In this Special Talking Feds Now! Episode on the first day of impeachment hearings, Harry, Barb McQuade, and Glenn Kirschner assess the performances of the Members of Congress, starting with Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes; the staff counsel; and the two opening witness, William Taylor and George Kent.  Schiff plainly approached the hearings as the accomplished prosecutor he used to be, and the Feds use that vantage point to explain what the Dems strategy was and how well they executed it.  They likewise evaluate the strategy and tactics of the Republicans and consider what they can credibly hope to achieve given the hand they’ve been dealt.  The Feds close with some thoughts about what to expect as the hearings unfold.

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With Congress poised to begin public impeachment hearings, the Feds consider the coming historic juncture through the prism of the impeachment investigations of Presidents Nixon and Clinton.  Eyewitness participants in those dramas spell out key distinctions that shed light on the Trump impeachment and bring into relief some of the high hurdles facing the House Judiciary committee right now.  The episode brings together Judiciary Committee members and players from all 3 impeachment dramas—Elizabeth Holtzman, a Committee member and then the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress; Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment and a senior member today, and Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, the current Vice-Chair of the House Judiciary Committee,  and a member of the House Committee on Rules. Joining them is Lanny Breuer, former head of the Criminal Division at DOJ and special counsel to President Clinton during the 1998 impeachment trial.

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The last 15 years have ushered in a series of daunting obstacles to voting rights in this county.  It turns out that the supposed principle of "one person one vote" falls short in the field to a series of impediments, beginning with three 5-4 Supreme Court opinions that have scaled back on the ability of minority voters in particular to participate on equal footing with other voters.  Returning Fed and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in Law at the University of Alabama Joyce Vance, Congress Member (and manager of his brother's presidential campaign) Joaquin Castro, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (and former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights) Vanita Gupta, and Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub join Harry to  break down the state of voting rights in the country, analyzing the Court's actions and also poll closures, bogus charges of voter fraud, and the emasculation of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  They close with some hopeful developments on the horizon, beginning with proposed HR1, which would enact a laundry list of improvements and mitigate some of the harsh effects of the Court's decisions.

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Charter Fed Barb McQuade joins David Frum and Malcolm Nance for a deep dig of two other issues circling the impeachment crisis.  First, the Feds discuss the crazy wild card that is Rudy Giuliani, including his prospects for indictment from his old US Attorney’s office.  Is he at the end of the day a serious risk to the President, and will Trump cut him loose or try to hold him ever close?  Turning to the prospective drafting of articles of impeachment, the Feds consider whether and how to integrate into the basic charges the President’s term-long record of grave damage to national security and to the rule of law.

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Former Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart (who served Clinton during his impeachment trial) joins Feds Maya Wiley Jill Wine-Vance, and Harry Litman for a discussion of a number of facets of what is suddenly an impeachment crisis for the White House.  What (if anything) is the White House doing right and what is it doing wrong?  How does its efforts compare and contrast with the Clinton White House’s strategy in 1998?  Turning to the Congress, the Feds consider whether the Republicans “no due process” argument is getting any purchase and speculate on how both the House and the Senate Republicans will approach the coming crisis.

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The Feds take up the most sober, and one of the most controversial, topics in the federal criminal justice system -- the federal death penalty.  There are currently 62 offenders on federal death row, a small fraction of the numbers in the state system, and the federal government has executed only 3 federal prisoners since 1963. So why do we have, and why do we need, a federal death penalty?  Given the different approaches to capital punishment in the states, should the federal system work to ensure uniformity among all federal capital defendants or should it reflect the variations in local communities?  As a practical matter, how does the decision whether to seek the death penalty work in the federal system? Finally, how does the Department of Justice approach the trials of capital crimes?  Feds Rod Rosenstein, Johnny Sutton, and Carmen Ortiz – 3 former U.S. Attorneys who have extensive personal involvement in federal capital cases – unpack all these questions and detail the personal experience of seeking the ultimate penalty.

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After a blockbuster week in both Congress and the Southern District of New York, Feds Frank Figliuzzi, Barb McQuade, and Elie Honig join Harry to assess the damage against the President and his country lawyer Rudy Giuliani.  Several witnesses gave forceful closed-door testimony about the President’s turning over Ukraine foreign policy to Giuliani, who apparently executed a scheme designed to further Trump’s political interests to the derogation of the country’s national security interests.  None of the witnesses might have drawn as much blood, however, as Trump’s own acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who acknowledge before the camera that a quid pro quo had occurred.  The Feds consider whether removal is now on the table, and also the repercussions of a potential indictment of Giuliani by his old office.

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Guest host Matthew Miller sits down with three reporters who cover The Department of Justice to find out what’s going on with Attorney General William Barr, the Ukraine investigation and more. Featuring Evan Perez, Katie Benner, Devlin Barrett. Bill Barr's 2001 interview can be found here.

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The whistleblower complaint filed by a member of the intelligence community has brought the Trump Administration to the precipice, imposing a far greater threat than did the Mueller probe. Several more whistleblower complaints against the Administration are stacked up and ready to go. Whistleblowers have arrived. But who are they, and what tends to happen to them after they blow the whistle? The Feds bear down on various aspects of the life and law of whistleblowers, with two of the most prominent whistleblower lawyers in the country and the author of a just-published book that gives an encyclopedic look at this suddenly critical set of players.

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From Austin, Texas, it's a special bonus episode of Talking Feds. Harry Litman, Joyce Vance, Matt Miller, Asha Rangappa and Mieke Eoyang talk about the state of politics, the president and the law while producer Jennie tries to to get queso on the mic cables. It's a free-wheeling discussion in the back room at Cisco's in East Austin, so sit down and join us!

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