Covering the FBI and DOJ in 2026 with Ken Dilanian

Ken Dilanian is a seasoned journalist covering the Justice Department and FBI,  and in this episode he shares his insights on the evolving landscape of covering those agencies. We talk about crime data, the challenges of media coverage in 2026, the impact of political shifts on justice institutions, and a whole lot more in this jam-packed conversation.  

There are few journalists in the country with a better front row seat to the Justice Department in 2026 and Ken paints a fascinating picture of what it takes to cover it. 

Ken Dilanian is a veteran journalist covering the Justice Department, FBI, and national security for MSNBC (MSNOW), formerly NBC News.

With over 30 years in journalism—including decades as a newspaper reporter—he specializes in intelligence, legal affairs, and federal law enforcement. He has reported extensively on crime data, public perception of crime, and the intersection of politics and justice. 

Follow Ken's work at:

• MSNBC / MSNOW – National security & justice coverage

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast. Crime Data is supposed to tell us what is happening in the country, but it can't always speak for itself. Data moves through institutions, through the media, and through politics before it reaches the public. And when trust in all three of those things starts to break down, even the clearest numbers can become part of the fight over what is actually going on. That's what makes this conversation with Ken Delanian so important. Ken is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MSNow, and has covered the Department of Justice and the intelligence community for nearly two decades at outlets like USA Today, DLA Times, Associated Press, and NBC News. Through these roles, Ken has had a front-row seat to a rapidly changing federal government. In this episode, we talk about what it means to cover crime and justice right now, when official channels matter less, insiders are more willing to talk but are more exposed when they do, and the same data can be treated as truth or fiction depending on the speaker. We also get into the tension inside the FBI, where important work like crime data collection is improving even as the institution itself is under strain. This episode is not just about crime numbers, it's about who gets to shape the story those numbers tell. My guest today is the great Ken Delanian. Ken, thanks so much for joining the program.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Jeff, I couldn't say no to you. Great to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Thank you. All right. Every guest has to start off the show with a compliment to me, and then we can, you know, sort of get another pose. So I appreciate that. Um, Ken, just uh regular question for every guest. What what is your background? What brings you here today to talk about crime and criminal justice and all that good stuff?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, so I cover the Justice Department and the FBI and legal issues and justice issues for MSNow, which is the formerly MSNBC. And uh, as people may know, uh it just split off from NBC News, where I was for the last 10 years uh covering these issues for both NBC and MSNBC and the website, where we had many conversations and I quoted you in many stories about uh the phenomenon of people not believing the crime numbers and what was happening with the crime numbers. I cover uh FBI uh disclosures of crime data, although, you know, these days there's so much crazy stuff going on in the justice space that crime data is not getting maybe as much attention as it should, except when Donald Trump talks about it. Uh so we can talk more about that. But uh, I've been in television about 10 years, and before that I was a newspaper reporter for around 20 plus. I've always been a journalist, graduating from college, uh, graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, grew up in Massachusetts, now for the last 20 years have been living in Washington, D.C. What is it like being a national reporter in 2026? It's not necessarily very pleasant. It's stressful covering this administration, particularly in this space, the justice and FBI space. You know, every day is a new thing that we've never seen before, and usually it's bad, or at least in the view of our sources and our viewers, uh it it's it's bad. Um, because this this president is doing things that no president has ever done in terms of compromising the independence of the FBI and the Justice Department. Um, people are being fired all the time. We've good civil servants that have been working at the FBI for decades have been walked out the door. As, you know, as a national reporter, you're cognizant of dangers that you never before feared. We've, you know, we've saw the FBI actually uh, you know, conduct a raid and and snatch the phones and electronic devices of a Washington Post reporter. That was a very, uh, very sobering moment for all of us who do this work because we're all talking to confidential sources. That's the way we get most of our information. And we're very concerned about what the government is trying to do to ferret that out, figure out who we're talking to. You know, the old rules are out the window. The Justice Department used to have rules about the way they obtain information from journalists in a criminal investigation, that we don't have those protections anymore. So it's pretty stressful time, actually.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

How these changes that you talk about, has that made it easier? Like firing civil servants and and potentially people that have been in career jobs for decades that are now unhappy. Uh, I think it thinking that about this as like a uh former spook, that like that would be good for work that like makes it easier to find people to talk about. Is that sort of environment, is that the case with you, or is that something that people are afraid to talk and it's made it harder for you?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Uh as a yeah, as a former spook, that's a very perceptive observation. You're right. What do we when when people are unhappy, you know, it's a source-rich environment in that sense. So yes. I mean, this is complicated. There's a couple answers, but the the answer to your fundamental question is yes. Uh, people, particularly inside these agencies, are talking to us as they never would before because they feel under siege. In a normal administration, in the last administration or in the George Bush administration, there was no incentive for an FBI agent to violate the rules and talk to a reporter. Why would they do that? I mean, everything was going fine as far as they were concerned. They were allowed to do their jobs. Now we're in a situation where they're every day they're bombarded with absurd orders and and and things that really uh you know cause them stress and discomfort. And and some small percentage of them are willing to take a risk and talk about it. And if not talk directly to us, at least talk to their friends who are out, who then talk to us. Uh, so that's happening to a greater degree than ever before. But there's also this phenomenon of former officials afraid to be quoted by name, almost anyone really, afraid to be quoted by name, criticizing this administration because they're afraid of the potential retaliation. If they if they have any affiliation with a company that has government contracts or can get any way be hurt by Donald Trump. Uh, and so that's become it's it's more difficult to get people to to say anything on the record. And you know, we we we don't want to be fueled entirely by anonymous sources, and anonymous sources are important, but we want people to talk on the record so that our viewers and readers and you know can have can have confidence that what we're getting is you know is accurate and on the level. Uh people are very suspicious of anonymous sources often.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

So, so that's kind of the situation. Can you sort of catalog how your job has changed in say the last two or three years? I know obviously you're at a different network and there's a lot of differences there, but are there other sort of more fundamental ways that just being a reporter, a national reporter in 2026 is different from being a reporter in 2024 or 2023?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, and also different from from being from being one in 20, you know, 18 and 19 in the first Trump administration. This administration works as never before. None in pre even, you know, the first Trump administration fundamentally different from this administration. So in the first Trump administration or the Biden administration, uh you covering the Justice Department and the FBI, you dealt with career officials, career public affairs people and others who you know you had a fundamental relationship with, and you could be sure that you were getting for the most part, you you there was a relationship of trust, and you could get um you could go to them and expect to get uh straight information, and you and you spent time cultivating these people because it was important. This Trump administration has no interest in engaging with the media in a normal way, except if they're playing defense on a story that you know potentially might embarrass one of their principals. And so and the only people that seem to know anything at these agencies are the political appointees, the career public affairs folks, to the extent that they still have their jobs, are completely in the dark. So they really can't help with anything. The reporting on these agencies is become fundamentally much more of a uh going out and finding people willing to talk to you either inside or outside, anonymously, who know things, and getting things through official channels or or even trying to reach out and say, hey, this is a story that's in both of our interests. Can you give us access to this case or this investigation because it'll help you and it'll help us? That's completely out the window. So that that doesn't exist anymore. Um, and and so it's really it's more of guerrilla journalism where you're really trying to find people to tell you things that uh the Trump administration doesn't want you to know. Um that's that's generally what I do for most of my days.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So I want to take a trip down memory lane. Um in 2023, late 2023, you wrote an article. Most people think the US crime rate is rising. They're wrong. Almost 80% of Americans and 92% of Republicans think crime has gone up. It actually fell in 2023. An expert blames a familiar culprit for the mistaken impression. Does do you remember that article? Of course.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

So uh obviously I I was the expert. Um, we talked about that. I remember I got a lot of blowback about that. And I don't blowback may not be the right word, but maybe it was on social media. What was the response for you? Do you does that stand out?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Sadly, you know, the response broke down partisan lines because at the time it was large, you know, vast majorities of Republicans were unwilling to believe that crime was going down. Now, now, of course, as you know well, you probably taught me this that if you look at Gallup polls going back to the 90s, in most of those polls, majorities of Americans believe that crime was there was more crime this year than there was last year. There's that that perception has always been with us and it's fueled by local news and other things that we can talk about. But particularly in the Trump era, you know, there was among Republicans when the when the Biden administration was in power, they just did not want to believe that crime was going down. And they actively uh disputed it and through the election. And it's remarkable to see now Donald Trump and his and his allies and Cash Patel embracing the lowest murder rate in modern history and trying to take credit for it when they used the same data or they argued that the same data was corrupt and flawed, you know, when they were not in power.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Speaking of that, I have a quote um from Ann Coulter from June of 2024, who says, but now some genius, Jeff Asher, has come along and treated these same FBI reports as if they're Talmud and announced that crime under Biden is at a 50-year low. You'll see that claim everywhere. Pointer, Newsweek, ABC News, White House, press releases, and so on. But his entire analysis is based on faulty data. Are you surprised? I now reading that it's like a year and a half ago, but it feels like it was written in a different century. Um, are you surprised to see how quickly that narrative has shifted? And the most recent Gallup poll had was the first time since I think 2003 that a majority of Americans said that crime was falling, largely because that 90% of Republicans turned into 55% of Republicans. Are you surprised to see this? Or is that sort of now it's falling under their watch? That's to be expected.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I'm I'm not surprised at all. I'm sure you're not surprised either. I think we both predicted that this would happen. Um, and it's because the reality of crime and the statistics of crime have become like every other thing in our politics, right? There's no truth anymore that that people agree on. There's the there's the sort of Fox News, right wing media, uh MAGA world truth, and then there's this left-wing truth, and there's a group of people in the middle trying to actually, I mean, the end, you know, you always sort of try to explain to people that yes, there were flaws in the FBI data. You no one's suggesting it's perfect, there's problems. You were always really good about that, and that nuance got gets completely lost in this debate, right? And you know, so no, I'm not surprised at all. And you know, it'd be interesting to know what the vic remember they would cite the victim survey all the time as a way to refute the FBI data. I haven't looked at that lately. I'm sure you have. Like be interesting to see whether those numbers are moving as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So the 2024 survey that they did showed, again, sort of similar trends, but they changed up their sample methodology for like the first time in 20 years. And so it's not inherently comparable to previous years. So it's like it shows similar trends, but it's hard to necessarily know what to believe. And of course, people took it and applied it to their own thought process. Do you think that this change is entirely because of partisanship? Or is this something where having better data to the current administration's credit, they're they're talking about it a lot more, it feels like, than the Biden administration talked about it, even though in theory they could have talked about it more. Um, do you think they're just better communicators and it's just partisanship, or could there be something else at play that just people are legitimately believing good news?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I think, yeah, it's it's it's complicated, it's nuanced. I think you're, you know, there's a lag, right? And so the the the post-COVID hangover, people, you know, people were really seared by the by the post-COVID uh explosion of certain categories of crime. And it took a while uh for for them to catch up with the reality that that violent crime was going down. And I and I'm sure I'm not a statistician statistician, but I'm sure there's that's a phenomenon. Like it takes a while for the reality to sink in, and it's now clearly sinking in because it's so profoundly uh you know obvious in big in big cities, for example, or metro areas where we are, that crime, violent crime is going down. And yes, but yes, you're absolutely right. The other thing is the Trump people make a point of emphasizing this. In fact, Cash Patel has one of his top priorities was steering the FBI to become a violent crime fighting organization instead of the things it normally does, like counterterrorism and public corruption and white-collar fraud, those and counterintelligence. And and so, yes, and all you know, he's constantly putting out news releases and having you know at news conferences, and so is the attorney general, and uh talking about you know violent crime takedowns and putting out these statistics that you have no idea where they came from about you know, arrests in this category of surge 30% and things like that. So, yeah, I think it particularly and that that goes to their base, and so that reinforces among their base, it gets them to believe even more so that crime is down.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I mean, I'll credit him even when in the summer, when uh the president was talking about how crime was surging and we needed to send the National Guard everywhere because crime was out of control. Cash Patel went on Joe Rogan's program and was talking about the we were showing a 20% drop, and he starts talking about how the FBI data is showing a 20% drop and not quite the attribution that was appropriate, but like he he has long talked about like the reality is the reality, even that even before when that was not necessarily the popular approach. I know that's good. I mean, it was it was very interesting, and Dan Bongino, I think I pronounced his last name right, yeah. Um, he he also like was out there talking about this as a talking point early last year. So, and again, you know, claiming credit, like you said, but uh that that I thought was a an interesting dichotomy there. Eventually we're gonna see crime go up and uh this sort of downward trend is gonna stop at some point. And is there a responsible way that you think for the media to talk about this? If if after several years of historic declines to historic lows, we stop seeing those historic declines and we maybe start to see increases, even if it's not like 2020 where you have this enormous surge.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, well, I think it's always incumbent on those of us reporting on crime stats and crime numbers to put it in historical context. Right? The slight increase of the moment is not as important as where we are compared to 10 years ago, compared to the historic highs of the 90s or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, if it goes up slightly, but it's still at relative historic lows, you know, that's important to point out, to do it responsibly. While still exploring, you know, there may be certain categories, like you know, for a while, retail theft arguably was this huge thing and or carjacking, you know, so there might be micro stories there, but the larger story is that America is much less violent than it used to be, which is which is we kind of still have to keep emphasizing that um until the day that it's not true anymore.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

I'm sure you've had stories where you're covering them and the sort of public conversation outruns the facts about the story. And you know, you're getting quote tweeted and people are talking about this story, and it's either outdated points or incorrect points. Are there things that in certain stories that point to you that like I need to cover this for my job, but there's a strong risk that people are going to take this the wrong direction? And do you have strategies for sort of addressing these issues if if you see them in advance? It's hard to that's hard to answer. Uh do you not care that the story is the story and you Yeah, I don't really yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

I mean, honestly, that I try to just take what's in front of me and and and do the best journalism that we can do and be as fair as and as balanced as we can. I mean, we're in a climate, you know, it's particularly working at MS Now, which has a uh, at least in the primetime hours, has a sort of a leftward slant um and has a certain identity. You know, there like in the Biden administration, there were certain stories that you as a journalist you need to cover, like the Hunter Biden scandals that, you know, maybe the hosts of our primetime programs weren't as interested in covering. But uh, and and so and you realize that what you're you know, you have to treat those stories with care and and do the same kind of take the same kind of approach as you would any other story. Uh so you think about you think about it that way.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Do you have any suggestions for uh I love the quote that the media doesn't cover the planes that land? It's really hard to cover crime that doesn't happen. You know, you can't write a report about how there were no robberies last week or you went two weeks without a shoplifting. Right. Do you have any suggestions for how to sort of overcome this there's not going to be a story if there's no thing that happens?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Well, the the way to do that is to is to go out with the cops. You know, that's that's how I would try to tell that story. We're either, you know, ride-alongs and and and we did that in Detroit during the election as a way of trying to illustrate the fact that you know crime in Detroit had plummeted. In fact, if you I think you recommended Detroit as one of the places we should go to tell that story, and it was great. And we talked to the chief, we went into the op center. Um, and but that was that was more of a way to say, hey, you know, the this stuff that Trump and Republicans are saying just isn't true, and here we are at a big city. Uh, but you could still use that same strategy to go out and figure out what's working too and why, because the question of why I know is hotly debated among criminologists. And so the the to the extent that you can go out and try to explore the whys of why we're a less violent society right now, even though wealth inequality has exploded and grinding poverty, arguably, is is is in some pockets of America is as painful as ever. And you know, single parenthood and all the all these factors that people think contribute to crime, it hasn't gotten any better. So what's going on? That's an interesting question to pursue uh as a way of also you know reporting the sort of the good news.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Kind of thinking about the the future of this conversation and communicating all of this stuff and everything that's happening. Um, I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on the changing media landscape? I mean, the last few weeks we've had the you know, Paramount purchasing um Warner Brothers, you have the Washington Post just firing everybody. I think massive changes that are obviously bad for journalism. Do you have just sort of overarching thoughts on where this is going?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I wish I knew where it was going. I I'm generally very sad about the whole so the way this landscape is evolving. I mean, I grew up sort of in the shadow of Watergate, and you know, I'm old enough to still to remember sitting down to watch the evening news, and there was, you know, there was a majority of Americans got their news from specific places, and we all sort of agreed on the facts. We may not have we may have disagreed about policies and approaches, but we agreed we all had the same truth, and that has gradually eroded, and now we're in a situation where we don't have that. So Nixon would survive Watergate today, clearly. Watergate was a reason that a whole generation of people got into journalism, right? To do investigative reporting, to hold the powerful to account. There's less of that happening now because of the media landscape and the uh the financial situation and the decline of local newspapers. That's a sad thing. You know, at the same time, there's there's a new way to reach a lot of people through what we call vertical video or you know, TikToks and Instagram and all that stuff, which I'm doing, we're all doing. You know, networks like mine haven't figured out how to monetize it yet, but that seems to be the future. You know, everybody's a journalist now. I don't know what the implication of that is, though. And like I have teenage sons, and I just wonder how they figure out what's true. And they they you know, and they've grown up with a lot of advantages and they're pretty media literate. But every once in a while they'll come to me with the most bizarre question because of something they saw in some video somewhere. I'm like, how can you even think that's possibly true? And that's what worries me about the situation that we're in right now. The fundamental economics of journalism obviously have completely shifted. So the New York Times, which we all look to as sort of our greatest national um journalism engine, is basically a float on Wordle and lifestyle brand stuff that's subsidizing the journalism. The post couldn't figure that out, so they're going down the tubes. And uh, and then and fewer and fewer people are watching network and cable news. So it's all it's all in flux right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Are there advantages to this that like it sort of democratizes? I mean, there's obviously disadvantages to it, it democratizes misinformation, but does it democratize information, make it easier? You don't necessarily you see you know the people that you love that okay, this the my favorite nationals reporter, Mark Zimmerman, is that laid off and now he's got a Substack. And do you see other advantages, or is it just like this is terrifying?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

And no, you're right. There's two advantages that in what you just described. One, it's a lot easier to do good journalism and accurate journalism in the world of the internet and AI. I mean, I'm all of I started my career before the internet, you know, when I had to drive around with maps and look at, you know, go to the library and look at and use reverse phone directories and things like that. Information is at our fingertips now, and AI has just put that on steroids. I mean, I use AI all the time to to you know to sum up if I were the last six Supreme Court cases on X, Y, or Z. I mean, it's just, it's all there. So we can do a better job providing people richer information more quickly. And then the other thing that technology does is you're right, it empowers people to break away from these legacy platforms. And you know, not only does Mark Zimmerman on Substack, but the Baltimore Banner is hiring a bunch of you know Washington Post reporters, and New York Times is going to do some Washington sports coverage. So so there's there's ways that and there's all these new entities that have sprung up. So so that's good. I just worry, you know, journalism need in some cases needs to be done at scale. You need big organizations, right? You're willing to invest resources and go places where onesies and twosies can't go. And and we're kind of we're losing that a little bit in some areas, and that, and that's that's that's irreplaceable.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I saw someone talking about just the importance of lawyers, that you need a news organization with lawyers that don't mind getting sued and could kind of sue.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And I mean, well, yeah, in in this environment, you know, the these folks that we're covering are very litigious. And, you know, if you're just out there on your own with a substack, I don't know how you deal with that.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

You mentioned like the TikTok and and short form video. I have not had any success at any of this. Do you have ideas for like transitioning from that Twitter, uh, blue sky, LinkedIn, even very comfortable on the tech space platforms? I'm not comfortable recording video of myself. It's just not uh second nature, it's not natural to me. Is do you do that? Is there any yes I do?

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And you're you should be cockstar. What you're doing right now is fine. Just just just do this without me and just talk to the it's easy. No, I mean, I you know, it's easy for me because I have a whole I have a whole support, there's a whole part of our network that just focuses on this. And they say, Hey, would you make a social video on this thing that you just reported about the FBI director? And they tell me how to do it and what to do and what points to hit. And so that's you know, but and yes, and we do that, and and sometimes the traffic is huge on these things. I mean, way more than people are watching linear TV sometimes if it goes viral. But I don't think uh big media companies have figured out a way to monetize this in a way that you know makes sense. So we're doing it right now to get audience, but uh the you know, I don't think the revenue is there. And so people have to figure out that model.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Does it drive web traffic at all? I had noticed we have an uh Instagram channel, and we occasionally have gotten some that for us is like pretty good, a couple thousand views on a video, and it tends to drive traffic. Do you guys see that as a at least an incentive to do it? Or it's I think so.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I'm not the best person to ask, but I I think that's I think I've heard the folks say that that that that is yeah, it certainly expands the audience and particularly it reaches different people, people who aren't watching cable news. Because apparently uh, you know, uh kids today uh sort of relate to a specific journalist and they build trust with specific figures. And so if you're out there with your face and enough videos, you can build a brand and then attract that audience.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

All right. So I need to figure that out. I have my kids are all under 10 right now, but I like when I think about this, I think, you know, how would I reach them if I did a subject matter that I would actually want to reach my kids with information about it? But um it's yeah, it it's such it's such a unique and foreign challenge, it feels like. Yeah, sure. You mentioned AI, I want to ask about that because it's got so much incredible potential and obviously the pitfalls. Do you think a lot about how that's going to impact your job, both how it is already? You talked about that, but how it will into the future?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yes. I mean, I'm at sort of in the twilight of my career here. So it, you know, I'm sort of thinking I can get out of this before we're all replaced by AI bots, but it's pretty clear. Six minutes. Yeah. I mean, there you I don't know if you saw this, but there was a story recently about, I forget which newspaper this was, but there was a controversy because some newspaper editor uh wrote a public post about how a job candidate withdrew because their policy is that at our newspaper, you you know, we're gonna do the reporting, but AI is gonna write the stories. And that and that's and he was arguing this is a good thing because it, you know, AI can't go out and meet with somebody at a coffee shop and talk to sources, and but AI can can coherently write a news story very easily. And that that was sobering to a lot of because you know, a lot of us old newspaper reporters, but the writing is part of the joy of doing the job, right? And communicating to an audience, but our already you're seeing AI plant that because AI can write a competent uh news story if you give it the correct facts. How long before AI is is probably AI right now could do a coherent nightly news broadcast and you wouldn't know the difference necessarily. Yeah, it's a brave new world. And and the ability of these engines to sort of gather and and process information at the speed of light is just incredible. I'm just finding it, it's just it's so empowering. Obviously, you have to check everything and make sure you're not the victim of a hallucination, but I find that less and less to be a problem. They're acting you know, when it comes to stuff that's in the in the news and in the in a matter of public debate, they're on the ball and they're like finding stuff that would take hours before to find, even with Google searches and stuff. And that's just that's super helpful.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

How do you feel about sort of the culture around acceptance of these types of things? I know it feels like it's sort of becoming more culturally acceptable in certain cases to use AI that maybe a year ago or two years ago it would have been horrific to use. And and a lot of that is just a reflection of the technology improving that fast. Um, do you sense that people are accepting more of its use in journalism specifically, but also just sort of professionalism at large?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, I think so. And when I talk to like lawyers and people in other professions, they they say that, you know, clearly for entry-level tasks, it's it's becoming a I mean, make a huge factor in how they do the jobs much faster than I think we all anticipated. And that's yeah, I think what you're saying is right, is like the things that would have been unimaginable five years ago, we're just accepting now. And you know, like at my kids' spool, they're they're very rigorous about policing because they don't obviously don't want kids writing papers with AI. My kids high school, but then I have another kid in college, and they're you know, everybody sort of understands that AI is a is a part of the college experience now, and they're not isn't they're not as worried about it, it seems like.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Interesting. Have they like shifted to different models of teaching to figure out how they're learning, like how are they actually learning the material? I think so, but I'm not uh I don't I don't have the details on that. Sure. So I want to turn to the future of the Trump administration. Do you have a sense for how things may play out over the last three years of this administration? Is this something where you've sort of we've had the high water mark and a lot of these sort of powers are gonna start to to shift as things turn to the future?

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Things are definitely gonna shift, obviously, if the Democrats, as we all expect, at least take the House in the midterms. But I don't think they're gonna shift as much as some people think, because most of what Trump has been doing is through executive power, or at least his vision of a vastly expanded executive power wielded in a way that no president previously has wielded it. And what we've learned is that if you're willing to do things that we used to think were was illegal, like firing civil servants willy-nilly, you know, all these FBI people have been fired. Every all my sources say, oh, they're all gonna get their jobs back. They're gonna get a check, too. You know, all these firings are illegal, is what people, legal experts, say. But the the Trump people don't care. It it's it's fulfilling their mandate at the time, which is they're changing the organization. And it may be years before they get the job back. And you know, you can multiply this times 100 across the government. I mean, USAID is not coming back, right? No matter what uh uh and and to me, that's just the think about that one story is incredible. We had this foreign aid agency started by John Kennedy. Donald Trump and his allies wrecked it in about a month, and it's gone, and nobody even talks about it anymore. I mean, very it's like because we're moving on to the next massive thing that they've done. You know, an earthquake of a thing. So, no, I I have honestly, I mean, I we're only a year into this, and they've changed the government uh and society in profound ways. Now they've they're losing, they lost their attempt to use that executive order to intimidate law firms. That was a big deal, you know. Bunch of law firms, remember, sort of capitulated and settled. Some stood up and fought, and those that stood up and fought, they won in court. So I think we're gonna see things like that. The Supreme Court is gonna presumably rule against them on birthright citizenship and maybe in some other areas, and so we'll gradually sort of constrain. So some of the things they set out to do, maybe on immigration, they're not gonna be able to do. But fundamentally, what we're learning is a president who wants to push the envelope on executive power can can really make a lot of changes that are and and as long as congressional Republicans continue to go along and the Senate is structured as it is, with a filibuster, um, it's gonna be really hard for Congress to stop them, I think.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

And so you know what do you think of the what do you think of the implications for this, specifically for the Justice Department, if in three years there's a Democrat president?

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Well, that's an interesting question. Where whoever that democratic president is and will be faced with the task of trying to rebuild something that's fundamentally been, in the view of some of my sources, wrecked. I mean, the DOJ and the FBI have been hollowed out. The the expertise has walked out of those places that is irreplaceable. And you know, you can't hire the those people aren't coming back in three years. Some of them might, but like so they have to rebuild it. And then they also have to decide how much are they going to look backward and conduct investigations into and and try to hold accountable people for the perceived corruption that we're seeing? Uh, the self-enrichment, the we're part are pardons being, you know, is the influence peddling taking place with pardons and other kinds of things, or are are people uh tied to Trump enriching themselves through foreign governments? Is the is the Democratic-led Justice Department gonna spend a lot of time going backwards and investigating that? Will there be some kind of truth and reconciliation commission? That that's gonna be that's a really interesting question, but it it's gonna take people, my sources tell me it's gonna take years to rebuild what's been lost at the FBI and the Justice Department. And, you know, will people ever look at them the same way? Because norms have been shattered, you know, 50-year norms, post-watergate norms have been have been shattered. It's hard to put that genie back in the bottom. So, Ken, last question. What what is next for you? Gosh, I'm just trying to figure out, you know, well what what what what next story to do about the FBI and the DOJ and what they're doing, and you know, whether Cash Patel can survive uh apparently Donald Trump's distaste for his Olympic X escapades. What what do you think? Do you what are you hearing? We reported a while back that he was on thin ice. We might have saved his job by reporting that because the the next the next day Trump had a picture with him in the old office. It's sort of like the old story about you know J. Edgar Hoover. It was reported that he was about to be fired and LBJ appointed him for life. So so, but but I think I think you know, because of the some of the ways he's doing business and jetting around the country on taxpayer dime and self-aggrandizing, he risks alienating Trump. And so he may not be around for the full term. And and you know, I'm actually digging into the pardons because I feel like the Trump's use of the pardon power and clemency power has been absolutely extraordinary. And each one is is more bizarre and notable than the last. And it'd be it's like a one-day story, and then people forget about it. So I'm trying to go back and revisit some of these extraordinary pardons, whether it's the president of Honduras, uh Honduras, who was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to four years in prison, or you know, it's the various fraudsters and corrupt politicians that he's let out, uh, none of whom would have been eligible for clemency in any previous administration. None of it went through the normal process. A lot of times people had lawyers or lobbyists with close ties to the administration. So I think there's there's a lot to look at there.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

And I I should ask, uh, you're talking about uh the FBI director kind of brought to mind this idea. Obviously, the FBI director usually has a 10-year term to sort of separate it from the presidential politics. Is that right? And Trump has come in twice, but didn't fire the previous FBI director, but he resigned immediately or before Trump took office. So is there a way to get back to that norm? Or have we attached the FBI director now to a presidency, which is not what's supposed to be the case?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Right. I mean, well, we have for now. I wonder if Congress can sort of strengthen that 10-year term, make it mandatory, or I mean, you can't really make it mandatory because you it's part of the executive branch, but if there's a way to sort of reinforce that, no doubt if there's a Democrat, you know, as the next president, he or she will try to pick somebody that's palatable to most Americans with the idea of leaving them in for 10 years to try to restore that norm. But, you know, I think it's right now it's on thin ice. Yeah. Interesting times to be covering the Justice Department. Indeed. Indeed. Well, let's uh let's talk the next for the next crime numbers and figure out uh what's happening with those.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yes. And uh I had um FBI assistant director that runs these on the program, and like they it's weird to talk about the FBI like this and certainly see it and then see what they're doing with their crime data collection, which is like worlds better than it was even two years ago. It's it's like a tremendous achievement for the FBI in my world, and then talk to yourself, and you're the complete opposite with the same agency. Well, you know what? That's a good point to raise, okay?

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Because when I cover the big, the big stuff, like the the the hot button issues, probably 80 or 90 percent of what the FBI does in the field offices around the country is the same as it was four years ago. You know, you prosecuting a low-level drug dealer or that or or putting out crime numbers, you know, there's still career civil servants doing good work and trying to do the best they can. Uh it's just that, well, a lot of them have been sort of assigned to do immigration duties. And so that that that pulls them off other other duties. But but there's still, you know, there's still a lot good that's happening. It doesn't get attention because this other stuff gets a lot of attention. So if they're doing better on crime numbers, that's that's great news.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yeah, it is, it's absolutely great news. It's interesting just to hear that dichotomy of what's going right and what's not. And I guess hopefully the crime stats stays out of the sort of politicization of other aspects of the Justice Department.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Well, Jeff, as long as they're going well and doing and and and making a good showing for the Trump administration, you know, the mandate will be collect as much accurate information as you can.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

So now now we got to make sure that it doesn't go up. All right. Yeah, yeah. Ked, thank you so much for coming on. This has been great. I really appreciate it. Great to be with you, Jeff. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Jeffalytics Podcast. Be sure to subscribe and to learn more, head on over to ahdatalytics.com for more information and previous episodes. If you like what you heard, please leave a glowing review, which will help others to discover the show. Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.