The Trump-Epstein Legal Breakdown You Didn't Know You Needed

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:05 Matt: This is actually turning into one of the greatest presidential scandals in U .S. history.

0:00:18 Matt: That it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co -conspirators of Epstein.

0:00:24 Thomas: What? How could you possibly justify that?

0:00:30 Matt: But I want to talk about her actual defense because, honestly, I think it's pretty strong.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1176. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, plus this virus that I thought I was over. I feel like I'm over. I'm right on the cusp of, but just can't quite clear from my throat. Anyway, hopefully it's not too annoying. And that over there is Matt Cameron, real life attorney. Unclear how many viruses he brings. How are you doing, Matt?

0:01:00 Matt: Zero viruses, but I do want to wish you an early happy birthday because I saw a sentiment that made me think of that. Let me just, I didn't have time to write anything, so I just found something here. Enigmas never age. That's a nice thought. A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.

0:01:15 Thomas: Did you sign any pubes for me or is that crazy?

0:01:19 Matt: Yeah, I just stole that from Donald Trump.

0:01:22 Thomas: Crazy. I can't wait to talk about this stuff because this is surreal. We're going to talk a lot about Epstein and Maxwell and everything going on. Matt, am I crazy? I feel like the guy in a movie that I'm not sure how many people saw that wakes up after a car crash and the Beatles never existed. Have you seen that one? It was actually not bad. Yeah, I kind of liked it. I was such a big fan of the Beatles. It was fun.

0:01:39 Matt: That was a great movie, actually. I love that movie. Yeah, yeah. It was fun. Yeah.

0:01:43 Thomas: I feel that we know all this. This is the weirdest thing. It's wild. It is like seeing the internet talking about Game of Thrones right now. They are like oh my god can you believe the red wedding you're like yeah no I that was we knew all this this is all it's good I'm glad headline

0:02:00 Matt: I've been having it too. I've had the same feeling. Yeah...

0:02:01 Thomas: After headline I'm like yeah yeah I know we know yeah that we've known this the whole time

0:02:06 Matt: But, I will say, there's a bunch of stuff I didn't know, and the legal stuff on this is developing quickly, and I didn' t know anything about Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal to the Supreme Court, which is super interesting.

0:02:09 Thomas: Okay well and the thing is I really think what might be happening is it is actually breaking through to certain people's news that it never did and so that's like made it news again it's like the game of thrones series became available in a new market it and so it's like okay I guess I'm glad you're watching it now I don't know like it's

0:02:22 Matt: It is. Right. And it seems to be the one issue that does seem to get through to MAGA. People are getting really angry. There's a real civil war developing. So I think it's worth going deep on this, if there's anybody you know that might be persuaded that Donald Trump is actually a bad guy, it turns out. I don't know how many different ways we can say it, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:45 Thomas: Yeah just crazy breaking news an article that was written in 2017 that you're just now they just like crossed out the date yeah no yeah absolutely it's amazing I'm losing it okay I'm excited though to get the matt oa breakdown of it because there's there's a lot going on that people don't know

0:02:57 Matt: Who knew? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to make the case actually that this is, and I know there's so much going on, but this is actually turning into one of the greatest presidential scandals in US history, actually. Even more than I think I realized before I started looking into what's actually going on here. So plenty to talk about there. And then we've got a fun footnote involving one of our favorite MAGA influencers and the president of France. So you got it. It?

0:03:22 Thomas: About oh good times all right well I'm excited for all that we'll take our usual break which you can avoid patreon .com slash law support the show support stuff like this support uh cold medicine I don't know whatever after this break we'll get to

0:03:39 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:03:39 Matt: Well, I think that I hope by now everybody knows who Jeffrey Epstein was. I don't think we have to really start there. But just to be clear, of course, he was a very well -known, wealthiest child sex trafficker who got into certain circles. And there were, at least at this point, it looks like over a thousand victims. Most of them will never be known and should not be known to the public. So I just, of course, basic trigger warning that we'll be talking about child sex trafficking and some pretty unpleasant stuff. We're mostly going to be touching on the legal issues around this. But I do want to start with the Trump -Epstein relationship very quickly, because that is not in dispute. It's never been a dispute. As you said, it's something that many of us have known for a long time. But there's a tape. The auto is not quite good enough to play, but we can link to it with journalist Michael Wolff, where Jeffrey Epstein just straight up says that he was Donald Trump's closest friend for 10 years. So let's start there.

0:04:23 Thomas: I love it too because all this stuff is it's so crystal clear there's no there's No explaining it away like you or I aren't at risk of the world's worst child sex predator trafficker ever saying that he was our best friend for 10 years there's not a thing that like just accidentally happens to

0:04:38 Matt: And nothing we're going to say in this podcast is going to get us sued because we've got the receipts. So let's hear from the man himself. We've got Jeffrey Epsteins in a deposition. I'd never actually heard his voice before, but describing certain activities with Trump and his refusal to comment on them.

0:04:43 Thomas: People yeah

0:04:53 Clip: Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?

0:04:58 Matt: Long pause.

0:04:59 Clip: What do you mean by personal relationship, sir? Have you socialized with him? Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18? Though I'd like to answer that question at least today I'm going to have to assert my fifth

0:05:26 Matt: There you go. Taking the fifth, just in case.

0:05:29 Thomas: Do you need to say all the amendments or is it that's just yeah I feel like that's showing off how much he's done this. He's like, I have asserted my rights so many times in so many depositions. I've had them memorized.

0:05:41 Matt: Let's throw in the eighth too. This is cruel and unusual, to be honest about it. Asked about Donald Trump.

0:05:43 Thomas: Also, I think women should have the right to vote. So that amendment, I can't remember what's the number of that one.

0:05:48 Matt: Right. I will say, and as a lawyer, the question, have you ever socialized? I mean, you and I have probably socialized in the presence of children because the one time we met in person, there were kids around, no doubt.

0:05:56 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. I have kids. Yeah.

0:05:59 Matt: But like, right.

0:05:59 Thomas: Kind of a loaded question, but yeah, it's sure.

0:06:02 Matt: Very specific question. And I think he knows what the context is supposed to be there. And it is pretty clear that over the years, Donald Trump has said that he knew Jeffrey Epstein. He knew straight up, you know, in 2002, there's a very notorious quote, I think we all know at this point, but just to be sure people know, when he said that she'd known Jeff for 15 years, terrific guy, a lot of fun to be with. It's even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. He was asked for comment about that quote specifically in 2019 while he was sitting at the White House. Then Trump said, well, I knew him like everybody knew him.

0:06:28 Matt: I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him, he was a fixture. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. It was not a long time ago. He said he was terrific in 2002. Not a fan of 2019, of course. He's been asked multiple times about Epstein's death. And of course, it was officially ruled a suicide. The autopsy has never been released. But FBI again recently confirmed it was. And obviously, we know there's a lot of conspiracy theories around that. We don't have to get into that. It's not what we're talking about today. But when he was asked in August 2020, not long before the election by Axios, he said her boyfriend died in jail. He was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, his accomplice. People are still trying to figure out how did it happen? Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish her well. I'm not looking for anything bad for her. He says about a notorious child sex trafficker. Yeah.

0:07:07 Thomas: In prison.

0:07:09 Matt: And then Tucker Carlson also asked him in August 2023 if it's possible that he was killed. And he said, oh, sure, it's impossible. I mean, I don't really believe. I think he probably committed suicide. So that's he's been back and forth. Now, Trump has also made some promises about getting information about Epstein released. And that is what has led to the conflagration we're going to talk about here, the MAGA civil war, about how much information should be released, because quite a lot has already come out. Thousands of pages have already been released. Just to be upfront about this, as the FBI said this, but I think it's common sense, almost none of this information should be released because quite a lot of it involves minors.

0:07:41 Matt: Quite a lot involves people who should never be revealed, whose identities need to stay secret. And quite a little bit involves what the FBI, I think really disgustingly called child pornography. I think what they mean is child sex abuse material, not child pornography, but images and photos that obviously should never be released. So when people are talking about releasing the Epstein files, I thank people aren't really thinking. I thank even the hardest core conspiracy people don't actually want all of that stuff released. But there's quite a bit of stuff that could still be released that we'll talk about. So this became kind of a campaign thing where Epstein came up a lot during the campaign. And are you familiar with Gwanzo? Do you know about Gwanza as a concept?

0:08:15 Thomas: Galanzo.

0:08:15 Matt: This is one of my favorites. This was a post that made some waves on Blue Sky. I can't actually read the author's name into our podcast, but it's a variation on the name of William F. Buckley, and it's at opinionhaver .bsky .social. And he wrote that if 25 % of the population believed that a creature called Gwanso caused high power prices by chewing transmission lines, any competent politician would would be negligent and not trying to find a way to exploit this. That doesn't mean these people wouldn't be f***ing morons. He also says, Trump has a natural advantage with these voters over people who give a shit about policy or reality, because we'll have to mumble something about hardening electric infrastructure while trying to hide our contempt. And he'll say that the Marines will kill Guanzo under him.

0:08:51 Matt: And it's so true. He can just say whatever about whatever, because, you know, he doesn't care. But, you Know, we have to actually talk about policies and they can talk about Guanzi.

0:08:54 Thomas: And the best part of that is the part that's we have to talk about hardening electrical lines or whatever like that's that's the part I'm so sick of I'm just so sick that

0:09:04 Matt: Yeah, it's true. Yeah yeah. It's so so true, right? That like we respond to it with facts and logic, right,

0:09:10 Thomas: Was everything I won't go on too much of a tangent but that was during the doge stuff and this is you know I always pick on the daily this was everyone every single reporter well in fairness there have been criticisms of the budgets of some of these places like every every story there have Been criticism No one is a big fan of all of the budget decisions. It's like, that's not relevant to what we're doing. That's the glonzo. That's glon...

0:09:33 Thomas: Well, in fairness, the electrical lines could be hardened, you know, against glonso. I hadn't seen that tweet or skeet, but that I'm sad because I would have used it 700 times on this podcast already.

0:09:36 Matt: And Glanzo, he is out there. Yeah. It's perfect. I love it. I think about it a lot.

0:09:46 Thomas: Yeah, that'S really good.

0:09:46 Matt: Yeah it's and I mean and Epstein has been a Glanzos situation because there's the QAnon stuff obviously that has tied child sex trafficking to Bill and Harriet Quinton and all the Democrats.

0:09:54 Thomas: I was going to say, I don't think it's quite glonza because Bill Clinton also was perhaps friends with this guy.

0:10:00 Matt: Oh sure no doubt no doubt.

0:10:01 Thomas: You know, like there's some real stuff there. I'm just saying it's not made up.

0:10:03 Matt: But they were making wild promises about what was going to be in here and how we're going to bring down all these people and how like they were directly tying it in. And like Trump was totally curious, like he was fine with allowing the QAnon people to believe whatever they wanted to believe to get elected, including the fact that there were, you know, high power Democrats who were going to go down and go to Guantanamo Bay because of this. And so let's let's hear some clips of Trump making some promises about Glanzo Epstein.

0:10:24 Thomas: We're gonna hear some clonzo journalism is that what you're telling

0:10:25 Clip: Sixth and fourteenth amendment right sir would you declassify the 9-11 um files yeah would you declassified jfk files yeah I did I did a lot of it would you declassify the epstein files yeah yeah I would all right I guess I would I think that less so because you know you don't

0:10:27 Matt: Glanzon Journalism.

0:10:39 Thomas: Me a little a little more hesitant yeah I love this one

0:10:43 Matt: This is good.

0:10:43 Clip: Know it you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there because it's a lot of phony with that whole world uh but I think I would or at least do you think that would restore trust help restore trust yeah I don't know about epstein so much as I do the others certainly about the way he died it would be interesting to find out what happened there because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working etc etc but yeah I'd go a long way toward that one uh the other stuff I would I would definitely do the january 6th there's a moment

0:11:02 Thomas: So good why the difference why the

0:11:09 Matt: Yeah so this is a theme here when he talks about epstein he's often like but you know there's a lot of phony stuff and we don't want to we don' t protect people you know right

0:11:15 Thomas: Difference yeah yeah you know a lot of people I think maybe not all that stuff was uh true that was in the fire so obvious

0:11:24 Matt: And he immediately turns to the suicide right that the gonzo part of it right so

0:11:27 Thomas: Yeah yeah turn to the part you know he does have a really good sense for that crap you know turn to part that he knows he can be both conspiratorial on get people's minds working that way but away from him so good yep yep released that one yeah ah I've seen yeah yeah less so he literally says less so and that's the best thing is because like he's sort of I wouldn't even say he's sly about it because he's so incapable of hiding every single one of his his stupid thoughts.

0:11:41 Matt: Right most of it yeah less so yeah yeah yes

0:11:51 Thomas: Less so, you know, less so. Oh man.

0:11:54 Matt: Here's another funny thing on on Lex Fridman's podcast,

0:11:57 Thomas: When is this from? Just to set the table here.

0:11:59 Matt: September 2024, Lex Fradman.

0:12:02 Clip: Moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein, releasing some of the documents on Epstein? Why the hesitation? I don't think I had, I mean, I'm not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did. Why do you think so many smart, powerful people

0:12:15 Thomas: Fortunately. Fortunately, is that how you would describe the fact that you've never been to his island, Matt? I've never bin. I'll just say for me, I'm going to God's honest. Fortunately I've ever been to the island. That is so clearly. He almost went that one time. Like he, he did almost go and then maybe circumstances worked out that he didn't and now instead of being like no I would never go to a pedophile island instead of that's like dodged a bullet on that flight being canceled or whatever you know yeah

0:12:39 Matt: With apologies in advance, that's how I feel about North Dakota. Fortunately, I've just never been there. I think it's so funny that his response to why the hesitation to release the files is, oh, well, I'm not involved. He's so bad at this, so much of this. But things kind of cranked up after he actually got elected. And of course, you get Kash Patel, who's a leading conspiracy theorist. You get Pam Bondi, who've obviously been doing the hardcore MAGA right -wing things for a long time. J .D. Vance promised they were going to release the files. And so we get Pam bondi making a promise that we'll play next.

0:13:19 Clip: Allow... The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happening? It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I am reviewing JFK files, MLK files. That is all in the process of being reviewed because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these agencies. Now to the public, the public has a right to know. Americans have a right. It was an expectation that this was going to be bigger. You had the same expectation. We all did and the FBI handed over a couple hundred pages of documents but you know Sean I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8 a.m. to get us everything and a source had told me where the documents were being kept Southern District of New York shock so we got

0:13:28 Matt: Next.

0:13:28 Thomas: Source

0:13:41 Matt: One more, just to really get this in there. A source.

0:14:08 Clip: Them all by hopefully all of them Friday at a.am. thousands of pages of documents I have the FBI going through them and cash is also now that we have cash here it's a game-changer of course and cash Ash is going to, Director Patel, is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents.

0:14:08 Thomas: What

0:14:28 Matt: So what she's talking about here is the infamous Phase One that was released, you might remember, back in late February, the Epstein Phase One, where they had those MAGA influencers to the White House and they gave them those fancy binders full of Epstein. Yeah, they gave nothing.

0:14:41 Thomas: They gave they gave him something like a folder

0:14:41 Matt: There was nothing in there that we didn't know. It was just like you were saying at the beginning, just like stuff that we've all known, like including flight logs and Black Book stuff, both of which include Trump, by the way.

0:14:49 Thomas: I'll be honest I was somewhat worried it would be like some bullshit stuff that would you know implicate other people or something but at least it wasn't that

0:14:54 Matt: No, no, no, it was just the usual. No. The only new thing in the 300 pages they released was some inventory of his house. It was only a couple of pages. It wasn't anything at all. So we got these big promises, and this was supposed to be phase one. So everybody's waiting for phase two. And we get this memo this month in July, 2025, in which the FBI releases a page and a half, and it's pretty paltry. There's not much to it. We'll link to the memo. You can read it for yourself. But the FBI says they went through about 300 gigabytes of evidence. They went through everything there was, that they had agents working around the clock to do this, obviously making the point that I just made that you can't release most of this and never will be and shouldn't be but no client list quote unquote because you know the people keep talking about that like that's a thing but right

0:15:27 Thomas: There was no list that was the main takeaway from that

0:15:33 Matt: There's no like database of like as detailed and organized as the guy seemed to be it's not like he was keeping specific information about who was doing what I think he

0:15:40 Thomas: Well oh is that true because I feel like that was The Belief I would have said that that was true I thought black man was a part of his deal this is not something that I've looked too much into but but just again as a casual news observer it was sort of just conventional wisdom that like he had a little book of everybody because Because that was how people thought maybe he made some of his money.

0:15:58 Matt: Just sure well he did have a lot of videos that were cleared out like there's a lot of stuff we'll never know that was cleared out we know for sure he had an extensive video system throughout his house and that he was definitely keeping blackmail material but the fbi claimed in the memo, they found no evidence of blackmail in any of the files and any reference to it.

0:16:12 Matt: Seems pretty hard to believe, especially given the intelligence connections we'll talk about later. And they also confirmed the autopsy report of the suicide and they provided the video. You might have seen there was some splash about the video because allegedly there's a couple of minutes missing. I don't need to get into that right now either. But this memo was not enough to satisfy the hardcore base, obviously, that wants blood on this Epstein thing. So this has really started to heat up. And I want to talk about some of the different legal stuff that's come out of this. And I want to tie it all together to show you, and anybody who wants to understand this, why this is developing into an actual scandal. This isn't just funny. I mean, it is pretty funny in a lot of ways, and not the subject matter, but just the way Trump has to react to it, the way MAGA's reacting to it. But there's also potentially a much bigger than Watergate scandal going on here in several different directions.

0:16:12 Thomas: It does. Darn. Well, that would only be like the 40th scandal bigger than Watergate that he's had in the first few months of his second term.

0:16:57 Matt: It's true. But people might care about this one, maybe, because it really does seem like, for whatever reason, this is the one. I think it's true, again, this isn't something that every person can agree is disgusting, right? It does make it it easier.

0:17:00 Thomas: Yeah, I think that's true. I actually think that'S true.

0:17:08 Thomas: Oh, of course. Again, my amazement is just we already knew all this. That's what's so amazing. It's like if they already did Watergate and there's a bunch of news coverage of it five years prior, then Woodward and Bernstein just published the articles again, like a five -year look back. At Watergate, and everyone's like, oh, my God, Nixon is going down. Like, what is happening?

0:17:11 Matt: Right. Exactly. We should have. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:17:29 Thomas: Okay, anyway, I'll stop.

0:17:29 Matt: We've had the flight logs for at least five years and the Lolita Express that he flew around, lots of celebrities on. Now, again, being in the flight log does not directly implicate you as a sex trafficker. There are a lot of innocent people potentially in the flight logs, like Chris Rock and Stephen Hawking. He was pretty generous with his planes, apparently. But the fact is that Trump was on at least seven of those flights.

0:17:50 Thomas: Seven might be another story.

0:17:51 Matt: So yeah, that's a lot of Epstein. Also, Epstein told Michael Wolff that he hooked up with Melania for the first time on one of those flights. There's just a little piece of salacious tabloid detail.

0:17:59 Thomas: I don't want to know anything about that, man.

0:18:02 Matt: That's true. Sorry. You can take that out.

0:18:05 Matt: There is also the fact that Trump was in his black book, his contact list, and that's not questioned. That is something we have known for many, many years because, again, he was one of his closest friends for 10 years.

0:18:13 Thomas: For me. Oh, so they did have a contact book, but you're saying not a blackmail-y book. Okay.

0:18:16 Matt: Right. A quiet list. Exactly. Right, right. Yes. He had a contact list like his Rolodex kind of thing from him way back, yeah. So I wanted to start, before we get into some of the other legal stuff, with the libel suit that he just filed against the Wall Street Journal. And that libel suite involves the birthday message I just read you at the top here, which, as you referenced, allegedly included a drawing of a naked woman with a signature in the crotch.

0:18:21 Thomas: Gotcha. Gotcha. What do you mean, allegedly? Don't we have it? I thought we saw it.

0:18:38 Matt: We don't have it. No,

0:18:39 Thomas: What?

0:18:39 Matt: That was a hoax, the one you saw. Yeah, no, the actual one is never, yeah, no picture, I'm sure. I was very surprised myself. I thought I'd seen it.

0:18:41 Thomas: Really? Are you sure? Huh. Are you 100 % sure?

0:18:49 Matt: Yeah.

0:18:49 Thomas: That's an elaborate one to do. Because like the way it was done was exactly how you might think. That's it. Wow. Okay. Well done if that was a hoax.

0:18:57 Matt: It fell apart and Snopes made sure to take care of this also.

0:18:59 Thomas: I'm really glad you're telling me that. I would have sworn that we got that. Huh?

0:19:02 Matt: Yeah., since the story was published, a number of online plays claimed to share a very image of that letter, but we looked closely to compare it to compare to the description. There's inconsistencies, there's issues so far. And also the thing is, I wanted to mention in this libel suit, Trump is going for broke and saying this letter doesn't exist. So he's full on. Now, again, this is the Wall Street Journal. This is not the New York Post. It's not the Daily Mail. Like they're very serious.

0:19:23 Thomas: Sort of.

0:19:23 Matt: I think that it's Rupert Murdoch. Like he's sure,

0:19:24 Thomas: As long as it's not the opinion section, I guess. I don't know. They suck too. But whatever. They're not the New York Post. Yeah.

0:19:28 Matt: But they're journalists. Like, they're not going to completely make up a thing and publish, you know, based on nothing. So this letter, I'm going to presume it exists and that they had seen it. Now, again, presumably there's a source that they're trying to protect and there's, this is evidence. Now this is one of the most interesting things that we're talking about is the fact that there's now a piece of evidence that would completely kill his libel case that's among these Epstein files, right? There's this birthday album that was put together that included this letter. So that's one thing that Trump has control over whether or not that's released. And that's a direct conflict of interest because he's suing the people that say it exists. So there's the thing. But the reason I really really wanted to mention the libel suit is because Trump, way back in 2016 and onward, he's said this over and over again, that he wants to open up the libell laws. That's the phrase he keeps using. He wants to undo the New York Times v. Sullivan standard, which applies to public figures and how you have to prove actual malice, which means you know it's false, right? So like I said, he's going for brokenness and he's saying, Wall Street Journal knew this didn't exist. They'd never seen it before. They just made it up, which is quite a thing to say.

0:20:25 Matt: I mean, that's really like, you have to know that's one way or another, they're going to be producing testimony, even if they can't produce the actual thing.

0:20:29 Thomas: Well, it's also a pretty specific thing to make up. That would be an amazing bit of brainstorming if you just made that up.

0:20:36 Matt: And he's also denying that he ever did drawings, and he did lots of drawings ,and he actually sold a couple for charity and stuff. He's well known to do drawings.

0:20:41 Thomas: Okay. Okay. So that part is real. All right. I thought I saw some other drawings, but yeah.

0:20:45 Matt: So there are a couple of interesting things about this, though. One thing is this was filed in Miami, not where Trump lives in West Palm Beach. And if you think about it for a second, that is really strange because, of course, he could get his favorite judges a very good chance that if he'd filed this in his home jurisdiction, he would have gotten Eileen Cannon.

0:21:02 Matt: But it concerns me that they specifically did not file in the place where he actually has a residence in Florida. They don't actually explain in the lawsuit why they're filing it in Miami rather than in his home district.

0:21:11 Thomas: Hmm, that's so weird.

0:21:12 Matt: But it does make me wonder if they're keeping Aileen Cannon open for other possibilities, because she'd be conflicted out of anything else they might want to put her onto in the future. So just mentioning that in passing. Yeah. Yeah, because there aren't that many judges in that jurisdiction. There's a good chance you'd end up with her. Just something I was thinking about. I was just trying to puzzle out why Miami in all of this. It doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise.

0:21:30 Thomas: So you have no explanation at all other than just not going for I think, yeah.

0:21:32 Matt: No, not in a complaint. Yeah, they're just saying that Miami is one of the places where you could read this defamation, but that's pretty much everywhere so but you know new york times v sullivan has been under attack steve winn the casino monster tried to take it on now you might know steve wynn is a serial rapist going back to the

0:21:40 Thomas: Wow. Yeah I Don't remember who this is. Sorry.

0:21:56 Matt: 70s of his employees he has some really horrible allegations about him which seem to be extremely true steve won as a casino mogul he owns I actually because of the anti -casino work I did around here we were actually trying to specifically stop win casinos I learned a lot about him actually got to see him in person I shouldn't say got to it was not a pleasure but he testified at one of the hearings I was at but he sued the ap for a 2018 story and he was trying trying to take on the entire public figure analysis. And, you know, it's not a bad idea for somebody to put this in front of the Supreme Court right now because Thomas has expressed doubt about it. Gorsuch has expressed out about it, even Kagan has had questions about, you know, the limits of this public figure thing. And this could be trying to set that up. I mean, this seems like a ridiculous one to set it up with because it seems like it's going to be so easy for the Wall Street Journal to just produce some kind of chain of evidence to show that even if they can't, even if their protector source, DOJ also has changed their policy about subpoenaing journalists who are protecting leaks. And these could all just just be a way to find out who leaked it. Who knows?

0:22:41 Thomas: Yeah oh yeah.

0:22:43 Matt: Because they're so obsessed with that right now.

0:22:44 Thomas: Leaked the thing that didn't exist?

0:22:46 Matt: Right. So if somebody with high security clearance or someone in DOJ sent a picture over anonymously, they're going to want to try to figure out how that happened, right?

0:22:46 Thomas: Yeah right. Well is it it feels like it's that and not just somebody who knew about it because a lot of people would have known about a birthday book that was

0:22:59 Matt: Oh, but the actual document is in evidence. So it's in DOJA evidence right now, so they

0:23:04 Thomas: Oh oh okay I'm sorry I think I might have missed something you're saying the wall street journal has seen it but hasn't published it

0:23:10 Matt: Reviewed it. That's the way they put it, right.

0:23:11 Thomas: They've reviewed it okay so the question you're trying to answer is how they have it now and it might be I still think that could be somebody involved right does it have to be the very one that you know could it be somebody who has a picture of it from something

0:23:20 Matt: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. It could have been somebody who just thought it was funny and took a picture. For sure. Absolutely.

0:23:22 Thomas: I'm just I'm just wondering yeah yeah okay copy of it or

0:23:25 Matt: But I assume that otherwise, the only reason they wouldn't have actually published it is because they're protecting somebody. It's not supposed to happen. Sure.

0:23:31 Thomas: Yes that makes sense I mean and anyone regardless of whether it's a doj leaker or just a person I'm I'm sure they would not want to know. They would not wanna have Trump know that they were leaking this out. So yeah, okay.

0:23:41 Matt: But the complaint says they failed to show proof that he authored or signed any such letter, failed to explain how that purported letter was obtained. The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists. So they're really, really going for it.

0:23:51 Thomas: Doubt it. Doubt that's the reason.

0:23:53 Matt: Yeah. So, you know, they're saying this is actual malice because they know it's bad faith and ill will. So we'll keep a watch on that. I think it's a pretty interesting case for any number of reasons. And we'll see. It's a big swing.

0:24:02 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, every one of his cases has been terrible and yet so many have ended up in massive payments to him personally or to his presidential library. So I guess, can't fault him for trying, but yeah, we'll keep an eye on that.

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0:26:02 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:26:02 Matt: All right. So the big red herring that they've been throwing out this week is that they're going to try to get the grand jury records. They're really obsessed with the idea that they're gonna show us the grand jury records. Now, first of all, I want to say the reason they want to show us the grand jury records is because they won't mention Donald Trump. There's no way.

0:26:16 Thomas: Now why do you know that for

0:26:19 Matt: Well, so there's three different grand juries in play here. There is the one from 2019 in the pending case when Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. That was the actual big case. There was the one from Ghislaine Maxwell's trial for 2020. And then there's the grand jury investigations in Florida that led to the plea, which we'll talk about a little later, the original Epstein plea. But in none of those cases, think about what you have to do to make a case against Jeffrey Epstein.

0:26:40 Thomas: Sure it has nothing to do with being with trump I

0:26:44 Matt: Right. You have to be able to show that he's obtaining, that he is trafficking women, which is what he was doing in girls. And so a grand jury is a very different presentation from a full trial. But I think that Trump is going to try to say this is the evidence they had. And yeah, that's my guess.

0:26:54 Thomas: See so this is okay I was wondering about that I figured it had to be something like that where they're gonna find you know they've done the mlk they've been doing it for a while they're throwing everything they can at it just to be like well look over here at this and so this is a way for them to look like they're doing something but there's no chance this would have the evidence in

0:27:12 Matt: And there's no chance it'll ever be released because it's grand jury records. And they know that too. So I want to talk about that because under Rule 6 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, I think it's worth reminding everybody that you can't just get grand jury reports. That's not how it works. There's some pretty direct exceptions, none of which apply. So just to review very quickly under Rule 5, the exceptions basically include the fact fact that it's like some other judicial proceeding that you need them for this defendant that he thinks that like he might have evidence to dismiss the indictment because of something in the grand jury or at the request of a government to a foreign court or prosecutor in an appropriate state or indian or military or foreign government for the purpose of enforcing or investigating some other crime basically so there's like very limited exceptions for how you get to see stuff that was never supposed to be public that's the whole point of the grand jury it's the prosecutor's show he's just making the case and they indict so todd blanche former trump defense attorney current current Trump henchman.

0:27:36 Thomas: Yeah it's on his business card this is linkedin current henchman formerly huh

0:28:02 Matt: Yeah, current henchmen. Yep, yep. Goes in to all three of these courts and files the same request. And the arguments that they're making basically are, they're not even pretending that a Rule 6 exception applies. They're just saying, well, he's dead. So rules don't apply. And they're also saying that this is the public's strong interest in the historical record constitute a special circumstance. Now, this is notable because something like this has been recognized in the Second Circuit, which over two of the cases are in New York, but not the 11th in Florida, where the other case is. So the Florida judge has already denied this request and said explicitly that she is limited. Let me get that. Judge Robin Rosenberg in Florida already said she's limited by 11th Circuit precedent, that maybe in the second we could do this, but you've not raised any kind of actual exception to the rule. I can't release these records. End of story. He was also trying to get the whole thing transferred from Florida to New York because obviously it'd be more favorable and maybe released. But she said, if you can't make a showing that the public can even see this, I'm not sending it up to New York. So in the other two cases, we've got Judge Berman in New York on the original Epstein case and Judge Paul Engelmeyer on the Maxwell case. They both issued pretty similar orders seeking more information, basically saying, why does the government need to do this? They also wanted to see the proposed redactions, because if they're going to release these transcripts, they want to be sure that they're redacted properly, obviously. And they wanted a response from Maxwell. And I thought most interesting, the judges note that the government may not have notified the victims. That's an interesting way to put it. I think that has to be required under what I understand of the Crime Crime Victims Rights Act, which requires timely notice of any public court proceeding, like anything they do in a case, right? And this is a case obviously that the victims all would have had good reason to believe, especially the 2019 case is gone with the defendant. So I just thought that was notable that, because they did the same thing as I recall in the original Epstein plea, which we'll talk about in a minute, where they didn't notify the victims, they violated their rights

0:29:45 Matt: All over the place. So these records most likely, I mean, there is an exception in New York, the Second Circuit as well as the Seventh Circuit have both found there can be special circumstances circumstances, potentially, that allow, outside the rules, that allows some jury testimony to come out, if you can make that showing. I still don't see it. And it's clear that they're just trying to do this because there's this public obsession with it, and they're trying to use it to misdirect. But they're saying that there's some public interest reason. So we'll keep on that in the second circuit and see what they're doing in New York. But let's move on and talk about the actual Epstein plea, just to remind everybody about how ridiculous this was. Now, again, this is information that's been out there for a long time, but maybe a quick refresher in case you've forgotten or didn't know. And anybody who didn't Know this information should really know about the plea that he took in 2008, because it is astonishing, truly astonishing. Remember, this was a case in which Jeffrey Epstein was the first time that he was actually facing justice, and it should have been the last time. He was being investigated by both state and federal authorities. Yeah, so bad. He's being investigated, but he's not. He wasn't. He was being investigated by some really dogged state authorities, and the state had to lay off because they were told the federal government was going to prosecute it. And the federal government was like, no, we're going to sign a non

0:30:34 Thomas: Yeah this is awful absolutely

0:30:45 Matt: -prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstine, one of the worst child sex traffickers of all time, somebody that we have dead to rights. We're going to sign a non -prosecution agreement in which he's going to agree to take a plea in state court to one count of solicitation of prostitution under Florida Statute 796 .07 and one count of solicitation to minors to prostitution. They knew about a thousand victims at this point.

0:30:45 Thomas: Awful yeah

0:31:08 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he got a combined 18 -month sentence, most of which he got to serve in his home and under his own terms.

0:31:06 Thomas: Unbelievable a thousand wow insane I I just just insane

0:31:15 Matt: And the more you look at this agreement, the worse it is.

0:31:17 Thomas: Hey uh wasn't uh certain harvard uh lawyer involved in that certain certain uh ethics teacher of a certain previous co -host involved in that

0:31:21 Matt: Alan Dershowitz was him and potential Epstein co -conspirator. I'm not the first person to say it.

0:31:28 Thomas: He kept his underwear on it's fine don't

0:31:30 Matt: He did. But he was certainly personally aware of what Jeffrey Epstein was up to. There's no way that he was not. He knew that Jeffrey Epstine had at least a lot of younger women around in really shady circumstances. And he represented him in this non -prosecution agreement. And I think he probably helped to write it because there's a particular clause here that is so astonishing and that actually now is going to become the center of Ghislaine Maxwell's, which we'll talk about in a moment, her appeal. But this, remember, non -prosecution agreements, as we talked about in the Boeing episode, are generally for corporations and for other civil white collar type things, right? They're just the idea that we're going to not prosecute you as long as you agree with certain things, go along with certain fines or conditions, or we'll monitor it for a year or whatever, and we'll see what happens. In this case, it was upon condition of you're going going to take a state plea and this outcome will happen and we won't prosecute you for all the federal stuff we've got you absolutely dead to rights on. So this is extremely unusual, obviously, but it gets even worse because the clause that really got people mad and should make you mad if you know about it, I want to make sure to read it out. If Epstein successfully fulfills all the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co -conspirators of Epstein.

0:32:35 Thomas: What how could you possibly justify

0:32:38 Matt: Any potential potential co -conspirators, including, and it says including, but not limited to, and then it names off some names, not including, yeah, a few people. Right, right. Yeah. Alan Dershowitz's name does not appear here, but the

0:32:42 Thomas: That just just naming random people just I'm just for fun you know like mr rogers uh you know tom hanks just anybody oh we don't

0:32:53 Matt: Fact is that we were aware, and maybe it came out later, but Alan Dershowitz had received services from the women that Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking, girls, I should say. And he is potentially a co -conspirator. He's the person who definitely helped to write this agreement, and he's immunizing himself by doing this.

0:33:00 Thomas: Know unbelievable most corrupt thing unreal

0:33:10 Matt: So just to point that out. Now, allegedly, this is where legally this is the part I've really gotten fascinated with. And I'm going to flag this for just a moment about the all potential co -conspirators. I'll tell you about the rest of the non -prosecution agreement. We'll get on to that next part. But it also, just to name a couple of other things here, it did allow civil suits to proceed against Epstein in the Southern District of Florida. So far, though, 121 million has been paid out to 135 victims and there are said to be more than a thousand. So it's not great. In the non -prosecution agreement, the parties anticipate that this agreement will not be made part of any public record. Oops. Oh, well, now we're reading it.

0:33:42 Thomas: It's just this is crazy the amount amount of corruption that this is it's like

0:33:45 Matt: It is. It's so bad.

0:33:47 Thomas: They got to write just the most sweetheart thing it's like disturbing

0:33:50 Matt: Well, and so Alex Acosta was the US attorney at the time. He became Trump's labor secretary. And remember, this is 2008. So he negotiated this with Dershowitz. And he said publicly in a public story that he was told that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligent asset and that this decision was above his pay grade and he was going to take this deal.

0:34:08 Matt: Yeah. That's what he told Vicki Ward, who's been covering Jeffrey Epstein in Florida, doing amazing work on this for years. She knows Epstein better than anybody. I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone. So you're talking about the blackmail in the video he's got? Yeah. I mean, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see who might be interested in having that. So Alex Acosta becomes Trump's labor secretary, but then this all comes out and he actually had to resign the next day because he didn't handle it very well when he addressed these questions about it.

0:34:06 Thomas: What what oh my

0:34:32 Matt: Now, non -prosecution agreements, like I said, in these kinds of criminal cases where it involves involves serious harm to actual people and not just violations of regulations or questionable business decisions. Now think about Bill Cosby. He also had the same issue. Now he didn't have a formal non -prosecution agreement, but his conviction was overturned. He was convicted of rape. And in 2018, the DA had publicly stated in that jurisdiction that he would never be prosecuted. The DA put that in a press release. This is not a contract. A non - Prosecution Agreement is an actual contract you make with the government. Now this is a different issue, issue, but it goes to the same point because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, it's a very similar issue. Pennsylvania Supreme court determined that that promise that had been made in writing, even in a press release, was enough to overturn Bill Cosby's conviction because the prosecutor had previously promised and stated that he would never be prosecuted. And he relied on that promise. So this is where we get to Ghislaine Maxwell because she has become the center of all of this now because she is now, of course, the only person left who knows personally his business like nobody else. And to be clear, there would be no Jeffrey Epstein without Ghislraine Maxwell. This It wouldn't have been possible. And you read her indictment and just even detailing the few victims they're able to prove the things that she was doing. She was grooming girls from the age of 14 and onward to do the things that Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking them to do. You know, this sort of massage scam that they was running. And Glenn Maxwell was prosecuted by the Trump administration in 2020, very notably. And one of the things they prosecuted her for, and I didn't realize this before I started looking into this. One of the things they prosecuted her for was perjury, and they said at the time that she could not be trusted. Here's a filing from 2020 to the court when they're trying to get her detained, keep her detained. The defendant's willingness to brazenly lie under oath about her conduct, including some of the conduct charged in the indictment, strongly suggests her true motive has been and remains to avoid being held accountable for her crimes rather than avoid the media. Those lies are, of course, the subjects of two counts of perjure, and the evidence of her willingness to flout the law in order to protect herself. Keep all that in mind. And

0:34:31 Thomas: God yeah yeah

0:36:23 Matt: I mean, literally one of the statements I've got to hear from her indictment, she had a deposition in a civil suit where she was asked, did Jeffrey Epstein have a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages? If you know, her answer was, I don't know what you're talking about. That's perjury. It's obvious perjure. I mean she spent many, many, many years. And we don't have time to talk about her, but she's an interesting character and in her own right, disgraced British socialite from very complicated background who found this kind of high society position and used it to do these terrible things. So she was charged with eight counts of things relating to sex trafficking. She was charged for the kinds of things that Epstein should have been charged with it and was facing in 2019, to be clear. All these charges were brought against Jeffrey Epstein and he was facing them at the time that he allegedly killed himself. And the perjury charges were actually eventually severed in a deal that she made with with prosecutors, but she was convicted on everything except one count of inducing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. I think they just couldn't prove that one particular case enough. But she got 20 years, which is certainly appropriate for everything that's been alleged here. But the really interesting thing, and the reason I want to talk about her, because she's about to be back in the spotlight, Congress wants to bring her in to subpoena her, Todd Blanch met with Ghislaine Maxwell today, the day we're recording this.

0:37:33 Thomas: Good things could come from this no good

0:37:35 Matt: And no, nothing, because I just saw the report. And now Todd Blench has a very friendly relationship with with her lawyer, David Marcus. So let's just play this clip of the two of them. David Marcus has a podcast called For the Defense. And here's a little clip of Todd Blanche giving his opinion about David Marcus at the end.

0:37:49 Clip: You are, and it means a lot to me, and I think people will get a lot out of it that you were willing to come on and talk to me I was happy to do it, David, and in all seriousness to you, I know a lot of people that have worked with you. I know of people who know you very well. I now consider you a friend and someone you are by far um the the best out there and I'll always say yes to this podcast it might be the first three p let's do a three p you're gonna you're going to win the next one and come on after the next win after a victory done that's a deal thank you

0:38:17 Matt: So that is Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney. That's who was sitting in the room today when Todd Blanch grilled her. And it was reported today that she did not raise any privilege. She did not raise the fifth at all. And she answered all of his questions. And there's a very good reason for this, because her petition for certiorari is pending before the Supreme Court right now. And I want to talk for a minute about what that's about and what her her options are, because she seems pretty confident at this point that she's either going to win before the Supreme Court or she's going to get a pardon. And I think at this point, either of those things are extremely possible if she plays. And as I just read you from the DOJ filings, they know that she is willing to say whatever. And what Trump needs at this is a witness to come into Congress and say that, you know, all of these people were Democrats that we were trafficking to, right? That Trump wasn't involved and, you know, the stuff you've heard is false and whatever.

0:38:26 Thomas: Things hmm huh yeah

0:39:06 Matt: But I want to talk about her actual defense, because honestly, I think it's pretty strong. Not her defense of the charges, but her defense against the conviction, which is that, again, just to read that back to you, if Epstein successfully fulfills all the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States agrees it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co -conspirators. Obviously, she was co - conspirator number one. There was no bigger co - conspirator than Gwynne Maxwell. So this is an actual circuit split that is being raised by this that I think the Supreme Court does need to resolve. And I am concerned, well, I should say I'm concerned in this case that it's going to result in her favor, but I do think I agree with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers who filed an amicus brief in this cause. And their brief is pretty convincing. I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what the arguments are, but there's a circuit split on the question of whether or not when one U .S. attorney makes a non -prosecution agreement in one district, if it's binding on everybody else, especially if they use language like the United States

0:39:19 Thomas: Interesting hmm right huh yeah yeah

0:39:59 Matt: Agrees, right? Not like the Eastern District of whatever agrees, but the entire entire U .S. attorney's office. Now, so in Glenn Maxwell's case, the Second Circuit has precedent on this, that it's on the other side of the circuit split, in which they have said very narrowly that... The Second Circuit precedent is called U. S. V. Anabi from 1985, and it says, a plea agreement binds only the office of the U. С. Attorney for the district in which the plea is entered unless it affirmatively appears that the agreement contemplates a broader restriction. And the court does acknowledge in a footnote the circuit splits, so I looked up the cases. And the cases are pretty interesting. U.S. v. Harvey and the Fourth Circuit had language that said the Eastern District of Virginia further agrees not to prosecute Harvey for any possible violations of criminal law arising from the offenses set out in the indictment. And the Fourth Circuit agreed that this language covered all federal prosecution, even though it said the Eastern District Virginia, one U .S. attorney's office, agreed. Because there is Supreme Court case law from Giglio, which we've talked about before, that basically a promise made by one attorney must be attributed for all purposes to the government, that when the prosecutor's office speaks for the government. There's another case called Santabola that just basically says if this is what you're being induced to plead to, then it's a contract, right? It rests on that promise. And the U .S. Attorney's Manual, as the Second Circuit points out in Glenn Maxwell's case, does not allow this. If you actually want to do a binding, what they call a global agreement, where the entire U .s. Attorney s Office is agreeing to something, you have to get a very specific set of things in writing from D .C. to say that. Right.

0:41:19 Thomas: Yeah I would think you can't just do do that like I assume that the whole u .s government goes along with this

0:41:25 Matt: Yeah. And I looked up the Prosecutor's Manual and I'm looking at it here. And you have detail, what were the crimes that were committed, the identification of all the possible victims, the proposed agreement. And you have to have the assistant attorney general for the criminal division in D .C. sign off on it, or every one of the possible U .S. attorneys districts that might be affected by the thing you're talking about. And they didn't do any of that. But the fact is, those are just policies inside the DOJ. If DOJ wants to sit down with Alan Dershowitz and make a drug deal where they agree that the entire U. S. government isn't going to prosecute a whole bunch of people who aren't even named, they could do that. That seems to be what happened here. And I have to say, after reading the briefs, I think she's right. And I think that if the Supreme Court takes this, which which I think they might have to, I think they're going to have to fine for, because I mean, this is an agreement. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a legitimate circuit split that has to be resolved. And honestly, as a defense -minded person, if you're making an agreement with the U .S. government, it had better be as specific as possible. If you wanted to include that district, they know how to say that. And the NACDL brief actually gives dozens of examples of different non -prosecutions agreements they had found, in which they're specifically outlining which things you can't be prosecuted for where? And that didn't happen here. So this is a big one.

0:41:54 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah that's I mean yeah I mean I'm torn because obviously but I think what what I'd rather have happen is them realize that was a pile of crap anyway and then any and all co -conspirators should be prosecuted rather than like because I I do like I do think it's unfair for her for it to be like the only The only person who paid for this was Maxwell, like, and nobody else, you know, no other potential co -conspirators. Like, that part doesn't feel fair.

0:42:38 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are more. And the real Epstein files are what Ron Wyden from Oregon has been...

0:43:07 Thomas: I'm really glad you didn't say the friends we made along the way. Thank you. I appreciate it.

0:43:09 Matt: The real Epsteins files, which we talked about very quickly here, is the money. Because if they really wanted to, and they don't want to, but Ron Wyde wrote a great letter that we'll link to in which he's demanding that DOJ actually follow the money in this case, because there's $1 .5 billion in suspicious transactions that have been reported by the banks themselves. They have to file suspicious activity reports. JP Morgan filed a big one for 1 .1 billion, 4 ,700 transactions that they thought were suspicious from Epstein from 2003 to when he died, or when he was charged, rather.

0:43:34 Thomas: From what time period are we talking? Just why did it take that long for anyone? Okay. I don't know.

0:43:42 Matt: Yeah, well, again, I don't think people wanted to follow the money. I think this is not, but they know that there's a lot of women in Eastern European countries that were getting this money. The extent of his international trafficking has never really been revealed. We still don't really know. Widen notes in the letter, there's hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian banks that we don't know what that was about.

0:43:47 Thomas: To your point. Yeah. Boy, isn't this stuff we should know, Matt? Like, don't we have an interest in this?

0:44:05 Matt: Yeah.

0:44:05 Thomas: Like, I thought we cared about justice in this country. Aren't we tough on crime?

0:44:08 Matt: Financial records are a lot less exciting than a client list, but they actually exist. So I think we should see them. I think we should how this horrible man was making his money and who was paying him, because that's where you're going to learn most of what happened. So yeah, this is something that Republicans don't want to talk about. Trump doesn't want to talking about it.

0:44:23 Matt: And I think they're in a bind because if they want to pardon her, which is going to look really bad, I think they're going to have to say that the non -prosecution agreement did actually include her and the Supreme Court case is good, or they could let the Supreme court case play out and they could basically drop their opposition or tell the court they now agree with her, I guess.

0:44:28 Thomas: Oh, that would be horrible.

0:44:40 Matt: That's not going to look good either for

0:44:40 Thomas: Well, wait, sorry. Why would they do this?

0:44:42 Matt: Ghislaine Maxwell, if she cooperates and does what I think they're gonna want her to do. Sure.

0:44:45 Thomas: I guess I'm. Yeah, I guess I'm asking what do you think that would be that would because that that is so bad optically like what is the thing that she would do that would be less bad than the optics of that is when.

0:44:52 Matt: I think it's possible that she could tell the best version of the story for them, which has the one where this is like, he was just involved with Democrats and where Trump had nothing to do with anything. That's my guess at the moment.

0:45:06 Thomas: Yeah I mean it's I see the speculation but boy that is that is I don't know.

0:45:11 Matt: It's dark. It's stark.

0:45:11 Thomas: I don'T know that's a good a smart even trying to think is like the evil people Like that's, I don't think that'll go over well. Yeah.

0:45:17 Matt: But I mean, why else would she just be talking to Todd Blanch, one of the highest people in DOJ, with her lawyer present, not taking the fifth, just chatting, just talking it out, right?

0:45:28 Thomas: I think it makes sense for her to, yeah, for her to talk. And I think you make sense for, I guess I'm saying if you're right, that that's what Trump admin is going for. I think that's going to be a really bad move. I think that will be yet again, and not morally, this whole thing's rotten morally.

0:45:43 Thomas: I mean, even evil strategy wise, people are, I don't, think that that gonna work. I don' think it's gonna be like, well, look, the person that they gave a sweetheart deal to just now And agreed to let free. He said he didn't do anything. So, you know, what is there to see? I don't think I think that's going to go down as badly as every other move that he's made in this. That's gone. He really has just completely miscalculated this entire thing, which is kind of rare for him in his crowd. You know?

0:45:54 Matt: Yeah. Look at that. Yeah, yeah. But he's acting out of desperation at this point. I mean I think he really knows that there's probably more than we even know about in there. And Democrats have taken advantage of this. They put up a bunch of of amendments and motions.

0:46:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask you that. Yeah, what are those efforts? I know this is like complicated like rules of Senate house crap that we always forget. Normies forget. What are the rules there? What are we trying to do? What are Democrats trying to doing? What might be successful? Is she going to testify or anything? I thought that was being talked about.

0:46:31 Matt: So Chairman James Comer of the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed her, and she is going to be deposed on August 11th.

0:46:37 Thomas: Oh my God. Give me some open testimony, please. Please.

0:46:40 Matt: Yeah, no, no. Probably not that easy. And Rashida Tlaib has introduced an amendment trying to get the Treasury records so we can see the transactions. Democrats have been pushing for as much information as possible about Epstein, and Mike Johnson gets fed up with it. He just sent everybody home for the summer.

0:46:41 Thomas: That won't happen yet.

0:46:53 Matt: Congress gets to take an early summer break because they don't want to talk about Epstein. That's how much they don't want to talking about it.

0:46:53 Thomas: Oh, crazy.

0:46:58 Matt: So that is important to know, I think. So So, yeah, there's a lot going on, a lot to follow here. But, you know, just think about the overall appearance of the president essentially directing the Department of Justice. First of all, he was telling them, we know for sure from Wall Street Journal reporting that he was calling the Department. He was telling FBI to flag every instance of his name in the records.

0:47:16 Matt: So he knew for sure that obviously he was going to be in the record.

0:47:16 Thomas: On that topic, I just got to say, I know I skeeted it for the few people who follow my skeet, my blue sky, but we had that bombshell that said, Trump is reportedly known for months that his name is in the Epstein files.

0:47:30 Matt: Right. Months.

0:47:31 Thomas: He had the subheading in this Wall Street Journal. Again, Attorney General Pam Bondi made the revelation to Trump in May, according to the Wall Street journal. I just love it. Yeah. He's known forever because he was there. Like, what are you talking about? Of course he knows he's known for month. They broke it to him that he was in the files that he definitely would have been in this entire time.

0:47:47 Matt: And he asked DOJ to look for it. I mean, again, you don't, if you're the president, you don't ask them to randomly look into to criminal cases to see if you mightn't be involved with them, usually. There is the appearance coalescing around all of this, and this is early days. We'll see how her testimony develops. We will see how this Todd Blanche thing goes. We see how the pardons in the Supreme Court case goes. But it is giving the appearance of the president attempting to cover up his involvement in one of the most prominent examples of human trafficking in our lifetimes. So that's, I don't know, I'd call that a scandal. I think that still qualifies, I think, a little bit. It's not worse worse than the crime, to be clear.

0:48:18 Thomas: Yeah I think so. Yeah say so. Let's go. Yeah thank you for once. Yeah.

0:48:24 Matt: This is not the thing where the cover -up's worse than the crime because the crime can't be worse. You'd have to kill a lot of people to have the cover up be worse, right?

0:48:28 Thomas: You have to do a pretty bad coverup. Yeah. You'd have to like sexually traffic some people in the coverup for some reason, like during the cover up.

0:48:34 Matt: Exactly, right, right. But yeah, but it's bad and it's presumably, I mean, I have to say it, and again, nobody cares. We've talked about this so many times, but obviously this is impeachable if he's getting DOJ to interfere, obviously. Let's just mention that.

0:48:45 Thomas: Oh, yeah. That obscure thing that we've. Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. The thing that used to be in the Constitution. Good point, though.

0:48:52 Matt: But this is what it's supposed to be for. Yeah.

0:48:54 Thomas: I mean, this is if there's anything, if there's anything that he he specifically him could get impeached for. I think this is the first thing that's been close. This really feels like it almost could be that. Hmm.

0:49:06 Matt: It's hot enough, For sure. And just the fact, I mean, just to make that point again, in case everybody missed it, the Wall Street Journal lawsuit is about a piece of evidence that Trump has the authority to release or not release, to classify or not, right? So yeah, just that alone, that conflict of interest is pretty stunning when you think about it. So I got to say, I haven't seen all of these threads I've been telling you about with between Maxwell and all of the different stuff when the attempts to get the grand jury stuff out and the Wall Street Journal thing.

0:49:15 Thomas: That's weird.

0:49:31 Matt: I haven't seen this all tied together this way. And it was fun to sit down and just try to figure out the different pieces right now. You know, not conspiratorially, but just literally what's out there in the record that we can figure out.

0:49:39 Thomas: Yeah。 And I appreciate that, too, because there is a lot of conspiracy in this. And this is one of those places, though, you know me, I think you're the same. I'm not a conspiracy theorist whatsoever. This is one OF those places where there is some level of conspiracy. Now, what that is, we haven't wasted much time with the death thing. I think he probably committed suicide because if you're a guy who goes from what he was doing and you're that type of guy and you have that type OF life to being in prison, it's not like insane to me that he'd be like, well, screw this. You know, like I've ever thought his death demanded a special explanation, you know, but there's a lot that could be explained by some level of conspiracy. We know there's some level. Of conspiracy here.

0:50:15 Thomas: And I really appreciate you taking us through what's actually established and not.

0:50:17 Matt: I mean just from what we're seeing the way that Justice Department is responding the way Trump is responding there's conspiracy fact going on here like there's not just not just theory. I will read you very quickly Todd Blanche's ex -post from the other day before he went to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell. I think this is very funny. We'll close out on this. Justice demands courage.

0:50:33 Thomas: No, come on.

0:50:33 Matt: For the first time, for the first times, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislraine Maxwell after convicting her for 20 years to ask, what do you know? No.

0:50:40 Thomas: Shut up. Justice demands courage.

0:50:43 Matt: They're reaching out to somebody who they said in writing to ... said in writing to a judge previously, couldn't be trusted on anything trusted on anything and would say whatever it took to ask what she knows.

0:50:49 Thomas: Man. That's incredible. Wow.

0:50:55 Matt: At A .G. Pambandi's direction, I contacted her

0:50:55 Thomas: Palm bandy. Yeah. No, we're in the dark. That's actually where her name is in the light universe. The one we don't have any access to.

0:51:10 Matt: Counsel. Again, good friend, David Marcus. I intend to meet with her soon. Here's the best part. No one is above the law and no lead is off limits. Sure. Sure, Todd.

0:51:18 Thomas: Wow. I feel, you know what I didn't appreciate fully where I didn' because we just didn't have any context when we did gavel gavel. And when we covered the Trump trial, I did not appreciate how much Blanche and Bove were just dyed in the wool pieces of shit. They're not just like, I mean, they're good at the Trumpism. Like they're good at that.

0:51:36 Thomas: They're like, it's not like a, you see some people trying to do it and it's not quite a right fit. You know, they're like you're kind of awkward and how you do these, these two idiots, these two evil people are there right at home within the fascism. And it's something I did not necessarily figure. Like I still, I still want to give people some amount of benefit. I don't know. Maybe it's just a client, you know, maybe it was just a geez, no way. Crazy.

0:51:57 Matt: I think it's a wiring.

0:52:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

0:52:00 Matt: Some people are just born for it and they've really got it. Yeah. So that's where we're at. No lead is Off Limits. So I assume he'll be supporting the impeachment soon enough.

0:52:06 Thomas: Well, it'S official position of the show that We're so glad that Blanche is showing that courage because he's right. It does take real, real courage. Wow. What a hero.

0:52:12 Matt: That's right. Real justice. Real courage. Yeah.

0:52:17 Thomas: All right. Well, let's take a quick final break and then we're going to get my favorite segment, the footnote.

0:52:23 Matt: Let's do it.

0:52:23 Thomas: Let's see what Matt has for us after this.

0:52:27 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:52:28 Thomas: All right, footnotice.

0:52:29 Matt: All right. I'm serving up a quick gourmet footnote here.

0:52:31 Thomas: Yummy.

0:52:32 Matt: This is a a lawsuit against Candace Owens, who, of course, we all know, of course, as a MAGA influencer, who's willing to say pretty much anything. Sure.

0:52:40 Thomas: And Lydia and I are already on this because of Gavel Gavel, because of the Blake Lively thing. She's all over that bullshit.

0:52:45 Matt: Oh, of course she is. Yeah, naturally. But unfortunately for her, in March 2024, Candace Owens told the world, I'm just reading from the complaint here, she would stake her entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, is in fact a man. So it turns out Brigitte Macron not only is not a man, but did not like this very much and sued over this. Now, I should say they didn't just spontaneously sued. They sent her a letter in December letting her know that she had a chance to retract this.

0:53:13 Matt: And they referenced the retraction demand quite a lot in here. They give all the information that she would need, including the birth announcement of McGreep McCrone, because she's also trying to suggest that they were related, the two of them related somehow. I don't know why she was saying any of this.

0:53:23 Thomas: Why do these people think all this stuff? I don't know what else. Why would that be? Why would it be?

0:53:29 Matt: I do not know. You know,

0:53:32 Thomas: Why would, what, sorry.

0:53:34 Matt: The transvestigators, right?

0:53:35 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:53:35 Matt: The people that are just trying to prove that everybody's actually not their birth gender. It's a weird obsession.

0:53:39 Thomas: I want to be careful because yeah, these people are horrible. The whole thing's horrible. I at least understand like the bigotry they're trying to do with this. I don'T, like, where does this even come from? I donT get it. What, what about her or them would make any of this be true? I DON'T know. Like, where is she getting this?

0:53:50 Matt: I don't know. Well, I have to say, this is not a frivolous lawsuit because her response, Candace Owens' response was so deranged.

0:54:01 Thomas: Where are they suing? Are they suiting in America? Are they using french law okay yeah gotcha oh uh

0:54:04 Matt: Yes. They're suing Delaware. There is a possibility of criminal prosecution in France for extremely discriminatory statements. I don'T know how far this would go. But yeah, they went for Delaware where the company is based. Obviously, Candice Owens works for the Daily Wire, probably.

0:54:16 Thomas: No I don't think she does anymore I think that was a I think I had a breakout

0:54:18 Matt: Oh, no, she doesn't. You're right. I think she quit.

0:54:20 Thomas: I should know this lydia's gonna be disappointed in me because she's told me a bunch of times the daily wire interestingly enough um ben shapiro has lost a lot of his quote -unquote talent

0:54:28 Matt: Yes, that's true. Yeah, she quit over, or she was dismissed over something or other she said that they didn't agree with, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, so they sued in wherever, I don't even care what she works for anymore, but wherever that's based, of course, is in Delaware, like everything else. So this lawsuit, I just have to tell you, though, the response that Candace Owens had to a letter demanding that she retract a statement that was so clearly false was what any reasonable podcaster would do. She did an eight -part series about why Birgit McCrown was a man. Eight parts.

0:54:53 Thomas: My god eight parts I don'T even think I could find eight parts worth of material in that

0:54:59 Matt: Yeah. But I mean, you're literally asking to be sued at that point, right? When they're telling you, we're going to sue you, why don't you retract it? And you instead do an eight -part podcast series and double down and make a bunch of weird statements again about how they're actually birth relatives.

0:54:59 Thomas: Crazy yeah I mean if you're her at least maybe shut up you know like maybe I get that those people can never back down but like octupling down is a new one on me yeah

0:55:15 Matt: Yeah, that's right. Oh, and plenty of ex -posts as well. But from the complaint, the fictions included that Ms. McCrone was born a man, stole another person's identity, transitioned to become Brigitte, that Mrs. McCone and President McCrone are blood relatives committing incest. President McCone was chosen to be the president of France as part of a CIA CIA -operated MKUltra program, or a similar mind control program, and that they are committing forgery, fraud, and abuses of power.

0:55:22 Thomas: What

0:55:40 Matt: Yeah, not a great choice.

0:55:30 Thomas: Okay the cia chose him for wow well done cia that's yeah

0:55:43 Matt: Picking a nice sort of pleasant, moderate man to be the president of France. Yeah.

0:55:45 Thomas: Yeah like I I don't know like that much about him but like I'm just saying I didn't know we could do that well done I mean usually I feel like we just botch stuff and start wars that you know we'd end up with a horrible tragedy but you know well done in this instance cia yeah

0:55:58 Matt: I mean, we had a whole episode about MKUultra. I'm capable of believing they did a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure they're not responsible for Manfred Macron.

0:56:01 Thomas: Not not often successfully Successfully, though. They did a lot of things, but not often successfully. Yeah.

0:56:09 Matt: They didn't create a president of France in a lab somewhere. That's not something... Why would we do that anyway? Why wouldn't it be the head of Iran or something? What's the point? What are we doing? Yeah.

0:56:11 Thomas: I don't, I don' know. Oh, boy.

0:56:21 Matt: So yeah, this is... The McCrons had already had to sue the original French conspiracy theorist who came up with this. She actually ripped this theory off. She didn't make it up herself.

0:56:28 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Well, at least that explains where it's coming. Like, I just genuinely was like, what is the connection between these two? Not only this person, I didn't know if she was like a connoisseur of French politics. Like what is going on? At least that kind of explains it.

0:56:42 Thomas: She's like, hey, I'm a horrible content mill fish around the world for the worst people saying the worst things and just kind of copy and paste that that that at least makes some kind of sense to me now.

0:56:49 Matt: So yeah. But if you're going to repeat stupid things that people said, why would it be people that have already been... Well, maybe she said it before, but in September, these people have already been found liable for lying.

0:56:59 Thomas: My God. Yeah, no, that's not a good that's Not a good idea. No, good point.

0:57:02 Matt: They've already been ordered to pay up. Yeah.

0:57:03 Thomas: Yeah, that wouldn't be who I'd go for.

0:57:05 Matt: So I'm going to go ahead and say that I think the McCrons have a pretty good shot at this one. Uh that gave her every opportunity to not be this idiot and she was this idiot so but you know her channel's doing pretty well she's still got four million subscribers and uh patreon numbers are going up so I guess we gotta maybe we should start just

0:57:22 Thomas: I know someday, Matt, if I ever, you know, if I'm ever banked now, I'll just I'll just either look, I 'LL DO THE NOBLE THING AND JUST KILL MYSELF OR I WILL GET A JOB AT STARBUCKS. I'm not going to, I will never go down this route. I don't understand how people live with themselves. I don'T get it.

0:57:22 Matt: Horribly defaming people yeah

0:57:39 Thomas: I'll never understand it. And not just people this bad. Most people, I don' t understand how most people lie and live with themselves, let alone this like unbelievable form of lying that is just like so beyond anything I could fathom.

0:57:39 Matt: Yeah yeah it's just absolutely sociopathic but uh you know good on emmanuelle macron for taking her on and uh it's a it's worthy

0:57:57 Thomas: Yeah. We'll, we'll follow that one.

0:57:57 Matt: Suit especially honestly I didn't realize how many opportunities She had to not do this and how badly she botched it. So I don't know. So there you go. Just a little fun with Candace Owens. And I hope she goes down for this because, you know, she should. Yeah.

0:58:09 Thomas: Yeah. We are keeping an eye on that one, yeah. All right. Well, that's our show. I'm going to hopefully recover my voice a little bit. I was optimistic it was going to be better today, and yet here we are. Sorry about that, everybody. Hopefully it wasn't too horrible. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you next time.

0:58:19 Matt: All right. Later.

0:58:42 Thomas: Every time I edit, I'm like, I know it doesn't sound as bad as it feels, but it feels really bad. Hopefully it's not too annoying.

0:58:47 Matt: You got some baritone. Sounded all right. His response to Lex Fridman is so good.

0:58:52 Thomas: But, yeah. God, this guy. We've talked about him on Where There's Work. What a weird, random, entirely made from Elon Musk, like, boosting him because he talked nicely about his bad research. That's this entire—this guy has millions more listeners than we will ever have because he kissed Elon Musk's ass once. And that was like and then continued but I mean like that was the inciting instance so weird the media environment matt the media environment in which we live palm bandy

0:59:00 Matt: Parts. A .G. Pambandi's direction, just absolutely sociopathic.