Trump Is SEIZING Your Ballots | Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

Donald Trump is in a cold stone panic over his poll numbers. He's launching an

all-out desperate assault to manipulate the upcoming elections. But today's guest,

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, he's a former federal prosecutor and one of the strongest voices

on the Senate floor fighting Republican efforts to take over the country. In this conversation,

we break down Donald Trump's panic over the Save America Act. We discuss what Pam Bondi is hiding

in the Epstein files and uncover why the FBI raid on Fulton County's election office is just

a test run for 2020. But before we get into it, subscribe to this channel to stay informed about

how you can defend democracy. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, welcome back to defending democracy.

Mark Elias. Wonderful to be with you. All right, so as we're recording this, the Senate is still in session.

Republicans are trying to pass the Save America Act, which is just the stronger version of the

voter suppression bill, and then there are even more terrible amendments that have been offered

to make it even worse. So why don't you walk people who don't understand exactly what it means

that the Senate is in session and what's going on? What the hell's going on?

Well, we're going back onto the measure that would be the vehicle for the bill if they were to get

to it. So we're a step away from the actual bill. And the bill basically does three things.

It has a voter ID provision so that when you show up at the polling place, you show your ID.

And as I point out, most states already have that. Most states have made a choice whether they

want to have that or not. And in the case of Rhode Island, we have it. And it was kind of a pain

in the butt because you know, my image was always of the 80 year old lady and the senior high rise

who hasn't traveled in a decade, has no passport, hasn't driven a car in five years, has no driver's

license, has her social security card because she's on social security, but that's not valid ID.

And even though when she goes down to the lobby where they set up the polling place, everybody in

the building knows her, she still gets hassled about having to find an ID. And so a lot of people

work with a lot of voters to solve that problem, an unnecessary problem, but we got the voter ID

and we generally solve the problem. So that's the voter ID piece. The next piece is who can register

to vote. And that's where this bill gets really tricky because they have come up with a whole

bunch of ways to make it really hard to register to vote. That targets young voters who are registering

for the first time, obviously a target of theirs, and it targets people who don't have the resources

to pay $165 to get a passport so that you can then use that to go and register to vote. And of course

when people are moving, you re-register. So all of the voter registration hassle creates an enormous

amount of difficulty and it suppresses the vote. And to no particular end, a law like this passed

in Kansas and a judge took a look at it and said, you know, this thing has probably kept 31,000

legitimate voters from voting, all to protect against what he said was the best case the

proponents of the law could offer, which was that over nearly 20 years, 67 people

had either registered to vote or attempted to register to vote without being citizens. I suspect

the 67 were all attempts. So for no voting effect, for 67 attempts that were probably rejected,

31,000 people lost the opportunity to vote because of the hassle of a similar registration.

And then comes the third part, which is the most devilish one of all, which is a massive

voter file being gathered at the Department of Homeland Security, the home of ICE,

that would sweep up all of the information, all of the voting records from every state and both

Democrat and Republican secretaries of state and custodians of those records are fighting against that.

Mark UNI are both long old enough to remember when Republicans would have gone berserk

about a national ID when we tried to do, like for health care, a Medicare card that you could use

was a voter ID. They acted as if we were trying to turn this thing into Soviet Russia. Now they want

far more intrusive information in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security,

and why would they possibly want to do that? Obviously, it gives them huge, you'd know better

than I do. Let me ask you, what kind of mischief could a Trump Department of Homeland Security get

up to in elections if it had exclusive access to all of the voter records of every American?

Yeah, so look, I'm going to answer that and then I've got to follow up on an earlier point you made.

You know, the fact is that it has been on the wish list of Donald Trump to get access to this

information for years. People forget in 2017, he set up a voter fraud commission that tried to get

this information and both Democratic and Republican states pushed back and it wound up dissolving

and never happened. It actually was kind of a joke, the whole thing. It was it was a clown show of

an operation. Right, and then more recently we've seen the Department of Justice try to get this

information and they're suing 30 states, my law firm, and I were fighting against those cases,

and so far we've won everywhere where there's been a decision. The DOJ is now bringing emergency

appeal in two circuits in the six-circuit and the nine-circuit. And the reason why this is such a big

thing, deal for them, they're willing to sue 30 states and now insist on it in the bill is because

this is mission critical for them. The reason why we cover this so extensively at Democracy Docket,

I started Democracy Docket in 2020 because there wasn't anyone covering this kind of news

information analysis. And frankly, where it was, it was very surface level and it was both sides.

And you know, I think it's really important that people get it straight from the horse's mouth.

If you have people like me who are litigating, you ought to hear it from me. And you know,

interviewing centers like you is, you know, giving people the information they need.

But the best way that people can support that work and also get accurate information is by

subscribing to Democracy Docket. The link to do so is in the description below. I'll put it on

the screen right here and you'll get accurate, good, actionable information every single day about

what is happening to Democracy in court while also supporting the hard work of the Democracy Docket team.

Now, look, as I described in Democracy Docket, if you want to turn out voters, you need the voter

file. If you want to register voters, you need the voter file. If you want to conduct elections,

you need a voter file. But also, if you want to disenfranchise voters, you need the voter file.

Because that's what it gives people, what it gives the Trump administration is your name,

your social security number, your date of birth, where you've lived, what, where you've moved,

if you've moved, and whether you're registered as a Democratic or Republican voter. You vote by

mail or be voted in person. Have you ever voted and had your vote challenged? You vote on election day

or do vote early. It is a total picture of every voter. And so if you wanted to challenge or disenfranchise

people in the hundreds of thousands and one fell swoop, the only way to do it is to have that voter

file. There's no other reason for the federal government that has no role in the administration of

elections to ask for that data. All right. So here's my question to you now, Senator. You said

something in the voter ID section that I think applies to the whole bill. And it is part of what

I like has me slightly disorientated about what the Republicans are arguing. Because, you know,

I remember when I was in law school, which I grant you a 30 years ago, one of the things Republicans

would always say is there are no such things as federal elections. It's a misnomer. There are just

state elections, right? And state elections for federal office that we believe the laboratories

of democracy. Remember, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. We're all the federalism

people in the Republican Party now say and let the states do what they're going to do.

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karma app. Now they have an ulterior motive here that causes this like so many other alleged

principles to evaporate when it's no longer convenient. So you mentioned one state where you

know there were they went looking for non-citizen voting. I got one for you that maybe if you run

into a certain center from Utah you could you could run by him. The state of Utah recently very

recently went looking for this same thing went looking for non-citizen voting. And they found

one person registered who they think is not a citizen and zero voters. The person who supposedly

registered as an on citizen they're not sure didn't actually vote. Yeah I will post in this video

and I'll send you Senator the analysis here so that you have it but have you heard any of the

senators because I hear one of them been doing a lot of talking on the senate floor on this issue.

Have you heard them address their own state of Utah whether what they what they make of that?

Now interestingly that fact that non-citizen voting is an imaginary problem they've created

as an excuse to get at voter records and influence elections has been left entirely out of

the conversation. Okay so before we move to Fulton County which I do want to get to can you just

give us the the layman's version of is this ultimately going to pass the senate? How much longer do

you think that that you know this will be an issue? We've gotten a number of questions from people

who are very concerned because they hear it's going to be put in a reconciliation bill. So what

can you just tell people about the status of whether this bill will pass or not? I think the

chances of the bill passing are hovering around zero. There's dissension within the Republican

caucus and our Murkowski spoke out against the substance of the bill and plenty of Republicans

particularly those facing election are concerned about what a stupid point this is to be

raising on the floor when they everybody's concerned about Iran and gas prices and electricity prices

and you know all the stuff that is driving Trump's popularity down through the floor and dragging

them with it is this really where they want to be scoring points so called because they're not

even scoring points they're losing the debate on this. So for all those reasons it's not very

popular in the Republican caucus and then you know they've got to figure out how to get off of the

bill I suspect what they do is ultimately they go to cloture and then they can control the amendments

and then the time runs and then we have a vote and then it fails and then they try to pick up the

ashes of this disaster and see if they can put some of it into reconciliation which is the budget

term for a law that can pass through the Senate to the extent it only deals with financial and

budget matters and the problem for them is that none of this stuff is financial and budget what they

can do is offer money to states if they do certain things and we'll see how that plays out we don't

see the proposal yet but if they offer money they're going to have to pay for it so they're

going to have to figure out where they're going to go get the revenues and meantime you know they're

spending money on all of this nonsense while people's electric bills are going through the roof

from people's gas bills are going through the roof again they're not on message and it hurts them

and ultimately the parliamentarian will probably limit anything that they try to do then of course

you run into the Supreme Court problem at least if the Supreme Court were to treat Republicans and

Democrats alike that there's the so-called anti-drug-gooning doctrine at the federal government cannot force

state to do something by putting financial pressure on it so there's a border between like

giving people grants to encourage them to do stuff and when that becomes a persuasive or coercive

force so if they try to make a coercive they then run into the anti-drug-gooning doctrine which

is a Roberts doctrine believe it or not going back to the Affordable Care Act you know I was

going to get to Fulton County next but you you you're baiting me into talking to you about the

Supreme Court and so you've won because I love talking to you all day about just the Supreme Court

I could do it every day we could do a podcast just on on this Supreme Court so the Supreme Court

just heard a voting case involving whether ballots postmarked by election day but are received

afterwards should count or not under a Mississippi law that allows them to count the Republican

National Committee sued to say that this violates the federal election day statute it's hard to see

how that's the case but nevertheless that's what they argued and I don't know if you caught any of

the argument but I was you had Justice Alito Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch who you know

when I read the Constitution again it says the states get to make the policies choices and if you

in Congress don't like the policy choices you guys get to overrule the states this is not a constitutional

claim this there's no there's no like balancing but they were talking about voter fraud and perceptions

of voter fraud and I'm thinking how does this have anything to do with whether it's an election day

did you catch any of this and what's your reaction they're good at making stuff up when it serves

their interests in the filthy foul citizens united decision they made up that there would not be

any danger of corruption from allowing unlimited amounts of money into politics that allowed

them to allow unlimited amounts of money into politics and make very happy all the big donors

who'd help get them on the court and traffic in political influence so we've seen this game before

for them to come in and make false findings of fact whole separate point that the Supreme Court

shouldn't be making any findings of fact let alone false findings of fact so they've got a record

of making stuff up to help get them where they want to go when you hear those alarming things where

they take voter fraud seriously despite you know 67 attempts in 20 years in one state and one

attempt and no voting in another state the fact that they're willing to count as this is if it

were a serious argument just shows how baked in they are to the Republican side the billionaire side

of this debate last question on the court and then we'll go to Fulton County so we are you know

what three months out from the end of the term what are you what are you watching for you know either

particular case a trend a sign of hope a sign you know anything like what are what should people

be looking for in these final months as they look at the the court because I know one of the

challenges has been that there immediately becomes this kind of like if the Supreme Court does

issues one ruling that that seems reasonable that is then used to bludgeon everyone who is a

critic of the court to be like well but you know look they ruled this way in this case so it can't

all be you know it can't all be you know unfair or can't all be you know not on the level what do you

what are you what are you looking for well we have not gone away we're still looking at the ethics

problem that the court has declined to address and face we're still working towards a term limit

bill that would be very popular with the American public we're still watching out for these continued

episodes of false fact finding by the court which is a real tell when they're off on a political

mission because as any serious appellate lawyer knows they're not supposed to make any fact findings

that alone wrong ones and not so much from the court but from the chief justice I'm looking for

a signal that he's impatient with the martial service refusing to say that it will investigate

behind the utterer of a threat to a federal judge so somebody calls up a federal court and says

I'm going to kill you going to kill your daughter I'm going to you know burn down your house

that's a crime and investigation ensues but there are a number of legal theories that would justify

looking behind the utterer of the threat if the utterer of a threat was part of a conspiracy

whose purpose was to threaten judges and people who hadn't made the call but were part of a

conspiracy could be charged if someone had solicited or paid him to say I don't want my phone

on this but you're a crazy person you don't care here's a thousand bucks make this threat so that

kind of solicitation is something that could be investigated and charged and if it's part of a

sort of racketeering type conspiracy then the enterprise is liable and participants in the enterprise

are liable for its various acts and this could be one of those acts so there are a number of ways where

something that is kicking off all of these threats can be examined and looked into and the martial

service refused to do that despite the fact that its investigations 101 you think that would be its

job right that's its job but the problem is it's a maggot department of justice to which the

martial service reports and the maggot department of justice led by Bondi does not want anybody

investigating into it's behind the judges' threats because it leads right back to people like

Laura Lumer and Elon Musk and the vice president and the president himself and all of their minions

who cook up these threat schemes that seems like that needs to get more coverage because that

is outrageous I mean that I mean here and I'm glad I'm glad you called that out all right let's turn

to the the ballot rating and seizure effort here by the department of justice we have a few weeks

to get well let's go back in January we had Donald Trump tell the New York Times that he wished

he had seized the ballots in 2020 then we obviously had the department of justice executing a

search warrant and seizing ballots in Fulton County shortly thereafter since then we have seen

a subpoena issued to Barracopa County for ballot images essentially that were kept by the by the

state senate yeah so what is what is what is your take on all this as someone who is not just on

the judiciary committee now but it was once a US attorney and so you you dealt with your career

I'm sure lots of search search warrants and having to approve them and so I put on my US attorney

hat and the first thing that you have to start with is the proposition that if you are executing a

search warrant and searching for evidence in order to conduct a criminal investigation you want as

little danger hazard trouble as you can you want to do it by the book because at the end of the day

when somebody is charged with an offense based on that evidence they have the right to go back and

inquire about what took place in that search and to suggest that anything that's weird that took

place in the search is a sign that the in you know prosecution should be dropped that it's

vindictive and bad faith violates the law whatever so that's why you follow standard procedures

well standard procedure one is use the local US attorney right the Georgia US attorney was not

involved a Missouri US attorney got the search warrant and even if you were running a multi district

investigation with a central office running it you still go to the venue US attorney to get

the search warrant that's just standard practice so when you vary from standard practice you raise a

question that is unnecessary to raise if you look at the US attorney who was involved he has a

history of flagrant election denial and he was in touch with White House and administration people

who have flagrant histories of election denial even ones who were sanctioned for it so why would

you want to use that US attorney and bring all that nonsense and all that challenge and all

that risk into your search then the FBI special agent in charge in Georgia was either shoved out

or resigned immediately before the search went down and so for evil it don't know that's the top

FBI official right agent in charge in that particular FBI office so he got pushed out or resigned

and now that opens up a whole lot of questions for the defendant was this related to the search

what did you know you know they become a witness then you look at the affidavit that supported

the search warrant which mentioned witnesses anonymously but not enough that we couldn't

figure out who they are and once you know who they are you know that they were part of the Georgia

election denial scheme and they didn't tell the magistrate judge all of the elements all of the ways

in which these people interacted in that scheme so that goes to their credibility and leaving that

out creates a massive problem for the search why just be honest just have the real US attorney

just don't do it in such a way that the FBI special agent in charge has to resign and then it got

even weirder by who they had present and the weirdest person present was the director of national

intelligence Tulsi Gabbard no DNI has ever gone to a search warrant scene before it is out of her

lane in fact there's a whole body of concern that we don't want our intelligence establishment

doing domestic work they're to protect us from foreign influence they're not supposed to be operating

against Americans in America so what the hell is she doing there well in addition to that she also

runs the Trump weaponization working group which is this sort of secretive group of trumpsters

across whole bunch of federal agencies who conspire and consort together to do various scheming

it's not clear what they do they're not an official group that reports to anybody

by putting her in that search you made her a witness to that search which makes a defendant

able to depose her about what she saw during that search and what she was doing there which opens

up an avenue for questioning under oath of what the hell is weaponization working group is going on

so if you add all of these things up they opened up for any defendant later a massive array

of challenges potentially embarrassing to the administration potentially harmful to any case

and dragging in this weaponization working group that they tried to keep secret so it's either the

worst and most stupid search warrant execution in the history of search warrants with all these

multiple stacked up rookie stupid errors or and here's what's the tell or they knew there would never

be a defendant who could raise all of those questions because this was never intended to be a criminal

investigation it was a sham search warrant execution whose entire purpose was to seize the documents

that they had tried to seize through civil proceedings and failed at and this was their last desperate

attempt well if they don't want to charge anybody if they want to make sure that nobody's ever charged

if this is not a real criminal investigation why the hell do they want those documents and the

reason they want those documents is what you know better than anybody else is what you said earlier

because those documents can be used to influence and manipulate a later election in Georgia

President Barack Obama Virginia we are counting on you Republicans want to steal enough seats in

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restrictions apply details of lows dot com slash terms subject to change i got to ask you a couple

of questions about the process points and then we'll get to the big conclusion did you also find

it odd i did that the president offered one explanation before i to see gathered was there to see

gathered offered a different explanation Todd Blanche actually offered various different explanations

like they didn't seem to have their story stories to why she like why was she there yeah and again

if there's going to be a defendant the defendant's going to be able to ask questions about all

those conflicting stories about why she was there never mind her testimony that the president

she said told her to go so now you have a situation which the defendant can not only get Tulsi

Gabbard on the witness stand and ask about the weaponization working group you can ask about

her conversation with the president that told her to be there was that part of a vindictive

prosecution scheme or was he the president or she Tulsi Gabbard one of them's lying because the

stories don't add up so it's a whole big stinking legal mess that the last thing you want to do

is let a defendant get near which again is a huge tell that this whole search warrant exercise

was a sham and only designed to get the documents in hand the president also called the agents

after the search warrant would go over which again that's bonkers that's I don't think that's ever

been done in the history of search warrants before just so everybody didn't follow this closely

after the search was over apparently the president got on the speaker phone of one of their

cell phones with the agents who conducted the search which if you want to make the case that this

is vindictive prosecution or unjust prosecution or a political prosecution even if you

can't prove that case you still get the discovery and all of that you get to ask the agents what

they were told you get to try to look at timelines when did the president know about all of this

who was really directing it from behind the scenes the whole thing is a giant stinking mess and the

giant stinking mess of it is its own problem but it is also the compelling clue that the whole

search was a sham because no decent prosecutor want to expose all of that huge stinking stupid

mess to a defendant so they never never never intended that there would be a defendant it was just

a documents grab yeah I think that that's absolutely right and that makes the search warrant a big lie

not just the little lies of not having disclosed to the magistrate judge all of the different aspects

of the election denial scheme that the so-called anonymous witnesses had described but the really

big lie is your honor we're here to get a search warrant in order to execute a search and pursuit

of a criminal investigation that is the big lie that's almost never the lie even in affidavits

that are found later to have been false that is an enormously big lie all right so the question

is towards what end why are they doing this I mean that's what you have the better answers yeah

so look I've said that two things can be true at the same time and we need to be open to it the

first is that part of this is perpetuating the the lies about the outcome of the 2020 election

and casting doubt and showing that you know the mega faithful that they are they are uncovering

it's kind of like the performative release of the Epstein files last last spring where remember

the people went out with the binders on the right it's it's got to that but the second part the

second part which is equally true and and is also the case is that you know the the federal

government has no experience in executing search warrants against ballots it has no experience

in how you handle them how do you collect them how you that what you then do with them once you

have them how do you count them how do you review them how do you analyze them and all of that is

a learning experience that the department of justice is now undertaken because they want to have

the optionality to do this again in the future as soon as this November and I don't think that's

that big of a stretch because look he said he wished he had seized the ballots in real time in 2020

he is now the department of justice is now figured out for example you don't go to the local

US attorney's office you go to this guy in Missouri right that's like that's like one of the things

they've learned they've they've learned how many boxes the established election denier US attorney

in Missouri they have they have then they've probably also figured out as you say like what to do

when they're FBI agents you don't want to go along with it right I mean out the door they go

so I think that this is a real threat to the upcoming elections I think what we saw with the

grand jury spina in in Maricopa County is is more evidence of this preparation we over the weekend

there was a report in California that a local sheriff seized 650,000 ballots under state law I know

the attorney general in California is dealing with that fact but I think that this is all about

normalizing and building expertise on the part of Donald Trump supporters that seizing ballots

is kind of a normal thing it's what happens and and that they have the expertise to do it and I'm

really worried about this for this fall well let's hypothesize that they're willing to share

the ballots or an electronic version of them with people whose task is to monkey wrench the Georgia

election for Trump and the Republicans what could a knowledgeable operative out to monkey wrench

an election in Georgia do with the information that the FBI now has seized yeah I think it's very

similar to the voter file which is that having the actual ballots gives you a lot of insight into

how voters vote and I don't mean that by like what the what the tally is like I have the total

but I mean like how how what patterns you see between who ticket you know when people tickets

blood when they don't tickets but when it looks like they just pick all of the candidates in

column A when they leave certain races blank right like the all of these things go into

useful information for operatives to try to predetermine how to influence the counting

and tabulation votes the next time you know back in back in 2008 the the the state of

Minnesota had a recount I represented Al Frankenin and it posted a number a large number not all

of them but a large number of ballot images on their website and you know like they were doing it

for good civic reasons but like me and a number of other people pointed out this is just creating a

road map for mischief in the future and everybody you know I I did everybody we downloaded all the

images because you learn an enormous amount about voter behavior voter psychology voter patterns

that you know if you want to use for good which we you know which we did not election or ill

people are able to and if you give all of that to the department of justice and exclusively to

the department of justice and they are under the the control of the president it is a it is a

recipe for shenanigans in the future could the shenanigans include setting up

democrat voters to have their names purged from voter rolls so that when they did show up to vote

that they had an obstacle to voting that the election officials at the ballot place said

no we have a for some reason there's a challenge or a problem and you're not eligible to vote

absolutely I think that that we have faced a epidemic in the last since the 2020 Georgia election

the runoff it was actually in January of 2021 so it's hard to it's hard to describe to people

that there was a senate election for both senate seats in in Georgia in 2020 and they went

to runoff elections which are actually held in the beginning of 2021 and both democratic senators won

in connection with that election we saw the republican party working with outside dark money

organizations challenged the voter eligibility of 360,000 voters they did exactly said they submitted

lists of names voters they had never met and said these people should not be allowed to vote

and me and my law firm and others we went to court and we fought this back and we won and we have

been dealing with this epidemic of these third party groups third party groups submitting these

mass lists saying these people should be kicked off the rolls we've been dealing with this

in hopscotch and state after state every election since well you know center I don't have to tell you

as someone who has stood up in court on behalf of the United States it's a whole different kettle

of fish if instead of me fighting some you know right wing group with a shady name instead the

the list that's submitted to kick people off the vote about comes from the department of justice comes

from the department of homeland security from homeland security right comes with the impromotor

of the United States comes with the presumption of regularity and good faith and their dates go to the

counties and the states and they say these people all need to be removed because you know they're

not eligible or whatever and first of all a lot of the counties are just going to say okay I don't

want trouble with the department of justice some of the states will say okay I don't want trouble

with the department of justice or maybe they'll use it as a pretense in some republican controlled

states to say great we got the information we're we acted on it but when I go to court now I'm

telling a judge believe me and don't believe the people with the official seal this is a this is

this is something that is undoubtedly on the minds of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller you know

and also and Pam Bondy and the whole crew that are doing this which is why I think they so desperately

want this information even enough to cook up a fake search warrant and drag a magic judge

into the mess and you know do some pretty flagrant misconduct so I gotta ask you about a different

set of legal cases which just continues to be out there and which cat you know is also seems to be

a scandal which is the Epstein files here we are and you know we were told that we had that all

of them have been released and then we were told again they were all been released now it appears

from what you know DOJ is saying they're not going to release anymore and but only about half of them

have been released there's still about half of the vials that haven't been released do you have any

confidence that there will eventually be justice you know for the victims here and for the public

for Congress that voted for this bill that the that'll actually be complied with or or or is this

just Todd Blanche gets to tell you no it's going to take some doing I think when they're really caught

and when Republicans are willing to hold their feet to the fire as they did by passing this bipartisan

Epstein file disclosure act then things can be forced to come out but it's really reluctant

in the way they respond I'll give you the example of the the there were the FBI interviewed a woman

who in the interviews said that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her and physically assaulted

her when she was about 14 and those interviews were several and they caused four interview reports

called 302's to be generated by the FBI agents about this one witness of those 4302's the first one

mentioned nothing about Trump the second three mentioned her allegations that the Trump had

sexually assaulted her and physically assaulted her only that one got released the one that

didn't mention Trump the three that did mention Trump didn't get released the putative reason was

that they were duplicative which is a word that allows them to be exempted from disclosure but they

warrant and the Department of Justice under pressure had to admit that that was a mistake and they

released them and they released them in part because they had already turned those documents over

to Gilein Maxwell's lawyers in the discovery for her prosecution so if they hid it too obviously

there was another avenue through which those documents could be obtained so they were like that

would really blow up in their faces so they went ahead and released the three 302's but they held

back another I want to say 37 pages which very much appear to be the handwritten notes of the FBI

agents who took the interview when the FBI is interviewing an individual they take contemporaneous

notes as they're doing the interview and then when all that's done they sit down and they type up

the 302 that memorializes the notes more efficiently and that becomes the FBI file document but the notes

are still there and they haven't revealed the notes they say that the notes are duplicative

of the 302's but of course they're not because they're 37 pages and the 302's are far shorter

than that and as any lawyer knows just because a summary discusses a topic doesn't mean that there's

not important stuff in the underlying document in the actual notes and so those are still being

withheld so that's just one example of how difficult it has been to get the release of actual

Epstein file records and how the cover-up of those records the attempted and continuing cover-up

tends to circle around the interests of Donald J. Trump yeah and you know look it feels like

everything in the executive branch right now everything in the administration is in service of him

like you know we're you know we're used to administrations that you know obviously the president

leads leads the executive branch but we're used to administrations that you know if if the

Department of Labor needed to put out a report and it might be embarrassing to the administration

they still put out the report if the IG if an inspector general did an investigation and might

it embarrass a political appointee they still put it out I remember there being hatch act investigations

and reports saying that White House's staff said violated the hatch act this administration

just seems totally different there doesn't seem to be any any room between the president's personal

interest maybe his financial interest political interest and every action of the administration

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Hey John Stamos and Kologart here so look you're 45 or older and at average risk

you know what that probably means it's time for colon cancer screening look it doesn't start at

55 or 50 or even 46 if you're 45 you've got to prioritize getting screened because of

its found early it's highly treatable so get going see if Kologart is the right test for you

yeah it's banana republic stuff from the asking and flattery and sycophancy in meetings

to the manner in which decisions are made or not made with the prevailing characteristics

seeming to be how how would el hefe think about this to the destruction of all sorts of important

government guardrails set up and proven over generations to try to make sure that our government

operates honestly and above board and consistently and in conformance with the law in the

constitution now it's just you know what does trump want and how do we deliver for him

because it's kind of a rain of fear around him my solution to all this is that everybody needs

to register to vote and vote and they need to vote democrats into office it both houses of congress

so that we will have real oversight because i know if you're in a position oversight the whole world

will look different and and we get a lot more answers than we get right now but between now

and election day what do you tell your constituents to be doing speak up

people need to hear from you post things that are meaningful images i remember the guy in front

of the tank on chennanman square how many chinese people are there billions this was one guy who

stood in front of a tank and one other person who took the photo two people in a world of billions

and because that image mattered it changed the world so don't just speak up with your voice and show

up at no kings but share good images and then join up speak up and join up because there are

plenty of groups that people can find that are aligned with their values are aligned with their

priorities and passions and beliefs and you do better when your voice is amplified by a group

and you feel better when you're less alone because you're working with other people to get your

message out to folks and then of course part of showing up is to register to vote we're in a race

right now between the trump regimes efforts to monkey wrench this coming election and the collapsing

popularity of the president himself and the best one of the best weapons that we have is that the

more the american people see these monkey wrench tricks that the administration is pulling the

worst the president's popularity is so being an informed citizenry about this election mischief

actually matters and helping inform your colleagues and your peers and your friends

about the election mischief actually matters and that's where mark you and your group are doing

such a magnificent job