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- [00:00]
A
Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullock. I'm joined by Andrew Egger, author of Morning Shots. And we just sat through. Wow, that was a long hearing. We've been sitting through four and a half hours of congressional testimony involving Pam Bondi before.
- [00:16]
B
Boy, was it that long.
- [00:17]
A
Time started at 9.
- [00:18]
B
Having fun.
- [00:19]
A
You know, again, I'm not a. I'm not. I'm a journalist, not a mathematician. Start at 9am It's 1:40pm That's 4 hours and 40 minutes. And I don't think they had a break. So that, that's impressive stuff. It was. I don't know, how would you describe it? It was a lot.
- [00:37]
B
It was a lot. It was contentious. It was. There was a lot of yelling at various points in time. You know, you get, when you're watching one of these things, sometimes you get a little behind because you're transcribing some stuff. Whatever, you jump forward. You could always tell whether Bondi was talking to a Republican or a Democrat just by the tone of her voice. Before you knew who she was, who she was with, she was. She came loaded for bear in, like peak TV pundit mode, ready to pivot from whatever question the Democrat was asking at any given time, of which there were many good ones, which we'll talk about, to whatever kind of prepared personal attack she had on each individual Democratic senator. Right. It was. I don't know, it was unusual. I'd say an unusual hearing even for these guys is how I'd put it.
- [01:21]
A
Yeah. So she was definitely loaded, fair, a lot of finger wagging. And then, you know, when the Republicans took their turn, a lot of graciousness. Look, we're gonna. We'll have some moments to kind of laugh at it all and make fun of it all, but there was something deeply serious about it that kind of. At the end, it kind of set in a little bit, which is that this is an almost perfect distillation of how much Congress has abdicated their responsibility, or at least a portion of Congress has abdicated the responsibility around very serious issues. There were. And look, I get it, because she wants to protect the president, she's there on his behalf. I guess that's not the way it's supposed to be, but she is. But, you know, Republicans, they don't have to play along with this. But there are serious accusations and serious questions about a number of different things happening, including National Guard being sent to US Cities, Tom Homan taking a big cash bribe, the, you know, the James Comey indictment that is apparently upended. Very important U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York. We can go on and on. Sorry, Virginia, you're right. It's the second most important one after New York. I should have said mergers that seem to be, you know, getting favorable treatment, so on and so forth. And there was not really much in the way of answers from that, in part because it's devolved into partisan bickering. And I'm just going to play our first clip that gets at this, which is Adam Schiff. He's like one of the last people to ask a question because he's a freshman member. And look, he's, he's like a real foil for Republicans because they hate the guy. And you'll just see she just like, you know, he's looking, he's not actually addressing Bondi, he's addressing his fellow Republicans on the committee and he's pleading with them to actually engage in oversight. And as you'll hear, Bonnie just talks over him and goes after him. Let's play the clip and then, Andrew, you give me your thoughts about it. On the flip side. Question.
- [03:28]
C
This is supposed to be an oversight hearing. Oversight, excuse me, you can attack me after my time is over.
- [03:36]
D
Attacked all of us, including President.
- [03:38]
C
You can attack me for your later. And I know you've got plenty of canned attacks. We've heard them all day today.
- [03:43]
D
Can attacks on you.
- [03:44]
C
This is supposed.
- [03:45]
D
No one needs a can attack on you regular order.
- [03:47]
C
Madam Chair, I'm trying to speak. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing of the Justice Department and it comes in the wake of an indictment called for by the President of one of his enemies. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing. And it comes in the wake of revelations that a top administration official took $50,000 in a bag and this department made that investigation go away. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing when dozens of prosecutors have been fired simply because they worked on cases investigating the former President. This is, and now think about the fires in California. This is, excuse me. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about.
- [04:37]
D
Are the riots in LA serious about.
- [04:40]
C
The COVID up of corruption, about the prosecution of the President's enemies.
- [04:47]
D
And I think you owe the President.
- [04:49]
C
When will it be, when will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis, demand answers to those questions and refuse to accept.
- [04:59]
D
Clearly, you're a failed lawyer someone can and cannot use to accept personal.
- [05:06]
A
I mean, I don't know. To me that was, that was it like, that summarized the entire experience, but also really underscored the real problems here with, with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- [05:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, that, that clip would have been kind of astonishing coming from any administration official who was testifying. Right. Because that really did sum up the approach. The entire time, she was uniformly hostile, you know, like, basically uninterrupted. I mean, there were times when, you know, a given Democratic senator would try to do one of these, like, here, here's this off the, off the beaten path thing, while I have you here that we can work with, and she would be a little more gracious about that. But anytime it was an attack, that was. Anytime it was a question from a Democrat that was obviously designed to extract information about stuff the White House has been trying to be cute about or try to keep under their hat or whatever, it was immediately pedal to the floor hostility and personal attacks on the Democrats. And again, any administration official, that would be remarkable. But it's particularly remarkable from the Attorney General of the United States who, again, is helming all federal prosecutions that take place across America. And if you go back, you know, to, to even just, you know, Trump's first term and you look at testimony from Jeff Sessions or you look at testimony from Bill Barr, I mean, like, there would be moments where they were plainly, like, annoyed, you know, like kind of privately annoyed by the questions Democrats would be asking them because they thought they were off base or whatever, but they, they, they didn't treat the whole thing like a joke. They didn't treat the whole thing like, Like a punt, like a cable news hit or something like that. I mean, it was really kind of astonishing to watch, I guess.
- [06:47]
A
I guess. Not that I disagree with you, but it's like I almost, I almost came in expecting Bonnie to be like this, and we're going to do a mashup of. I mean, she clearly came prepared with, like, an oppa book on every senator. The non sequiturs into the California fires with Schiff was like, just like, you know, the tip of the spear. I kind of expected her to do that. Right. Like, because that's just how these, this administration operates. What I was. And I guess I should have expected this more, too, for the fellow Republicans on the panel, which is, you know, if I were, if I was one of them, I would like to know if Tom homan kept the $50,000. Like, I, I kind of want to know. I think it kind of matters to know if the border czar is on, you know, is engaged in Blatant acts of corruption. That matters to me. I would like to know. I would like to know if Pam Bondi felt like she had to fire the lead U.S. attorney in the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia. Got it right that time. Like, I feel like that would matter to me, but that's just me, I guess.
- [07:51]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, we should. We got to go chapter and verse on all those things you just talked about. I guess you are absolutely right that, like, there's no real reason to be surprised by this. I mean, I absolutely hate the phrase that everybody talks about. The. You know, it was shocking, but not surprising that everyone has said, like, 500 times since the beginning of the first administration. But there's a reason people keep going back to that phrase is because it's like, it is 100% in keeping with, you know, the Pam Bondi experience. I mean, she has. She. She has behaved like this at all times and in all places since her confirmation. And even, obviously, it was why. That's why they picked her to do this job, because Donald Trump wanted an attorney general who would function as sort of his personal lawyer as opposed to the guys he had before. So, yeah, in that sense, certainly not surprising. But just, I mean, just to think about, like, the fact that that is where we are, that this is, again, the person who is helming every federal prosecution, who makes all these decisions, who has all this power, all this authority, and, you know, while going before this co. Equal branch of the government that has oversight over her role and over the White House and over all this stuff, she has that much. She's just dripping with contempt for these. For these totally fair questions about real stories. I mean, that's a dark. I mean, it's a dark place where we're at.
- [09:07]
A
So just to recap a little bit, because we jumped right into it at this hearing, again, four hours, 40 minutes, and then we're just like, let's just go live. It might be something going on. I have no idea. She was asked and refused to answer questions on Tom Homan accepting allegedly $50,000 for guarantee of contracts. Allegedly accepted it in a Kava bag. I just love that detail. Have to. She refused to talk about personnel matters. She wouldn't talk about conversations with the President. She wouldn't talk about involvement, her office's involvement in mergers. She wouldn't talk about the advice she's given on critical legal issues. She wouldn't talk about pending legislation. She wouldn't talk about things like the Dobbs leak. She did end up talking about one. The, the, the, the sentence giving to the person who tried to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh. But that was about it. What she. Oh, sorry. He did concede at one point that when Donald Trump issued his now infamous truth Social post where he said pam, comma, something, something, something has to be done about the Comey thing, she did concede that she was probably the Pam. So there was, there was, there was one concession that she did make. What she did do, though, is she did deliver oppo hits on basically every Democrat. And it got to the point. And we're going to play the master cut of this in one second. But it was so funny. It got to the point where Peter Welch very, you know, even keeled, mild mannered senator from Vermont, preempted. Did you see this? She preempted her. And he was like, what did he say? He's like, before you get to it, like, don't hit me with your oppo or something.
- [10:45]
B
Yeah, he's like, not quite yet. Not quite yet. Let me get my question out first.
- [10:48]
A
Before you hit me with whatever you have, let me ask my question. All right, I'm gonna. Let's.
- [10:53]
B
She never got to that one. I wonder why she had it.
- [10:55]
A
Yeah. What does she have in period? What does she have on Peter Welch? I need to know. Let's play the, let's play the, the Master list here or MasterCard. And then Andrew on the other side, I want to know what your favorite oppo hit was. So let's get. We're not going to get all of them because there's too many of them, but let's press play and see.
- [11:09]
D
They just shut down the government and you're sitting here, Our law enforcement officers aren't being paid. They're out there working to protect you. I wish. You love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump. You know, Senator Durbin, I find it very interesting that you refused repeated Republican requests to release the Epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024. You fought that. Did you take money from Reid Hoffman campaign donations, who was a huge Epstein friend? You know, you're very concerned about money and people taking money and you rail against dark money. You work with dark money groups all the time. Senator.
- [11:47]
B
Wait a second.
- [11:49]
D
Senator, I would be more concerned if I were you when you talk about corruption and money that you. That when you pushed for legislation that would subsidize your wife's company. You were also on video outside the White House protesting with a group called CASA where antifa members were. Does that mean you're a member of Antifa case, Senator, I don't think a lot of people like that. You were out protesting with Antifa right now. Senator Blumenthal, I, I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.
- [12:24]
B
I am.
- [12:25]
A
You lied.
- [12:25]
E
You admitted you lied.
- [12:29]
B
You lied.
- [12:30]
D
How dare you. I'm a career prosecutor. Don't ever challenge my integrity. I have abided by every ethics standard. Do not question the. My ability to be fair and impartial as Attorney General.
- [12:45]
A
All right, the only one I think we missed was when she just recycled the Durban line where she left Chicago as much as Trump. She recycled it for. For Alex P. The center from California just substituted California for Chicago. All right, which one was the. Which one was the best hit, Andrew?
- [13:00]
B
Yeah, and I mean, again, you already said this. We cut that debt down a lot. Like there were. There was a lot more of this. I think my favorite. It was a little hard to tell from the clip, but the best in context was, was. Was. I guess it was probably Sheldon Whitehouse she was talking to and she's like, oh, you really want to talk about corruption and you really want to talk about money changing hands? How about the fact that you take donations from super PACs, you know, in response to a question about Homan and this bag of cash? I mean, are we going to do, are we going to do clips about. About that? Because, I mean, this is just.
- [13:29]
A
Yes, we're going to get to home and.
- [13:30]
B
Yeah, well, we can postpone that for now, but I mean, at every turn, I mean, it was like you lied about your. It's like whatever. Like the main, like, campaign hit against a guy would have been when they were first elected to the Senate. God knows how long, you know, Richard Blumenthal has been in the U.S. senate. And this is like, you know, ah, you know, you're. What about, what about your Swift Boat moment, Senator Blumenthal? It's just, I mean, I don't know, it was. There were like, when she was like, are you call or. Don't call me a liar? I don't remember what she said exactly, but it was some.
- [14:01]
A
He.
- [14:01]
B
He contradicted something she'd said. She immediately.
- [14:03]
A
Yeah, there's a woman where he contradicted her and she's like, how dare you call me a liar. Yeah, I liked personally, my favorite of those was her owna where she accused her of, you know, rioting with Antifa, like an ac. I think of this as sort of the Brett Kavanaugh you know, template, basically, ever since Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, if you just get mad and scream and, like, act indignant at your questioners, like, I think people assume you're doing a good job. And I think every. Everyone now basically has adopted the same approach to these hearings where you just have to, like, you seem really peeved, really pissed off and peeved at what's going on and, you know, indignant, and then you can basically sail through.
- [14:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You could make the case, like, how you.
- [14:49]
A
It's like how you act in editorial meetings.
- [14:51]
B
Exactly, exactly. I call it the Brett Kavanaugh approach. No, I mean, like, with the Kavanaugh thing, at least you could, like, make the case that, like, you know, again, a lot of factual questions there. If he's telling the truth, he has a right to be extremely upset that, like, this whole thing has come up. Whereas all these questions were not like, you know, stuff that was dragged out of, like, allegations about her personal life from years ago. It's stuff in the last couple months that she absolutely should have to answer questions about. Right.
- [15:15]
A
So, I mean, it's nothing to do. There's like, what? There's like, who did Tom homan take the $50,000?
- [15:21]
B
How dare you.
- [15:21]
A
You took super pack cash.
- [15:23]
B
Can we do that one? Let me go straight to Tom Homan. I just. I want to talk about stupid.
- [15:26]
A
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- [17:22]
B
But yeah, Democrats. And I'm not sure I'll be able to remember off the top of my heads which. But a few of them. Schiff talked about it and Welch talked about it and White House talked about it. The basic allegation. This came out a few weeks ago and it's not really just an allegation. I mean, it's very well reported that not only was the FBI looking into an allegation that Tom Homan, who was the, you know, who is the White House border czar, deportation czar now, and was always kind of in line for that role, the FBI last year, according to these reports, basically ran a sting on him where they had gotten word that he was sort of selling access to the incoming administration, telling people he could get them in line for contracts when the big deportation system got stood up. The FBI gets an appointment with him to do this. They tell him they're interested in potentially buying some access and they give him $50,000 in cash. In a kava bag.
- [18:17]
A
In a kava bag. I just want to be clear because we always have to. This is editorial directive. We have to make it clear it was a kava bag.
- [18:23]
B
Yes, yes, yes. So that's. And not according to these reports. The FBI has him, you know, on tape accepting this. And there was a, there was an ongoing investigation. Now what, what matters in this is that it's not a Crime to take $50,000 in cash from the FBI in a kava bag. It's also not a crime to tell them you're going to give them access in order to get that. What becomes a crime is that if you then get into office and. And, well, carry out an act. Right. That.
- [18:52]
A
It's not a crime, is it?
- [18:54]
B
Not really awful behavior. No, it's not. It's not. It does not meet sort of the federal, you know, bar for. For being an actual bribe unless there is a service rendered for it. So that's why. That's why you have to.
- [19:05]
A
Yeah, but you have to establish that the service was rendered for it.
- [19:09]
B
Yes. Yeah. And it's all. And it's also stupid because, you know, and this. This shows really how much like, the old FBI and the new FBI are just like, worlds apart. Right? I mean, when Donald Trump is coming into the. Off into office, the FBI tells him, and they're like, hey, you know, just so you know, this Tom Homan guy has been openly trafficking in bribes. And you should probably know that as you start to staff up your administration, Trump gets in there, puts Homan in anyway, the FBI then cancels the administration. Tom Homan obviously now knows that he can't give those guys a contract. Right. So it's like, you know, there is never that final predicating, but he would.
- [19:47]
A
They need to know if he kept the cash.
- [19:48]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what they were talking about in this hearing today, and that's why Pam Bondi and I'm sure we'll play this in a minute, but she.
- [19:54]
A
We have it ready now.
- [19:55]
B
Okay, let's do it.
- [19:56]
A
Okay, so let's play clip 16 again. The key here is they need to establish whether or not Homan kept the cash because that would mean he'd have to file his tax returns showing he kept the cash. And so a number of Democrats asked Bondi about this, but the best exchange was with the aforementioned Peter Welch, who was so scared about getting hit by Pam Bondi's oppo, but still delivered her very interesting back and forth with Pam Bondi. Let's watch.
- [20:24]
F
You want to go back to Homan? You know there's a tape, right, with Mr. Homan? I mean, first of all, is there a tape that has audio and video of the transfer of the 50,000?
- [20:36]
D
You would have to talk to Director Patel about that.
- [20:39]
F
No, I'm talking to you.
- [20:41]
D
I don't know the answer.
- [20:43]
F
Senator, you do know the answer to this.
- [20:44]
D
Don't call me a liar.
- [20:46]
F
I didn't call you a liar.
- [20:47]
D
You just said, I know the answer. I said, I don't know the answer. You have to talk to Director Patel. What I said is that investigation.
- [20:53]
B
Let me put it another way.
- [20:55]
F
If you don't know, why don't you know, whether there was a tape and video.
- [21:01]
D
Senator, I believe that was resolved prior to my confirmation as Attorney General.
- [21:07]
F
Do you think that it is of public interest for the people to know what happened to the 50 grand that the FBI turned over to Homan?
- [21:14]
D
Did you hear what I just said? That was resolved prior to my confirmation as Attorney General. That's why I said I would not go first.
- [21:23]
F
It's not resolved. There's $50,000. Homan has it or somebody has it. Do you have no interest in knowing where it is?
- [21:33]
D
You're not going to sit here and slander Tom Homan. The FBI. And Deputy Director Blanche said there was nothing.
- [21:40]
F
I'm not slamming Tom Homan. He got to 50.
- [21:43]
D
Tom Holman is doing. How do you know that? Tom Homan is doing a great job as our borders are keeping your border state safe.
- [21:52]
B
So she started there, and he cut her off. That thing where she started to say, you know, the DOJ and the FBI, FBI looked into this, and Deputy Director Blanche looked into this, and they found no wrongdoing on Tom Homan's part. She read almost word for word that statement repeatedly three or four, five times, which is also, you know, the party line all along. And basically what they're doing is they're doing some sleight of hand as to what wrongdoing means. It's because, like, all that stuff we were talking about before, where he doesn't appear actually to have delivered on his promise to these sting FBI agents that there's perhaps. Yeah. That we know of. That there's perhaps nothing chargeable. Right. But like, these questions aren't about that. These questions aren't about whether Tom Homan necessarily committed a crime. These questions are about the unbelievably skeevy and corrupt act of promising to sell access to the administration, which we know beyond a shadow. I'm not gonna say beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt at this point took place because of how Pam Bondi acted, because of how the administration has acted around all this stuff. They know that he did. They know it's out there. She would deny it if it. If. If it weren't. And instead they. She continues to retreat behind these sort of like, pat, you know, how dare you ask these questions in the first place?
- [23:06]
A
It's even worse than that, though. I mean, her. Her response is, I'm bad at my job. I didn't even bother to find out if there's a video. Like, why would I know that? You're the Attorney General. You didn't ask. Like, come on. It's. It's totally unbelievable. It's resolved. Well, if it's resolved, then you would know if there's a video. Like, it's so preposterous. But the only obvious explanation is there's just no way to spin this one. Like, there's just absolutely no way to spin this one.
- [23:35]
B
Yeah, and at one point she was. Sorry. At one point she was even asked to comment on the one thing the White House has said that goes beyond that. Because Carolyn Levitt from the White House podium in one of her tangles with reporters about these things, didn't just stick to that line. She actually went further and denied that it never happened. Yeah, yeah. Any such transfer had ever taken place. And again, she kind of. So. So Pam Bondi is asked, well, Carolyn Levitt said this. Is that true? And again, she kind of dances around it, and she won't give an honest answer or any answer at all. She's like, carolyn Levitt is one of the most trustworthy people I know. And that's like, that's like, supposed to be the answer. But again, they're just lying or she's not really lying. She's refusing to tell the truth.
- [24:15]
A
And it's like with Welch, she's like, how dare you slander the reputation of Tom Homan? And Welch is giving her an opportunity to, you know, defend. Well, defend Holman by saying, no, he didn't take the. He didn't take the money. There's no video. Like, she could have said any of that. Weldon's not slandering anybody. He's just saying, hey, can you tell me where the 50k is? And the idea that she just has no clue if there's a video or not is ridiculous. I don't think anyone actually believes it. There were a couple other things that came up. Again, it's kind of weird to talk because she was so evasive on these things, but topically, there was sending the National Guard into US Cities. Let's talk a little bit about this, because this came up really early on with Durbin. Durbin is the top Democrat on the committee. He's retiring. Chicago in his home state is now going to be the epicenter of this incredibly fraught legal debate over whether or not the president can deputize National Guard and whether he can send red state National Guard into blue states. This goes back and forth. It really set the tone for the whole entire hearing. But let's play clip three to talk about this, because Durbin wants to know what's the legal rationale? Like, did the president talk to you about this before he went forward with this? And she just doesn't answer. Let's play the clip.
- [25:37]
G
Ask you this question. Were you consulted by the White House before they deployed National Guard troops to cities in the United States?
- [25:47]
D
I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House.
- [25:53]
G
You won't even say whether you talk to the White House about this.
- [25:56]
D
I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House with you, ranking member.
- [26:01]
G
I noticed that. What's the secret?
- [26:03]
A
You.
- [26:04]
G
Why do you want to keep this secret? The American people don't know the rationale behind the deployment of National Guard troops in my state. The word is, and I think it's been confirmed by the White House, they are going to transfer Texas National Guard units to the state of Illinois. What's the rationale for that?
- [26:20]
D
Yeah, Chairman, as you shut down the government, you voted to shut down the government, and you're sitting here, our law enforcement officer, they're out there working to protect you. I wish. You love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump, and currently the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.
- [26:41]
A
What do you make of it?
- [26:43]
B
I mean, there was a lot of that. There was a lot on two fronts. There was a lot of that just kind of like blatant refusal to discuss any questions about the legality. There's a weird thing with this White House where they, a lot of times when these things are controversial, they will, like, kind of go out of their way not to actually make legal cases for the things that they're doing in their public rhetoric. They're kind of like setting that stuff aside. And you think they didn't, you don't.
- [27:10]
A
Think they kicked around the legality of this? Like, the White House counsel's office didn't like, put together some memo to say, you know, we do have the authority to do this and yada, yada, yada.
- [27:19]
B
No, internally, I'm sure they did. Internally, I'm sure they did a lot of that. And in fact, we know that there's been reporting that they've been scheming for a while about the best ways to get the most sort of handcuffs off of these Guardsmen, for instance. That's why they're calling in other red states troops into places like Chicago rather than just federalizing the Illinois Guard. CNN had some reporting about that the other day. But that's just, you know, that's just one half of It.
- [27:46]
A
Right.
- [27:48]
B
The other thing is just the really astonishing rhetoric when she returned to this line a couple times, it was not just a one off where she's like, if you're not going to do the job of protecting your people, then we're just going to do it for you, whether you like it or not, in those terms. And like, look, I'm sorry, that's just not how law enforcement works in America. The federal government, government prosecutes federal crimes. It's not the federal government's job to prosecute state and local.
- [28:14]
A
Let me just, let me just make this case. I don't think she. I know the White House has as its default, like, we need to be pugnacious and punch back, but let me just make the case that it's actually counterproductive in this, in this instance. If they feel like they, this is a politically smart and legally sound deployment of National Guard troops and that the public will be with them, then they should come out at these hearings and they should outline the legal rationale for it. It does them no good to be secretive about the legal rationale for it. In fact, it cloaks all the operations in this cloud of being legally dubious. And I think the public would be more likely to be with them if the actual chief law enforcement officer of this country said, in fact, we looked at the books, we studied the law. This is the grounds for which we are doing this. We had internal debates. Here are the memos that the White House Counsel's office put together. Here's the debate we had about, you know, the extent of our authorities. We're. Because they're gonna have to argue the shit in court anyway. They might as well argue it in public and before Congress. But they do not take that approach for obvious reasons. I think just because they like counterpunching more than they like explaining.
- [29:29]
B
Yeah. And let me, I'm curious what you think, because I have maybe a more like sort of unsettling take on, on this. Maybe not. What's yours like? Like, it really has just seemed to me and again, I think about stuff like the, like the boats they keep blowing up coming from Venezuela, international waters where like the, the deliberate or for instance, you know, the, the students who were being deported a few months ago for being, you know, too anti Israel, they're getting their student visas came canceled where like Marco Rubio in the latter case or Pete Hegseth in the former case really make this kind of stark statement that, like, we just have the authority to do that. That's just one of our Authorities to do that and not, you know, actually going to the statutes and not actually making a case based on law, but basically just making a political case that. Well, doesn't it feel like we ought to be able to do that? Right. Like, that. Doesn't this just seem like a thing that you would like us to be doing? Um, and, and, and I think that what they are doing politically is they are. Is they are kind of continuing to train their own base more and more to not. To just not have their own minds flick over to the question of, well, is this like a legal thing? Is this actually according to the law or is this.
- [30:43]
A
Oh, that's like a secondary concern.
- [30:45]
B
Yeah, like, like, like it's like some. Feels good, some random. Yeah, like, like some random basic. Like, it'd be nice if the law let us do this, but let's be honest, we all want this to happen. And so it's going to happen. The White House is going to happen.
- [30:54]
A
You knew. You referenced the, the, the. The targeting of fisherman boats or drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean. I think Chris Coons brought up. He's like, he's like, you know, if you start randomly killing people in the Caribbean, it might feel good, but, like, China might look at that and say, okay, well, if they're doing it, we can just start randomly killing, you know, or shooting down or bombing boats in the China Sea. And I think her response to that was, I'm not going to get into the legal advice that we've been using for, you know, targeting these Venezuelan boats because she just wouldn't do it. But to your point, it's like, oh, yeah, it might feel good, it might seem politically viable in the moment, but there are actual ramifications that go beyond the next three days. The other thing that came up was Comey, which we talked about. Comey came up a lot, in part because in this case, Trump was fairly open in demanding that Pam Bondi prosecute the guy. She admitted that, or she conceded that probably was the Pam he was referring to. I want to play clip 14 where it was brought up that she was pictured with Donald Trump, like the night before the Comey indictment. I think it was the Senator Blumenthal who was questioning her about this. Let's play clip 14.
- [32:17]
E
Before James Comey's indictment, you had dinner with President United States. Pretty intimate group, actually.
- [32:24]
D
There were a lot of people there that night. That's a great picture.
- [32:27]
E
Comey discussed at that dinner.
- [32:29]
A
Great picture.
- [32:30]
D
I love that picture. That's a great picture. And there were a lot of people there that night. I think the entire cabinet was there.
- [32:36]
E
Did you discuss James Comey with the President? United States? He was sitting just to your left.
- [32:42]
D
Well, two seats down. Yes, two seats down. And I am not going to discuss any. I'm going to take that as a.
- [32:51]
E
Because the American public is entitled to know. Madam Attorney General, the entire cabinet took instructions from President Trump after he told you very directly to indict James Comey, which is weaponization of the Department of Justice.
- [33:09]
A
Whenever this happens, I can't. My mind always goes back to Loretta lynch getting on the plane with Bill Clinton, who wasn't even president at the time, and this becoming like the most world shattering scandal of the 2016 campaign. And it's true, it's just a lot out double standard here. Even if they were just having a non intimate dinner with all the cabinet officials, it is not common for the Attorney General to do this with the President. It's just not, it's not common for the President's personal lawyer to take over the U.S. attorney's office and then bring a prosecution against James Comey, a former FBI Director. This shit just doesn't happen. And she's just so, you know, blase about it. Nonchalant. Oh, that lovely dinner.
- [33:50]
B
She's gloating. I mean like, yeah, it's totally, I mean like, ah, it's a great picture. You know, it's like we had a good time. You know, I do it again.
- [33:57]
A
It's the vibe. That dinner was fantastic.
- [34:00]
B
I don't know if we have this on a clip. As far as the Comey stuff is concerned. The most notable thing that she said, and again like about that dinner, like that dinner happens after Trump has sent those, those true social posts that are like, Pam, we're not prosecuting Jim Comey fast enough. Get on it immediately and then they fire the attorney.
- [34:21]
A
And I gotta pull, I want to get that, I want to get the actual true social post if I can find it. You keep talking, I'm gonna look for it.
- [34:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like again, it's right in there. So obviously, obviously if they're talking about anything, it's on her mind. Right, but, but the, the thing she said about those posts, she did acknowledge that she, she believes herself to be the Pam in question. But beyond that, she was like, you know, we have the most transparent president in history. He wasn't saying anything in those posts. That hasn't been kind of his like public position for years. Right. And like, yeah, that's true. Like, good point. Like, and, and and that's, that's the whole problem with all of this going back is like, yeah, he's doing all of these, like, insanely corrupt, please prosecute my enemies Pam posts. And then it's happening immediately. So obviously, you know, it could not be more naked and explicit. But also, even if he hadn't done that, you know, this has been the problem all along is that we have known since the beginning of this administration that Donald Trump's top priority for the Department of Justice going in place before any personnel were announced at all. He had this giant problem in his first term with attorneys general who were Republican and even partisan Republicans and even, you know, pursuing their, their jobs in a partisan Republican way, but who also had sort of the, the leftover fossilized remnants of a conviction that the Department of Justice is supposed to be an independent body that doesn't just, you're not the president's personal lawyers as the, as the Attorney general. And, and instead of, he's like, can't have that. We're going to do it different this time. He set up the whole government to function that way. And he, and that's the government we now have. Like, and it would have worked exactly the same way even if he hadn't done his PAM tweet. Right.
- [36:01]
A
I'm going to see if we can post the Truth Social on the screen because it's so good, in retrospect to look back at it. I know that the common rejoinder, and this came up all the time during the hearing as well. We're stopping the weaponization of the Justice Department. The real weaponization happened under Biden. And that's because Jack Smith. And we'll get into the Jack Smith stuff in a second. You know, they were dispatched to go after President Trump as soon as he announced his candidacy for presidency. Then you had the special counsel and Mayor gr. All that stuff. Okay, here's the, here's the post, Pam. Just look at it. I mean, it's like, I'm glad she acknowledged that she probably was the Pam. So that's the post that he put up. The thing about the weaponization charge, people just kind of skip this. Mayor Garland, like, he, the reason that he appointed Jack Smith is because he didn't want to be accused of weaponization. Like, that's precisely the reason he had determined that there's no way that the sitting attorney general should be investigating a presidential candidate of the opposing, of the president's opposing party. Because it wouldn't, it wouldn't, it wouldn't come off as Kosher so he, that's why he went to Jack Smith. People forget there was a, there was an investigation into Hunter Biden under Merrick Garland. I mean the idea that like this, that Pambani would ever undertake or allow a special prosecutor to investigate Don Jr's crypto schemes and meme coins is like preposterous. It's absurd. It's absurd.
- [37:32]
B
Yeah. I mean the whole thing, the whole thing just makes you want to bang your head against the wall. Right. This is what special counsels are for.
- [37:38]
A
For the whole point not to go and get people.
- [37:41]
B
It's the only reason you ever appoint a special counsel is if there is a reason why a particular prosecution shouldn't be run by Main Justice. Right. Like that's like of course, if it's a special counsel, it is in some way, you know, like politically salient or there's some appearance of conflict of interest or something. Because that's what this, that's what the whole policy apparatus of the special counsel is.
- [38:02]
A
And I think Trump, I think they just got jaded because when Sessions and appointed the special counsel which ended up being Robert Mueller, like they assumed that that was just a deep state op and yeah, but they got their own. That's because Sessions had to recuse himself because he was involved in the issue of whether or not Russia had tried to interfere in the election. So.
- [38:21]
B
And a couple years, and a couple of years later, Bill Barr appoints John Dunham to, as another special counsel or sorry, John Durham. Thank you. To go after or not to go after to look into whether there was any malfeasance in the launch of that particular investigation. You know, and that, you know, it's all circular.
- [38:36]
A
I can't believe we remember all these character names. It's impossible we could swap out this screen. I think people have had enough of the true social post. I'm sorry, Pam, get on this. I will say that the Jack Smith thing was the, was the main Republican pushback today. And what happened was yesterday the FBI put out a memo or something. I don't know if I'm categorizing correctly, but it basically said while Jack Smith was had obtained phone records for about eight Republican senators in the lead up to or right after January6. And just to be clear, the stuff that Smith apparently got was not the, the actual contents of the phone calls themselves is the metadata. It was, you know, when the calls were made, how long they're made for things like that. There's good reason why Jack Smith would want this stuff because if Donald Trump was organizing a scheme to overturn the election and he was enlisting members of Congress to help him do that. You want to know if Donald Trump was, you know, working the phone members of Congress, like, it's like fairly obvious investigative tool, but this was brought up repeatedly today as evident as like a high crime. I think, you know, several Republicans said, you know, to Bond, you have to appoint, lo and behold, the special prosecutor to investigate Jack Smith.
- [39:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's all just sort of fruit of the poison tree, right? Where like, yeah, I would like to live in a world where you don't have prosecutors looking into, you know, the phone record of lawmakers. That seems like a, possibly a location for corruption and abuse and things like that in order to get to that world. I would really like to live in a world where prosecutors don't have probable cause to do that. You know, like, I would like to live in a world where sitting presidents are not committing brazenly criminal behavior and call, working the phones, calling all their buddies in all their, you know, sort of stooge lawmakers to see if they can enlist their help to do that. I mean, like, come on, like, it's all, it's all amazing. It's all amazing. It's all really good stuff. We're all really happy. We're in a good place.
- [40:46]
A
Very happy. At one point, Josh Holly said his phone had been tapped. That was not, not the case as far as we know. Good old Josh Holly. So, yeah, I guess, I don't know. Do you have anything else you want to talk about here? Because I think we covered a lot of. There's like a fair bit of Epstein related stuff. Durbin asked him about that, but no, again we come back to the thing. Pam, Bonnie just refused to talk about anything she didn't want to talk about. But is there any larger thing you want to take away here?
- [41:13]
B
Yeah, I don't know. Like one second on Epstein. Was it, what was it? What was the Epstein question? I think it was Durbin really early on. Where, where. And please correct me if I got.
- [41:23]
A
This wrong, four were about the, about the desk thing sitting on the desk. And she was like, let's play clip for. That's a good jumping off point while you collect your thoughts.
- [41:30]
B
Sure.
- [41:30]
A
This was Dick Durbin talking about Epstein.
- [41:32]
G
The Epstein client list was quote, sitting on my desk right now for review, end of quote. You then produce already public information and no client list at a major media event hosted at the White House. Attorney General Bondi, why did you publicly claim to have the Epstein Cl client list waiting for your review and then produce nothing relevant to that claim.
- [41:53]
D
Senator D. Senator Durbin, if you listen to my entire clip on that, I said I had not reviewed it yet, that it was sitting on my desk along with the JFK files, the Martin Luther King files. And I said I had not yet reviewed it. And if you see our memo on Epstein, you will see. Excuse me. Our memo on Epstein clearly points out that there was no client list. Our July 6th memo.
- [42:21]
B
Yeah, the, the. The. Most obviously that's interesting. The, the. The. The slightly more interesting moment. Clip 5. I don't think we have it uploaded, but I'll just read it here. It's fine. This is still Durbin. Durbin asks, you pushed the FBI to review approximately 100,000 Epstein related records to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump who gave the order to flag any records which included Trump's name. And Bondi's response was just. I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you. Not.
- [42:46]
A
Yeah, no, not his privilege.
- [42:47]
B
Not I, not you. You don't have the right to ask me that. I mean, literally just not going to answer that one. Sorry, Dick.
- [42:53]
A
And she, she did it again. When I think it was Durbin again who was like, or maybe someone else was like, did the FBI find photographs of Donald Trump with, quote, half naked women in the Epstein investigation? And she just refuses to answer. Now look, it could be that that's her policy. I'm not answering any questions. But when you refuse to answer that question, it's like you have to live with the consequences of refusing, refusing to answer the question. Kind of leave it out there in the open.
- [43:15]
B
It really is insane how they have run this whole Epstein again.
- [43:19]
A
I continue to, I gotta be, I continue to come back with this. These people in the White House think that they have like this grand strategic vision for how to run, you know, all this politics, whether it's the shutdown, the Epstein stuff, Tom Holman, whatever. And it's always, you know, you. No, and I don't think it works. I think they have this aura about them that they're just steamrolling everyone. And yeah, they, they're getting a lot of what they want, but like, I'm not sure it's like the smartest play. I'm just not sure we're gonna. I'm here on YouTube and they're running the country.
- [43:50]
B
JBL. JBL is going to come like parachuting into the frame right behind you. He's like, it's working, it's doing fine. We're all doomed.
- [43:58]
A
We're so screwed. Shut up, Sam. All right, well, I'm. I'm good. Leaving it there, I thought it was a really. Look, what do we get from this hearing? Not much, because they don't give us much to get. But it's. It does say a lot, in a weird way, about just how bad things are, how. And again, I come back to my original point, the Republic. It was. For me, it was the Republicans on the committee who could have used that opportunity not to, like, score points, but to at least get some decent answers to some really relevant questions and to at least show that they care about these things. The one person who kind of had a pulse was Thom Tillis. Towards the end, he was like, well, you know, deploying National Guard to Chicago, like, but his whole thing was like, well, you know, is it just, you know, whacking a mole? Like, you can solve the problem, but eventually they have to leave and then the problem comes back and it's like, that's really not the issue, Tom.
- [44:51]
B
He had an okay. Like. Like his. It was obviously very, like, Republican coded in ways that I think we roll our eyes at. But the basic premise of his question was like, aren't these local places, aren't these cities issues to solve? If a city has a crime problem, isn't it basically incumbent on that city to solve it? And the answer is pretty much, yeah. In terms of the actual crime fighting authority, like, obviously, you know, the federal government can help in various ways, but as far as, like, who is going out and arresting people in the streets. Yeah. It's a. It's up to local law enforcement to do that. And I thought that was good from Tillis.
- [45:20]
A
That's fine. Yeah. But again, there's. There's not. Just not that much of it.
- [45:23]
B
Yeah, like one 1/15 or one 2 minute exchange in this entire.
- [45:30]
A
I do think it matters. I think, like, having Republicans who say, you know what? I like Tom Holman. Good guy. I really appreciate what he's doing. I'm happy, like, that the border is under control and that we're doing all this deportations. Love it. But, like, I do need to know, like, did he sell government contracts to the highest bidder? Like that matters. And I wish we lived in a world where at least one Republican said that, but we don't. That's that.
- [45:54]
B
That's that.
- [45:55]
A
All right, buddy. Thank you for watching this. You're going to be writing about this tomorrow.
- [45:58]
B
Yeah, man. Why not? I already watched it.
- [46:01]
A
Yeah. Who would want to work more.
- [46:05]
B
All.
- [46:06]
A
Right, everyone read Andrew's morning shots tomorrow. He's going to cover this. For that, I will say subscribe to the YouTube feed here. We are closing in on 1.5 million. 1.5 million YouTube subscribers. That is insane. Insane. I love it. Become the 1.5 million subscriber. There is no prize, but the.
- [46:25]
B
The amount of. The amount of comfort I have talking into this stupid camera versus, like, the amount of, like, anxiety I would feel getting up on stage in front of, like, 200 people. It's really disproportionate.
- [46:38]
A
Live's a different. A different beast. I understand why. I was wondering, like, do you get anxious going on TV versus this stupid webcam? But no, this is great. Subscribe to this feed. Subscribe to our substack feed, too. That's the most important one. Because we want people to support the journalism mission for the bulwark in. A direct substack subscription is the best way to do it. We really appreciate that. We're expanding here. I don't know if you all saw. We saw. We hired Catherine Rampel. Previously the Washington Post. We're doing great things here, and of course, we are employing Andrew still. But if you support that, subscribe to the.
- [47:14]
B
If you don't support it, keep it to yourself.
- [47:16]
A
Yeah, exactly. All right, take care, everyone. Talk to you later.