← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Retribution, pure and simple”
00:43:25
Alicia Menendez, in for Nicolle Wallace, on the FBI raid of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton – who became staunch critic of the president after leaving his administration. Rolling coverage of the Ghislaine Maxwell interview transcript release continues.
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- [00:00]
Scott Aukerman
This is Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast, the promo and in 30 seconds I'm going to tell you why you should check out the show. I the host, Scott Aukerman have a light hearted conversation with famous celebrities like Jon Hamm, Alison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Alexander, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few things. Go a little off the rails when different eccentric characters and oddballs drop by to be interviewed as well. Each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians as well as some new hilarious voice. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast Listen every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Deadline White House is brought to you.
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Ken Delaney
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- [01:12]
Alicia Menendez
Hi again everyone. It is five o' clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace. A very busy day of news today. We are still poring over the Justice Department's interview with Ghislaine Maxwell and we're keeping an eye on any developments out of Congress where the first batch of the Epstein files handed over to the House Oversight Committee this afternoon. But we begin this hour with the other major breaking news today. The Trump Justice Department making what appears to be a major escalation today in its targeting of Donald Trump's critics. Early this morning, the FBI conducted a search the Maryland home of John Bolton. He is Trump's former national security adviser turned Trump critic. Agents also later appeared at Bolton's office building in Washington, D.C. a source close to Bolton tells NBC News it was, quote, retribution, pure and simple. According to the FBI, the searches were court authorized. And sources tell NBC News that they were part of a national security investigation related to the handling of classified documents and potential instances of those documents being used in leaks to the media. We do not know the specific allegations against Bolton, but here's what we do know about Donald Trump and the man now in the crosshairs of his administration. After leaving his post, Bolton quickly became an outspoken critic of his former boss.
- [02:30]
Scott Aukerman
I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think he has the confidence.
- [02:33]
Ken Delaney
To carry out the job.
- [02:34]
Scott Aukerman
There really isn't any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection. What he was capable of was on.
- [02:44]
Ken Delaney
A daily basis doing something more and more outrageous than he had done the.
- [02:49]
Scott Aukerman
Day before, all to the same end.
- [02:52]
Ken Delaney
Of staying in power.
- [02:53]
Scott Aukerman
I think when you challenge the Constitution itself the way Trump has done, and that is un American.
- [02:59]
Amanda Carpenter
Very quickly, do you agree with Mark.
- [03:01]
Alicia Menendez
Milley that Trump is a fascist?
- [03:04]
Scott Aukerman
You know, I don't think he's smart enough to have an ideology.
- [03:08]
Alicia Menendez
The memoir about his time in the Trump White House, a book that the administration was desperate to keep under wraps. Donald Trump accused Bolton of leaking classified information, but a court rejected those claims. That did not stop them from launching a criminal probe into the matter. That probe was later shut down under President Joe Biden's Justice Department. On that, a former DOJ official telling NBC News, quote, attorney General Merrick Garland investigated Democrats and Republicans, including President Joe Biden, his boss. To suggest that any decision was made based on political reasons is absurd. DOJ always made decisions based on the facts and the law and not for political reasons. Upon returning to office, Trump has made clear his desire for revenge against his former national security advisor, revoking Bolton's security detail on day one, a security detail he was granted because of threats he faced from Iran. Here's what Bolton had to say about being a target of Donald Trump and the administration earlier this month.
- [04:07]
Michael Feinberg
We're about to talk about Trump's retribution campaign.
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Ken Delaney
We're seeing at the FBI and the Justice Department. You're obviously on his enemies list, at least Cash Patel's enemies list. Are you worried that they're going to.
- [04:21]
Michael Feinberg
Come after you in some way?
- [04:22]
Scott Aukerman
I mean, he's hinted at it before.
- [04:24]
Ken Delaney
Well, I think he's already come after me and several others in withdrawing the.
- [04:28]
Scott Aukerman
Protection that we had for from the Iranians for the attack on Qasem Soleimani. So I think, and I said in.
- [04:36]
Ken Delaney
The new forward of the paperback edition of my book, I think it is a retribution presidency.
- [04:42]
Alicia Menendez
And that is where we start this hour with MSNBC justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney. And also with us, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, Michael Feinberg, writer and editor for Protect Democracy. Amanda Carpenter is here, as well as Andrew Weissman. Thank you all so much for being with us. Michael, let's start with you. Help us understand this. In normal times from a process perspective, what is required to get a warrant for a search like this?
- [05:08]
Michael Feinberg
They essentially need to show to a federal magistrate judge that the fruits or evidence of a crime are at the facility they're seeking to search. What's interesting about this case is in meeting that requirement, the prosecutorial and investigative teams normally need to overcome what we would call a staleness concern. In other words, they would have to have some sort of up to date information that shows the fruits of the crime are at the residence that comes from the very recent past. Given that this matter was last investigated in 2020, I'm not quite sure how they got there.
- [05:50]
Alicia Menendez
Well, Amanda Carpenter, what do you make of a staleness concern that seems to have been overridden by this FBI?
- [05:58]
Amanda Carpenter
Well, yeah, I think what we're seeing here in reality is Cash Patel's enemies list in action. Right. This is the weaponization of that list. I mean, we can go through the procedures, you know, what necessitates having a warrant. But look at John Bolton's career. He is a man who has acted. You can disagree with him, a lot of people do, but you can't say that he hasn't acted as a good faith civil servant throughout his time in Washington. I mean, he made a decision to serve Trump faithfully. A lot of people disagreed with that decision. But he was Republican, he had foreign policy views and he was going to go into that White House and serve Trump. And when they came to policy disagreements, right, Bolton left, and he did what we ask all people of principle to do. If you see something, say something. And he went and he talked about his disagreements with Trump and why he thought Trump was not fit to serve another term. And for that reason, Donald Trump has been on a continued pressure campaign to silence him before this. This is just the latest escalation of it. You brought up him having his security removed. He needed that security because of the service that he did for Trump. They tried to stop this book, they tried to seize the profits from it. Then Cash Patel, who now runs the fb, put a target on his back as long as well with a number of other people. And now you are seeing the expression of that. And I don't think we should, you know, see it, downplay it as anything other than that. I, you know, John Bolton talks to the media quite frequently. I eagerly anticipate what kind of statement he is going to make because he knows the ways of Washington. And to think that he would just willy nilly disrespect what was being asked of him, especially when he's cooperated with other investigations and tried to get this book published in a good faith way with the Trump administration before. This is all just very hard to accept.
- [07:57]
Alicia Menendez
There's a lot that I want to unpack there, but I want to go to Ken Delaney, who I believe is at John Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland. Ken, we have some. Some new reporting. A source familiar confirming to NBC News that CIA Director John Radcliffe provided FBI Director Kash Patel the intelligence that was the basis for this search. What more can you tell us?
- [08:17]
Ken Delaney
Yeah, Alicia, and that's why this discussion about whether it relates to the book, it's really not clear that it does, actually. And the whole staleness question, this reporting sheds new light on that issue. If, in fact, it's true, and that's a big if. But the New York Times is reporting, and our colleague Andrea Mitchell has confirmed that we're being told that this warrant was based in part on intelligence gathered by the CIA overseas and passed by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to the Justice Department. And the New York Times is also reporting that this is about leaks to the media that happened over the last four years, not five years ago when John Bolton was preparing his book. So, again, all this is reporting from anonymous sources. Eventually we'll see the affidavit of probable cause and we'll understand what led up to this search. And the problem, of course, is what everyone is saying here is absolutely the case. This FBI is, this CIA has been completely politicized. They've been saying, the leaders of these institutions have been saying things that aren't true on a regular basis about the Russia investigation, about the investigations into Donald Trump. And so the question is, can anything they say be trusted? But you do have this third party involved here, which is a magistrate judge, who had to look at this evidence, knowing that every word of this affidavit will be scrutinized at some point and approve this search warrant. You know, this is one of the most intrusive things the FBI can do, aside from take someone's liberty away. And so they've approved it. And FBI agents went out and they spent seven and a half hours in John Bolton's home today. I was outside for most of the day, and then they emerged with several boxes of material, along with computer equipment and other kinds of things. And again, we'll have to wait and see whether there's anything to this or whether this does smack of retribution by the Trump administration.
- [10:06]
Alicia Menendez
To the point, Andrew, that both Amanda and Ken have made in different ways about retribution. Let's remind everyone what happened around the Mar A Lago raid, the National Archives. They tried multiple times to get things back from Trump after he left office. He did not comply. So then you had the FBI go in. They found about 100 documents that were Marcus classified, including national defense information. Some of the records concerned military capabilities of other countries. So if I am understanding this correctly, the man who stored classified documents in his bathroom and on a ballroom stage is now searching another man's home. His critic was looking for classified documents, is that right?
- [10:46]
Scott Aukerman
That is what it appears to be. And first, the comparison to Mar A Lago is just, you know, it's. People have said it's apples and oranges, or maybe it's like apples and rabbits. I mean, it's just completely different because John Bolton, the reporting is. Had no idea that this was going to happen. So there was no effort to obtain these documents, either voluntarily or through a subpoena. That's typically when I was a prosecutor, you would do that in various circumstances where you trusted the person and you thought that would work. In the Mar A Lago case, that was the very last thing that they were forced to do because nothing else was working. This is a very different situation. I do want to just comment on something that Ken said, which is we may never actually see the affidavit that was submitted to the magistrate judge. And so we're now having this public discussion about this search, which really should not have seen the light of day. This is. You have John Bolton suffering the opprobrium of the investigation, but unless there's a criminal case that comes out of it, that underlying warrant that the. The affidavit that's submitted by the FBI to the magistrate, something that. That John Bolton may never see and we may never see, and that's because I just want to. The fundamental principle here that is being violated is that John Bolton, like any American or any person who is subject to criminal law, is entitled to have that kept under wraps unless and until a grand jury decides to indict. And that hasn't happened yet. Right now, all we have is a public record that Amanda has talked about of actual retribution, and we have no contrary evidence that there's something wrong here. Now, two things could be true. There could be retribution and John Bolton could have done something wrong, and both of those could be true, but we don't have any evidence to point to. It is true that we know a magistrate, and potentially two magistrates have signed warrants because there was a search, as I understand it, at his home and in his office, which are in two separate locations and would require two separate magistrates. But we don't know what's in there. We don't know what the allegations are, and John Fulton was entitled to that. All being kept under wraps. So, in part, what we are seeing now is, again, the Department of Justice violating a fundamental precept of the Department of Justice and the way this country is supposed to operate, which is that there should have been secrecy surrounding what happened today.
- [13:38]
Alicia Menendez
Michael, I want you to pick up on that point. What secrecy requires and your sense of the likelihood that this leak came from inside the FBI or doj.
- [13:48]
Michael Feinberg
I have very little doubt that it came from inside DOJ or FBI. Every point that has been raised by Andrew and other contributors is absolutely 100% true. And to add to Andrew's point that DOJ should not be commenting on these things, its official FBI policy not to comment on ongoing investigations. Yet before this search was even over, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino had both been tweeting about it. Pam Bondi did something very similar. So what we are seeing now is a continuing massive departure from norms and policies which are designed to protect the rights of the accused until there is a formal charging document.
- [14:33]
Alicia Menendez
Amanda, I want to show you what Donald Trump had to say about this today. Take a listen.
- [14:40]
Scott Aukerman
He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We're going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning. They did a raid.
- [14:47]
Amanda Carpenter
Do you expect the DOJ to brief you on this?
- [14:49]
Ken Delaney
Yeah, they'll be.
- [14:50]
Scott Aukerman
They'll brief me on it, probably today, sometime.
- [14:52]
Christy Greenberg
And the foreign minister.
- [14:53]
Scott Aukerman
I don't want to. I tell Pam and I tell the group. I don't want to know about it. Just, you have to do what you have to do. I don't want to know about it. It's not necessary. I could know about it. I could be the one starting, actually, the chief law enforcement officer.
- [15:05]
Alicia Menendez
I mean, Amanda, so much to react to there, including the. The hat of choice, but specifically your reaction to the claim that he is the chief law enforcement officer.
- [15:16]
Amanda Carpenter
It's really hard to take all that in. So you, you mentioned the hat. And this is something that I think is essential to understanding how this autocracy is unfolding in America. The absurdity, like that hat that accompanies so much of the serious threats that we face make this hard to grapple with. It's the absurdity that allows the autocracy to take root because it gives Runway for disbelief that this is really real. And so, you know, we're talking about the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Meanwhile, there's all these theatrics around it. The hat, the tweets from Department of Justice. Officials, MAGA allies, celebrating the fact that John Bolton got raided, the fact that he and so many others have been smeared relentlessly as members of the so called deep state, whatever that means for, I don't know, the last four years. I mean, this is all part of this narrative that you are part of the unlawful Deep State. If you somehow in some way oppose Trump for any reason along the way of working from him, and that's why John Bolton is being targeted right now. I mean, I think we have to be very clear eyed about it. And so just watching all this unfold, we have to take into account all of the theatrics, because John Bolton is going through it now like so many other people have. And I understand there's a lot of people that disagree with Bolton. You may not like the service that he performed, you may not like the policy views that he has taken over the years, but you can't stand for this. And if you don't want it to happen to you, don't celebrate this. You have to find a way to defend the people who criticize Trump. They're not his enemies. This is not an enemies list. He's going after people who criticize him, and that threatens our fundamental rights as Americans to speak freely and criticize our government.
- [17:13]
Alicia Menendez
Andrew, there are the theatrics that Amanda laid out so clearly there. There's also, though, patterns of behavior. If you have Trump saying that he is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, and he has also repeatedly criticized John Bolton, as, you know, accusing him of disseminating classified information, should it then come as a surprise that his foot soldiers, his loyalists, would pursue this investigation?
- [17:41]
Scott Aukerman
I mean, look, the people who are being appointed are people who are being chosen in large part because of loyalty, not because they are the best person for the job. I mean, I remember during the confirmation hearings being struck by the fact that not a single person was saying, oh, Cash Patel, best person that we can possibly think of to leave the FBI. That was not why he was chosen, but that should have been why he was chosen, that you should be looking for the best person. But loyalty was everything. And so whether there is a communication from the White House to the FBI on this is one that I don't know the answer to. We do know that this is a White House that does not believe that that is in any way inappropriate. The sort of norms that existed post Watergate to prevent and deter what happened in the Nixon administration are gone completely with this administration. So we really should not be surprised. But I just want to make one point, though, which is we really don't know what happened here. And I do think it's important to keep two things in mind, that there is facts that go to and establish retribution. There's no question about that. And Amanda's talked about it. You played clips where it's clear in terms of the security. The idea that you would eliminate someone's security from foreign death threats for doing their job is just unthinkable. But it is also true that for the same reason that I thought it was right for the government to care about the classified documents, the boxes and boxes and boxes of classified documents that were discovered at Mar A Lago and why that undermined our national security. If, and it's a big if, if there is that kind of evidence here, it would also be appropriate that there is an investigation of John Bolton as well as anybody else who's in that comparable situation. In fact, there are people who have been prosecuted and who are in jail for these kinds of violations. The issue right now is we do not have that evidence, but we do know that at least one magistrate judge, maybe two, found probable cause based on representations in the government about that. So there's a lot of unanswered questions. But it is possible for two things to be true at the same time.
- [20:18]
Alicia Menendez
We can hold both at the same time. Everyone's sticking around. I want to talk specifically about Cash Patel and about the FBI search this morning at the home of Trump critic and former national security adviser John Bolton. Also ahead for us, we're going to get back to what we are learning in the documents released late today in the Jeffrey Epstein case. DEADLINE White House continues after a quick break. Stay with us.
- [20:42]
Scott Aukerman
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- [22:17]
Alicia Menendez
The.
- [22:17]
Ken Delaney
Magistrate certainly must have passed upon this this search warrant. That's true, but of course they're only at that point getting the government's side of the and we know that Donald Trump was livid and denounced the search warrant that was executed at Mar A Lago. And that was a case where he had all of these classified documents and had repeatedly refused to return them after multiple appeals by the government. It doesn't sound like anything like that has gone on here.
- [22:54]
Alicia Menendez
Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin earlier today on the glaring differences, as Andrew Weissman put it, the apples to rabbits differ between John Bolton and Trump's classified documents case. We are back with Ken, Michael, Amanda and Andrew. All right, Michael, you do understand very personally what retribution looks like in this administration when, when you are the person it is aimed and targeted at, what becomes clear to you that may not be clear to others.
- [23:26]
Michael Feinberg
I'm reluctant to extrapolate from my personal situation anything about the government ritual writ large because I don't have that sort of firsthand knowledge. But what I can say after seeing what I and my family had to go through simply because I was friends with somebody on Kash Patel's enemies list, is that the FBI I joined and served for the better part of two decades, which was dedicated to constitutional norms, the rule of law, and a sense of regularity in the administration of justice does not exist anymore. Cash Patel's goal is not to uphold the Constitution. It is not to protect the United States. It is solely to serve the political needs of the White House. And that's why, as Andrew mentioned, we do need to exercise some caution in how we talk about the situation with John Bolton. But the benefit of the doubt that the FBI has traditionally enjoyed among large swaths of the American public, I think is just gone as a result of Patel's Vindictive behaviors.
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Alicia Menendez
Well, his vindictive behaviors and his vindictive declarations. I want you, Michael, to take a listen to what Cash Patel had to say just yesterday about the Bureau's current posture.
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Scott Aukerman
The distractions, to put it mildly, from the prior leadership regime are what thwarted the American public's belief and credibility in the FBI. And so when they do raids like Mar A Lago, now, the American public knows it was made up, it was completely false, it was completely unconstitutional pursuant to our judicial courts, and we are working into those matters to say, why did you do it? We know there was no reason. Now it's time for accountability. And that's who we're talking to. And by the way, Larry, I'd like to announce on your show, if you got nothing to hide, and you were DOJ and FBI before, you're welcome to come talk to the FBI at any time. And if you don't want to come talk to us, we're gonna come find you and we're gonna put you in an investigative position and posture that will make you feel very uncomfortable.
- [25:30]
Alicia Menendez
Michael, I've got a lot of questions. One, just the fact that Mar A Lago is top of mind for the FBI director. He's talking about it on national television just yesterday. The quote, unquote invitation that seems much more to me like a not so thinly veiled threat. What does that mean for folks, former FBI folks who might be there now, about the chillingness, the fact that they're being told, you know, you have to cooperate or else?
- [26:01]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, I mean, the FBI is not a democratic organization. It is hierarchical, it is based on a chain of command, and it is an organization where you are generally expected to follow any orders that are not unconstitutional. However, it has never been run since the early days of J. Edgar Hoover, even in a total atmosphere of fear where the director posed himself as somebody in opposition to the workforce. You know, in the history of the United States, Cabinet officials and high ranking executives like the Director of the FBI have always attempted to thread the needle between both serving their political appointer to a certain degree, but also standing up for the agency and the workforce which they lead. Cash Patel has no interest and has shown no evidence that he intends to take part in the latter activity.
- [27:03]
Alicia Menendez
Ken, do you hear in your reporting echoes of that from inside the current FBI?
- [27:09]
Ken Delaney
Absolutely. And I think this is an undercovered story. It's really hard to convey to the public, and Michael just did a great job of trying to do that, just how much in crisis the FBI is right now and the Justice Department, for that matter, to the point that anybody who has an alternative to a job waiting for them or a potential to get another job or is retirement eligible is trying to leave. And those who aren't are being forced out, because the people I talked to say there's no point. In the first Trump term, the FBI ran fairly normally. Chris Wray was the appointed director. He was down the middle, Republican, certainly, but he ran the FBI the way past FBI directors have run. And the Justice Department was the same way. It was possible to uphold the rule of law, to stand up for your beliefs, to push back against things that you thought were improper in these institutions. Today, anybody who tries to push back to dissent is squashed, may be summarily fired. And people are being fired, as Michael was, without due process. Senior FBI officials are being marched out or being handed letters and told that they engage in weaponization, and therefore they must go. And, yeah, they can litigate, but meanwhile, they're out of a job. And so these institutions have been completely bent to the will of the Trump White House in a way that we haven't seen in the history of our country, even in the J. Edgar Hoover days. And the implications of that really, we haven't really grasped them yet. And then there's this other problem, which is that the FBI, Cash Patel, wants to turn the FBI into a national police force devoted to focusing on violent crime with a sideline of immigration enforcement. And there's only a certain number of FBI agents, and it's not a large number. And so to the extent that you divert them to things like violent crime, which is mostly a state and local purview, that means people who are working on counterterrorism, counter espionage, white collar, public corruption, all the traditional things that we expect the FBI to work on, they have less time to do that, or there are less agents devoted to those priorities. And so I hear all the time, and I'm sure everyone else on this panel does as well, that there's great fear inside the FBI that something really terrible is going to happen in terms of terrorism because things are going to slip through the cracks. And if it's espionage, if it's Chinese spying, we may never know about it. If it's terrorism, unfortunately, we will know about it, and it will be horrific. And there will be questions asked about what happened at the FBI, which after 911 was transformed into an agency whose top priority was to protect the United States from a terrorist attack.
- [29:44]
Alicia Menendez
Former General Counsel to the FBI, Andrew Weissman. This is an institution that you too know well. And I think that Ken gets it exactly right. Which is part of this is about what happens happens to the institution and the opportunity costs when the institution and individuals inside of it are not focused on the actual mission that is mission critical. I just, I wonder how you see that in the context of what we are watching unfold today.
- [30:12]
Scott Aukerman
Well, this is really to sort of put stomp on what Michael and Ken have said, and it's hard to sort of convey to everyone the seriousness of the mission of the FBI. And you could say the same thing about the CIA and DOD and other parts of the government. But I know the FBI. And when you get there, you read, for instance, the Presidential Daily Brief and you see the threat streams that every single one of them has to be followed up on. And what was remarkable to me was seeing experienced, brilliant people with a real depth of knowledge like Robert Mueller being able to focus on what are the threats that are most important to be on like, you know, a duck on a June bug. To be really make sure that you are taking those to the top of the list and making sure that those are followed up on because you know that that is where the greatest risk is to our safety. And that is why, having seen that, it's so hard for me to understand how anybody in this administration doesn't take that to heart and that you wouldn't be trying to find the very best people to focus on those issues. And you know, it may be and it may not be that John Bolton has committed a crime. We do not know. He certainly hasn't been charged with anything. But the one thing that we do know is that we are not seeing this administration taking the risk of terrorism, counterterrorism, counterespionage seriously in a way that other administrations, Republican and Democratic, have done. It's very much like putting their head in sand, like an ostrich in the sand. It's if it doesn't exist and it does, and that to me is such a red flag of something that, as Ken said, is is such a risk that is not being taken into account the way it should be.
- [32:23]
Alicia Menendez
It should also, just to put the politics hat back on, be a bipartisan concern. Andrew Weissman, you have been with me for a very long time. Thank you so much. Michael Feinberg, Ken Delaney, and thank you both so much for being with us. Amanda, you are sticking with me because when we return, we're going to get back to our top story, the release late today, thousands of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case. What we are learning after quick break. Hey there, it's Kelly Ripa. And if you've been listening to my podcast, we are knee deep in season three. And if you haven't heard it, it's.
- [32:58]
Christy Greenberg
Time to get on board.
- [32:59]
Alicia Menendez
After years of interviewing celebs on camera, I finally get to bring you the real conversations that take place when the cameras aren't rolling. Where else are you going to hear Michelle Obama talk about keeping her girls out of Page Six? Hilaria Baldwin's hilarious reaction to Alec running for office, or Jeremy Renner's lucid hallucinations about Jamie Foxx?
- [33:19]
Christy Greenberg
Nowhere else.
- [33:20]
Alicia Menendez
It's raw, it's honest, and best of all, it's off camera. And believe me, that's where you get the good stuff. So download. Let's talk off camera with Kelly Rippa now.
- [33:31]
Scott Aukerman
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- [34:33]
Alicia Menendez
If Maxwell were to receive a pardon at some point, what would that mean for you?
- [34:51]
Ken Delaney
It would unwind everything that my sister.
- [34:56]
Scott Aukerman
And all the survivors fought for. It would be a disgrace of justice. It would be picking abusers over survivors again.
- [35:12]
Alicia Menendez
That was Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, a very prominent accuser of Jeffrey Epstein. You just watched it. You just heard it. You can hear the pain the victims, their families, they are still enduring from Epstein's crimes. Just moments ago we got this statement from an attorney for numerous victims and survivors on the release today of the transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell's interview with Deputy AG Todd Blandford, quote, gaylaine Maxwell was federally indicted on two perjury counts as a result of her testimony during her civil deposition. Having been convicted of sex trafficking, she is now in jail, presumably hoping that she will receive a pardon from President Trump. I can't imagine that her testimony will be given much weight by anyone with any knowledge whatsoever of her involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Joining me at the table, former Criminal Division deputy chief at SDNY, MSNBC legal analyst and host of the YouTube show Courtside, Christy Greenberg. Amanda Carpenter is also back with us. You know, Christy, the point was made earlier that there is, and it is clear in her testimony that she is, that there is an effort to clear Trump specifically. A lot of the questions are specifically about Trump, a lot of the answers very complimentary, even in particular sections to him. But you just made the point to me that she's actually doing even more than that.
- [36:30]
Christy Greenberg
Yeah, I mean, she actually says she never saw anyone with underage women. They go through a list of names. They go through a list of people that Epstein would socialize with. She never saw anybody with underage women. She claims she recruited these masseuses because Jeffrey Epstein liked massages and sometimes multiple massages a day, but she never thought there was anything inappropriate about that. She never thought any of these women could be girls underage. It's preposterous to read it. It is rambling, it is defensive, it is evasive. She clearly is very well versed in the record. She, at multiple times, is pulling up parts of other people's testimony to try and rebut what they said rather than just speak to what she saw and what she heard. She is very clearly having a narrative that she wants to portray, which is, I had nothing to do with any of this. You know, to the extent there was a scheme, it didn't involve me. I wasn't really involved with him. I was never really around. It is, I mean, to read it, preposterous that anybody would believe what she is saying. And if you don't, I mean, at one point she talks about being in prison and says for two years that the prison guards woke her up every 15 minutes. And those were complaints that she had raised during the course of her case and that were disproven. So once you're lying about some things and it's shown you're lying about some things, you can't credit her on anything. If you can't accept responsibility for your own role, if you can't show remorse to these victims and any clearing of anyone else is meaningless, you should just not credit anything that this woman says. She's a pathological liar. And it is obvious from reading the transcript that that's the case.
- [38:14]
Alicia Menendez
And the fact that the DOJ chose to release these transcripts.
- [38:18]
Christy Greenberg
Well, why are we getting these? Where are the accounts of the victims? So look, in a criminal case, generally you don't see any of this, right? If people don't get charged, that's the end of the matter, case closed. But, but you can't cherry pick and say, I'm going to share with you the account of a convicted sex trafficker and somebody who's been charged with perjury. I'm going to share that, but I'm not going to share the accounts that counter what she is saying. That she actually was deeply involved, not only in facilitating the sexual abuse by Epstein, but committing it herself to these girls and that she knew that they were underage. How do you just have this be so one sided?
- [38:55]
Amanda Carpenter
It is.
- [38:56]
Christy Greenberg
I mean, it's such a miscarriage of justice. This is not what justice is supposed to look like. It's just, it's incredibly disappointing.
- [39:05]
Alicia Menendez
Amanda Carpenter. So part of this, at least politically, strategically, is supposed to quell the appetite for more information from now what is a bipartisan group of folks who feel like these files should be released. My sense is among those who have followed this case case the longest and, and are sort of the most interested, there is nothing short of a data dump that is actually going to quell that interest. I wonder if you think there is anyone other than the White House that is satisfied by the release of these transcripts.
- [39:39]
Amanda Carpenter
No. They promised to release the Epstein files. The Maxwell interview is and never was part of the Epstein files. She was sentenced in 2025. This was an interview by Trump's lawyer to protect Trump from the fallout about the Epstein files. What this really is is nothing but a sketchy PR stunt by the Department of Justice. And we have seen this movie before. The Maxwell interview is to the Epstein files what the bar letter was to the Mueller investigation. It's spin from the Department of Justice in lieu of the real findings, the real investigation, the real files. Ghislaine Maxwell had her day in court. She told what she had to tell to her lawyers before she went to prison. This was done to secure better treatment and to possibly seek a pardon. And so I really, I like you played the victims at the beginning of the segment. Listen to the victims. Do not listen to what Ghislaine Maxwell has to say. And my God, do not call this part of the Epstein files because it is anything but. And anyone who buys into that framing is taking the bait from the Trump administration.
- [40:54]
Alicia Menendez
We're going to have more of those victims voices after we sneak in a quick break. We'll be right back. She is a monster. She's worse than Epstein. She did things even worse than Epstein did. She was vicious, she was evil, and.
- [41:15]
Scott Aukerman
She was a woman. Epstein was Pinocchio and she was Gesto.
- [41:19]
Alicia Menendez
She was the guy controlling the strings. Jeffrey. Yep, she was pulling the strings. She had his money, he had her contacts. But Ghislaine was much more conniving and smart than Epstein ever was. That is Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in 2020 square that Geppetto for me with what you are listening to reading in these transcripts.
- [41:43]
Christy Greenberg
Well, just to take a step back, there were the two perjury charges. SDNY dropped those perjury charges. Not because they didn't believe that she had lied when she said she had no knowledge of this sex trafficking operation. They dropped the charges because they already got the conviction on the substantive counts. And the judge had said, look, we need to sever the perjury charges because it's different. The lies and the deposition are different than the substance of the sex trafficking. So it would mean a second trial. And the prosecutors were saying, hey, we already got these convictions. We don't want to put the victims through having to testify a second time. We got convictions on really serious counts. We'll just drop this to spare the victims having to go through this again. So it's not like she's ever been absolved of perjury. And when you see the fact that she is continuing with the same lie, that she had no idea I was not part of any of it. She claims in Florida, in the Florida investigation, when she is to trying told, oh, you know, I'm going to jail by Epstein, her response was, okay. He's like, well, can you still manage my properties while in jail? She said, okay, that's not. She's clearly lying. Nobody, no normal person would ever respond like that. What do you mean you're going to jail for being involved in underage girls. You still want me to work for you? Like, what's going on here? Like any normal person would have questions. She didn't. If you even believe what she said of that account, the reason she wouldn't have questions is she knew exactly what was going on because she was involved with it herself.
- [43:09]
Alicia Menendez
Do you think it is worth House oversight having her come and testify before their committee?
- [43:13]
Christy Greenberg
I think everything she says is a lie. So I don't think call it giving Time. And giving a platform to someone who is a clear pathological liar is worth anybody's time. If anything, call the victims, call the prosecutors, call the agents, call the people who amassed the case. I mean, that would be the thing to spend time on. Not. She shouldn't be given the time of day for any of this. The fact that we even talking about this means it's a real dereliction of duty from the Department of Justice.
- [43:42]
Alicia Menendez
You have made this point to me before about the prosecutors, and I think it is a good one, Amanda, just to tie everything together, because we're following a lot of stories today. Obviously, we're following the search of John Bolton's home by the FBI. We are following the release of the first tranche of documents from DOJ to the House Oversight Committee, the Epstein files. We have this transcript from the Department of Justice from Deputy AG Todd Blanche's conversation with Ghislaine Maxwell. I think part of where there is an opening in the aperture of the conversation that you have been trying to have about democracy and the fate of our democracy, Amanda, is that on some level you have been having it with folks who understand the destruction that Donald Trump is rotting on our democracy. Where there is an opportunity here with Epstein is to open the aperture such that folks who you may have had trouble engaging, who may not have those same questions inherently about Donald Trump, are beginning to think to themselves, is this how the institutions of government are supposed to work? Who is it that they are actually protecting and working for? Do you think there is an opportunity here to broaden and expand this conversation that you and I have been having now for months and years about the state of our democracy?
- [45:06]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. In particular, when it comes to this Epstein saga, I mean, look at what is happening right now. Yes, we can keep having this conversation about the complete politicization of the Department and Justice and rule of law, but I think in a common sense way, we have to look at how stupid and scary this all is. Look at what we're being made to do right now. Donald Trump is making a convicted sex criminal a TV surrogate for him. Essentially. That's what's happening right now with this interview from prison. Right. Like, don't shy away from saying how absurd this all is. Like when we see him taking over the streets of DCs with these souped up cars. That is absurd. But it's all absurd and scary. And so you kind of have to lean into all of this and say, this is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for the President of the United States to make me sit here and listen to a convicted sex criminal smear victims and somehow say this is all good because it's done to clear his name. He's really just turning the entire government into a protection racket for himself. And so maybe that's an easier way for people to understand it so we don't have to talk about these, these highfalutin goals of democracy and small d democracy and liberalism and things like that. But just look at what he's making us see. Look at ways making the country become no one should listen to Ghislaine Maxwell. It is an insult to anyone who has to look at her face right now and say that somehow she did nothing wrong.
- [46:40]
Alicia Menendez
To use your words, absurd, scary and unacceptable. Christy Greenberg, Amanda Carpenter, thank you both so much for being with us. Going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. On a busy day of breaking news, we have one more story to tell you about Camar Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody this afternoon. If ICE plans to deport him to a third country, they have to give Abrego and his attorneys 72 hours notice. Abrego Garcia has a jury trial scheduled for the end of January. I'm going to stay on this story. Fit in one more break. We'll be right back. Nicole is going to be back on Monday. In the meanwhile, you can catch a new episode of the Best People. The star of Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix and the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, phil Rosenthal, is her guest. You can scan the QR code on your screen and subscribe to MSNBC Premium for early access to their conversation. And coming up Sunday night, a primetime special presentation of the Best People with Jon Levitt and Melissa Murray that is starting at 9 Eastern. Thanks for spending part of your Friday with us. We are grateful.
- [47:47]
Scott Aukerman
Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.