George Conway: Trump Knows He’s a Criminal

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. Our guest today really needs no introduction, George Conway. Has been a not only a prominent lawyer, but obviously a a persistent and eloquent Trump critic, and he joins us I’m Verman. You are too.

I know. See, well, welcome fellow Verman. Right. This is a Verman podcast. This is the question that I wanted to ask you, George, because you I mean, do you know how Donald Trump’s mind works Do you know what goes on up in that lizard brain?

And if you do, explain his choice of the word vermin, is this not a random word, right?

I don’t know the inner workings of the man’s mind, and that’s a good thing that I really cannot fathom the inner workings of his mind. I can tell you that he meets all the criteria for somebody with narcissistic personality disorder, and I don’t think you need a degree to to know that. I just need a copy of the DSM five. Right. And I think he meets all the criteria for antisocial personality disorder.

IE is a sociopath

Yeah.

Which is even easier to apply because there are fewer criteria. He, you know, he’s a pathological liar. He has no capacity for empathy or for a remorse.

Mhmm. And

he has trouble obeying laws and rules, and there, you know, there are a bunch of other things. So he’s way into that category. What exactly goes on in his mind? I don’t think anybody could actually tell you. And I think that to the extent he calls people things like he he called every a bunch of people just a couple of hours ago or two or three hours ago, deranged lunatics who deserve to be in, you know, mental institution.

No projection there. There’s a fair amount of that goes on. So, you know, I mean, every accusation is a confession with him, and I think deep down, he knows that he is not the stable genius he professes to be. And, you know, Verman, he has a limited vocabulary, but but he learns a few good words here and there maybe.

That was my question. Was that was one of his words now. Of course, your your New York real estate, maybe the word of Verman would come up, you know, during the course of business. Right? I mean, if you if you own a lot of property.

Yeah. But most people in New York say rats. Right? They don’t say pizza vermin. Right?

They say You don’t say vermin. They don’t say pizza vermin. They say, oh, there’s the pizza rat, you know. And so Okay. You know, maybe it was that that copy of mein Komp that was allegedly by his bedside.

Yeah. This is the puzzle for me because, you know, I he’s obviously not a deep reader. He is somebody who, is not a master of English language, I don’t think he’s ever been accused of being eloquent. And it wasn’t while a word will pop up. And you could think that, okay, that’s Steven Miller off in the corner, you know, his his homunculus, you know, saying use the word vermin.

Yeah. It doesn’t sound like a Donald Trump word, but it sounds like it’s intentional. I mean, if they’re sound like there’s something in that lizard brain of his.

I think he knows that Vermin are something to be eradicated. And I

think that he

is exterminated. And I think that’s why he likes the word. And, you know, I think that a lot of what he is saying is that he will do whatever he can to whoever he can who he thinks has crossed him. And that’s his object in life, and that’s completely consistent with his sociopathy, his psychopathy is antisocial personality disorder is malignant narcissism. Whatever you wanna call it.

Yeah.

They thrive on a couple of things. A malignant narcissist or narcissist they had this enormous need for praise, narcissistic supply is what it’s called. And then, you know, if they don’t get that, they become very angry and resentful and they seek vengeance and they seek to destroy that which they cannot control. And the bulwark is right up there on the list.

No. We’re on the list.

We’re on list. We’re on the list. Yes.

So, George, yes, sir. Since we’re here, but I do wanna talk about your new endeavor, the society for the rule of law, which is important. But I but since we’re we’re here, locked into the character and the mentality of Donald Trump.

Well, it’s all interrelated, actually.

Well, of course, it’s all English. So, George, when did you know Do you remember the moment when you know when you looked around and went, wait. He’s nuts. He’s a malignant narcissist. Did it hit you all at once?

Was it a gradual thing? Was it like a rash or was like a heart attack?

It was kind of like a rash. And then a heart attack maybe? I don’t know.

Yeah.

It was something that developed over time. I should have known better in that I was a New Yorker for all of my professional life, and I saw him in the newspapers. I mean, not that I paid close attention. I knew about him. I actually lived in one of his buildings.

One of them that was actually mentioned in court today, which is, you know, unfortunately, why we’re here today. That’s a whole other story. And I thought there was some normal aspect to him. You know, we know all these ego maniacs on Wall Street and the legal professions and there have always been some ego maniac politicians. But at the end of the day, I mean, look, let’s get real.

I mean, if you run for president, you become president, you have to have a big ego. You have to be You know, you have to be somewhat narcissistic, but on the other hand People hope

he was in on the joke, right, that, you know, that Right. He closed the door and go okay.

Or that, you know, the gravity of the office and the people around him would cabin him in some fashion. And You know, there would be moments that would be cringe worthy because he is a bit uncouth, and he doesn’t really know much about government and, I mean, I mean, he can be an asshole. Like a lot of people, like a lot of politicians.

Right.

But at the end of the day, you know, he’s gonna realize that he’s elected to something that’s just much bigger than himself, and then he loves the country, and I didn’t conceive of what was to come. But as I watched him in early twenty seventeen, I was like, what is this fucking problem? He doesn’t seem to get it. He seems to get worse. He says all this crazy stuff, and then he doubles down on it.

He’s, you know, in the oval office with the Russian Ambassador and the foreign and Shurga lavrov, the, I guess, the foreign minister and saying all this crazy stuff and doing all this crazy stuff and inauguration, you know, he’s elected president of the United States. What difference does it make that your crowd might not have been as large on a rainy day as that of the first black president who was inaugurated

on a bright and sunny day. I mean,

who cares? Your president. It’s great. Congratulations. How can you not take pride in that?

And I came to the conclusion that there was something sufficiently wrong about the guy that it didn’t make any sense. You know, I was not going to function while taking a job in his administration a sooner or later, I get my ass fired. And and having two members of the household in that fucking orbit was like, okay. I’m just not doing this. But I I still, like, wondered, like, Well, maybe he can get it together.

I don’t know. It’s better to sort of keep distance. But I kept watching this. Like, what is wrong with him? Why does he keep doing this?

Mhmm. And over time, I started wondering about his mental stability And I used to send texts to someone I know and saying, at some point, I said, you know, maybe you should take him to the psych ward at Walter Reed. That did not go over well.

Yeah. Wouldn’t think so.

No. It didn’t. But I also started reading, like, what is the issue? And I know there was this book that entered that John. Kelly brought to the White House one day about, you know, that that basically talked about him being dangerous, a psychiatric case and a dangerous one.

But the one article that I remember reading and it all just sort of lit up for me at once was there was this article, and I think I must have seen it sometime in late twenty seventeen or early twenty eighteen, I I’m not sure. It’s hard to place now. I don’t think I saw it when it came out, but it was an article by a woman who is her name is Alexa Morris, I think, and she was writing for I don’t know if she still does for Rolling Stone, and was entitled in essence, does Donald Trump have narcissistic personality disorder. And what she did was she went through than seven or eight or nine. I forget how many diagnostic criteria there are, but one after another and it’s like

No one after another nailless.

Okay. I need to start reading more about this, and I read the book that I mentioned that John Kelly had. I read a I’d started reading a bunch of stuff. Yeah. And I came to realize this man is absolutely a pathological narcissist.

I basically came to this conclusion sometime. I think in early twenty eighteen because I remember talking about it with the journalist over drinks. Like, this guy’s I’m, you know, he’s a narcissistic associate about.

Yeah.

And then it occurred to me, like, this is totally inconsistent with being president. Now, not not that there aren’t narcissistic presidents, but if you are so narcissistic cannot put anyone’s interests ahead of yours, including that of the constitution and the country, both of which you were sworn to protect. Right. Well, how can you serve? You know, the Fframers viewed public officials as fiduciaries, and they viewed the president the ultimate fiduciary, which he is, the ultimate fiduciary in the public realm.

And you wouldn’t trust this man to basically run anything. You wouldn’t trust them with your money. You wouldn’t trust them with your life. You wouldn’t trust them with your kids. You wouldn’t trust them with anything.

That’s why I I sort of got into that. And it was just gradual over time. I think by the spring of twenty eighteen, I’d come to the conclusion that the man was not well. But the question is, well, what do you do about that. And, you know, I I didn’t say anything about it until, I guess, twenty nineteen, I started saying about it, and I basically proposed to the Atlantic, I thought that I would write something.

I ended up writing a very, very long thing. And and one day, I just decided, I’m just gonna tweet out the

And then with the tweet. Yeah.

I had not criteria or narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder and say, hey, guys, look at this. Recognize anybody. And, you know, I mean, that’s that’s how I kinda got into that.

Yeah. Kind of no coming back from that. Okay. So since we’re

We’re among friends. We’re among friends.

This is a connect the dots moment because you and Judge Ludig and and others in Barbicon stock have put together. So I would say the kind of an anti mega federalist society about the rule of law, again, which I want to talk about. And this comes at the moment, of course, when when we have this full on frontal assault on the rule of law by the former and perhaps future president of of the United States. And before I get up to the current moment, I I keep going back and forth on all this. If we could have a a joint podcast, we’d say, I don’t know if we could get Alexander Hamilton, James Madison here for the podcast.

And say, okay. You guys were not naive. You knew, that there were dangerous guys out there. You knew that there were would be autocrats. You knew that there were sociopaths.

They didn’t have a the diagnostic language for it, but they understood that in order for a constitutional republic to survive, you needed to erect Bulwark and guardrails against dangerous kinds of men, and they thought they had.

They absolutely did.

They thought they had, did they? They did. Did they?

They did. Or we’re

going through an experiment that shows that, in fact, they failed.

No. I think as bad as things got, in January of twenty twenty one, the system held. It held because of the courts. Right. Because of the two houses of Congress because of federalism.

So far.

All right. So far. I mean, all of those things held I mean, the one thing I mean, the framers understood that the dispersion of power was important to prevent tyranny. The one thing they got demonstrably wrong, I believe, was the electoral college. I mean, it made sense at the time.

I mean, You can’t blame them. They they were working with what they had to work with. Yeah. But they thought or at least that I I I forget which of them. I think it was Hamilton wrote something about the electoral college, and I forget the number of the Pepenal to his paper.

But he basically said, look, you can have some tyrant become governor of a state in substance because and the and when you read the description of what he was talking about, you think, yeah, just like trump. Right?

Yeah.

But he could never become president because to become president, you’ve got to earn the respect of the entire country through the electoral college. You know, he didn’t foresee the creation of political parties and and the twelfth amendment. And then the fact that the states would all defer to the popular vote in choosing electors and they got that part wrong. But they got the rest of it pretty much right. And I do think we owe the framers credit for creating a system that held that we survived those four years.

That said, I don’t know whether we could do a rerun here. I I don’t think we can go two for two, and I wouldn’t try it.

Okay. So the group that you have launched with Judge Ludig and Barbara Constock and others, you used to operate under the name checks and balance is, and and is now required. I mean, one of the reason why we’re talking about this is this has been, I think, reinvigorated with a lot of support from the defending together Institute, which is kind of a cousin of the bow work. You know, our publisher, Sarah Longwell, very, very involved. And she told, the independent about this in an article about your organization

Yes.

Every day, we see new evidence of the active threat posed to the rule of law by corrupt actors putting partisanship over principle. We need leaders who model principle behavior for the next generation. Who push back vocally against the big law and who create a permission structure for people to follow the law, not knuckle under to political pressure, There’s no one better positioned to fill that void than the society for the rule of law. And there’s no time more urgent for us to tackle these problems now. And what’s interesting is that this announcement comes really the same week that we’re seeing Donald Trump laying out very, I think, rather explicitly, you know, plans to use a second term to undo these post watergate reforms that created a wall between the White House and the Justice Department.

We had that big story in the Washington Post just last week about how he wants to go after his own enemies list, the people he feels betrayed him, his own attorney general, Bill Barr, you know, Mark Millley, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, his former chief of staff, all of this. So we are at this unique moment So tell me what you and judge Ludig and others want to accomplish. And how will you go about it?

That’s a good question. I mean, we have yet to figure out everything that we’re going to do, but we’re we’re gonna basically bang the drums about the dangers

Mhmm. That

the republic faces if this man becomes president again. But it’s not just about one man anymore. I mean, I think it was more about one man when we started checks and balances one point o. This is now two o, which is the rule of society for the rule of law. I mean, one point o, we were kind of focused on, and I remember this distinctly.

We were focused on Trump’s attacks on Jeff Sessions, and upon his attacks on the special counsel, and the possibility that he might try to use the justice department to affect the course of justice in his favor, in his own favor. That was a relatively narrow problem. I don’t think we conce I didn’t conceive, but maybe others did of, you know, an attempted coup, an insurrection, attempt to steal an election. What I thought was dangerous was that the man wanted to put himself above the law at least those narrower respects, which I thought was bad enough, And I thought that his language that he was using you know, for example, he criticized sessions for allowing the indictment of two Republican Congress, if you recall. Yeah.

And it’s like, you know, this isn’t about politics. This is like, you act actually have to enforce the law. You are in charge of so at that point, I thought it was just there was just gonna be this corrosive effect and you know, began to think, well, I hope he’s not reelected because the corrosive effect will be too great. We didn’t see the cataclysm the relative cataclysm that occurred. And the one thing that we see now that’s eve goes even beyond anything we could have conceived, but beyond the insurrection beyond January sixth, beyond the four indictments and beyond the ninety one counts is that his corruption has has flowed through the entire political system.

In the States, you’ve the Gary Lakes of the world. You’ve got in the house. You’ve got Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson, yeah, you’ve got. And basically, the termites are loose in the clubhouse.

Here. And even if he goes and drives his golf cart into a water hazard, the termites are still here, and this is a long term effort on our part. To message, you know, the importance of the rule of law and the importance of our institutions.

Okay. So the termites are loose in the political system, which raises the really in question about, you know, where the conservative political infrastructure is, you know, the federalist society, and you you know these folks.

Yeah.

You know, you were on MS NBC, and, you know, you talking about this and the the difference. And as I said, it’s been built. It’s kind of an anti Maga federalist society. It seems to me, and people are gonna have to bear with me for a moment here. The federalist society has its manga elements and and clearly as part of this, but it is divided.

Correct. And that there are a lot of other conservative Jewish including, and perhaps most importantly, members of the federal judiciary who share your concerns. They are conservatives And they they have been, guardrails against Trump. So give me a sense what’s going on here.

Let me tell you a story. I’ll tell you a

story. Mhmm.

Back in the before times, and I think this was twenty fifteen.

I

remember talking to a friend of mine who is a federal judge. I won’t say where. But a very respected conservative federal society judge. And he told me that he thought Donald Trump was going to. Win, the nomination, and based upon his assessment of the politics in his state.

And I was kind of shocked, but I heard of his some of his stories, and I was like, oh, wow. When we formed checks and balances in twenty eighteen, I ran into him on Connecticut Avenue, in front of the Mayflower, which is where the Federal Society always has its principal events. And he had heard about checks and balances, and he obviously seen that I’d gone off the reservation, because of publicity. He walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, shook my hand, and said you’re a good man.

Good.

You know, this is how a lot of them, you know, he’s not alone. And and remember the Judge Ludwig has been pushing this interpretation of the not an interpretation. It really is kind of a straightforward application of section three of the fourteenth amendment. The two professors who wrote the seminal article on that this year were both members of the folks. I spoke countless times before the federal side.

In fact, one of them was at the convention last week. And also when that’s twenty eighteen, fed soccer. And I I remember being out into they had a big, big dinner, which that year they held, they always have it every year. But that this that year, it was a particularly big dinner not sure why it was bigger than the other ones, but it was at union station, and I went into the bar area during the speechifying, and the young people the younger members walked up to me. In fact, while I was being interviewed by a reporter from the Washington Post, and they walked up to me, say, thank you for doing this.

We agree with you. Thank you. But, of course, they can’t go out and say that. But there’s a lot

of that. Yeah. But the fundamental point is also that Donald Trump out sourced all of his judicial appointments to the federalist society.

The Leonard Leo, not the Federal Society as an institution, but the Leonard.

But Donald Trump also doesn’t understand what it means to be a quote unquote conservative judge. Right. So there’s a real gap there. And I think that you saw you know, some of this in the aftermath of the twenty twenty election where you had a lot of federalist society, conservative judges who flatly rejected Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. And in fact, they will play a crucial role.

So Absolutely. You have Leonard Leo who has, you know, created this massively successive and lucrative gift, but has achieved goals beyond his wildest dreams. So where is the federalist society going to go?

I think the problem with the federalist society is it is divided. And put yourself in the shoes of a of a Jean Meyer. Okay? The executive director of the federal society has been the executive director of the federal society since it’s founding in nineteen eighty two or three. He is a fine man a libertarian, a conservative, more of a libertarian.

His wife was actually one of the original members of checks and balances. Right. But, you know, he’s gotta go out and talk to donors. He’ll go to donors. I suspect in some places, and all they’ll do is they’ll bitch about Trump.

Mhmm. And then he’ll go to donors in other places and they’re, you know, probably more southern and and and more in other areas of the country. And you’ll get an earful about how Trump is great. And so, you know, to sort of preserve the institution, they walk a tightrope. And then, you know, part of the one of the things of the federal side, you wanna federal Friday thing that they always do is they they don’t take positions on things as a general I mean, that that they don’t really, you know, they’ll they’ll have panels endless panels on originalism, but they’ll always put a liberal on the panel, and there is no endorsed position, but you’ll have the two fence off types battling it out against the ACLLU type or whoever, and they don’t really put out position papers or take positions on political issues they try to be more think tanky in that way, but without advocacy.

Mhmm.

And so that’s a combination of the division, the sharp division and and and that reticence to take positions. And again, the judges, the selection of judges was not a FedSock operation. In fact, it was controversial among some people because the FedSalk kept getting drawn into it, which was, I think, a source of ambivalence for its members because people like the judges in the federal side generally speaking. On the other hand, the Fed Stock isn’t supposed to be taking positions like that, and they don’t. So it’s like there’s a There’s a little hatch.

We’re trying to have it both ways there. And and and and it mirrors a lot of other institutions on the on the right.

The reason why I’m emphasizing this is is that we, of course, are seeing Aileen Cannon and the role that she’s playing in one of the trump trials. And she was obviously, you know, backed by Leonard Leo, but, she’s not.

She’s an outlier.

Not all of these judges are are Aileen cannons as a guest of the poor.

Canon is an outlier. I mean, the fact of the matter is he lost sixty three cases. It was a Pennsylvania case, one of the most important cases was a federal case in Pennsylvania, where Rudy Giuliani had his ass handed to him by a federal district judge who was a Fed Sock Member, and then by a panel of the third circuit, where the the opinion affirming the dismissal of the case was was written by another Fedsaka appointee, a trump appointee. And Trump lost all his cases, you know, he lost the Manhattan DA case in the Supreme Court. He lost the case against Congress in the Supreme Court.

And he was very critical of the court because his view is I appointed you so you should do whatever I tell you to do.

I know you’ve commented on this extensively, and it’s hard to make predictions here. But as as you’re looking at the four trials, you know, peers that Eileen Cannon’s gonna drag her feet on the Mar a lago documents. Feel free to disagree with me. The Manhattan DAK seems to be on hold. All eyes seem to be on the case in front of judge Chuckkin.

How do you think twenty twenty four plays out in the court of law?

I have continued to hold the view that I think that by November By the election day in twenty twenty four, he will be a convicted felon. I think that’s still highly likely. I think he’s very likely to be tried and convicted in the US district court for the District Columbia. I do, before Judge Jutkin, I do hold out some outside hope that the Florida case, the Marilago case goes to trial before them. But for the reasons you articulate, I’m not very confident in that.

I do think he’s he’s at risk in the Georgia case. And, you know, I think the evidence is overwhelming against them even in the Mar a Lago case I think the evidence is so overwhelming against him that there is no way he’s ever gonna get an acquittal in that case.

I mean, he’s obviously counting on winning the presidency and making it all go away. He’s also obviously counting on appeals may be a conviction, but it will be under appeal in November.

I think he that’s right. I think that’s right. I think he probably would get bail pending appeal, though. I’m not sure I would give it to him if I were sitting in touch, Chuck, and shoes. But that said, I think he is running for his life.

I think He is

running for his freedom. For he is running for president in substantial part you know, obviously, there’s the vengeance aspect of it, which we’ve talked about. This is partly he’s running any and I I think Maggie Hayberman reported this back in twenty twenty. He ran in twenty twenty in part to avoid prison. Because he deep down, he knows he’s a criminal.

And this is something you see if you talk to students of authoritarianism in other countries, you know, the Ruth Bend Gaats of the world and the Verico Finklsteins of the world, they will tell you that is a very common thing. These people cannot give up power, don’t wanna give up power, and they wanna maintain power because they’re afraid somebody’s gonna do something to them and throw them in jail. And this is Trump. And trump is not wrong here in the following sense. If he is elected in twenty twenty four, and he is sworn in on January twentieth twenty twenty five, which they would have to do.

I I think basically all the cases against him would

have to be dismissed regardless. Even the state cases. Even the state Correct.

Yes. I mean, you know, there’s again, there’s no law on this because we’ve never really had a president who has been indicted in four places for ninety one counts. But the Justice Department Office of Leo Council, both of the Nixon and the Clinton administrations, opined that a president cannot be subjected even to charges by the federal government. They they focused on the federal government, but I think the logic stake them. I think those opinions go too far.

I think a president could be charged. I think as a practical man, he’s not gonna be judged by the justice of, but he could be Charlie Sykes state, you just can’t throw him in jail because that would prevent him from doing the duties on the article too.

The problem with and and again, you’ve you’ve wrestled with this and talked about extensively is is the asymmetry in dealing with Donald Trump. I think, you know, Robert Mueller was a perfect example of that he was, you know, playing by the rules, old school rules Donald Trump, basically just, you know, threw over the board. I think that clearly Jack Smith has understood that asymmetry, but still, you know, in the last week, just like the last of weeks here. Donald Trump is on trial in four different venues. There’s going to be a lot of witnesses.

There’s going to be a lot of evidence gathered. And we have a poll that comes out showing that it’s certainly possible he will be elected president. At the same time, we begin hearing stories about how he intends to weaponize the department of justice to go after his enemies. He begins to refer to his critics and opponents as vermin This may not be covered by the judge’s gag orders, but you can see that he’s creating an environment where he is saying, you really don’t want to cross me. If you are thinking of going into a court of law and testifying against me, This is what might happen to you.

It’s it has such a big level. It’s almost like, you know, above the level of the judges’ ability to gag. Yes. But that’s what’s happening right now. He’s and he’s also saying that if you have committed crimes on my behalf, I’m going to pardon you.

He’s made it very clear. So on the one hand, I can obstruct this case through pardoning. In the other hand, I can obstruct this case by the intimidation and the threats of anyone who would testify against me. Correct. And this is happening in broad daylight and real time drawers.

No. That’s absolutely right. I mean, you could make an argument that his first amendment rights, you know, to talk about vermin should be should be curtailed. But that would probably go too far. I think that the gag order subjecting him to potential penalties can only be applied with regard to specific witnesses, but he’ll he’s crossed those lines, and he probably will in the future.

But you’re absolutely right. I mean, he’s this is the stuff of of authoritarianism, mob bosses. It’s basically Go ahead. I will do whatever it takes to get even. When he tells people, I will be your retributions.

Retribution. Right. I mean, he’s really talking about himself because he’s the only person he actually cares about.

So yesterday in the in the news, of course, his sister, his older sister, Marianne, Trump Berry, who was a longtime federal judge, passed away. A respect to federal respected federal judge, and I think that you, you noted this on social media. Trump’s first post Since the news broke this morning of his sister’s passing, this is Donald Trump, first post after his sister has passed away. Donald j Trump. Yeah.

Darrange Jack Smith, Andrew Weisman, Lisa Monica, the team of losers and misfits from crew, and all the rest of the radical left zealots and thugs who have been working illegally for years to take me down will end up because of their suffering from a horrible disease. Trump derangement syndrome in a mental institution. By the time my next term as president is successfully completed, make America great again. I’m not sure where that sentence went there. That was his very first.

Yeah. I think we need to cut him slack today because his sister did pass away. So he’s obviously sorry about that. Yeah. He’s is grieving, and and it must be just the devastating loss for him.

His sister though did understand him, didn’t she?

She did. And there were you know, there was that famous porting that Mary Trump

All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principled. None. None. His goddamn tweet and lying.

Oh my god. I’m talking too freely, but you know, the changes story’s lack of preparation, the lying. Holy. It’s No.

I know. She also talked about how he how the stable genius. So she she told, her niece, I guess, about how, the stable genius had somebody take the SATs for for money?

Yes. Okay. One last question since we’re talking about the rule of law. Also on Monday, the Supreme Court announced for the first time that it was creating a code of ethics. That will cover itself.

And, of course, this comes after all of these reports of the lavish trips and the gifts that were given to Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas, Thomas, etcetera. Your thoughts, glass half full, glass half empty? I think it’s a positive thing.

I mean, it it is really nuts. That the Supreme Court has not had binding ethics rules applicable to. It it because Yeah. When you look at what the federal courts do. I mean, most cases in a federal district court, and even in a US court of appeals, matter to nobody except the particular party’s issue and decide no major issues of law.

Whereas, the Supreme Court decides things, and and not just about we’re not just talking about the hot button issues that everybody, like, people like to rant and rave about, like, abortion and affirmative action to five four votes, every case is taken because it impacts a lot of other cases, just about every case. And, you know, I I had a securities case. I won in the Supreme Court. That was my one time in the Supreme Court. It was, like, a billion dollars for my client, probably, but There were lots of other clients.

Lots of other companies that had cases throughout the federal system or potentially in the federal system represented by armies of lawyers in other courts and other jurisdictions. And, you know, they all had an interest in my case every bit as much as my client did. But when you go to the disqualification sheets, when you go to the conflicts memos that you would have in a court of appeals or a district court or or in the supreme court, all those parties aren’t listed. So it makes sense to have rules the frequent needs to have rules that are even stricter than what apply to lower court judges. And I think the way to make up for that is to pay them more.

First year associates at some law firms get paid more than some supreme court justices. It’s crazy. We don’t pay these judges enough. We should be paying them more and but subjecting them to more rules. But this is a start.

I don’t know whether it’s the complete answer. I think Congress is gonna have to take a look at it. I don’t I don’t agree with Justice Alito and some others that the Supreme Court is basically immune from this kind of regulation. I think that Congress has the power to prescribe rules just as affecting the federal judiciary, just as a prescribed salary. It’s just as a it sets the budget.

And, you know, it requires this among executive branch too. I think that there there is probably going to be some move for congressional regulation although I haven’t read what court did today, but I think it’s a very, very useful step that the court is trying to promote confidence in its in its decisions by taking this important

Well, my my big question is who enforces it? Does the court going to enforce it on itself, or or is there some mechanism for Well,

I’ll say this. I mean, it’s not clear to me. That if a justice signs one of these disclosure forms and, you know, it’s materially emissive I think there there’s probably a federal statute or two that would apply to that. And, also, if a justice were to take, I don’t know, alone and then have it written off, that’s income. That’s that’s income.

And if that doesn’t go It’s

for most of us. The most of us, I mean, you know,

again, I’m not saying this happened. But if it were to happen and say a quarter million dollars for an RV, I don’t know, were were written off.

Yeah.

And it weren’t reported as income I mean, that’s tax evasion potentially.

I just don’t have close enough friends who are willing to give me a half million dollar RV and then right off the loan.

You know? I don’t know. Yeah. I’m not, like, right, kind

of, like Yeah.

I did a panel with Judge Luttig at our event this week. And I just said, I just think about poor Aig fortis rolling in his grave. Oh, jeez. Who he basically could have become chief justice. He was gonna become chest chief trusted, but for twenty thousand dollars that he took from this guy Wilson.

I mean, I mean

And then he had the grace though to resign.

Because the because the Nixon Department of the Knicks and Justice Department was threatening the prosecutor.

Yeah. But that was so last century.

So there are enforcement mechanisms. Yeah.

George Conway. George Conway, lawyer and, long time, Trump critic, who is one of the co founders of the society for the rule of law, along with judge Michael Ludwig from a congresswoman Barbara Comstock. Best of luck, the timing could not be any better. Thank you for your time, George. Thank you.

Thank

you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. The Bullbrook podcast is produced by Katie Cooper. And engineered and edited by Jason Brown.