Transcription
We now have definitive proof that Janine Piro, Donald Trump, Doug Bergam all lied in order to try and indict somebody, David Hearn, who was completely innocent, claiming that he had destroyed the reflecting pool. So my question for you, Mark, is going to be, what are the impacts to somebody like Janine Piro's law license for moving forward with an indictment that she knew wasn't true.
Before you answer that question, I want to show some footage that we have of these people claiming up and down that uh there was vandals who were uh responsible for the reflecting pool's damage.
>> It didn't peel off. There was there was there was vandalism. There was box box cutters. There have been seven arrests.
>> The defendant Hearn ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the reflecting pool.
>> And you're 100% sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism? You can prove it.
>> Oh, you absolutely can. And we and and as we drain it and we've got all the photographs, we can see.
>> Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.
So that was both Janine Piro and Doug Bergam claiming that they had tremendous evidence against David Hearn, that it was 100% the fault of vandals. Back to the question, what happens in terms of the ability for somebody like Jannine Piro to keep her law license knowing that she abused it in this way?
>> Okay, so first of all, they didn't try to indict David Hearn. They did indict David Hearn. So like there was real damage here. And anyone who thinks that well you know look in the end justice was done doesn't understand the trauma of being David Hearn who has done nothing wrong like literally nothing wrong. and then, as you say, essentially gets framed by the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior um uh for a crime he didn't commit. Now, luckily, it blew up on on them before it got much further, but but we need to be clear about that.
You know, Brian, uh when I saw the back and forth between the filings in the Department of Justice and then the clips you just showed, it reminds me of Rudy Giuliani. Remember Rudy Giuliani? uh on November 7th, 2020, he's in the parking lot of the Four Seasons uh landscaping uh business and he is saying how there's massive fraud in Pennsylvania and they prove massive fraud and then the next thing you know he shows up in a courtroom and the judge is like is there fraud and he's like um no your honor we're not saying there's any fraud right like in the end that didn't save Rudy Giuliani like in the end like the damage that has been done here by Janine Piro by anyone else who is licensed to practice law like they're trying to mitigate it. It is clear that whether it was Pira or herself or some underling in the office, someone on Friday was like, um, we need to try to clean this up so that this doesn't become a huge bar problem, a huge ethics problem, a huge, frankly, civil liability problem if if Hearn decides to sue. Um, but I'm not sure it's going to work because the damage has been done and you know the the the these claims were made, these outrageous extrajudicial statements were made, which by the way, federal prosecutors are not supposed to make uh statements uh outside of the courtroom. They're not supposed to prejudice uh the jury or prejudice the judicial system. So, I think this is quite serious.
Now, you know, the for Bergam that's a different thing, right? He's just a a guy who made a lot of money, became the governor of uh North Dakota, and then essentially sacrificed his reputation uh for uh you know, to be one of Donald Trump's Trump's sickopants. That's like a whole other uh episode we could do, which we could list. You could show it, you know, you could do a marathon session of people who have fallen in that camp.
>> Yeah. Now, in terms of Janine Piro, you mentioned David Hearn um potentially exercising his right to sue. Does Janine Piro shoulder any personal liability here by virtue of allowing this sham process to move forward?
>> So, look, I think it's going to all depend on what the sequence of events were and who was involved in what. Now, I I think it's going to strain belief that somehow Janid Piro will be able to say, "Well, look, I we're a big office. We got a lot of stuff going on. I didn't really know much about this case, you know."
>> I mean, right. I mean, look, I I I played those clips in the beginning. She said, quote, she had tremendous evidence against David Hearn. I mean, she was pretty fullthroated about the extent to which she was absolutely certain that he had done something wrong.
>> It kind of reminds you of the Pam Bondi with the list of uh what was it? The Epstein uh what was list what was the list she had on her desk?
>> Oh. Oh, yeah. I mean that that was the the the list of other co-conspirators like that she had right on her desk released.
>> Yeah. And then then later it's like oh wait no that thing never existed. Yeah. I look I think Piro is is not going to be able to escape the consequences of this. If in fact you know she made these statements without having that evidence as it appears she did. If in fact they had contrary evidence which it now appears they did. Um, now she's going to say they didn't have the contrary evidence till later. But still, the question is, how the hell did this case get indicted as uh with without having the full uh file from the Department of Interior, if that's what their argument is, how did she make these extrajudicial statements? Like I said, prosecutors are not supposed to make these extrajudicial statements anyway. And one of the reasons is because you smear people who are presumed innocent, right? Every every criminal defendant is presumed innocent. And here you have a situation where not only was the guy presumed innocent, turns out he was actually innocent.
>> Right? And and that's become commonplace in this administration where the second something happens, you have Cash Patel, Janine Piro, Dan Bonino, Donald Trump, anybody from a position of authority, especially within these law enforcement agencies who immediately come out and view their job as being to paint a narrative regardless of what the facts say. And frankly, nearly every single time they're completely wrong. I mean, Cash Mattel has like an almost incredible proclivity to be dead wrong on every single word that leaves his mouth, especially as it relates to the ICE shootings, for example, but that's what these people view their jobs as being.
>> Yeah. And I'm glad and I'm glad you mentioned that because, you know, one of the ways this could be mitigated is by the legacy media showing some skepticism. you know, when this first came out, if you go back uh and watch Brian's videos on this from day one, Brian wasn't buying this, okay? Like like nobody in their right mind was buying the story that that the park service and the Department of Interior and that Janine Piro, former Fox News host, was selling. And it would be better, still would be, you know, a potential ethics issue and all that, but it would be better if the legacy media hadn't presented the Trump version of this as if it is possibly true.
I just want to give you some of the headlines from today. This is after the the indictment is uh has been has been dismissed. Uh, the Washington Post, Trump insists vandals damage reflecting pool blasts DOJ for dropped charges. Hey, hey, Washington Post, how about you take a position there? Like, what do you mean Trump insists Vandals damaged reflecting pool? Like, like, can't you come out and say at this point that that's that that's actually not true?
>> I mean, even Trump's own administration has come out and said it's not true. It's that it's not that much of a courageous stand to be able to come out and say what even the White House is saying now.
>> Yeah. Um, in uh, you know, here is here is Politico. Uh, Trump dings longtime ally ally uh, Janine Piro for dropping reflect reflection pool vandalism case. There was no vandalism. What do you mean dropping the vandalism case? There was no vandalism. Like like this is the thing everyone. If you have not already, I need you to subscribe to this channel. Okay? I need you to go ahead and hit the button to subscribe to this channel and then I need you to hit the bell to stay to get alerts when there is new content because the legacy media is to this day going to both sides this and Brian through a series of interviews with high-profile um elected officials and candidates through uh series with me and with Glenn Kersner uh with his own commentaries he even does some comedy uh he he is keeping you up to date and giving you not the both sides version, but what's really going on. So, do me a favor and go ahead and subscribe now.
>> And I would also be remiss not to mention that if you're looking for all breaking legal democracy, voting rights news, there is no better resource than Democracy Docket. So, that's the news outlet Mark founded to focus on everything voting and elections, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. At this point, that is my go-to source, the only source that I'm using for all things voting rights, democracy, legal news. So, please, if you're not yet subscribed, do yourself a favor, especially as we're coming up on midterms, and this stuff is only going to get more important, and subscribe.
Mark, is the bar, well, I know there is no one bar, but are the bars in each respective state equipped to handle this kind of abuse? And and I presume that we haven't seen anything like this before where we have where we have these attorneys who are in positions of extreme power who are abusing those positions in deference to Donald Trump's extrajudicial activities. Is are the bars now equipped to be able to deal with these people? And are they equipped to be able to deal with them fast enough to basically catch up to the speed with which they're committing these corrupt actions?
>> Yeah, I think the second part of your question is really the challenge, right? I I think the the debars would say yes of course we are equipped to deal with this after all the New York bar look what it did with Rudy Giuliani the DC bar would point to a number of instances you know John Eastman right like like they which I think was California right like the bars would say they do this the problem is what you point out about speed right the bars don't move fast and they they you know they take not just days and weeks but months and years and the problem with Donald Trump is he's the president today, right? Janine Piro is in office today. Todd Blanch, another one, by the way. Like, where's Todd Blanch other than right now apparently hiding under his desk around this, right? I mean, are are we do you believe Todd Blanch didn't know about uh the criminal prosecution of something that the president of the United States was touting as as like the crime of the century, you know, like so this this potentially has a fairly wide radius of people who could be involved and they are all in power today. you know, we saw Todd Blanch get crosswise with the federal judge in Florida uh over uh you know, his uh his handling of the slush fund and and you know, we could be doing a whole episode on that about how Donald Trump after Todd Blanch testified that the slush fund is dead and gone. What did what did uh what did Donald Trump say? It's alive. Right? All of these lawyers around Donald Trump make make compromises and often times they cross the line those compromises and the bars will say they handle it. But the problem is Brian, it's not fast enough. And on top of all of that, we need this to end, right? We can't continue to have this. And one of the challenges that we're going to face is at some point Democrats are going to retake power. And we cannot obviously abide by these kinds of abuses. Democrats are never going to do this thing. But we also can't go back and think that after everything we're seeing going on with this administration and Janine Piro and the press and all of that that we're somehow going to like go back to the days of Merrick Garland.
So I want to I want to just sort of turn the tables and ask you a question because you wrote a great book that just came out um about what Democrats should do um when they come back into power. And I want to make sure everyone goes out and buys that book if for no other reason. I wrote the forward to the book and it's a really good book and it's a great forward. So, we're going to put the link to buy the book uh in the description of this episode and on the screen, but like Brian, what do you think like we do with the Department of Justice when when we Democrats retake power?
It's such a good question and I think that it is the perfect um it's the perfect kind of microcosm for Democrats actually wielding power which is the whole point of this book because the refusal the unwillingness the inability of Merrick Garland to actually hold power to account to to seek justice without fear of favor is why Trump feels so emboldened right now to commit these crimes because he feels like nothing is going to happen and frankly nothing has happened so I'm not surprised that he feels that way and so I think that we need to revamp the Department of Justice immediately and start holding all of the corruption and criminality that we're seeing right now to account. I don't want to hear anything about, you know, we want to re prevent the optics of politicization. We want to just let bygones be bygones. We want to start a new era. That exact mentality is why we end up in a place where politicians feel like they can be as corrupt as they want and nothing will happen. So, we need in the immediate aftermath of all of this, an actual DOJ that even though somebody is committing crimes and they're a politician, that they actually hold those people to account for what they've done. So, we need a commission. I don't know what you want to call it, a commission to look at everything that's going going on right now. Whether it be financial crimes, whether it be, you know, these these uh short sales on the stocks that we're seeing on a daily basis, whether it's trading uh tariff rates or other uh uh benefits, national security advantages to other countries in exchange for real estate deals or whatever it may be, all of this needs to be looked at. And I think that if you actually care about having a functional country moving forward, uh that relies not just on having a proactive agenda, which is just as important, but also making sure that the criminality and the corruption are held to account uh so that we don't ever uh land us land ourselves in a situation where we see this happening again.
>> Right. Right. And that's so important, Brian, because that goes beyond just the bar complaints that can get the lawyers, that does get the Trumps, that does get the Bergams, that does get, you know, whoever else is involved in this mess.
>> The the the fish rots from the head. And I think um if you're not going to be willing to hold the most powerful people to account, you can't be surprised when the less powerful people also act with the same level of disregard for the law.
Last question here. Is the threat of disparment enough of a deterrent for these people like Janine Piro uh like Todd Blanch who exist so immersed in this right-wing ecosystem that even if they don't have a law license there's still it feels like there's some opportunity for them to do something and by the way get rich doing it.
>> Yeah. So I've thought a lot about this right. I've kind of I've asked myself this question over and over again. Why is a guy like Todd Blanch, just to pick one of them, you know, this is a guy who former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, a partner at a big New York law firm, like why is he willing to sacrifice all of that, jeopardize all of that to get the brass ring of being Donald Trump's attorney general, right? Like, so and and so the question you asked is a really good one. I I'm not sure it is that they think well on the other end you know even if they suffer consequences um you know it will it'll all work out. I think that what Donald Trump is really a genius at is he gets them to compromise themselves at the beginning. I mean we started this in some sense with Rudy Giuliani. I mean think about a guy this is a guy who was like you know the most popular politician in in America after 911. This is a guy with a sterling reputation. He could have gone on to do anything. Like, you know, people thought he'd be the next president of the United States. He could be, you know, teaching law. He could be giving speeches. But Donald Trump sucked him in and ultimately ruined the guy. I mean, ultimately destroyed the man. Now, I'm not letting Rudy Julian off the hook, just like I'm not letting Janine Piro off the hook or for that matter Doug Burnham or Todd Blanch or Jay Clayton or any of these. I mean, they're all adults and they all make their own decisions. But you got to think about the ability of Donald Trump to take people who have independent reputations and have those people sacrifice every shred of dignity. And by the way, in the end, Brian, does Donald Trump ever stand up for any of them?
>> No. Other than Donald Trump? No. So, I think that that's that's the whole story right there. By the way, on just a quick note on the Giuliani thing, I grew up like a kid in New Jersey. I had a signed picture of Rudy Giuliani and Joe Tori on my childhood bedroom to to to put on full display the fall from grace that Giuliani uh um is engaged in right now. With that said, this is all very much a live ball. I presume that in not months, not weeks, but in days, we're going to see some uh referral to bar counsel uh as the direct result of Janine Piro's misguided effort to indict an innocent man here. We will of course bring that to you as soon as we have any update. For those who are watching, if you want to stay on top of this news, please make sure to subscribe to Democracy Docket. That link is right here on the screen. And I'm going to put a link to subscribe to this channel so you can see more episodes of Democracy Watch right here on the screen as well. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.
>> I'm Mark Eli.
>> This is Democracy Watch.