you wouldn't stop there, but it's this great Art Deco building built in 1935.
Yeah, cool.
and it is so neat to be inside there.
It is just spectacular, not unusual for, it's atypical, but certainly not impressive for a president to go there and do this.
It appears down from the pictures that you and Jess showed me, that he was on the seventh floor of the media center, and not in what we call the Great Hall, which is what you would normally go to if you were the president.
This is sort of a beautiful, again, cascading walls and just glorious time for an opportunity to talk with Department of Justice.
those people to announce policy and practice and vision is upstairs.
Is
And apparently some hands selected, perhaps, you know, supporter types that seem very from, from what I've heard seem, you know, very campaigning, but also said some very, very troubling things.
And he continues to go after the press.
And Jess, we found the sound.
Who was the Aaron
Rupert?
Is he the guy?
Yeah.
who cuts some of the stuff
up on the
Twitter man.
Thank you for
doing that.
Can't imagine the toll that it takes on you.
I
salute you.
I mean, you know,
Jess, you gotta go through and listen to this
stuff and cut it up and make it sound, well, at least,
you
know, productive.
You can't change the words, but you can make them sound nicer.
And again, the chief executive, the president, speaking to what we have all been taught to think was an independent judiciary, right?
A Department of Justice, I'm sorry.
An independent Department of Justice.
Now, certainly, you know, the...
You know the people get they get appointed by the president, but usually they try to say somewhat apart That's that's what they try to do.
That's what they tell us they're gonna do
Not anymore.
Right.
Again, we're invoking Janet Reno for the second time in five minutes.
She and Bill Clinton did not have a good relationship.
And that's a good thing, right?
You do not want the president to be able to pick up the phone and tell the attorney general who to indict, who not to indict, who to charge.
And significantly, significantly, Pam Bondi, the president of the United States of America, have announced very boldly.
unabashedly, that in this administration, those prohibitions on that kind of contact between the White House and the Department of Justice, those don't exist anymore.
No.
Those don't exist.
And so it's entirely possible that a U.S.
attorney can pick up the phone and lo and behold, the President of the United States of America could be on the far, the far line, if you will, telling her or him what to do.
That is such a denigration of everything that justice is about.
And again, nothing wrong as we've talked of a president describing in general terms messages and broad visions like, I want you to focus on environmental cases.
I want you to do antitrust things.
How about I want you
Somebody got up and said, let's not just do this speech at the press club there in Washington, D.C.
Let's go down to 9th and Constitution and be there at justice and bring this message right to the people, Dom, as you just said, who can execute on this plan.
And the message
not so subtle at all, whether it's his opinion, which is wrong or not, is maybe we need to open up some investigations.
Obviously, I don't know if Cash Patel was in the audience.
I would be surprised if he wasn't, but still, the message is also to him that maybe we do need to open up some files.
We don't need to indict yet, but let's investigate.
Let's figure out if there is some basis upon which to even open up an investigation, as we have often said on this broadcast, the investigation can be the punishment.
itself.
Even if you can't get a grand jury one day to indict an anchor at CNN or at MSNBC, even if you can't go after a producer there with criminal charges, you issue some grand jury subpoenas, you get people testifying, you review some tax returns, all those kinds of things.
All of that is abusive.
And it's like the
I've heard something else before too.
Let's see.
this rings the bell Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That, Mr.
John Adams got the approval of all the states to endorse and approve the Constitution based upon the promise that they would add on a bill of rights.
And all the rest of them, James Madison, John Adams, everybody followed up on that, and they did just that.
And it's been around for almost 250 years.
Today, obviously, we're ready to knock those walls down.
Right, exactly.
You say those kinds of things out there, you can get in trouble.
I would still like to think, my friend, that we live in a country where no one is above the law, the slander laws should still apply.
No one in that room today is going to initiate that kind of an action, but the reality is there's some exposure here.
There should be in America.
You don't, you don't, what was a quote I saw today?
You don't defeat the bully by giving up your lunch.
You don't obey in advance, as Timothy Snyder would say.
Come back with us.
855-752-4842, James Santel, just PS on the board.
Come over you don't come at all You leave your pieces on that's your call and never
Oh, that's a keeper going.
I love that song, man.
We got to come heavy coming heavy James Santel bringing in the big wigs here.
Just piece working the board.
I got a fight in me today.
I wish Chuck Schumer had a little more.
We're going to get to that as well.
No, man, it's just a day.
Thank God it's Friday.
James Santel, a former U.S.
attorney, host of Amicus, a law review right here on the Civic Media Radio Network Saturdays 9 to 11 a.m.
Friend of ours joining me today.
It's been a few weeks and we're catching up.
And as a former U.S.
attorney, how does it work for the DOJ?
I did.
I did.
Did you know?
I
And I go back there now, and I go, you know, drive around the old stomping grounds.
place is gone.
There's one silo left of all the barns and silos and manure pits and house, everything.
There's one house and one silo left.
Actually, I think the tour of the house is one silo.
They gave the farm away.
Literally came to the farm.
It's a park now.
It's beautiful, rolling, beautiful, nice little spot out in Stevensville, Wisconsin.
No livestock.
No, nothing.
And it's gone.
It's like it never existed.
Jim, I wonder if that's how the DOJ is, you know, if you go back there now.
and see and hear what's happening, be a flying the wall nowadays, compared to when you were there.
It's still the same.
I
mentioned before, and before we went on the air, too, that there are all sorts of art deco things that were commissioned in 1935 to make this place a place of justice.
The artwork, the artwork is not all that great, but there are all kinds of messages, including when it's at the Attorney General's office.
in the civil rights area, all throughout the Department of Justice, all about justice and about the importance of holding the Constitution with the rule of law means.
You cannot walk down a single hall in that building without seeing those messages, those important themes emblazoned.
in that building.
But as many of you do know, well, we're focused on persecuting and these people were really focused on persecuting Republicans, the last administration.
Presided over the worst increase in violent crime in our country in many, many decades, we had levels of violence and crime and a lot of it.
Then he realizes with the slow brain, the adult brain, oh man, that's not good.
So he rolls it into all the last administration were persecuting.
But I believe when the first time he said it, man, he's out there.
persecuting, again, specifically as I would look at the way he's going after the media, the way he's gone after this Columbia student.
Right, right.
And
Credit to him for living up to his campaign promise, right, with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek.
I am your retribution.
I am your retribution, right?
And that's the persecution, right?
And as I said before, the persecution does not necessarily mean to envision that day when some of these people will be in the federal district court with a jury.
A persecution can indeed be an investigation, opening things through the FBI, other agencies, going after you, even if you don't ultimately result in charges.
That is enough, especially since many of these people, he's talked about Jack Smith, he's talked about the Bynes.
He's talked about an awful lot of people.
I would guess that probably the former U.S.
Attorney in Southern District of New York, who again was serving under his term, might be on his list as well.
These are not people.
I can speak from personal knowledge and reference.
These are not wealthy people.
Why?
They work for the government all their years.
And so when you go after them and they have to retain counsel, you have to get attorneys.
That is also an economic way of persecuting them for doing their jobs.
It is just invidious.
It's just terrible.
At some point, you need to get in front of a federal magistrate or a judge who's going to say, okay, a grand jury, and frankly, even a U.S.
attorney can issue a complaint.
It only stays in place for about 30 days.
At some point, you've got to go back to the grand jury.
That also isn't that thing called the Constitution.
But let's suppose the U.S.
attorney issues this thing called the complaint.
She or he can do that, sort of independent of the grand jury.
At some point, you've got to go forward in front of a federal
judge or magistrate and establish probable cause within the four corners of that document.
I'm alleging that Jim Santel did these things.
And my experience has been that federal judges are very, very specific.
And they will sometimes say, um, this is not enough.
This is not sufficient.
They will conduct hearings on it.
And there's evidence to determine whether or not there's a basis to go forward.
Saying somebody should be indicted in charge is not, let's break that down now, is not,
Let me ask you this then.
If they have to do investigations, right, in order to find the quote unquote crime or the probable cause, perhaps, so in the course of opening the file, can a president direct the attorney general or somebody in the FBI or anybody in the federal government who has the authority to do so to open up a file on someone just because they want that done?
If there's nothing in that file, I can open up a physical file that has Adamic Salvia's name on it, but to your good point, it should have some documents inside it of some kind, to speak in the old fashioned way.
There should be some reports of interviews, some surveillance reports, something, and absent that, you simply don't have that kind of probable cause.
It shouldn't be animated by somebody directing you to open it up.
That's James Santel.
He's going to stick around all day today.
We got just BS working on the board and spinning the tunes as well.
You have probable cause to come back.
We have more of Donald Trump, you know, listing the enemies in front of the DOJ.
You're saving some time.
Come back with us.
you
7524842 that's who we are you can join us on the lines or on the text stream 85575 civic James Santel former US Attorney host of amicus a law review right here on Civic Media Saturdays 9 to 11 a.m.
Check him out in all of his glory when he had hosts his show got just piece working hard as well Thank You Jess cutting up the sound Donald Trump today the president addressing the faithful
at the department of justice.
Let's see, what did he do already called the CNN and MSNBC illegal,
mean,
And now he goes on a rant against Norm Eisen.
Now, Norm Eisen is this attorney, and he also started this sub-stack, The Contrarian, which we reference quite a bit here on the show.
Notably, Jennifer Rubin, formerly of the Washington Post, has gone over and joined him at the sub-stack, The Contrarian.
Here is what Donald Trump had to say about Norm.
Cut three, please.
I don't even know what he looks like.
Yeah, you do.
His name is Norm Eisen of Crue.
He's been after me for nine years.
Now, Crue is a charitable organization.
And the reason I'm saying this, Todd, is I'm only going to get one chance to say this.
But these are bad people.
I don't know who he is.
I don't know what he looks like.
But everything I read is Norm Eisen of Crue.
And Crue is a charitable organization.
That's not it twice.
That's a political thing.
His sole life is to get Donald Trump, and he's been vicious and violent.
Violent?
And he's trying, and he probably had pretty good success over the years.
But with me, how did he do?
I think I'm president.
Am I here because I'm president?
You have to know that.
You have to know that.
OK, normalize them.
Crew, citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington.
Yeah.
I can see how someone who lacks responsibility in ethics would come under the microscope of a government watchdog organization.
Note how he said a couple of times that this is a terrible organization, right?
He mentions that.
He's telling this to the DOJ.
Hey, they're being political.
They're not supposed to be.
This is, again, what Trump is telling these folks.
And then throwing out, he's violent.
Now, that's very specific to me.
I mean, it's beyond being...
calling someone scummy.
Okay.
Uh, love the star wars, but violent man.
He called normal eyes and violent.
And if norm eyes and to my knowledge is not violent, has never engaged any violence whatsoever.
Does
He does not, he does not have to take that.
And I'm sure he's going to be, if he has it already been commenting about it again, uh, on, on, on the contrarian.
Beyond that, I'm sure that he is also consulting with his own attorneys for two reasons.
One of them is to figure out whether he does, in fact, have a path towards some litigation.
It's not directly applicable.
What we think, again, about E. Gene Carroll, right?
President defamed her, juries found that, gave her several million dollars in judgments against him for saying things that are not true.
Norm Eisen is not a violent person.
Violence has meaning, as meaning both in the secular world, so to speak, it's got meaning in legal terms,
You have said something that has demonstrated true, and you've done it knowingly.
Nobody can listen to that speech, that subset of his speech, without understanding that he's doing that knowingly.
And the other piece of it, which is...
directly coming from what you just said.
Not only are you speaking to the people there at Maine Justice about, gee, maybe here's a guy we should open up a file on.
You are speaking to America.
And we know that now as a result of this president and his conduct for the past decade, we've got people making threats.
We've got people showing up at homes with guns.
And this is also an event.
We've got people coming to Washington, D.C.
upon the invitation to to come here and and be wild.
It is an invitation to violence against him.
And that's the other reason why he needs to be thoughtful about his regret.
This is terrible to even think about right in America He's got to be thoughtful about his own security that of his staff that of his family because the president has just put a target on him Stunning shocking
This is the Dom Salvia show that is James Santel former US attorney We are talking about the comments made today by President Trump in front of the faithful at the Department of Justice at Maine Justice Jim you used to go there once in a while Let's skip over number four.
Look it down down to number five.
So what let's we kind of refocus when we got it We got CNN and MSNBC are are are illegal.
They're they're they're political arms of the Democrat
party.
Um, the Trump talks about persecuting people, literally persecuting.
He goes after Norm Eisen, who was co-founder of crew citizens for responsibility and ethics in government.
I mean, okay.
Uh, and now, well, let's not forget the newspapers cut number
And it has to stop.
It has to be illegal.
It's influencing judges.
And it's it's really changing law and it just cannot be legal.
I don't believe it's legal and They do it in total coordination with each other and everything we do We're restoring law restoring order and restoring public safety in America.
That's what we want to do
They're illegal CNN MSNBC.
They're illegal
Norm Eisen, he's violent and presumably illegal because Cruz and you know investigating a watchdog for government on the government Yeah, this is this is this is what the president is literally out there saying these are all First Amendment rights Jim
absolutely and now we've got the newspapers So look at any newspaper right that has an editorial page most of them still do if there is such a thing in your own community And they're expressing opinions and you know here's the other point that again
This is so cynical, even of the president to say, because what he's assuming is that your listeners, and they do know better, but Americans don't understand that.
These are private companies, right?
They can fold if, in fact, they do not meet their budgets.
And their companies, like all other entities, are out there.
They have absolute protection by the First Amendment.
There is nothing about it.
Short of, again, the New York Times versus Sullivan.
court case right that says that unless you publish something knowingly and again with this very intent purpose, purpose to defame and you do it with that kind of intent.
Everything else, everything else is okay.
And yes, that also means that sometimes in the public arena that Teddy Roosevelt talked about, you have to take some shots and not gunshots.
You suffer some criticism that maybe is unwarranted.
That is America.
That's what we're doing.
That is the job, absolutely.
But that's the whole point.
And they get to do that because we have freedom of the press.
And as soon as we get rid of that, we get rid of, you know, the newspapers and we get rid of the television and we get rid of the watchdog groups.
What are we left with?
Oh, Donald Trump's presidency.
Don't worry, folks.
He'll tell you what to do.
He'll tell you who to hate, who to go after.
He'll tell you how it's got to be.
He has apparently some some other issues, some other thoughts.
On what should be legal and what should not be legal.
Let's play cut number six, please Jess.
I did appoint her federal judge.
And these fake lawyers, these horrible human beings were hitting her so hard.
Public relations wise, they were playing the ref.
I don't think it's legal.
I don't think it's legal.
They might as well go out and just
shouted in a courthouse.
They were saying she was slow.
She wasn't smart.
She was totally biased.
She loved Trump.
I didn't know her other than I saw her the couple of days that I was in court, and I thought her decorum was amazing.
Anything bad they could say, though, they were saying about her.
It was whatever they could say bad about a human being all made up.
Because actually she was brilliant.
She moved quickly.
Quickly.
She decided to reach back and say, you know what?
From the very start, this prosecution was prosecuted by somebody, according to her and Clarence Thomas, who had no authority to do so.
She was a huge backlog, including issues about using those documents, national security issues.
She didn't address any of those.
Where do you start with these issues?
Fake lawyers, fake lawyers making these statements.
No, no, Mr. President, they're not fake lawyers.
And yes, indeed, you can say these things maybe sometimes at your peril if you decide to criticize the judge in front of whom you are appearing.
Show me, Mr. President, the federal code, the state code that makes comments about the conduct of federal judges, state judges, illegal.
What is the crime in that?
There is none.
And once again, Dom, this is the very serious point.
Aside from the absolute absurdity of what my president has said today, he is also telling all of us that we are stupid.
He is telling the American public implicitly and explicitly that I don't think you know any better.
You don't know enough to understand how inappropriate and simply wrong the things that I'm saying as a governmental matter, as a civics matter,
You don't have to be a lawyer to understand this.
He's basically counting on the fact that we don't know better and we
Jim and also Jess, I do subscribe to the contrarian and I did see just a short time ago Norm addressing Trump's charge against him.
He didn't appear concerned or intimidated by Trump's charge.
Contrarian being another pro-democracy advocate along with civic media, I'd encourage listeners to follow the Contrarian and ideally support them with a low fee, monthly fee.
It's a great organization.
Thank you.
for your
Of course, Mary.
Thank you for your listenership.
Certainly appreciate it.
Glad to hear Norm is not, will not be intimidated.
Hope Norm pushes back legally.
I'd like to see, I'd like to see, you know, shock and awe on a legal basis on every little thing from every little, everybody is load them up, line them up and knock them down.
Cause what else is it going to take?
What do we have?
We don't have, you know, we don't have the house, we don't have the Senate, you know, Supreme Court, good luck there, you know, but we do have the ability to engage in litigation.
If the president of the United States or the bartender down the street calls me a violent person Man, I'm not and I'm not a violent person.
I mean, I might get violently keep calling me that
dream coming true But no, I mean that there's got to be a consequence to that you can't at what point all there are baby raper killers Well, everyone's a baby raper killer.
How about that?
Is that okay?
At what point do you cross the line?
I'm apparently it's it's well beyond they're eating the dogs and they're eating the cats Jim right
Again, the safeguard here, the guardrail is, and we'll talk about other ways in which federal judges and state judges are saying no.
You run into court, as I'm perhaps, Norm Eisen and others will do here, and you push back on this.
And I believe you believe your listeners believe you will get maybe not perfect justice It may not happen right away, but you do again invoking the Eugene Carroll example for the second time in 20 minutes here She waited a long time.
She was she persevered as we often say with with great support for all all members of our of our community She persevered you got to do the same thing here if you back off if you are intimidated so good to hear Mary say that that I said is not intimidated if anything just the opposite if you go away and
And you cower in a corner because of what has happened here that only feeds more of it, right?
You're not deterring it at all.
You're encouraging more down the road from this out of control president.
You
Roberto from Chicago land.
My president is a 100% pier scumbag.
We need a whistleblower.
Thank you Roberto.
I kind of concur with that man.
This guy is going after everybody and everything.
Everything should be illegal except for him.
Come back with us more.
James Santel, just PS on the board.
Your calls as well.
855-752-4842.
Welcome back to the Dom Salvi show.
Happy Friday to us all.
I've got James Santel in studio today up until the six o'clock hour.
Don't forget, tell us something good at the end of the show.
Love wrapping up with a happy smile on our face.
Got to just be us working hard on the board.
You folks lining up on the phones, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic Donald Trump today addressing the faithful at the department of justice.
Not uncommon, but they're not not.
Hasn't happened in many years.
Let's put it that way and you know the Don feels like he needs to go down there We've talked about he's going after the press.
He's going after norm norm Eisen and the contrarian and people that basically are critical of him Crew heaven forbid you have a watchdog group can't have that now.
Can you say newspapers are Illegal that it should be wrong.
You can't get called just name.
That's illegal as he defends Eileen Canem
Yeah.
So if he were to have his way, he would be himself, you know, arrested.
But you pointed out James Santel on that very first cut, we're going to play it again.
When Donald Trump is critical of CNN and MSNBC, he
References somebody let's play that clip one more time.
So you can all hear it and see what you think about it
People you don't even want to know about but as many of you do know well, we're focused on Persecuting in what these people were really first focused on persecuting Republicans administration Presided over the worst increase in violent crime in our country in many many decades.
We had levels of violence and crime and a lot of it
He's talking about and making reference to probably looking right at the Deputy Attorney General of the United States of America.
He was confirmed not too long ago, just a few days ago by the United States Senate, fairly unceremoniously and became the Deputy Attorney General of the United States of America.
This is number two under Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General as we've spoken about many times is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Department of Justice.
This is the person who is responsible for overseeing the U.S.
attorneys, the various divisions.
all kinds of things that makes things go.
And Todd Blanche is his name.
Todd
Blanche, right?
That
That was his attorney.
We remember him.
His defense attorney.
We have seen his picture, not only recently, but because he sat next to Donald Trump on one side, the fellow on the other side was fellow named Emil Beauvais, who is also known for many things.
He's been also at Maine Justice recently.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, the president's former
a personal defense attorney.
And again, you might think, well, gee, Jim, why are you so obsessed about that?
He looks at this deputy and not inappropriate to make that reference.
But he's really saying is just this, that I've got this personal relationship.
I used to have an attorney-client relationship.
Who knows what kinds of things they exchange with each other.
We'll never know about that nor should we.
But he's looking over and that is a verbal wink.
That's a verbal wink to Todd Blanche to say all of this based upon the things that we've talked about before, maybe the recent but the good old days when we were working together.
This is going to be more of that Todd and I want you to pursue this on my behalf based upon the relationship that we have had, the relationship that we still do have.
That's the message that he is sending to the second in control person at the department justice.
Make this happen.
Now I am your boss.
Now you've got to make all this happen.
You may want to take this up on the other side, Jim.
To me, this sounds very much like the situation with the Dominion voting system.
Absolutely, Joe.
And I remember reading at the time there was a lawyer in a blog who said, I have never seen anything that is such a clear-cut case of defamation.
And I would love it if you would expand a little bit more on this.
This is not just a tip back and forth to guys in a bar by slugging it out.
What is being alleged here will affect
the marketability, the economics of these particular people, CNN, MSNBC, a crew, that particular situation, if you sully them by these words that are not true, you are creating a problem in the business side, not just personal reputation, but business side of their businesses.
I would think that it is clear cut that you know who found down to the the judge.
I don't know how.
So I'd love to hear you talk about this on the other side because this seems to me very similar to the Dominion case where you know it's wrong.
You keep shooting it off in your piehole and it's ruining the reputation of these particular groups.
So if you could do that, I would be most, most grateful, Jim.
Thanks.