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On this week’s Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss FBI integrity and the Mueller investigation, former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar’s trial, and the end of the government shutdown.
Here are some of the links and references from this week’s show:
- Matt Zapotosky for the Washington Post: “FBI Failed to Save Texts From Thousands of Phones in Glitch That Affected Officials Once on Mueller Team”
- Ryan Lucas for NPR: “ ‘Criminal Cabal’? FBI Fears Political Attack May Imperil Work of Field Agents”
- Research by Paul G. Cassell in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology: “Crime Victims’ Rights During Criminal Investigations? Applying the Crime Victims’ Rights Act Before Criminal Charges Are Filed”
- Mark Joseph Stern for Slate: “Larry Nassar’s Victims Deserved a Judge Like Rosemarie Aquilina”
- Pete Vernon for Columbia Journalism Review: “The Media Today: At Nassar Sentencing, ‘Thank God We Had These Journalists’ ”
Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:
- Emily: The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court struck down the state’s gerrymandered district maps
- John: The strange behavior of the assassin of President Garfield in Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
- David: Ronen Bergman’s New York Times piece, “How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine”
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, the hosts debate why President Donald Trump’s payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels didn’t get more attention. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gabfestplus.
Topic ideas for next week? You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest (#heygabfest). (Tweets may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
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Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank. Links compiled by Izzy Rode.
