Andrew Weissmann > Quotes

“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins,” John Locke wrote, a sentiment that is carved indelibly into the limestone walls of the Department of Justice in Washington.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation

“There is no other way to put it: Our country is now faced with the problem of a lawless White House which addresses itself to every new dilemma or check on its power with the belief that following the rules is optional, and that breaking them comes at minimal, if not zero, cost. Sadly, though wrong-headed, this belief has been continually reinforced by the many institutions that have opted not to prove to the president, through their legitimate powers of oversight, that he is, in fact, not above the law; and specifically by an Attorney General and White House counsel who think of themselves as defense attorneys representing the personal interest of the president, rather than as public officials who represent the interest of the presidency and serve the public.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation

“The power to pardon is conferred upon the presidency. It is not a personal power of the man or woman who inhabits the office. ... Where a pardon is being used to protect the president personally, or protect the president’s family, friends, or conspirators, it should not be seen as a valid exercise of that constitutional power.

Being able to tell one scenario from the other may not be difficult. Until Trump’s presidency, all recent presidents used a formal process for evaluating and granting pardons. Where pardons are awarded to conspirators of the president, and without any consistent rationale to support them, a court could find the pardon to be an invalid exercise of the power of the presidency.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation

“But the true delights of mobspeak, I found, stretched much further. The mobsters we dealt with were adept at casually twisting English into streetwise poetry and hilarious malapropisms. A cooperating witness, Joey Ambrosino, once told me his captain hadn’t directly come out and admitted a crime to him. “It was more of an insinnuendo,” he explained.”
― Andrew Weissmann

“I wanna be sure you know that, at any juncture, if you think I am a distraction to the work of the office or unnecessary baggage, I do not want to be here. I’d want to go. I’d want to do what is necessary for the success of our mission.”

Mueller started nodding. He could now see where all my meandering was headed, and he was uninterested in taking the ride. “Are you done?” he said. I nodded. “Well,” he said, “you needn’t worry. If I have to fire you, I won’t be considering your feelings on the matter—at all.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation

“This book is meant to be a sobering dissection of an urgent problem facing our country: our body politic is vulnerable to political lies, and our laws have so far failed to protect this Achilles heel. We need to adapt, lest the next dissection be part of an autopsy.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America

“Within eighteen months, we had numerous cooperating witnesses—and not just lower level associates. Soldiers and captains turned. Even Carmine Sessa, the family’s consigliere, cooperated. One prominent mob defense lawyer wisecracked to me that there was so much flipping going on, the Colombo family was now being referred to among defense attorneys as the House of Pancakes.”
― Andrew Weissmann

“No wonder that, many years later, FBI Director Louis Freeh required all incoming FBI special agents to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, to understand the great power they soon would be privileged to wield and to absorb what can happen when that power goes unchecked.”
― Andrew Weissmann, Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America

“When defecating in the Capitol is glorified by our own leaders as patriotic, how can a representative democracy survive?”
― Andrew Weissmann, Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America

“Today, we face a choice of our own. Do we allow the deliberate erosion of truth in the name of a nonexistent “right to lie”?”
― Andrew Weissmann, Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America