And that's the sad thing about having someone like Donald Trump sitting in power.

He was not only a dishonest man, and I believe psychologically deranged in many respects, an extreme narcissist, but he was grossly incompetent.

It's Donald Trump who cut the deal with the Taliban.

Donald Trump cut a deal in which he promised withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan in very short order.

He cut a deal with the Taliban and he said that the Taliban would go after the bad guys.

As if the Taliban, who had been supporting terrorism in 2001, including the 9-11 attacks, who had been fighting our military and killing our troops for almost 20 years, the Taliban were somehow the good guys.

That's what Donald Trump was saying, is he cut that deal with the Taliban and did photo ops and had his secretary of state do photo ops with the Taliban.

How would this help the process?

Now let's hear from Constitutional Law Professor and former Chief White House Ethics Lawyer, Richard Painter.

We are in a very grave situation in the United States where we need to hold accountable under the Constitution the President of the United States and also the members of Congress who are failing in performing their constitutional duties of oversight of the executive branch while embroiled in ethics controversies themselves.

what we are engaged in now in the united states is a struggle to preserve our republican form of government embodied in the constitutional and that includes the separation of powers among the three branches of our government the congress which should be the premier branch with the power to authorize the spending of taxpayer money and the taxation of the American people, a concept going back to the American Revolution and the colonists standing up against taxation without representation.

Congress should be the preeminent branch in government and overseeing the second branch, the executive branch of the presidency, which administers the United States government through a vast array of government agencies under the president's control.

with the president under the watchful eye of Congress.

That is what the founders intended.

And finally, a judicial branch, the third branch, that would keep the Congress and, most important, the president within their constitutional boundaries instead of the justices going off on vacation with bayonets and embroiled in their own political and ethical morass.

which has required testing and publication of the results for cars and vans in 12 new safety categories, while the US hasn't injured any of them,

First of all, tell everybody what CREW is, and then what are you looking to uncover based upon this, I guess it must be a FOIA request?

Well, yes, and I am, uh, I am no longer, uh, the, uh, vice chair of CREW.

I've worked with them since I, I was vice chair in 2017, uh, through '18, and then went back on the board of directors in 2019.

I'm no longer director of CREW, so I don't wanna speak on behalf of CREW, uh, about that particular, uh, request.

Attorney General Barr, uh, as we pointed out in the report that I worked on, uh, with the Center for Ethics and Rural Law at the University of Pennsylvania, and CREW was involved in the report as well, uh, Attorney General Barr had his, uh, uh, fingers in just about every political situation imaginable to try to help Donald Trump.

And the Princes are very support- uh, very strong supporters of President Trump.

And, uh, I, I believe there are communications back and forth there that may very well, uh, have involved, uh, the Justice Department intervening in some cases with political motives.

But it's an argument that sort of follows with the way the Trump ideology, the way Trumpism sort of flowed.

Painter says Truth API could be a classic example of insider

This is a very troubling development and could be a violation of federal insider trading laws.

A government official also can't act as a tipper, tipping someone else off who then trades and then returns a benefit such as a cash payment to the tipper, to the government official who leaked the information in return for the benefit.

And that's what's going on if the president is going to post on Truth Social new information about what he's going to do on terrorists or military operations or anything else.

And then Truth Social, a company he has a controlling interest in, turns around and sells information.

advance access to that information, to those Truth Social posts, to selected institutional investors that pay Truth Social, returning a benefit to the President of the United States himself.

Those investigations aren't made public until after the SEC makes a decision.

At this point, I'm going to hope that the Securities Exchange Commission does its job.

Richard Painter, Associate Counsel to the President and Chief White House Ethics Lawyer under President George W. Bush, underlines the importance of safeguarding the DOJ's independence.

This is a type of politicization of the Justice Department that all prosecutors, including the Attorney General, are ethically obligated to resist.

There certainly should be hearings in the U.S. House and the Senate addressing the extent of the President's control over the Justice Department and the importance of independence in the prosecutorial function.

And these hearings should be conducted in a bipartisan manner where we should return to the approach we had in the 1970s, where during the Ford and the Carter administration, Republican and Democratic administrations, there was agreement that the Justice Department needs to be politically independent in its prosecutorial decisions.

The role of the independent prosecutor is absolutely critical, particularly prosecutors appointed according to the Justice Department's independent counsel regulations.

And that's what should have been done in all of these politically charged cases.

If there was a belief that there might be a case that could be brought against James Comey or Letitia James or anyone else who is a political enemy of the president, an independent counsel should have been appointed pursuant to the regulations and not just have somebody who is installed by the president turning around and prosecuting the president's political enemies.

it

So you alluded to this, but can you talk about the differences that- that you see here in these situations?

A seditious conspiracy is a conspiracy, uh, to overthrow the United States government.

It requires more than extremist rhetoric of, for example, a Marxist who says that violence could be used to overthrow the capitalist system.

That- that's not criminal conspiracy at all.

But if, uh, a- two or more individuals, uh, come up with a plan, uh, to actually use violence to overthrow the United States government, or to invade the Capitol as they did on January 6th of 2021, uh, and then there's an overt act in furtherance of that plan, now we're talking about the criminal conspiracy, and that's where we ended up with s- criminal convictions of a great many people in connection with, uh, the attempt on January 6th of 2021 to overthrow the- the government.

Uh, this is of course a very different situation we had here in Minnesota because, uh, the vast majority, uh, of, uh, protesters against the presence of ICE in our state were peaceful protesters.

Uh, and there does not appear to be any evidence of an actual conspiracy, uh, to violently oppose, uh, the authority of the federal government, and that includes, uh, violently opposing, uh, the presence of ICE in our state.

We heard about people taking part in these rapid response groups or, or signal groups, and I think people are left wondering, could they be somehow held, um, you know, as having broken a law, or how should they look at their relationship to protesting? Uh, what do you think will happen here? Do you think that if charges like this begin to become more commonplace, does it change the way that people eventually, as a society, start to look at peaceful protest and, and what is allowed, and then does it incite more fear in protesters to come out and, and exercise their rights?

Is this legal?

Well, it's legal for them to charge, uh, nine dollars for people to watch a fight that they stage and that they pay for, but not on public property, much less on the White House grounds.

There are clear Park Service regulations and statutes that pertain to this.

This is also use of public office for private gain, which violates fundamental principles of conduct for federal employees that apply to everyone in the executive branch.

And we've seen this repeatedly in the Trump administration, the, the use of the presidency to promote the president's businesses, other businesses as well.

Uh, they're selling Teslas on the White House lawn and, and, and so forth.

Uh, it objected also to when President Biden was allowing his name to be used for the Penn Biden Center by the University of Pennsylvania.

How strong is that legal argument, and do the plaintiffs in this case have standing?

But what he didn't say is that there's no such ban for presidents, and he didn't call for one.

A treasury secretary who owns bank stock, a defense secretary who owns stock in defense contractors would commit a felony, uh, if they participate in decisions that affected those investments, and this is why every official in the United States government is required to divest.

And Painter says the bigger issue is the erosion of public trust.

The public is not gonna have confidence in the securities markets if we have people with access to United States government information actively trading in the markets at the same time as other investors who don't have that information.

But what he didn't say is that there's no such ban for presidents, and he didn't call for one.

A treasury secretary who owns bank stock, a defense secretary who owns stock in defense contractors, would commit a felony, uh, if they participate in decisions that affected those investments, and this is why every official in the United States government is required to divest.

And Painter says the bigger issue is the erosion of public trust.

The public is not gonna have confidence in the securities markets if we have people with access to United States government information actively trading in the markets at the same time as other investors who don't have that information.

What's your thoughts?

I don't know what's in there, but it says something when you have a president who is the first president since Richard Nixon to refuse to disclose his tax returns.

Donald Trump is just not willing to be transparent with people.

He lies.

He lies over and over again.

So we don't know the truth and we don't know what's going on.

But there are three ways in which a foreign government.

But why do you think so many young men in particular are embracing it?

In my analysis, am I making any mistakes? Am I being unfair?

Well, let's start with, uh, who's responsible for the massive fraud in the state of Minnesota.

In addition to the criminals, dozens, and it's gonna turn out they're probably well over 100 criminals end up going to jail in connection with this fraud.

Uh, now out, out of an 80,000 or so Somali community, that's a small percentage, but who's responsible for what happened here? We have an incompetent governor, uh, Tim Walz, and an incompetent lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan.

They're responsible.

They were overseeing these agencies.

They're just handing out money, no questions asked, to criminals.

But why do they kee- why do the good people of Minnesota keep electing these people that allow crime, fraud, and everything else? Why do they keep casting the ballots for them?

In my analysis, am I making any mistakes? Am I being unfair?

Well, let's start with, uh, who's responsible for the massive fraud in the state of Minnesota.

In addition to the criminals, dozens, and it's gonna turn out they're probably well over 100 criminals end up going to jail in connection with this fraud.

Uh, now out, out of an 80,000 or so Somali community, that's a small percentage, but who's responsible for what happened here? We have an incompetent governor, uh, Tim Walz, and an incompetent lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan.

They're responsible.

They were overseeing these agencies.

They're just handing out money, no questions asked, to criminals.

But why do they kee-, why do the good people of Minnesota keep electing these people that allow crime, fraud, and everything else? Why do they keep casting the ballots for them?

Am I making any mistakes? Am I being unfair?

Well, let's start with, uh, who's responsible for the massive fraud in the state of Minnesota.

In addition to the criminals, dozens, and it's gonna turn out they're probably well over 100 criminals end up going to jail in connection with this fraud.

Uh, now out, out of an 80,000 or so Somali community, that's a small percentage! But who's responsible for what happened here? We have an incompetent governor, uh, Tim Walz, and an incompetent lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan.

They're responsible.

They were overseeing these agencies.

They're just handing out money, no questions asked, to criminals.

Why do the good people of Minnesota keep electing these people that allow crime, fraud, and everything else? Why do they keep casting the ballots for them?

And that's the sad thing about having someone like Donald Trump sitting in power.

He was not only a dishonest man, and I believe psychologically deranged in many respects, an extreme narcissist, but he was grossly incompetent.

It's Donald Trump who cut the deal with the Taliban.

Donald Trump cut a deal in which he promised withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan in very short order.

He cut a deal with the Taliban, and he said that the Taliban would go after the bad guys.

As if the Taliban, who had been supporting terrorism in 2001, including the 9-11 attacks, who had been fighting our military and killing our troops for almost 20 years, the Taliban were somehow the good guys.

That's what Donald Trump was saying, is he cut that deal with the Taliban and did photo ops and had his Secretary of State do photo ops with the Taliban.

How would this help the process?

What did you make of the president of the United States being given a Rolex and a gold bar by executives who had a lot to gain from lower tariffs?

I, uh, certainly, uh, view this as, uh, inappropriate.

Uh, it appears as if there's a quid pro quo, uh, of a gift, uh, from foreign interest to the president in return for concession on tariffs.

And once this precedent is set, we'll have other countries, uh, and industries offering the same.

Uh, and this is a matter of grave concern for the United States.

It's unconstitutional, uh, in the United States, uh, to re- for the, uh, president or anyone else in a position of power to receive anything of value from a foreign government.

That is unconstitutional.

What normally happens under standard procedure when an executive or another world leader gives the President of the United States an official gift, especially an expensive gift? Which I'm sure happens all the time, especially during a meeting talking about a policy change that could benefit that company or that country.

How do we, how do we make sense of, of where we are and where Trump is leading us?

Well, this, uh, what's going on right now, uh, these politicized prosecutions is, it's extremely dangerous.

This is what happens in dictatorships.

In Russia, if you upset Vladimir Putin, you end up in a gulag somewhere.

Billionaires who upset, uh, Putin have their assets confiscated, anyone who dares run against him, uh, for political office.

Uh, this happens in dictatorships where the Justice Ministry is turned into a weapon of political retribution, uh, and we cannot allow this in the United States.

And this is happening on top of all of the other problems in the Trump administration, the viola- violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, foreign government money coming into the Trump crypto business empire.

So what do we do?

But in your experience with government, is there any way we could justify having a powerful elected, a powerful government official who's been caught taking $50,000 from undercover FBI agents? Is there any world where we could say that's okay?

Bags of cash.

Uh, I, I haven't seen stories with that kind of bribery for a long time.

Uh, it's amazing that, uh, we could have a federal government official at a high-ranking position who took bags of cash, $50,000, uh, promising, uh, that he could, uh, get contracts for people.

That's what we're told was on the tape.

Now, I know that this was before, uh, the election and before he was actually selected to be the Border Czar and, and all that.

But, uh, he anticipated going into the Trump administration.

Right.

And I wonder from this juncture forward, for the next three and a half years, what checks remain in the system?

I think the only check that's gonna work here is Congress, a Congress elected, uh, by voters who finally decide they're fed up and disgusted.

Uh, and, uh, take, for example, this, uh, uh, situation where the president of the United States is earning royalties selling Bibles.

He didn't write the Bible.

Why is he getting royalties from that? I don't think he's read the Bible or he wouldn't be treating immigrants this way.

Uh, you know, the, the way people are being treated by this government under his authority-... eh, is really, uh, disturbing.

A lot of American voters are very upset, and to see him making huge amounts of money, not only selling Bibles, but selling everything else.

Um, talk about, again, all the ethical lines that were trampled on Saturday with these sponsorships.

Uh, what is your view of it?

This is massive corruption, and, uh, this is- shouldn't be a partisan issue.

I was very critical, uh, during the Biden administration about the shenanigans involving Hunter Biden, and also the way the University of Pennsylvania raised money around the world using President Biden's name, but none of that compares, none of that comes close to what we have going on here, where the president of the United States and his family, uh, are issuing their own, own cryptocurrency, running trading platforms, uh, money flowing in from all over the world, uh, into Trump Crypto Ventures at a time when the president of the United States and Congress need to focus on regulating cryptocurrency.

If there's one thing we should've learned from the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried's corruption of Washington...

And he had connections in both political parties in Washington.

If there's one thing we should've learned from FTX is that this is an unregulated industry with some crooks involved in the industry-

Hm.

... unprecedented, the corruption, uh, that we've seen in the second Trump administration, unprecedented in our history.

(laughs)

Uh, we're, we're not an investment house.

We're not investment advisors.

We were the White House, and the White House, uh, makes economic policy.

We certainly didn't have economic policy that had such dramatic impact on stock prices.

Uh, but, uh, we, we didn't have this kind of thing going on at all.

It was very, very clear, uh, that, uh, nobody should be, uh, talking about stock prices when they are, uh, uh, announcing policy, telling investors what to do, and also not trading, uh, at the same time, and it's not clear that they are trading, but, uh, there's a lot of concerns of whe- whether, whether that's going on in the Trump administration.

(instrumental music plays) Richard Painter, w- we don't know all the facts, but to Tim's point, what are the odds that we'll ever have the facts unearthed with Donald Trump, uh, making clear that the heads of all of these regulatory agencies are his people?