Reminder to Congress: Impeachment Exists. And It's the Only Acceptable Response to the Epstein Cover-up

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Jenessa: No, you cannot actually just hire a bunch of yes -men. They are obligated to be independent experts in the field.

0:00:19 Matt: The Trump administration has openly and flagrantly tried to obstruct the release of information and evidence. They're not even trying to pretend. And this is what we know about.

0:00:33 Matt: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. I'm Matt Cameron and with me is Jenessa Seymour. And we're here to talk about the law and the news. Once again, it is a Friday. But first of all, some personal news. Jenessa, I know we've all been tracking your adventures with the patent bar exam. So what's up with that?

0:00:48 Jenessa: I failed.

0:00:50 Matt: You didn't pass.

0:00:51 Jenessa: I did not pass.

0:00:51 Matt: You didn't pass. Let's be nice.

0:00:54 Jenessa: I found that out in the funniest way possible. So I started to get some hints of it. The last time we talked about it, I think the way I had expressed it when I walked out is like, I was pretty sure I either like barely passed or barely didn't pass um it was probably right around that 70 mark and then you know there's certain things where you can kind of tell like the website will at some point before you officially find out the link for you to register just appears and I was like it's been a while and I don't see it and then they publish these lists of like hey does anybody have any ethics complaints they want to raise because these people are trying to get in. And I wasn't on it six days after the test. So I was like, it could reasonably take longer than that. But then when I wasnít on it 13 days after, I was, like, all right, I didnít pass this thing. But, then, that day, I get the letter. And Iím like, alright, this is going to be the official thing. And, I open it and it says you didnít passed. Iím like alright. And it said I got a 30%. And, Iím like absolutely not. No. no, that didn't happen. That for sure didn't happen. So I look at it and it says the test that I completed on the 20th. And I was like, my friend, I did not. That was the first day of the test.

0:02:19 Matt: That's right. This was a two-day exam. Yes.

0:02:21 Jenessa: Oh my god. That would make perfect sense if the first day I had gotten about 60% correct and then you didn't count the other half of the test, yeah, I would get about 30%, wouldn't I? So I call the office and they send me to somebody's voicemail and I just leave this pathetic little like, hi, I got this letter and I, um, um. I just ended it with like, listen, I'm not 100% sure I passed, but I'm really sure I didn't get a 30%. Please help me. And they did very promptly email me with my actual grade, which was a 64%, not a 30%. I've never been so happy to have failed something in my life because that email, I was like, that is a grade I can be proud of. I almost passed that thing while working a full-time job. And the night before the test, I had a work thing dropped on me that I spent the Sunday working on. I was Like, that's a pretty dang good grade for the the week before the test I was working really hard and not studying as much as I should have like all right yeah

0:03:27 Matt: And it's a tough exam, as we've discussed. Very technical. And I did look it up and it has a 46 or 47% pass rate, which is lower than any state bar you knew going in.

0:03:43 Jenessa: It's really yeah compared to the 30 percent that would have been embarrassing that I would have been like what

0:03:48 Matt: Sure. But that was just one day.

0:03:51 Jenessa: Happened yeah so thank god um crisis averted um I still failed it but not in a way that was um terrifying and confusing in a Way that made perfect sense metacognition. I walked out with a correct assessment that I had either almost passed or almost failed. And I was correct about that.

0:04:10 Matt: I mean, I would have gotten far less than a 30% if I took the patent bar, I'm sure, even if I had studied. So I'm just impressed that you voluntarily took a bar exam for fun. Good going. Good effort.

0:04:12 Jenessa: So I don't know if I'll take it again. Like I said, it's not a career I'm expecting to enter anytime soon. I think like late career, it could be fun to be like, I'm done helping struggling people. I want to help your uncle with his weird flying machine that he built in his garage. That could be nice, late career, but yeah, I don't know if I want to invest the time again to do it again. We'll see. That's where I'm at.

0:04:36 Matt: Thanks for the update. Good effort, glad you tried. Right? Speaking of struggling people, we've got a few things to talk about here. We'll start with what I think is some very good news. It's not being reported out of my world. I'm not really seeing it covered. I want to give a quick update on how the death of Chevron deference has actually been amazing for one specific instance of immigration, just to give people some hope on that, because federal courts really are winning on this. You've got couple stories for us. We've got fun footnote. As always, it involves both adorable animals and then a footnote on that footnote about what the case is really about. Plenty to talk about in our foot goat fetish, as I'm calling it.

0:05:19 Matt: Really stretching it to the edges now. All right. Anyway, that was a long intro. Let's come back with some good news.

0:05:28 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:05:28 Matt: For the last few months, we've been talking about how the DHS first was arguing that there's no jurisdiction for bond in cases, whereas there's always been jurisdiction for bonds in front of immigration judges. And then the Board of Immigration Appeals sort of adopted this, what I consider to be ridiculous and out of control position.

0:05:43 Matt: We've talked about it at some length in multiple episodes recently, but most recently with Aaron Reikland -Melnick from the American Immigration Council. That was one of my favorites recently, episode 1202, just a few weeks ago. Let me explain first about why the death of Chevron deference is actually what has cleared the way for federal courts to release people from immigration custody all over the place. Page after page after page of wins in these cases. So Chevron Deference, just to remind everybody, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, I believe it was 1984. We talked about the end of Chevlon deference in 08 -1050 with Charles Starr, a great podcaster, just last year. A lot of people were very concerned about the the possibility that the end of Chevron deference, which is when federal courts defer to administrative agencies on how they interpret the statutes that control them. So certainly, this comes up a lot and certainly didn't Chevron with the EPA, which has its own set of regulations that are based on the statuts that it is administered to control. And the rule basically was that if the statute is unambiguous, or considered to be unambigious at least, that federal courts, when they're reviewing decisions made by places like the EPA or maybe the DEA's courts, or of course, in this case, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which are the immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is the administrative body that reviews immigration courts, that they would have to defer to what those courts did. That they'd say, well, you're the experts on immigration law. You interpret these statutes. These regulations were passed by your agency. We will defer to you. For many things, obviously, the death of Chevron can be pretty bad when you're talking about a lot lot of science things, a lot of technical things that maybe courts shouldn't be involved in, where the administrative agencies are the experts. Of course, we'll be talking maybe a little later about the vaccine story, where now we have an administrative agency that is not necessarily the best expert or isn't acting like one, but we'll get to that in a second. But of course, when you have something as politicized as immigration and as politicised as the immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals can be, it could be pretty bad. At the time, and we talked about this with Charles Starr, and I think I've mentioned since, I was not unhappy happy about the end of Chevron deference. I was one of the only lawyers out there on the progressive side of things who actually wasn't too unhappy about it because, like most immigration lawyers, I've seen what the Board of Immigration Appeals can do when they rubber stamp immigration courts or even reverse them for sometimes no clear reason. The Board of Migration Appeals, as we were talking about with Aaron Reikland -Melnick, has been reduced quite a bit and has now, I think, has come down to maybe two non -Trump appointees left. And this is the administrative body within the Department of Justice, which reviews all of the immigration courts, which are also within the the Department of Justice. So the idea is when a federal judge, an actual Article III federal judge appointed and confirmed by the Senate, actually looks at these things, overwhelmingly, for this recent round of things, the federal courts have found against the Board of Immigration Appeals and declined to follow them. And this is amazing because the decisions in question here are completely and radically reinterpreting the law of detention, which of course is the most important tool right now for the Trump administration's mass deportation plans. They want to make sure sure that they can pick people up and never have to release them so they can deport them as quickly as possible. Getting lawyers involved, getting people released, getting these cases on longer calendars complicates things. It makes it much longer. What they've been doing, and I really want to be as top line about this as possible, I don't want to get mired down in the technical details of this because it can get really complicated, but the very short version is that the argument is that when somebody is encountered at the border, when they're what's called an arriving alien, when their seeking admission, they are being treated under 8 U .S .C. 1225, the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which deals with expedited removal and with people who are at the border being processed in. When they are found inside the United States, they are being treated under INA 236 or AUSC 1226. These are both very familiar provisions to me. We use them all the time in all kinds of different contexts. But what had been happening for the last 30 years since the big change in the law that became effective in 1997 1997, was that the immigration courts had been releasing people, once they were eligible for bond, under INA 236 or AUST 1226. And again, I'm trying to be as non -specific as possible. I'm trying to make this as simple as I can. But when you're talking about somebody who's been living here for many years, and they're picked up in the interior of the United States, and their put into proceedings, that is clearly an issue of USC 1226, there's a discretionary determination determination about whether or not aliens already in the country should be released pending the outcome of removal proceedings. And the very short version is that what the government has been arguing is that actually all of these people should be subject to 8 U .S .C. 1225 because they are what's called seeking admission, which means they're arriving aliens. And for all kinds of reasons I don't have time to get into here, that argument doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's also a time machine. They're just trying to go back and change history. They are trying to say that all these people actually were or had been treated very differently legally than they actually were when they were admitted.

0:10:35 Jenessa: It feels strange to say, well, we found you in Kansas and you've been here for 10 years working. So you're an arriving alien. It's like, well they arrived 10 years ago. I don't know how accurate that I understand that legally it may be that but like obviously there is a practical distinction here for somebody who's just been living their life hurting nobody yeah

0:10:46 Matt: You own a house and you've got U .S. citizen kids, I think you've arrived. So it is that difference. And also even people who were processed at the border under 1225 were eventually released under 1226. And you have to remember there have been thousands, probably tens of thousands of bond hearings in the last 30 years in which the government has not raised this argument. They've never once mentioned that actually we consider these people to be arriving and aliens and not able to be released. It's a really classic example of how the Trump administration has been trying to use the law in ways differently from what we thought to get to their objectives. And it really is like just an exercise of power. In its decision recently, a decision called Yohari Hurtado that we did talk about a bit, the Board of Immigration Appeals tried to say there actually should still be deference here. So in Loper Bryant, in overruling Chevron, the Supreme Court found essentially that the courts have to exercise so as an independent judgment, if the statute's ambiguous, instead of deferring to a regulatory agency's interpretation when the statute is unclear, which was the previous standard, they can still rely on an agency's implementation if it is the most persuasive legal interpretation of the statute. And as far as I know, no federal court has found that this twisted version is the most clear and persuasive version of the statue, which is really good for us. I've been very encouraged because we had a habeas case recently. We've had a few, but they've all worked. And I'm not saying it's our amazing legal work. They're just working everywhere, especially in the First Circuit here. Ours was in Maine. We've had them in Massachusetts. Every single district court judge, certainly New England, to look at this has immediately found that people have to be released. Now, habeas, of course, is when you have the right to review the terms of your custody. Why am I here? If you've been denied a bond hearing, you can show that you're going to be denied a Bond hearing because of this Yohari Hattato case, which says that you can't actually request a bond here. You can't even put yourself in front of a judge to ask for the possibility being released because there's no jurisdiction, because they have retroactively classified you as an arriving alien, even though you were never charged that way. And even though there's never any indication that anybody saw it that way in the last 30 years. So the habeas claim, this is exactly what habeas is supposed to be for. This is the ancient writ, of course, the great writ, and it goes back for 800 years or whatever, that you get to bring yourself in front of a court and say, why am I locked up? What am I doing here? Blue Sky user Bob511 actually helpfully directed me when I was posting about this to a Southern District of Florida federal case, which has four straight pages of citations from states around the country, every single state, just incredible, incredible range of states and decisions. I was tempted to just take some time to read off the names of every one of these cases because I'm so excited about this, but I won't do that. This is universally what happens when this kind of stuff hits actual federal judges. And this is exactly why immigration lawyers were excited to see Chevron go. I know other attorneys were not, and there are lots of other places where it's going to be harmful. But when it comes to people's liberty and to the Trump administration's ability to try to rewrite the law using, again, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which sounds like some sort of judicial body, but it's just an administrative body and has to be reviewed by courts, this is fantastic. In even better news, multiple classes have now been certified, including just recently in Massachusetts in a case called Guerrero -Oriana. We still have to file individual habeas petitions for the moment. We're waiting for the full outcome here. But the class itself was certified on October 30th, and it's essentially anybody who's being held and the government is alleging is subject to 1225 when they should be subject to 1 ,226. And again, I'm trying to be as general as I can. I know how technical this is, but it's so important. This is the point I've been making for more than a year now, that fascism requires lawyers, that authoritarianism requires something that looks like a legal argument. And you've now got Department of Justice lawyers having to come in and tell federal courts, we know this argument doesn't always make a lot of sense, it's not totally consistent, but this is the argument we've been given. It's essentially the argument that they've had to make, and federal courts are universally disagreeing with it. So I want to see more class certifications in circuits around the country. Obviously, I'm expecting it to fare as well, unfortunately, in the Fifth Circuit, where many people are held between Texas and Louisiana. But this is great news. And this is, once again, yet another example of the federal courts stepping up and doing what the administrative courts can't or won't do. So I just want to share that because we're trying to stick with some good news here. And I think this is fantastic news. I haven't really seen it reported properly. But these cases are winning and people being released all over the place. People that the government has tried very hard to deny the opportunity to even be allowed to pay and to be released.

0:15:23 Jenessa: Chevron were still in place it's not 100 % guaranteed it would be impossible for anybody to win these but it sounds like what you're saying is there's a pretty high degree of confidence that either Either people wouldn't be winning these or just it would be a lot harder. Certainly, it seems it's much easier to win them right now. There's just a whole barrier that's gone, right?

0:15:46 Matt: Yeah, that's how it seems. And I do think that this is not, I mean, this is incredibly ambiguous, the argument they're making. I have to say, in Yohari Hurtado, I meant to mention, the board really tried to say that it is not doubtful and ambiguous, that it's clear and explicit and requiring mandatory detention of all aliens or applicants at admission, no matter how many years the alien has been residing, that they really want us to believe that Loper Bryant still still allows them to do this and they shouldn't be reviewed. But the fact is that there's no question, this is an ambiguous argument. This is not something that is clearly in the statute and it needs to be reviewed, but yeah, I think it could have actually survived Chevron too, because it's, I consider it to be so unreasonable.

0:16:23 Jenessa: Yeah, I almost wondered that. Like, it seemed so egregious. Like, I'd imagine somebody at least trying, even with Chevron in place.

0:16:31 Matt: Oh yeah. Oh sure. We would have. Absolutely.

0:16:34 Jenessa: It so shocks the conscience to think like, really? You're gonna just everybody's arriving. We just that word doesn't mean anything anymore.

0:16:44 Matt: There is some ambiguous language in here and there are some provisions that it's hard to square, but I think as we discussed before, even as recently as February, when they're passing the Lake and Riley act and adding more texts to the immigration nationality act, Congress had a chance, and we generally assume that Congress knows what it's doing when it passes statutes, it had a chance to clarify what it means by mandatory detention. And it added more mandatory detention without mentioning anything about this.

0:17:05 Jenessa: That's true. True. Yeah. It's certainly helpful when you don't have to get over that barrier. Yeah.

0:17:11 Matt: I'm happy to see that these kinds of things and to see the courts standing up this way. The rule of law is still very powerful in this country. I know there's a lot of threats to it. I know that people are mad at the Supreme Court for all kinds of reasons. I understand it. We are too. But I just have to remind people that federal judges are doing their job, even in places where you might not expect them to. There's a very, very very long list of jurisdictions that have found this. And I think more class certifications are coming. So good stuff. Let's keep the good news going. You got some news about what's going on with the vaccine bans and fighting what RFK Jr. is doing with the CDC.

0:17:40 Jenessa: So we have a lawsuit filed here in the district court in Massachusetts. The primary plaintiff is the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are obviously one of the most invested organizations when it comes to childhood vaccination schedules. A number of other plaintiffs that are medical organizations and some individuals directly impacted by the The change in vaccine schedules, the change in vaccine recommendations, particularly the COVID vaccine.

0:18:12 Matt: Wait, just to be clear, you're talking about all the crooked pediatricians in the pocket of big vaccine, just so we're all agreed on what's going on here. Okay. Hmm.

0:18:15 Jenessa: Oh my god. This whole thing. It only gets more infuriating as you read this. It's a 58 -page filing, but I actually think it's extremely readable. It is very plain language and they go through examples of things that Kennedy, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, things he has said that are just so wildly unscientific about vaccines and the way that is very specifically detached from his responsibilities in that official role. The way that he is required to justify the statements he is making under the Administrative Procedures Act, very specifically in his role as director of HHS, and how it is contradicting those responsibilities. As a little refresher, we talked about some of this in episode 1191. We talked a little bit about how states were getting around some of these to make their own vaccine recommendations because the CDC can put out, you know, here's what we think doctors should do, but they're ultimately not forcing doctors to do it. You know, your doctor could always say off -label, this is what I recommend for my patient, even though, you Know, this medication, this vaccine, whatever, it's approved approved for treating this disease for this person you might not match that profile but as your doctor my professional opinion I think it's what's best for you that's a thing doctors are allowed to do right under the cdc it started in 1964 they have this advisory committee on immunization practices acip relatively recently he just announced he was firing all 17 members

0:20:19 Matt: I remember that.

0:20:19 Jenessa: They actually found out, most of them, through announcements on, like, the Wall Street Journal. It was just in the newspaper. And then they got the email that was like, thank you for your service. Goodbye.

0:20:31 Matt: We won't be needing your advice on vaccines anymore. Hmm?

0:20:34 Jenessa: See you later, everybody. He replaced them with, essentially, cronies, people who agree with him on vaccines, which is to say they agree that they're bad and scary and they're not really as helpful as you think. A lot of this, it's the complaint. So it all says like on information and belief, allegedly he required that they be registered independent or Republican. Like he wouldn't even put Democrats on this board. Super illegal.

0:21:02 Jenessa: It is the law. They are supposed to be appointed regardless of political affiliation. That's crystal clear in the statutes that create this board and that create these kinds of advisory boards generally. Generally, they're also supposed to be not just independent of the president, but independent of their appointor under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The committees that are created, yes, somebody appoints them, they appoint the members, but they're not supposed to Be looking over their shoulder and directing every little decision they make. They're not supposed to be like your personal henchmen. They're Not Supposed to Be Your Proxy. You're Supposed To Be Hiring Experts.

0:21:53 Matt: They're the advisory committee, right?

0:21:55 Jenessa: Yes, precisely.

0:21:55 Matt: So they're advising criticizing you. I mean, I guess you can hire a bunch of yes men that just tell you what you want to hear, but that's not the purpose.

0:22:02 Jenessa: And really, no, you can't. Per 5 U .S .C. 1001, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, no you cannot actually just hire a bunch of yes men. They are obligated to be people who are independent experts in the field. So if you just select people who agree with you, especially you, person who's not a doctor, what the hell are we doing here? This is nothing. Thing.

0:22:31 Jenessa: More broadly, under the Administrative Procedures Act, any of these administrative agencies, they have to be making decisions that are broadly rational, reasonable. That's a really low bar, and yet somehow we're not getting over it. They cannot be arbitrary and capricious. They cannot be just doing whatever that secretary or the president wants you to do it has to be things that make sense based on your expertise critically what we're seeing is decisions come out that pretty much just match bs kennedy's been spouting on social media through his whole career long before he was secretary. And when these medical organizations say, hi, can we get a justification for what makes you say that? For what reason? For example, they said, as opposed to the previous recommendations for the COVID vaccine, so like essentially pretty much everybody should be getting it, get a booster every year, always talk to your doctor if you have concerns, earns yada yada, but you don't need a prescription. They switched most people onto shared clinical decision -making as the recommendation, which is essentially just you go talk to your doctor and you decide if you should get it. We're not going to say who should get it. That's a huge problem because in the past, knowing that ACIP has existed since 1964, They have four times ever recommended that as the process for a vaccine. And every time they gave detailed guidance. OK, doctors, when you have the conversation with the patient, here's how that conversation goes. These are the risk factors you need to concern these are the benefits for the person so essentially you know we're not going to put out these people get it these people don't we're going to say have a conversation but this is like a structured conversation to have they didn't say anything like that they just said oh essentially go talk to your doctor whatever and really what everybody's reading that as code for is go find yourself a doctor who thinks you shouldn't get it and there you go. If you really want it so bad, go find a doctor who thinks you should get it.

0:25:00 Matt: This is extra bad because the states are looking to this for what they should be doing, right? So this is chaos. Okay. I just want to be sure I understood that.

0:25:07 Jenessa: Yes, there's pages and pages, a laundry list of who relies on these ACIP guidelines of schools, for example, when they say, you know, we don't get every vaccine in the whole world. Most Americans have not gotten a malaria vaccine because that's just not an issue. We're not in a a tropical region, most of the countries. So like, we just don't worry about that. There's a list of vaccines that is like, this is absolutely crucial for all American children to get, and they get them on this schedule. And schools say, great, that's what you have to do to go to public school here so that we don't have an outbreak in our school. Without that, we have one of the worst measles outbreaks ever. We declared it eradicated in the United States, and all of a sudden it's back, they literally talk about how we have a report on the measles outbreak in the U .S. and how it clearly tracks with areas where measles vaccination rates are down. And people in the CDC resisted publishing it. And the justification was, well, it's not going to tell people anything they don't already know.

0:26:21 Jenessa: And really what it is, is we don't want people to realize that obviously if we we publish this, we have to make a recommendation that you get a measles vaccine, right?

0:26:30 Matt: The nation's premier public health agency is just going to shrug its shoulders and be like, I don't know, whatever you want to do with meals, that's really where we're at, right, yeah, right.

0:26:38 Jenessa: You already knew. Like, no, we don't. We clearly don't look at what's happening. Yeah.

0:26:45 Matt: Right, because they don't want to have to make a recommendation. So this has to be unprecedented that there is, I assume this is probably an Administrative Procedures Act suit or something, but that you have the entire medical establishment saying there's this board that is completely unqualified and shouldn't be giving advice to the CDC.

0:27:03 Jenessa: They are supposed to be the people who say this is what we recommend for the childhood vaccine schedule for this, for that. A new vaccine comes out. They make a quick recommendation. They They base it on the science. They are experts in vaccines and safety. And yeah, now it's just staffed with people that RFK Jr. picked himself to say what he wants them to say, which is just really blatantly illegal.

0:27:35 Jenessa: Just like we talked about back in episode 1193, we talked about this in the Tylenol episode, how like, oh, you're not going to be able to sue for defamation. You're not going to be able to sue to get damages. But there is maybe Tylenol could sue to try to get the recommendation changed, to try to get them to stop saying don't take Tylenol. We're going to operate through that same Administrative Procedures Act idea here. That's what they are relying on.

0:28:04 Jenessa: I don't know. Maybe you could try to find some tort in here for some of the injured individuals. But realistically, the most important thing is, first of all, you need to rehire, hire new people, whatever you want to do. It cannot be hand selected by you, not on the basis of their expertise. You need to be appointing people nonpartisan on the basis of they are vaccine experts. And all the decisions this group made are now tainted. So get rid of those. This is all the demands they're making. And when the new group makes decisions per the Administrative Procedures Act, they need to explain how and why. Why? Like, we've all seen that document where they say, like, whereas this and this and this, therefore, this is what we're saying. Without that document, how are we supposed to even begin to argue with you that you made a good or bad decision? We're just sitting here in the dark.

0:29:11 Matt: Well, that's a classic APA claim that, you know, that has this arbitrary and capricious, right? Not based on anything. And without findings, what do we know?

0:29:13 Jenessa: Yes, precisely. Very similar to we talked about the other day, like that board of elections who just couldn't seem to explain why they put polling places where they put them. You have to be able to say something so that we can then assess whether that was remotely reasonable. And that's the realm we're operating in now. They did a really great job in the opening of being like, hey, you want to know what the Trump administration's biggest success was? Undeniably, Operation Warp Speed. They got that COVID vaccine out. Yes, amazing. And you know what he signed into law? 42 U .S .C. 245A. Carry out a national evidence -based campaign to increase awareness and knowledge of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. And guess what your HHS secretary is definitively doing the opposite of right now.

0:29:47 Matt: Right. Great work. Well, it was so 2020, though, being pro -vaccine.

0:30:12 Jenessa: Now, I just it's it's truly painful.

0:30:17 Matt: Yeah, it is.

0:30:18 Jenessa: If you want to see a document that is really condensed into one place, the worst offenses of just making up nonsense and talking out both sides of his mouth. Oh, I support vaccines. I support vaccine. Here's some stuff I said that got people killed, that put children in the hospital. You know, oh, you don't need a measles vaccine. Just take a bunch of vitamin A. There's kids in the hospital because they OD'd on vitamin A and had liver damage. No, stop it. This is unacceptable. Oh my God, it's extremely frustrating, but I am hopeful that this kind of lawsuit going forward, it it's the definition of arbitrary and capricious. You have given no justification for your decision and all these medical organizations are telling you your decision does not match their understanding of the science. So where the hell did you get it from? It's really bad. And there's a couple of Jane Doe's in here who are like one of them is a woman who is a doctor, works in a hospital setting, gets exposed to infectious diseases constantly and is pregnant and talks about how she wanted to get that vaccine to protect herself and her fetus. Was not able to do so until an extended time period later had to debate getting like an older version of the COVID vaccine because that wasn't like disapproved yet or should I get this other one and just all the stress that caused as a doctor

0:31:57 Jenessa: In a hospital worrying she would get sick that her baby would get stick everything that could happen because of that that they do a really good job of particularizing the injury that caused to an individual there. Yeah, I'm really hopeful for this one, that this could change something. This could get something done. It's going to take a while. It'S got to go through the court system, but somebody needed to say something. Yeah.

0:32:21 Matt: Yeah, this sounds like a very solid APA claim. Good stuff.

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0:34:20 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:34:20 Matt: Jenessa, we're breaking into Friday's episode for late-breaking news, something we just have to talk about. We don't do this very often. We've already recorded Friday's Episode, but we are going to talk about the big revelations from the Epstein scandal. That's the only word for it. This is an actual scandal. We don'T have those anymore, but it already was one. But yeah,

0:34:35 Jenessa: Yeah, yeah. Yeah! Yeah, the escalation of the horrifying morass. I don't know.

0:34:47 Matt: There's one thing I want to talk about that is relevant to this show, which is the fact that I believe now that there is significant legal basis for impeachment proceedings. And of course, we've talked about this many, many, many times in opening arguments about how impeachment is a political process. It's not a legal process. And just because somebody did something that's impeachable doesn't mean you're going to get impeached. Certainly doesn't means you're going to be convicted. But I just want to kind of spell out where we're at here with the Epstein stuff, because obviously, first, we've had there's sort of this initial trickle of three emails Democrats released, and then the Republican House Committee on Government Oversight released 20 ,000 documents, not all of butcher emails. I've been going through them. We're going to go through them some more on opening arguments. We are going to try to do a whole video episode on some of the stuff that's getting overlooked because there is so much in here that media is still trying to work its way through.

0:35:29 Matt: Stuff that already directly contradicts things that Trump has said. But I think that this is going to help the energy build because, of course, the other thing that has happened since we recorded it is that Adelita Krihova has been sworn in, which is outstanding. Mike Johnson finally just ripped off the Band-Aid and let her in. And so, as we've discussed, that means the 218th signature on the discharge petition, which means that now Johnson has confirmed next week that they're going to be putting this up to a vote on the House floor. That also means that it has to pass the Senate and be signed by the president as a resolution.

0:35:39 Jenessa: Finally yeah that that part not so

0:35:57 Matt: So that's a strange position. But all of this stuff is about getting these people on the record about how they feel about releasing something that they've been claiming they want to see. The thing that really got me thinking about this is that the news came out that Trump had been calling key members of Congress, including Warren Boebert and Nancy Mace, I believe, and I think Marjorie Taylor Greene, trying to get them not to sign the discharge petition. And I'm going to tell you straight up, I think that's impeachable, just right away. Don't sign something that will help to release something that I will be implicated in. I think he's way past the point of caring, obviously. But you think about that one phone call to Zelensky, which was a big deal. I mean, that was bad. He was offering to trade weapons that it turns out they were very much going to need in exchange for some sort of political favor to try to cut off Joe Biden as a candidate. And that one thing rightfully got him impeached. But this one phone calls, these phone calls just to these people to try to stop the release of evidence that could make him look bad is so much worse, trying to pressure another branch of government. So I just want to work back very quickly. Just to remind everybody, because it has been a whirlwind of Epstein stuff this year, the Trump administration has openly and flagrantly tried to obstruct the release of information and evidence. They're not even trying to pretend. And this is what we know about. I can only imagine what we don't know about. There have been multiple meetings, though, in which Department of Justice and FBI are coordinating to try and keep this stuff from coming out. And it'd be bad enough if it were just trying to keep information about Jeffrey Epstein out because, you know, he's a good buddy of Trump's and he just doesn't want to have to see him besmirched any further. That's not what it is. And you can't really besmirch him any further anyway. This man is at this point, somebody that can't be libeled. But I do want to make the point before I say anything else, I should say I'm limiting my ideas for articles of impeachment here. And I think we should be talking about articles of engagement right now. I'm limited my concept for this to things that happened while Trump was in office, including potentially in his his first term. And that is because, for the most part, that is what the understanding of impeachment has been, is conduct while you're holding federal office. Now, that doesn't mean it's limited, extremely limited, to things he did in federal office, it's just the way it's always been applied. Obviously, the Republicans did try to impeach Joe Biden for, I don't know what, I

0:37:59 Matt: Can't remember anymore, his open borders agenda, which is something that he actually did while he was in office.

0:37:59 Jenessa: Much whatever it's yeah things that they're mad about things his son did like who

0:38:07 Matt: Yeah, stuff they didn't like. Yeah. Burisma or whatever, pretty routine, high -level corruption. But there was at least some effort to try to impeachment Biden for things he did before he was in office. There have been federal judges who have been impeached for things that they did before they held the office that they're in at the time they're impeached, but that was because they had a prior federal office, typically another federal judiciary office. I took a look at a Congressional Research Service report on this that seems very credible, and no president, vice president, or other civil officer or judge has been impeach solely based on conduct occurring before he began his tenure in office held at the Time of Impeachment, although the House has investigated such allegations. That's the direct quote from this.

0:38:13 Jenessa: Knows so the point of that being if the alleged conduct turns out to be true I don't know what statute of limitations look like or anything but I mean you could presumably still be prosecuted at like, for criminal acts you engaged in, but in terms of the impeachment aspect, we'd be focused on not a thing he did that is now coming to light, but the fact that he's trying to obscure whatever he did or whatever he knew or, in this context, I do not want to use that phrase like the cover-up is worse than the crime, clearly, but for impeachment purposes, that's what we're focused on here. Yeah.

0:39:20 Matt: Yeah, that was was certainly true for Nixon. But yeah, yeah. Covering up a burglar is one thing. CoverING up sexist minors is quite another. But as I said, there's no statute of limitations on impeachment. But historically, the idea is the voters decide whether or not you should hold the office. And then once you've held the office, the things you do in it can be judged through impeachment. That's the history. But again, impeachment is judged completely by just sort of norms and handshakes. As we discussed with the US v. Nixon case, the other US v Nixon case where they're looking at the impeachment of federal judge, the Supreme Court has no oversight over the impeachment process. It's wholly up to the legislative branch, how they want to run it and how they want to do it. So, you know, you could certainly try to throw in some stuff. I mean, Trump has lived an impeachable life. Certainly if you want to go find every crime he's ever committed, you can go to town. But I think the thing to do here would be to go for the kill shot, to go for the things that are happening right in front of us within the past year, the things that we can prove were actually obstructing our ability to find out how involved the president in the United States was with a sex trafficker, with the most notorious sex traffiker of our times.

0:40:04 Jenessa: Oh boy. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

0:40:23 Matt: And so I just wanted to run down very quickly that they did, when he came in, they did sort of a pretend Epstein investigation. They released a two -page memo, which said nothing. And Pam Bondi re -released a bunch of documents that weren't anything and really did not provide any new context, any new information, but pretended that that was kind of the end of it. And then they dropped in July a whole bunch of other stuff that they'd been investigating potentially involving money and money laundering and other people that might be associated with that. So that doesn't look good. And we know, of course, already that DOJ is not independent of the president in this administration and never will be under Trump. So you have to look at that. But the very worst thing, well, maybe before I say that, before I said the very first thing, we also know, and I still can't get my head around this number, but at one point, the FBI had 1 ,000, approximately 1,000 FBI agents scouring the records, the Epstein records in March, and they were instructed to flag any reference to Donald Trump in those records. Traffickers. That's impeachable. I think the fact that you're looking through criminal evidence for evidence of crimes that might involve the president or the mention of the president, or the fact the president just wants to know if he's mentioned in connection with a sex trafficker and then not releasing any of that. I don't know. I Think there's got to be something. There's got be an article there.

0:41:32 Jenessa: Seems like what's important there is this is why the Department of Justice is supposed to be independent of the president. They investigate crimes and if you were involved you're not supposed to to be able to influence that in the same way that if some FBI agent were personally involved in a crime, they would of course be taken off of the investigation. It's the same thing. And the way I'm kind of looking at it is how he's being treated differently, not just in the way that unfortunately rich and powerful people get treated differently.

0:41:39 Matt: Yes. Yes, that's supposed to work.

0:42:10 Jenessa: But as compared to other rich powerful people he's a rich and powerful president and why is that affecting the way the information is coming out about him we're watching the freaking prince in england getting just completely disowned here's our not supposed to be king

0:42:26 Matt: Sure. Right. Nothing. No consequences. Yeah. No. And the way he's been using the Department of Justice is inherently impeachible because he's just been directly to do things. I mean, just the entire handling of the Eric Adams situation. That should be enough. That should be just throw that into why not. But you know, I think the best thing to do so that we can keep this as targeted and on track as possible, and have something Democrats can jump up and down about every single day until it happens, is the Epstein stuff, because that stuff plays because it's universally toxic, right? You can, and you know obviously, it might work pretty well for the Adams stuff because he's a Democrat and as a Democrat, you know prosecuting their own, but this is so easy to do because QAnon, right? The emphasis on sex trafficking, on child abuse, on things that every decent person agrees are terrible. And you are going to have to be on the side of saying, well, it's not that bad. You're going to have to come out and vote in favor of that. A couple of the things that DOJ did under Trump's direction that I think are worth noting. Wasting the time of three federal judges demanding Epstein grand jury transcripts. The only reason they did that was to try to come out and say, look, Trump's not in the grand jury Transcripts because why why would he be? It wouldn't make any sense. Why would you present the full case to the grand jury that involves anything to do with Donald Trump? But they wanted to pretend that the grand jury transcripts were like real jury transcripts, I think. That was a plot they had. Right. But they also knew that they weren't ever going to get the grand jury transcripts because they can't be released. And of course, all three judges properly refused to release them. But that was a purely political thing, a waste of time carried out by the DOJ for the sole purpose of making Trump look better. But that does not begin to compare to what I think should be article one of this impeachment, of these proceedings, which is sending Todd Blanche down to talk to Ghislaine Maxwell so that she could get what's a so -called proffer. It had nothing to do with the proffer, she's already convicted. Back in August, we had a two -parter in which we got on with New York superstar Liz Skeen and we talked out the Ghislaine Maxwell recordings with former Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche, who of course had no business being involved in any of this. Now, of course, top henchman at DOJ, Todd Blanche. And you can listen to our appalled response. We spent about three hours talking about the Ghislaine Maxwell recordings because that deserved the time. That was something that people needed to know about. It was a completely pointless exercise. The only reason it was done was so Ghislaine Maxwell could say on tape that she didn't think that Trump had very much to do with Jeffrey Epstein, even though we all know that was true. And even though those emails that now just came out completely contradict that, Epstein's

0:43:42 Jenessa: So it was like exonerating somehow and yeah yeah

0:44:50 Matt: Bragging about how he could take Trump down. And he's talking to the Russians about Trump in these emails. So, I mean, that's from the man himself. But despite all that, even if these emails didn't exists. The fact that DOJ did that for the sole purpose of protecting the president to try to insulate him from allegations that he was involved with this when they knew he was, even if they didn't think he was. It's still a waste of DOJ resources. And then she was immediately transferred to a better prison, which is what she's been demanding. And she's now seeking a pardon and she might just get one. And it could be that maybe more comes out if she doesn't get one, that's very possible too. So I think that one just straight up, the way that they handled the Maxwell thing, that interview, that should be article one, work it down. Not an impeachment But I think that there's plenty here. And this is just the stuff we know about. And there have been multiple meetings in which top DOJ and FBI and Trump have coordinated to try to figure out how to respond to the Epstein situation. When, as you said, the only response is, well, I have everything to do with this. I'm named here. I can't be making decisions as the president. You figure it out. Remember, Trump was so mad at Jeff Sessions, he never forgave him because he stepped back from the Russia investigation because he knew that he had something to do with it. He had to recuse himself because he had been involved in the conversation and he had to do what every lawyer has to do and recuse himself. And Trump just fundamentally did not understand that concept. Like, you're in a position where you could help me and you're not going to help me? That's all he saw. You know, I want to believe, and again, this could just be the exhilaration of just looking through these emails and thinking about the realities that are coming out here and how much more. And this is what the Republican, by the way, the Republican committee wanted you to see. There are probably many, many, many more emails because most of those 20 ,000 documents are not emails.

0:46:17 Matt: There's a lot to go through. There's the pressure on this will build to the point that there are going to be a lot of Republicans that are going to have to think about how much they want to vote in favor of keeping this stuff out. And when it comes to it, when articles of impeachment are introduced and they should be introduced, Democrats should be writing them right now and there should be a number of Republicans willing to join them. And again, even if you don't think it's going to pass the House, which it should pass the house, even if it has no chance of conviction and it should have a chance of conviction, if anything has a chance of conviction in the Senate that the president has ever done. Here's something that everybody can look at that can say this is universally disgusting, right? This is not Andrew Johnson trying to fire a secretary of war. This is Not Bill Clinton lying about an affair. This Is Not Donald Trump trying to exchange political favors is bad enough. January 6, obviously should have been impeachable. And Mitch McConnell said it himself after they acquitted him. But this is just so hard to ignore. It's so blatant. And the cover up is so stupid. You know, you think about Watergate and and how minimal that burglary was. And the fact that Nixon, in the end, he did have something to do with it, but he did not direct the cover up the way that Trump is clearly directing this cover up. This is actually bigger than Watergate many times over.

0:47:20 Matt: So just wanted to get in and say all that because that's what's on my mind. A Democrat should be writing articles of impeachment right now based on some of the stuff that's in these emails.

0:47:27 Jenessa: Yeah I think it's just really important that we don't lose sight of this this fbi has repeated the claim we are very confident that there are potentially thousands of victims here girls they deserve justice this isn't just about political points this isn'T just about any way to get rid of Trump. Wouldn't that be great? Every minute that this investigation is obstructed, the trail runs cold. Evidence disappears. Witnesses get old and die. Memories get foggy. They need to be able to investigate this and try to do something. The kind of people who do this thing to children, that's not something that's just a mistake that somebody made one day this is the kind of crime that repeats and these are people who need to be stopped and there's so many people who worked so hard to get this story to the public virginia guffrey is dead after years and years and year years of campaigning working so hard to tell her story and she died by suicide earlier this year her

0:48:39 Matt: And her book just came out, I think, just after she died. And some of her book is in this record that had been released.

0:48:45 Jenessa: Book did yeah yeah and And it's really, really important that her story be told. And this is what happens when you obstruct these stories and you tell people that what happened to them doesn't matter. So it's more than just some political thing. The fact that this is politicized is just a symptom of how sick our system has become.

0:49:08 Matt: That's such a good point.

0:49:08 Jenessa: This should be something that everyone cares about. I understand that, you know, if you like someone, it would be really hard to believe they could do something like this. I understand if somebody supported Trump that they would be experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance every time more of this comes out. But for Fox News, that's not a person who experiences cognitive dissonance. That's a corporation putting out headlines that try to justify this and distance him every time there's a new drop of evidence. And it's just getting worse and worse. So I am hopeful we will do something. We are seeing Republicans peel off. You know, Nancy Mace, after a recent meeting with some of the survivors, couldn't even get through the meeting, left in tears and spoke very passionately about how difficult it was to hear their stories. So I am hopeful that people are going to see through that poisoned political system and come to a realization that we have to do something. We have to finish this investigation in a way that isn't polluted by anybody trying to protect themselves.

0:50:20 Matt: It needs to come out. And I just want to remind everybody that that it's not just the president can be impeached. We can impeach the FBI director. We can impeache the attorney general. We Can impeach all civil officers of the United States are subject to impeachment under the constitution. And there is no reason at all. Pam Bondi is absolutely complicit in this. Kash Patel, absolutely complicit on this. No question that they were acting under Trump's direction to try to keep him out of this. And as you said, you know, the, the classic expression that the coverup is worse than the crime, even if it turns out, and I don't think this is true, but even if it turns out that Trump is completely blameless and just hung out with Epstein sometimes, he still directed a cover -up at this point to try to keep himself and his reputation safe. And so that's enough. That's impeachable. So impeach them all, get them all out of here. And when you're talking to your family over the next few weeks about this, who may be a little more skeptical about it, keep in mind what Jenessa just said, of course, and the fact that it doesn't matter even what Trump actually did, even though many of us believe he probably did some of the worst stuff you can do. The fact is that he, in public, in news stories that you can read, in press releases, engaged in a coverup and did things in such a way to minimize this as much as possible to keep it out of public, to keep you

0:51:23 Matt: From knowing about it. So impeach them all.

0:51:25 Jenessa: I want to know what happened. And we deserve that. And anybody standing in the way of it is a problem.

0:51:31 Matt: That's right. All right. That was a fun little break into the future. Let's return to the past where we're talking about something else. Catch you later. So today's footnote actually is a footnote that deserves a footnote of its own, and I'll try to tack that on at the end here.

0:51:43 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:51:48 Matt: Here in the footnotes, I love a cute animal story. And one of my all -time favorite footnotES was actually about Nibby the beaver here in Massachusetts and the campaign to save her. She was going to be released back to the wild a little too early. This is more along the lines of the Neil Gorsuch book called Overruled that we reviewed a while back. And this is the kind of example that would definitely make his next book. The Plaintiff has one of the coolest names I've ever heard. The Subject of the Litigation has one OF the worst names I've heard for a pet, so it kind of balances out. Venus Bontadelli would be the city of Powell in Wyoming. Now, the thing you need to know about this lawsuit is it's brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is fairly conservative and does a lot with property rights, with what they they consider to be unconstitutional takings. I do agree with them on a lot of the government overreach stuff that they do. But you do have to remember, as we're talking about this, that the PLF is funded primarily by Koch brothers -type interests, and there's a lot oil money behind them. And there's good reason, because a lot what they're doing is trying to challenge environmental regulations. But I wanted to mention this case because it's the kind of thing, it's like a fun, heartwarming story, and I'm very much on the side of Venus Bontadelli and her goat in this story. But we also have to member, and it's worth highlighting, why the PLF brings cases like We'll talk about that very quickly at the end. You can tell right off the bat from the complaint what they're going for here, talking about how she wanted to escape California in what she considered to be an increasingly illiberal and imperious state of politics, enticed by Wyoming's apparently live -and -let -live culture of

0:53:11 Matt: Politics and less government. So you know where we're going with this. Now, again, just because I'm kind of making fun of the PLF and the way they do things doesn't mean I don't agree. Obviously, there is lots of government overreach. And I think what they did to her in this case is not fair at all. She was trying to get a permit to keep a 20 -pound Nigerian pygmy teacup dwarf goat named Portia Lane. Again, that is Portia like the car. I think it's Porsche. So Portia lane, which I think is just a terrible name, especially for a goat. But you know, that's her problem. Not really the issue here. The issue is that she lives in an area zoned for industrial use where you can actually run in a veterinary clinic, apparently without a permit in Wyoming. And you just have to get an exotic pet permit ordinance. The exotic Pet permit ordinance would otherwise allow her to keep a goat in her house.

0:53:55 Jenessa: I'm surprised a goat is exotic. Like, I hear exotic and I think like you're trying to keep a tiger. A goat, like, I mean people have farms with goats. Is this in like a city? Is she trying to do this in an apartment building?

0:54:02 Matt: This it's city ordinance. No, it says she's actually an industrial heir, but she lives in an apartment. Yeah. I don't know. But the city ordinance defines any trained or domesticated animal, but actually excludes goats and certain other animals. So you still have to get one. And this is a small goat, you know, Miss pygmy teacup goat. And I can see how, you Know, goats famously can be very loud. I can see how maybe you don't want to live next to a goat. In an apartment complex, the chief of police least denied this application right away. And then she had to take it to the city, the city council, and she followed the law and appealed it within 10 days. She brought in testimony from neighbors talking about how much they adore the goat, how they're actually in a loud area that's full of dogs and all kinds of industrial sounds and everything else, and they've never heard the goat. They love the goat. She's a pleasure, not an annoyance, was the testimony. So no question that she should get to have the goats. One council member said that they were concerned that a herd of Nubians, meaning goats, not people from Africa, would be running around town.

0:55:00 Matt: That'd be much much worse. If he said that, the complaint makes the point that Nubians are much larger goats, and it doesn't really matter. It's not relevant to this application. Right.

0:55:08 Jenessa: It's not like she has two.

0:55:10 Matt: She's just got one little goat.

0:55:11 Jenessa: One goat doesn't rub its hooves together and now you have two goats. Like that's not how that works. Yeah

0:55:15 Matt: You can get a dog that weighs way more than 20 pounds and is way louder than a goat, and you wouldn't have to have a permit. So the point of this, though, is that this is challenging a property ordinance and challenging a permitting system, which is very much the kind of thing the PLF does. And they're saying that they denied this without any standards. So once again, actually, I didn't mean to do this, but here's our theme, arbitrary and capricious denials denials of things that are being reviewed by courts. So I do wish her all the best, obviously, with this denial of the GOAT permit. But I think it's worth talking about why the Pacific Legal Foundation, which has routinely taken cases at the Supreme Court and handles much larger matters than this GOAT, why they're taking this up. And I think that it's so that they can have another example of the kind that Neil Gorsuch filled his book with. And as we talked about when we talked about Neil Gorsuch's overruled, which is a fun episode, a lot of the purpose of these kinds of things when we're talking about these kinds OF arbitrary and capricious actions by the government, they're often coming because they want to turn the attention to individuals. And they want us to look at the ways that individuals are being

0:56:12 Jenessa: Exact

0:56:13 Matt: Overruled, as he keeps saying, that's over space ruled, the way we're being overregulated, and the way that government's just getting involved in our lives and our goats. And sure, I'm with you. But that doesn't mean that we should also cancel out all of these environmental regulations and that corporations should be treated like these poor goat owners. And that's kind of what they try to do, is they're saying, look, this is all of a piece, This is all kind of the same thing, that the government's efforts to regulate oil and gas companies or fracking are comparable to what they're doing to the cats at the Hemingway Museum or the goats in Powell, Wyoming.

0:56:45 Jenessa: Problem here is gorsuch style textualism the kind of thing that says well if you let this woman have her goat you're going to have to allow all the goats no matter what we have to craft a rule that would ban only the shitty goats and let you keep the nice goats or else nobody gets to have a goat at all that's the problem Is this belief that we're going to write it all down someday in perfect letter and that's what will fix it? If you allow for administrative flexibility, the very thing he like joined the Supreme Court to kill, like Chevron deference, that's the thing that allows this for her neighbors to say this goat's not hurting anybody. And when the person next door gets the most annoying goat and lives on the third floor and wants to keep it tap dancing on your ceiling, that we can't differentiate those things because we're like law robots.

0:57:43 Matt: It's a very good point.

0:57:45 Jenessa: Gorsuch is the bane of my existence. I can't deal with him.

0:57:49 Matt: You're actually echoing what neighbor Noah Faxon said in his handwritten statement to the court, where he ends up saying, I believe there is room for flexibility when the situation is peaceful, responsible, and supported. And of course, a lot of my job is arguing within the margins and the gray areas of the flexibility of the law and finding waivers and finding ways around for people that deserve it. And certainly she deserves it. I'm not making fun of her or this quest. I just want people to know that when they see these kinds of headlines and these kinds kinds of stories, as fun as they are to talk about, and as deserving as they are, that there is often something bigger behind it, like Coke dollars. K -O -C -H, not narco -traffickers.

0:58:23 Jenessa: It's trying to spread a message that the government. See, this is just one example of how much the government's got a stupid foot on you. Let's get rid of it and it's like okay but no but I like their foot on you when you don't get to dump chemicals in the river that are killing the fish yeah I do generally

0:58:41 Matt: Yeah. I really like drinking clean water. That's one of my favorite things to do. So there you go. A little footnote for you. So we accidentally brought a theme around here of courts looking at arbitrary and capricious decisions. So I think good news all around, I hope. We'll keep a watch on the things we've been talking about. So we'll be back on Monday with a really exciting interview with someone who is doing 25 to life in Sing Sing State Prison in New York, John J. Lennon, an author and journalist. He's been published pretty much every publication you can imagine and has a book out that I was really excited to read and talk about with him. So this is a great interview, really interesting conversation with somebody calling in from prison who's been doing a book tour essentially from prison about what it's like to be the subject of a true crime documentary and working with other men in there who've also been the subject of true crime documentaries. And I think it'll really make you think about true crime, especially if you read the book in a way that you haven't before. So I really hope people listen to this one. And we're back, of course, on Wednesday with some more responses to some vapid takes in the news. And then we'll be back on Friday to try to catch up with whatever else has been going on. So yeah, we'll see you next week.

0:59:47 Jenessa: See you

1:00:22 Matt: Plenty to talk about in our footnote, excuse me, in our Foot Goat Fetish, as I'm calling it.

1:00:26 Jenessa: Then god one goat doesn't rub its hooves together and now you have two goats like that's not how that works. It works.

1:00:37 Matt: Government's just getting involved in our lives and our goats.