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Unknown A
And our next guest is a associate dean and assistant professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C. it's Dr. Matthew Meehan. Doctor, welcome to the program. Thank you for taking the time. We want to talk to you about how we turn to real justice in this country and get out of the Lawfare cycle the Democrats have put us in. Tell us your thoughts.
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Unknown B
Yeah, it's a tricky business, Right? Because if you have to go after all these malefactors, then you have to look, in a certain sense, like you're going after your political enemies, because your political enemies did commit serious wrongdoings of Lawfare. So how do you deal with that? You have to both be just and appear to be just. And I think in one sense, part of what the Trump administration's doing. And I think you're seeing Pam Bondi do. I think you'll see Cash Patel do this. Emil Bove, who's working for Pam Bondi and the doj. I think there's a sort of politics of truth where they're going to be very honest, transparent, and forthcoming. But I also think that there has to be a kind of prosecutorial plan laid out about both prosecuting a certain kind of crime as a kind of thematic headliner, but also providing a kind of way out of Lawfare, even for our political opponents.
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Unknown A
So detail more of what that plan would look like and some of the pitfalls that might be included in that.
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Unknown B
Yeah. So I think a headliner is perjury. One of the things that Lawfare needs in order to conspire and malign and attack and slander and destroy one's political opponents using legal mechanisms is sworn testimony. You have to be deposed under oath. You have to go before Congress under oath. You have to go into court under oath. You have to go before FISA courts under oath. And perjury is a crime. Section 18 of the Federal Code. Perjury is a crime of, you know, one to five years. And if you lie to a FISA court, if you perjure yourself there, it's 5 to 10. So it's a major issue if you wind up prosecuting it, because it actually squeezes off the power of Lawfare conspiracies. But it also has a kind of powerful defense against the dangers of lawfare generally, which is you're basically trying to prosecute truth telling.
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Unknown B
Right. Or lying. Don't lie. We are a truthful political body. We are a people that is candid. We are a republic of self governance. People have to do what they say and say what they do and do. It in good faith. That's in the language of the oath of the President. And the Vice President, Pam Bondi mentioned it in her hearings. This is what they have to rekindle. And so if you go after perjury, what you're basically saying is, yeah, we're going to go after some of our political opponents who perjured themselves and lied in various ways to malign their political enemies. But the purpose of this is so that we all go back to not conspiring against one another, to slander and gin up faux legal conspiracies of Lawfare and attack against our political opponents.
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Unknown A
So, I mean, let's talk About Executive Order 14157, ending the weaponization of the federal government. Tell us about that and how it can be used for this purpose.
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Unknown B
So Bondi is basically put a memo out in response to Trump's executive order ending weaponization, telling doj, we are going to go after every instance of this and also every instance of its appearance, because that's part of what you have to do. You have to both be just. And look, just, just. And keep good faith. And so what I think the weaponization executive order is going to do is basically wipe the slate clean. And I think they chose a really good version of this with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, because if you want to look like you're trying to be nonpartisan and ending Lawfare, what better way to do it than to say, hey, the previous administration went after one of their own, a Democrat, because he turned tail on their political program of bad immigration policy. Right. He turned his back on that.
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Unknown B
So he's not helping some Trump supporter, you know, in some high profile way. He's actually helping a Democrat mayor who's had a very adversarial attitude towards the Trump administration. So I thought that choice in following out this executive order was a really smart one because it sends the signal, look, we're not just trying to help our friends, we're trying to help everyone get out from under Lawfare. And so I think it's a really, really great, a great way to move forward. But, but it's both dealing with the perjury question, I think is a separate one, but also dealing with the weaponizations head on. And Bondi's got tons of things to do on every level. But I do think there's a headliner issue, too.
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Unknown A
So I suppose the other question I have is not just the civilians that have done wrong, but how would you recommend a plan to hold the actual prosecutors themselves that obviously broke conduct or laws like either Letitia James or Alvin Bragg or Jack Smith. How do you even launch an investigation into the investigator or prosecute the prosecutors that did not handle evidence correctly and broke customs and rules and laws? Is there any precedent for such an investigation?
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Unknown B
It's very dangerous to do it. Right. That's part of the problem. And so that's one of the reasons why I think some of the things I've seen so far are to actually release someone from lawfare attacks like Eric Adams. And I think that's right. But when you're dealing with that, in one sense, Emil Bove has already handled the question. He dismissed them and said, you know, or the prosecutors at sdny. But you're talking about the actual Democrat malefactors who are not refusing to deal with this issue, but who actually created the problem. Insofar as that's an issue, I think the best way is indirectly you find the best cases. Right. That will. Will deal with the problem. And so what Pambandi's done with Letitia James is she. They're actually not going after lawfare. They're going after their refusal to follow immigration law. So that's a great way to deal with that indirectly.
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Unknown B
But insofar as you have to get closer to the problem of lawfare, another indirect way to deal with it is perjury. Because you're not saying, hey, I don't like that you played politics. You're saying, I don't like that you broke the law. But it turns out perjury is the number one way people commit crimes in the service of lawfare. I do think, by the way, at the end of this, because this is so dangerous and difficult, there are other ethics, like, for instance, you should pick cases that are very clearly proven without their testimony, like, we've got you here dead to rights. This is a perjurous thing you did. So once that's established, then you encourage the person to confess their perjury. And if they do come forward with their plans, with their perjurist conspiracies, then you say, okay, now we offer clemency. Now we're going to commute sentences.
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Unknown B
Now we're going to bring you back. Because what you're trying to get to at the end isn't, haha, I've seen all my political enemies be destroyed. What you're actually trying to get to is a golden age of justice and peace and good faith, where people tell each other the truth, even when they're political enemies. And I know that's a Pollyannish impossibility at the end of the day, but we can tell the difference between a sort of normal version of an imperfect world and the current lawfare absolute lying through their eye teeth all the time and perjuring themselves. I mean, we have people, officials who say, oh, you know, what was else was I supposed to do besides perjure myself? Like, well, not perjure yourself is the answer, because we have to have a politics of truth and good faith.
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Unknown A
Doctor, thanks so much. That's Dr. Matthew Meehan from Hillsdale College, associate dean and assistant professor. Thank you so much.
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Unknown B
Thank you.