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Here's the Scoop
Menendez brothers’ parole hearings; FBI searches John Bolton’s home and office
00:21:09
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- [00:01]
Sally (Finance Spokesperson)
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- [00:33]
Morgan Chesky
Hey, friends, welcome to here's the Scoop. And happy Friday. I'm Morgan Chesky. Coming up on the pod today, the FBI searches Trump critic John Bolton's home and office. Also, a roadblock for alligator, Alcatraz and Tennessee. One, what to expect when the US Open kicks off this weekend. But as always, we got to start with our top story. The the brothers Menendez. Yep. Eric and Lyle Menendez, you'll remember, have served more than three decades in prison for the 1989 murder of their parents. Now they're appearing before a parole board for the very first time. Yesterday Eric was denied parole and today it is Lyle's turn. So for much more on this, I.
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NBC News Anchor
Want to bring in colleague NBC News correspondent Liz Kreutz, who has been all over this story. Liz, thanks for being here. From what looks like your car.
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Liz Kreutz
Yes, that is right. Morgan, you know well as correspondent life sitting in my car working, we are parked outside of the prison where Eric and Lyle Menendez are housed. This is a prison outside of San Diego, very close to the Mexico border. And inside that prison right now, Lyle Menendez, we believe, is having his own parole hearing just like Eric did on Thursday. And it's happening via teleconference from their prison.
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NBC News Anchor
Liz, this is a story that's really become more of a saga. So for those people who haven't been following it day by day like you have, kind of bring us up to speed on where things stand at this point for both brothers.
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Liz Kreutz
Yeah. So this is a case obviously that goes back decades almost to the date. It was August 20, 1989, that Eric and Lyle Menendez committed these murders. They murdered their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home. And it was one of those cases that just got huge, huge public interest through the 90s during their two trials. And at the time, Eric and Lyle were really cast as these greedy young men who killed their parents for money. But they had long maintained that they were sexually abused by their father and it was a form of self defense to murder their parents. We'll cut to 2024, 2025, and Netflix does a docu series, a fictional series really about them. And and it thrusts his story back into the spotlight. And some of the supporters, their argument now is that back in the 90s, people didn't understand the impact of abuse and of sexual abuse and what that could do to young people. And so there's this new wave of sympathy with people saying, yes, they did this heinous crime, but maybe we should take into account some of this trauma. Maybe they've paid their dues and they should be released. So that brings us up to now, sort of. It was really a few months ago that the turning point happened. Eric and Lyle Menendez, after months of pushing for this, with the support of their family, who are also the relatives of the victims, they were able to get a judge to re sentence them and reduce their sentence from life without parole to 50 years to life, which made them eligible for release for the first time ever. Which brings us to these parole hearings.
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NBC News Anchor
Now, these hearings are unusual for a number of reasons. The media barely allowed inside. So what's that like for you to cover then?
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Liz Kreutz
Yeah, it's been really tough. So basically what's happening here is that they have allowed one reporter, this is a reporter they chose from the LA Times to be able to sit in a conference room up in Sacramento and watch the virtual hearings and take notes. But none of those notes are reportable. Nothing can be sent out or disseminated until the parole board makes a decision. So on Thursday, we thought maybe this hearing would last a few hours. Typically, parole hearings are two to three hours. No, this hearing went on for a marathon 10 hours.
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NBC News Anchor
Oh, my.
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Liz Kreutz
Yeah. And the decision itself didn't take long. Once the hearing wrapped up, it was not long after that that the commissioners on the parole board came out and issued their ruling and told Eric that they were denying his parole. But they did tell him that he'll be able to apply for parole again in three years.
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NBC News Anchor
Liz, for people who have not taken part in a parole hearing or followed 1, 10 hours is, as you said, a marathon. The exception of the rule.
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Liz Kreutz
Yeah, definitely the exception to the rule here. And I think it's because it is such a high profile case, they are going to be exhaustive as they make this decision. And it was also unique because in addition to the parole board commissioners grilling and questioning Eric, then you had the back and forth from attorneys making their arguments for and against. But then you had 18 members of the Menendez family who wanted to get up and speak and call for their release. Eric's elderly aunt spoke. And what makes this case so fascinating is that often people say well, what are the victims families want in this case? The victims families are also the relatives of the brothers, and they want them out.
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NBC News Anchor
So you have 10 hours of testimony, and yet Eric was still denied parole yesterday. So what do you believe this all came down to when they really looked at this?
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Liz Kreutz
Yeah. Well, first of all, it is really hard. The odds are against you. It's really hard to get parole, and it's also hard to get parole on your first time. But what the parole board commissioners were really focused on was a few things. One, Eric's prison record. You know, his supporters have said that he is model prisoner. The commissioner actually point blank said to him, we do not see it that way. And they deemed him a risk to the public. Still, they focused on some of his infractions in prison. He had some violent encounters several years ago that they asked him about, and he also has had multiple incidents of being found with contraband cell phones. They also, though, did go back to the crime. And one of the things that the board asked him about and they pressed him on was, why did you and your brother not only kill your father, Jose, who they alleged abused them, why did you also kill your mother? And that is a moment that Eric got emotional, and he said that he was just devastated when he found out that his mom knew about the abuse and didn't do anything. He was filled with rage. But he said that to this day, he just wishes to God that he hadn't done it. So all of those things are what the board really looked at when they made this decision. But it's interesting, Morgan, because you also have some of their supporters, one in particular who's come out and said, I sort of see this as a win and a victory because it's really hard to get parole. He literally, just a few months ago, had got his sentence to 50 years to life, making him eligible. And the parole board said, you can come back in three years. So it wasn't like, come back in a decade, come back in 15 years. Three years is not that long. So they're hopeful that eventually he will maybe be able to get out.
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NBC News Anchor
So does what happened yesterday tell you anything about how Lyle's hearing may go down today?
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Liz Kreutz
There are some differences between them when it comes to their prison record. Lyle has less of a prison record than Eric, so that might go well for him. He doesn't have as many cell phone infractions, and he also has no history of violence. But big picture, he is the older brother. So when they committed these crimes, some people kind of viewed him as the, the ringleader of all of this. And he's also going to be questioned, just like Eric was about why they murdered their mother. I think ultimately, all the experts we've talked to say it is very unlikely that Lyle is going to get parole if Eric didn't.
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NBC News Anchor
Liz, stellar breakdown, as always. Hoping you have at least some sort of food options there where you're parked.
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Liz Kreutz
You know, we're in a pretty remote area. Not a lot of bathrooms, not a lot of food, but we got some snacks, so we're hanging in there. Thanks.
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NBC News Anchor
All right. Continue to do so, Liz. We appreciate you.
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Morgan Chesky
All right, team, Coming up, what the FBI is looking for at the home and office of a man known to be an outspoken critic of President Trump. That's next.
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- [08:43]
Liz Kreutz
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- [08:45]
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Dahlia Lithwick
At this very moment, we are living through a series of cascading constitutional crises, rocketing up to the Supreme Court and shaking the foundations of American democracy.
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Liz Kreutz
This is not a game of chicken where we back down from the Constitution. Like, that's not how this works.
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Dahlia Lithwick
I'm Dahlia Lithwick, host of Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts, the law, and the Supreme Court. I've been writing about SCOTUS and the law for more than 20 years. And each week on Amicus, we draw on that deep experience to navigate these incredibly uncertain times. Search Amicus. That's Amicus to listen.
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Morgan Chesky
And we're back with here's the scoop question for you. Do you remember the frenzy over classified documents? You know, Trump's Mar? A Lago boxes, Biden's Delaware files? Well, now it's John Bolton. You'll remember he served as President Trump's national security advisor. And the FBI just executed a search warrant of both his home and his office. A source familiar with the matter tells NBC News that investigators are looking into how exactly some classified materials were handled and whether some may have ended up in leaks to news media.
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NBC News Anchor
Quick refresher for all of us here.
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Morgan Chesky
Bolton served under both Presidents George W. Bush and Trump. But after leaving the first Trump White House, he became one of President Trump's fiercest critics. Meets press moderator Kristen Welker interviewed Vice President J.D. vance today and asked him that very question.
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Dahlia Lithwick
Is Ambassador Bolton being targeted because he's.
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Monday.com Advertiser
A critic of President Trump?
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Unidentified Legal Representative
No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy nilly like the Biden administration. DOJ did, prosecutions that later got thrown out in court if we bring a case. And of course, we haven't done that yet. The Department of Justice has not done that yet. We are investigating Ambassador Bolton. But if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. We're going to be careful about that. We're going to be deliberate about that because we don't think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically. You shouldn't throw people willy nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations. And that's what we're doing.
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Morgan Chesky
You can hear Kristen's full interview with Vice President Vance this Sunday on Meet the Press. And joining us now to give the latest into this ongoing investigation is David Rhode. He's our senior executive editor for both National Security and law for NBC News. David, thanks for being here.
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David Rhode
Thanks for having me.
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NBC News Anchor
So bring us up to speed on this investigation. What have you learned so far?
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David Rhode
So a search warrant was executed at John Bolton's home in Maryland this morning. It was approved by a judge. So that meant the judge believed there was probable cause to search for evidence. This is the latest chapter in a years long battle between Donald Trump and John Bolton where President Trump has said he leaked classified information and Bolton has denied that.
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NBC News Anchor
Can you kind of describe what seems to be a pretty stunning scene that played out this morning?
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David Rhode
It's traditional in that you've got these FBI agents in their blue windbreakers with FBI and big yellow letters in the back of them walking into these buildings. What's different now is how people see this. I think in the past when there was less sort of partisan distrust in the FBI and law enforcement, people would see this and think, oh, this is a serious investigation. John Bolton's done something wrong. I think in this age, Republicans are gonna say, oh, this is legitimate. John Bolton did something wrong because he's crossing President Trump. I think Democrats are gonna say, oh, this is a really scary abuse of power by Trump. And that's the world we live in today.
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NBC News Anchor
It's not exactly a secret that President Trump and Bolton do not have the friendliest of relationships anymore. Can you give us Some context on any political motivations that may be behind this, or is that out of line?
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David Rhode
No, it's not out of line. At the end of Trump's first term, Bolton wrote a book that had very sort of derogatory descriptions of President Trump, that he didn't take national security very seriously, that he was out to get personal enemies. It was very unusual. But under Trump, the DOJ tried to block publication of Bolton's book. And the Trump administration argued in the first term that the book contained classified information. Bolton said, no, you just don't want me to put out this embarrassing information about how you acted in the Oval Office and the different ways you handled the presidency. Trump lost. He couldn't block publication of the book. And there were career officials who reviewed the book, national security officials, and they said there isn't classified information in this book. But I think this raid this morning shows that the struggle continues.
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NBC News Anchor
Now, this investigation into Bolton existed under the Biden administration as well, but that's also when it kind of was dismissed to some degree, right?
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David Rhode
Correct. So the Biden administration takes office. They pick up this civil lawsuit against Bolton. Biden administration officials and I spoke to someone with knowledge of this decision this morning. They didn't feel that they could ever win in court. They couldn't get, you know, heavy financial penalties from John Bolton for publishing his books, so they dropped that case. There is a separate criminal investigation, a very different thing that passed on to the Biden administration as well. That did not go forward. We don't know why that didn't go forward. I think Trump administration officials would argue that the criminal investigation should have gone forward under Biden. One possible explanation. Sometimes the CIA and other intelligence agencies will feel there's a leak, but they decide they don't want it criminally prosecuted because the information that leaks is so sensitive, they don't want it made public in court. I don't know what happened. I don't know why the Biden administration didn't continue the criminal investigation. Trump, in his second term, has obviously resumed that criminal investigation, and the criminal investigation is a much more serious thing. They're alleging that he leaked classified information to journalists or just in general.
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Morgan Chesky
President Trump said he had no prior.
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NBC News Anchor
Knowledge of this raid until he saw it on television this morning.
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David Rhode
He shouldn't have knowledge of it. The FBI is supposed to do these kind of investigations without the president ordering them or monitoring them.
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NBC News Anchor
We know this isn't happening in a vacuum here. Both President Trump and President Biden faced investigations into their own handling of classified docs here. This is certainly a shift in how the government handles these sorts of situations, right?
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David Rhode
Yes.
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NBC News Anchor
What should the average American take away from here?
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David Rhode
For 50 years since Watergate, presidents stayed out of criminal investigations. And presidents were only investigated in largely in terms of impeachments. And what's happened under Biden and Trump is that presidents are being investigated now. And each side of the political spectrum thinks the other side is using the FBI and the DOJ improperly. Trump supporters think Mar A Lago investigation was totally unnecessary. They think the New York criminal trial of Trump was also weaponization. And now you have, I think many liberals will say, oh, this is Trump going after John Bolton because he didn't like what John Bolton said. This is all really dangerous because these are the most powerful law enforcement agencies we have in the country. And there is a tradition for the last 50 years, if they were investigating me, you know, the FBI is not supposed to comment on an investigation of me or you. If a grand jury of our peers, you know, after hearing the evidence, chooses to indict us, it's only made public then because federal law enforcement, any law enforcement, has so much power to smear me or you, to smear any American citizen. So there was again, this effort to make that independent and apolitical, these kind of criminal investigations. But our politics are so heated that, you know, it's drawn in presidents. People don't trust law enforcement. I just worry about people's growing lack of trust in government institutions, including the FBI, the doj, and even the Oval Office.
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NBC News Anchor
With the political temperature already as high as it is though, what's actually next in terms of this specific investigation?
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David Rhode
So the question is whether criminal charges will be filed against John Bolton by a grand jury. A federal grand jury has to vote that there is probable cause that he committed a crime. And then like any American, John Bolton, you know, would be prosecuted, but we'll have to see what happens and if he's actually charged or not.
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NBC News Anchor
David wrote, following a very fluid investigation. We appreciate you.
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David Rhode
Thank you.
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Morgan Chesky
All right, time now for some headlines. And we begin in an embattled and beleaguered Gaza. Today, the world's leading authority on hunger officially declared a famine in northern Gaza. Now, the ipc, or Integrated Food Security Phase classification, is a UN backed system that's used all over the world to classify starvation. In its report, it's said more than half a million people are experiencing famine. And that number could very well be going up even higher. The IPC says that the famine could expand into the region south by the end of this September. And since it was created back in 2004, the IPC has only declared an official famine four times. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected all of the report's findings, calling them a lie. Back here at home, there is a lot going on on the immigration front. A federal judge in Miami says Alligator Alcatraz, that controversial migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades can stay open for now, but it can't grow any bigger. Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction that blocks an expansion. This means no new detainees, no extra floodlights, nothing, citing the environmental damage it could cause. Court records also show that the defense has already appealed that ruling. Another big headline here. For the first time in more than 50 years, America's immigrant population is shrinking. And that's an early indication that President Trump's hardline immigration agenda is leading people to depart. The latest data from the Pew Research center says the number of foreign born Residents peaked at 53.3 million back in January. But by this June, it had dropped 2.6% to 51.9 million. Do the math. And that's about a million fewer immigrants living inside the United States. And that's the first decline we've seen since the 1960s. It all comes just months into President Trump's second term. Pew notes, however, that several factors could be contributing to this decline in population, and that includes policy changes that started with the Biden administration, which put in new restrictions on asylum back in mid 2024. And we're also tracking some late breaking news. Just this afternoon, the Department of Justice released a transcript of an interview between Ghislaine Maxwell and a senior Trump administration official. Maxwell, who of course was an associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was interviewed for two days at her Florida prison, where she's currently serving a 20 year sentence for her convictions of sex trafficking and other crimes. Now, my colleagues at NBC News are still combing through these transcripts, but so far Ken reports that Maxwell told the senior administration official she never witnessed President Trump or former President Bill Clinton doing anything inappropriate. Maxwell did express doubt, though, about the medical examiner's ruling that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in August 2019. As his story develops, you can head to nbcnews.com for much more. All right, deep breath, everybody. It has definitely been a week, a bit of a whirlwind, at least on my end. And if you've also been feeling the weight of it all, you can remember the words of our friend Coco Gauff.
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NBC News Anchor
Honestly, thank you to the people who.
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David Rhode
Didn'T believe in me.
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Morgan Chesky
Yeah. We have officially made it to the weekend, and I might add, not just any weekend.
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NBC News Anchor
Here.
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Morgan Chesky
Sunday kicks off the US Open. So as you pour your honey deuce, we want to bring you what you need to know as the year's final Grand Slam tennis tournament serves up some excitement. Here to help us out, NBC News sports reporter Andrew Greif.
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Andrew Greif
On the women's side, we've got an extremely wide open field. Yes, Irina Sabalenka, who was last year's champion and this year's top seed, is back. But American women are strong competitors because four different American women have made the final of the last four Grand Slams. Each could walk away with this tournament. I'm thinking about Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, Amanda Anisimova, and Coco Gauff, who won the French Open earlier this summer. But on the men's side, it is all about the dominance and rivalry of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. They've combined to win the last seven Grand Slams. But if there is one potential upset hope, I'm thinking about Novak Djokovic. Of course, he's legendary. He's won the most Grand Slams in history, but hasn't won1 since 2023. And this kind of drought is extremely rare for him. Could he pull off the upset? I'm watching.
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Morgan Chesky
All right, Andrew, thanks so much. And hey, everybody, don't forget to catch up on yesterday's big interview with tennis legend Serena Williams. Incredible conversation with her own Yasmin Vasugian. Okay, that's gonna do it for all of us. And here's the scoop. And thanks for joining us. We'll be back with a brand new episode on Monday. Until then, I'm Morgan Chesky.
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Dahlia Lithwick
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