Hello listeners! This is a Substack live I did earlier in the day: in the future, I will be doing more features that take a deep dive into an important story that illuminates the functioning of our democracy.

* Trump allies are demanding Pam Bondi’s resignation over the botched indictments—but no that they happened in the first place. See Edith Olmsted, “MAGA Demands Bondi’s Head After Failed Comey Indictment,” (The New Republic, November 25, 2025)

* The article I refer to in this video is Alan Feuer and Devlin Barrett, “Judge Dismisses Cases Against Comey and James, Finding Trump Prosecutor Was Unlawfully Appointed,” New York Times, November 24, 2025.

* The book I wrote about the FBI is War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture (Rutgers University Press, 1998.)

* Listeners who want to learn even more about J. Edgar Hoover, the long history of the FBI, and why this is such an aberrant moment in the history of hte federal justice system should check out Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Penguin Books, 2022, which won the Pulitzer Prize it is so good!

* Want to know why everyone thinks the current FBI director, Kash Patel, is out of his league? Try Marc Fisher, “Kash Patel’s Acts of Service,” The New Yorker (November 17, 2025.

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