The Wolf Is At the Door: a Critical-Information Video from Andrew Weissman

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Mr. Weissman is a professor at NYU School of Law, an MSNBC commentator, and a lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s office investigating the January 6th Insurrection.

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Transcript

Here’s the video link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-158077707?source=queue&autoPlay=true

Let me give you a warning about what I’m about to say. This is serious and not hyperbole.

So when you think about what’s been going on in the last month and a half, uh, it’s—it’s what people, many people, thought would happen because of Project 2025—but worse. It’s not so much the policies in Project 2025. Those were articulated, and we’re seeing them carried out.

But we’re seeing a lot more than that. And that includes the hollowing out of institutions, whether we’re talking about the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the EPA, or the Department of Health and Human Services. Or maybe most dramatically, the military.

We are seeing people who are career professionals leaving or being fired—or potentially getting fired—sort of being rounded up for potential action. And we’re seeing lots and lots of career people and probationary employees actually being let go in a way that is potentially quite illegal, meaning that they will bring lawsuits, and they’ll get back pay, uh, and/or be reinstated.

That’s the whole reason for doing this—which was to potentially save money. Or as Elon Musk says, this is the only way that we can stay afloat—which is really just I was thinking of a lot of crude ways of describing that, but it’s just not true. When you think about the infinitesimal amount of money that is spent on federal employees compared to the budget and the deficit.

So it’s—it’s just—this is like, as a friend of mine used to say about things, it’s a pimple on an elephant’s ass.

This is—that’s just a crazy justification.

What it really is, is the complete eradication and destruction of institutions. Institutions that serve to protect us.

When we’re dealing with the Department of—of—like, the CDC or the larger group of, uh, uh, DHS.

And institutions that serve to make sure that our liberties are adhered to—our rights are protected. Such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The inspectors general that serve to look for waste, fraud, and abuse.

And the top three military judges—who were all fired.

These are apolitical people. As I have said—can you think of a benign reason why you would fire the three top judge advocates in the military?

Can you think of an iron reason?

I can’t.

I can only think… of reasons why you would want loyalists who are going to not stand in the way.

And it’s impossible not to put what is happening in the context of, uh, 20th-century history—and thinking about Hungary, thinking about Germany, thinking about lots of countries, uh, where the rule of law and, uh, forms of democracy have fallen.

And that is, I’m afraid to say, the world that we are in.

Not entering, but are in.

I think it’s not healthy to be in denial. I am the son of a psychologist. I understand that denial—denial at times—can be healthy and can help you get through a situation… until such a time that you’re sort of ready to confront it.

We need to confront this.

It is not the case that we just stick our heads in the sand and say, oh, this isn’t going to really happen, and this isn’t really what’s going on.

We are seeing so many laws and livelihoods being broken.

We’re seeing so many—it’s not just a policy issue.

We’re seeing so many things that are not just red flags. They are actually the things that you worry about.

When you eliminate the top three judges in the military…

When you eliminate the inspectors general…

None of that has to do with, oh, we need to save money and we’re downsizing.

It all has to do with: I want those institutions not to get in my way.

Not just of the unitary executive—but of unitary power.

As the president has, quote, joked, in having a mock cover of a magazine depict him as a king.

That is not how we are supposed to be.

I also don’t think that’s who we are—or that’s what we voted for.

But we’ll see whether people stand up to that.

We have seen people in government who have been vocal, who have been heroes, who have not been willing to go along.

We’ve seen that at the FBI—where I used to work.

We’ve seen that at the Department of Justice—where I also used to work—with the lawyers who have taken courageous actions, in the sense that they have done what their oath of office and their own moral fiber, their backbone, told them they had to do.

But I think there’s another aspect to this.

I’m talking a lot about what Donald Trump has done with respect to governmental institutions and that hollowing out.

We have the veneer of those institutions—without the content.

It’s like Kabuki theater.

Or like those Western towns in 1930s John Ford movies where they’re only an inch deep—because it’s just a stage set.

That’s what Washington is being turned into.

But I think there’s more.

Unfortunately.

Donald Trump has realized that when you weaponize government, capitalism can capitulate quite quickly.

If you are in a corporation and don’t want to be illegally or improperly targeted, you do what companies in Hungary or Russia do.

Companies in places without the rule of law capitulate.

They settle lawsuits even when those lawsuits are completely ridiculous and not meritorious.

They settle because they’re afraid that if they don’t give money to the Trump side, they will be targeted.

That is completely antithetical to the rule of law.

What normally happens is I’m not going to settle a lawsuit that is garbage.

And there is no need to worry about reprisal—because reprisal is illegal.

But that’s not what we’re seeing.

Companies are not just settling lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies.

We’re seeing more than that.

I don’t mean to pick on Jeff Bezos, but that is a really good illustration.

Here you have someone who can afford—God knows he can afford—to have principles and live by them.

Maybe it would cost him some money, but he’s not going broke anytime soon.

During the election, he changed the policy of The Washington Post, which he owns, and said the paper would not endorse a presidential candidate.

If he had said that two years before the campaigns, I would have said: You know, that’s a choice.

A paper doesn’t have to do that.

It could be questioned for its impartiality, but reasonable minds can differ, and there was nothing outrageous about it.

Doing it for the first time in a very long time.

During the campaign.

At the last minute.

When there was a draft endorsement that had been presented to him.

To make the decision then—that is a very different thing.

And the reason you know it’s a very different thing is because of the subsequent actions he took.

So he said:

“I don’t want to have endorsements at the presidential level because of the appearance it gives—that it undermines people having faith in our objectivity.”

Well, okay.

Let’s take that as a given.

Maybe he should have decided that earlier. It seems partisan at the time that he did it, but it’s just a policy difference.

Here’s the problem with that.

Fast forward—a New York minute—to the inauguration.

And where is Jeff Bezos?

He is in the rotunda for the presidential inauguration.

Standing right behind Donald Trump.

Where’s the appearance of impropriety there?

A newspaper is not supposed to be endorsing one candidate or another. They have an obligation to cover the president objectively, which means at times they will have reporting and opinion writers who take issue, support, or oppose various policies.

So the claim of avoiding the appearance of impropriety is hard to accept when the owner’s actions were not at all consistent with that.

And it gets worse.

Yesterday, Jeff Bezos issued a policy regarding the opinion page of The Washington Post. The policy states that the opinion section would now advocate personal liberties and free markets and would not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.

The head of the opinion section resigned.

That is reminiscent of what happened when Danielle Sassoon, the head of the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s Office, resigned. When Denise Charme, the chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, resigned. When the heads of the Public Integrity Section at Main Justice resigned.

Here you have Jeff Bezos, in my view, completely capitulating to the administration in the most transparent way, using language right out of 1984.

The statement that the opinion section will support personal liberties and free markets—what does that even mean? Who isn’t for personal liberties? It’s a meaningless comment.

And if you scratch the surface of it, you realize personal liberty is already protected by the First Amendment. How does a newspaper, which should be a bastion and guardian of the First Amendment, claim to support personal liberties while simultaneously refusing to publish opposing viewpoints?

That goes against the entire point of the First Amendment—to allow for a range of views.

Then there’s the second part: supporting free markets. That is an explicitly staked-out opinion. There are great aspects to free markets, but that is not enshrined in the Constitution.

There are limits placed on free markets. This policy appears to be Bezos signaling that there should be no regulation—something that, of course, benefits him as the owner of Amazon, The Washington Post, and other companies.

But free markets have not been free for a long time.

If the paper only runs stories promoting free markets and refuses to tolerate dissent, does that mean Bezos opposes the Securities and Exchange Commission? Should there be no regulations preventing companies from lying to investors? Should corporations not be held to truthfulness in their public statements?

Does this stance mean opposition to criminal laws governing money laundering, fraud, and other corporate misconduct?

I spent much of my career dealing with corporate criminal cases—whether it was Enron, Merrill Lynch, or Volkswagen. There is a long history of corporate wrongdoing. Are we now supposed to eradicate accountability just because of a belief in free markets?

Does The Washington Post intend to reject all arguments against deregulation?

Where does Bezos stand on tariffs? How does this policy apply to taxation?

Saying we only support personal liberties and free markets is meaningless. It’s code for deregulation.

More dangerously, it signals that dissent will not be tolerated.

That’s why the head of the opinion section left. That’s why subscribers to The Washington Post dropped dramatically. I was one of them—I used to subscribe, and I don’t anymore.

I didn’t want to support The Washington Post, even in a small way, because of this.

Everyone has to make up their own mind, and I made up mine.

It’s the same reason I’m not on X anymore. I didn’t want to support, even in a small way, a platform run by someone I believe is a danger to this country.

This isn’t just about Jeff Bezos. What’s happening with him is happening with many other corporations.

As Professor Timothy Snyder at Yale has pointed out, many companies are preemptively submitting to authoritarianism, trying to avoid being targeted by Donald Trump.

What this reveals is that the roots of our democracy are much shallower than we thought.

It’s like a weeping willow tree—large, magisterial, but with very shallow roots.

They can be blown over easily.

We are seeing people who should be the heart and soul of protecting democracy failing to live up to that obligation.

Members of Congress are not adhering to their oaths of office. They make the laws, but the president is only supposed to execute them—as Senator Angus King has reminded us.

We are not seeing resistance in private institutions or corporations. Instead, we are seeing preemptive capitulation.

Even within government, many are complying in advance, obeying before any direct pressure is applied.

And those who take a stand are suffering consequences for their principles.

That is difficult, but if there is one thing about this moment, it is that this is an “I am Spartacus” moment.

This is when people must stand together.

You cannot just say, well, it’s happening to someone else, so I’ll keep my head down.

I know people think warnings like these are chicken little moments—the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

But when people warned about Project 2025, Donald Trump dismissed it, saying, don’t worry, I disagree with that, it’s not my thing.

We now know that wasn’t true.

It’s all being carried out, right now.

And if you care about democracy, this is the moment you stand up.

Generations before us have fought for democracy.

We have living examples in Ukraine.

We have the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr.

We have the feminist movement, which has fought for equality for generations and continues today.

We have the so-called Greatest Generation—those who fought in World War II.

They were not losers and suckers.

They were people who made a decision about what mattered—what it means to be alive and what you stand for.

This is that moment.

There is a long history of people making the right choice—choosing what they stand for and what they are willing to sacrifice for it.

As I said, this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

But this is the moment for people to understand that they must stand up and be counted.

I have talked about what people can do on this Substack before, offering practical steps that any individual can take, based on what they believe is important.

There are meaningful ways to take action.

But it’s not enough to just recognize what’s happening.

If you feel like I do, then you need to take lawful action and make your voice heard—within a democracy, while we still have it.

Thank you.