← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Trump vs. Democracy"
00:41:29
In the latest front in Trump’s assault on our fair and free elections, a subpoena for records related to a 2020 review of voting data in Maricopa County, Arizona.
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
An all new season of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney on March 12th.
- [00:06]
Commentator
Mom Talk has just been blowing up.
- [00:07]
Nicole Hemmer
Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.
- [00:18]
Guest/Caller
My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos.
- [00:22]
Podcast Host
Watch the Hulu Original series the Secret Lives of Mormon wives March 12th coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
- [00:31]
Julie K. Brown
If you're looking for new ways to get ahead, then you're our kind of person. We're Udemy and we help learners like you upskill in AI productivity, leadership and management and more. Learn at your own pace from real world experts. You can also prep for certifications that show employers what you know upskill for the career you want@udemy.com now back to your regularly scheduled listening.
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Podcast Host
If you read Navalny's book called Patriot, he when people asked him, well, what's the one thing I can do? You know, we've joined your anti corruption party, we've joined your democracy party, but what can I do? And he said, the one thing that everybody's got to do every day is tell the truth. Because that is the thing that the thieves and the liars and hypocrites who run the regime can't handle because their government runs on lies. And I think we're in a similar situation here today.
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Nicole Hemmer
Tell the Truth. Hi again Everybody. It's now five o'clock in New York. We've said it before, we'll say it again and again and again, that in the end, a democracy is only as strong as any one person's ability to participate in it and to tell the truth about it, as Congressman Jamie Raskin just stated. So it stands to reason this afternoon that a figure seemingly obsessed with seizing control of our democracy, with bending our system to his will, will go to great lengths to restrict access to the ballot box on multiple fronts, all developing late this afternoon, there are bare knuckle brawls materializing between the agents of Donald Trump's maligned mission and those Americans willing to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work of protecting our way of life and our system of government. Consider first the alarming scope of Trump's election related schemes in Maricopa County, Arizona, for instance, we are learning more today about a new federal subpoena for records related to a 2020 review of VOT conducted at the time by Republicans that confirmed Trump's defeat in that county. They actually widened his defeat. The Washington Post calls it a, quote, new front in the Trump administration's expanding hunt for evidence that has never surfaced to support Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud. Arizona's state Senate president confirmed late yesterday that the FBI does indeed have those records in its possession. Donald Trump's fixation on an election he lost six years ago is at the center of another developing story this afternoon having to do with another target of his false claims and discontent. Again in the Washington Post, quote, the parent company of London based smartmatic asked a federal judge in Miami to dismiss foreign bribery charges filed against it last year, alleging they amounted to little more than a vindictive and selective prosecution. The company also contends that Fox News and others it has sued for defamation for statements about the firm's voting machines are exploiting the criminal case. Meanwhile, the tentacles of Trump's election subversion efforts are wrapped around Congress as well. In a speech to House Republicans yesterday, Trump instructed lawmakers to prioritize the so called Save America act that would set in stone harsh new requirements for voting that could disenfranchise huge numbers of American voters. Donald Trump, in insisting such a bill would, quote, guarantee the midterms, went so far as to suggest he would refrain from signing any new laws until they put that on his desk. It is shocking, as is the separate possibility of armed agents at polling places come the midterms. The Trump administration has so far refused to say whether or not that is happening. So today Democrats sued to find out from Ms. Now, quote, today's lawsuit alleged the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and Defense Department failed to respond to 11 FOIA requests filed by the DNC last fall. The federal law requires federal agencies to provide information to the public through records requests in order to maintain transparency and accountability. Again, the fight for a free and fair midterm election is happening every day all around us. And the future of our American system of government depends on its outcome. That is where we start the hour. Voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias is back. Also joining us, New York Times reporter Nick Corsaniti and writer and editor for Protect Democracy. Amanda Carpenter is here as well. The three of you are on the front lines of this. And while others sort of get distracted and go off and do other things, the three of you do not. And I thank you for starting us off. Mark Elias, I start with you.
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Mark Elias
Yeah, look, I think you put it really well in the introduction that the 2026 midterm elections are all around us. The attacks on democracy are all around us. And my fear is that people are not focused on these, you know, until way too close to election day. I mean, as you point out, we've now had two counties have their ballots seized, one by subpoena and one by search warrant. We have the Department of Justice in court trying to get access to the most sensitive data on voters that states keep. In 30 states, at least a dozen Republican controlled states have turned that data over voluntarily. You have Congress having enacted a version of the SAVE act, which would be a catastrophe for voters. You have the president insisting that that doesn't go far enough and needs to also provisions that, that do away with all voting by mail and that he'll shut down all congressional business. He has said he will, will issue an executive order if Congress doesn't do this. I mean, we are, we are on a fast moving train towards an absolute collision point for democracy between the President of the United States and the rule of law and free and fair elections. I said this in the run up to the 2020 election, and I know, Nicole, you and have been sounding the alarm as well. But we need everyone now to recognize that that collision is not going to wait till November. It's going to start to take place before then.
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Nicole Hemmer
Yeah, I feel like it's also a roller derby, right, where like punches are being thrown and elbows are being shoved into ribs. Now, I mean, why, why does the FBI have election material from Maricopa County?
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Mark Elias
They have election material from Maricopa county for two reasons. And I think people need to internalize that. Both of are True. Okay. Number one, Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and he is on a vindictive campaign to go after anyone who says that, that, that he lost it. Right. So, so they are getting the data in Fulton county and in Maricopa county to continue to spread the big lie about the outcome of the 2020 election and to criminally prosecute anyone he possibly can who has told the truth. That is, that is one reason. But there is a second reason that is independently important, and that is it is a dry run for 2026. Every time they engage in these tactics, they learn something about the logistics of seizing ballots. And that's no small thing. I mean, in Fulton county, remember, they went and got a search warrant and then it turns out their search warrant was wrong because it targeted the wrong facility or the wrong place. Well, in the process of fixing that, they learned something about how you seize ballots in Fulton county when you saw the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabb on an evidence truck. It was alarming because Tulsi Gabbard is the Director of National Intelligence. She was an evidence truck. But what you saw were boxes of ballots. And they learned a lot about how many trucks you need to get all the ballots, how the ballot, how the boxes need to be stacked, are they pre boxed in the facility or do you need to bring boxes? And the same thing is happening here. So it is both a way of vilifying people over the 2020 election and being vindictive there. But it is also critically a dry run for what they expect to be prepared for and want to be prepared for in 2026.
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Nicole Hemmer
I mean, Nick, the audit of the Arizona vote was done by a super MAGA outfit called something like Ninja Mutant Turtles or something. I mean, this wasn't even the Republican governor who was also a Trump backer. This was like a MAGA outfit for profit that went in and handled the ballots and discovered not only did Donald Trump lose Arizona, he lost by even more. They found more Biden vote. So what is this? What are they doing?
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Nick Corasaniti
Well, we're still not sure exactly what data the FBI was able to obtain from the state Senate through their request to them because this didn't come. It wasn't like Fulton County. They didn't show up and take physical ballots away. It is some kind of digital data. It may or may not have been in like a cabin in Montana. Because that Cyber Ninjas audit that you, that you referenced earlier, that was ordered up by the Republican Senate. It was paid for. You know, that was not a normal audit. There were a lot of procedures that wouldn't be considered best practices. The ballot chain of custody was broken. The machine's chain of custody was broken. So much so that the Secretary of State had to decommission them. And while it found more votes for Biden, it did allege a lot of errors, you know, irregularities, similar things to what we saw in Georgia with, you know, missing ballot images or weird counts and absentees. But then the Maricopa Board of Elections and the election director there spent four hours in a live stream meeting knocking down every single one but one finding of the Cyber Ninjas audit. So this was something that didn't follow best practices, was riddled with errors, didn't prove anything about the 2020 election either having more fraud or going the other way. Yet that data is still somehow lying around in a digital format. So we're going to hopefully find out in the coming days exactly what it was they've taken. But regardless what that audit, or as you know, Democrats like to call it, that fraud it revealed was nothing. So the grounds for which to find this data is also kind of, you know, we're still looking in that as well.
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Nicole Hemmer
Amanda. One of the most corrosive things that Trump has done is to convince people that one of the most secure sort of facets of American civic life, which is the vote, the elections aren't. And after 2000, the sort of famous Florida recount, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker went about investigating the sort of security and the issue of voter fraud, and they didn't find any. Others have looked at it, including this Trump administration, this second term of Trump. They went out looking at whether or not people who are here illegally cast votes, and they didn't find any. I think it's 0.002 to even take a look at. But you've got this split screen where a lot of people in the MAGA world think there's rampant voter fraud. How do you best use the next eight months to do what Raskin said? You know, tell the truth and get every person to tell the truth?
- [11:37]
Guest/Caller
Well, the truth of this situation is that this push to seize information in places like Georgia and Arizona is not about relitigating the 2020 election. I think we should be very clear eyed about that. It's about providing pretext for taking over the 26 elections and 28 elections and rejecting any results that they don't like because we know what happened in 2020. This has all been litigated to death. They've been looking for the fraud. You know, the, the quote always comes to me from, you know, the great Republican lawyer Ben Ginsburg, who has been very good about the 2020 elections, but he was the RNC elections lawyer for quite some time, and he reviewed this and essentially said, you know, we've spent our lives looking for voter fraud and it's like the Loch Ness monster. You just, we've looked for it. It's not, can we keep going after this? But the election lie is alive because the second Trump administration has completely stocked the executive branch with election denialists. They have institutionalized the election lie and they're operationalizing dhs, doj, and intelligence facilities to try to keep this lie going because they want to nationalize these elections. And, you know, when we look at them going after this data, one thing that I am concerned about is either because it's willing or by accident, there's a high propensity for these People to disrupt and corrupt the votes just by mishandling this information that they're getting now. Right. Nick just explained that through the Cyber Ninjas audit that went on for quite some time in rural Arizona, they messed up the data. I mean, they were corrupting data as they went along and luckily nothing happened because that was all post game. But as they're seizing data and looking ahead to 26 and 28, these interventions right now could become problematic. And I think we should all have our eyes wide open about how that could come true.
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Nicole Hemmer
Let me play for you all something that Congressman Jake Auchinlaw said on the Daily Beast podcast about this issue of sort of shining the klieg lights on exactly what they're doing.
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Commentator
We need to pre. But his gaslighting, we know he's gonna lie, right? About the election results. And so what Democrats need to do is hold a bunch of election war games this summer. And by the way, this is in the works to show here's the phone calls he's gonna make, here's the county clerks he's gonna bully, here's the votes he's gonna try to find, here's why he's lying. And then through both new and traditional media, inoculate the American public against those lies. This works. We've seen this work against other autocrats, right. When Joe Biden did this against Vladimir Putin in 22, before he invaded Ukraine, when he declassified intelligence to show that Putin was lying, it actually really helped shape global public opinion. We're sort of up against the same thing. We're up against this, this guy who's going to lie about what's right in front of people's eyes. And we just have to say it over and over and over again. He is lying. And do it before he starts lying.
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Nicole Hemmer
Marc Elias, do you co sign that strategy?
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Mark Elias
Not only do I cosign the strategy, I feel like I'm trying to live that strategy.
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Nicole Hemmer
I feel like you made that strategy.
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Mark Elias
I mean, you and I talk about this every week, at least once a week to try to tell people what's coming. You know, I've got democracy dogged, which is the, you know, the news, the new independent media entity where I write about this constantly. You know, I promote, you know what Amanda and Nick and others write on this constantly on social media. Like I am all about getting out the word through every possible forum and format that Donald Trump is a liar and he is going to try to steal the election. And one of his tactics is by lying, he's going to lie about foreign interference. He's already done that. He's going to lie about, about, about lack of voter integrity or voter fraud. He does that. He's going to lie. He lies about what's in the save act like he, he just is one big walking lie. And yes, we need to call it out and we need to get the American people understanding that this is in advance. But we need more than that. We need for people to take action based on it. We need people to make sure they're registered to vote. We need to make sure that people have a plan to vote. We need to make sure that people are consuming good information around this. So yes, I co sign it 100%.
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Nicole Hemmer
I want to press today into the how because I think you've got, you know, post the Epstein Transparency act post the people of Minneapolis purging ice from their aggressive, they're still there, but from their aggressive crackdown. I feel like people have recognized the power of their own networks and their own agency. And I want to see if we can just press all of you on how they apply it to this particular conundrum. Slash, catastrophe. No one's going anywhere. Also ahead for us, there are new developments in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, including a search of his New Mexico ranch where some of it his victims say they were trafficked. There's also new reporting about talk of a cover up among prison guards the morning Jeffrey Epstein died. Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, whose reporting has driven so much of what we understand and know about Jeffrey Epstein will be our guest later in the hour along with the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. He's on the front lines of this fight for transparency and accountability. White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We're back with Mark, Nick and Amanda. Mark, what would a massive scaled public information campaign look like?
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Mark Elias
Look, I think it needs to take place both at the traditional media level because there are large audiences that the New York Times and other networks and cable news stations reach. It needs to take pace at the independent media level because those are increasingly important in reaching audiences. But probably most importantly, it needs to be something that can give individuals tools to share in their own networks. Right. Which are, you know, oftentimes things on social media. You know, they may not be long form pieces, they may be short form video or they may be, you know, shorter form text that can be shared because we need people to not just be interested consumers, we need them to become evangelists for it. Right. And that's something that I try to do And I think we need, like, millions and millions of people doing, which is to not just consume it and believe it, but to think every day, like, how do I help spread the word about what Donald Trump is doing, why that is dangerous, and that there is solidarity among a large community of people who are standing up against us.
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Nicole Hemmer
You know, Nick, one of the sort of lines of reporting that you developed and that the January 6th select committee frankly developed was that the real bulwark against Trump's efforts to steal the 2020 election were his own supporters in statewide office in Georgia, in Arizona, people like Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp in Georgia, people like Governor Ducey in Arizona, who talked about, you know, not picking up his phone call. What is the state of Republican leaders in battleground states?
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Nick Corasaniti
So there are a host of states that now have more friendly attitudes towards the president and his administration that could be critical in the midterm elections. Justin Heap, who is the recorder, so he's kind of in charge of elections. It's a weird situation in Maricopa county, but it's the biggest county in Arizona, and it is politically decisive and it can swing the state. And he has at times refused to clearly answer who he believes won the 2020 election. He talks a lot about, quote, unquote, election integrity. And so there's a lot of fears among Democrats in that state that he could be friendly to or help out the Trump administration and anything they want to do with elections. In North Carolina, another critical battleground state that has a ton of important races both in the House and Senate coming up, they had a pretty drastic power grab at the end of 2024. Hurricane Helene had ravaged the western part of the state. And as part of hurricane relief package, Republicans in the state legislature wrote a hurricane relief bill, but also completely reoriented the entire political makeup of the state's election program. So the county election boards, the state election boards, which used to tilt towards the party of the governor, who was a Democrat, now tilt toward the party of Republicans. And we've already seen them start to change polling places, including at HBCUs, and flex their muscles. So there's concerns among voting experts and Democrats I've spoken to that North Carolina, at both the county and state level, could be potentially worrisome. Now, in other states, you know, there's either divided government, there's Democratic governors in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, you know, Brad Raffensperger is still the secretary of state. In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp is still the governor. So there's certainly still plenty of bulwarks I think in 2022, the common phrase was the seawall for democracy. But there are more, I think empowered, friendly Republican leaders and elected officials and election officials in some pretty critical states that could really determine the midterms. And the other thing that I think isn't always thought of is some of these deep red states that still have blue House districts could also become a problem for Democrats. You know, there's very Trump friendly officials and in Texas they have a host of Democratic House districts. So Democrats also, I think have been telling me that they fear enough attention is isn't being paid to the deep red states that have blue congressional seats at the same level, say as a battleground state.
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Nicole Hemmer
I mean, Amanda, it's insane though that it's only Democrats that care about protecting our democracy. Like, I guess I miss like I know what chapter one was. It was 2020, it was Trump. I miss like chapters two to 11 when Republicans decided they were also too lame to win. Like, why are Republicans part of rigging the elections now?
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Guest/Caller
You know, I think we could do a whole, whole evening of psychology on that, I think. Well, largely because I don't think they have any political ideas outside of Trumpism and they've resigned themselves to just following the leader. But I think the good news here is as terrible as Republican leadership is, the fracture between elected Republicans and everyone else grows bigger and bigger each day. Once people see what the Trump administration in its second term has been doing, whether that's what the economy, whether that's with the war, I mean, the fact, Nicole, right now that we are entering another war, we have DHS shut down and he is actually threatening to hold all other legislation hostage so he can have his mail in ballot ban legislation passed. I mean, this is bananas and I pray to God nothing bad happens. But there could very well be a day where we say all the warning signs were there and it will be very clear who will be holding blame for that. But Trump doesn't have any new ideas. And I think everyone knows what's going on at this point. We know he's going to lie about fraud in some county. We know he might have some kind of national emergency and we know the playbook in advance. That's the good news here. And you want to talk about what people can do. I just ask that everyone ask themselves what does it mean to you to be an active participant in your democracy? And that looks like something different for every single person, whether you're a member of the media, whether you're an educator, whether you're a mom watching this show, sending text messages to people. You know, I was thinking the other day, like the hardest thing to have to do with these like coalitional movement buildings is getting people who view themselves as competitors to put aside their differences and act in the public interest. You know, we saw some of that the other day when people who are engineers at Google and OpenAI came in support of anthropic against the government takeovers and the crackdowns that Pete Pegseth was attempting on them. So, like, I do see good signs happening. It's going to be tough. It's going to be a slog. We know what they want to do, but I think at this point in time, we are bigger than them and we beat this before and we're just going to have to keep beating the authoritarian faction again and again until they're gone.
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Nicole Hemmer
Yeah. I mean, and I think the last thing they want us to do is read the polls, which suggests that Donald Trump has a grip on about 34% of America and shrinking and even less of America supports his economic agenda, which is getting worse by the hour with the war in Iran. So some of it is adopting the policy of the vibes of being in the majority, which is just a death knell to the way they want to govern and rule. Probably the most important conversation we've had on this topic in a long time. I thank all of you so much. Mark Elias, Nick Corsoniti, Amanda Carpenter, thank you. When we come back, there's plenty of new reporting to tell you about in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, including what New Mexico officials may have been looking for when they searched Epstein's remote ranch for the first time, where some of his victims say they were trafficked. There's also new reporting on what an inmate reportedly said he heard other guards talking about the morning Jeffrey Epstein died. The Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown and House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia will both join us after a short break.
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Narrator/Promo Voice
If you like sharp political analysis but want historical perspective too, check out the Signal Award winning the Future of Our Former Democracy. Produced by More Equitable Democracy, the new season examines parallels between the rise of Nazi Germany and today's current political moment and the lessons the US can learn about how Germany rebuilt its democracy to prevent extremism from taking power again. Episodes unpack how far right movements operate in modern day Germany and in the United States. They reveal why America's system has enabled minority rule, while Germany's proportional representation model has limited extremist power. Through sound, rich storytelling, personal narratives and expert interviews, the show challenges what democracy can be and explores bold ideas for a more equitable future. So don't miss out. Follow the future of our former democracy wherever you listen to podcasts Today, an
- [26:45]
Podcast Host
all new season of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney on March 12th.
- [26:51]
Commentator
Momtoc has just been blowing up.
- [26:53]
Nicole Hemmer
Whitney and Jen are on Dance Meet the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.
- [27:03]
Guest/Caller
My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos.
- [27:07]
Podcast Host
Watch the Hulu Original series the Secret Lives of Mormon wives March 12th coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers terms apply.
- [27:15]
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- [27:49]
Nicole Hemmer
State investigators in New Mexico finally searched the ranch once owned by Jeffrey Epstein and and it's believed to be the first search of that property. New York Times reports this quote the examination of the property is part of a renewed effort by state leaders to scrutinize the deceased financier's crimes in New Mexico, which they say have never been fully investigated. Victims of Epstein have said they were abused and trafficked at the property he named Zorro Ranch. Yet New Mexico officials and recently unsealed documents indicate that the federal authorities may have overlooked the 30,000 square foot mansion and at sea of surrounding grassland after they took over a state level inquiry into his actions in 2019. This investigation was prompted by unverified tips in the Justice Department's release of the Epstein files, one of which claimed Epstein covered up the deaths of two abused girls by having them buried near the ranch. It is not known whether the FBI investigated that tip. It is not immediately clear if the New Mexico Department of Justice was searching for anything specifically or whether they found it. But the search is still an important sign of accountability being attempted at the state level. Meanwhile, Pam Bondi's Department of Justice continues to fail the survivors of Epstein's abuse, the latest blunder on her part coming from the release of 20 new files. Last week, reporters at this network analyzed those documents, which comprise fewer than 1,000 pages. Despite that small size in terms of the number of documents and the fact that the Justice Department has repeatedly assured that it would protect the privacy of survivors, the first and or last names of at least 21 known survivors were left unredacted. Joining our coverage, Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown. Her reporting is in large part the reason we know what we know about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. It has driven much of our coverage over the years. Thank you for being here.
- [29:45]
Julie K. Brown
Thank you.
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Nicole Hemmer
We're so happy to have you here. I don't want to restrict you to anything in today's news. I just. I really want to know what you're diving into and where your sort of reporting energies are with what has been released and what is still missing.
- [30:02]
Julie K. Brown
Well, the shortest way to answer that is I'm all over the place, just like everybody else, quite frankly. I'll get some information on something and that'll be a thread that'll take me, you know, a whole day or a whole weekend to unravel. It's a very tedious process. And because I know so much about the case, I have probably hundreds of threads that I'm following right now.
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Nicole Hemmer
One of your stories, and we covered it at the time, was sort of about this outer ring. Not the people accused of participating in the sexual acts themselves, the rape and the trafficking with the girls and women, but the people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein after the conviction in Florida. I wonder what you make of sort of the high level firings from Goldman Sachs and Paul Weiss, to say nothing of a former member of the Royal Family in the uk, a former ambassador, and the American people's tolerance for absolutely none inside the Trump administration.
- [31:06]
Julie K. Brown
Well, I think that the UK is showing that there were ways to investigate this if they could not make a case for the sex trafficking, that they certainly could find other avenues to investigate some of these people that were suspected of being involved with him. It certainly also seems that he wasn't just involved in sex trafficking, that he was likely involved in money laundering as well and also in some kind of intelligence work. So I just think that it shows another place where our government, the DOJ in the United States, did not follow the money or did not follow some of the leads that we are quite frankly seeing now in these files.
- [31:48]
Nicole Hemmer
What happened in New Mexico? What is sort of the unexplored, uninvestigated sort of questions around New Mexico?
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Julie K. Brown
Well, New Mexico was probably the most remote place that he operated, you know, he did have the island in the U. S. Virgin Islands, but the, you know, the waterway to get there is, you know, a Short distance from St. Thomas. This place was really in the middle of nowhere with very little access to it. So it's hard to know what he did there. But we do know from the victims that they were taken there and they were sexually abused on this at the New Mexico property and that. That their other men were brought there to abuse some of these possibly underage girls, some young women that he trapped into going there. So it can. It continually comes up in interviews and we can see that in the files. So I think more questions have been raised with people in New Mexico. For example, seeing, you know, Googling or searching these files and seeing that they New Mexico connections here and they weren't ever really investigated.
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Nicole Hemmer
Do you have any understanding as to why not?
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Julie K. Brown
No, I never understood that. Why they didn't even search the island until after he was dead. I was surprised because they executed search warrants for his property in, in New York, as we know, and they didn't seem to do anything with the island until after he died. So I have no idea. It's a mystery why they didn't do a lot of things.
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Nicole Hemmer
Someone making up for some of that lost time joins us now. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California. He's a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. He's been pivotal in pushing forward the Epstein investigation and the release of those files from doj. Congressman, thank you for being here.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, happy to be here and always happy to be here with Julie as well, who's a real. An incredible journalist and I think a true hero in transparency and getting information to the American public.
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Nicole Hemmer
I was gonna say the two of you are responsible for the bulk of what the public knows through the legislation and through Julie's reporting. I wanna ask you what I asked Julie, Congressman, what is your current focus in terms of investigation?
- [34:16]
Podcast Host
I mean, Julie said it. There's so much there right now. Let me just be real clear with the American public. I mean, there are a few key areas that the committee is working on. I think one is we continue to do everything we can to build public support, to work with Republicans that are willing to listen to get the rest of the files released. And I have to remind folks, only about 50% of what we believe is in the possession of the DOJ is out to the public. Then we have the Epstein estate. They have not released all the files that are under subpoena that we force, of course, to get all of those files released, and if you remember, all the pictures and documents and emails that fueled this story and the support were because we were getting information from that the Epstein estate. That's another critical piece of collection of information. We're talking to survivors. And then I'll say the other critical thing is our ability to get testimony now from so many individuals. And you think about the interviews we're having coming up, whether it's Epstein's former personal lawyer, his former personal accountant will of course lead the Epstein estate, other people in his orbit. We're doing an intense amount of depositions of questioning and putting and bringing the evidence together. And so there's a lot of investigative work going on, while at the same time we continue to put pressure and demand that the rest of these files be released.
- [35:38]
Nicole Hemmer
Congressman, a lot of the victims or survivors talk about the people who were there, the eyewitnesses who were part of the House staff, who maybe don't have the same sort of high powered, high fueled legal power. Maybe they do. Maybe that's my own ignorance. Maybe those people have the best and the highest powered lawyers. But is there any effort to bring in drivers and chefs and House people to have them testify to what they witnessed?
- [36:08]
Podcast Host
There is, but there's two pieces of this that are really important, I think. One is we should remember that the only folks with the power, because they're in the majority, to actually subpoena witnesses is the Republicans. And so every time that we can outmaneuver or force Republicans to take a vote or get a couple of Republicans to join us like we just did on the subpoena of Pam Bondi with the United Democratic Committee, we're able to get these concessions. Then as it relates to some of the folks you're talking about, we are working on some of these interviews. We also have to be very careful. There are some people in Epstein's orbit that are also, quite frankly, we're trafficked and we're actual survivors and victims themselves. And so there is a incredible amount of sensitivity on this issue. We want to make sure that we are both being very careful in who we're talking to. And that we also understand that the damage that Epstein put on even those that were around him was severe. It was traumatic, and in some cases was repeated abuse. And so all of that is in front of us. But we're clear. We'll talk to anyone that has information. And our interviews, the folks we're talking to are not just the ones that you're all hearing about in public, but we're also having some important private conversations as well.
- [37:26]
Nicole Hemmer
It's amazing. All right, I'm gonna ask both of you to stick around. I have 30,000 more questions for each of you. Don't go anywh.
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- [39:04]
Nicole Hemmer
21 plus. We're back with Congressman Garcia and Julie K. Brown. So Julie, let me read this from your reporting. Over the weekend, prison guards discussed cover up of Epstein's death. Inmate tells FBI quote An inmate housed at the Metropolitan Correctional center in New York told the FBI he overheard guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein's death on the morning he died. The federal government's online Epstein Library contains a five page handwritten report of an FBI interview with an inmate who awoke the morning of August 10, 2019, to the loud commotion in the Special Housing Unit, or shu, where he and Epstein were jailed. Breathe. Breathe. He recalled officers shouting at 6:30am Then he said he heard an officer say, dudes, you killed that dude. This is at sort of the beating heart of a conspiracy theory that the right in our politics has kept alive for years. What are we learning about this?
- [40:05]
Julie K. Brown
Well, what we're learning is that there were enormous, I mean, surmountable mistakes that were made in the days and you know, the morning of Epstein's death and that there were tons of things that were wrong. And on top of that, now we're seeing some of these interviews that the, that the DOJ did with some of the inmates. And in this particular one, the inmate says how he woke up and heard this commotion going on, as I reported. And these kinds of reports only lend themselves to people believing that there's a problem with the investigation that the DOJ did, quite frankly, and that there should have been more, you know, that they should have explored some of these tips that they got from some of the
- [40:53]
Nicole Hemmer
inmates, I mean, Congressman Garcia, to this issue. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein, we are told, died by suicide, a would be cooperator that the Wall Street Journal has reported on, ghosted the FBI and then died by suicide. What is the effort to sort of get to the bottom of all this and what is the best way to convince Republicans to be part of the solution where all these conspiracies were flourishing
- [41:27]
Podcast Host
like Julie and so many others. I mean, let's be clear, there were enormous mistakes, first of all, that were made leading up to the death of Epstein and certainly after. And I think all of those give us pause. I am not 100% convinced that the DOJ did the thorough job that they needed to do in actually putting out their findings in their report. I don't trust the current doj. But let me just share with, share this with you. I'm not sure that a lot of folks know this. Thanks to reporting and certainly to a lot of interest here we are, we have begun some conversations with the state of New York. We do believe that this warrants additional investigation. And I think that there are. The state of New York has an opportunity here to step in and possibly look and reexamine what happened and it relates to Jeffrey Epstein's death. It's something that we have begun having those conversations and we'll continue to do so. I think what's happening in New Mexico and the type of movement that's happening there, we are also asking and working for those same types of investigations to begin happening in New York.
- [42:37]
Nicole Hemmer
So New York State has expressed some openness to further investigating the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death.
- [42:43]
Podcast Host
We're talking to New York State about investigating and looking at some opportunities for them to be engaged on the state side to a variety of Epstein related issues that we think our current federal government and the DOJ will be less helpful in accomplishing.
- [43:01]
Nicole Hemmer
It's Amazing. I mean, that really is one of the other storylines, right? State Stepping in to the vacuum, Julie K. Brown and Congressman Robert Garcia. Thanks to both of you for the work you're doing and for spending time talking to us about it today. When we come back, my guest on this week's episode of the Best People is actress and comedian and documentarian Tig Notaro on her very strange falling out with one of her longtime dear friends, Cheryl Hines. Cheryl Hines is the wife of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We'll have that for you after a short break. My guest on this week's episode of the Best People is the very, very funny quite remark Tig Notaro. In addition to her brilliant standup and her role on the morning show, she absolutely steals season three as Amanda, her Oscar nominated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light. The list of her accomplishments goes on and on, but she used to host a podcast with Cheryl Hines, the wife of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Listen to what she told me about her decision to step away from that podcast and what's happened to their friendship.
- [44:16]
Tig Notaro
I continued to reach out to her and send her love and support because I didn't know what was going on behind closed doors because things shifted very
- [44:29]
Nicole Hemmer
severely and she seemed to shift very dramatically. Publicly, I only see what's public. And so publicly she seemed to shift very dramatically. Yeah.
- [44:40]
Tig Notaro
And she would respond very pleasantly. Thanks, lady. Oh, this means so much and I love you and miss you and all of that. But then I realized one day she doesn't ever reach out to me anymore. She's response to me, but she doesn't reach out to me. And I, I had to kind of shake myself out of denial that, oh, she's, she's gone. And okay, I need to let this go. I need to let it go. But what was a bummer is, you know, there have been some interviews claiming that I just dumped her and, and just left her in the dust because of Bobby. But, but I was trying to be a friend to her. Even though I didn't feel like I could continue with the podcast.
- [45:40]
Nicole Hemmer
There's so much more. You can watch the entire conversation right now on YouTube by scanning the QR code on your screen or you can download the podcast and listen wherever you get your podcasts. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful.
- [45:59]
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