under the Constitution,

the U.S. attorneys who lead the offices are presidential appointees requiring Senate confirmation by 51 votes.

Traditionally, home state senators have had considerable influence through the Judiciary Committee's blue-slip practice and they can present an obstacle to confirmation if a home state senator disagrees about a particular appointment.

But federal law also provides for temporarily filling vacancies pending Senate confirmation.

By statute, the Attorney General can appoint an interim U.S. Attorney for 120 days.

If that period expires without Senate confirmation, the U.S. District Court has statutory authority to make an interim appointment.

Now, the Trump Justice Department has tried to use these interim provisions to keep the president's preferred prosecutors in place without Senate confirmation.

Rick,

Next, we have guest speaker John Rowley Sr. from IBEW Local twenty-three twenty-four to discuss lead safety issues affecting current workers and retirees.

I accepted the invitation today because I believe somewhere, at some point in time, perhaps today, an individual, a small team, or a large group of people will find themselves in a position to address the issue of lead and its health hazards to a fuller extent than has been to date, where there are places where lead exists that lead can only lead to serious health problems for workers and the public, and that remains largely unaddressed.

On July 17th of 2023, I received a phone call from an active member whose job put them in close contact with lead cable on a frequent basis.

He asked if I had seen the article in the Wall Street Journal.

I had not, but told him I'd investigate and get back to him.

The next day, I received similar calls from retirees asking what I knew.

So what do we know about lead? First, we know that there is no known safe level of lead exposure.

The second question was, how does lead in manholes and telephone lines threaten the workers and retirees who worked in them?

And who were those messages between, John?

Well, Rick, just last Wednesday, July 22, the House Judiciary Committee announced referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the DOJ for possible criminal prosecution based upon deposition testimony and the information that you just alluded to a second ago.

In his referral letter, Chairman Jordan alleged that Smith made materially false statements during his December 17, 2025 deposition before the House Judiciary Committee.

According to the referral letter, Smith gave testimony implying that neither he nor his investigative team had obtained the contents of members of Congress' text message communications.

Department of Justice records subsequently released following the deposition by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, however, indicated that the Arctic Frost investigation team possessed and reviewed archived presidential records containing communications involving dozens of current and former members of Congress.

The referral from the committee asks DOJ to determine whether Smith violated 18 U.S.C. 1001, a federal statute which prohibits knowingly and willfully making materially false statements in matters within the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Now, just to go back and provide a little history, Rick, in May of 2022, during the Biden Department of Justice's investigation into challenges to the 2020 presidential election, federal investigators opened the Arctic Frost Inquiry.

Is this a case of just sort of creating a little havoc for Jack Smith, or do you think this may have legs when they pursue the referral?

Mm-hmm.

And then, um, yeah, kind of got the, the feel of restaurants much better.

I love, I kind of lo- love the whole thing.

Seasonality, you know, just the choice of, you know, bakery's always kind of the same in a way in Australia, as, as most people would know.

So seeing restaurants, you know, every, every time, you know, every couple of weeks the menu would change, if not sometimes daily.

Um, to see that and actually understand it all, which was a bit of an eye-opener for me and made me kind of just fall, fall down that kind of road.

What time do you wake up?

Well, I, I still work in the city three...

John, let's talk about the indictments, and then let's also talk about the broader pattern of where this is going.

Well, this is serious stuff, Rick.

So the Department of Justice unsealed a federal indictment that describes one of the most serious alleged domestic terrorism conspiracies ever.

directed against senior government officials in recent years.

A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio charged eight defendants with conspiring to carry out a mass casualty attack during the ultimate fighting championship event, the UFC Freedom 250 event on June 14 in Washington, D.C.

The event was held on the White House South Lawn and marked both Flag Day and President Trump's 80th birthday, and it drew roughly 4,300 guests.

Now, according to prosecutors, the conspirators intended to assassinate President Trump, Vice President Vance, and other government officials, as well as the guests who attended the event.

What do you think is behind this uptick in political violence?

As you said, this week marked one of the most consequential weeks of the Supreme Court's current term.

Ahora, aún no tenemos una decisión sobre la ciudadanía de derecho de nacimiento o el mandato de envío y la definición de los casos del día de la elección.

Creo que eso puede venir el domingo, si no el domingo, la próxima semana.

Pero la Corte, la semana pasada, inició cuatro decisiones con potencialmente consecuencias de gran alcance.

Dos decisiones de inmigración, ambas autorizadas por el juez Samuel Alito, que fortalecieron la autoridad ejecutiva sobre la defensa de la inmigración.

Y luego la Corte también inició dos decisiones de segunda ley significativas.

que continúa su tendencia a la expansión de las protecciones constitucionales para la posesión de armas de fuego y el transporte público.

a fortalecer las protecciones de la segunda ley.

Give us the lowdown.

Well, Rick, the courts have been very busy, uh, lately, and just last week were involved in three very consequential cases that have the potential to determine the direction of the nation for the foreseeable future.

We'll get to that Supreme Court case, but just first, a little background.

As I'm sure your listeners know, the House of Representatives is currently divided two-seventeen to two-thirteen with a handful of vacancies.

That means control of the chamber, and effectively the direction of the federal government, could turn on just a three-seat shift.

And historically, the party out of power, in this case, the Democrats, usually wins seats, sometimes a lot of seats, in the midterm election.

Even a shift of a few seats could hand the House chamber to Democrats.

Sure.