West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy River City Hash Mondays 05 Oct 26

She's been sitting on it for weeks, [chuckles] but Judge Cannon just denied, for now, a motion filed by former FBI agents and current FBI agents who have been called to testify to the grand jury that she presides over in Fort Pierce, Florida, about the grand conspiracy, and presumably about Mar-a-Lago, 'cause that's who most of the FBI agents testif- you know, worked on.

And so they ran back to her, and they filed a motion to intervene in the case that's currently called, I'll put it up on the screen, United States of America versus Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, but it used to be called USA versus Trump and those two guys.

And when-- And they ran to court on the twenty-fourth of September and said to the judge, "Hey, Judge." I'm paraphrasing here.

I'll read it to you in a moment.

Uh, "We got called into a grand jury.

We want to testify, uh, unbridled, un- uncensored about Mar-a-Lago," [chuckles] meaning about Donald Trump.

"But we're worried about your order, your gag order that you entered in February at the beginning of this year that says that Jack Smith or anybody affiliated with him," which would include the current FBI agents, they, um, cannot disseminate information that was revealed in volume two of Jack Smith's report, which again, she put into a tomb.

So they ran in to intervene, and they said- In their motion, paragraph five on page three, that without clarification, the giants will be forced to testify unsure of whether the order allows them to answer questions with information contained in volume two of Jack Smith's report.

They are likely to be asked questions pertaining to information in volume two, which may or may not fall within the scope of the order.

And they face a difficult choice between possible contempt of the order, not providing full unconstrained testimony.

That's what they want to do.

Full unconstrained, unedited, unplugged testimony to the grand jury in order to comply with the terms of the order or invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.

They want to avoid that.

Sounds like a good thing.

They said they went to the Department of Justice and they said, can you help us out here about your position and your interpretation? They said, we can't help you.

We don't think you need clarification.

File what you need.

You know, typical unhelpful Department of Justice.

So they filed their motion.

And here's what they asked for, which I thought was completely reasonable about the prohibition that the judge entered in February.

They say on page 13, paragraph 25, if allowed by the court to testify unconstrained by the order, clients will readily provide to the grand jury a detailed account of the investigation, its reasoning, decision-making, and other non-public information spanning from the time the classified documents matter was first referred to the FBI up through and including the execution of the warrant.

Here's where they're signaling, hey, we want to testify against Donald Trump on these issues and set the record straight.

Clients will each detail their firsthand memories of investigating a properly predicated allegation of then-citizen Trump that he had unlawfully retained hundreds of highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

This recollection would also include clients' factually supported opinions on why and how much attention put the country's national security at risk.

You think they want, you think the Department of Justice and Trump on better reflection wants that to come out again? Thus, the detailed findings of the classified documents investigation, whether those findings are contained in volume two or recited into the record at the grand jury, will no doubt prove material to any would-be defendant in the current DOJ's purported theory.

She's been sitting on it for weeks, [chuckles] but Judge Cannon just denied, for now, a motion filed by former FBI agents and current FBI agents who have been called to testify to the grand jury that she presides over in Fort Pierce, Florida, about the grand conspiracy, and presumably about Mar-a-Lago, 'cause that's who most of the FBI agents testif- you know, worked on.

And so they ran back to her, and they filed a motion to intervene in the case that's currently called, I'll put it up on the screen, United States of America versus Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, but it used to be called USA versus Trump and those two guys.

And when-- And they ran to court on the twenty-fourth of September and said to the judge, "Hey, Judge." I'm paraphrasing here.

I'll read it to you in a moment.

Uh, "We got called into a grand jury.

We want to testify, uh, unbridled, un- uncensored about Mar-a-Lago," [chuckles] meaning about Donald Trump.

"But we're worried about your order, your gag order that you entered in February at the beginning of this year that says that Jack Smith or anybody affiliated with him," which would include the current FBI agents, they, um, cannot disseminate information that was revealed in volume two of Jack Smith's report, which again, she put into a tomb.

So they ran in to intervene, and they said- In their motion, paragraph five on page three, that without clarification, the giants will be forced to testify unsure of whether the order allows them to answer questions with information contained in volume two of Jack Smith's report.

They are likely to be asked questions pertaining to information in volume two, which may or may not fall within the scope of the order.

And they face a difficult choice between possible contempt of the order, not providing full unconstrained testimony.

That's what they want to do.

Full unconstrained, unedited, unplugged testimony to the grand jury in order to comply with the terms of the order or invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.

They want to avoid that.

Sounds like a good thing.

They said they went to the Department of Justice and they said, can you help us out here about your position and your interpretation? They said, we can't help you.

We don't think you need clarification.

File what you need.

You know, typical unhelpful Department of Justice.

So they filed their motion.

And here's what they asked for, which I thought was completely reasonable about the prohibition that the judge entered in February.

They say on page 13, paragraph 25, if allowed by the court to testify unconstrained by the order, clients will readily provide to the grand jury a detailed account of the investigation, its reasoning, decision-making, and other non-public information spanning from the time the classified documents matter was first referred to the FBI up through and including the execution of the warrant.

Here's where they're signaling, hey, we want to testify against Donald Trump on these issues and set the record straight.

Clients will each detail their firsthand memories of investigating a properly predicated allegation of then-citizen Trump that he had unlawfully retained hundreds of highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

This recollection would also include clients' factually supported opinions on why and how much attention put the country's national security at risk.

You think they want, you think the Department of Justice and Trump on better reflection wants that to come out again? Thus, the detailed findings of the classified documents investigation, whether those findings are contained in volume two or recited into the record at the grand jury, will no doubt prove material to any would-be defendant in the current DOJ's purported theory.