Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media podcast network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Adam Schiff:

The idea of Donald Trump sitting in Mar-a-Lago, watching Mike Pence or Nikki Haley or anybody as the Republican nominee would be, it would drive him even more insane. Pathologically I don’t think he’s capable of not running.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Congressman Adam Schiff. He’s the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. And he served as the lead house impeachment manager in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Adam Schiff:

Because right matters, and the truth matters. Otherwise we are lost.

Preet Bharara:

Schiff has written a book, his first, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. It’s a behind the scenes look at the investigation into Trump’s abuses of power from Russia to Ukraine, to January 6th. As the House inquiry into the capital attacks proceeds, Schiff once again finds himself in the thick of things. I spoke with the Congressman on Monday, live on stage at Cooper Union in New York City. We talked about the progress of the January 6th investigation, how the Trump era changed America, and what he really thinks of Kevin McCarthy. That’s coming up, stay tuned. Hello. You say hello back.

Audience:

Hello.

Preet Bharara:

It’s good to be here. Can I just make an observation? We are on the Monday before Thanksgiving, it’s cold outside. This is a postponed event. Looks like we have a full house. And it occurs to me, congressman that you’re very popular here. We have a very fine tradition of carpet bagging in this state. And I wonder if, my first question is, I wonder if you have ever considered running for office in New York?

Adam Schiff:

I am now.

Preet Bharara:

Is there a petition in the back? So you’ve written this very good and important book. We had to solve a lot of supply chain issues to get copies here. So please buy it in currency or crypto or whatever you have. Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. And as you and I discussed on the phone last week, I think the most important part of that subtitle is the last three words, and still could. But before we get to that, I thought we just discussed for a moment why it is we had to cancel last Friday. So it had been scheduled for a long time. I was looking forward to it. Then there was supposed to be a vote on Build Back Better, this gigantic bill who’s fate was uncertain. And you and I and the president of Cooper Union were in constant dialogue that day.

Preet Bharara:

And there came a moment when you were told by the speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi and others were told that the vote would take place that evening. And that would necessitate your having to cancel and get a rain check, turned out the vote didn’t happen that night. It didn’t happen until the next morning. Could you tell the audience what or who was the cause of all these poor folks having to wait additional days to hear you speak?

Adam Schiff:

Oh God, yes. Kevin McCarthy decided that he would speak for-

Preet Bharara:

Kevin McCarthy?

Adam Schiff:

That he would speak for eight hours about nothing at all. It was like the most unfunny Seinfeld episode about nothing. And of course, the whole time I was thinking there, I was thinking, “I could have been at Cooper Union.” But yeah, I mean, of all the bills to decide you’re going to give the longest filibuster speech of your life, filibustering early childhood education, filibustering, helping parents afford quality childcare. The most vigorous attack on climate change in our nation’s history. Helping seniors with hearing aids, helping diabetics with insulin. Yeah, that’s what you want to go to the floor and see if you can speak forever to oppose.

Preet Bharara:

I’m going to recite to you the tweet you sent at 10:58 PM, when we would’ve been wrapping up, I think dinner last Thursday, and you wrote the following. “If you took the worst order in the world, gave him the worst speech in the world, and made him read it for the longest time in the world, that would be a lot like listening to Kevin McCarthy tonight, except probably better.” Was that, without getting into the deliberative process privilege, did you write that tweet or was that a staff member?

Adam Schiff:

I did write that tweet. It’s the tweets that I wrote that my staff wouldn’t let me send that you really want to hear. Well, I have to tell you about my favorite tweet. Am I allowed to use expletives here?I don’t know-

Preet Bharara:

By a show of hands. Yes, you may.

Adam Schiff:

Well, you can bleed this out if necessary, but the first time the president attacked me on Twitter, sleazy Adam Schiff, et cetera, et cetera.

Preet Bharara:

You mean the former president?

Adam Schiff:

The former president, yes. Thank you. If the current president —

Preet Bharara:

Very important-

Adam Schiff:

… I’m in real trouble,

Preet Bharara:

I’m like, “I thought Biden liked you.”

Adam Schiff:

So the first time he did that, the former president, I walked onto the house floor and Mike Thompson, one of my colleagues stopped me and said, “Adam, you should tweet back. When they go low, we go high, Mr. President, go fuck yourself.” And of all the tweets that I couldn’t send that is really, I think at the top of the list.

Preet Bharara:

You must have a really great deleted folder. Maybe we can get a subpoena for the deleted folder of Congressman Adam Schiff. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about this gentleman, but I want to ask you a question about Kevin McCarthy and his colleagues. And in connection with that, ask you to recount a story that you tell in your book. And I’m going to ask you very bluntly this question. Is Kevin McCarthy a liar?

Adam Schiff:

Yes, I’m often asked by my constituents, whether the Republicans believe in private what they say in public? What do they say when they’re behind closed doors? And I tell a story in the book about Kevin McCarthy and a conversation I had with him on a plane back in 2010. And in a way this conversation, but also Kevin McCarthy was really a foreshadowing of things to come. When the Republican Party would no longer be a party of anti-ideology or ideas, but would be an anti-truth autocratic cult to the former president. But there we were 2010, seated next to each other on a United Airlines flight, just by coincidence, flying back to Washington DC. And though we’re both-

Preet Bharara:

Did you ask to change seats?

Adam Schiff:

I did not, but we were having the kind of conversation you have while you’re waiting for the movie, any movie to start. And it was a really a total nothing of a conversation about who was going to win the midterms that were still six months away. And I said, of course, I thought the Democrats would win. And he said the Republicans were going to win. And I thought nothing of it at all until we got to Washington and went our separate ways. And unbeknownst to me, he went off. I think he was a deputy whip or something at the time, and gave a briefing to the press. And apparently he told the press that he had just come from a flight where he were seated next to me, everyone knew Republicans were going to win the midterms. And Adam Schiff admitted to him on the plane, “Republicans were going to win the midterms.”

Adam Schiff:

And this didn’t come out until the following morning. And I was just myself and I rushed up to him on the house floor and I said, “Kevin, first of all, if we’re having a private conversation, I would have thought it was a private conversation. But if it wasn’t, you know I said the exact opposite of what you told the press.” And he looks at me and he says, “Yeah, I know Adam, but you know how it goes.” And I was like, “No, Kevin, I don’t know how it goes. You just make shit up and that’s how you operate? Because that’s not how I operate.” But it is how he operates. And in that sense, he was really made for this time.

Preet Bharara:

Even though that’s 11 years ago?

Adam Schiff:

Yes. Yeah, well it was a perfect illustration of what he’s made of.

Preet Bharara:

Is your book, it’s just interesting to me, not the dynamic and not that he is who he is, but that you wanted to tell the story. Have you that story about that lie before your book publicly?

Adam Schiff:

I think I have told it publicly, but not to a mass audience. I would tell that to people back home. I would tell that to my colleagues, to one of my colleagues, what kind of a person they were dealing with in dealing with Kevin McCarthy. What I kept coming back to over the last four years was something that the historian Robert Caro once said in an interview, he said that power doesn’t corrupt as much as it reveals. Doesn’t always reveal us for our best, but it says a lot about who we are. And over the last several years now, Kevin McCarthy is, obviously that predated this era. But over the last several years I saw so many of my colleagues, unlike McCarthy, who I had admired and respected, because I believe that they believe what they were saying.

Adam Schiff:

It turned out not to believe it at all, or if they did believe it, none of it mattered as much as keeping their position in the house, or maybe getting a position. You can see all you need to see about what people are made of in comparing two members of Congress right now. Liz Cheney, who said, “I will not carry a big lie, no matter what it may cost me in terms of my leadership position.” And Elise Stefanik, who said, “You need someone to tell the big lie, I volunteer.” And this period of our history has demonstrated just how many people in positions of power were willing to sacrifice their ideology, their ethics, everything.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think, because this is an arc that I want to talk to you about, a straight line between lying, which is terrible, but does it propagate violence? And I know it’s your view and it’s my view that this particular big lie about the election ended up in violence, but I wonder how we got there. And so the other thing that you as a body did last week was you had a Centra vote, which is very unusual and happens from time to time with respect to my least favorite dentist representative Paul Gosar, who posted, and without any contrition seemingly, who posted a video, anime cartoon depicting the killing of a New York area Congresswoman, a AOC. Do you think that centra vote matters? Do you think anybody cares because among other things, representative Gosar, after he was censored by The House, by your body, by a majority, retweeted that tweet. Does it have any value and worth doing that kind of thing?

Adam Schiff:

I think it does. As an expression of our values in the Democratic Party, even if those values are not shared among Republicans in the Congress right now, I mean, this just shows you how crazy it is in the GOP conference right now. They won’t censor someone for glorifying the murder of their colleague, but they’re discussing whether they should strip committee assignments from Republicans who voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill. So you vote to fill potholes and collapsing bridges and whatnot, and you should be censored because their goal is to try to make Joe Biden a failure. And if they make the country fail, well, that’s just too bad. But if you glorify violence against your colleague, that’s okay. But to get to your underlying point, we are at a very dangerous place. It was as you point out that big lie that led people to attack the Capitol that day, but even more broadly, if you persuade people as the former president and his enablers in Congress have, if you persuade millions of people that they cannot rely on elections anymore to decide who should govern, then what is left, but violence?

Adam Schiff:

And what I find so awful about the period since January 6th is that when we saw where that lie brought us, when we saw the result of Trump and Trumpism was a bloody attack on the Capitol. Even after that, the decision and to double down on that lie is almost incomprehensible. And when you couple it with efforts now around the country to strip independent elections officials of the duties and give it over to partisan boards and officials, the combination of these two things, the lie and this frontal assault on the technocratic elections officials out there. It seems to me the lesson that Donald Trump and Republicans learned from the failed insurrection is that next time they will succeed, if not with a violent attack, they will succeed by making sure that if Brad Raffensperger wouldn’t find 11,780 votes, that don’t exist, they will someone in that position who will.

Preet Bharara:

You just used the word incomprehensible, which is I think correct, and a fine word. But I want to ask you to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist at the moment, not a politician, and give sort of in the light most favorable to the Republicans you’re talking about, an explanation as to why it might be that they’re not willing to censor someone who posts violent imagery, but do want to censor someone and strip of committee assignments. Like you said a second ago, people who voted for infrastructure, which reasonable people can differ about and there was a bipartisan vote about. I feel sometimes it’s too easy when we say it’s incomprehensible and we shake our heads. And explanation is not justification or excuse, but do you have a theory?

Adam Schiff:

I do have a theory and it’s the same dichotomy, I guess, between understanding at a very practical level and not understanding at all at the broadest level. And at a very practical level, they’re terrified of a Trumpist primary challenge. At a very practical level, this is where the base of their party is. They have created this monster in the base of their party, which they now can’t control. They toyed, I think after the insurrection with casting Donald Trump aside, you could see Mitch McConnell grapple with what he knows has been a ruinous leader for their party, someone who has destroyed so much of the institution that he served in for so long. But ultimately they decided, McConnell among them, that if they tried to cast Trump aside, that they themselves would be cast aside. And I understand that at one level, but at another level, why are they there?

Adam Schiff:

Why did they run for Congress to begin with? What was the whole point? I watched Steve Scalise, the number three Republican on Fox about a month ago, he was on Chris Wallace’s program and he was asked three times by Chris Wallace essentially, “Can you just say the election wasn’t stolen?” Now you can’t tell me that Steve Scalise doesn’t know the election wasn’t stolen, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. And I think to myself as I watch that, I can’t imagine that when Steve Scalise decided years ago that he was going to run for Congress, he said to himself, “I want to run for Congress so that one day I can be part of big lie that undermines the fabric of our democracy,” but there he is.

Preet Bharara:

So in a very real way, I guess in part what you’re saying, and I think this is observable, that the leaders are no longer leading the base, the base is leading them? Based on things that the leaders themselves all the way up to Trump did. Is it fair to say that they’re scared of their own base now?

Adam Schiff:

Without a doubt. And interestingly, even Trump can’t control it anymore. Not completely.

Preet Bharara:

He can’t even brag about the speed with which approval, the creation and approval of the vaccination took place, or show publicly that he got the vaccination, even though he wants to take credit for, at least wanted to, because he also to some degree is being led by the base that he has created, right?

Adam Schiff:

That’s exactly right. They made this terrible decision to make the virus a wedge issue, make wearing a mask or getting vaccinated a political wedge issue. And now that those in the parties see how ruinous that is, not even they can stop it. And what really grieves me is I do think we had a window to turn the corner after the election of Joe Biden. When the country saw literally as the Capitol was attacked, the terrible end to which Donald Trump had brought the country, there was an opportunity for a brief moment, but that moment passed because of a complete failure of courage. And now because Donald Trump is running for president again, we won’t have that opportunity until he is vanquished again. And so we will have to suffer his presence on the world stage and all the pernicious influence of that for the next three years.

Preet Bharara:

But at least at the moment not on Twitter. I want to talk about January 6th and you actually begin your book describing the harrowing scene from your perspective. And further to what we were talking about a second ago, it was very interesting for me to read early on in the text about how you and your colleagues were putting on gas masks, and there was a real and palpable concern about physical danger to yourselves. And in that moment, I’ll quote from the book here, “One representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota yells, ‘This is because of you.” And who is he yelling at? Who is he yelling that at? Representative Paul Gosar, who had been at the microphone perpetrating the big lie, and what was the response? Shut up. Not reason, not a substantive response.

Preet Bharara:

And it seems to me there’s some straight lying between the discussion of violence and the putting up of these videos and a person who in the moment when, and I believe he didn’t even know this at the time, but there had been chance about hanging Mike Pence, that they still don’t seem to care. Can you describe a little bit more for folks what that opening scene was like? And I’ll give you just one more thing to expound upon, because this is also extraordinary. You also talk about how you had Republican colleagues who were interested in your safety. And they said, “Well, if we run across some of these rioters, they could talk their way past them because of who they were.” But they said to you, Adam Schiff, “You can’t let them see you. You can’t let them see you.” Can you talk about that?

Adam Schiff:

I had suggested to the speaker about six months before the election that we form a small group of members to try to anticipate all the things that might go wrong in the election. What happens if the electoral college was tied, or if there were two states, two slates of electors sent by a state or the vice president didn’t do his job? And so we formed this group and we would get together periodically and try to game out all of these contingencies. And there were about a 1,000 of them. And of course we planned on everything, except what actually happened. But as a result, I was on the floor speaking on January 6th that I was rebutting Republican arguments, and I was making our own arguments. And I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on outside the building. And the first time I got a sense of things being wrong, I looked up and the speaker was not in her chair. And I knew that she had intended to preside the entire joint session.

Adam Schiff:

And then shortly thereafter, these two Capitol police officers came onto the floor and grabbed Steny Hoyer, number two, and whizzed him off the floor so fast. I remember thinking to myself, “I’ve never seen Steny move that fast.” And at this point, Jim McGovern, the rules committee chair to took over presiding. And I probably shouldn’t have said this, but I went up to Jim and I said, “Thank God we finally have somebody disposable in the speaker’s chair,” which he did not think he was as amusing as I did. But the police kept coming onto the floor and in increasingly dire tones told us there we’re rioters in the building, that we needed to get these gas hoods out from under our seats. And we needed to prepare to get on the ground. And the hoods were in these very intricately sealed pouches. And it was-

Preet Bharara:

You couldn’t open yours?

Adam Schiff:

Yes, I struggled to open the thing, everybody was struggling to open the damn thing.

Preet Bharara:

How are you with medicine?

Adam Schiff:

How am I, what?

Preet Bharara:

Opening bottles of medicine?

Adam Schiff:

Not good in emergency apparently. So I got mine open. I figured it out and I was helping other people open theirs. And once you took the hood out, they had these fans and suddenly the place was just abuzz in these fans. It sounded like there was a Hornet nest, which only added to the surreal nature of things. And then as you described up in the gallery where members were really the most exposed, because in the gallery we have all these entrances to the gallery and the doors were unlocked and the insurrectionists were climbing the stairs. And so you had members up there who were yelling down to the floor and vice versa. And when the police finally came on and said, “We’ve secured an exit route, and you need to get out,” there was a real crush of people suddenly to get out of The House chamber.

Adam Schiff:

And I hung back to wait until the crowd thinned to get out. And that’s when a couple Republicans came up to me and said, what you described, they were worried about my safety. And my first impulse was to be touched that they were worried about my safety, but I have to say that immediately gave way to another feeling, which was, “If you hadn’t been lying about the election,” I didn’t say this out loud, “but if you hadn’t been lying about the election, I wouldn’t need to worry about my safety. None of us would.” And that feeling only grew in intensity in the days that followed, because we couldn’t see what was happening outside, where the police were being beaten and gouged and bear sprayed.

Adam Schiff:

And as I did watch that later, and I saw the fury and the anger on the faces of these insurrectionists, I realized that these people really believed the big lie. But inside the chamber, these insurrectionists in suits and ties, as I’ve taken to calling them, they understood it was a big lie. And even after the police put down that brutal attack, and we went back on The House floor later that night, would literally blood outside the chamber, they’re still trying to overturn the election. And getting back to your first question about Kevin McCarthy, had we lost a few more seats in the midterm election and McCarthy had been speaker, he would have overturned the election. And this is why in the midterms it’s no exaggeration to say that democracy is on the ballot.

Preet Bharara:

We’re going to get to the midterms in the bleak portion of the evening’s discussion, which is coming up shortly.

Adam Schiff:

I thought this was the bleak portion.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a lot of bleak, but I’m glad we have a full house for it. Can I ask you a personal question? When you think back on January 6th and the big lie and the physical danger that you and your colleagues were in, what is the principle emotion that you feel? Is it anger? Is it disbelief? Is it confusion? Is it sorrow? What would it be?

Adam Schiff:

I think at the time it was disbelief. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I just couldn’t believe it was happening. And I was, I remember when I finally did walk off the floor, I walked off with one of the Republicans. He was holding a club. It was basically this post that had hand sanitizer on the top of it. And he had ripped it out of the floor to use as a club. And he had a member pin on and I didn’t recognize them. Now there are a number of members that I haven’t met yet, even that have been there for one or two or even three terms. And I said to him, “How long have you been here?” And he said, “72 hours.” And I said, “72 hours?” He said, “Yeah, I was just elected.”

Adam Schiff:

I didn’t know what to say to him. So I just looked at him and I said, “It’s not always like this.” But honestly, I was still in such disbelief. But once I really fully understood what was happening, then I had a whole different series of thoughts run through my head. And maybe because on the Intel committee I work so often with our colleagues around the world, I thought about how we now looked to the rest of the world. And I’ve always been acutely conscious of the fact that there are people all over the world who are so dependent on us as an example. You’ve got journalists in Turkey. Turkey is now the leading jailer of journalists in the world. And journalists from the prison cells in Turkey looked to us and political prisoners in Evin Prison in Iran looked to us.

Adam Schiff:

And those who are the victims of a campaign of mass extrajudicial killing, and the Philippines look to us, and you can go around the globe, people still believe in democracy in Hungary looked to us. And over the last four years they haven’t recognized what they have seen. And I just imagined what the world was thinking of us now, with people climbing on top of the building. We’re in a very bitter struggle around the world over the fate of democracy, it’s not just at home. Around the world, China is trying to promote its model as delivering both prosperity and law and order, and people should make no mistake about what the China model is. It’s totalitarianism, but it is gaining a lot of appeal. And so this was also one of the predominant reactions I had, which was to think of what an immense setback this is for us at home and for people around the world.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Congressman Adam Schiff after this. So, that’s a good segue to the work of the January 6th special panel of which you are a member. And a further segue to some of the work that committee is doing. My preliminary question about it is that I don’t really understand, going back to that word incomprehensible, if it is the case that the people who came to the Capitol that day in the words of some were tourists, in the words of others were Patriots. And it just wasn’t that bad, and they’re being over prosecuted and over harassed.

Preet Bharara:

If all that is true, and there are people who think that and say that, people who are responsible for fermenting that insurrection, why the hell don’t they come to the committee forthrightly and brag about what happened and say in an Oliver North or other kind of moment for them, “Yeah, you need me on that wall. That’s why I was on the wall.” Why do you have people like Steve Bannon and others on the one hand defending what happened, and on the other hand, scurrying in the sewer to avoid answering any questions? That’s another, I don’t understand that?

Adam Schiff:

Yeah. Well, for the Steve Bannon’s of the world, for four years they had every reason to believe they were above the law. They, as Steve Bannon came actually, he was subpoenaed to testify before our committee during the Russia investigation.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Adam Schiff:

Now this was when Devin Nunes was chairing the committee-

Preet Bharara:

Your pal?

Adam Schiff:

Yes, and Bannon came in with 25 questions that he want Devin to answer, everything else he said was off limits. The 25 questions he also was kind enough to answer in advance. And the answer to every one of the questions was, no. One of the questions was, “Have you met with Devin Nunes to discuss the Russian investigation?” The answer was no. And I asked him, “Have you spoken to Devin Nunes about the Russian investigation?” And his answer was yes. And then his lawyer said, “Don’t answer that question.” And I said, “You’re a bit too late on that, counsel.”

Preet Bharara:

It depends on what the meaning of met is, that’s what he was-

Adam Schiff:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

… focused.

Adam Schiff:

Exactly. Well, then I asked him, where did this list of questions and answers come from? And it came from the White House. So the subject of our investigation wrote out Bannon’s questions and answers for him and the Republicans fanned outrage at this, but did nothing. And then of course, Bannon is indicted for stealing money from people to build the wall that Mexico is supposed to pay for.

Preet Bharara:

By my old office.

Adam Schiff:

Yes, and he’s pardoned.

Preet Bharara:

Right?

Adam Schiff:

So no wonder he thinks he’s above the law.

Preet Bharara:

But I’m asking a slightly different, and I get all that, but why not have your moment in the spotlight? And if you think that they are Patriots and you are Patriot supporting other Patriots, talk to the committee.

Adam Schiff:

Well, that would be logical if they believed that.

Preet Bharara:

So you think it’s because they don’t … He knows better. It’s not really defensible. And in precincts outside of your committee, they can get away with the BS. Is that fair?

Adam Schiff:

Well, look, I think that Bannon is doing what he’s doing, because this is what Donald Trump wants, and this is how he enjoys the spotlight.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. Let’s talk about some of your enforcement abilities on the committee. A lot of discussion about this. So as people may or may not appreciate, there are various ways to get enforcement of a subpoena, right? You can go to court civilly, you can make a referral to the justice department, which is what happened in the case of Steve Bannon. And I’ll ask you about some other folks in a moment.

Preet Bharara:

And then there’s this sort of ancient power of your body, the House of Representatives to on its own and for subpoenas the theory is, and this happened once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, where the Sergeant at Arms can arrest someone like Steve Bannon, who is in contempt of Congress. People are very confused about this. And I get the question almost more than any other question, I’m sure you do too, “Why do you need the justice department? If it’s a violation of a rule of Congress and you are a co-equal branch of government, why don’t you, or why can’t you have a system in place as a practical matter to get the Steve Bannon’s of the world to comply?” If they don’t be held accountable, can you explain to folks who don’t understand why that’s not possible? And is it something, although it can be misused by the other side, if you give too much power to the body, is it something that’s a real thing for the future, given how many people are showing contempt of Congress?

Adam Schiff:

Yeah. It is a real thing. And I think up until the 1930s it was used, although not frequently used. That time we had a jail in the Capitol. So if we were going to jail non-compliant witnesses, we would have to recreate the jail.

Preet Bharara:

So why don’t you do that?

Adam Schiff:

Well, it may come to that. We have looked at reviving the power of inherent contempt, but also we looked at potentially modifying it so that we can fine people say $20,000 a day until they comply. The challenge with either one of those things, and this is the reality, which is every remedy has its potential flaws. Is we not only don’t have a jail to jail people in right now, but we don’t have a mechanism of garnishing people’s wages without going to court. If we sought to send someone out to arrest some recalcitrant witness and we did arrest them, they would file a habeas corpus petition and we would be litigating that. If we wanted to garnish their wages, we would have to go to court to do so. All of that would take time.

Preet Bharara:

All the more reason to get it started.

Adam Schiff:

Well, the-

Preet Bharara:

I am totally pandering to the audience.

Adam Schiff:

But the most timely thing, because it took us two years with Don McGahn to get his testimony when we went the civil litigation route, the most timely way is to prosecute. And it was days after Steve Bannon refused to show up that we held him in contempt. And days later we voted him out of The House in contempt and referred to the justice department. And I think just a couple short weeks later they indicted him.

Preet Bharara:

15 days.

Adam Schiff:

15 days. And I will say that the most important thing about that. Well, the two things that I think are really important, one is, it’s a validation of the idea, the ideal that no one is above the law. It’s an affirmation of Congress’ power to subpoena. If Congress loses the power to subpoena, we’re no more effective than a court with no power to compel attendance. But it has also had a powerful impact on other witnesses, that as other witnesses have already decided because he is being prosecuted, that they don’t want to go down that route. And we’ve interviewed now over 150 people. So most people are cooperating.

Preet Bharara:

Have any of those people yet, and I presume we don’t necessarily know publicly, has anyone invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination yet?

Adam Schiff:

I don’t know whether I’m permitted to answer that question. I know [crosstalk 00:36:52]-

Preet Bharara:

You were invoking the fifth on my question invoking the fifth.

Adam Schiff:

I’m invoking the fifth. But getting back to your previous question though, the fact that we haven’t used inherent contempt doesn’t mean that we won’t. But in the case of Steve Bannon, which was the first case and the test case, we thought the most expeditious path of enforcement and the one with the most teeth was prosecution.

Preet Bharara:

Do you believe, as I have said, that among the current group of folks from whom you seek testimony and documents that Steve Bannon had the weakest case for defiance?

Adam Schiff:

Absolutely. This is someone who wasn’t in the Trump administration, hadn’t been for years. This is someone who, what we’re interested in talking about is not within the scope of any responsibilities therefor, because he’s not even a member of the administration. And he simply failed to show up. There is no right to simply say, “I’m not going to bother showing up.” If you had a legitimate claim to make the process requires you to appear and to specify as to a particular question or a particular document what privilege you’re asserting. And he’s not even the holder of the privilege. So at every level, it was a very strong case to refer to the justice department.

Preet Bharara:

But one of the reasons I ask that is, some people may have the view that other folks will also be charged, that lots of folks are going to be charged with contempt of Congress, or at least be voted on and referred to the justice department. And my sense is, you’re not going to see dozens of votes and dozens of referrals. What in your mind is the line? Because some of these people like Jeffrey Clark, former senior official of the justice department, didn’t answer a lot from what I understand from the reporting. He did give the committee enough respect to show up, answered some things, not a lot of things, but really was not forthcoming. What do you think is going to be the line that separates the people who are going to be voted on and referred for criminal prosecution versus those who won’t be, even if all of them are not particularly helpful and forthcoming?

Adam Schiff:

Well, we are discussing each and every case and with the House general counsel to make sure that we’re on the strongest legal footing in anyone we refer for prosecution. At the end of the day I think it comes down to willfulness.

Preet Bharara:

Willfulness?

Adam Schiff:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Adam Schiff:

And the most profound demonstration of willfulness in my view is the refusal to even appear.

Preet Bharara:

So why shouldn’t, so this is the theme of the evening is, I don’t really follow the strategy of some of these people, if that is so, and I think you’re right and some of these people have smart lawyers, some of them don’t. Why not at least just go through the motions of appearing and being somewhat hospitable to answering some questions to avoid being charged? Are people like Steve Bannon just purely performative?

Adam Schiff:

Well, I don’t know that I can get into his head and I would be terrified if I could. Steve Bannon at one point when we brought him into testifying in the Russian investigation was a man without a country. He had been quoted in Fire and Fury as saying a lot of things about Donald Trump and his kids that earned him a place on an island somewhere. He lost bright part, his platform. And I think having had that experience he needed to and did worm his way back into the good graces of the former president, such that the president was willing to pardon him for stealing from his own people. My sense is he doesn’t one ever go into that oblivion again by crossing Donald Trump.

Preet Bharara:

He also gets to be a hero to his base by being fully defiant, does he not?

Adam Schiff:

Well, I think that’s very likely his perspective, but you know, I do want to say that as we’re focusing on my colleagues in Congress who have forsworn their oath and the Steve Bannons of the world, that what’s got me through these years is the heroes that have come forward. The Marie Yovanovitch’s and the Fiona Hill’s and the Bill Taylor’s, and the Alexander Vindman’s. Even the people like Dan Coats, who was a conservative Republican Senator from Indiana, who became the head of the intelligence community, but refused to carry Donald Trump’s lies about Russia or North Korea, we were not having a love affair with North Korea. And was willing to risk his job and lose his job. And he did lose his job. And for everyone who capitulated there were others who showed great courage.

Preet Bharara:

But the ratio is bad.

Adam Schiff:

It’s bad.

Preet Bharara:

For everyone who capitulate-

Adam Schiff:

So maybe not for everyone.

Preet Bharara:

… there’s a one 50th. It’s a bad ratio, isn’t it?

Adam Schiff:

You know, I don’t know that it’s a bad ratio because we also need to think about just how many local and often Republican elections officials around the country resisted great pressure and did their duty. And there were so many points of failure of our system.

Preet Bharara:

Right, but what’s the ratio in the House of Representatives? It’s a pretty terrible ratio.

Adam Schiff:

Well, it’s two versus however many are left-

Preet Bharara:

All of the rest.

Adam Schiff:

Versus all the rest —

Preet Bharara:

Mark Meadows, your former colleague, former chief of staff to the former president. Can you say something about your expectation of whether or not he’ll be referred to the justice department for criminal contempt of Congress?

Adam Schiff:

I can’t comment on that until we make our decision public. And so I will have to take the fifth again.

Preet Bharara:

News broke a couple of hours ago, some of you may not even be aware, that the committee on which you serve has also issued subpoenas to a number of new folks, including Roger Stone and Alex Jones, two of the more odious people in the history of America in my view, they’re applauding odiousness. What’s the thinking behind the committee there?

Adam Schiff:

Well, and these are two people who had roles on January 5th and roles potentially on January 6th. One of whom reportedly had as his security members of one of the white nationalist groups that participated in the violence on January 6th and both can shed light on the planning for those rallies as well as what their participation was and was supposed to be. And so we think they’re very pertinent along with the others that we subpoenaed today, which include other organizers of some of those rallies. So I know Mr. Stone put out a statement today saying that he knows nothing. Now, bear in mind, this is someone who was convicted of multiple counts of lying to Congress, as well as trying to intimidate other witnesses into lying to Congress. So I would take any of his statements in that light.

Preet Bharara:

You know, sometimes the discussion turns to the issue of accountability for people who are higher up. And some of the people we’re talking about obviously are significant and important, but there are people higher up, up to and including the former president of the United States. And obviously there’s your select committee that you serve on that is trying to get to the bottom of things. And that’s very important. There are also other entities in the country who have the ability to bring criminal charges.

Preet Bharara:

One of those is the Fulton County DA’s office who reporting indicates that the DA there is looking at Donald Trump’s involvement in trying to overturn the election result in Georgia. And you alluded to this before, and there are these calls that he made, and brave and courageous Republican election officials turned away those efforts. There’s also the justice department. Do you think that it makes sense for ultimate accountability on the issue of Donald Trump’s involvement if the facts support this? Donald Trump’s involvement in trying to change an election result, is that really the province of a local DA in Fulton county? Or should that be the job of the justice department?

Adam Schiff:

It is predominantly the job of the justice department. And as grateful as I am that the justice department has moved with alacrity to prosecute Steve Bannon for his willful failure to appear, I am deeply concerned that I don’t see the justice department investigating either what took place in Georgia, or I don’t see any follow up on the indictment that already exists in your old neighborhood, in the Southern district of New York, involving individual number one, who was identified as directing and coordinating a campaign fraud scheme in which the justice department said that Michael Cohen should go to jail.

Adam Schiff:

What’s the argument for saying the guy who is directed and coordinated needs to go to jail, but the guy that did the directing and did the coordinating gets a pass? But to me the most significant thing is the one you mentioned, which is Georgia. There is a recording of Donald Trump on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, seeking to coerce him to find 11,780 votes, the exact number he would need to defeat Joe Biden, and even suggesting that he could be the subject of prosecution himself if he did not comply. And I think anyone in this audience tonight who is on the phone and that kind of recorded conversation would be under investigation by the justice department. But I see no sign that this is true of Donald Trump.

Preet Bharara:

But you don’t know for a fact, or let’s say, if you have you asked the question of the justice department and they have refused to answer it, or have you not asked the question or have you asked the question and they have told you that they are not conducting such an investigation?

Adam Schiff:

I have not asked the question, because I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to ask them the question or that they would answer it. But I do think that were that investigation going on, had they assembled a grand jury, were they bringing witnesses before the grand jury-

Preet Bharara:

We would know that.

Adam Schiff:

We would know about it.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Adam Schiff:

Because of course the witnesses may not be confined to secrecy if they’re called before grand jury.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Adam Schiff:

And the reason I’m concerned about this is, for the last four years the justice department took the position, which I don’t agree with, that you can’t prosecute a sitting president. Now, I think you can indict. You should be able to indict a sitting president, even if it means you defer the prosecution until they leave office. But there should never be a situation where a president can essentially outwait a statute of limitations by remaining in office.

Adam Schiff:

But be that as it may, the justice department for the last four years took the position, you cannot prosecute a sitting president. If we are now to take the position as appears to be the case, that as a practical matter you can also not investigate or prosecute a former press president, then the president becomes above the law, and that would be dangerous in the abstract. And I think the man that once spoke at that podium, the president who guided our country through the civil war, I don’t think he would subscribe to the idea that you can’t prosecute a president, sitting or former, and as an abstract matter that’s dangerous. But in the very concrete situation we’re in today where that former president is running for president again, it is just downright dangerous.

Adam Schiff:

You mentioned straight lines before, about the big lie and the insurrection. I want to draw a different straight line for the audience. On the day after Bob Mueller testified and Donald Trump believed that he had escaped the jailer for his misconduct in the Russia investigation, for inviting Russia to interfere, for making use of Russian help, for lying about it and covering up, et cetera. The day after Bob Mueller testified, Donald Trump was on the phone with the President of Ukraine seeking to get another country’s help cheating in another election.

Preet Bharara:

In what I understand to have been a perfect call.

Adam Schiff:

He would have you believe that. You can draw, I believe a straight line between the failure to hold him accountable for his Russian misconduct and the Ukraine misconduct, which was far worse. When he was acquitted of the Ukraine misconduct in the Senate trial, you can draw another straight line between his going on to try to cheat in new and even worse ways than the 2020 election. And the question is now, if he should escape accountability for all that and be elected again, where does that line lead this country, but to utter disaster?

Preet Bharara:

So now we’re entering the bleak period of the conversation. I’m not going to ask you the question, and if you answered it, if I asked and you answered, I wouldn’t lie about it, of how the Democrats are going to do in the next midterms and 2022? I want you for the purpose of this thought experiment to just assume and hypothesize the Democrats lose and they lose substantially. And I think every political observer thinks whether you want it to be true or not, thinks that is a very substantial likelihood. So let’s just stipulate to that for the purposes of the discussion. Can you describe for this audience, what will happen in the days and weeks following January of 2023 with respect to the January 6th committee, dealings with the current president of the United States, and anything else you care to comment on? What is that going to look like if the Republicans win the house back?

Adam Schiff:

Have you read Cormac McCarthy’s, The Road?

Preet Bharara:

I have.

Adam Schiff:

It will look a lot like that, except worse. Well, I will answer your question, but let me attack the premise first.

Preet Bharara:

Okay.

Adam Schiff:

Because I’m much more optimistic about the midterms than the conventional wisdom.

Preet Bharara:

But I want people to be scared so they will vote.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah, no believe me. I’m happy to do my best to terrify people into voting. But the reason why I’m more bullish about our chances than the conventional wisdom, is the conventional wisdom that the party in power of the White House loses heavily in the midterms that follow it, presuppose is another trend, which did not materialize. And that is that when a president is first of elected to office, they sweep into office along with them numerous people of their party into The House, that didn’t happen when Joe Biden was elected. When Joe Biden was elected president, we lost House members. There was a downward drag on the bottom of the ticket.

Preet Bharara:

Right.

Adam Schiff:

And in that sense we had at least part of the correction already. Now, the question is, was it all the correction or merely part of the correction?

Preet Bharara:

What’s the margin of error here? It’s like five seats, right?

Adam Schiff:

Five seats. The way I’m approaching the midterms is as if we are at parody now. Because of the gerrymandering that’s going on by Republicans, because of the historic trend. I’m assuming we’ve start from parody and no better than parody. We will have by the time next year comes around, in fact, we will have by the end of this year, the most powerful, positive agenda that any party has run on in a midterm in the two bills we have passed and the third bill we will pass.

Preet Bharara:

So why is, it’s a lot of why’s today. Why is, on the generic poll of Democrat versus Republican, why are the Democrats doing worse than they’ve done in a very, very long time on that poll when it comes to the House?

Adam Schiff:

Well, for two reasons, the first is the most substantial, which is, we’re not over the pandemic. People don’t feel good about the future at this moment. And what Democrats are going to have to do is we’re going to have to do everything right between now and next year. And we’re going to have to work towards and hope for, and pray for, for the country’s benefit, as well as our democracies benefit that we are in a better place viz a viz the pandemic and our economy. And if we do everything right, and the national condition is better, we hold the house. If we don’t do everything right, then we lose the house and we get to where you are.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, so let’s go further towards that for a moment.

Adam Schiff:

Okay.

Preet Bharara:

Because I’m freaked out.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And I don’t freak out easily, I don’t. Number one, a 100% true that to the extent the one six committee’s work is not finished, it’ll be shut down on day one. Do you agree with that?

Adam Schiff:

Yes. Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Do you agree that-

Adam Schiff:

But we will be done.

Preet Bharara:

Okay.

Adam Schiff:

We will be done.

Preet Bharara:

Do you agree that that house, if it’s governed by a majority of Republicans will find some basis on which, fair or not fair to impeach Joe Biden?

Adam Schiff:

Probably.

Preet Bharara:

Probably. Do you believe that you will be the subject of an investigation by that new house?

Adam Schiff:

No, but I think that they will have some debate as McCarthy is forecasting about whether they should strip committee assignments away from Democrats they don’t like.

Preet Bharara:

Right. I get a lot of pushback when I say this is outlandish possibility. Can you explain to this audience that I am correct when I say there is no legal or constitutional bar to Donald Trump becoming the speaker of the House in 2023?

Adam Schiff:

That’s correct. And the thing of it is though, he doesn’t need to be formally appointed speaker. He probably wouldn’t want to do the work anyway. All he needs to do is pick up the phone and call Kevin McCarthy and say, “This is what I want you to do.” There is nothing that Donald Trump would ask that Kevin McCarthy would not be willing to do.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s the second question. The first is I want people to understand, because that comes as a surprise to a lot of folks, and crazier stuff has happened in America already in the last five years. There is an above 0% possibility that Donald Trump wants to be speaker of the House. Mark Meadows, we talked about a moment ago, went on television and maybe he’s just causing trouble. He’s talked about it crazier. It is not more crazy for Donald Trump to seek and become the speaker of the house to my mind in 2023, as crazy as it is than the idea in 2013, that he would become the commander in chief of the United States of America.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And I think that’s an important thing to recognize. And then the question is, you raise an interesting point that he doesn’t need that, but you could also make the argument, he’d be in the spotlight. Maybe he’d get his Twitter account back. He can cause a lot of mischief. He can make Joe Biden’s life miserable. And I know it’s work. The presidency was also work, and he managed to have a lot of executive time there also. But it’s something we should think about.

Adam Schiff:

Well, let me give you the nightmare scenario.

Preet Bharara:

Worse than that one?

Adam Schiff:

Yes. Well, because what you’re describing is just the precursor to the nightmare.

Preet Bharara:

Well, no. Yes, so let’s get to 2024.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah. First of all, people should be under no illusion that Donald Trump is not running for president. He is running for president.

Preet Bharara:

You think a 100%?

Adam Schiff:

Yes, yes. For three reasons.

Preet Bharara:

I think so too. Why do you think so?

Adam Schiff:

First, because it would be intolerable to him to see anyone else get the spotlight.

Preet Bharara:

Like Josh Hawley.

Adam Schiff:

Yes. I mean, the idea of Donald Trump sitting in Mar-a-Lago watching Mike Pence or Nikki Haley or anybody as the Republican nominee would be, it would drive him even more insane. And so he pathologically, I think he’s capable of not running, but also I think he’s used it as a great way to make money and the money he’s raising now has very loose restrictions on its use. But finally, I think he believes that as long as he is a relevant political player, he cannot be jailed. And in this, getting back to our early discussion, he may be right. And so he’s running and I don’t think, again, I propose our earlier conversation, people should be under any illusion either that we can expect a prosecutor to solve that problem.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. So if he runs, and Bill Moore made this point a couple of weeks ago, do you agree that the overwhelming likelihood is that he gets the nomination. Who’s going to defeat him?

Adam Schiff:

No, he’ll be the nominee.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Adam Schiff:

He’ll be the nominee.

Preet Bharara:

Close to a 100%.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

If he runs.

Adam Schiff:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And then I don’t even know how to ask this question. Reasonable likelihood. Well, that gives two scenarios, that he could outright win or he could fake win. You want to put the odds on either of those things?

Adam Schiff:

Well, I think their strategy is first of all to use the big lie to pass a whole series of new Jim Crow laws, to disenfranchise people of color around the country. And they’re doing that as we speak. And so I think the Republicans along understood their ideas are backward and unpopular and people vote that they lose. And so their whole business model is to disenfranchise people, particularly people of color. But their backup plan is, if that’s not enough, if we somehow overcome all of these efforts around the country, they want to be able to overturn the election. So the nightmare scenario for me is not an election like we had in 2020, where Joe Biden won handily. And in six battleground states that really mattered it wasn’t even close, but rather it comes down to a single state or maybe a couple states where it is very close and they use these partisans that they’re installing in these elections offices to overturn the result.

Adam Schiff:

And you have Kevin McCarthy in the speaker’s office and they do overturn the election. That to me is the nightmare scenario. And we came awfully close to that already. We came six seats away from that happening already. And so we need to realize that what we have imagined over the last half century, all of us that grew up in the post World War II era, that somehow democracy was inexorable that this pattern at home and around the world of everyone living with greater freedom to associate freedom of the press, freedom of religion, that this was somehow on autopilot that the moral arc of the universe may be long, but it was bending towards justice. Well, it’s not bending towards justice at the moment, not here and not around the world. And there’s nothing immutable about this. And we all have a role to play right now in the preservation of our democracy.

Adam Schiff:

We can’t all be the Marie Yovanovitch’s who are first through the gap to show the way. But as the speaker likes to say, “Know your own power.” We each have the power to affect our circumstances in our neighborhood and our community and our state and in our country. And we need to be pushing back now against these disenfranchisement efforts, in Congress, but also at the grassroots level around the country. We need to be defending these elections officials who are being hounded out of their posts. And we’re going to need to turn out every single eligible voter to save our democracy.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I mean, look, that’s the second part of your subtitle, how we almost lost our democracy and still could. In connection with that, do you believe we should have a carve out to the filibuster with respect to voting rights?

Adam Schiff:

Absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

So why don’t we, why aren’t we doing that?

Adam Schiff:

Well, I often get asked a different form of that question and I’m sure you do too, which is Democrats play by the rules. Democrats bring a knife to a gun fight. Democrats don’t fight tough like Republicans. In most cases, my answer is I do not want to become them. I don’t want to hold democratic conventions on White House grounds. I don’t want a democratic president to enrich themselves.

Preet Bharara:

You don’t want to be a cult?

Adam Schiff:

What’s that?

Preet Bharara:

You don’t want to have a cult.

Adam Schiff:

I do not want a cult. I don’t want to have the attorney general intervening in criminal cases to protect people lying to cover up for the president. I don’t want any of that stuff. But there are areas where we are playing by a set of rules that don’t apply to anybody else, and it’s killing us. In the gerrymander right now, we are getting killed. We need national redistricting reform as part of HR one which prohibits the gerrymander in every single state. But also the filibuster. Filibuster is not a moral issue. It’s not even a constitutional issue. It is just a practice that we are abiding by and they are not. Mitch McConnell had no problem getting rid of the filibuster when he wanted to stack the court with conservative justices. And we’re going to abide by the filibuster when we could use a carve out to protect people’s basic right to vote. That is just so self-defeating and destructive.

Preet Bharara:

It’s antecedent to all these other things that people want, a better environment, better healthcare, better tax, all of it. It’s the president to all of it, correct?

Adam Schiff:

It is, it is. Now I will say this as much as I’m frustrated and worried and angry about the failure of any of our Senate colleagues at present, and I hope it changes to do something about this. The answer is to elect more Democrats to the Senate and then overturn it if we can’t do it now. And we have a 50/50 Senate. Now, we’ll get the Build Back Better bill passed. It won’t have everything I want in it, but it’s still going to be a damn great bill.

Preet Bharara:

You think it’ll get passed?

Adam Schiff:

I do, I do. But the answer to not getting everything we want on that bill is to elect more Democrats and go back and get more. It’s not to, in my view it’s not to attack ourselves. And with a stronger majority, and if we can preserve the house, we can go back and do anything that we were unable to do with a 50/50 Senate.

Preet Bharara:

We have gone for a long while. I could speak to you, as I said, backstage for hours and hours. I think you have been not just an important voice. A lot of people have voices, but you have been a person of action because you have the privilege of the position that you have. You continue to have that privilege. I respect you in so many ways. Most importantly, how you care about the country. I think this book is very important. I think the challenge for us is very daunting. We joked about things being bleak. Things are potentially very bleak. And so I think I speaking on behalf of I’m sure everyone want to thank you for your service. Thank you for how much you have fought for and tried to protect the democracy that is so precious in this country. I wish you a good evening. Thank you very much.

Adam Schiff:

Thank you very much.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Congressman Schiff continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

Preet Bharara:

I want to wrap the show this week with a special note to some of my favorite people, all of you. As Thanksgiving approaches tomorrow, I hope many of you are able to take a moment to slow down and reflect. It goes without saying that we’ve had an incredibly hard few years. This is now our second Thanksgiving during the pandemic. And we’re still figuring out how to gather safely and take care of our families and communities. Many people have lost loved ones and will gather this year in remembrance, honoring the lives of those who couldn’t be here. As you know, and as we know, the news never stops and it can be pretty overwhelming.

Preet Bharara:

But I want to take a moment to say before we break for a few days, thank you. Whether you’ve been sticking around since the beginning, when we first launched Stay Tuned over four years ago, or whether this is your first episode, thank you for being a part of this community, for sending us your thoughts and your questions and your stories, and for caring about the state of our democracy and our country. Of course, none of this would be possible without every single one of you. So on that note, I wish you all a very, very happy Thanksgiving. However you are spending it, I hope you eat some good food, maybe even over eat. Take some time to relax and maybe even turn off notifications for a day. And of course, we’ll see you back here next week because the news never stops. Stay Tuned.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Preet Bharara:

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the hashtag Ask Preet. Or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338 that’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director, who’s David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. And the CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Wiener, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, Chelsea Simens, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dast. I’m your host, Preet Bharara, Stay Tuned.