Transcript of Jack Smith and Brian Driscoll on the Weaponization of Justice New

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Weekly Show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart. It is Tuesday, July 7th. This will air Wednesday, July 8th. We're not going to talk about the 250th celebration. We're not going to talk about the U.S. men's soccer team's truly just, uh, disappointing performance in, in their game against Belgium. All those things worthy of episodes. Not going to be doing it because we have today an unusual opportunity. We have two gentlemen on the show who really should not be on the show. Uh, they have lawsuits pending against our federal government. Uh, one of them is seemingly in the crosshairs of the newly weaponized Trump Department of Justice under the auspices of Mr. Todd Blanch, who is, as you know, an independent observer of law and not in fact the president's former lawyer who is just working on his behalf. Well, oops. Yes, he is. Uh, and I will just get to it. Uh, we are surprised and delighted to get an opportunity to speak with these two gentlemen, uh, and we'll get to it right now. All right, so we're going to bring in our guests immediately. We've got Jack Smith, obviously the former special counsel, uh, on a classified documents case and the election interference case.

We've got Brian Driscoll, who is a former FBI agent who in 2025 was serving as the acting director of the FBI until being let go by the administration. Brian, Jack, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your service to the rule of law. Let me start with this. I am under the impression that you are— well, Jack, probably more than Brian, but under some legal peril in terms of what you are allowed to talk about, what you are not allowed to talk about. Brian, I think you have a pending lawsuit. Jack, obviously the president has threatened you specifically. Why are you here? I'll start with Jack.

Yeah, sure. Well, first off, John, thanks very much for having us on your show. Brian and I are here because we want to talk about the attack on the rule of law and specifically how that attack has played out against public servants, the people that we spent decades working with. The things that we're seeing over the last year and a half, uh, you know, you can see the output of that, right? You can see people being targeted. I think Brian and I have a unique perspective, and we understand what's being done to the people who enforce the rule of law. The rule of law in our country does not enforce itself. It takes people of character and integrity to do it, and to undermine it, uh, you have to attack those people. And why I wanted to be here today, John, was to talk about those people, uh, how much we should be valuing them, uh, how much we lose when people like that are targeted. And not just the people who've been fired, but also, uh, appreciating the sacrifice of the people who are still, uh, manning their posts, still doing their job. Uh, I feel like a lot of that is getting lost.

And I think more of a discussion about that is part of the solution going forward.

And Brian, you obviously you're, you're one of those people. You, you know, Jack was special counsel over at the DOJ. You were in the FBI. Give me a little bit about your, your background real quick about being one of those individuals who's working for the rule of law and had never had a problem before. In fact, was moving up the chain.

Yeah, I mean, as far as my background's concerned, I, I started straight out of graduate school. Um, I went into the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as an agent, uh, for about 3 years and came over to the FBI. Um, and then I served for about close to 18 years with the FBI, um, as a doer, you know, as a, as a Special agent.

You were a hostage and rescue guy, yeah?

Yes, sir. Yeah, for a time during my career, I was an operator. I started— Everybody starts as a street agent, a criminal investigator on a squad. I worked organized crime matters, among other things. Then I was on the SWAT team in New York, and then I made the hostage rescue team very fortunately. Probably some clerical errors in there, but slipped through the cracks and served as an operator and a sniper and a team leader with the hostage rescue team. Working embedded with our military on some significant operations as well, but mostly domestically.

Right.

More than just hostage rescues, but very— what I like to say is we solve problems like the wolf, you know, from— I forget the movie. You know what I'm talking about?

I know what you're talking about. I wasn't sure if it was the wolf or the jackal. I didn't know what you were getting around at.

Not the jackal.

But the reason why I want to establish these sort of bona fides and credentials is that— so Brian has worked in, uh, busting up child exploitation, sex trafficking, and terrorism rings. Uh, Jack Smith, uh, was at The Hague, uh, working on, uh, crimes against humanity and genocide. These are, uh, universally respected and admired members of— first of all, those are things that almost everybody in the world thinks, uh, it's heroic to try and tackle and to try and break up. And yet you have both become embroiled in the political collateral damage of, I guess, our dysfunctional system at this point. Uh, so I just wanted to establish what your careers were before all this occurred. Neither of you are partisan political actors. Would that be fair to say?

Correct.

100% accurate.

Jack, let's start with you. You came on people's radar as the special counsel investigating the cases about election interference and the Trump administration and the classified documents cases. Before that, what were, what were some of the things that you were working on before you had been tapped by, I'm assuming, Merrick Garland to take those cases?

Sure. I think, you know, overarching, John, the thing to understand is Brian and I had similar career paths and that, you know, we might be known to people for the last job we had. But the truth is, Brian and myself, we were guys on the line doing the work for the vast majority of our career. I started as a local prosecutor in New York City at the District Attorney's Office prosecuting domestic violence and sex crimes cases. I then became a federal prosecutor for 9 years in Brooklyn, and again, the majority of that time, uh, I was trying cases. I turned down promotions because I like doing the actual work of being a prosecutor. Uh, after that, I was overseas at the International Criminal Court. I was then the chief of the Public Integrity Section, which oversees corruption prosecutions around the United States. Then I moved to Nashville, Tennessee with my family and I became— first, I was the first assistant U.S. attorney, which is kind of the second in command in the office. And then during the first Trump administration, I was named the acting U.S. attorney in Nashville. After that job, I went into a private sector job for a very short period of time.

And then the Trump administration asked me to come back and serve in the State Department overseas running a war crimes tribunal. And that was what I was doing before I became special counsel.

Jesus. And this is so— so clearly that's not the career path of, let's say, a James Carville or somebody along those lines. So how did you get tapped to become, uh, the special counsel in these classified documents cases? When did Merrick Garland reach out to you, or is that not how this works?

Yeah, I, I had had a career of public service. Why they picked me, you'd have to ask Merrick Garland about that. Um, I was asked to serve, and my career has been about service. And, and I think Brian and I, again, have very similar kind of life and kind of views about this. Public service is a privilege. It's been the— I've spent the best part of my adult life working shoulder to shoulder with people like Brian. And, uh, when I was asked to come back and serve in this role, there was no way I was not going to do that.

And when you're asked for it, do you say, is this a prosecutable case? Is this a partisan case? Is this too political? Or do you just say, this is my assignment, and now it's time for me to go in and start gathering the information with all the tools that I have at my disposal.

Yeah, I, I went into it with no preconceived notions. I, I was living overseas in Europe in this State Department job for the last 4 years, and so my job was to get up to speed on the facts and on the law and to make a call. And, you know, I— listen, I've done big public cases before, big corruption cases before. I knew that no matter what decision I was going to make, somebody was going to criticize it. And, uh, I think people who have experience doing those cases, they know that all that stuff, the people, what people say in the media, people like you, people don't like you, you're a villain, you're a hero, it's all noise. Just noise. Uh, I had a great team of public servants who had careers very similar to mine, and we— I think the important thing for your listeners to understand, John, is we did that case the way I did cases throughout my career. Same way, same investigative techniques, same ways of investigating, same ways of making decisions. And at the end of the day, we felt we could prove that case in court. And that's why we charged the cases.

And Brian, for you, a similar path. I'm assuming you're working your way up all these different areas within the FBI and you are tapped to be the director, I guess, of the FBI, or I guess you were tapped to be the deputy director. Is that what happened first? And they screwed up. There's a bit of a clerical decision here. And so you just ended up being the acting head for a little while. Is, is that how you came to your role?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I was tapped to be the acting deputy director, um, and then on January 20th, uh, there was a clerical error in the publishing coming from the White House that had my name as the acting or interim director of the FBI rather than my partner's. So it was just flipped.

So then you became that. Then, uh, what happened in, in Brian's case is, uh, so at a certain point you were asked to compile a list of investigators that had worked on the cases that they deemed, uh, were going after Trump or people within, uh, Trump world. Would that be accurate to say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In sum and substance, that's, that's absolutely accurate. And it's all detailed in the complaint that the attorneys put forth as well.

And so when you were asked to compile this, you did not do that. You said you gave them a sort of an anonymized grouping. You felt that that was— they would be targeting people politically if you were to give that list, and for no reason.

I mean, it was fraught with risk, um, but before I I did that, which is accurate. I offered and asked for process, existing process, to reinvestigate or look for any of the alleged corruption or bad intent.

When you say ask for process, what do you mean by that? Not that I'm not up on the law stuff. Trust me, I watch a shit ton of SVU, so don't think that none of this is going over my head, but, but what do you mean by that?

This show's the best. Uh, so there are existing processes in the DOJ that are purpose-built to investigate internally and externally any violation or misconduct or corruption. Um, and those processes are what I articulated when asked for a list based off of just what they were assigned to work on and investigate, because agents and analysts and members of the FBI don't get to choose. You are assigned.

And so what you're basically saying is, what are you accusing these people of? Before I give you a list of, of this kind of a thing, are you just accusing them of weaponizing— I'm assuming this is about they're accusing you or these people of weaponizing the DOJ against Donald Trump. Would that be fair?

Yeah, I think that's fair. And, and I was not going to get into an argument about those allegations. I was— I wanted process, right? Articulated process in writing, so I'm not just leading these people to the edge of an employment cliff just to watch them get kicked off, right?

And this is after Kash Patel took over that job, or before?

Before. It was while I was the acting director, early on.

Okay, so he came in and replaced you, and then at that point they let you go?

I lasted a few more months. So, uh, the current director got in there at the end of February, I believe, and then I, I was, uh, shown the door on August 8th.

And what was the reason they gave you for showing you the door?

I mean, it's— it was a one-page memo, and, and I— it's— there's nothing of substance, and there was no process, uh, so I don't— I'm still not clear.

There's nothing in there that says, like, you were late You, you weren't wearing your FBI-issue polo shirt or jacket.

No, none of that.

None of that. So just left going. That's, I assume, the basis of your lawsuit, which you probably can't discuss.

Correct.

Fair enough. I could discuss other things, and, and I want to, and we will, young man. Uh, Jack, Brian just said something interesting, which is you don't get to choose. You, you got to choose whether or not to accept the role But the investigators that are assigned to you or the people in the FBI, I assume you use all the different tools that are available at your disposal at DOJ. Those individuals are not given the opportunity. If you're assigning them a task, they can't say this feels political or I don't think I want to work on that because I'm a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter. Is that the case?

That's correct. And I think, again, for people like Brian and I, it is just 101 Justice Department, FBI. Politics doesn't play a role in these things. People don't talk about stuff like that. People don't bring up stuff like that. Uh, the team of agents who worked on the cases I investigated— John, I've been doing this for 30 years— these people were superstars. They were the best of the best. Um, a lot of them were veterans. People who'd served their country in all different sorts of ways. And to see those folks demonized and cast aside, I just, you know, one of the reasons I've been so lucky to meet Brian and get to chat with him is Brian's a perfect example of if you think our country is safer when we get rid of people like this, you don't know anything about national security. You don't know anything about fighting corruption in our country. And I think it's very easy to demonize people as faceless bureaucrats. When, you know, they're not there to tell their story. But when you get an example of the sort of people who worked on my case, the people Brian spent his career with, uh, it becomes very hard to defend the actions against these people.

I, I have seen this attack on the rule of law. Uh, Brian used the word process. I think if you want to use one sort of metric to measure this, it's are you going to get predetermined outcomes no matter what, hell or high water? Are you going to follow good process? Uh, we followed process when we did our investigation, just like I had throughout my career. And the outcome of that process and those facts is what it is. And whether people like it or don't like it, uh, that's how you do the job well. Uh, it's just— and it's the same thing with these agents who were fired. There was no process. Uh, Brian was trying to protect these agents, and he lost a career that he cherished., that he devoted his life to for doing the right thing. I feel like stories like that, we need to talk about it more because to me, in my career, the rule of law was never a partisan thing. It wasn't a Republican-Democrat thing. And I just can't imagine that people of goodwill could hear stories like Brian's story, the stories of the agents who worked on my case, and say, no, that's okay.

I'm down with that. That's good. Um, these are the people who, these are role models. You want to raise your kids to be like these people and to have them victimized. It's unfair to them, but we're all going to pay a cost for it, both in the short term and in the long term.

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To get the same unlimited access to the Vantage subscription, go to groundnews.com/stuart and subscribe to get 40% off. I've partnered with Ground News to get you the discount that is available only for a limited time. That's groundnews.com/stuart, or scan the QR code on screen. Thank you to Ground News for sponsoring this episode. Well, let's try and tease apart sort of the idea of special counsels and then just the general DOJ operations, because I do think there are slight differences. And special counsels are, I think, more inherently political maybe than, you know, just the general workings of the DOJ in terms of the types of prosecutions that, that they do. So, so, Brian, first of all, the first question I would ask is, do you feel the difference when you're working as an FBI agent or, uh, you know, Jack, when you're working just as a regular person within the DOJ, when administrations change, do you feel the difference between an Obama administration and a Trump administration or, or first Trump administration and second Trump administration or Biden administration? Brian, how does that play out within the organization?

Listen, every administration has their priorities. And that's okay. That's a part of doing business in America. And that's one of the beautiful things about this country. I think the best way I could answer that question is very rarely did I— and I, my career, as well as the careers of those senior and junior to me, have transcended administrations. It has not changed the way we go about doing the job. And I think the best way to illustrate that and kind of demystify what it's like to be an FBI agent for the general American or otherwise out there is to talk about what's on the center of the FBI badge itself. And it's a depiction of Lady Justice. She's adorned with 3 things: scales, a sword, and a blindfold. The scales symbolize careful weighing of evidence and process and fairness and balance. The sword is the authority and the very serious and respected power of enforcing that law. And the blindfold is the ideal of performing that job with impartiality, object— objectivity, and without favor. And when that blindfold is removed and the scales are disregarded or are tipped because of an agenda or an influence that's inappropriate, and the sword swings wildly, then we have some problems.

I want to give people like a fuller picture because I think, look, everybody understands that people that are working in these public services are doing so probably with less financial reward than they would if they were going off and doing it in a more mercenary type operation. But everybody also has concerns about the excesses and abuses of the legal system of the DOJ. There's— I want to see if we can separate out political abuses and, and, uh, power abuses, if that makes sense. What you're discussing are— you're seeing now political abuses. How do they, uh, internally remediate other kinds of abuses? Because there's certainly a lot of people out there who might say, when I go— if I had to go up against the FBI, I couldn't do it. The resources that they have, everything that they bring to bear, whether it's fair or not, you know, with, with RICO, or, uh, they might want to squeeze somebody at a low level to get somebody higher. You know, people are always concerned about overreach within, uh, legal jurisdiction.

Uh, so I am not concerned about the FBI employees abusing their authority and power. There are, at full strength, 38,000 FBI employees that are there for a reason., and it is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. And everybody has a line, and I have never met anybody in 21 years— as almost 21 years as a federal agent— that has or would be willing to cross that line.

And how does the FBI police that within its own ranks?

Oh, there's, uh, layers.

Okay.

Uh, there's an entire inspections division, there's Office of Professional Responsibility, and the DOJ there's checks and balances throughout.

And these are put in, I assume, after sort of Hoover's reign, where, you know, trust within the FBI plummets when they find out, oh, they're, they're getting recordings of Martin Luther King and all these other— so they've, they've layered in a lot of safeguards for that type of abuse, right?

And it's, it's an imperfect organization with a sordid history, led by imperfect men and women, um, but I've never met anybody with malicious intent to leverage the FBI to corrupt or violate the rights of the American citizens.

And Jack, same question for you in terms of more of the DOJ aspect of it and the authorities, because, you know, look, there is, and I think, a fair criticism to be made that when the federal government brings to bear all of its resources against a citizen, that citizen is, is up against it. I believe the phrase is, uh, shit's creek without a paddle. You know, it's very difficult to go up against that. How does DOJ protect against those kinds of abuses?

Yeah, so I think these are really important topics. You know, first is just my experience, uh, been in the department as a prosecutor for decades. Um, to your point, John, I'm not saying the DOJ has been perfect at every step. It's a human endeavor. Right, but what, what I saw is similar to what Brian saw— people of goodwill trying, trying to do the right thing. Do— are mistakes made? Sure, but, but good prosecutors, they correct it when they make a mistake. Um, in terms of the power, that, that goes back to the, the point I was, uh, making earlier, that to be a prosecutor, you have to make choices. You have to make judgments about to bring this case, don't bring that case. It is so important that the people in the roles with that serious amount of power are doing it the right way and for the right reasons, and they're not doing it for political reasons. They're doing it because they looked at the facts and they didn't have a pre-deceived or preconceived notion of the outcome beforehand. Um, that's always going to be tough. And, you know, no matter what decision I make as a prosecutor, if it's a big case, there's going to be certain people who think it's unfair and certain people who think it's great.

We can't get away, if we're going to have a justice system, of having prosecutors have discretion about which cases to bring. One of the— and there's a— we can talk a bunch about the different ways we can make the department better, but the biggest one is to put people in the roles making those decisions who have experience and expertise. One of the things I think we see today is the attack on public servants is an attack on expertise that you actually don't need a lot of experience or judgment to do this job, right? And so making sure that people are qualified for the jobs they have, that they've earned the responsibility they're being given in significant cases, and then to protect those public servants. I think the thing now that's different than any time in my career is the idea that you could make a prosecutorial decision, and because of that, just because someone later didn't like it, you get fired. Or maybe even you don't make a decision, you just randomly get assigned to a case. Um, that sort of randomness, that chills people from doing their job. And my view is it's intentional.

They're trying to chill people, and they're trying to send a message, um, that if you come— if you investigate people who are my friends or my allies, um, you're going to pay a price for it. And the— it's interesting you talk about the power dynamics, because I think what you're saying is real. And as a prosecutor, I always felt it very important to, to think about that. Think about, like, if I'm going to issue a subpoena, if I'm going to investigate this, this is a big thing in this person's life, and being thoughtful about it and following the process to make sure I treat Person A the same as I treat Person B. Uh, but at the same time, uh, we have a situation now where these public servants who have devoted their, their lives to the craft of doing this the right way and they're not getting any process whatsoever. And I, again, I'm— my biggest concern is that we're not highlighting that enough, because if those people can't do their jobs right, the concern that you have, John, it's exacerbated.

So the whole thing becomes politicized.

Politicized. And also, or, or just fear, right? I mean, there's so many knock-on effects. You have people who like, we should totally open this case, but I might get fired for doing it. I'm not going to do it. Then you have people quitting, right? Because they're like, I can't be a part of this. I don't want to be labeled as someone who is so different than how I was raised as a prosecutor. And for me, the biggest, the biggest concern is that we have young people who were, you know, when Brian and I were 20 years old and we— I wanted to be a prosecutor and he wanted to be an agent. I have a concern right now that the people who are that age and are thinking about what they're going to do as public servants, they're like, no way, no way I'm doing this, and I'm going to lose my job for nothing. And we will suffer a much greater cost for that than anything else going on. That's the hardest thing. If we— if the— if people are driven away from public service, nonpartisan people who just want to serve, um, that's the hardest thing to correct for.

Well, how can they not? I mean, I want to talk about your case for a second, Jack, and then we'll go back to you, Brian, but When I see the just level of abuse that was leveled at you as, as somebody who was doing that special prosecution case, we can talk a little bit later about some decisions that maybe were questioned or not questioned. But the threats that came down upon you, I would think, would be enough to discourage almost anybody, whether it you know, be somebody within the DOJ that's going to take case or somebody that's being asked to work on that case, it would discourage them. I mean, the President of the United States was calling you a psycho who should be in jail. I, I don't understand how, uh, anyone in their right mind would want to take on that kind of potential for abuse.

Yeah, I, I mean, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the names I'm being called. By the president. And for me, I mean, when we talk about like overcoming things or facing things, I'm a guy who just did my job, right? I, I've been doing it for a long time. I followed the same traditions and I worked with the same sort of people I had all through my career. Uh, there's nothing really special about that. Uh, guy like Brian, on the other hand, is a guy who could have went along, could have said, here you go, here's the names, right? Here you go. Fire these people. People like him, and there's others. Brian's an example, but there's many others stood up, lost something that they built their lives around because they wouldn't do the wrong thing and had to do the right thing. I feel like the more we can celebrate that and use that as a differentiator, the better we'll be.

Brian, I thought Jack was the hero here. It turns out you're the hero. Actually, I was going for Jack's the hero. I was going for Jack here as the hero. It turns out Brian's the hero.

Chad, Jack is too kind. He is, he is absolutely a hero. And Jack, I appreciate you, you know that, brother. Uh, I do want to add something to what Jack said before, is, is where I find peace and, and hope with those of us who have been either forced into retirement or wrongfully terminated or otherwise. I talked to most, if not all, of those people whose careers and their, frankly, their life's purposes were disrupted or interrupted during this period of time. And to a person, each one of them intends to go back and serve. And I'm one of them, obviously. Um, and these are people that were just doing their job, like Jack said. Like, we didn't sign up for praise or awards or chest candy medals, all this stuff. We signed up to do our job because we believe in it. And we believe in doing the right thing. That doesn't change.

Brian, do you have a sense of how many, how many people have been removed because of working on cases that the Trump administration deemed partisan? And how many have left just because they didn't want to be a part of this? And how many that are left there have their work chilled because of what's happened?

I don't have a number, but one is too many.

Right, but it's significant. You would say there has been a significant drain?

Absolutely. With experience, uh, as the acting director, I watched my mentors, uh, a lot of whom were my mentors and people who helped raise me in the organization, get forced out. And then people started to be fired just because of the case they were assigned to. And like I said, they all want to go back. These are veterans, these are agents, they're analysts who were at the top of their game, but also some newer employees who are assigned to these cases that were— that want to go back and be an analyst. But I got an email yesterday from a guy who was a new analyst assigned to one of these cases, was fired, and hitting me up for guidance on once he does get back in how to apply to be an agent, because that was his goal. It's not everybody's goal, but it happened to be his. And these people are motivated.

Feeling like a calling. It is a calling and a service.

Yes. And that is why, like Jack said, he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about, you know, the, the slings and arrows that, that people like us can, can be the recipients of. That matters not because we are unafraid. We just want to serve.

I want to ask you a question, too. You were asked specifically about— they basically said to you, you'll be okay as long as you've never donated to a Democrat or voted for Kamala Harris. Is, is that Did they ask you that specifically, or is that something you're not allowed to talk about?

No, it's, it's documented in the complaint. That was asked me specifically prior to, um, going back down to headquarters as the acting deputy director. It was, it was referred to as a vetting interview, right?

And I want to make very clear, the vetting to become an FBI agent is unbelievable. I mean, in terms of, uh, they'll interview everybody you've ever met, they'll put you through lie detectors, they'll, they put you through a process of of, uh, making sure that there is nothing within your background that could be considered controversial or easily blackmailable or any of those other kinds of things, uh, to, to do that. Is that the first time in your service you were ever asked about a political affiliation?

Yes.

And had never been asked before?

Never.

Jack Smith, same question. Had you ever been asked about your political affiliation before getting a case? Had you ever been asked who you donated to as Has there ever been a question in terms of politics? I'm trying to get to the difference between when you start to remove— everybody can be considered a partisan depending on where you vote, but not everybody's an ideologue. And I want to get to a little bit of the difference between that. Jack, was there ever a partisan tilt to how you were asked to operate?

Never.

Even in the first Trump administration?

Even in the first Trump administration. Look at John. I was working in Nashville as the first assistant, right? And it's the, uh, it's before Trump's elected. Uh, Trump gets elected, I become the acting U.S. Attorney. The office did not change. Um, the— we still did our job. And just to go back to a point you raised earlier, you know, if a, if a new administration comes in and they want to change policy, they want to say we want to focus on immigration enforcement, we want to focus less on civil rights, we want to do environment. We don't want— we don't want to do less of corruption. They get to do that. That is why elections happen. And I tell young people all the time, if you think you want to be a prosecutor but you only want to work for certain sorts of administrations in certain cases, career prosecutor is the wrong profession for you. Shouldn't do it. And, uh, but at the same time, if you want to do those things, you want to change the policy, that's fine, but you have to follow the law. And you have to follow doing things the right way.

Uh, you don't investigate the victims of, of, uh, of police shootings, right? You don't try to smear them and call them domestic terrorists to, to set a narrative. Um, that is so far removed from anything I've experienced both as a line prosecutor or in leadership positions. It's just never been even anything close to that.

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See website for more details. So what are we to make then of the people who are still there and they are told, find out what Letitia James' mortgage situation is like, find out— I mean, right now they have weaponized it. It's very clear, and he— they've said it explicitly, they are going to go after those that they felt weaponize the DOJ against Trump. So if you're working there now, how, how do you respond to that? Do you— does— should everybody quit? I mean, clearly there's probably partisans there, but how do they deal with that? Brian, I'll ask you that.

I think if it's pretty black and white, if you receive a legal order or if it's in furtherance of a properly legally predicated investigation, then that's the job. If you're asked to cross that line into what is unethical, immoral, and illegal, then you have a decision to make. And that, that's what I faced as well.

But there are judgments associated with this. There are judgments in terms of when to bring a case. You know, there, there is discretion. And I think you saw it when they brought in Lindsay Halligan. There was, uh, cases that career prosecutors felt were not— had not risen to the level of being, uh, charges being brought.

And that, that's the decision point. And, and that, that is not unilaterally decided, like, by the FBI. The FBI doesn't make prosecutorial decisions. We work hand in hand with the DOJ, and then if it makes it to court, and then it needs to go through the process, right?

Jack, how, how do you think people should handle that?

Yeah, sure. And this, this is something I talk to young people who are thinking of being prosecutors, or people who are still in the and I talk to them about it all the time, and my view is very similar to Brian's. If you can still do your job, DOJ even today does a lot of good things, a lot of important things, protecting communities around our country, protecting the safety of Americans, protecting our national security. And a lot of people can do their job. Now, it could be in this administration you're going to get asked to do something that is just wrong, just illegal, just corrupt. And if that happens, your number's up. And it's interesting, the people, uh, who I've talked to who are experienced serious prosecutors, they know the difference between those things. Um, it's judgment, but it's not hard. Um, you can look at, you know, Letitia James and look at her mortgage fraud situation, and you can then get the facts together. But then ultimately you say, hey, as it— as I understand the prosecutors in Virginia did, this is not a case anyone would ever bring. And then you might get fired for it, for telling the truth about how a case should be handled.

Uh, and I think my view is that prosecutors and, and agents too should try to stay and do the right thing. And then this isn't a matter, you know, I've heard people say this isn't a matter of throwing sand in the gears. Just do your job. Do what you've done all along. Uh, and that doing that, um, makes it harder for them to weaponize the department. Just doing your job. If the rule of law, it doesn't work, the system doesn't hold if the people who enforce the law don't have integrity and character. But if they do, it's much harder to target people. That's why you see a lot of these prosecutions or the attempts to indict senators and congressmen for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they fall apart because A, real prosecutors won't do it, And therefore the people they get to do it are incompetent. They don't actually know how to prosecute a case.

They're real estate lawyers, right?

Yeah, they don't have any experience. I mean, and I think that's part of what we've seen that I think folks like Brian and I find very frustrating is this idea that you can do something that took us decades to learn how to do well. Oh yeah, I can just walk in and, you know, I can investigate this incredibly complex case. Follow department policy, follow the rules, do it the right way. And, and I think one other thing, the thing that's important to understand, John, it's like a hallmark of this, of this weaponization, is what's happening in the courts. I mean, the decisions you're seeing from judges about the positions that DOJ is taking— corrupt, illegal, improper. I mean, there was a decision recently, uh, regarding subpoenas to officials in in Minnesota, uh, for a sham investigation. The judge found that, that, that was not a legitimate criminal investigation and that it was unlawful. It was meant to retaliate against people. And, you know, again, just the narrative— that judge, the judge was appointed by George Bush. That judge was a Scalia clerk, right? Okay, so this is not, you know, radical left lunatics, um, making these determinations.

This is— the rule of law kind of right in front of us having that battle. And my view is that the most important thing we do now is when we see public servants and we see good people standing up, we support them. Those people need our support, and our support will make a difference whether those people can continue to stand up.

Is that the way you feel also within the FBI, Brian?

100%. The amount of sacrifice that the people in any agency— but I'll speak for the FBI— are making on a daily basis and who are willing to trade all their tomorrows to save your today is immeasurable. They are— they're incredible human beings that are going through a lot, and they go through a lot. They always have, but they continue to every day, and they don't complain about it. They make the sacrifices, whether that's being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for somebody else or to navigate this different environment in which they are working to get the job done, right? Not for themselves, but to protect you and me.

Let's talk a little bit about this different environment and in terms of how, you know, Americans' faith in our legal system, I think, is waning, would be putting it politely. And I want to talk a little bit about the systemic changes that I think have caused that. You know, Jack, you hit on a little bit right there. You said, well, this is a judge that was appointed by Bush and this was an Alito clerk. But think about that. We're so politicized to the point now— I mean, you face this, Jack. There was criticism that you brought the classified documents case down to Florida because there was a chance you might end up in Judge Cannon's court. Judge Cannon is a Trump— I think people would say not just partisan but ideologue— and she would make decisions purely based on protecting her person. We've got the point now where we have teams. Judges are on teams. They're on the Democrat team. They're on the Republican team. And you can't expect fair justice if you're on the opposing squad. Is the entire system so politicized that there's— and we'll get into the Supreme Court of it all after this, but what do we do about the fact that we now look to when decisions come down whether or not that judge is an Obama judge, a Trump judge, and we use that as part of justification.

Well, that, that was a great decision because a Trump judge went against Trump world, or an Obama judge went against the Democrats. You know, what do you do about that?

Yeah, I think, you know, the first thing is that, that, you know, this judge was appointed by this person, this judge clerked for this person. I think it's a— and I raised it as It's sort of a response to the claim that they're all political radical people against this particular president. From my point of view, in terms of getting credibility back, not only for the courts but also for the Department of Justice, I think about it the same way I think about my work as a prosecutor. When I am going into court, I need to be credible with the judges. I need to be credible with juries. I need to be credible with witnesses. How I do that as a prosecutor is I behave with values that we all share. I act with integrity. I tell the truth. I treat people with respect, whether they deserve it or not. I show kindness and I show courage if I need to. Those sort of values, those sort of traits, that's the fabric that binds us together. In my view, is that we have to lean into that, uh, more than ever, and that we should be looking for people in positions leading these institutions or appointing judges who have not just will voice those traits but have lived those traits.

But that's not what the public sees. What the public sees is a judge in Florida that delays the case, that makes rulings that make it impossible for you to file that changes things. And then they see a prosecutor yourself release 100 and, I don't know, 65-page document about election interference right before the election that they feel is a political move on your part. So the tough part is everybody who's within those institutions can say, look, we're, we're working through process and we are, uh, doing it in values and morals that we think are fitting to the stature of the organizations that we're in. But the public isn't— that's not their experience with this. Their experience with this is it is a political game being played out through processes that we normally thought were apolitical.

Yeah, I think that gets to— that's a— that's the next layer, right? That's like communication. And to me, you know, I was a prosecutor, right? My career, I was a guy— I spoke in the courtroom, not on the courthouse steps. If I did press conferences, I said the absolute minimum I had to say and I got back to work. I didn't see that as part of my job. I saw my job as working with people like Brian to actually do the work. I think what we've learned, to your point, John, is that there is another component to being a leader in the Justice Department, maybe the largest component. Well, I, I would differ with you on that because I don't want to get where the next leaders of the Department of Justice are comms people, right? And they, they don't know anything about prosecuting cases. I just think that people— look at the people who are good prosecutors, they are good communicators. They have to win juries over, they have to win judges over. I think in the past we just haven't taken it as part of our job to have this larger conversation. I mean, for me, you know, I grew up in upstate New York, I grew up in outside of Syracuse.

I think a lot of folks in Washington and like don't think that they need to communicate necessarily to those people. We talk to people in Washington. I would love to see future leaders of the Justice Department trying to explain what they're doing to people outside of just the legal community, outside of just Washington, D.C. I think it's hard to be, to be real fair. Like, you got a right to a fair trial, right? You can't be talking about— you shouldn't be talking about a case, um, the specifics of a case while it's pending. But I do think there's more we can do if we all agree that if you don't communicate these things that show integrity— because if you have integrity and you have competence It doesn't mean much if people don't know that and you can't communicate that.

But is it just a— do you really think it's just a communications problem, Jack? Because, you know, and Brian, I'll ask you this too, you know, the FBI doesn't communicate their methodologies and their things, but I think people look at, uh, the way that these institutions— I'll go back to Brian when you were first there, when Trump was going after the two FBI agents during the Russia investigation. That he thought were— it was Page and Strzok, I think, that were, uh, had an affair, and he was ridiculing them. Is it enough for the FBI to just communicate better what they're doing, or do we need to really look at the totality of a system that's been politicized?

I think there's value in looking at the totality, but you can't look at the totality without a clear and depth of understanding of the process. And I think the FBI, uh, has an interesting history of how they communicate those processes when they can, and they can't always. But I think to Jack's point, you can't— you can rarely, in my experience, gain and earn trust and credibility through chest-beating and being the loudest voice in the room. And, you know, being the voice when we're living in these 18 inches between our phones and our faces with just clicks and, and content. It requires leadership with grace and poise and practice, uh, with clear messaging of what I can tell you, what I can't, and why. And then just hope for trust.

But we don't get— I don't think we— I don't think we get it. Like, I'll give you two examples. First is January 6th. So the big story on the right is January 6th actually wasn't what we all saw that it was. It was an FBI op. There was a guy who was an FBI plant, and he urged people to go in there, and there were 600 FBI agents that were there that day, and they're the ones that stirred the pot, and, and they did all that. And so our entire understanding of this was actually the feds instigating an insurrection on January 6th, and that's their That's their storyline as they're going to get through. And I'll give you the flip side of that on, on the left, which is James Comey, who was the head of it at the time, announcing that he was going to do an investigation or reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton, you know, a month before the election. And that's what sunk her chances. You know, those are the narratives that you're fighting. And I have not heard, you know, Comey has come out. And said a few things about, well, I might not have done that, but I thought it was important.

You know, he's explained certain things. The FBI hasn't really talked that much about what those— who those agents were, what they were doing there, or any of those other situations.

Yeah, listen, what I'll say about that is that if the FBI expended its resources chasing down or debunking every conspiracy theory, they would be spending much less time focusing on national security and mitigating serious crime.

Just some, though, raised to the level that need to be, that need to be addressed more forcefully.

Yeah, I think, and that comes with, uh, close and continuing communication with the public in a responsible manner. Um, and I think that could, that could fix a lot of the things that you're addressing. And, and honestly, when you're speaking about Director Comey and the others, say, I, I can't and won't speak for them Right. And they have their choices to make on their— not only their when and how they communicate, but the style in which they do so. And they're surrounded by very smart people.

How hard is it now when the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, is one of the people who propagated the January 6th theory, that now you have somebody leading the FBI who was a proponent of that conspiracy? Yet, you know, there was a guy, Ray Epp. You know, they've never brought charges against any of those people. They've never actually given the information out there. They've never released certain files. You know, how do we retain faith in an institution that in some respects won't defend itself forcefully, or in this particular case is being led by someone who was one of the leading proponents that we shouldn't trust this organization?

Yeah. So I understand that a fish stinks from the head kind of concept.

So I've heard that.

However, I'm, you know, I was only the head of that fish for a very short amount of time. However, I spent a lot of time with the people that— and, and shared risk, uh, of our lives, um, with the people that actually work that organization. Like I said, 38,000 at full strength. There's one guy named as the director right now. And I think people need to trust that those people, they're not appointees, they are civil servants. They've given up a lot to be able to serve in their capacities. They've worked their asses off to do it, um, and their families have given up a lot. And that's where I, I find trust in them, because I was one of them and I was with them, and I'll do anything for them. Now, as far as the current director is concerned, on his first night after he, uh, he was confirmed, he came to the office and I had a few minutes with him, and I made him a promise in that moment, um, not knowing how long I had left there and not, you know, I didn't have a crystal ball. I had some, some feelings about it, but, uh, I promised him that I would do everything in my power and whatever influence I had to make him the best director we've ever had, because we need him to be.

And if he fails, we fail. That has not changed. I, despite what people want to assign to me as far as my opinions and thoughts, my opinions are unproductive. I hope and root that he will be better every day. I hope that those in leadership positions, not just in the FBI but everywhere else that serves our country, understands that having authority and being an authority are not the same thing. And surround yourself with people that are smarter and better and more experienced, and we'll all be better off for it.

And how does that— does that dysfunction present itself clearly within the organization? Chain of command, morale, um, eye on the prize in terms of— or is there literally like the majority of the FBI is focused on those day-to-day tasks of protecting Americans and making sure these threats don't go. And there is a small kind of cadre, a kind of adjacent office that is more focused on these partisan endeavors.

Well, let me caveat this with it. I'm out in these streets just like you guys, so I'm not in there. But, but, um, what you said is accurate.

The majority of the people there are doing their job, and the priorities, they might shift to drug interdiction, or they might shift to trafficking or something else, but they're, they're still focused on the day-to-day task at hand and the processes that were put in place to protect those tasks.

Yes.

And if there are priorities or, you know, surges driven by the leadership, then, you know, portions of the FBI will surge to that.

Well, like when they say, we've— we're now moving a bunch of FBI agents to go to Atlanta and, and they're going to go and they're going to raid election offices and they're going to do all those things. And by all accounts, they're moving a lot of manpower to do that. How are we supposed to have faith in that organization anymore when that's so clearly a partisan endeavor, an ideological endeavor?

Yeah, listen, I'm not going to be cute about it. That is troubling to watch from the outside. I don't know what's going into that, those decision matrix that are driving those investigations. So I won't speak to, you know, the credibility of them. That said, like, I will go back to what I said before. If it is legal, if it's predicated, if all the things have been done properly, then, you know, even if—

look, even if just by the very nature of doing it, that puts a chilling effect on the electoral process in that area. The people that work there, you know, we saw the hell that they put two election workers through when they were looking there. You know, these are the things that, that I think very much undermine that credibility that you guys are talking about and the story that you guys are talking about in terms of the individuals and the sacrifices they're making to protect us.

Yeah, I mean, and I think what's, what's most vexing on top of that is not just how the resources are being allocated and what they're being allocated to, but what's getting dropped, you know, what kind of actual threats are being prioritized or deprioritized.

That's right.

That's happening. We have a very heightened national security threat right now. Crime is going down, speaking globally or nationally, which is great. Like, I'm not going to sit here and be ignorant enough to say like everything that these people are doing is bad. That's just not the case, and it's irresponsible to say that. However, from what I worked when I was in the Bureau with Jack, uh, working in parallel, intersecting sometimes through, through people we share as friends and, and colleagues, um, there are threats that we could use more resources pointed at, you know, especially with the global, uh, environment and what's happening all over the world right now. Like, terrorism didn't stop, right?

You know, and those threats don't stop. Jack, I want to ask you about, you know, when DOJ— when you've got the DOJ is headed up by the president's personal lawyer, but I want to talk about other structural things. DOJ, I always look at as you're fighting corruption, right? It's influence peddling, bribes, uh, the types of white-collar crime that is difficult to get your arms around and handle. But it, it seems as though the Supreme Court has made that job— forget about Trump and politicizing these things. It seems as though corruption, as we typically understood it, has been redefined by the Supreme Court over the last 15 years. And I want to know how that affects your ability to do the job that the DOJ is supposed to be doing. So just as an example, uh, in the McDonnell case— I— did you, did you work on the McDonnell case, uh, in Virginia?

I did. I was one of the supervisors of that case.

Yes.

Okay, so that's a case where a guy is paid money and gifts and bribes to give access, right? You guys bring a case against him, he gets convicted. The Supreme Court says, actually, It's not bribery if it's just for access. You know, there were other cases. I've got some written down. The Snyder case, which I thought was a fascinating one. Bribes that are given after you do the quid pro quo are considered gratuities and therefore can't be prosecuted as bribes. You have the absolute immunity case for Trump. You have the Skilling case, which is about conflict of interest or self-dealing. At every turn, the Supreme Court is redefining what public corruption is to the point where I don't even know how you would prosecute public corruption unless someone is holding a giant bag that has a dollar sign on it and on it, it says, for helping me with that thing.

Well, John, it's actually even more dire than you lay out.

It can't be more dire than that, Jack. It can't.

But before we get to the Supreme Court, and, and, and I'll come back to that, you know, we're in a world right now, John, where if there is corruption at the highest levels of our government, there is nobody to look at it. Nobody. Congress is not going to look at it. The DOJ is not going to look at it. Uh, there's not going to be any outside prosecutor to look at it. And so before we even get to bringing a case, there's no one who would be allowed to investigate it. Uh, I do think you're right.

When you say nobody is allowed to investigate it, how do you mean?

Well, you know, you can imagine if there was, uh, you know, take a look at the, the SignalGate thing, right, with, uh, uh, the, um, you know, sharing battle plans, classified information over a—

right, yeah.

And the Attorney General at the time, uh, Attorney General Bondi immediately without any facts said there's not going to be an investigation. Comes out later from the inspector general that, in fact, it was classified information and it endangered the lives of, of service members. If that's not being investigated, you know, we don't have to worry about what the Supreme Court says because we're not going to get to court and have a case.

But they are investigating Renee Goode. I mean, they are investigating. They're just— it seems upside down. To some extent, right?

And again, that my point is that that judgment to investigate real corruption and not investigate shooting victims' family members, um, you need good people in these roles, you know. Just again, in terms of as we go forward, uh, I hear a lot of people talk about, you know, how are we going to fix the FBI, how we're going to fix the Department of Justice. And like the idea, I've heard someone say, you know, the, the, uh The next director of the FBI really needs to have smart people around them who really know the bureau and how it works. People like Brian Driscoll. My response to that is— my response is, how about we just have one of those people run the FBI? Someone who actually knows it. Not a politician, not a person with a political stake in the game, but people who actually have done the work since they were young people. How about that? And, you know, I agree with you, John, that winning back credibility is not going to be easy.. But I don't think we shouldn't try to do it. And again, I think that diving into that, I— my life, when I interact with people in the world, I hear people all the time who want to go back to having normal people make these decisions.

Oh dear God, people are exhausted. They're absolutely exhausted.

And so the way I think of it is we have the people who work in the Justice Department and in the FBI, the everyday line prosecutors and agents, which Brian and I spent most of our career doing. People know their story. They're going to— they're going to like that. They're going to respect it. I mean, just to go back real quick, John, on the issue of communication and the issue of January 6th, there is an inspector general's report that exists that debunks everything you said about like the FBI setting this up. It's in detail. And if you take the time to read the 100-whatever-odd pages it is, No person could come away and think that's what happened. The problem? Nobody's read it. Nobody knows about it. Nobody took it as their job to go out to the public and say, hey, this is a big deal. People are going to believe this narrative unless I explain this to folks. And so that, that's what I say about leaders on issues like that that can cause huge distrust. Taking that on is part of the job. I certainly didn't do it. In the DOJ before, but I think that's a thing we need to change going forward.

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You know, if you think about— let's look at the, the last ones. You had the Mueller case with Russia, had a lot of convictions, but very few of them were about, uh, election interference. It was mostly obstruction or perjury or those things. We had, I guess the next one was the classified documents case. Then they had the Biden documents case. It looked like he also had classified documents. Then they had a Hunter Biden special counsel where we finally got him on weapons charges. You know, Whitewater was another one where the special counsels also, I guess, at fault in some ways because they never really got to the crux of what they were investigating. They were only able to spring process traps, and that's how they ended up catching a few low-level fish. So if, if that's not there, what levers of accountability are we left with? And, and I, you know, I know that's a lot to answer, but I just, I wanted your opinion on that.

Yeah, sure. So I think of it this way. You've got a situation, a highly sensitive situation with high-level people in the government. It could be my case, it could be Iran-Contra, it could be Watergate, any of the ones you talked about. You've got 3 options. Option 1 is you say, this is too sensitive, we're not going to really look into it. You know, corruption at the highest level of government, it doesn't happen very often, and the executive needs a lot of power to do their job, so we're really not going to even go down that road. Um, there are people who take that position. On the other end, you say, you know what, the Justice Department run by a political appointee of the current president can totally do it, and people will find it credible because the Justice Department does this every day, and we don't have to do anything special. The middle ground is to appoint somebody outside the government, and how much discretion and power that person has depends on whether you're talking about the independent counsel statute, which was Iran-Contra, or the special counsel regulations that I worked under. And the balance is you want independence so that person can make a call and call balls and strikes as they are.

But you also need accountability, right? Because you don't want to have a— and I think that was the concern with the independent counsel statute, is some felt that the independent counsel was accountable to no one and could go on forever. Mm-hmm.

And could catch a lot of people in situations where they don't have the resources. Look, I'm no fan of General Flynn. But it's very different for Donald Trump to have to defend himself. I mean, that guy had to like sell his house. You know, when somebody is in the crosshairs, whether it's a Papadopoulos or a Carter Page or a, you know, Hunter Biden has resources, but, you know, Letitia James now, you know, these people don't have the resources to go up against it. Clearly abuses have been taking place.

Yeah.

And I guess one thing I would just add to that, into the framework, is is how we judge it, right? Like, I think when you're dealing with these situations, these complex, difficult, hard-to-prove situations, the idea that anybody's going to do that job and, and you're going to get sort of unanimous public agreement that that's a fabulous job and we all agree with the outcome, that's just not happening.

No, it's a good point.

Yeah. And, and so I think what we need to do, and, and my view is In those situations, you hew to doing things the right way, the way they've been done in the Justice Department for generations, at least since Watergate. That is a credibility, uh, enhancer. I think, again, communicating how you're doing that is going to be helpful, but you're never going to get 100% approval, and you're never going to get an outcome that everybody agrees with. Um, sometimes the outcomes are more complicated than, than can be explained in a short narrative. Uh, I feel like the job of a prosecutor is not achieving a particular outcome— how many convictions you got, how many people, um, were charged, that sort of thing. It's doing it the right way. You do it the right way and you let the chips fall where they're going to fall. Um, not every profession is like that. And, and I think the thing that's— from the perspective I have, I think Brian might share this— is The way the public judges a lot of the criminal justice system is outcome-based, and good prosecutors don't do that. So our internal metric for doing the job the right way is one of like, I did things the way they're supposed to be done.

Of course, if someone— I think someone's guilty, I want to get a conviction, and I'm going to try to do that. But it's much more important to me that I do it the right way than I get a particular outcome. And I would never want to have a prosecutor who would cut corners because he wants the public adulation and support because he got an outcome a lot of people wanted. Um, and so I guess I— long way to say that is like there's sort of ceilings on how much you can, uh, have everybody really happy with the outcome of these things. They're built to be difficult from the start.

Well, I'm, I'm not even talking about their happiness with it. I'm more talking about the broader sense of accountability that doesn't seem— look, Yeah, in my mind, the macro view of this— and Brian, I think I'd like to get your opinion on this— January 6th was a Rubicon for me, uh, in terms of democratic system being subverted. You know, we can always— the Supreme Court can say the president is basically has absolute immunity and you can't find anything and basically makes him beyond the scope of the law, uh, if he's, you know, doing the duties of his office. Uh, but January 6th was the, the crossing the line that I thought, this is a person that needs to be held to account for trying to subvert, you know, it's peaceful transfer of power. That's the line. We can all— there's different corruptions within it, but if you won't leave when you're supposed to leave, that's when we turn from a democracy into an autocracy. Like, that's the dividing line, black and white. Our inability to hold that president to account through a political process, impeachment, that was clearly partisan. People that said, yeah, that was egregious and he should never hold office again, still voted not to impeach because they said, well, he's leaving anyway.

Little did they know. So the political process proved itself to be not up to the task. The legal process, I thought, also proved itself not to be up to the task. It took Merrick Garland, I don't know, years before he even asked you to do the investigation. I don't know why. I don't know if you have an opinion on that, Jack.

Oh, listen, my view of my work— I got appointed to do a job and I did it. When I interacted with Merrick Garland, he's not a guy who put the finger on the scale. He didn't try to push me to do it right, bring a case, not bring a case. My interact—

but he didn't bring it for years. He didn't even ask you.

Yeah, I mean, I got appointed when I got appointed and like my— I guess, I guess my point on that, John, is that I understand that that's a narrative that people want to talk about is like, you know, why didn't he move faster, that sort of thing.

Right.

I feel like from my perspective, having been someone who's done this job for a long time and cares a lot about where the department goes going forward, cares a lot about the people who work there, I'm much more interested in finding people who are examples of courageous people who are standing up, who are making sacrifices. If we're looking, you know, if you're, if you're on a sports team and you're trying to do well, right, you look for ways that you can succeed. You look for plays that work. I want to see people, and I want to raise people up who are, could be part of the solution rather than kind of looking backward.

And I completely agree with that. I'm talking more about about sort of how the system is perceived, even with those good people in it. So Merrick Garland takes 2 to 3 years to do it. I'm talking about how the, the legal process seemed to not be able to hold him to account for what I thought is the most egregious moment in my lifetime in American history. Like, makes Watergate look like chump change. So he holds off on that. Then the system, unable to get at him through that legal methodology seemed like— and you can push back on this— seemed like it went after Trump with every available methodology they could think of. Letitia James prosecutes him for, I think, his, uh, business and mortgage dealings. Alvin Bragg prosecutes him for the Stormy Daniels payments. The government goes after classified documents, which is something that I think most people were like, I never even heard I didn't even know that was a thing. I always assumed, you know, because in this country our classification system is also broken. It looked like to fair appearances that the system did turn its eye to getting this guy any way they could.

And so if the political process failed us and the legal process seemed to have failed us, I think that's the question of how do we rebuild trust in that system? Even though it's staffed with really good people. Brian, you were going to say something.

Yeah, no, I'm going to take Jack off the hook for a second.

Please.

Um, I'm not saying that you're saying this. However, yeah, I think it's important for people to know that we didn't do nothing.

They—

we investigated the people who perpetrated the January 6th, uh, crimes. That's right. We, myself personally, were part of arrest teams that took off some of the most violent and dangerous offenders affiliated with some very violent groups. Um, and these things, they do take time. I can't speak to the decision process of, of, uh, AG Garland at the time and any delays and this, that, and the other thing, but the, the DOJ didn't sit on our hands either. We were hustling, we were working to hold the criminals accountable and did. Now, going all the way over to POTUS, I can't speak for that, but I felt like Jack needed some help. So yeah, there you go. You all right, Jack?

Listen, I think Jack will be fine. Am I being unfair? Am I, am I being unfair in saying that to my mind— and I, again, I'm not talking about the guys who, like you say, you know, that stormed the Capitol and got arrested and were given sentences like— and were held to account. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the ringleaders and the people that pardoned those same people and were never held to account for anything, either through our political means. Our only political means is impeachment. Our only legal means is through the DOJ. So am I being unfair to say that those systems were unable to operate and at this point have been through, whether it's the Supreme Court or whether it's through the ability of Donald Trump and his allies to delay, have we failed?

Yeah. I mean, John, I would say first, you know, on the political part, yeah, you're probably talking to the wrong guys for that. We're criminal investigators who work on criminal cases.

I just want your opinions. I know that. I'm not—

Yeah.

Yeah.

So on, on the, on the other part, in terms of the cases against Trump, I can speak most directly to ours. And when I took that job, I would have been perfectly happy if the facts and law didn't, didn't justify it to not bring those cases. And I'm sure if the facts were different, John, I'm sure a lot of the people who think I'm great would not think I'm so great. And some of the people who think I'm bad would think I'm really nice. The truth is—

very good point.

Yeah. When you're a prosecutor, right, you— all that sort of things in terms of perceptions and people feeling this way in this election, that is noise. That is things that I didn't consider when I'm doing my job. And, you know, I brought those cases and I moved them forward because I thought I could prove them in court and I thought I'd win on appeal. That's the same. We don't change the metric once, uh, it's someone who's a high-profile case. Um, and again, I would just like to, to juxtapose what weaponization is, right? Um, I've been doing this for 3 decades. I'm not a political operative who was brought in from outside because I could— they couldn't get a line prosecutor to do it. People didn't resign because I demanded that they do things that run so counter to the traditions of the department Um, I mean, just think about today, John. If you had an allegation of corruption, can you imagine this administration bringing in someone like me who's got no political allegiance? Can you imagine that happening?

No.

Um, and, and that's why, you know, we come back to this issue of process.

I can't imagine, by the way, them even prosecuting it. I mean, he literally was bragging yesterday that he was making sure they weren't going to investigate cryptocurrency corruption. I mean, they're, they're bragging about no longer investigating white-collar crime.

Yeah. And again, that's why I go back to this issue of like how we talk about it, because when you talk about, John, like the fact that, you know, people don't believe this and people don't trust that, it's not in a vacuum, right? There are people with very powerful megaphones using repetitive messages over and over again that have no factual basis, but they get out there and they become part of the public discussion. The history before, before these last couple of years is prosecutors just sat on their hands and let that be said. And we didn't worry about that. I think the credibility issues you're talking about are because one side was telling a story divorced from the facts and the other side wasn't telling a story. I think if you lean into the facts, The cases we do, I could justify them in court and I could justify them publicly. I think going forward, that is the recipe. That and having the people who are telling the stories be from the rank and file and be people who've lived the values that they're asking the teams to follow.

No.

And Brian, I'm assuming you feel the same way about within the FBI, because what it feels like is you now have an organization that is generally built apolitically. Built through merit, built through whatever methodologies they think gives them the best chance to get the best agents and the most selfless people, being utilized and weaponized by partisans and with very little recourse, I would assume.

Yeah, I am 100%, no surprise here, aligned with what Jack just said. It's going to take—

you make a formidable team, the two of you.

Appreciate that. Jack's on the top, so Robin, Batman.

All right, fair enough.

How dare you, sir? I don't look that great in tights. Um, so again, like what Jack said, it's gonna take people from the rank and file who cannot speak for themselves publicly, right? Not allowed to. Um, but people like Jack and I— and I don't want to put words in Jack's mouth or speak for him, but I can speak for myself when I say that I am, have been, and continue to seek purpose, to fill the purpose that was taken from me. Um, part of how I'm fulfilling that purpose is trying to be that responsible voice. I'm not anointed by the men and women of the FBI to speak on their behalf. However, I can offer a perspective that most don't hear. And like I said before, like, demystifying some of the thought processes, some of the experiences we've been through, and some of the ways things get done. It's a responsibility. And I think all of that noise, all of the dynamic opinions regarding— like, Jack and I talked about this the other day, like, we're like Joe Fridays. It's just the facts. That was our career. It was not about credit, was not about getting the awards.

It's about the facts, doing the job, because it's what we signed up for. And now we can represent, hopefully, um, but it's a no-fail task. When Jack and I speak, we cannot fail. We cannot allow our words to be twisted because we speak and stand for something bigger than just ourselves. 'Cause that's the part of the organization we craved to be a part of. And we're proud to be a part of something larger than us. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to do this kind of, this type of stuff. No offense. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for having us.

By the way, I am, I'm deeply uncomfortable as well doing this. I have been for years. 30 years. Yeah.

I know I would, I, I told this to my teammates when I was in that period of time where I was the acting director, there is nothing I wanted more when that period was over than to just disappear into anonymity and continue putting points on the board on behalf of the organization, on behalf of the American people. Now, I understand that I can be— or, and put myself under a level of pressure, um, to do things like this. But to me, pressure is a privilege because it means something is expected of me, even if I'm the only one that might expect it of myself, right?

It's finding purpose even after you've been sort of let go from the place where you found that grounding and you found that relevance?

Because I believe in them. I believe in the organizations. I believe in the American people. I had an experience last week that, that reinforced it in a very real way. I told Jack, I, I ride my motorcycle to work, save money on the Easy Pass.

How much cooler than me can you be? No, this is really— now it's Now you're just taunting me.

I promise.

Well, I ride my electric bike sometimes to get the mail, so don't think you and I aren't the same, because we're the same.

You're exponentially better in every way. Um, but I— so I was riding to work, um, and I was going the speed limit, I promise, it was 50 miles an hour, two-way lane or two-way street, hit a deer. I had no time, nowhere to go, and so at 50 miles an hour I took a short flight No longer slide and tumble.

Wow.

Bike is fine. Importantly for me, my mindset.

All right. Deer is okay. Important to me.

I don't— it surprisingly ran off. I never saw it again. I will find it. All right. So but what happened next after I realized that I was okay, I stood up and traffic stopped on— sorry, on both sides of the street.. And everybody emptied those cars. It was rush hour in the morning. The first person to me was an African American female in her 50s, let's say. Second person, young blonde woman in scrubs. The third, fourth, fifth people were, were in the car that would've killed me if I went into oncoming traffic, filled with, uh, Hispanic, uh, laborers. None of them asked who I voted for, like what I, I, you know, my sexual orientation, my religion. They didn't even ask my name. All they saw was a dude in America who needed help and they helped me. And that, in that moment, in every moment in the last week and a half has kind of like cleared the fog for me as far as all of the things I consume responsibly. And I think it is on those consumers, it's on the communicators as well in the, in the organizations you talked about, and it's on us.

But it's also on the consumers to be responsible. And don't just believe the first headline that you see, but read diversely, broadly, and don't just get sucked into what the algorithm is telling you how to think.

Brother, preach, preach. I'm telling you, I feel bad.

It's—

listen, it's, it's very easy to have your perspective skewed. And it's an important remembrance there. And I think that's— and listen, I appreciate both you guys' time. So much for this. And I think probably a great way to end is, is in that sense of, so how do we get back to that without sort of the idea of, you know, just believing in the goodness of us? But do you have ideas on how we can reclaim the accountability so necessary for this system to function properly and not be co-opted by bad actors or, or partisan actors. You know, people will say like, well, the real elections are the real accountability. That's ultimately where it all ends up. But I'm watching our electoral process be co-opted now through partisan measures where even that— the thumb is being put on that scale. In, in very bad ways. Are there— do you have ideas about, beyond trusting the integrity of the rank and file, where we can start to bring a little more accountability to the system? I'll ask you, Jack.

Well, in terms of the Justice Department, and I, I think the Bureau as well, I think the one thing we can say with certainty is when there's been more politics, it's been bad, and when there's been less politics, it's been good. And so I think a thing that you should be looked at is whether there's ways you can not just get the Justice Department back to what it was when I worked there, but are there ways we can make it better? You know, John, after Watergate, there was a bunch of reforms that made our government better.

Yep.

In a bunch of different ways.

Very much so.

And it was a dark time after Watergate, right? And people took that darkness and the pain they were feeling and the, you know, negative, uh, outlook for the future, and they turned it into things that made our country better for a good long time. We have an opportunity to do that right now. Uh, I think getting people— there are so many people out there who feel alone and feel isolated and feel like nobody is standing up for them or speaking for them or, uh, exhibiting the values that we're talking about. I think that's a foundation, and I think you start with that And then the Justice Department, of all the things that the government does, to me is the one thing where politics can't have a role. We have to find reforms where it makes it harder and harder to do what's happening right now.

Brian?

Yeah, Jack is so much more articulate.

Look, come on.

So, I mean, what he said. No, no, I think it's— it comes down to, um, not taking trust for granted. People with credibility and real experience maybe a little bit of scar tissue, but don't have an agenda, uh, that are ready to serve and, and bring trust into institutions. But I also think that John Q. Citizen, Jane Q. Citizen should be fluent in their rights. And, and like I said, they'd be unafraid to exercise them in a safe manner, um, with no violence.

But they just be unafraid And I think it's probably going to come down to that is, you know, you said it earlier, courage and the courage of individuals. And Jack, when you talked about the reforms after Watergate, it struck me so much of that was rebalancing the branches of government. And it does feel like we're moving, you know, this idea of a unitary executive and a president as much more forceful as a king, you know, until that changes, it's very difficult to rebalance this because now we are going to be much more so— and DOJ being, you know, under that auspice, it's going to be much more difficult to do it until we rebalance the branches again. And it's— right now, it's— it feels like we're in an outsized pre-Watergate mindset.

Yeah, I mean, I, I would say one thing about that is that when you think about like how change comes about, like you look at the times in our history, right, where something really bad happened and we got better, whether it's abolishing slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights movement, right? They— there were moments when no one knew if what they were going to do was going to make a difference, and they did it anyways. Right? You don't think about the likelihood of success. You just think, I'm going to be on the right side of history. I'm going to behave in a way that's going to make my kids proud, my parents proud. And you just do that and you don't worry about consequences. I think in terms of a mindset for, for our society, 99% of the time, I think most people know the right thing to do. They really do. The problem becomes when they factor in the consequences for doing the right thing. Because then people, if the consequences are too high, they start rationalizing ways where they don't quite have to do that. Maybe they can do something short of that. Uh, as Brian said, if we start taking a mindset of it's our country, we own the problems, if you want a solution, you got to be a part of it.

Um, I feel like that happens, and if that becomes our national dialogue and integrity is a more central part of it, some of the things you're talking about we can elect people who will not do those sort of things. I mean, I have a big concern. I don't want to have a situation where we've had these abuses and that becomes the new normal for any party.

Right.

And we've seen that other times.

And the key to remember is it doesn't have to— that, that it is like you say, correct, that action against this corruption is, is necessary. And the courage to take action against that corruption is all of our responsibilities.

Absolutely.

Well, I can't think of 3 bigger heroes than the 3 of us. All right, just you 2. Damn it. Uh, Jack Smith, former special counsel. Brian Driscoll, former FBI agent who in 2025 was the acting director of the FBI. Thank you so much for, for spending the time and pointing out the great stories of the integrity of the people, uh, in the rank and file. Of, of law enforcement and of our Department of Justice and all those things. We have to keep highlighting the good work by the good people and those that continue to stand up against corruption in all of its forms. And so I appreciate you both being here for that.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks for having us, John.

Appreciate you.

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We're going to hang out, right, guys? Like, It's so like you're overwhelmed by manly madness.

Yeah, that was also— that was a three, like, New York, New Jersey, tri-state area accents that I was hearing too.

That's terrible. I would— that, you know what, that should have been the whole conversation. You believe these fucking guys at the DOJ? But, you know, it is a little bit like, you know, the Jimmy Cagney movies where like one brother's a priest, the other's a gangster. Like they're, they're the brother that like went into law enforcement. Policeman. Yeah, my brother on the street, yeah, he's in trouble all the time. But I went the other way. Um, but I, I honestly, like, I can't imagine— they keep talking about it, like, trying to divorce themselves from the madness. But the madness, the circus, is all that we experience from them. And it's incredible, like, there's a certain zen, like, they have, I guess, kind of accepted they've accepted the storm and there's like a weird zen about them.

Yeah, I think it's almost maybe— I don't know, I'm just sort of thinking out loud, but like they really harp so much on how important process is in their work. And I almost think it's like hard to then remove themselves from just like, well, this is how we do things, you know, this is— we just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We just keep keeping our eye on the ball.

Well, I also think, you know, it got to it a little bit. At the end, which is like, they live in a world of standards, evidentiary standards, and the Trump administration lives in a world of, you know, hyperbole. And so— and hyper— the world of hyperbole never survives its contact with the world of standards. And so I think that's— it really is that strange dichotomy. I think they're more comfortable in that world of like, well, you can't really just make shit up.

No, yeah, we're gonna actually have to then put this in front of a judge and a jury and actually have to prove our case, whereas the Trump administration can just say, surely you can all agree with us that somebody took a razor blade to the reflecting pool because I feel that way and stole 13,000 votes.

Yeah, and there were 500,000 people on the mall watching the speech and just nonsense.

Yeah, and what's your evidence? Um, I— fuck you, right?

Yeah, fuck you, you're done. That's a terrible question.

Yeah, next question.

All right, well, I'm definitely— I've got to make sure I've got a big motorcycle ride planned.

I was actually— I was reminded when he was saying that, when I was looking into Jack Smith, he took the role as special prosecutor while he was recovering from a bike accident in the Netherlands, and they were concerned that him sort of agreeing to it it would be an issue that he was on painkillers. So he went like cold turkey for several days in order to— I mean, like, integrity is so important to these people. Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking about that during when he was talking about the bike accident.

I love to also like that— that's crazy Jack Smith. Like, yeah, it's deranged Jack Smith, and he's like, you know, for me it's really about process. Like He's like the Bob Ross of law enforcement. He's like, I take a little bit of white, a little bit of blue.

I bike through the Netherlands. What is his morning meditation? I need to know it. He needs to drop it.

No question. What do the kids want, Britney, after our week off?

John, do you think Trump is happy?

Oh, boy. That's, you know, I never can considered that, Britney. I— poor, poor little billionaire president getting richer by the minute. Poor sweet little— um, I think he is animated by vengeance. And so paradoxically, yes, I think he is happy that his body is a bio-production facility. Whereas you and I live aerobically, he lives anaerobically and therefore is happy in his oxygenless world.

Yeah, but like even just coming off of this weekend, like that wasn't a success. He, he's happy by how this weekend went for him. He's happy with all of his renovations.

Do Do you believe that that is how he's interpreting the weekend? He put on the greatest American fair ever since the Expo, since the World Expo in like 19-whatever.

Meet Me in St. Louis. Yeah, he, he put that— he posted that photo where it's like deranged. It's, you know, like millions of people and like signs that say Trump. Like, it's so— and I honestly It's like, is there a distinction between, like, believing your own lies and just like— I think he— I don't know if he believes them or if it even matters to him. Like, it's enough to have that photo, I guess, even though it's completely made up. I don't know. It's pretty sick.

I think when you say, is he happy? Is he the center of attention?

Yes.

Then he's happy.

That's it.

Because he is animated only by our eyes. And our focus and our attention. He is the original algorithm. He drives us to his embrace and we all revolve. Or he is the sun and we are but the stars. He— it's Romeo and Juliet is about him. Oh, it's about Donald Trump stepping out over the balcony and it is the east.

I always got more of a Lear vibe, but okay, Juliet, both.

Well, she's our Jeopardy champ, so she's got to— she's got to know that shit. I only have to know the titles of a couple of plays. She's got to know what they're about. Uh, what else do they want?

Uh, John, when do you think Democrats should start campaigning for 2028?

Oh my God, I thought they already had. Oh, you know what I think? I think when they come up with like a plan. Oh, I don't want to be controversial, but when they come up with like an idea about what they want to do when they govern that isn't just like, what if we just extend that one housing tax credit? Like a— when they develop a theory of the case of government and how to make it actionable to people's lives with value instead of just platitudes about we got to get back to affordability. You know, those kitchen table issues and you're like, kitchen— what are you fucking talking about? Yeah, but have some specifics. You don't have any, ChatGPT could come up with a pretty nice platform probably in a minute and a half.

Yeah, Andrew Cuomo tried that.

Exactly. Oh, he did those AI commercials?

Well, he tried. He also, like, there was a housing plan that his team put out that just had, like, ChatGPT, like, gibberish in the middle.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

What's that guy up to?

And that's why he won. But how hard can it be? Uh, all right, very good. Uh, Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us?

Twitter, we are @weeklyshowpod. Instagram, Threads. TikTok, Bluesky. We are @weeklyshowpodcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.

Fantastic, guys. Thanks very much. Uh, as always, producer Brittany Mamedovic, producer Gillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitolo, who types faster than you think he does, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, and our executive producers Chris McShane and Katie Gray. We shall see you all Next week. Bye-bye. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions. Paramount Podcasts.