B (5:00)

Honored to be on your show.

A (5:02)

So, Congressman, you've pointed out in a clip that's going viral across social media right now that Donald Trump himself is implicated in the Epstein files with accusations that are beyond heinous. Now, Todd, Blanche, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel have all come forward and basically said that there's no reason to look into the files at any co conspirators because don't exist. And so how do you square these two things where you have evidence against Donald Trump himself in these files and yet all of these law enforcement officials who refuse to acknowledge objective reality?

B (5:32)

Absolutely. Pam Bondi and Cash Patel lied under oath. Pat Blanche also lied, but he wasn't under oath. So lucky for him. If you look at the Epstein files release that's come out so far, there are multiple documents where there's evidence implicating Trump and not just crimes, but deeply serious crimes. And so I'll just give you one example. The FBI's own internal slideshow that they had is about 21 slides. Two of their allegations are about Donald Trump committing crimes. You also have a FBI document. It's intake form of a witness who called the FBI's National Threat Operations Center. And the witness reports that he met a girl who directly told him that Trump and Epstein raped her. Department of justice never interviews. This witness, doesn't do follow up.

A (6:30)

Now you had posted about this online and DOJ's rapid response account and granted, I take everything that the administration, especially as it relates to the Epstein files, with a grain of salt. But they said that, that she spoke with the FBI and her claims were deemed not credible. This was all unredacted, as we said. So can I have your reaction to the DOJ's rapid response account?

B (6:53)

Well, that's just false. So the document I'm referring to is an intake form from the FBI's National Threat Operations Center. The person making their witness statement was a man relaying what a girl he met had told him. This man was also a limousine driver for Donald Trump. And he also says in the same witness report that he overheard Donald Trump talking to Jeffrey on his cell phone, talking about abusing a girl and that what Donald Trump said was so disturbing, the man wanted to stop the limo and hurt Trump. So this seems like a very credible witness. And the Department of Justice never interviews him. I don't really know what their rap Response for the justice is talking about. They're clearly talking about some other document that I'm not referring to. And again, there's the FBI's own internal slideshow and then there's other documents that have been now sort of dissected by folks who are independent journalists and folks on social media that show there's two other allegations essentially of women that have made allegations against Donald Trump that would have Trump basically having sexual relations with a minor.

A (8:03)

So how does Todd Blanche get off then in saying that there's no reason to investigate any of the co conspirators because there aren't even co conspirators is just Jeffrey Epstein orchestrating a sex trafficking ring where he traffics 1000 girls to himself when evidence like this exists.

B (8:23)

Well, just think how ludicrous it is just based on your recounting of it. The Department of Justice has confirmed there's over 1,000 victims of Epstein's global pedophilia sex trafficking ring. And the Trump Department of Justice has held zero men accountable. Yeah, it's just a ludicrous number. And other countries are taking this far more seriously. France, for example, they, their main Paris prosecutor has opened an investigation, a criminal investigation. They have arrested a person. And then you've got the UAE that is also taking some serious action. Britain has, right, taken Prince Andrew, stripped him of his title and kicked him out of his home. And now they're looking to opening a criminal investigation. So everyone is taking it seriously except Pam Bondi, Cash Patel and Todd Blanche.

A (9:14)

Les Wexner, who is one of the accused co conspirators within the Epstein files, was interviewed today at the House Oversight Committee. And I know that you sit on Judiciary, but as far as the reporting goes, there wasn't a single Republican who showed up to that hearing. It was only Democrats. And so what is your reaction to the fact that the Republicans couldn't be bothered to show up for one of the few co conspirators who we actually know about, despite the best efforts of the Trump administration to hide all of

B (9:45)

this, Other than a handful Republicans like Thomas Massie and Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mason, Anna Paulina, Luna, most of them are complicit. They are complicit and they cover up. They don't want to talk about this. And they know that Donald Trump is implicated in the Epstein files. He is in the files over 38,000 times, according to a New York Times analysis. Other analysis have him more than that. And you've got multiple documents of actual witnesses alleging firsthand of crimes that Donald Trump committed. And then you have the Department of Justice not following up in terms of

A (10:29)

what the next steps are hopefully gonna be in Congress. What are you looking to do? Because I know that this process is kind of slogging its way forward. You're not gonna get any assistance from Republicans. You're certainly not gonna get any assistance from the DOJ or the Trump administration. So every victory here has to be hard fought and won. But what is the next priority in terms of the Epstein files?

B (10:51)

It is super helpful that you have many people in America looking at these documents. The sheer volume is overwhelming. Over 3 million documents have been released. So it's helpful when we get notice of folks that say, hey, look at this document. There's something really strange here or incriminatory or creepy. And you see that happen on social media and on the Internet. So that's helpful. In addition, the administration is not immune to public pressure. So the more Americans that speak up, that ask questions, I think every reporter should be asking Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche the question of are you withholding any photo, video or document that has Donald Trump in it in the Epstein files? And if so, why are you withholding it?

A (11:42)

Well, my concern here, and I'm sure this is a concern that you and other members of Congress share, is that if something is, is too damning as far as Trump is concerned, that the DOJ is just going to destroy it. And so how can you have confidence that, that if the DOJ does have some smoking gun or some, or some damaging evidence that points back to Donald Trump or any of his pals or donors, that it's actually going to, it's, it's going to be retained by this doj.

B (12:09)

So you would hope that there are Americans serving in the Department of Justice who have looked at these documents and videos and photos will number one, remember what they saw and number two, not commit a crime and destroy them? So that is the hope. Now, you know, if people are going to engage in crimes, then that is definitely a problem and hopefully that that won't happen. And I do note that for a number of crimes, such as murder or rape, under federal law, there is no statute of limitations. So the next administration can come in and look at all these files, choose release them, choose to prosecute. And again, this is not just about Donald Trump. There are multiple perpetrators and co conspirators. You have former Prince Andrew. I showed photos of Pam Bondi where she acknowledged former Prince Andrew was with a sex traffic victim. That photo by itself is evidence of a Crime.

A (13:10)

Right.

B (13:10)

And there's all this other evidence and books and other documents about former Prince Andrew. She could indict him right now and a grand jury would indict. I don't know why she doesn't do that.

A (13:19)

Well, if we know that there is evidence of crimes contained within these files, people who should be held to account, and you have DOJ officials whose job is to hold criminals to account, who instead are deferring to protecting these people, Aren't these DOJ officials like Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and Cash Patel basically presenting themselves as accessories after the fact? Isn't this evidence of them committing the crime because they were supposed to A, release these files in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency act and B, prosecute them in accordance with their own oath to the U.S. constitution. As law enforcement officials at the DOJ,

B (13:57)

Ham Bonnie and Cash Patel committed perjury. That is a crime. And obviously Han Bonnie is not going to prosecute herself.

A (14:05)

Right.

B (14:06)

But another administration could. And then you have just unbelievable screw ups where they put victims names out unredacted and they ruin a number of lives. And so you're looking at this and you just wonder were they careless or they malicious? It is just very disappointing, depressing to see. And I don't know how Pam Bonnie, Cash Patel and Todd Blanche look at themselves in the mirror.

A (14:38)

What responsibility does the subsequent Democratic administration have to fearlessly and relentlessly pursuing justice? And I ask that as someone who watched the Merrick Garland Department of Justice drag its feet on holding Trump accountable for two years because they wanted to avoid the optics of politicization. But in effect, all you do by trying to avoid a politicized DOJ is basically give a free pass to a political figure and kind of swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. And so what responsibility does the next Attorney General who has some commitment to the rule of law have to relentlessly, fearlessly pursuing, pursuing this stuff as opposed to, you know, what we saw in past administrations.

B (15:27)

The reason that you see a number of MAGA influencers now turning against Trump on the Epstein files is because people understand this isn't just about Donald Trump. This is about a global pedophilia sex operation that had over a thousand victims. We're talking about girls who were raped and sexually assaulted. And you can't just sort of make that go away or not deal with it or say, you know, it's just on Epstein and people have this innate sense of justice and accountability and people want that, that to happen. And whether it falls on a perpetrator who happens to be a Republican or a Democrat or independent, doesn't really matter. People who are engaged in this despicable, horrendous behavior need to be held accountable. And I think the American public, whether you're right or left, just can't understand why the Trump Department of Justice looks like it's doing a cover up of this horrific sex operation that Epstein was engaged in.

A (16:28)

You know, you had mentioned at the top there are only a few Republicans who are actually participating in trying to, to uncover what's happening here. You had mentioned Thomas Massie, Anna Paulina Luna, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene before she had left Congress, Lauren Boebert. So, you know, the list is small. Have you heard from any Republican colleagues behind the scenes? And granted, I know that we've heard this song before where you have Republicans kind of murmur things behind the scenes, but they're too afraid to say it publicly. But does that exist in this scenario or are they really all in? Even on the issue of protecting a notorious pedophile, you have to be in

B (17:10)

a cult to think that Donald Trump is completely innocent. With regard to Epstein files, remember that Trump fought very hard to not have these files released. So some of them are in a cult and I think they believe that. But I think the majority understand that he is implicated in these files. And I just want to note that during the House Judiciary Committee hearing with Pam Bondi, only two Republicans asked about the Epstein files, Thomas Massie and Chip Roy. Every single other Republican avoided that issue. And that tells you all you need to know about the state of the Republican Party.

A (17:52)

Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. We'll leave it there. Congressman, I appreciate your time on this. Thank you so much.

B (17:57)

Thank you.

A (18:01)

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C (18:57)

No problem.

A (18:58)

So we have some big news today as it looks like the Streisand effect is back in full force with, you know, James Talarico having appeared on the Late show with Stephen Colbert only to find out that it wasn't able to be aired on the broadcast on the linear broadcast had to be relegated to YouTube because of some concerns about the federal government investigating Stephen Colbert as he's doing with the View. So can I have your reaction to that news that sprouted up today?

C (19:28)

Oh, so many. One is, hey, Trump administration, there's a thing called YouTube and you cannot shut it up, right. There's a thing called there's always of getting information out these days and it's changed rather drastically. And if you wanted people to watch less broadcast news, you're doing a good, you're making a good faith effort here to get people to stop watching, watching broadcast news. One of the things or broadcast the broadcast itself. And so one of the things that really kind of it's not a surprise because the Ellisons are desperately trying to buy Warner Brothers and they're doing anything they can to suck up to President Trump and Brandon Redden Carr, who is probably the most incompetent FCC head I've ever seen and I've covered it for 30, 35 years essentially. And so he threatened them, he threatened the View because they didn't have equal. They're trying to use these equal time provisions for entertainment shows, essential pretending they're news shows, which has also been brought under question for many years. And so they're trying to do that and they look like chumps and idiots. And of course the Ellisons look like the world's most enormous suck ups, but they're already, we're looking like that already. So.

A (20:38)

Well, I mean, isn't there a world where, okay, Stephen Kolb and I'm not super familiar with this because in my lifetime I haven't seen this deployed, but is there a world where Ken Paxton, where the Colbert show invites on Ken Paxton, for example?

C (20:52)

Yeah, I told that when the View happened, I texted one of those and they said just invite on that idiot Brandon Carr and run right over him because he's not very smart. And you'll be able to do that, ladies. Yeah, they could invite whoever they want. We try really hard, by the way, even though we're not bound by these rules to put on all kinds of people we disagree with. They certainly could bring on anybody, the head of the fcc, they could ask Trump to come on. And I think in making the good faith effort to do so would be just as well. It's a question of whether that another person's going to accept. Right. Ken Paxton might not accept. John Corwin might not accept. It doesn't have to be equal to James. It has to just be that you're having. You made the good faith effort to do so.

A (21:34)

Well, isn't there any acknowledgment from the Ellisons, for example, that in doing this, look, CBS's audience is not these right wingers who Ellison is pandering to. It's just not. And so isn't this, isn't this eliminating his own audience for the product that he's buying right now?

C (21:53)

Well, look, I guess they don't care because Colbert is going off the air in May. And by the way, I think he's going to be bigger than ever. Look at Don Lemon, like bigger than ever. Right. And doing rather well. Yeah, Fight the arrest. I think it's, I think it's really kind of shortsighted to be doing what they're doing. Although the only thing I can think of now is they're trying to wreck, to drive the in all their selections, their editorial direction selection, their treatment of CBS News employees. They want it to be wrecked. They want to clean it out so they can rebuild it in their. Whatever they want to do. And so far it seems like they're trying to do a low rent version of Fox News. And I hate to pay Rupert Myrick a compliment, but that's a pretty good product for his audience. And I think they want the OG screamy misinformation from the Fox News people.

A (22:37)

So, I mean, what about the Streisand effect being in play here? Because we've already seen this backfire once when it came to Jimmy Kimmel where Brendan Carr, to your point, tried to pull Kimmel off the air and his next episode was like the most viewed episode that he ever had. And so is there some sense that the administration's not learning their lesson here?

C (22:56)

I don't know if the administration, these are private companies. The administration's gonna do what it does. It always does this. It's trying to pressure press, it's trying to pressure the media, it's trying to pressure corporate owners. It's the Ellisons that are at fault here. Let's just be the Trump administration has done this forever. Right. They always try to put pressure on and however means necessary just happens to be their, you know, their incompetent tool at this moment. And the emphasis on tool is Brandon Carr. That's what he's going to do. You know, it doesn't like anything intelligent from this person. It would be a shocker and a surprise. So I think it's really the Ellison's response, which would be, you know, Stephen, will you also ask to Ken Paxton? That's a perfectly legitimate question and maybe he should. That would be. I would watch the hell out of that. Right. If Paxton would agree or whoever, whoever's running. There's probably a whole spate of people running or at least make the attempts to have them on there. So I think you put this squarely in the Ellison's department. I just, look, it's sort of the Trump administration has been doing this and they continue to do this kind of pressure on these companies. And the question at this point is not the Trump administration, which is heinous enough, but the companies that are cooperating and this ownership group is particularly craven in the way they're doing.

A (24:15)

Kara, can we just like zoom out a little bit? What is your reaction to like an administration that swept into power amid these promises of reversing the censorship being done at the hands of these communist Marxist Democrats, only for the actions that we're seeing right now to supersede anything that we could have possibly imagined under a Democratic administration.

C (24:39)

They're liars. I don't know what else to say. They never had a commitment. Neither did a lot of these groups that said they did, like Elon or everybody else. They didn't have a commitment to the. They had a commitment to their First Amendment rights and able to mouth off. But anyone else who disagree with them. Look, they're trying to get tech companies to hand over anti ICE stuff, people who are doing anti ICE stuff so they can investigate them. What for? Just not liking ice? I mean, come on. This is an administration that is committed to the suppression of information, committed beyond belief, what they're doing and using the levers of power they have for now. And let me just tell you, someone like Brandon Carr is going to have. He's going to have a proctology exam if, if the, if the elections go the way most people think it will. I don't know what he's hoping for to get on the board of what, like, what's his next move after this, besides being investigated? And I'll, you know, I'll be Right in the front row for that. But, you know, that's the problem, is that this only works for so long, but in the, in the attempt to do this, they look stupid because Stephen Colbert could a shit. Anderson Cooper could give a shit, right? Like, it doesn't matter. They don't want to be part of whatever's happening here. And so they're just gonna. Anderson didn't speak out, but it's obvious what happened there to me, from my perspective. And. And what. Colbert has run out of fucks, I don't know, seven, seven, three years ago or something like. Something like that. And that's his job to do that too, by the way, to be a tweaker of power.

A (26:08)

So, you know, the way that I'm. The way that I'm looking at all of this is like I'm remembering who decided to capitulate to the Trump administration, or worse, be a collaborator with the Trump administration, and who decided to stand up. You know, we know the law firms, we know the universities, we know the TV networks, the media conglomerates and the tech CEOs. How do we treat the collaborators with this administration? Like, there will come a point where there are so few outlets left that have opted not to collaborate with the Trump administration that. Do you just. Just write off every single outlet?

C (26:41)

No, they're resisting. It's just corporate media right there. Lots of people are resisting, and people within those media organizations are resisting. You see it over and over again. And what's. What's going to have to happen is like, listen, I don't expect my courage to come from businesses. I never did with the tech industry. They. All they're interested in is making money. Like, let's be clear. And I've said that. And oftentimes when people come to me, they're like, what are they doing? I'm like, they don't care. And they're like, yeah, but what are they doing? I go, they don't care. They don't care. They care about shareholder value. And they think, until I was actually stopped by one of the big owners of one of these companies who is not in control of the company but is a big shareholder. And they said, this is actually bad for shareholders, actually what they're doing ultimately. And made a very cogent argument to me about how it's bad. In this case, it was for Apple. It was like, bad for Apple to do this. It's bad for their brand. They look bad. And then, of course, it culminated in Tim Cook's appearance at the Melania documentary. Not good for his brand. Maybe he's taken it for the team. I don't know what's happening with him, but it's not good all the time. The question is, what did you do about it? I think ultimately these businesses know there is no. They will shift their tone when they need to appropriately. They'll say they're sorry and we'll have to move on. I just think their audiences are dwindling. Look at the numbers at CBS News. Look at the numbers. You know, look at the numbers very clearly and what's growing and what's not. You're growing. You know, my audience is growing like crazy. I think we went up 40% last year. It was crazy.

A (28:11)

Yeah.

C (28:12)

And so we're small but we're mighty, right, like that kind of thing. And so you're seeing those, the other audiences like the Washington Post fall off the cliff right by the decisions Jeff Bezos has made. And they can try, they should make a product people want to listen to. That's my feeling is like that's how you do well. So I don't know if we need to do anything like, you know, unless it's sort of egregious collaboration like in the case of Carr. I'd like to see all his emails. I'd like to see like hopefully I'd like to see some discovery. He's abusing his, his public service job which is really quite, it's pretty egregious. He was wearing that pin once. But Trump, the whole thing is just kind of silly what's happening with him. But just the fact that CBS is going along and not telling him to go pound sand, go ahead and sue us, investigate us. Let's go. Yeah, that's happened. They want to buy that company. So that's why they're doing it.

A (29:03)

I know that your co host Scott is going on an unsubscribe spree. What is the.

C (29:10)

I mean what Scott is saying is, which I have said is this is a coin operated presidency. So let's start to fuck with the coins, right? Let's start like have fewer coins for them to shove in this incredibly corrupt administration.

A (29:24)

So what is our responsibility as consumers right now? If we see a cbs, for example, engage in the behavior that they're engaging in.

C (29:33)

Well, look, we went on our tour and someone always asked the CBS question. I said to these crowds of thousands of people, I said show of hands of who just watched CBS News. It was almost zero. So I was like, so what are we worried about here, right? Really? People who she's the current editorial director is making a bad product worse. That's pretty much what's happening, it seems to me. So I'm not so concerned with that. I'm more concerned with how we react to reporting it and things like that. So for resist and unsubscribe, it gives you another tool. You can protest, you can vote. The most important of all of them is voting, of course, in getting to the polls and not letting them take your vote away. I just did a podcast on voter rights and election suppression. You, you, you protest with your feet by showing up places. You talk to your representatives, you pressure them. But one of the ways, and Scott has, I think, correctly and quite elegantly pointed out, just stop using their shit like, and you don't have to. Everyone doesn't have to do the same thing. I think one of the problems with a lot of some of these protests is either they're too short, which is a day, it doesn't have an effect, or it's people don't want to go all the way. So don't just do a little bit like, I got rid of a bunch of Apple stuff. I had Apple games, I had Apple one. A bunch of stuff. I, I didn't get up my iPhone. I mean, and you don't have to judge people, just do whatever part. But you can do significant damage by just getting rid of, I don't know, pick a streamer. What is, what is Paramount Plus? Get rid of Paramount Plus. Just get rid of it. You don't like what they're doing to Stephen Colbert? Get rid of Paramount Plus. Watch Stephen on YouTube. Right? If you don't like what Google's doing. No, that's free. So you're not giving them money, you know, that happens to be free. But. Or don't buy anything from their advertisers or don't. You can actually pull hundreds of dollars off of you. And that iterates, as Scott noted. If AT&T was down just 30,000 subscribers, $6 billion came off their market cap. So tiny little things matter again. And especially with this coin operator. President only responds to money. That's a very clear signal with Trump. You give him money, he does what you want. That's pretty much how it goes. And so we'll see if it has an effect. But it has to have a sustained effect. And you can go back to them later, by the way. You don't have to do like, I'm not using Amazon ever again. I'm just not using it this month. And in fact, I won't Use it next month and I'll buy it from blank but local retailers or Walmart if you like them. You know, nobody's perfect. And if you, you know, perfect, don't make perfect the enemy of the good. Right. You can't be perfect. You need to, you need to just do a small thing. And again, a hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there, matters a great deal. It's one, it's just one tool. Let me just say. It's just one tool.

A (32:28)

Yeah, I want to switch gears here to, to Epstein a little bit while we're talking about destroying the reputations of people. Your reaction to the fact that Donald Trump has engaged in this systematic cover up that has even drawn the ire of not just his former allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Obviously Lauren Boebert resisted pressure when he hauled her into the, into the Situation Room, but now even all these manosphere podcasters, Sean Ryan, Andrew Schultz, Joe Rogan, you know, are all turning on him based on this issue. Do you think that this, this thing has staying power?

C (33:02)

I do. Many, many, many, many months ago. I think it was last year, Scott and I had a really interesting debate. And I said, I think this Epstein thing has legs. And he's like, ah, it'll be one of the next thing. And then the next thing I go, no, no. If you pay attention to the MAGA sphere, essentially Epstein was a, I called it, I think at the time I called it a load bearing wall for the whole group. You can't take it out. And especially with Green and others. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. This, this animates them in a way you don't understand. And also there's a real real here, away from the QAnon lunacy. There's a real problem here with men abusing young women. Right. Powerful men. And it's a narrative that's got throughout time that's important and like it's happened over and over again. But this is really significant. And by the way, it cuts across Democrat and Republican. It's, it's, it's, you know, Epstein was really connected and I, I had experienced him during, in tech. He was always a ted. He was throwing dinner parties. He tried to get me to go to his house. He was trying to like he was with the tech people. And I thought, oh wow, this is, you know, at the time was interesting, especially since he'd been convicted the first time. This was before the 2019 arrest. And so I just felt it had. And if you pay any attention to the Magazphere you know how important the Epstein issues were and so I never thought it was going to go away. I still don't think it's going to go away. It's not going away until all their files are released. And there'll be various different effects on different people. Like Casey Wasserman is getting real pressure yet he's thinking of selling his agency. There's more pressure for him to resign from the Olympics in his case. Look, he was there in 2003 which was before any of the arrests so is that fair? I don't know. It's up to anyone to decide what they chapel Roan doesn't want to affiliate with him. Fantastic. It's whatever that artist wants to do. In the case of others like Kathy Rimler from Goldman it was just too much. She was too familiar with him. It was bad timing. Goldman didn't want to deal with it. You could argue that she was just trying to get business. Well doesn't matter. This is whatever Goldman wants to do. They should decide what they're going to do. And so it's going to have repercussions all over the place especially in the business sector. And as Scott has argued, we both argued whoever deserves to be criminally indicted needs to be fucking criminally indicted. That should be the top top thing and they have the Justice Department and if has has has dropped the ball here this current Justice Department particularly because they have more opportunity to do something now so criminally indictments then there's a stack ranking of everybody else right like how bad was it was it here? And then it's up to the various groups to decide like private groups to decide what they think was too much which would which was too much affiliation which was just I was at a party he was at or else like you have the Howard Lutnick test who lied about it like went out of his way to talk to give him to drape himself in virtue talk about virtue signaling and then it turns out he had lunch with him like that's just mendacious liars and that's should note he didn't do anything wrong but he's a mendacious fucking liar that's what and

A (36:09)

by the way like this the administration is in a position where they could do something about it. They released this list of a bunch of people that were contained within the files the other day but purposefully included all of the people who had passing mentions with coconspirators because they were trying to muddy the waters and people are smart enough to see what's going on doesn't work.

C (36:25)

And I think one of the things that actually someone pointed out to me quite correctly with Donald Trump was that he wasn't just trying to muddy. Was if he's in a group of people and he can slip out with everybody else that works for him, this is actually good for him because he's, he's still the focus. Doesn't matter. He's the president. He's still the focus. He was obviously friends with this guy for a very long time, and he's lying about when and where he broke up, whatever he may have clocked him, that's fine. That's. Who knows? But let's let the files come out and find out, right, Instead of covering them up. But what he's doing is he's, you know, when you're go with the crowd, you'll get in, right? That kind of thing. Like, go walk behind the crowd. And so people are trying to escape. If, if you're focusing on like, like a, like a Howard Lutnick or someone else, you're not. Or, or Larry Summers or et cetera, et cetera, you're not focusing on him. And so every minute that you're not focusing on him and these files are full of stuff to focus on and worthwhile to be focused on, you don't focus on him. So that's the chaos. Chaos is his favorite agency here. And so that's what I see what he's doing. And he uses online to do that, you know, getting to something I actually know about. What he does is he's a fantastic propagandist. And so what he's doing is creating. Not just, don't use the term distraction. He's creating chaos in order for you to go like this. Because it's all worth looking at, by the way, not as if it's not. I mean, the putting Sharon. I guess, like, it's just, I think just Pamphletti's stupid. That's. That's. I'm coming. You know, I know everyone's like, oh, she's. She's not just mendacious, she's evil. This and that. I think she's just bad at which

A (38:07)

she's just a tool for Trump. That's it. And that's why she's there. Not because she's strong, but expressly because she's a loyalist.

C (38:12)

She's obviously in a cult. I mean, I think, I think Marjorie Taylor Jean pretty much clocks it. They're incompetent cultists. And it's not going to, I have other fights to fight. And believe me, I don't agree with her on almost anything, but she's absolutely correct, is that they're like, they're just like trip. It's like watching a group of people trip downstairs, except you're in the way and you get pulled down with them. Right. That's the problem. The rest of our country does highly

A (38:37)

recommend for anybody who's listening or watching right now to check out Pivot podcast or on with Kara Swisher.

C (38:43)

Kara, subscribe for Scott. He'll make it. Make him happy.

A (38:46)

That's it. That's it. Kara, thanks as always for the time. I'm joined now by the Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison. Thanks so much for joining me.

D (38:56)

Hey, good to see you, Brian. Good to see you.

A (38:57)

Good seeing you, too. So there is a new announcement from the FBI that they formally notified the bca, so state investigators in Minnesota that they're not going to provide the BCA with, with any access to information or evidence that was collected in relation to the death, the shooting of Alex Preddy. So what are next steps for the BCA now, given the fact that clearly the FBI's goal in all of this is just to, to shut the BCA out so that they can, you know, call this thing a wrap and make sure that there are no consequences for this ICE agent?

D (39:30)

Well, there are clearly next steps to be had. Before I mention those next steps, let me just mention this is unprecedented. We are quite, quite prepared and have been working with federal law enforcement for literally decades. There is absolutely nothing new. It is routine for us to work together on the file, together at the same time. And so for them to take this position is novel, it's new, and it raises serious questions around what do you plan on doing? And so I'll talk about the next steps because certainly there are several. But I don't want people to slide past a moment. You know, anyone watching your show might think, well, is it normal for the FBI just to exclude state investigators? No, it isn't. It's unusual. It's weird. And it feels like they're trying to cover something up. That's what it feels like to be. Now, to your question, look, we can, we can take them to court. That's, that's lawfully. That's a, that's something we can do. And I, I don't want to be announcing what we're going to do because then people say, well, when. And this, you know, the, once you say exactly what you're going to do, then you kind of Telegraph what you're going to do. And I'm not prepared to do that today, but I can tell you that we've been meeting, working on it. We're not going to stand for it. And then, and we are. And I'm, and I want you to know, and anybody listening your show, there's no way that the Minnesota Attorney General's office of the Hinniper County Attorney's Office is going to let this go. We're going to get to the truth and get justice flat out. That's what there is to it. Now, you know, they can try to delay things, but they can't ultimately stop things. The only question is why would they even want to? And so I'll leave it right there.

A (41:31)

Yeah, I mean, in terms of why they would want to, I think that that's abundantly clear. Every member of this administration has been trying to pre clear every ICE agent for everything they've done because they want these people to feel like they can act with impunity. And so, which I guess raises this, this next question. What if there's evidence of, for example, that was destroyed or tainted by the federal government before state investigators got the opportunity to, to get their hands on it?

D (41:57)

Well, that would of course be bad, but it's not fatal to the case, right? There's a lot of existing evidence. I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, when you're a prosecutor, you want all of the evidence, all meaning all, so that you can make a decision about charging if you decide to charge. And again, at this point, it would be irresponsible for us to make that announcement. But if that were to happen, theoretically, we want to make sure that there's probable cause to either charge a matter out via complaint or charge it out via grand jury. And so that might exist now with evidence that's already out there right now. Here's what I want to say, though. So somebody watching the show might say, well, why did you just charge it now? Because charging the case and actually getting a conviction is two different things. And if you charge a case out based on the probable causes you have now, you may find out later on that there are things that you wish you would have known. Now that doesn't mean you wouldn't charge. It just means you have all the, you have the whole file and you could see it all the way through to what you believe the just outcome is. So I want everybody to know, because everybody wants to know, when are these people getting charged? And I know that you want to know, but we cannot operate on the urgency of the moment. We've got to be looking at the conviction if that's where we end up. And so not having the file leaves the door open for defense counsel to be like, well, they didn't have this, they didn't have that. And kind of just poke holes in the case where we, what we want to do is have a case that you. That doesn't have no holes to poke.

A (43:47)

In terms of the, the DHS shutdown right now. DHS has not been funded. That's the one agency that hasn't been funded. Democrats are holding out to, to fund that agency until certain conditions are being met. From your vantage on the state side, what would be most helpful in terms of, in terms of conditions that need to be met? You know, obviously having dealt with, with the, these, these fatal shootings of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy, number one, a

D (44:18)

rule in place that where there is a state interest, the state will be involved in a joint prosecution and then dependent investigation. Yeah, where there's a state interest, the state has to be involved. And guess what? The states get to watch the feds, the feds get to watch the state, keeping everybody honest and up above board and on the table. And so that would be one. Number two, eliminate the Kavanaugh exception to racial profiling. This has done tremendous damage to America. It's, I believe Kavanaugh's little, little quip there was unconstitutional. He tried to fix it in a later decision, but even then he saw my internal. As opposed to on the border. It was bad ruling from the beginning. It was the shadow docket statement that he made. And I believe green lit a lot of harm that has happened to people across our country. That's two. Number three, there must be normal police protocols on people who say they're police. So ICE runs around with police written all over. Well, that means no masks. That means body cams, that means identification, name plates, numbers. That means that you have not 47 days of training, but real training on including de escalation, racial profiling and all the rest. And so those are just three. I could keep on going, but let's just start there. And there of course are more, but I think that ICE is absolutely. ICE and border are totally out of control. They are totally out of control. They are not dealing with the worst of the worst. They are, they're abusing people who have, who actually have legal status within the United States but may not have permanent status. So I was at an interesting back and forth with Some US Senators who didn't want to have the United States continue to deal with its treaty obligations for asylees, which I found shocking. But if you were having a silent petition and a work permit, you have every right to be in the United States. Are you on thinner ice than somebody with another kind of status? Of course you are, but you are not an undocumented person. But, you know, ICE can pick you up and say, that's over. Ouch.

A (46:52)

Yeah.

D (46:53)

You know, and, and these are the things we've got to come to agreement on. They cannot mess with people who have a status we're going to have to have. Everybody gets their due process rights. And so that's going to have to be locked in as well. And you know, the use of guns. These people, they know how to shoot them, but they don't know how to not shoot them. And we need folks who understand de escalation.

A (47:16)

Yeah.

D (47:17)

Proper handling of firearms.

A (47:19)

Can you talk for a moment about qualified immunity? Can you give a brief explanation of what it is and how that needs to be reformed in light of what we've seen?

D (47:27)

So there's a lot of kind of immunities. Right. There's two that I think are relevant right here. When you sue and are seeking compensation, there is a form of qualified immunity that says. And it's by the way, no, no legislature passed this. Congress did not do this. This is based on a case, I think it's called Fitzgerald versus Harlow. And this, in this case, the judge just said a. A public servant, a federal employee can. Won't be liable unless there's a case signaling to them that what they just did is not that you would be held liable for it. So if it's sort of something that they've. That there's no case on, the courts have said that they get a pass because they weren't duly notified. Now this is complete garbage.

B (48:27)

Why?

D (48:27)

Because you have laws, you have statutes, you have all kind of reasons for people to be on notice that certain things they cannot do. But this disqualified immunity stands as something of a bar for civil liability if there's not a case on point. Now, that doesn't mean that people aren't going to be held accountable. People are held accountable every single day. You cannot shoot people when you don't have any reasonable basis of. To. To do so. There are a lot of reasons that you can get through, but there is a lot of bad conduct that gets shielded by qualified immunity. Now, there's another kind of qualified immunity, and this is under the Supremacy Clause. And this has to do with a state criminally prosecutes a federal agent. There is a qualified immunity premised on the Supremacy Clause. And it says this. Look, if you are a federal agent doing your job and doing what is necessary and proper in the performance of your job, you have an immunity from state criminal prosecution. So if you're driving it, if your job is to drive a truck and you're a federal worker and you run and you get into an accident, it's, you know, it wasn't necessarily your fault, it wasn't intentional. You could say it was necessary and proper for me to drive the truck. And I did what was necessary and proper, meaning I tried to obey the laws of the road. So that's your defense. You have a defense there. Now, what if you see somebody who you don't like because of their race and you decide to use that state vehicle, that federal vehicle, to run them down? That's not necessary and proper to do your job? Or let's say that somebody, theoretically speaking, is at a Protestant, you knock them to the ground, pull their legally and lawfully possessed firearm off their body, so now you know they're not armed and you shoot them 10 times. Maybe that's not necessary and proper for the performance of your duty. So my point is, and I'm speaking theoretically now, but what I'm saying is just because these immunities are in place does not mean that these folks are going to escape responsibility and legal liability. One of them is in the civil context, one of them is in the criminal. But they both just give a public employee some protection in terms of the. When they do their job the way it's supposed to be done, but when they deviate from that, they have to stay, they have to face the music.

A (50:59)

Have you dealt with any other state AGs in terms of figuring out what the best way to collaborate is so that you're not just reinventing the wheel every single time? I mean, ICE is going to, you know, not just Minnesota. ICE has gone to my state of California, they've gone to Chicago, they've gone to Portland, gone to Washington, D.C. and so it doesn't. We don't need to reinvent the wheel every single time if there's abuses at the hands of ice. And so what kind of collaboration has taken place among attorneys general?

D (51:27)

Well, let me tell you, we meet on the phone at least two, three times a week. Our staffs are talking constantly based on their subject matter areas. And I mean, multiple times a week. We have quarterly meetings that we, we go to that where we get together and talk about things we don't really tell people when we're at those quarterly meetings for security reasons.

A (51:50)

Yeah.

D (51:51)

But we do meet face to face on a regular basis, and we all know each other and get on the phone on a regular basis. So the thing is, we're talking three or four times a week on Zoom, and we're meeting face to face, at least quarterly. So we have a high degree of coordination. And it's not just on federal accountability. It could be on antitrust. I mean, a lot of people are concerned about this. You know, the cbs, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Paramount, all that. People are concerned about that. And so we talk about these things amongst ourselves. We also talk about everything from wage stuff to, you know, know, like, how some of the online platforms that, you know, like Uber, Lyft, all the reps shipped, all the rest of them. We talked about how those interface with the law as it exists. We talked about nearly everything under the sun. Consumer protection, women's rights, labor rights, civil rights. We talk about all this stuff all the time. And then we talk to people like you, Brian. Like, we get a lot of income, incoming advice from folks who care, you know, and we interact with the groups, like Norm Eisen's group, you know, Joanna Ludgate's group, Mark Elias's group, naacp, Urban League Lawyers Committee, American, the American Civil Liberties Union. And so we try to stay in touch. And then we all go to community meetings constantly. You know, your average ag, your average elected ag. Well, there is a lawyer. But much of the work we do is engage the public and administer the office and give direction to staff lawyers who actually write the briefs and go to court and make the arguments.

A (53:45)

Well, I appreciate the work you're doing, and especially in conjunction with some of these groups like ELG and Democracy Defenders Fund and ACLU and all those other groups. So thank you. Thank you for doing that work and for staying on top of this stuff, especially as it relates to the abuses at the hands of ice, and appreciate you taking the time today.

D (54:04)

Well, may I just say, man, free independent media podcasters like yourself, you guys are helping the people know what's going on. They trust you. They listen to your show. I listen to your show. And if you want to know what's up, you got to listen to this show.

A (54:18)

I appreciate that. Thanks so much. Thanks again to Ted Lieu, Kara Swisher and Keith Ellison. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. You've been listening to no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me Ryan Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels. Or you can go to briantylercohen.com to learn more.