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The Counsel

One (Losing) Battle After Another

The Counsel

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Politics

4.7861 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie’s note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for the show comes from Virgin Atlantic.

0:03.6

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0:05.9

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0:10.1

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0:12.8

Virgin Atlantic offers warm, personalized service from the moment you step on board.

0:17.8

Its upper class cabin features four-course signature dishes,

0:22.1

private suites with fully lay flat beds, and hours of award-winning in-flight entertainment. Make the journey as

0:27.3

exceptional as the destination when you fly Virgin Atlantic. Go to virginatlantic.com to learn more.

0:36.6

Hey everyone, Ellie here, wishing you a happy Friday.

0:40.1

Well, before we get to this week's piece, I noticed an item that sort of shot through the news

0:45.3

very quickly.

0:46.3

I was asked one question about it on CNN by Jake Tapper, which I was grateful for.

0:51.1

And here's the story.

0:53.2

So the Justice Department has long had, apparently, a requirement that in order

0:58.6

to get hired as a federal prosecutor, you have to have at least one year of legal practice,

1:04.9

of legal experience. As you can probably tell, I had no idea that was even a regulation. I mean, it seems so minimal

1:13.0

why would you even have it. It's like saying, well, in order to be a brain surgeon,

1:17.8

you have to have one year of being a doctor first. Of course, obviously, you need a lot more than

1:22.6

that. I wasn't aware that this was a regulation, but it's a reasonable one. I mean, I think it maybe

1:29.2

should even be higher. The news, though, is DOJ has now gotten rid of that, meaning they can hire

1:35.2

people with less than one year of legal experience as AUSAs, as federal prosecutors. They can

1:41.8

hire people with no legal experience. I guess presumably you still

...

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