Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Mother Jones Hits The BOP With A FOIA Lawsuit Due To The Ghislaine Maxwell Transfer

Transcript

Mother Jones Hits The BOP With A FOIA Lawsuit Due To The Ghislaine Maxwell Transfer · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. The fact that we're still fighting tooth and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: nail for transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Glenn Maxwell is absolutely wild, especially considering that the deadline
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: has long come and gone. You'd think that they'd be
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: more concerned about upholding their end of the bargain as
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: far as the DOJ and the BOP's concerned, but I
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: guess not. And now Mother Jones is sued, the BOP
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: is for records about Ghislaine Maxwell and the transfer. And
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I say good, because that's one part of this story
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that people are not talking about nowhere near enough. There
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is no reason, no justification whatsoever for Ghislaine Maxwell being
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: moved to Camp Fed. And I don't want to hear
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: anything about, oh, well, her wife was in danger. Yeah,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: guess what? So are a lot of other inmates inside
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of the system. Are they getting moved? Yeah, maybe move
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: right back to the main line. So why is Ghislaine
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Maxwell getting all of these extra benefits and these extra
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: rewards that she nowhere near deserves? I mean, this lady
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: should be under the prison, not getting moved to a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: place like Camp Ryan. So today we have an article
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: from Mother Jones and the headline, Mother Jones sues the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Bureau of Prisons for Ghislaine Maxwell records. The author of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: this article is David Korn. One of the oddest occurrences
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was the trip that Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: took in July to Tallahassee, Florida to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who's serving a 20-year sentence for procuring underage girls, some
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: as young as 14, for Epstein to sexually abuse. There
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is no good reason for it. I said so then,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and I'll say so now. I wish somebody could provide
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a logical reason why for Todd Blanch having that conversation
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: with Glenn Maxwell. And if you compare the way Todd
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Blanch went about that investigation, if that's what you want
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to call it, or that conversation with Maxwell, to the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: way that the OIG inspectors were talking to Acosta, it's
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: night and day. So if anyone out there thinks that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Todd Blanch didn't white glove the interview with Maxwell, they're crazy.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: He most certainly did. So the question is, why? What
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: did the administration gain? I mean, they certainly didn't get
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: any kind of actionable intelligence, right? Nothing even close. So
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it looks like they moved her for other reasons. And
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: what those other reasons are, are up for debate. Now,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: my opinion, they wanted her quiet, right? They wanted to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: give her the best sort of circumstance they possibly could
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to keep her quiet. And the best way to do
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: that is move her to this facility. Now it's going
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to cause a bit of a stir, like we see here,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: but nowhere near as much as if you would give
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: her a pardon, right? So they split the baby. What
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: can we get away with? What can we do to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: give Maxwell some beneficial movement without having the whole entire
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: world come down on top of us? I mean, nothing
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: else makes sense, right? You don't just move somebody like
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Elaine Maxwell, who is a child abuser. from the facility
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: they're in to a new facility without any reason why.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Prior to being nominated by Trump to the number two
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: position in the Justice Department, Blanche, was Trump's criminal attorney
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in the porn star Hush Money forged business records case
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in New York in which Trump was convicted of 34
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: felony counts. Bro has no shame. Let me go ahead
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and appoint my personal attorney, who is not qualified for
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the job, by the way, to the number two position
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: at the DOJ. Nobody else has a problem with that?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And what about the precedent it sets? Now, all these
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: people in MAGA, I'm sure they're excited right now, but
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: what happens when the other team wins? Are you still
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: going to be that excited when, insert president here, I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: don't know, Gavin Newsom has his personal attorney as the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: second man or woman at the DOJ? Is that going
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to provide you comfort? Is that going to be cool
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: with you? You know it's not going to be. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: all the people right now that are cheering it are
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: going to be complaining about it when it happens to them.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: See me? I stay consistent. I don't want either side
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: doing this shit. I want the best person qualified for
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the job to get the job, like in any other industry.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Not your friend, not your cousin, not your buddy. I mean,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it's bad enough we have nepotism everywhere else. Do we
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: really need it at the D.O. fucking J.? Blanche never
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: provided compelling explanation for his unprecedented act. Why was Trump's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: former personal lawyer and a top Justice Department official meeting
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: with a sex offender whom the U.S. government had previously
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: assailed for her willingness to lie brazenly under oath about
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: her conduct? And if you go back to the beginning,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that's what I said from the jump. This lady's already
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: perjured herself under oath. But sure, Todd Blanche, the great investigator,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is going to get to the bottom of it. Legal
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: observers have scratched their heads over this. And months later,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Blanche said the point of the interview was allow her
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to speak, which nobody had done before. That didn't make
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: much sense. How often does the Deputy Attorney General fly
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: 900 miles to afford a convicted sex offender a chance
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to chat? It was as if Blanche was trying to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: create fodder for conspiracy theorists. Or he was trying to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: protect the secrets that she knows. I mean, come on.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: What are we doing here? And what's really, really funny...
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: is that anyone would believe Glenn Maxwell at all. Can
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you imagine putting her in front of a jury? Can
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you imagine how she'd be savaged during cross-examination? There is
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: zero that this lady can offer that's actionable that will
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: move an investigation forward. So none of this shit makes sense.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: There was no reason to move her, no reason to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: even talk to her, but yet here they are. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the fact that he said that she had no chance
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to explain herself? She most certainly did. She chose not to.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Did she take the stand? Oh, that's right, she didn't.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And you know why she didn't take the stand? Because
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: she knew that if she got up there, she would
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: get absolutely cooked. So she didn't take the stand. So
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: what does that even mean? She didn't have a chance
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to explain herself. And what made all of this even
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: stranger is that after their conversation, Maxwell was transferred to
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a minimum security women-only federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that houses mainly nonviolent offenders and white-collar crooks. This facility
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was home to disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and real
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: housewives of Salt Lake City star and fraudster Jen Shaw,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: is a much cushier facility than the co-ed Tallahassee prison. Well,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that's all that really matters, right? That Ghislaine's comfortable. Gotta
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: make sure the Lady Ghislaine is hooked up. Now, if
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you have a relative that's in one of these jails
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: or prisons, go ahead and try and petition to get
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: them moved to a camp and see how that works
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: out for you. When the transfer was first reported in August,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the Bureau of Prisons refused to explain the reason for
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the move, which Epstein abuse survivors protested. So, I filed
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a Freedom of Information Act request with the BOP asking
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: for information related to this relocation, specifically, all records mentioning
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: or referencing Maxwell's transfer to Federal Prison Camp Bryan. This
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: includes emails, memoranda, transfer orders, phone messages, texts, electronic chats,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and any other communication, whether internal to BOP or between
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: BOP personnel, and any other governmental or non-governmental personnel. Guess what?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The BOP did not jump to and provide the information.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: After a months-long delay, the agency noted it would take
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: up to nine months to fulfill this request. Now, why
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: would that be the case? That is so illogical that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it's not even funny. And we should be raising hell
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: about this. You want to talk about the cover-up in
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: real time? This is it. There is no explanation for
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved, and none coming. Imagine a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: world where we have to sue to get that information,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: especially from the most transparent administration in the history of
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the country. I would think that they'd be showing up
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: with bundles of information for people, right? Considering the way
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: these idiots talk. We're suing. That is, the Reporters Committee
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: for Freedom of the Press, a non-profit that provides pro
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: bono legal assistance to journalists, today filed a lawsuit in
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: a federal district court in Washington, D.C. on behalf of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the Center for Investigative Reporting, which publishes Mother Jones, to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: compel the BOP to provide the relevant records. The filing
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: notes that the BOP violated the Freedom of Information Act
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: by initially failing to respond in a timely manner. Well,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: they don't care. Really, that's what it comes down to.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: These jackbooted thugs that are running the DOJ, they don't
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: give one single fuck what the law says. They're going
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to do whatever they want. They're above the law. They
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: are the law. And you, and me, well, we're just
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: plebs for them to do with as they will. We're
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: not the only ones. After this information, in August, Senator
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter to William Marshall III, the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: BOP director, requesting similar material. Against the backdrop of the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: political scandal arising from President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and Ghislaine Maxwell, by the way, Ms. Maxwell's abrupt transfer
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: raises questions about whether she was given special treatment in
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: exchange for political favors, he wrote. White House asked for
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a response within three weeks. He received no reply, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: along with Senator Richard Blumenthal and Adam Schiff, filed a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: FOIA request. In November of whistleblower notified Democrats on the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: House Judiciary Committee that at Camp Brian, Maxwell was receiving
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: preferential treatment that included customized meals brought to her cell,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: private meetings with visitors who were permitted to bring computers,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Email service through the warden's office, after-hours use of the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: prison gym, and access to a puppy that was being
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: trained as a service dog. That poor dog. Imagine being
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: some poor dog and ending up in the cell with
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Ghislaine Maxwell and this disgusting, vile woman, petting you and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: touching you. That month, Representative Jamie Raskin, the senior Democrat
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: on the committee, wrote Trump requesting that Blanche appear before
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the committee to answer questions about Maxwell's treatment. That has
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: not happened. It's not going to happen. They do not
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: respect you. They don't care about the law and they're
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: going to do whatever they want to do. And nobody's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: going to do a thing to stop them. Oh, sure.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: People will post on Twitter. People will act crazy and,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you know, talk shit. But at the end of the day,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: nobody's going to stop them. They're going to do whatever
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it is they want to do. And you know why?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Because the precedent has been set. You give these two
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: nods an inch, they're taking a mile. Given the intense
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: public interest in the Epstein case and the scrutiny it deserves,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: there ought to be no need to go to court
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to obtain this information about Maxwell. But with Trump's Justice
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Department brazenly violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandated
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a release of the federal government's Epstein records by December 19th,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: by which time only 1% of the cash had been
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: made public, it's no shocker that the Bureau of Prisons
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: has not been more forthcoming regarding Maxwell's prison upgrade. It's
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous, and I know I keep saying that, but man,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I can't even believe how brazen they are with the cover-up.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And the truth is, they're relying on you being too
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: distracted with other disasters. That's what they're relying on. Our
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: in-house counsel, Victoria Berensky, says, at a time when public
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: trust in institutions is fragile, FOIA remains essential. Our lawsuit
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: seeks to enforce the public's right to know and to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: ensure that the government lives up to its obligation of transparency.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And Gunita Singh, a staff attorney for RCFP notes, we're
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: proud to represent CIR and look forward to enforcing FOIA's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: transparency mandate with respect to the actions of law enforcement
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in this matter. When we might get anything out of
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the BOP, no idea, but we'll keep you posted and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: you can keep track of the case at this page.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And considering how reticent the government's been to give up information,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I expect to see plenty more FOIAs in the near future.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And like usual, we're going to continue following along and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: we'll see where it all ends up. All of the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: information that goes with this episode can be found in
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the description box.