Latest / The Oath and The Office / Trump’s DOJ Is Hiding the Epstein Files. Katie Phang Is Suing.

Transcript

Trump’s DOJ Is Hiding the Epstein Files. Katie Phang Is Suing. · The Oath and The Office

0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Oath and the Office. I am John
0:13
Speaker 1: Fugel saying, and I am so pleased and proud to
0:15
Speaker 1: welcome the star of our show, the Mac, the Alpha
0:19
Speaker 1: and the Omega, the Ayah Toola of Rock and ROLLA
0:22
Speaker 1: the man who enriches the lives of students in the
0:24
Speaker 1: poly side apartment at Brown but only because he was
0:27
Speaker 1: kicked out of Wu Tang clan for being too hardcore.
0:30
Speaker 2: People of Earth.
0:30
Speaker 1: You wanted the best, you got the best I give you,
0:33
Speaker 1: Professor Corey Bretschneider, How was that was that?
0:36
Speaker 2: An okay intro? Professor?
0:37
Speaker 3: I love this, John, I mean honestly, I'll come to
0:40
Speaker 3: do the show to talk about the constitutional issues, the
0:43
Speaker 3: threat to democracy. But the thing that really gives me
0:46
Speaker 3: pleasure is that each week these intros get more and
0:49
Speaker 3: more absurd and brilliant.
0:51
Speaker 2: So think I listened.
0:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure that if I find the right code to
0:54
Speaker 1: being your hype man, I can get into law school.
0:56
Speaker 2: It seems like that's how it works. Professor.
0:58
Speaker 1: It's good to see you. It's been a pretty crazy
1:01
Speaker 1: couple of days. And one of the themes that you
1:04
Speaker 1: often cover in your work is that democracies don't usually
1:08
Speaker 1: collapse through one awful dramatic event. Instead, leaders gradually turn
1:13
Speaker 1: institutions designed to serve the public into tools that serve themselves.
1:18
Speaker 2: And let's talk.
1:20
Speaker 1: About America the sweet Cory, because nothing says the intel
1:23
Speaker 1: community is in good hands, like Donald Trump getting up
1:25
Speaker 1: at three point fifty four in the morning and changing
1:28
Speaker 1: his Director of National Intelligence nominee on social media like
1:32
Speaker 1: he's rearranging his fantasy football lineups. I don't know, professor.
1:36
Speaker 1: I have many questions about what's going on here.
1:38
Speaker 2: I think I.
1:38
Speaker 1: Understand the Office of Director of National Intelligence. It impacts
1:42
Speaker 1: all of our lives. It oversees seventeen intel agencies, handles
1:46
Speaker 1: classified information, and coordinates counter terrorism, cyber threats, and foreign
1:51
Speaker 1: espionage and nuclear risks. So logically, Donald Trump puts Bill Pulty,
1:56
Speaker 1: a mortgage official with no national security experience, in that job.
2:00
Speaker 1: I've got it right, so far right. And then he says, okay, well,
2:03
Speaker 1: it's temporary. Here's my nominee, and it's going to be
2:07
Speaker 1: Jay Clayton. But just before he's nominated, Jake Clayton goes
2:11
Speaker 1: on CNBC two weeks ago and suggested there might be
2:15
Speaker 1: possible opportunities where conceivably, you never know, it could have happened.
2:20
Speaker 1: California engaged in election fraud, and within days of saying that,
2:25
Speaker 1: because you know, again, if you're in MAGA and you
2:27
Speaker 1: say California election fraud, that's like having a PhD.
2:30
Speaker 2: Right.
2:30
Speaker 1: So then Trump announces he's the nominee to oversee our
2:34
Speaker 1: satellite intel and our covert opts this guy because he
2:37
Speaker 1: thinks they cheated in California, or at least he's willing
2:40
Speaker 1: to lie about that. So last week Jake Clayton was
2:44
Speaker 1: the future of American Intelligence professor. This week Bill Pulti,
2:48
Speaker 1: who never left, is back from the G seven. Trump
2:52
Speaker 1: canceled his own nominee Senate hearing, and I guess said
2:55
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud. This country gets no confirmed
2:58
Speaker 1: intelligence chief unless the state passes the incredibly unpopular Save
3:03
Speaker 1: America Act with his Proof of Citizenship voter bill that
3:07
Speaker 1: takes rights away from Americans, makes it harder for women
3:11
Speaker 1: to vote, and reauthorizes FIZA on his term. So Bill Poulti,
3:15
Speaker 1: the mortgage guy with no national security experience, is back
3:19
Speaker 1: in the chair. Have I gotten this right?
3:21
Speaker 3: Corey?
3:21
Speaker 2: Have I gotten the facts right?
3:22
Speaker 3: So far, there have been a lot of twist and turns.
3:26
Speaker 3: This episode, we're going to talk about Bill Poulty. We're
3:28
Speaker 3: going to go in depth on this FISA law and
3:30
Speaker 3: explain what it is, where it comes from, and why
3:33
Speaker 3: it's so dangerous at this moment. And our theme is
3:36
Speaker 3: going to be transparency, understanding what's happening more generally in
3:40
Speaker 3: this country when it comes to threats to democracy. And
3:43
Speaker 3: of course I don't want to miss the fact that
3:45
Speaker 3: Katie Fang, in this incredible lawsuit trying to get transparency
3:49
Speaker 3: in the Epstein files, is going to be our guest
3:51
Speaker 3: in the second half. And the connection to this theme
3:55
Speaker 3: is really about understanding the secrecy that exists within the
3:59
Speaker 3: exact A branch, not just in regard to the Epstein files.
4:02
Speaker 3: We've been focused on that, but I just want to
4:04
Speaker 3: set this up. You know, we have an apparatus, a
4:07
Speaker 3: national intelligence apparatus, which has a court, its own court,
4:11
Speaker 3: the PIES, a court which isn't subject to the exact
4:14
Speaker 3: same rules as normal Article three courts. And there are
4:17
Speaker 3: powers that have been granted not just through the nineteen
4:21
Speaker 3: seventy eight FIS A law, but through its extension by
4:24
Speaker 3: George W. Bush to really give the ability to intelligence
4:29
Speaker 3: officers without a warrant to spy in American citizens.
4:33
Speaker 4: Now there are rules, you know, it.
4:34
Speaker 3: Has to be in regard to people outside the country
4:38
Speaker 3: who are suspected of possible threats to the US government.
4:41
Speaker 4: But I don't want to lose the bottom line.
4:43
Speaker 3: What this law does in its current form is that
4:46
Speaker 3: it gives this administration the ability to skip the Fourth Amendment,
4:50
Speaker 3: to skip the protection against Unreasonable Search and Seizure, to
4:53
Speaker 3: skip the warrant process, and to spy in American citizens.
4:57
Speaker 4: Now, you know, you could say George W.
4:59
Speaker 3: Bus or Obama or Clinton, maybe it wasn't so bad.
5:03
Speaker 3: But now we're talking about and not just Trump, but
5:07
Speaker 3: this Bill Poulty, somebody without national security clearance through Senators
5:12
Speaker 3: are rightly worried, is going to spy on American citizens
5:15
Speaker 3: in order to shut down Trump's opponents and to help him.
5:18
Speaker 1: Because how did Trump go after Letitia James? How did
5:21
Speaker 1: Trump go after the New York State Attorney General going
5:24
Speaker 1: after mortgage payments? And He's hired the mortgage guy to
5:27
Speaker 1: go after to use that, to use the National security
5:31
Speaker 1: apparatus to go after his perceived enemies for their real
5:35
Speaker 1: estate dealings.
5:36
Speaker 4: That's what it comes down.
5:37
Speaker 1: And this from a guy who launders money for the
5:39
Speaker 1: Russians with New York State real estate. I mean, Republicans
5:42
Speaker 1: wanted to quickly confirm this guy Clayton because they're trying
5:45
Speaker 1: to solve the surveillance, you know, and intelligence operations. So
5:48
Speaker 1: Trump's trying everything now to this voter I D.
5:50
Speaker 2: Bill.
5:51
Speaker 1: He's essentially blackmailing the Republicans on his own side, right,
5:56
Speaker 1: That's that's not going to work. This is a very
5:59
Speaker 1: I mean, the Same of America Act is deeply unpopular.
6:02
Speaker 1: This is the one that says if women have changed
6:04
Speaker 1: their names in their lifetimes, gotten married, or for whatever reason,
6:08
Speaker 1: you're become widowed, you might not be able to vote.
6:10
Speaker 1: You better find your birth certificate. I mean, we have
6:13
Speaker 1: intelligence leadership and national security surveillance, an election administration all
6:19
Speaker 1: becoming LinkedIn here. This seems like a really potentially dangerous fusion.
6:23
Speaker 3: Professor, you know, it's a great topic for this podcast.
6:26
Speaker 3: We're willing to go on depth and to unpack things.
6:28
Speaker 3: Look at all the different balls in the air that
6:30
Speaker 3: we have. We have the possible nomination of Jake Clayton,
6:33
Speaker 3: who was the SEC chair, who was the US attorney
6:37
Speaker 3: for the Southern District of New York, whose past Senate
6:40
Speaker 3: confirmation is seen, as you know, despite what you rightly
6:43
Speaker 3: pointed out in the horrible statements, not part of Trump
6:46
Speaker 3: world in the way Trump wants. And then you have
6:49
Speaker 3: a pure loyalist and Bill Poulti, somebody that couldn't know
6:52
Speaker 3: way could be confirmed by the Senate. And yet he's
6:55
Speaker 3: you know, toying which one am I going to give
6:57
Speaker 3: you and what the Senate.
6:59
Speaker 4: Is rightly doing.
7:00
Speaker 3: And you know, that's the optimistic thing here is they're
7:02
Speaker 3: seeing the danger of Bill Poulti as the acting chief
7:05
Speaker 3: and they're especially seeing this is the thing I really
7:08
Speaker 3: don't want to lose that for so much of American history,
7:11
Speaker 3: our laws have been set up to delegate massive power
7:15
Speaker 3: out of trust to the executive branch to the president. Okay,
7:19
Speaker 3: we're going to skip warrants here.
7:20
Speaker 4: There's a war on terror.
7:21
Speaker 3: We're going to trust that whatever administration is isn't going
7:25
Speaker 3: to use it to shut down descent to spy on opponents. Now,
7:29
Speaker 3: with Bill Poultie, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he's
7:32
Speaker 3: going to do. And thankfully we have senators, including I
7:35
Speaker 3: mentioned Senator Widen, who will be our guest in a
7:37
Speaker 3: few weeks, who are recognizing this is a danger, not
7:41
Speaker 3: just because Bill Poulti is a danger, but because legislation
7:44
Speaker 3: that enables somebody in that position to skip warrants, it
7:47
Speaker 3: puts them in a perfect position if they want to
7:49
Speaker 3: destroy democracy, to spy on opponents, to shut down descent.
7:53
Speaker 3: It is scary, and that's.
7:55
Speaker 4: What this fight is about.
7:56
Speaker 3: And thankfully, you know, the story easily could have been skipped,
7:59
Speaker 3: this renewal of Fiza and the section that was added.
8:03
Speaker 2: Y stuff to be at our show with Cory it
8:05
Speaker 2: really is.
8:06
Speaker 3: But I'm telling you, man, if we don't recognize what's happening,
8:09
Speaker 3: this is the doorway in which it's just a little
8:12
Speaker 3: bit of democracy gets destroyed, a lot of it using
8:15
Speaker 3: the National Security Operatus to spy on opponents.
8:18
Speaker 1: Well, and they said when they did this bizarre three
8:20
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning lineup change, well, the president enjoys
8:24
Speaker 1: a slight bit of intrigue, that's what they said. The
8:27
Speaker 1: President enjoys like it's the finale of Survivor.
8:30
Speaker 2: You know, there's a.
8:30
Speaker 1: Slight bit of the apprentice American Intelligence apparatus.
8:34
Speaker 2: He enjoys a slight bit of it.
8:35
Speaker 1: Like he's still programming a reality show. One week it's Tulsi,
8:39
Speaker 1: that it's Bill Poulty, then it's Jay Clayton, then it's
8:42
Speaker 1: Bill Paulty again, and I guess next week it's.
8:44
Speaker 2: Gonna be Kid Rock.
8:45
Speaker 1: But Professor, what would the founders have thought about a
8:49
Speaker 1: chief executive effectively saying I refuse to move forward on
8:55
Speaker 1: intelligence leadership unless I get the election law.
8:59
Speaker 3: I want you know what ties all of these different
9:02
Speaker 3: threads together.
9:03
Speaker 4: You know, what do all this save act?
9:05
Speaker 3: What does all this have to do with the confirmation
9:09
Speaker 3: of the Director of National Intelligence or the use of
9:11
Speaker 3: acting of acting DNI. What it has to do with
9:15
Speaker 3: is that Trump is thinking about one thing, how do
9:17
Speaker 3: I spy on my opponents?
9:18
Speaker 4: How do I destroy them? How do I hang on
9:20
Speaker 4: to power? How do I not lose the mid terms?
9:23
Speaker 3: And all of these things are his different mechanisms. That's
9:26
Speaker 3: the lens that he's seeing it all through to well,
9:29
Speaker 3: to shut down our civil liberties, shut down our democracy,
9:32
Speaker 3: and extend his own power. If you see it all
9:34
Speaker 3: through there, then it all makes complete sense. Those these
9:37
Speaker 3: are the bargaining ships that he's trying to use. You
9:40
Speaker 3: asked about the Founders, and we really need to pivot
9:42
Speaker 3: to history, because you know, the Founders were worried about
9:46
Speaker 3: the war powers that in England, the monarch had the
9:49
Speaker 3: ability to initiate war, to carry it out. And with
9:52
Speaker 3: those war powers came the danger of shutdown of national
9:56
Speaker 3: civil liberties, of civil liberties within the United States, and
9:59
Speaker 3: so they them up. They limited the president's power in
10:02
Speaker 3: Article two. And what we've done in the twentieth century
10:05
Speaker 3: over time, and even Carter, who in his signing statement
10:09
Speaker 3: Offiza talked about the need to balance, as he put it,
10:13
Speaker 3: human rights and his speech signing the law human rights
10:16
Speaker 3: on the one hand, and also the need for national security.
10:18
Speaker 3: That's what he was concerned to do. He created an
10:21
Speaker 3: apparatus which was.
10:22
Speaker 4: Then extended during the G. W. Bush administration to.
10:25
Speaker 3: Allow for undermining the very protections that the Framers put
10:30
Speaker 3: in there against the president that was going to shut
10:32
Speaker 3: down our civil liberties. And I'll just mention again the
10:35
Speaker 3: most important not just the limits in Article two, but
10:38
Speaker 3: the Fourth Amendment, which says government can't just spy on
10:41
Speaker 3: us with no reason. It needs reason in order to
10:44
Speaker 3: do what it's doing. And there's a restriction on unreasonable search,
10:48
Speaker 3: in seizure, the monarchist idea that king could simply just
10:53
Speaker 3: spy on or shut down his opposition. No, they were
10:56
Speaker 3: resisting that, but through a series of laws, including five.
11:00
Speaker 3: There's a danger of undermining that, especially and I can't
11:03
Speaker 3: emphasize this enough, especially in the hands of Director of
11:08
Speaker 3: National Intelligence, who's going to use all these tools that
11:11
Speaker 3: the government has to shut down opponents. I will say
11:15
Speaker 3: one other thing, which is a lot of the debate,
11:18
Speaker 3: is about Jake Clayton. Well, if Jake Clayton's in charge,
11:21
Speaker 3: maybe we can reauthorize FIZA, we can have all this.
11:24
Speaker 3: I met Jay Clayton, I got to shake his hand
11:26
Speaker 3: at Brown, been told by a lot of people he's
11:29
Speaker 3: a decent guy. You know. Maybe, but I don't think
11:32
Speaker 3: we can hand over this power to this administration, whether
11:36
Speaker 3: it's to a confirm Jake Clayton or not.
11:38
Speaker 4: So I don't want to just.
11:39
Speaker 3: Talk about the need for a confirmed Director of National Intelligence.
11:42
Speaker 3: One thing I'm very excited to talk to Senator Widen
11:45
Speaker 3: about is the reform of our laws to not trust
11:48
Speaker 3: that a president.
11:49
Speaker 4: Is going to abide by the Fourth Amendment.
11:52
Speaker 3: We need the actual protection and oversight of courts and
11:56
Speaker 3: so No, I don't like this idea of simply affirming FIS.
12:01
Speaker 4: It needs to be reformed.
12:02
Speaker 3: I believe why it is among those. I'm also hearing
12:05
Speaker 3: about people like Ram Paul joining.
12:07
Speaker 2: This after love being on his side. That's great.
12:10
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to take the help that we can
12:12
Speaker 3: get at this point because what we really need to
12:14
Speaker 3: do is to reform these laws.
12:16
Speaker 1: No, we're gonna have to be awkward roommates with a
12:18
Speaker 1: lot of libertarians that make this work.
12:21
Speaker 4: You know, I love that John awkward roommates.
12:23
Speaker 1: It's everything that we've talked about though, because we keep
12:27
Speaker 1: expecting it's going to be like Star Wars episode three, right,
12:30
Speaker 1: like Revenge of the Sith, like some big thing's going
12:32
Speaker 1: to happen, and we will watch in real time as
12:35
Speaker 1: our republic becomes an empire in falls where it's going
12:38
Speaker 1: to and in reality, No, it's it's just gradual democratic erosion,
12:42
Speaker 1: and it's easy to miss it because it doesn't happen
12:45
Speaker 1: through big operatic events. It's just through boring, procedural maneuvering.
12:50
Speaker 1: And now our intel services are being run through like
12:53
Speaker 1: midnight social media posts and loyalty tests and Senate panic attacks.
12:58
Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong?
13:00
Speaker 3: And I have to go a way to put it, John,
13:01
Speaker 3: And I'll just say one other thing, which is so
13:03
Speaker 3: much of the apparatus is already in place. Our democracy
13:07
Speaker 3: was eroded over time without knowing it, all with the
13:10
Speaker 3: belief that, oh, a president wouldn't survey his political opponents,
13:13
Speaker 3: wouldn't use this information to shut down so.
13:16
Speaker 1: Both he would ever be so pathetic and thirs to
13:19
Speaker 1: do that in the open, My god, no president would
13:22
Speaker 1: have so little gain. They let themselves be seen doing that,
13:24
Speaker 1: they'd have dignity at least.
13:26
Speaker 4: In the past they hit it.
13:27
Speaker 3: But you know, I really think we've got to rethink
13:29
Speaker 3: the whole structure, this idea of trusting the executive branch
13:32
Speaker 3: when it comes to our civil liberties.
13:33
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
13:34
Speaker 3: The Framers put the Fourth Amendment there for a reason,
13:37
Speaker 3: and it has to be enforced.
13:38
Speaker 4: Well.
13:39
Speaker 1: That leads us to Gavin Newsom over there in California
13:41
Speaker 1: saying that Donald Trump's DOJ is investigating both him and
13:45
Speaker 1: his wife. Now, you know, congrats Gavin Newsom. If that's true.
13:50
Speaker 1: I know it will help with the fundraising and getting
13:52
Speaker 1: the campaign kicked off. But whether those investigations produce any charges.
13:57
Speaker 1: The governor's point is that the investigation itself can become punishment.
14:02
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this. Donald Trump's not going after
14:04
Speaker 1: Jim Comby because he believes Comy's a risk to people
14:09
Speaker 1: for assembling seashells a certain way.
14:11
Speaker 2: And he's not.
14:12
Speaker 1: Going after Komy to try to put him in jail
14:14
Speaker 1: for He's trying to go after Coby to bankrupt Comy
14:17
Speaker 1: with legal costs. That's what he's done his entire life.
14:20
Speaker 1: He's got billions of dollars in inherited wealth, and we
14:23
Speaker 1: have learned that if you have the money, the court system,
14:26
Speaker 1: the judicial branch, can be a thing you use to
14:29
Speaker 1: hurt people. This is something I don't think the founders
14:32
Speaker 1: ever could have foreseen that you can just sue people,
14:34
Speaker 1: sue people, sue people because you know they can't. Oh,
14:37
Speaker 1: you don't pay your contractors, let him sue you, and
14:39
Speaker 1: if they sue you.
14:40
Speaker 2: Sue them back.
14:41
Speaker 1: This is this guy's whole life, and he's got an angle.
14:45
Speaker 1: He's trying to punish someone, and he's using the libres
14:47
Speaker 1: of our government to hurt people for telling the truth
14:50
Speaker 1: about him. You've talked so much about how authoritarian systems
14:54
Speaker 1: weaponize legal institutions. Do you agree that investigations like this
14:59
Speaker 1: themsel are the power abuse.
15:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
15:03
Speaker 3: You know, in the seventeen ninety eight shutdown of the opposition,
15:06
Speaker 3: there were convictions for criticizing the president. They did it
15:10
Speaker 3: in the open, and they relied on the courts to
15:13
Speaker 3: imprison people. Well, this is a different technique because courts
15:17
Speaker 3: repeatedly are rejecting these lawsuits. They will when it comes
15:20
Speaker 3: to Gavin Newsom. And let's not leave out too that
15:23
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom is saying that his wife is also a
15:25
Speaker 3: target of this investigation. And yet what we've seen is
15:30
Speaker 3: that and you know, Trump is expanding this power rep
15:33
Speaker 3: but what we've seen is courts refusing to act on
15:36
Speaker 3: these lawsuits. And I think that is what will happen
15:38
Speaker 3: in the case of Gavin Newsom. They refuse to move
15:41
Speaker 3: forward with the Letitia James case. I don't think this
15:43
Speaker 3: James comy ridiculous lawsuit is going anywhere. We'll see judges
15:47
Speaker 3: and if need be, juries pushed back. But as we
15:49
Speaker 3: talked about last week, and really this story is an
15:51
Speaker 3: extension of our discussion with Harry Linman, who was in
15:55
Speaker 3: the Department of justice for a long period of time.
15:58
Speaker 3: It's not about winning, it's about say people. It's about
16:01
Speaker 3: the chilling effect. And we talked on the Oath in
16:03
Speaker 3: the Office Substack last week about the chilling effect.
16:06
Speaker 4: The idea is that you just have to threaten people.
16:09
Speaker 4: You don't have to actually carry out the threat to
16:11
Speaker 4: make them or.
16:12
Speaker 2: You don't even need chargers to be filed.
16:14
Speaker 3: And that's what's going on with these ridiculous lawsuits. And
16:16
Speaker 3: you add to the fact that this ridiculous acting Attorney
16:21
Speaker 3: General thinks that even if there's no basis in law
16:24
Speaker 3: that the president of the United States has the right
16:26
Speaker 3: the power to do that. You know, the first person
16:28
Speaker 3: to say, hey, you can't do that should be the
16:30
Speaker 3: Attorney general. This guy is the president's personal lawyer who
16:33
Speaker 3: sees Article two creating the presidency as a kind of dictatorship.
16:37
Speaker 3: The president can do anything he wants. Now, even if
16:40
Speaker 3: the lawsuits don't go anywhere, and I don't think they will,
16:43
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter because they're going to get the effect
16:45
Speaker 3: that they want. And when we saw universities backing down
16:48
Speaker 3: to Trump, when we saw those law firms, including firms
16:51
Speaker 3: that surprise me like Scatin Arms, backing down.
16:54
Speaker 4: That was the chilling effect. They didn't wen't going to
16:56
Speaker 4: win in court.
16:56
Speaker 3: It didn't matter.
16:57
Speaker 4: People didn't want to deal with it. And that's what's
16:59
Speaker 4: going on here.
17:00
Speaker 1: I mean, does the Constitution provide adequate safeguards against a
17:04
Speaker 1: president using his investigative powers against his political rivals? I mean,
17:08
Speaker 1: this show has kind of turned into, oh, here's something
17:11
Speaker 1: else the Founding fathers didn't think of.
17:14
Speaker 2: I mean, all these.
17:16
Speaker 1: Stress tests, does the Constitution provide any kind of safeguards
17:19
Speaker 1: against this sort of thing?
17:20
Speaker 3: Well, you know some of the framers, Patrick Henry is
17:22
Speaker 3: I'm fond of quoting.
17:24
Speaker 4: He did see the danger.
17:25
Speaker 3: He was like, this presidency that you're creating an Article
17:28
Speaker 3: two is so powerful and the checks so weak, the courts,
17:32
Speaker 3: the Congress.
17:34
Speaker 4: They're going to just blow through them. Now.
17:36
Speaker 3: What has worked in the past is citizens, you know,
17:38
Speaker 3: on this show and others, and the election the midterms,
17:41
Speaker 3: standing up and saying no, we're not going to deal
17:43
Speaker 3: with this. Now there is another check, and that's jury's
17:46
Speaker 3: I talk in my book about the Nixon grand jury,
17:48
Speaker 3: the grand juries, and the Founding period who refused to
17:51
Speaker 3: indict political opponents of John Adams. What all of those
17:55
Speaker 3: have in common is that it was not public officials,
17:58
Speaker 3: it was citizens who pushed back. And here, I think
18:01
Speaker 3: that's going to be part of it. And let's not
18:03
Speaker 3: forget the heroism. You know, people like James Comy aren't
18:05
Speaker 3: backing down. Gavin Hoosome, of course, is not backing down.
18:09
Speaker 3: So you know, it's time for bravery. And that's what
18:11
Speaker 3: we're starting to see, and let's continue to celebrate that.
18:14
Speaker 2: Corey.
18:15
Speaker 1: Before we get to the break, I just want to
18:16
Speaker 1: ask what parallels scare you the most here? Is it
18:19
Speaker 1: Nixon or Hungary or Turkey or other democracies in decline.
18:24
Speaker 3: Well, you know, democracy is so fragile, and I always
18:27
Speaker 3: go back to that John Adams period of seventeen ninety
18:30
Speaker 3: eight because the right to free speech is so precarious.
18:32
Speaker 4: The Supreme Court is supposed to protect it.
18:35
Speaker 3: But what scares me about seventeen ninety eight is that
18:37
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court lobbied Samuel Chase, lobbied for this Edition Act,
18:41
Speaker 3: and then sat on the trials to shut it down.
18:43
Speaker 3: So the idea that we're going to just have the
18:45
Speaker 3: Supreme Court protect us or the judiciary protect us, I'm
18:48
Speaker 3: worried about that both because there are ways through legislation.
18:51
Speaker 3: That's what we've been talking about in the fis of
18:53
Speaker 3: law and its extension to evade the Constitution. There are
18:57
Speaker 3: ways of shutting down free speech by ignoring courts. So
19:01
Speaker 3: we really need a revival in this country of our
19:03
Speaker 3: commitment to constitutionalism. And in the meantime, what we've got
19:07
Speaker 3: is Gavin Newsom and James call me and Letitia James
19:10
Speaker 3: and people refusing to back down. And that's why we're
19:13
Speaker 3: doing this podcast.
19:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the Constitution is like a dog. These
19:17
Speaker 1: people left locked in a hot car in August. We
19:19
Speaker 1: got to take a break. Professor back in a moment,
19:21
Speaker 1: and Katie Thing will be joining us very shortly.
19:23
Speaker 2: Don't go away.
19:24
Speaker 1: This is the Oath and the Office.
19:30
Speaker 4: Hi everyone, it's Corey.
19:32
Speaker 3: I'm jumping on here to let you know that Amazon
19:35
Speaker 3: Prime Days is featuring my book The Presidents and the People.
19:38
Speaker 3: Five leaders who threatened democracy and the citizens who fought
19:41
Speaker 3: to defend it. It's only two dollars and ninety nine
19:44
Speaker 3: cents on Kindle, so check it out. It's a book
19:48
Speaker 3: about why the presidency itself is a danger to democracy
19:52
Speaker 3: and why five times before Donald Trump we've seen presidents
19:56
Speaker 3: threaten democracy. Even some of the supposed hero people like
20:00
Speaker 3: John Adams and Woodrow Wilson, I argue, actually, we're deeply
20:04
Speaker 3: authoritarian in their understandings of the Constitution. But this isn't
20:08
Speaker 3: a book without hope. In fact, it's a book all
20:10
Speaker 3: about hope. It's a book about citizens who fought back,
20:14
Speaker 3: some of whom you've heard of, like Frederick Douglas, Others
20:18
Speaker 3: that you likely haven't, like Sadie Alexander. I interview Daniel
20:21
Speaker 3: Ellsberg for the book, and it's about his role. And
20:24
Speaker 3: my argument is that these citizens not just fought back
20:27
Speaker 3: against authoritarian presidents, but they prevailed. They prevailed by appealing
20:33
Speaker 3: to recovery presidents who put the constitution back.
20:36
Speaker 4: So in a dire time, check it out.
20:39
Speaker 3: This is a book about hope, and I think it's
20:41
Speaker 3: really a remedy to what we're facing every week with
20:43
Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
20:45
Speaker 4: At any rate.
20:45
Speaker 3: I hope you liked the book, and thanks so much
20:48
Speaker 3: for listening to this podcast and for making it so successful.
20:51
Speaker 3: So once again, the name of the book is the
20:53
Speaker 3: Presidents and the people. Five leaders who threatened democracy and
20:57
Speaker 3: the citizens who fought to defend it. You can get
21:00
Speaker 3: it for only two dollars and ninety nine cents and
21:02
Speaker 3: Amazon Prime days on Kindle.
21:09
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the office, I'm John
21:11
Speaker 1: Fugel saying, hey, you know, Corey, with all the great
21:13
Speaker 1: ratings and reviews for this show, we should tell people
21:16
Speaker 1: to subscribe. I think I mean, what would be number
21:18
Speaker 1: three this week on Apple Government Podcasts?
21:20
Speaker 2: Good lord, we.
21:21
Speaker 3: Are number three last week on Apple podcast Government. And
21:25
Speaker 3: if you've been with us for a long time, as
21:26
Speaker 3: so many of our amazing listeners have been, thank you
21:29
Speaker 3: you've put us there. If you're new to the show,
21:31
Speaker 3: you're joining us for the first time, hit that subscribe
21:34
Speaker 3: button on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to us.
21:37
Speaker 1: Right on, Corey, I'm really sorry we have to talk
21:40
Speaker 1: about Pete hag Seth.
21:42
Speaker 2: You've been so good to me.
21:43
Speaker 1: I hate to make you do this, but Secretary of
21:45
Speaker 1: Jaegermeister is back to his old tricks. He doesn't like
21:49
Speaker 1: it when military brass say, hey, these black men and
21:54
Speaker 1: women are due to be promoted as generals because of merit.
21:59
Speaker 1: That really up sets them. DEI was there to keep
22:02
Speaker 1: unqualified white men from getting jobs they don't deserve. Light
22:05
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth. So once again we have reports that he
22:08
Speaker 1: has delayed it or blocked even more promotions for senior
22:11
Speaker 1: military officers, and they just so happened to be African
22:15
Speaker 1: American or female.
22:17
Speaker 2: Corey, I don't even know what to say.
22:19
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a difference between changing military policy
22:23
Speaker 1: and changing who is allowed to rise within the military hierarchy.
22:27
Speaker 1: Right for them to come in and say, we don't
22:29
Speaker 1: want a woke military, we don't want a dei military,
22:32
Speaker 1: that's one thing, but it appears that was just the
22:34
Speaker 1: code we knew for we don't want anyone other than
22:37
Speaker 1: white heterosexual males to advance in this military.
22:42
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, I'd love to talk endlessly about
22:44
Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth and his ridiculous costplaying of exercise and business.
22:49
Speaker 2: Interesting person and spirituality is great too.
22:52
Speaker 3: And as much as I'd like to do that, I
22:54
Speaker 3: also want to talk about the ideology that this is revealing,
22:57
Speaker 3: which is the supposed ideology of what sometimes called meritocracy.
23:01
Speaker 3: Who's not for meritocracy that sounds like a great thing,
23:04
Speaker 3: or color blindness, which.
23:07
Speaker 4: Also could be a good thing and.
23:09
Speaker 1: Some but when you don't want to, when your racism
23:13
Speaker 1: is threatened by the idea of being color conscious. You'd
23:16
Speaker 1: much rather talk about color blindness.
23:18
Speaker 3: So let's look at the context that they're using these
23:20
Speaker 3: words in, and as benign as they sound, that's what's
23:23
Speaker 3: going on here. This supposed Secretary of War really Secretary
23:26
Speaker 3: of Defense, because the name, my understanding is is still
23:30
Speaker 3: the Secretary of Defense, despite what he might call themself.
23:32
Speaker 1: I call them the Secretary of America because I'm a
23:34
Speaker 1: past go on.
23:36
Speaker 3: But you know this, this meritocracy idea is just being
23:40
Speaker 3: used as a mass for racism, and the same I'll
23:42
Speaker 3: say for color blindness, whether it's Pete Hegseth or Clarence Thomas.
23:46
Speaker 3: And the white supremacy that we're seeing here that again
23:49
Speaker 3: and again in these news stories that people of merit
23:52
Speaker 3: Let's not lose that word to the claiming people claiming
23:56
Speaker 3: meritocracy are being denied women because or because of their race.
24:02
Speaker 3: It is blunt discrimination. Let's call it what it is,
24:05
Speaker 3: white supremacy, an attempt to create second class citizenship for
24:09
Speaker 3: women and Black Americans who are part of the military.
24:12
Speaker 3: And he's doing it in the open, and the reporting
24:15
Speaker 3: again and again shows that how disgusting. Let's not let
24:18
Speaker 3: him claim that word meritocracy.
24:20
Speaker 1: I mean professional militaries, unlike politics, are designed to reward competence.
24:28
Speaker 1: It's like sports or dance, Like you can't fake some things.
24:31
Speaker 1: You can't fake it through. And I mean what happens
24:35
Speaker 1: when military advestment becomes tied to ideological conformity or white supremacy.
24:40
Speaker 1: I mean, how do authoritarian governments typically reshape military leadership.
24:47
Speaker 1: I've read plenty about how angry they were when Harry
24:49
Speaker 1: Truman desegregated our troops after World War Two.
24:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I should say too.
24:54
Speaker 3: You know that there's a long history, of course, of
24:56
Speaker 3: white supremacy in the military, although we had an integrated military.
25:00
Speaker 3: Woodrow Wilson resegregated the American military, was called out in
25:04
Speaker 3: real time by William and Roe Trotter and others. And
25:07
Speaker 3: it finally was at the behalse of the Civil Rights
25:09
Speaker 3: Committee during the Truman era that Harry Truman, through an
25:12
Speaker 3: executive order, desegregated the American military.
25:16
Speaker 4: Over the opposition of a lot of members of that military.
25:20
Speaker 3: But yet it was done successfully and we got to
25:22
Speaker 3: the point and I think the most important document actually
25:25
Speaker 3: in all of this, despite the importance of those two
25:27
Speaker 3: other historical periods. Is the military's brief in the Michigan case,
25:32
Speaker 3: which was about whether or not we could continue to
25:35
Speaker 3: have and I'll use the phrase that you use race
25:37
Speaker 3: conscious admissions in college. And what the military said in
25:41
Speaker 3: their brief in the Michigan case it was so important,
25:45
Speaker 3: was to function, we can't have discrimination in the top ranks.
25:48
Speaker 3: We need to have diversity, Yes, diversity in the top
25:51
Speaker 3: ranks of the military. And we're not going to go
25:54
Speaker 3: back to a period of all white male officers and
25:57
Speaker 3: an integrated core of enlisted military. And that idea that
26:05
Speaker 3: the military needed to be integrated at all levels was
26:08
Speaker 3: such a profound reason why the Supreme Court in the
26:11
Speaker 3: Michigan case upheld color conscious policy. Clarence Thomas has long
26:16
Speaker 3: hated that decision and finally has destroyed it through the
26:20
Speaker 3: Harvard case and the UNC case. And we now have
26:23
Speaker 3: color blind understanding of our constitution. And now in the
26:27
Speaker 3: military we're seeing what that really means. Color blindness means
26:30
Speaker 3: white supremacy.
26:31
Speaker 4: And the end.
26:32
Speaker 3: Of what was the military's policy finally of a strong
26:37
Speaker 3: you want a strong fighting for us, don't have an
26:39
Speaker 3: all white male officer corps. That was their point and
26:43
Speaker 3: Pete Hegg said, sees it a very different way.
26:44
Speaker 1: Oh, there's such idiots and our military why just Winata
26:47
Speaker 1: has become a real hero over the years in terms
26:49
Speaker 1: of fighting for affirmative action, filing briefs and court cases
26:53
Speaker 1: about affirmative action, because our military has gone on the
26:56
Speaker 1: record many times saying that having a more diversified caret
27:00
Speaker 1: a pool has been good for America's national defense. We
27:02
Speaker 1: got to hit a break or Katie Philk's going to
27:04
Speaker 1: get mad at us. Back in just a moment with
27:06
Speaker 1: our very special guests. This is the Oath in the Office.
27:13
Speaker 4: Hi everyone, it's Corey again.
27:15
Speaker 3: This time I'm jumping on to let you know about
27:17
Speaker 3: the Oath in the Office substack. If you're not on substack,
27:20
Speaker 3: you should be and check it out. What we're doing
27:23
Speaker 3: every week is taking our stories that we're talking about,
27:26
Speaker 3: taking the interviews that we're talking about, and we're providing
27:29
Speaker 3: some context, and we're also providing links to different articles
27:33
Speaker 3: that really explain the issues. So the Oath in the
27:35
Speaker 3: Office Substack, check it out.
27:42
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fiegel,
27:44
Speaker 1: Sang Professor. I'm very excited about our guest and I'd
27:47
Speaker 1: be excited about this guest even if they weren't suing
27:50
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche over access to Epstein related records.
27:54
Speaker 3: What a pleasure to welcome Katie Fang. You know her,
27:56
Speaker 3: of course from her show on MSNBC, and she's in
28:01
Speaker 3: addition to being a television host and a legal analyst,
28:04
Speaker 3: and now she is just especially excited to have her
28:07
Speaker 3: on the Oath in the Office to talk about this
28:10
Speaker 3: really pioneering lawsuit that she's bringing against Todd Blanche using
28:16
Speaker 3: this legislation that's passed that was supposed to get us
28:19
Speaker 3: access to the Epstein files, and listeners will be interested
28:22
Speaker 3: to know, of course, you know, how can we get access?
28:25
Speaker 3: And we've talked so much on this show about the
28:27
Speaker 3: role of citizens, not just public officials and courts, and
28:30
Speaker 3: here we have a citizen who's trying to answer that
28:32
Speaker 3: question to actually do it in real time to get
28:35
Speaker 3: us access to this material.
28:38
Speaker 1: So Katie was the world of media type. She's one
28:41
Speaker 1: of our great journalists as well.
28:43
Speaker 3: So Katie, welcome to the Oath in the Office. We're
28:45
Speaker 3: so excited to talk to you. I have a lot
28:47
Speaker 3: of questions. Can you just start off by telling us
28:50
Speaker 3: about this lawsuit.
28:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, so thanks for having me. It really is a
28:54
Speaker 5: thrill to be here first time.
28:56
Speaker 6: Long time. Oh let's see.
29:01
Speaker 5: So obviously a lot of us had been slogging through
29:06
Speaker 5: the various tranches of information that had been dropped by
29:10
Speaker 5: the Department of Justice, and we were all getting collectively frustrated.
29:16
Speaker 5: And I had noticed that part of what was happening
29:20
Speaker 5: is I would kind of like a dog picking up
29:22
Speaker 5: on a trail of a scent of something, right, I
29:25
Speaker 5: would start following it, and then I'd keep on hitting
29:28
Speaker 5: specific roadblocks, and part of it was I'll give you.
29:30
Speaker 6: Actually, this is a great example.
29:31
Speaker 5: Like yesterday, I did this big episode on my YouTube
29:34
Speaker 5: channel about a woman named Kathy Rummler who just had
29:39
Speaker 5: some bullshit apologist fluff piece in The Times come out
29:43
Speaker 5: in advance. I think of her trying to launder and
29:46
Speaker 5: whitewash her reputation before she appears in front of House
29:48
Speaker 5: Oversight for her transcribed interview in a few weeks. And
29:52
Speaker 5: I saw this text exchange between a redacted name and
29:57
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein, and I she got the gender totally wrong
30:02
Speaker 5: for who this person is, Like, I eventually sleuthed it
30:05
Speaker 5: with the help of other enterprising you know, viewers and subscribers.
30:11
Speaker 5: I was not only wrong about gender, it was actually
30:13
Speaker 5: a woman who her name is Melanie Walker, and she
30:17
Speaker 5: was like asshole buddies with Bill Gates and kind of
30:21
Speaker 5: was one of the people who facilitated the Gates Epstein connection.
30:24
Speaker 5: And to make a long story short, I was just wrong, right,
30:27
Speaker 5: So I'm talking about this text exchange, and the focus
30:30
Speaker 5: wasn't Melanie Walker or Gates per se, although part of
30:34
Speaker 5: this text exchange between Epstein and Walker was her saying, oh, hey,
30:39
Speaker 5: by the way, you know, I think I can try
30:43
Speaker 5: to help out with Melinda French Gates, who most certainly
30:47
Speaker 5: doesn't want to eat you. And we know that Melinda's
30:50
Speaker 5: spidery sense started tingling and that was actually part of
30:52
Speaker 5: the reason why she ended up getting divorced frankly from
30:55
Speaker 5: Bill Gates. But I guess this is such a quintessential
30:58
Speaker 5: example of how these improper reactions have led it to
31:04
Speaker 5: become very hard for me as a journalist and just
31:07
Speaker 5: as a public citizen, but specifically as a journalist to
31:10
Speaker 5: report on things with not only accuracy or but with depth. Right,
31:13
Speaker 5: Because I'd like to keep on chasing this down and
31:16
Speaker 5: So these brilliant lawyers at the Public Integrity Project, Brendan
31:20
Speaker 5: Ballou and sam Ward Packer, people that are doing the
31:24
Speaker 5: God's work, God's work right on earth right now. Brendan
31:27
Speaker 5: is one of the former J six prosecutors who represents
31:31
Speaker 5: Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges and their lawsuit because Congress
31:36
Speaker 5: passed a law but wouldn't put the J six plack
31:38
Speaker 5: up like they were supposed to to honor the law
31:41
Speaker 5: enforcement officers and put it in some random mass location intentionally,
31:45
Speaker 5: and Speaker Johnson has his head up his ass about
31:47
Speaker 5: why he can't do it right. So they're representing them,
31:50
Speaker 5: and they're also representing in a slew of lawsuits involving
31:53
Speaker 5: the billion dollar one point eight billion dollar slush fund. Anyway,
31:57
Speaker 5: these lawyers and I got together and we're are like, look,
32:00
Speaker 5: if you look at the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it
32:03
Speaker 5: was never written to give people a cause of action
32:06
Speaker 5: like you and me and others. In fact, you know,
32:09
Speaker 5: it doesn't even have a private right to a cause
32:11
Speaker 5: of action for the survivors whose confidentiality has been violated,
32:16
Speaker 5: which has now necessitated them trying to propose a law,
32:19
Speaker 5: which is ridiculous these poor people now have to go
32:21
Speaker 5: through a whole other you know, hoops to jump.
32:24
Speaker 6: Through for justice. But I was like, okay.
32:27
Speaker 5: So we looked at this and we're like, okay, no
32:29
Speaker 5: private right to a cause of action. But under the
32:31
Speaker 5: Administrative Procedure Act, if you don't do what you're supposed
32:34
Speaker 5: to do under the law in your federal agency, then
32:37
Speaker 5: you can sue. And I was like, you know what,
32:39
Speaker 5: So we kind of cabbled something together, and it's the
32:42
Speaker 5: very first lawsuit of its kind pursuing into the Epstein
32:45
Speaker 5: Files Transparency Act. And to be clear, it asks for
32:49
Speaker 5: most importantly a special Master who would sit there and
32:53
Speaker 5: the DOJ would come forward and say, oh hey, look,
32:56
Speaker 5: here's a redacted piece of paper. I have like a
32:58
Speaker 5: whole pile of redactions over here. Here's a REDACTEDS from yesterday.
33:02
Speaker 6: This is an exact example, right.
33:05
Speaker 5: So this is a text message between text message emails
33:08
Speaker 5: between Kathy Rumbler and Jeffrey Epstein, where she castigates Cigaret McCauley,
33:14
Speaker 5: who's a longtime advocate and lawyer for the Epstein survivors,
33:17
Speaker 5: and calls her victims rights. My ass is what this
33:19
Speaker 5: woman says, His former Obama Council Kathy Rumbler. Anyway, her
33:24
Speaker 5: email address is redacted. It's like the dumbest shit, And I'm.
33:29
Speaker 2: Like, okay, so dumb, it's very deliberate.
33:32
Speaker 5: Well yeah, yeah, Listen, the violation of the laws here
33:36
Speaker 5: is either just gross negligence to absolutely intentional misconduct, right,
33:39
Speaker 5: I mean, it runs that spectrum. But anyway, special Master
33:42
Speaker 5: would get this from the DOJ and they'd say this
33:45
Speaker 5: is shit and you can't do this, and it would
33:49
Speaker 5: be able to rectify that right, among other things.
33:51
Speaker 6: So that's kind of the gist of the lawsuits.
33:53
Speaker 5: And then it helps me as a journalist, be able
33:55
Speaker 5: to chase down more information in story.
33:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that.
34:00
Speaker 3: I mean, we're used to journalists, of course, having access
34:02
Speaker 3: to information through FOYA or through other techniques. But part
34:05
Speaker 3: of what you're saying is this law that was passed,
34:09
Speaker 3: the Epstein Transparency Act. Although it doesn't say that journalists
34:13
Speaker 3: have standing to sue, you're saying I do have standing
34:16
Speaker 3: to sue because I've been.
34:18
Speaker 4: Harmed as a journalist. I can't do my job.
34:21
Speaker 3: So tell me more about the standing obstacle, because I
34:23
Speaker 3: could imagine one of the questions that you're trying to
34:26
Speaker 3: answer in all this is it doesn't look like there
34:29
Speaker 3: was standing for journalists written into the law, but you're
34:31
Speaker 3: trying to say that under the Administrative Procedure Act and
34:36
Speaker 3: also because I am harmed as a journalist that I
34:39
Speaker 3: have standing, So say more about that. Why are you
34:42
Speaker 3: harmed as a journalist and have standing under the law?
34:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's part of what's so pioneering
34:47
Speaker 3: and brilliant about this that you have this law, Well,
34:49
Speaker 3: who's going to enforce it?
34:51
Speaker 4: You know?
34:51
Speaker 3: I guess they didn't think about that. Well, that's the
34:54
Speaker 3: role of litigation. Come in and say, I.
34:56
Speaker 6: Was sure, here's the thing they did.
34:58
Speaker 5: So Rocanna Massey were the co sponsors of this law,
35:03
Speaker 5: and ro Kanna has said that when the iteration of
35:07
Speaker 5: the law went to Republicans for bipartisan support and it
35:11
Speaker 5: included enforcement mechanisms within the law, the Republicans said.
35:14
Speaker 6: We won't sign off on it.
35:17
Speaker 5: So, which makes sense for these Republicans, right, It's like
35:21
Speaker 5: they want the performative victory lap. We support you know,
35:26
Speaker 5: the victims, and we're all for transparency, but god forbid,
35:29
Speaker 5: you want to bake in to the law and.
35:32
Speaker 6: Enforcement mechanism to give it teeth.
35:34
Speaker 5: No, no, no, we can't do that, like to grab the
35:37
Speaker 5: smelling salts, because that's just one step too far for Republicans.
35:41
Speaker 5: So because there isn't a built in mechanism for enforcement,
35:45
Speaker 5: and because there isn't a built in mechanism for the
35:48
Speaker 5: cause of action to bring it, Like you said, you
35:51
Speaker 5: got to have standing to get through the door for
35:53
Speaker 5: a lawsuit. And I'm arguing that I have informational harm.
35:56
Speaker 6: And economic harm.
35:57
Speaker 5: The informational harm is the failure by them to abide
36:01
Speaker 5: by the law has created an inability for me to
36:03
Speaker 5: chase down more information and stories number one and number two.
36:07
Speaker 6: The economic harm, which I do.
36:09
Speaker 5: Sustain, but is not the point of the lawsuit because
36:11
Speaker 5: let me be clear, I'm not looking for money from the.
36:13
Speaker 6: DOJ at all.
36:14
Speaker 5: But the economic harm is, as we know, I have
36:17
Speaker 5: a YouTube channel and I have subscribers, and if I
36:19
Speaker 5: don't get the views or I'm going to get the subscribers,
36:22
Speaker 5: or if people on subsect don't read my pieces about
36:24
Speaker 5: Epstein because I can't push them even farther into what's
36:26
Speaker 5: been made available thus far by the DOJ, then I
36:29
Speaker 5: suffer economic harm and just really quickly. That is part
36:33
Speaker 5: of the problem, is it not. The DOJ is using
36:36
Speaker 5: the Epstein Fouls Transparency Act to be able to weaponize
36:40
Speaker 5: us as journalists to only give the information that they
36:45
Speaker 5: want us to give to the people. And that's a
36:48
Speaker 5: disgusting perversion of what this law was intended to do.
36:52
Speaker 5: This law has the word transparency and its title for
36:55
Speaker 5: a reason. But if you stop when you think about it,
36:57
Speaker 5: to allow the Trump DOJ to get keep in traffic
37:01
Speaker 5: cop the information that is disseminated means that I just
37:05
Speaker 5: end up just being a megaphone for them. Yeah, but
37:08
Speaker 5: it's not me as a reporter or journalist providing truth
37:12
Speaker 5: and evidence to the people that want to consume it
37:15
Speaker 5: in the media, like from the media, right, Yeah, I'm.
37:19
Speaker 6: Just just parroting what they give me.
37:21
Speaker 3: That's all. I mean.
37:22
Speaker 1: They need a happy stnographer, that's what they want here.
37:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so grateful you did it for so
37:27
Speaker 1: many reasons. I mean, because let's be honest, they have
37:31
Speaker 1: broken their own law every day since December nineteenth of
37:36
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. That's right, they have been in violation
37:38
Speaker 1: of their own law. Pambondy, Todd Lanch Donald Trump have
37:41
Speaker 1: broken their own law every day since December nineteenth, and
37:46
Speaker 1: the DOJ is arguing that, oh, many of these redactions
37:49
Speaker 1: were necessary to protect the victims, including minors. We know
37:52
Speaker 1: that that is a lie, because they did not protect
37:54
Speaker 1: the victims. They protected the men who raped children. You know,
37:58
Speaker 1: I found out my name was in the file because
38:00
Speaker 1: someone subscribed to a Beacon Theater mailing list and I
38:04
Speaker 1: was doing a show there. But I tell everyone, you know,
38:06
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything wrong because my name's not redacted.
38:09
Speaker 1: That's how you know I'm innocent. It's the guilty people.
38:12
Speaker 1: It's the people that we're waiting for indictments on while
38:15
Speaker 1: we're indicting folks for picking paint chips out of a
38:18
Speaker 1: reflecting pool. Your complaint is beautiful because you're seeking the
38:23
Speaker 1: appointment of this independent Special Master, which I think just
38:25
Speaker 1: beautifully messages to the universe that we can't trust this
38:29
Speaker 1: DOJ to police their own compliance with the law. But
38:32
Speaker 1: between I have to ask, between the redactions and the
38:35
Speaker 1: seemingly deliberate miss deadlines and the crappy explanations the withdrawal
38:40
Speaker 1: of material it was already released, what part of this
38:44
Speaker 1: worries you?
38:44
Speaker 5: The most that their stuff that's gone that we'll never
38:48
Speaker 5: know about. The spoliation of evidence, as we call it
38:52
Speaker 5: in the legal world, the destruction of documents and other evidence.
38:57
Speaker 5: That is particularly damning for not only people like convicted
39:01
Speaker 5: fellon Donald Trump, but also other people in the epstein
39:04
Speaker 5: elite and in that orbit, because you're going to ask
39:08
Speaker 5: me to eventually have to reverse engineer it to prove
39:12
Speaker 5: something's gone. But if you continue to allow these people
39:15
Speaker 5: to have unfettered access as the gatekeepers to this information,
39:19
Speaker 5: that's my greatest fear. My fear is not John Fugel
39:23
Speaker 5: saying being unfairly accused of having done something that's not it. Like,
39:27
Speaker 5: I know that there could be an investigation into your
39:29
Speaker 5: name and you would be clear right. But yeah, But
39:35
Speaker 5: here's the thing. Number one, there is an a wholesale
39:38
Speaker 5: absence of investigation in the file so far, which just
39:41
Speaker 5: goes to show that there was a failure of the
39:43
Speaker 5: system for law enforcement. Although I am corrected all the
39:46
Speaker 5: time by survivors in the survivor community that say, no, Katie,
39:50
Speaker 5: actually the system didn't fail.
39:51
Speaker 6: It actually worked exactly the way it.
39:53
Speaker 5: Was supposed to do, which was to protect I agree
39:55
Speaker 5: people that were wealthy and had power. But my greatest
39:58
Speaker 5: fear is having to verse engineer to prove that something's gone,
40:02
Speaker 5: because that ends up being exponentially more difficult for me
40:05
Speaker 5: to do as somebody who wants to investigatively look into something, and.
40:09
Speaker 6: As a trial lawyer.
40:10
Speaker 5: That hurts my heart too, right, because in my world,
40:13
Speaker 5: it's always based on evidence, and it's based on what
40:16
Speaker 5: you can prove. And so I'm hoping though, that by
40:20
Speaker 5: me always ringing the bell on a daily basis about Epstein,
40:24
Speaker 5: that I keep it at the top of the public discourse,
40:27
Speaker 5: and even through all the shit show of everything that's
40:29
Speaker 5: going on, I also know it's an incredibly powerful achilles
40:33
Speaker 5: heel for not only Trump this administration, but for other
40:35
Speaker 5: people like Kathy Rummler, who by all accounts was a
40:41
Speaker 5: you know Obama White House counsel and just like you know, elite,
40:46
Speaker 5: top of the cream of the crop when it came
40:48
Speaker 5: to the lawyers. But I don't care if you're a
40:50
Speaker 5: Democrat or a Republican or a no party affiliation independent.
40:55
Speaker 5: If you have done something wrong, my justice compass says
40:59
Speaker 5: that you have to pay the price for it.
41:01
Speaker 6: And at this point, if there's no statue.
41:03
Speaker 5: If the statue limitations has been blown criminally for whatever reason,
41:07
Speaker 5: then at a minimum there should be some measure of
41:09
Speaker 5: civil recourse. And even if that doesn't exist, then some
41:13
Speaker 5: measure of accountability should be that we find out the
41:16
Speaker 5: truth about what happened to these poor people.
41:18
Speaker 2: Amen.
41:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, just to reiterate, we have a
41:22
Speaker 3: law that did pass Congress, was signed by the President
41:25
Speaker 3: that then creates a right of Americans to see these files,
41:30
Speaker 3: to have transparency. When it comes to this lawsuit, you know,
41:33
Speaker 3: it's not easy to get legislation passed. That's what it does.
41:37
Speaker 3: And as you've been explaining what your lawsuit does so brilliantly,
41:40
Speaker 3: is say, well, you know, if there this isn't just
41:43
Speaker 3: some abstract right. Law isn't just a sort of symbolic
41:47
Speaker 3: statement that we have.
41:48
Speaker 4: Some abstract right.
41:49
Speaker 3: There are actual entitlements of actual people to receive this information.
41:53
Speaker 4: Now, who are those people?
41:54
Speaker 3: You're arguing it's journalists who will be harmed by not
41:58
Speaker 3: getting access here. We've been talking more generally on the
42:02
Speaker 3: show about the debate about renewal of the FISA law
42:05
Speaker 3: and about transparency generally. One question I have for you,
42:08
Speaker 3: sort of big picture is, of course, have done a
42:10
Speaker 3: lot to limit the ability to sue in court, to
42:14
Speaker 3: have standing, to get access to really what those in
42:17
Speaker 3: power are doing.
42:18
Speaker 4: And yet what we've seen not just in.
42:20
Speaker 3: The Epstein matter, it's part of a wider phenomenon of
42:24
Speaker 3: the executive branch hiding what it's doing and what happens
42:27
Speaker 3: in the shadows. Well, it's all sorts of corruption and
42:31
Speaker 3: crime and nefarious activity. We know that from history and
42:35
Speaker 3: from this administration. So one question I have for you
42:38
Speaker 3: is even beyond the Epstein files, I mean, is this
42:41
Speaker 3: a part of a movement of journalists to gain access
42:44
Speaker 3: to see ways of getting information about what's going on
42:47
Speaker 3: behind closed doors? Or do you really just see it
42:50
Speaker 3: as a way of indicating the law and seeing entitlement
42:54
Speaker 3: to get this information protecting victims.
42:57
Speaker 6: I mean, it's kind of yes, and yes, there is law.
43:02
Speaker 5: The rule of law has to be respected in every
43:05
Speaker 5: facet of our society. If not, then it's chaos, is
43:09
Speaker 5: it not? Is it not anarchy? Is it not just lawlessness?
43:12
Speaker 5: Like the idea is the most powerful law firm in
43:16
Speaker 5: the world is the United States Department of Justice. If
43:19
Speaker 5: you contemplate as we've seen now on the negative side,
43:23
Speaker 5: the abuse of the power that exists in that federal agency.
43:27
Speaker 5: I've always said, it's the largest law firm in the world,
43:30
Speaker 5: and yet they're not required to abide by the law.
43:32
Speaker 6: But you expect me to do so. That makes no sense.
43:35
Speaker 5: That really destroys the idea of not only the rule
43:38
Speaker 5: of law and also the adage that no man is
43:41
Speaker 5: above the law.
43:42
Speaker 6: Right number one.
43:43
Speaker 5: But number two to the first part, what you're seeing
43:46
Speaker 5: here is a definitive movement, if we can call it that,
43:50
Speaker 5: of an approach by independent media.
43:53
Speaker 6: Because let's be clear, no.
43:56
Speaker 5: Mainstream legacy media outlet brought this law right, all of
44:02
Speaker 5: the power of their money and their legal teams and everything.
44:06
Speaker 6: Not a single one of them did it.
44:08
Speaker 1: You think they'd want the clicks, You'd think you.
44:10
Speaker 5: Would think that they would want the information. And by
44:13
Speaker 5: the way, let me be clear, this is not an
44:15
Speaker 5: assault on mainstream legacy media. But there is a nuanced
44:19
Speaker 5: part of it that I am saying is a part
44:21
Speaker 5: of what I am doing here, which is I would
44:23
Speaker 5: like to think that I'm a part of really a
44:27
Speaker 5: group of independent journalists who have said that the price
44:32
Speaker 5: of selling your soul for access journalism isn't worth it?
44:37
Speaker 5: Thank you, the idea that you cannot ask a very
44:42
Speaker 5: just straightforward question and then you get this reactive you
44:47
Speaker 5: know what about ism, or this reactive lie and then
44:50
Speaker 5: you don't follow up on it because it is something
44:53
Speaker 5: of critical importance that people want to know about, because
44:56
Speaker 5: you have a fear that you'll never be invited back
44:59
Speaker 5: on air force, or you won't be able to go
45:02
Speaker 5: to the White House correspondence dinner, which we've all been to.
45:05
Speaker 5: Like that is what I would like to think is
45:08
Speaker 5: what this lawsuit is a part of a bigger movement
45:11
Speaker 5: of us saying it's just not worth it. It's okay
45:17
Speaker 5: to say it's not worth my soul to do this.
45:21
Speaker 5: I owe something bigger, and I'd like to think ory
45:24
Speaker 5: that that's what we're doing. I'd like to think that
45:25
Speaker 5: that's the huge part of this lawsuit amongst all the
45:29
Speaker 5: other work that's being done in independent media right now.
45:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, say more about that. Why is corporate
45:36
Speaker 3: media not intervening? Because on the one hand, you're right
45:39
Speaker 3: that there's a worry about access journalism, but yet, I mean,
45:42
Speaker 3: isn't there, in the most crude terms of profit, motive
45:45
Speaker 3: to find out the truth to see what's out there,
45:47
Speaker 3: or have things become so broken that they are so
45:50
Speaker 3: worried about this administration. Now, you know, I understand that
45:53
Speaker 3: maybe CBS isn't going to be at the forefront of.
45:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it varies network to network professor why
46:00
Speaker 1: Disney Mojo this week than CBS.
46:03
Speaker 3: But I do think, I mean, and let correct me
46:05
Speaker 3: if I'm wrong, that it really is that you are
46:07
Speaker 3: the one doing this. You and your team are pioneering
46:11
Speaker 3: this lawsuit, and I'm not seeing some of the groups
46:14
Speaker 3: that you might think would join you, The New York
46:17
Speaker 3: Times or MS.
46:18
Speaker 4: Now, I mean, why is that?
46:20
Speaker 5: Because you know, for them, I agree that it would
46:24
Speaker 5: be profitable to be able to bring more eyeballs to
46:28
Speaker 5: either the TV screens or to the Internet to be
46:31
Speaker 5: able to read this stuff. But I think that they,
46:34
Speaker 5: as I know, I mean, it's not a secret, you know,
46:38
Speaker 5: they're worried about backlash from this administration. And I sincerely
46:43
Speaker 5: believe that they think that Brendan Carr, the FCC or
46:48
Speaker 5: somebody else is going to come after them and materially
46:51
Speaker 5: affect their bottom line and they don't want to run
46:54
Speaker 5: that risk. And so for them, they're like oh look,
46:57
Speaker 5: here's this pioneering, first of it's kind law suit.
47:00
Speaker 6: Let's see what happens.
47:02
Speaker 5: And the reality is the relief I'm seeking would benefit
47:05
Speaker 5: everybody across the world, like it wouldn't.
47:07
Speaker 6: Just be for me.
47:08
Speaker 5: And so you know, look, they're like, sure, let Katie
47:11
Speaker 5: Fang be the sacrificial lamb on this and let her,
47:15
Speaker 5: you know, deal with the consequences of it. And so
47:18
Speaker 5: there was some measure of calculation on my part of Okay,
47:22
Speaker 5: what do I have to lose to do this?
47:24
Speaker 6: And there is measure of risk here, But in.
47:26
Speaker 5: My mind, it also sets the tone, like, for example,
47:29
Speaker 5: the Department of Justice responded to a motion for preliminary
47:32
Speaker 5: injunction that we have set for hearing on June thirtieth
47:35
Speaker 5: in front of this really strong federal judge in DC
47:38
Speaker 5: because while the suit is pending, I asked the court
47:41
Speaker 5: to intervene on five specific areas through this preliminary injunction
47:45
Speaker 5: motion because I said to the court, these are the
47:49
Speaker 5: most some of the most egregious violations of the Epstein
47:52
Speaker 5: Files Transparency Act that can be easily and immediately remedied
47:57
Speaker 5: while the case is pending.
47:59
Speaker 6: And you know, the Department of Justice's response to me wasn't.
48:03
Speaker 5: Predictably, it was you don't have standing, et cetera, et cetera,
48:06
Speaker 5: although that was super weak sauce their strongest argument that
48:09
Speaker 5: they're relying upon is, hey, Katie Foya, the Freedom of
48:14
Speaker 5: Information Act exists for you to come and get info.
48:18
Speaker 5: And yet they conveniently ignore all of the restrictions and
48:22
Speaker 5: limitations on FOYA that would prevent me from being able
48:25
Speaker 5: to see some of the stuff I currently see by
48:27
Speaker 5: way of this Transparency Act online. And so for them,
48:32
Speaker 5: they don't really appreciate the nuances of this lawsuit.
48:37
Speaker 2: Look, that's not their job.
48:39
Speaker 5: That's well, their job is to stonewall right, like this
48:41
Speaker 5: YearIn is supposed to happen a week ago on June sixteenth,
48:45
Speaker 5: and they're like, sorry, we can't do it, and so
48:47
Speaker 5: the judge is like, tough shit, you'll have to do
48:49
Speaker 5: it June thirtieth. Then, like he wasn't going to push
48:50
Speaker 5: it any farther out. But you know, for them, when
48:54
Speaker 5: you think about everything that's been going on, and then
48:57
Speaker 5: you think about that reporting about the situation room meetings
49:02
Speaker 5: over the Epstein files, you have to understand that there
49:06
Speaker 5: is something so much bigger going on that they're trying
49:10
Speaker 5: to actively conceal. And so why would you in mainstream
49:15
Speaker 5: legacy media flirt with danger of you know, getting.
49:20
Speaker 3: Some type of that is exactly right, exactly right, I
49:24
Speaker 3: have to say, if you know, that's their best argument.
49:26
Speaker 3: And I think you said this is in front of
49:27
Speaker 3: Judge Sullivan, and I'm feeling pretty good about your argument
49:30
Speaker 3: because and it really does come down to democracy, because
49:33
Speaker 3: FOYA obviously predates the Sepstein Transparency Act and the democracy
49:38
Speaker 3: the Congress, the signature of the President made the decision
49:42
Speaker 3: that there was need for new legislation. If everything answered
49:45
Speaker 3: by oh, let's just look back at FOYA.
49:47
Speaker 4: You already have a rent. Well, what is the point
49:49
Speaker 4: of this thing?
49:50
Speaker 3: And I used to teach a class at Fordham Law
49:52
Speaker 3: School on statutory interpretation and beauty. That's just a sort
49:57
Speaker 3: of basic idea of statutory interpretation that the new law
50:00
Speaker 3: isn't that same.
50:01
Speaker 4: As the all law.
50:02
Speaker 1: They got him to sign the law, though, Marge Green
50:05
Speaker 1: and Lauren Bobert. Marge Green and Lauren bober are gonna
50:08
Speaker 1: be the heroes of all of this at the end
50:10
Speaker 1: of the day because they helped get him to sign
50:12
Speaker 1: the law. He didn't want to sign. They put him
50:15
Speaker 1: in the corner, and now he's there. And Katie, to
50:17
Speaker 1: your excellent point, I don't expect legacy corporate media to
50:20
Speaker 1: do this kind of work. That's the job of journalists,
50:23
Speaker 1: not media. Media's job is to make money. Journalist's job
50:27
Speaker 1: is to seek the truth and make people.
50:29
Speaker 2: In power uncomfortable.
50:30
Speaker 1: So I so admire what you're doing because it's exactly
50:33
Speaker 1: what I expect the line, And I'm not a I
50:35
Speaker 1: don't hate corporate media. I've worked in corporate media my
50:38
Speaker 1: whole life. I do all the cable news shows. But
50:40
Speaker 1: it's not their job to go and pursue justice. It's
50:44
Speaker 1: their job to get eyeballs, to get ratings, to get clicks.
50:47
Speaker 1: It's the job of journalists to actually render us a
50:49
Speaker 1: decent society. And I got to ask the DOJ inspector General.
50:54
Speaker 1: Now they're launching their own audit of the department's compliance.
50:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like this really strengthens your case. Yes,
51:01
Speaker 1: outside judicial oversight is still necessary, but I mean, if
51:05
Speaker 1: you prevail, what does success actually look like is the
51:09
Speaker 1: release every last remaining document, is the release of court
51:13
Speaker 1: ruling defining the limits of executive secrecy. How would you
51:17
Speaker 1: like to see the public trust restored from this suit?
51:20
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't think it's ever going to be restored
51:21
Speaker 5: in this DOJ I think that sure? Yeah, I think
51:25
Speaker 5: the destruction of the integrity of and that's one of
51:28
Speaker 5: the saddest things. I mean, there is centuries of just
51:32
Speaker 5: institutional knowledge and experience that has gone from the Department
51:36
Speaker 5: of Justice, either due to people being summarily fired illegally
51:39
Speaker 5: or by them leaving because they couldn't in clear conscience
51:41
Speaker 5: stay there. But justice for me would be literal professor
51:48
Speaker 5: to your point, compliance with the statutory language of the law. Right,
51:52
Speaker 5: that is what justice should be defined as. And then
51:55
Speaker 5: what flows from that compliance with the federal law, which
51:59
Speaker 5: was enacted not as a supplement to FOYA, but as
52:04
Speaker 5: a totally separate, standalone law in.
52:07
Speaker 6: Addition to FOYA.
52:09
Speaker 5: You know, whatever flows there from, maybe that is justice.
52:14
Speaker 5: Maybe something comes out from an illegally redacted document that
52:19
Speaker 5: brings one survivor closer to being able to identify an assailant.
52:24
Speaker 6: I'll give you an example.
52:25
Speaker 5: In France, as a result of the Epstein files, drops
52:31
Speaker 5: of information we've done here in the United States, ten
52:34
Speaker 5: new victims have stepped forward. In France, one of them
52:39
Speaker 5: could not identify the name of the agent that was
52:44
Speaker 5: working for Jean Luke Brunnell, who was business partners with
52:47
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein in his modeling agency, until she saw his
52:52
Speaker 5: name appear in the Epstein files and she was able.
52:56
Speaker 6: To step forward.
52:57
Speaker 5: I mean, for me, you know, when I was at
52:59
Speaker 5: the redacted reading room in New York and DC, they
53:02
Speaker 5: have a tribute to the survivors and it's these candles,
53:06
Speaker 5: and there's approximately twelve hundred of them, although by last
53:09
Speaker 5: count the DOJ itself acknowledged at least fourteen hundred. But
53:14
Speaker 5: Danny Bensky, who I've become close to who is an
53:16
Speaker 5: Epstein survivor, said, you know, Katie, it is visually beautiful done,
53:23
Speaker 5: but people need to remember each one of those candles
53:25
Speaker 5: is a life. So even if it's helping one person
53:30
Speaker 5: get one step closer to what they define as justice,
53:33
Speaker 5: And how are we not on the right side of
53:35
Speaker 5: history for this, Like, how are we not having done
53:39
Speaker 5: the right thing by it? There's a part of me
53:42
Speaker 5: as a lawyer who says restoration of rule of law.
53:46
Speaker 6: There's a part of.
53:47
Speaker 5: Me as a woman who says this is the right
53:51
Speaker 5: thing to do. There's a part of me, as the
53:54
Speaker 5: mom to an eleven year old girl, like, Okay, maybe
53:58
Speaker 5: we're creating a better, safer place where people can't think
54:00
Speaker 5: that they can hide behind their money means an influence.
54:03
Speaker 5: There's just so much to it that I feel like
54:07
Speaker 5: would be such an amazing step towards accountability. But right now,
54:13
Speaker 5: as we have this conversation amongst all of us, and
54:15
Speaker 5: no matter how well intentioned we are, we're going on
54:19
Speaker 5: six months of the law being broken. That's right, with
54:23
Speaker 5: nothing happening, nothing moving. It is the most stagnant sense
54:30
Speaker 5: of injustice, and so something has to be done.
54:34
Speaker 6: And that's what we decided to do with this lawsuit.
54:37
Speaker 2: Amen, thank you for being the one to do it.
54:39
Speaker 3: What a profound place to end this amazing conversation. I
54:42
Speaker 3: have to say, you know, this podcast is all about
54:44
Speaker 3: the rule of law, the idea that a president takes
54:47
Speaker 3: an oath that puts him in an office that in
54:49
Speaker 3: many ways is supposed to be anyway above him, that
54:52
Speaker 3: the president doesn't control the law, the president is under
54:56
Speaker 3: the law, and yet we have a president and the
54:58
Speaker 3: Department of Justice who are trying to undermine that. Now,
55:01
Speaker 3: theses all sound like abstract ideas until you see that.
55:04
Speaker 4: When it comes to a law passed to let all
55:06
Speaker 4: of us.
55:06
Speaker 3: See these Epstein files, what's going on as a president
55:11
Speaker 3: trying to control that law, to make it all about
55:13
Speaker 3: himself and to have his toadies in the Department of
55:16
Speaker 3: Justice do the same. And what you're doing is such
55:18
Speaker 3: a common sense, simple vindication of democracy to say, there
55:22
Speaker 3: is this law, there are all sorts of reasons why
55:24
Speaker 3: it was passed, and we have a right. We have
55:26
Speaker 3: rights under that law, including the right of journalists to
55:29
Speaker 3: see this information and share it with the rest of us. So,
55:32
Speaker 3: Katie Fang, thanks so much for bringing this lawsuit, for
55:35
Speaker 3: explaining these wider issues on the oath in the office.
55:38
Speaker 4: It was really a pleasure to have you.
55:41
Speaker 6: I appreciate it.
55:42
Speaker 5: Thank you guys so much for the ability to spend
55:43
Speaker 5: this time with you and with your viewers and listeners.
55:46
Speaker 6: I really appreciate it.
55:48
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks so much, professor.
55:50
Speaker 1: Thank you as always, What is the best way for
55:53
Speaker 1: our listeners to keep up with you, Corey and You're
55:55
Speaker 1: brilliance the other six days of the week.
55:57
Speaker 3: Well, what an episode we talked about the fives of
55:59
Speaker 3: law and the last of transparency there and then we
56:01
Speaker 3: had to somebody who really Katie Fang is fighting for
56:05
Speaker 3: transparency to see the full Epstein unredacted Epstein files a
56:09
Speaker 3: brilliant strategy in court. I hope it prevails, and so
56:14
Speaker 3: thanks to her for an amazing discussion. Thanks to you, John,
56:17
Speaker 3: as always for an amazing discussion as well of the
56:20
Speaker 3: wider issues in this week's attack on democracy. You can
56:24
Speaker 3: find me as Democracy prof that's on Blue Sky. You
56:28
Speaker 3: can find me on Twitter at Bretschneuer Exit Bretschneider C.
56:32
Speaker 3: Subscribe to our substack, The Oath in the Office substack.
56:35
Speaker 3: You can listen to us. If you haven't pushed that
56:38
Speaker 3: subscribe button, please do. Whether you listen to us on
56:41
Speaker 3: Apple or Spotify or watch us on YouTube, push that
56:44
Speaker 3: subscribe button.
56:45
Speaker 4: We're growing every week and tell a friend.
56:48
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, John for another amazing episode of The
56:50
Speaker 3: Oath in the Office.
56:51
Speaker 1: I want to thank you, and I want to think
56:52
Speaker 1: Wendy and Beywolf and everyone who puts the show together.
56:55
Speaker 1: You can hear me every night on SiriusXM Progress. My
56:57
Speaker 1: book is called Separation of Church and Hate. Professor Bretschneider,
57:01
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and thank you Katie cleg and
57:02
Speaker 1: we will see you guys next time on the Oath
57:04
Speaker 1: and the Office