Trump DOJ Backs Down From Failed Probe Into Fed Chair

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0:42Ty Cobb:Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We all know about Friday News Dumps. It is when the government or some entity wants to hide something. We have a version of that tonight. The Trump administration losing again. We've reported on their many failed efforts to indict or probe enemies or perceived critics. Well, now the DOJ, in a stunning reversal, is finally backing down from what had already been a failed, subpoena-quashed, attempted probe into the Federal Reserve chair who wields power over the economy. Trump thought that he could abuse DOJ powers to berate Powell, Jerome Powell, into either doing what he wanted on the economy or maybe quitting the job.

1:21Ty Cobb:That failed. Now, part of this is the Trump DOJ and the administration blinking in a standoff with the Senate because Trump had put a new person forward for that job under the normal cycle of order, Kevin Warsh, to lead the bank. and he couldn't do that, said senators who actually drew a line, regardless of his qualifications, if what they viewed as this flimsy or bogus probe continued. This comes days after the U.S. Attorney for D.C., a face you might remember from Fox News, Janine Pirro, was claiming that they were going to continue even as they ran into brick walls in court, including judges quashing subpoenas last month.

2:00Ty Cobb:That was a sign they didn't even have enough to hold down subpoenas, let alone an indictment. This is the latest of the very, very, very large list of supposed enemies who have faced this kind of probe, subpoena, indictment, retaliation. You see on your screen, many of these have failed. You can see the Powell case on the upper left dropped now. That's our update. Obviously, we recognize there's a lot to track if you looked at all the stamps. But the overall theme is of them failing. Indeed, if you look for a single win, meaning they actually had enough evidence to convict a person, well, they are 0 and 20 plus at this point.

2:42Ty Cobb:Pirro announced this not in a formal press conference or a letter to Congress, which has been involved in oversight, but on that favored platform of so many Trump officials who are sometimes performative and more interested in X than results. She posted this on X. I have directed my office to close our investigation. She won't hesitate to restart it, though, if the facts warrant it. Notice that even in backing down, they're kind of referencing the idea that maybe the facts did not warrant it. The probe dropped as lawmakers, including Republicans, called this out for the fact-free, evidence-free, likely retaliation that it was.

3:21U.S. Attorney Janine Pirro says the Department of Justice is dropping the criminal probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. There was sort of no grounds that anybody could find for the charges or for the effort. I think it's a good outcome. It's something that I felt should be done for a number of weeks. I said, I can't go forward until this bogus investigation is done with.

3:41Ty Cobb:Jerome Powell stood tall. He stared down the president. Tell the prosecutors in D.C. to do their homework before they launch a criminal investigation without a referral from Congress. Several of the voices you heard there are Republicans. And if you're thinking, gosh, they sound a lot tougher than they used to or even last year. Well, this fits with the other big storyline this week that Trump's polling is crashing, that major figures with larger followings than Republican senators on the right, like Megyn Kelly and Tucker, have been hitting Trump. We have more on that later. And so the whole mood has changed.

4:12Ty Cobb:Also, fighting works. One of the quoted Republican senators there had said, as I mentioned, but it bears underscoring, they weren't going to move forward. They weren't going to give a vote to the next guy until this bogus case was dropped. Now, if this were a legitimate case, if all the facts were there, you wouldn't necessarily want Congress doing that. You need to trust their judgment if they're going to draw that firm align with another branch of government. But I showed you the chart. When there's this many baseless open probes, some of them already dismissed and defeated in court, yes, you can draw a lie.

4:45Ty Cobb:And credit to the Republican who did. Now, we know the DOJ has been in crisis. We know Trump already fired Attorney General Bondi over partly these type of cases, not going anywhere. And now you have her deputy, who's acting Attorney General, Blanche, trying to make all kinds of moves to show Trump that he can be as partisan as Bondi and maybe get more partisan results. He's striving to silence critics on the right with a conspicuous salvo of actions demonstrating what they view as progress on Trump's priorities. This is how the Times reports it. Among them, quote, payback against Trump's adversaries.

5:21Ty Cobb:Now, that's just a normal New York Times report. That's just a description of the reality. But keep in mind, that's not OK. That's not normal. We're now in a place where you have government officials admitting they're trying to show off that they are going to break the rules against selective of prosecution. They want to revive the probes that failed against Comey and James. She recently appeared on The Beat and discussed how she is not intimidated by what was then a failed probe. And they want to go at the CIA chief, John Brennan, who has become, of course, like other government officials, someone who uses his First Amendment rights, sometimes criticizes a government he once served.

5:57Ty Cobb:You watch the news, you probably see on any channel a lot of former government officials giving their views. That's kind of part of our democracy, certainly part of our Constitution. And yet the fact that his views have been critical of Trump appears to be pushing an effort to literally criminalize his past CIA service. Because everybody knows, back in the 2016 campaign, there were credible concerns about Putin and about Russian assets and Russian meddling in the election. He was involved in that in the Times reports. Few tasks are as central to mollifying this demanding Trump as fast-tracking that Brennan indictment, despite multiple inquiries failing to show evidence of any wrongdoing.

6:36Ty Cobb:I should mention, again, he was a former CIA chief, full disclosure, Brennan has been an analyst for us for years. Not unlike other people from the military and national security wing. We have generals as analysts, we have former politicians, you've probably seen it. So full disclosure on that, but he is speaking out now on what is also in the news, the effort to go after him, he and others say, for his First Amendment rights. Take a look. It's clear that this administration, Trump administration, wants to continue to try to assert that there was some wrongdoing. And I am quite proud of what we did to uncover and expose Russian interference in that 2016 election.

7:18They claim to be part of the Republican Party. This is not the Republican Party that I work with.

7:24Ty Cobb:Brendan speaking out. We've heard others speak out. Remember, when I showed you that list, There are also people on there who are not as prominent a person as a former CIA chief who brings a certain kind of power and institutional relationships and may have better access to law firms, may have more funds. Some of the individuals are prominent. They're later in their careers. They have money, which is part of this. But I also have people on that list that include first time congressional candidates and junior members of Congress, people on public salaries who don't have those benefits. Tonight, we are following another loss for this agenda, but it's an agenda that can still hurt people and undermine our democracy, even as it sputters in court.

8:06Ty Cobb:With that in mind, I want to turn, as we sometimes do on Fridays, to a very special guest, credible on both the law and the particulars of this Trump environment that we're in. Ty Cobb served as a White House attorney in the first Trump administration as a former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department. Welcome back, sir. Good to be with you, Arine. I mentioned the interbranch issues in the Fed case because both things I think are true and I'm eager for our viewers to hear your views. Number one, Congress does have an oversight role, but you don't want the meddling in every case for any reason other than factual valid oversight.

8:44Ty Cobb:Number two, these cases have been failing, and the Fed case had already gotten problems in court. And tonight you see the DOJ basically throwing in the towel. And even as Blanche and others try to show Trump wins, here it would appear that both the Senate and the facts beat the revenge effort. I'm curious your view on how we should understand what is a big loss for them. So it's a huge loss. I think the essence of what happened today is a confession that it was always baseless. It was always political. It was always revenge and retribution-oriented, designed to intimidate Powell. Judge Boesberg rightfully decided in connection with the subpoenas that were thrown out that there simply was zero evidence.

9:35And today was largely a concession of that. When you say they've thrown in the towel, I guess I would caveat that. They put it on the floor, but they haven't let go of it. As Pirro said, she wouldn't hesitate to reinstitute it, and I'm not sure what's to prevent her from doing so, given Trump's narcissistic impulses toward retaliation and retribution once Warsh is confirmed. And if I'm Tillis, you know, this really isn't the finality that I had demanded. And certainly if I'm Powell who said I'm not going to leave the Fed unless and until this is transparently and definitively finalized with a resolution in his favor, I'm not sure I would leave the Fed based on what Pirro said today.

10:22But it is a walk away. It's embarrassing. And the other thing about it I think is sort of interesting is the way she tried to package it as though she somehow had anything to do with what the inspector general at the Fed is doing. She doesn't have any authority over the inspector general at the Fed. She has no ability to have them initiate a case, and they have no obligation to her. The Fed reports to Congress, which, as the IG said in a statement today, that they were hoping to wrap this up and report to Congress, not to Pirro. And I think a fact that really gets lost in the mix here is Pirro's pretense that she somehow initiated an IG investigation is belied by the fact that Powell himself referred this to the inspector general well over a year ago.

11:16Right.

11:16Ty Cobb:No, I think and I appreciate both your nuance and that and those facts. When you look at Republicans pushing back, I mean, you've been both a man of the law where you go into court and you deal only with the evidence, but you've also been, as I mentioned, in White House and Washington. and there's other dynamics. What do you see here in the dynamics where some of those Republicans didn't make as much noise about some of the other discredited case load? Something about the Fed, obviously, and perhaps the environment I mentioned, moved them. What do you think about that? Well, there are two things.

11:49One, keep in mind that the alleged basis for the investigation was in large part based on Powell's testimony before Congress. Congress didn't make a referral claiming there was anything irregular about that testimony. It was at the unilateral behest of Piro and Trump that that allegation arose. And so there's, you know, Congress does have an interest here. And also, the people on the Hill have dealt with Powell for years. I mean, he's been a significant figure in financial policy going back to Bush 1. Yeah. Let me slow you down, Ty, because...

12:26Ty Cobb:Sure. You're making a great point that while there's all kinds of issues, you're making the point that this is congressional turf. This is not like El Chapo and they're coming in and there's only a certain broad oversight. This is something that was either allegedly an offense committed precisely because of Congress convening an under oath type proceeding or not. And so you're saying they had basically more authority. Yes, and it is. I mean, I think that your use of the word turf is absolutely correct. And I think that's one of the reasons that they were concerned about the political football that it turned into, because it really was their game.

13:06And, you know, Trump tried to suit up and say, put me in, coach. But, you know, he really, really had no business doing that other than, you know, what we've seen, you know, with Comey and others in terms of revenge prosecutions and trying to weaponize the Justice Department to bring about, you know, political ends. You know, something that we got through, you know, most of the last 240 years with the exception of Watergate without. And the ethics rules that were generated as a result of Watergate, you know, creating the independence or reaffirming the independence of the Justice Department. And that's been honored in the past 50 years until until this term when, you know, Trump has tried to use the Justice Department with the assistance of Bondi and now Blanche, you know, to beat up his enemies and bring about policy changes.

14:01Ty Cobb:Yeah, we're usually pretty serious in our colloquies, Ty, but I believe you may have made your first musical reference on the show. Put me in coach. I'm ready to play center field. So we love it when it happens. I wanted to show you how Blanche is auditioning. I know that you care, as I do, and any good standing member of the bar does, about the right to counsel. Former President Trump stood as the first former president indicted of multiple serious things. And he had every right to counsel and the best counsel he could get. Full stop. What's interesting, though, is how Todd Blanche seems to try to go beyond that and make his political bones about this.

14:43Ty Cobb:Not that, OK, you can represent someone. Sure. but rather that no one would and he would. And it's of a piece with other comments he's been making that seem to try to remind not only Trump, but perhaps other sort of MAGA figures who might matter, that he can be as or more partisan than Bondi. Here he was. When we learned that Alvin Bragg was kicking the tires and thinking about indicting the president, I was told, well, you got to help us find a lawyer for the president in New York. And so I tried. I called all my colleagues and friends, all my Republican colleagues and friends, all my rock star former prosecutor colleagues and friends who worked at small firms, big firms, had their own shops.

15:30And to a person, they all said no. I said, well, I can't find anybody. What do you help me do? Let me show you my resume.

15:40Ty Cobb:You also served a very different capacity, White House counsel's office. Your view? Well, I think, sadly, Blanche, who, you know, did a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney and apparently did it well, although never in a leadership capacity. I think the list of friends that he referred to has dwindled dramatically, as we've seen now that he's had to move his family to the totalitarian enclave near Mar-a-Lago. And, you know, his transformation from, you know, a real lawyer into a Trump henchman has been sad to watch, I think, and will be studied as a tragedy in character over time, I suspect. He is definitely auditioning.

16:34And when he first was put in this position, you know, there was much discussion, part of which I was part of, about the fact that, you know, now he had a short period of time in which to, you know, put together a parade of horribles that he could use as a basis to get the top job. And he's certainly well underway. I mean, we've got Kash Patel and the FBI with Blanche's imprimatur targeting reporters merely for reporting the facts of the FBI abuses associated with Patel's girlfriend. We've got the Southern Poverty Law Center case that Blanche tried to present as ordinary and not political this week, which is really a grotesque effort by the Justice Department to criminalize something that was not only standard procedure, but well known to the Justice Department to the point that the informants that they're now charged with paying, the information provided by those informants had been routinely shared by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

17:35with the Justice Department to protect America. But that was back when they were reporting on people like the Proud Boys who the Trump administration now embraces. I mean, if you're a white supremacist group and the Southern Poverty Law Center is at odds with that and you want to protect the white supremacists, that's what they're doing. It's just shocking. It's part and parcel of the pardons for the January 6th people and the elimination of the prosecutors associated with that case and the FBI agents. So I think Blanche is trying to put together a series of Trump-pleasing abuses with which he can secure the attorney general job.

18:17I hope the Senate is paying attention and will not fall for it.

18:23Ty Cobb:Yeah, all well stated, including the nuance of what we've been witnessing here. Ty Cobb, I really appreciate your time, as always, checking in with you on the end of the week. Thank you very much. And the beat will be back in 90 seconds. As a small business owner, sometimes it feels like no matter how much planning you do, there's always surprises, like an urgent, expensive repair. But here's the surprise you will like. With Progressive, small business owners save 13 % on their commercial auto insurance when they pay in full. So enjoy a surprise for once. Get a quote in as little as eight minutes at ProgressiveCommercial.com.

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20:39Ty Cobb:We went through some of the big news, including that big defeat for the Trump DOJ. Now I want to turn to, as promised, the wider mood. The vibe shift, the inflection point, the Rubicon. There's many, many terms. I admit here in the news and politics, sometimes we sound like we're covering some great Peloponnesian war every week. But there is an actual inflection. Americans are grappling with a bad Trump economy. Gas prices up. No signs of relief. Experts even discuss it as a sort of K-shaped economy where the rich are getting richer. The Wall Street big stocks rallied over the last two weeks, even amidst the war problems.

21:18Ty Cobb:But it's actually worse for everyone else. Today in New York City, we see veterans who are struggling and went to a food bank just to be able to eat, some of them doing worse than they were a few months ago. Here was a candid set of remarks with one of our reporters. I'm a veteran. I put my time and my service for my country. No, I didn't die, but I put my blood, sweat, and tears. There's only two class of people now, the poor and the rich. You know, that's the way it is now. Seems like for every two steps we take forward, we take five steps backwards. We try to cover what's going on, and we definitely want to include and channel the voices of people who are living through this.

22:03Ty Cobb:In this case, someone who says he's served his country and can't afford this economy. Now, this pessimism is not really new, and it also existed during the last term. Indeed, one of the problems for the Biden administration was that while they said they were making progress, regular people or the bottom 90 percent of the economic ladder were struggling a lot more with high prices than maybe the top 10 percent. There was a schism. And it was something that Donald Trump tried to capitalize on with his words, with his rhetoric, but now he's failing to address it. And that's a problem for Trump and the Republicans in the midterms.

22:40Ty Cobb:Because as I've told you this week, the reality is catching up with the politics. Democrats up six in a nonpartisan assessment of the pivotal battleground districts. New polling shows Americans prefer Democrats to run this Congress, given what they see as Trump and Republican failures. And disapproval for Trump is at a record. Fifty eight percent of this country disapproves of him. That means a heck of a lot of people statistically who once favored him and voted for him are done with him. And then you have what has been a fissure that has rattled the White House. people with millions and millions of followers who are credible on the issues of MAGA.

23:19Ty Cobb:This is not seen as obviously coming from the left or coming from out of the blue or someone that you've never heard of. We're talking about leaders who, from Fox News and the new important digital space, are tied to the MAGA movement and audience, and they are voicing something huge, louder than Republicans on the Hill. Tucker and Megan are through with this. They're pissed. They don't like the war. They don't like what's happening in their bank accounts. And they're starting to think the Democrats might be the better option on the economy. 21 % of independents support this war on Iran. 21. You've got 79 % of independents who are against folks.