Talking Feds

The last 15 years have ushered in a series of daunting obstacles to voting rights in this county.  It turns out that the supposed principle of "one person one vote" falls short in the field to a series of impediments, beginning with three 5-4 Supreme Court opinions that have scaled back on the ability of minority voters in particular to participate on equal footing with other voters.  Returning Fe...

Charter Fed Barb McQuade joins David Frum and Malcolm Nance for a deep dig of two other issues circling the impeachment crisis.  First, the Feds discuss the crazy wild card that is Rudy Giuliani, including his prospects for indictment from his old US Attorney’s office.  Is he at the end of the day a serious risk to the President, and will Trump cut him loose or try to hold him ever close?  Turning...

Former Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart (who served Clinton during his impeachment trial) joins Feds Maya Wiley Jill Wine-Vance, and Harry Litman for a discussion of a number of facets of what is suddenly an impeachment crisis for the White House.  What (if anything) is the White House doing right and what is it doing wrong?  How does its efforts compare and contrast with the Clinton White Hou...

The Feds take up the most sober, and one of the most controversial, topics in the federal criminal justice system -- the federal death penalty.  There are currently 62 offenders on federal death row, a small fraction of the numbers in the state system, and the federal government has executed only 3 federal prisoners since 1963. So why do we have, and why do we need, a federal death penalty?  Given...

After a blockbuster week in both Congress and the Southern District of New York, Feds Frank Figliuzzi, Barb McQuade, and Elie Honig join Harry to assess the damage against the President and his country lawyer Rudy Giuliani.  Several witnesses gave forceful closed-door testimony about the President’s turning over Ukraine foreign policy to Giuliani, who apparently executed a scheme designed to furth...

Guest host Matthew Miller sits down with three reporters who cover The Department of Justice to find out what’s going on with Attorney General William Barr, the Ukraine investigation and more. Featuring Evan Perez, Katie Benner, Devlin Barrett. Bill Barr's 2001 interview can be found here. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do...

The whistleblower complaint filed by a member of the intelligence community has brought the Trump Administration to the precipice, imposing a far greater threat than did the Mueller probe. Several more whistleblower complaints against the Administration are stacked up and ready to go. Whistleblowers have arrived. But who are they, and what tends to happen to them after they blow the whistle? The F...

From Austin, Texas, it's a special bonus episode of Talking Feds. Harry Litman, Joyce Vance, Matt Miller, Asha Rangappa and Mieke Eoyang talk about the state of politics, the president and the law while producer Jennie tries to to get queso on the mic cables. It's a free-wheeling discussion in the back room at Cisco's in East Austin, so sit down and join us! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com...

After disclosure of a whistleblower complaint revealing President Trump’s efforts to strongarm the President of Ukraine into producing dirt on Joe Biden and subsequent WH efforts to conceal it, the Democrats moved quickly to initiate impeachment proceedings.  Talking Feds Ron Klain, Natasha Bertrand, and Frank Figliuzzi join Harry to analyze the depths of Trump’s troubles and the likely path of co...

Four Charter Feds – Frank Figliuzzi, Paul Fishman, Matt Miller, and Joyce Vance—join Harry Litman to analyze the complicated questions of law, politics, and national security swirling around the bombshell revelations that 1) a whistleblower complaint from someone in the national intelligence community has been filed but is being withheld from Congress notwithstanding the plain legal command to pro...

In the wake of unconfirmed reports that a Grand Jury in the District of Columbia refused to indict former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the feds convene in emergency TalkingFeds Now session to analyze what happened, assess how rare—and how embarrassing—a development it would have been, speculate on just what is happening now in the US Attorney’s office and Main Justice, and consider the Depar...

Following up on the last episode insiders’ account of the fabled Southern District of New York, the Feds canvas various cases in which the SDNY is still investigating conduct by the Trump circle and Trump himself.  Trump insiders often have suggested that the greatest threat to the President and his family comes from the SDNY.  Now that the Mueller probe has run its course, what possible cases doe...

The Southern District of New York – the United States Attorney’s Office based in Manhattan – is the most renowned federal prosecutor’s office in the Department of Justice—and it knows it. It has a famous independence and swagger, which it has earned with a long string of high-profile prosecutions, particularly of organized crime figures.  Friends of President Trump have long identified the SDNY as...

Guest host Frank Figliuzzi leads a discussion of fighting violent extremist crimes in the United States without compromising civil liberties. Frank is joined by Barbara McQuade, Mary McCord and Malcolm Nance. In the sidebar segment, Emmy award winning actor Bradley Whitford explains the difference between international and domestic terrorism. Full transcript available at talkingfeds.com   See Priv...

For many Republicans, the Trump Administration has posed a stark choice between values and outcomes, a choice that seems increasingly irreconcilable with the norms and practices of previous Republican administrations. Host Harry Litman talks with three Republicans who made the choice early on not to support the President's policies. William Kristol, political author and commentator, Peter Keisler,...

What are the values and purposes behind the pardon power? How has President Trump used this executive power in his first term and how might he use it in the future?  Harry talks with an expert panel including Robert Bauer, former White House counsel and professor, Margaret Love, former pardon attorney, and Rachel Barkow, professor of Law at New York University and a former member of the United Sta...

They've sued white supremacists after Charlottesville, fought for bail reform in Missouri, and stood up in court for Welcoming Cities like Gary, Indiana. The former Feds at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law left the Justice Department to take on cases that have Constitutional claims at their core. They discuss the impact of their litigation efforts in areas...

Three familiar Feds are joined by director Rob Reiner to assess the testimony of special Counsel Robert Mueller and consider the prospects for continued congressional investigation. Mueller testified to Congress for seven hours about the contents of his report. Although his answers were brief, he nonetheless painted a clear picture of misconduct and potential crimes committed by the President and...

Feds including some of the finest and most experienced trial lawyers in the country proffer specific, word-for-word, 5-minute lines of questioning for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  They defend their own lines of questioning and critiques others in turn.  The  Feds then engage in a trial lawyers’ discussion of what goals are achievable from Mueller’s testimony, which risks are worth taking and w...

When Robert Mueller testifies on July 17th, the stakes for the House are enormous. The two committees must use the opportunity to make the American people understand the gravity of the offenses and misconduct laid out in the Report, but that is no easy task. How should they approach it in broad strokes? How do they get meaningful answers, respectfully, from Robert Mueller?  Harry Litman is joined...

Feds Jamie Gorelick, Paul Fishman, and Amy Jeffress – a group with hugely rich experience from line Assistant U.S. Attorneys to the highest reaches of Main Justice—describe and explain the norms that should govern the interactions between political employees and career prosecutors.  Those norms were firmly respected before the Trump Administration, which has routinely flouted them, infecting DOJ’s...

Pivoting off President Abraham Lincoln’s famous maxim, the Feds consider the state of public opinion about the current President’s many serious transgressions. What explains the apparent indifference of wide swaths of the American public to the President’s assault on constitutional values and the rule of law? What are the prospects for Mueller’s upcoming testimony or other events to break through...

In this special Feds Now episode, The Feds break down the myths of the Mueller Report, as first elucidated in a recent Time Magazine article. Host Harry Litman is joined by the co-authors of the article, former US Attorneys and Talking Feds charter members Barbara McQuade and Joyce White Vance. The Feds then turn to the ramifications of the 5-4 Supreme Court on political gerrymandering with Richar...

The Feds take up the administration’s assertion of absolute immunity for Hope Hicks, including whether absolute immunity is even a viable legal concept. They then consider a new Supreme Court decision that potentially points the way towards a legal breakthrough in the impasse between the White House and Congress. Finally, they consider the sobering possibility that the race is over even as Congres...

The Feds are honored to be joined by Rep. Ted Lieu, a forceful presence on the House Judiciary Committee. We begin with a probing look at the legal, ethical, and political implications of the President’s suggestion that it’s fine for a campaign to take negative information about an opponent from a foreign country, including the seemingly untenable position that Trump has imposed on FBI Director Ch...