Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Feds search Rep. Ilhan Omar's DC-area home

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Feds search Rep. Ilhan Omar's DC-area home · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: This morning, federal officials carried out a search at the D.C.
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  Speaker 1: home of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Moments ago, Congresswoman Omar
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  Speaker 1: made her first comments about the search, saying, I'm OK.
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  Speaker 1: Make no mistake. This is an attempt to target political
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  Speaker 1: enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement for 10 years. Trump
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  Speaker 1: has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This
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  Speaker 1: is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.
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  Speaker 1: Our crime and justice correspondent, Caitlin Polance, is tracking this story. Caitlin,
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  Speaker 1: she's right. She has long been a target of President
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  Speaker 1: Trump's and other Republicans. What do we know about what
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  Speaker 1: these law enforcement officials went in to look for? What
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  Speaker 1: was the subject?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Dana, there are only a couple details that we know,
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  Speaker 2: but by piecing together what we see from those images
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  Speaker 2: from outside of Representative Omar's home in the Washington, D.C.
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  Speaker 3: Area today.
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  Speaker 2: That's Homeland Security Investigators, HSI, on site there doing the investigation.
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  Speaker 2: That signals that this has some sort of immigration enforcement
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  Speaker 2: component to it. On top of that, we do know,
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  Speaker 2: according to a statement from the Justice Department spokesperson today,
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  Speaker 2: this is saying that today in the Washington, D.C. area,
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  Speaker 2: HSI executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the
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  Speaker 2: Department of Justice. this enforcement action is part of an
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  Speaker 2: ongoing federal criminal investigation. So that adds to what we
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  Speaker 2: know about this as well. It would be a criminal
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  Speaker 2: investigation related to immigration in some way, and of course
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  Speaker 2: involves or potentially targets Representative Omar herself. Now, her statement,
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  Speaker 2: her response here is that this would be an escalation
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  Speaker 2: in a campaign of political intimidation. And Dana, there are
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  Speaker 2: Multiple things here to keep in mind. Right now, this
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  Speaker 2: is someone that the president has often criticized very harshly,
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  Speaker 2: that Republicans have criticized. We know that the White House
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  Speaker 2: border czar, Tom Homan, has said, that there is an
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  Speaker 2: investigation here that's been ongoing for a while. We also
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  Speaker 2: know that we're right in the middle of election season.
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  Speaker 2: Not only is this a sitting member of Congress, this
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  Speaker 2: is someone who is on the ballot in the midterm
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  Speaker 2: elections for the Democrats in Minnesota, not even a month
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  Speaker 2: from now, with voting already beginning across the country and
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  Speaker 2: in that state.
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  Speaker 1: And just real quick, on that last note, I know
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  Speaker 1: that norms have just been shattered up and down about
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  Speaker 1: what DOJ normally does or doesn't do. But it is practice, historically,
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  Speaker 1: that the DOJ doesn't go after people who are on
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  Speaker 1: the ballot this close. Am I right about that, or.
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  Speaker 2: Has it changed?
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  Speaker 1: You are right.
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  Speaker 2: No, that is exactly right, Dana. The historical practice and
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  Speaker 2: internal policy at the Justice Department has been that 60
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  Speaker 2: days before an election you are not supposed to take
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  Speaker 2: overt political or overt investigative steps that could influence politics,
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  Speaker 2: specifically electoral politics. You should not be doing anything that
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  Speaker 2: would harm a candidate or help a candidate. And if
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  Speaker 2: something like that were to potentially take place in an investigation,
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  Speaker 2: It would need to go through a long clearance process
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  Speaker 2: and discussion within the Justice Department. I did learn today
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  Speaker 2: that from a source that at the Justice Department, top
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  Speaker 2: Justice Department leadership did sign off on this. There was
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  Speaker 2: thorough deliberations over it. And of course, they did have
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  Speaker 2: to go to a federal judge for sign off to
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  Speaker 2: do this search at this time. There aren't charges filed here.
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  Speaker 2: But having investigators in those HSI jackets outside the candidate's home,
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  Speaker 2: the congresswoman's home today, that is quite an unusual step
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  Speaker 2: to see, something we often don't see before an election
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  Speaker 2: like this that would require top Justice Department officials talking
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  Speaker 2: about it and weighing in.
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  Speaker 1: Caitlin, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We don't
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  Speaker 1: know a lot of what went on, the reason for
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  Speaker 1: the judge approving the search, what they were looking for,
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  Speaker 1: all of that. As Caitlin said, we just know that
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  Speaker 1: Homeland was involved, which suggests there's some immigration question there.
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  Speaker 1: What we do know is that the president talks about
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  Speaker 1: Ilhan Omar all the time, has done so for years.
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  Speaker 3: Here are some examples.
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  Speaker 4: I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is,
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  Speaker 4: with the little ching, the little turban.
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  Speaker 1: I love her.
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  Speaker 4: She comes in, does nothing but.
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  Speaker 3: * * * *.
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  Speaker 4: She's always complaining.
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  Speaker 3: She should get the hell out.
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  Speaker 4: Throw her the hell out. She does nothing but complain.
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  Speaker 4: Ilhan Omar, one of my favorites. She ought to get
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  Speaker 4: the hell out of our country.
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  Speaker 3: She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be in our country.
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  Speaker 3: How about Ilhan Omar?
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  Speaker 4: She comes from Somalia.
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  Speaker 1: All they have is crime and squalor.
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  Speaker 4: And she comes into our country and she says, my
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  Speaker 4: constitution allows me. She's talking about our constitution. What they've
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  Speaker 4: done to Minnesota, these people from Somalia, what they've done
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  Speaker 4: to Minnesota should never be allowed.
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  Speaker 1: And Jeff, that was Saturday. That was just two days ago.
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  Speaker 1: The last one. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And you're right to say it's been happening for a
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  Speaker 5: long time. And I remember being in a rally during
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  Speaker 5: the president's first term when he was going after her
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  Speaker 5: and the other members of the squad. and it led
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  Speaker 5: to the crowd chanting, send them back. And it was
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  Speaker 5: a really dramatic and for many people upsetting moment to see.
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  Speaker 5: So he has absolutely targeted her for some time. We
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  Speaker 5: don't know the details to what extent this is connected
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  Speaker 5: to that, but she's certainly drawing that conclusion. And based
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  Speaker 5: on her experience, you can see why she would.
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  Speaker 3: Well, and when you have a president speaking that way,
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  Speaker 3: and we should say that this is racism, you know,
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  Speaker 3: to say that someone's from a country so Or they
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  Speaker 3: were born in a country and they're now a citizen.
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  Speaker 3: They don't have the right to speak here because their
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  Speaker 3: country is dirty and squalor. That is racism, and we
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  Speaker 3: need to be very clear about that. But when you
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  Speaker 3: have a president making statements like that, it does not
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  Speaker 3: inspire confidence that the Justice Department would be neutral in
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  Speaker 3: situations like this because he continually says she needs to
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  Speaker 3: get out of the country, right? So that's part of
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  Speaker 3: the problem.
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  Speaker 1: Never mind mocking her.
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  Speaker 6: And in the first term, not only did he— complain
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  Speaker 6: about the squad or sort of allow the chance of
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  Speaker 6: sending them back. He actually raised very specific questions about
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  Speaker 6: her immigration story, specifically the other three members of the
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  Speaker 6: squad were all born in the United States. And when
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  Speaker 6: we learn, I'm going to be very curious to see
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  Speaker 6: if that like matches up in any way in this
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  Speaker 6: investigation with a narrative that the president has been trying
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  Speaker 6: to sell to about her immigration story for years. And again,
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  Speaker 6: we'll have to learn more here, but this is not
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  Speaker 6: new material for Trump.
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  Speaker 7: Federal office is carrying out a search, of course, in
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  Speaker 7: Minnesota for Lenin Omar. I mean, important to point out,
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  Speaker 7: of course, that she has been the target on many
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  Speaker 7: occasions of racist vitriol, including from President Trump, right? And
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  Speaker 7: I do understand her home district was a target of
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  Speaker 7: an expansive immigration enforcement campaign. What do you make, first
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  Speaker 7: of all, of the timing of this? We're 22 days
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  Speaker 7: or so until the midterms.
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  Speaker 8: Well, there has long been an unofficial moratorium in the
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  Speaker 8: Justice Department to not take actions or to begin cases
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  Speaker 8: or to open investigations against prominent political figures within, say,
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  Speaker 8: three months of the election or two months. Usually the
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  Speaker 8: unofficial date is after Labor Day in early September. I
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  Speaker 8: think that, you know, clearly this administration is one that
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  Speaker 8: is dispensed with a lot of those niceties. Trump believes
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  Speaker 8: that he was targeted politically by the Biden administration, so
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  Speaker 8: he doesn't really care. And his Justice Department has been
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  Speaker 8: has become a tool of his political aspirations in many ways.
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  Speaker 8: Ilhan Omar, as you say, has long been a target
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  Speaker 8: of the Trump administration, a political foe, and they are, apparently,
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  Speaker 8: we don't know exactly what is going on in the
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  Speaker 8: details of this case, but again, using political power in
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  Speaker 8: a way that we were talking about at the beginning,
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  Speaker 8: which shows Trump's supporters' strength. So it will be very
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  Speaker 8: interesting to see how This unfolds. But outside the confines
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  Speaker 8: of the Trump administration, I don't think there's a great
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  Speaker 8: deal of confidence in an administration which has demonstrably used
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  Speaker 8: the Justice Department to go after Trump's enemies. For example,
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  Speaker 8: the former FBI chief, James Comey, and many other people
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  Speaker 8: in prominent positions in Washington who have criticized the president.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, all we know just from the DOJ spokesperson saying
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  Speaker 7: this enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.
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  Speaker 7: Our Caitlin Blans was saying maybe immigration enforcement. We do
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  Speaker 7: not know. We will stay across this story, of course,
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  Speaker 7: for our viewers. Stephen, as always, appreciate your analysis. Thank
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  Speaker 7: you very much indeed.