S2 Ep156: Kash Patel's Lawsuit Could Backfire—BIG TIME (w/ Andrew Weissmann)
The Illegal News with Sarah Longwell
The Bulwark
4.9 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sarah Longwell and Andrew Weissmann discuss a series of major legal developments—from a questionable DOJ indictment targeting the Southern Poverty Law Center, to Kash Patel’s high-risk lawsuit against The Atlantic, to a wave of firings inside the Justice Department that’s raising alarms.
They explain what’s actually in these cases (and what’s missing), why some of the legal theories fall apart under scrutiny, and what it all signals about the direction of the DOJ. Plus: a major ruling on Trump’s January 6 liability—and whether taxpayers could end up footing the bill.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think the episode title might be called like abuse. |
| 0:03.4 | I'm abusing you. |
| 0:04.9 | I'm abusing you. |
| 0:06.3 | That's it? |
| 0:07.2 | I don't think so. |
| 0:08.5 | Maybe I'm being sensitive. |
| 0:13.7 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to the illegal news. |
| 0:17.0 | I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwarkin because I'm definitely not a lawyer. |
| 0:21.6 | I'm here with my good friend, Andrew, who was a DOJ lawyer for more than 20 years and a former general counsel of the FBI and now MSNAL legal analyst, host of the podcast, Maine Justice. |
| 0:33.5 | And he's got a new book out called Liar's Kingdom, which is coming out in less than a month. And Andrew, our team's been working together to get a discount code for your book for our listeners because we want you guys to, you know, you shouldn't have to pay full freight for your friend's book. I love it. Right? And so we've got a discount code. Everyone go get it. But it's going to be in the show notes of this show. |
| 0:54.9 | You can go click on that and you'll get a cheaper version. |
| 0:59.3 | Okay. |
| 1:00.2 | Andrew, you've got a hard out so we cannot do our normal, expensive chit-chats. |
| 1:05.8 | So Sarah, so you need to control yourself. |
| 1:09.1 | You're going to need to control yourself. |
| 1:12.6 | I don't want to hear any anecdotes. I'm the problem. |
| 1:13.6 | Sure. |
| 1:14.6 | Look, I already see it. |
| 1:16.6 | I mean, where's the topics? |
| 1:18.6 | I've got the topics right here. |
| 1:20.6 | We can jump right in. |
| 1:21.6 | Well, where are they? |
... |
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