← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Woman Shot and Killed by Ice Agent in Minneapolis
00:42:42
MS NOW's Ari Melber reports on the breaking news out of Minneapolis, where a U.S. citizen was shot and killed by an ICE agent. Retired NYPD Detective Mark Claxton and Congressman Jim Himes join.
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Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber and we continue this breaking coverage out of Minneapolis, where an American citizen was shot to death, killed by an ICE agent. And the circumstances are not favorable for the Trump administration and its aggressive policies. Here we'll go through the evidence we have. We also may learn more this hour from the United States government about its ongoing response. But the story exploded as soon as it happened and there is all of this additional video. There also immediately were claims which I can report based on the evidence we have appeared to be false from the government even amidst this unfolding tragedy. So we begin with the video evidence that we have. I'm going to play what is a disturbing video of the shooting. It is graphic.
- [01:57]
Christy Greenberg
No. No. Oh, my God. What the.
- [02:05]
Al Sharpton
What the.
- [02:07]
Christy Greenberg
You just. What the did you do?
- [02:12]
Ari Melber
That is, of course, a very clear angle on what was a very fast escalation. And now, because the actual conduct of the agents is in question tonight, indeed, as we will discuss, Minnesota authorities are looking into an investigation of whether the ICE agents broke the law in what was ultimately the killing of that citizen. So we're going to slow this down. You can see the ICE agents approach this car on foot. An agent appears to try to open the driver's side door. You can see that vehicle in some motion and you can see where the agents are positioned. The vehicle then, as you see, appears to be trying to drive basically down the road. And we can debate the word choice, but ultimately it looks like driving away or an escape. You see it back up and then go off and to the right around that other vehicle. The agent fires three shots into the car. That is at a minimum, before we get to a criminal law analysis that is not considered proper use of force in policing, because based on what you have in this situation, there isn't the kind of predicate or apparent lethal threat to the officers. Indeed, while it's a chaotic situation, it looks like someone trying to effectively drive away. Now, as always, when we cover these type of stories, whether they involve domestic policing, local police, or in this case, federal agents operating under Donald Trump's much more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, we have to remind everyone we do not know what happened before this available video. There are things that we could learn that might change the context here, and I don't say that didactically. I say that quite seriously. I've seen these type of stories evolve one way or the other. I also want to mention authorities confirmed the victim was this 30 woman and she died from that gunshot wound to the head. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, her mother has identified her as Renee Nicole Good and said she lived in the Twin Cities. So, as we try to do with a story like this, you have now seen the video more than once. As I mentioned, it can be disturbing, especially once, you know, you're watching something that results in a shot to the head. But it's very important because the Trump administration's officials immediately made statements about this that basically conflict with what we can see with our own eyes on the video. And that is true, that their statements seemed off from what is questionable behavior by the ICE agent. For what we know now, before we get into more information, and obviously this incident, the very swift killing of an American citizen by an ICE agent operating under the authority of the Trump administration will surely be investigated thoroughly. We may learn a lot more. I want to now show you what the local official said on the beat here. Mayor Jacob Frey was very clear in immediately responding with a message for ice, Using strong language.
- [05:04]
Jacob Frey
To ice, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.
- [05:20]
Ari Melber
Temper's high. The Trump administration has said it was deploying 2,000 ICE agents to the city and it has sort of promoted it or at least touted it as the, quote, largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever carried out. The first day of the operation has resulted in the death of this woman. Now, ICE released a statement that said the officer was acting in self defense. I will read you what they say here. One of these violent rioters, that's how they're describing the individual in the vehicle, weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. Now, when you watch the video, you can see for yourself what actually unfolded. So whether the ICE agent had any reason to consider the individual in a car, a quote, violent rioter, is not supported by what little we see here. And then you can see the agent firing the shot is over to the left. That's not to minimize the fact that these situations can escalate and the agents could have faced some sort of threat. But the video that we have does not match on its face. The claims by the Trump ICE spokespeople, Mayor Frey and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian o' Hara were also quite clear on the facts in rejecting the ICE claim today.
- [06:55]
Jacob Frey
What I can tell you is the narrative that this was just done in self defense is a garbage narrative that is not true. It has no truth, and it needs to be stated very clearly since we have already seen a video of it. I do not know as to what.
- [07:12]
Mark Claxton
You'Re talking about in any professional law.
- [07:15]
Keith Ellison
Enforcement agency in the country.
- [07:17]
Mark Claxton
I think they would tell you it's obviously very concerning.
- [07:22]
Keith Ellison
Whenever there's a shooting into a vehicle of someone who's not armed.
- [07:28]
Ari Melber
The individual being unarmed is an important detail because the standard of force under American law is that there has to be the threat of a lethal attack or grievous bodily injury for law enforcement to use deadly force. They have other levels of force, of course, and there are other things that can be done. But firing on an individual, in this case, what the agent may have seen, a woman in a car, does require that predicate. It may be that the ICE spokespeople felt that knowing that they would just claim it, because absent that type of legal defense, you are in the immediately in the territory of a question of whether this should be investigated and anyone should be charged inside the government for what is the killing of this citizen. State officials also tell us they're investigating the shooting, with the FBI doing that as well. The mayor says people in the city of Minneapolis can be outraged, they can grieve. But he is insisting and urging everyone to do so peacefully. There's also a vigil plan for this evening. Reverend Al Sharpton is standing by and will join me as part of our coverage tonight. While we begin with Mark Claxton, retired NYPD Detective Director of the Black Law Enforcement alliance, an individual that we've called on before in cases where, of course, law enforcement, which includes ice, have a job to do and they face threats. And we understand that. But there are also the rights of citizens. And you've sort of walked that, that line between both of those obligations. First, your view of what the video shows.
- [09:01]
Mark Claxton
Well, Ari, the temptation for an old beat cop like myself is to engage in some analysis on a tactical level about what we saw from the police officers on the street and how perhaps bad tactics may have contributed to what caused the death of this young lady. But that would be just a mistake to do. I think we have to really examine the level of threat and danger that the general public is faced with based on this ill conceived kind of practice and policy. So not only do you have the civilian population place at that additional risk, but you have law enforcement also negatively impacted by terrible, awful policies. And then you have this schism between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement. You have federal law enforcement putting a patch over their agent, patch on their vest and claiming to be police, which kind of connotes for people that these are street cops familiar with local practices. And that is far from the case here. So it's very troubling, very disturbing. I don't think anyone is surprised. I think there was some expectation that there would be some disastrous outcomes as a result of this immigration policy, I guess you want to call it. And there should be significant concern about the use of these federal agents operating in local communities as police officers and what that does to the reputation of law enforcement specifically.
- [10:55]
Ari Melber
Yeah, we talked about understanding what's happened there based on the evidence we have. I also want to play video taken here from a bystander witness account. Take a look.
- [11:08]
Al Sharpton
Basically, ladies trying to warn everyone ICE is in and is in the neighborhood.
- [11:18]
Keith Ellison
Just letting them know, hey.
- [11:19]
Ari Melber
And telling ice, hey, you're destroying families, whatnot.
- [11:24]
Keith Ellison
Stop doing this. Hey, get out of here. Stop that.
- [11:28]
Ari Melber
She reversed so traffic can go by the pickup truck.
- [11:33]
Keith Ellison
Great. Pickup truck.
- [11:34]
Mark Claxton
Officer ICE got out and was telling her, hey.
- [11:39]
Al Sharpton
What?
- [11:40]
Mark Claxton
Didn't tell her anything, really. Just telling her what? I'm going to open up your door.
- [11:43]
Al Sharpton
And I'm going to get you out. And that's when the shooting happened and.
- [11:48]
Ari Melber
The car took off and then it.
- [11:50]
Al Sharpton
Sped off and crashed right into the cars.
- [11:54]
Ari Melber
Mark.
- [11:56]
Mark Claxton
Just terrible, just bad all around. And I think that it is a precursor for more tragedy if we don't change the direction of this particular enforcement method.
- [12:11]
Ari Melber
Understood. And I appreciate you joining us as our first expert guest. Our thanks to Mark Claxton. We had the Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, able to join us on a very busy and difficult evening there. Your response to these events today and will the state investigate?
- [12:30]
Keith Ellison
I could say this is a tragic, tragically foreseeable incident, because when you escalate with the number of ICE agents that Trump has done, when you recruit them, when you train them, when you signal to them that they don't have to operate under the normal rules by disclosing their identity, you let them wear masks, you do all these kind of things, you are going to have tragic incidents like this. It is foreseeable and it should be expected and it must be condemned. And, you know, we will investigate there. The state of Minnesota is part of the investigation, and this is important to go forward. There needs to be a situation where the feds are not just investigating the feds, you know, particularly when you got, you know, Cash Patel at the head of the FBI. And now we need. There needs to be state involvement, and I'm glad that there is.
- [13:27]
Ari Melber
And, yeah, you're mentioning something that a lot of people are wondering about, as we have a sitting president who's claimed all sorts of authorities. Some have been beat back in the courts, others are sort of pending. Reverend Sharpton's gonna be joining me later in the program. He, and you have a history in this as well, have faced times where you're calling for an outside independent investigation like a federal pro, because you don't trust local police necessarily to investigate themselves. I think Americans remember this for the years here. You got ICE agents doing stuff that, quite frankly, and I say this with all respect, because some of them are just taking their orders, they have a job, but I'm not referring to the one who did the shot, but others are being told to patrol, just like National Guard ways that no other president has pushed this far, absent an actual ongoing American crisis, riots in the streets. What is, what does it say that you feel we need to have a local investigation of the feds here and the kind of reverse federalism problems that you may be facing. If Trump says, well, hey, you can't. You can't look under the hood.
- [14:33]
Keith Ellison
Well, we've got to have a transparent. We've got to have transparency. We've got to have meaningful accountability because we've got to have respect for law enforcement and hopefully one day meaningful cooperation, which you cannot have if the relationships are completely destroyed. What Trump and Unknown don't seem to understand is that the way that you do proper law enforcement is with community, not against community. Community doesn't have any problem helping community be safe and cooperating with law enforcement to do it. But when you make them the enemy Then you got a real problem. And so we need. We need an independent investigation that does not involve only the feds investigating the feds if this investigation is going to have any credibility at all.
- [15:26]
Ari Melber
Yeah, you mentioned Secretary Noem, and she is due to address this further tonight. But I want to play what she said and warned. As I mentioned to viewers earlier, we're playing the videos and the evidence first. We also, of course, included the ICE statement. What you are about to see based on the video evidence for viewers is misleading. But I'll let you respond on the other side, here's Secretary Noem.
- [15:51]
Kristi Noem
It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over for viewers.
- [16:09]
Ari Melber
We have the video again. A few folks have joined us a quarter way into the hour. The statement from Nome, quote, is that a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over. That's not what the video shows, although people may debate how she drove around there. But you can see this here, your response to the government attorney general.
- [16:30]
Keith Ellison
Deeply, deeply disappointing. I mean, it's just deeply heartbreaking to see a person responsible for the safety and enforcement of American law make such a brazenly false statement. It is truly sad for our democracy. I mean, I actually served in Congress with Kristi Noem, and I'm still shocked at some of the things I see her say and do because that's not the person I thought I knew. Yeah, she was conservative and I was a liberal Democrat, but I thought that we were still on the same planet. Apparently, we're not. And apparently anything goes. And that is something that is truly shocking. Look, if she really wanted to do her job in a professional way, as much as I don't like this policy and as much as I disagree with what the president is doing, if they did it in a professional way, it would make a meaningful difference. But saying things that are blatantly untrue in front of a camera, it's almost as if they're gaslighting the public, you know?
- [17:42]
Ari Melber
So, yeah, I think I have one more piece of video that I want to show you as a. That's difficult as a, you're, as a Minnesotan and a law enforcement official in the state. And this is, again, there was this situation and this confrontation and many videos made, and this one's hard to watch. But I Actually believe we think about this when we do the news, that it's important to show because you have the neighbors reacting to what happened, which is an ICE agent approached the car and shot this woman in the face and killed her. And so this is the real time, moments after. And I say this because for those who may want to turn away or change the channel, that's a personal choice. It's understandable as well. This is about 30 seconds, so we're going to play it now. Can I go check up hose? Oh, back up now. I'm a physician. I built this.
- [18:30]
Keith Ellison
I understand.
- [18:31]
Al Sharpton
We got EMS coming.
- [18:32]
Ari Melber
I get it. Just give us a second. We have medics on scene. We have our own medics.
- [18:38]
Christy Greenberg
Where are they?
- [18:39]
Ari Melber
Where are they? How can I relax? You just killed my neighbor. You caught your butter in the face. You killed my neighbor. How do you show up to work every day? How the do you do this every day? Attorney General? This is happening, of course, in the streets of your state. And you see the scene, the militarized presence, the shock, grief and outrage of those citizens. Your response?
- [19:09]
Keith Ellison
Well, I have been getting a relentless number of emails and calls from neighbors who are very upset, not just for the tragedy of this woman and her family, but for the neighbors who live in there, for our immigrant community members who are living in terror. This is unprecedented in American society. It is reminiscent of other societies which went authoritarian. And just the raw emotion of that woman, I feel every bit of it and I'm right with her. And I think that she was just channeling how all of us really do feel in many, many ways.
- [19:53]
Ari Melber
Attorney General Ellison, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it tonight. We now turn to Reverend Al Sharpton, our colleague on msNow, President of National Action Network, who's dealt with many policing scenarios and victims, families. Your views tonight?
- [20:07]
Al Sharpton
I think that this is on his face. As bad as it gets when you have someone this. First of all, ICE has been inundating this city. I, I have a lot of allies in the city. We work. George Floyd happened in the city. So I'm not talking in a vacuum. And when you have this kind of occupation and people questioning it, you don't have tensions raised by misleading the public on what happens to identify these people as rioters. We've looked at the video. We've looked at the video even after when you just showed the concerned neighbor. And I'm being polite saying concerned, outraged neighbor. There were no rioters. So what is no, I'm talking about that there was rioting going on. There was no Violence and at best, this woman that was killed, a Citizen, we're told 37 year old white woman citizen, may have been angered by them and the way they handled or whatever her reason, she was in putting none of them in danger. They were not trying to defend themselves and they were not rioters. So how do you trust the government whose narrative coming out to shoot is to mislead if not outright lie to the public about the circumstances of a woman shot and killed in cold blood? There's no weapons found with the woman. The woman is driving away from them, not driving to them to try and drive over someone as far as we can see. So this is as bad as it gets. It's a moral disgrace on top of that.
- [21:50]
Ari Melber
And stay with me. We're going to listen briefly to the Secretary's first formal press conference night here on the ground.
- [21:57]
Kristi Noem
I also just got off the phone a little while ago with Governor Walz and spoke to him as well. I want to reiterate first with all of you the facts of what happened today. At 10:25am Central Time, immigration and Customs Enforcement were carrying out lawful operations here in Minneapolis because of the adverse weather that Minneapolis has seen in recent snow. One of the vehicles became stuck and ensnared in the snow. Law enforcement were attempting to push out this vehicle. And when a mob of agitators that were harassing them all day began blocking them in, shouting at them and impeding law enforcement operations, ICE officers and agents approached the vehicle of the individual in question who was blocking the officers in with her vehicle. And she had been stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day. ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop instructing obstructing law enforcement, but she refused to obey their commands. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle and she attempted to run an law enforcement officer over. This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism. The ICE officer, fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues. He was treated at a local hospital, has been released and is now with family. I encourage the American people at this point in time to pray for him, but also to pray for the deceased's family and her loved ones. Today alone in this country, there have been four different domestic terrorist attacks on federal officers by the ramming of vehicles. Three of them happened here in Minneapolis. We've seen over 100 of these vehicle Rammings happen in just recent weeks. And this must stop. ICE alone is facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats against all of them. In fact, the very same officer who was attacked today had previously been dragged by an anti ICE rioter who had rammed him with a car and drug him back in June. He sustained injuries at that time as well. And let me remind you why we're all here in this city today and why we've been here in communities across this country and here in Minneapolis. We're just enforcing the laws that we have in this country for years. Under President Biden, tens of millions of dangerous criminal, illegal aliens, terrorists and suspected terrorists were allowed to invade our country over our southern border. They were allowed to steal, to defraud, and to perpetuate violence against American citizens. Regardless of who your mayor or who your governor is, President Trump promised every single American that he would make America safe again. He promised every single American that he would work to protect them from dangerous criminals. Since Governor Walz has been in charge of Minnesota, we have seen homicides go up by over 50%. That's also during Mayor Fry's tenure as well. Since President Trump took office, Governor Walz has released over 470 violent criminals back onto the street streets here in Manhattan.
- [25:11]
Ari Melber
We've been listening to Secretary Kristi Noem give that briefing there, her first formal briefing devoted to this. She made several assertions there, including saying that a mob was blocking the officers in and that they view this as an effort to weaponize and run over the officer. The video, which we played several times tonight, does not show the car going at the officer, but rather making the turn to the right. She said they view this as an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm. That's the very legal standard I mentioned earlier, which is the only legal justification for using that kind of force. The ICE agent shot this individual in the face, killing her. And then she discussed how they view this as domestic terror attacks. There is a wide gap between the available evidence and what local officials are saying, including one we heard tonight and Kristi Noem's claims on behalf of the Trump administration. We will monitor the rest of that press conference. If there is news. She shifted from details today, which we did broadcast, to a wider set of policy arguments, including their disagreements with local officials in Minnesota regarding immigration. But we do have people monitoring that in case there's other news. I want to bring in Nat now, Democratic Congressman Jim Hines. He's the ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, which has been busy with more than one issue right now. First, your response to this shooting today, whether you think it's a product of the Trump ICE policies and any response you have to what we just heard from the secretary.
- [26:33]
Jim Himes
Yeah, Ari. You know, in situations like this, and they happen all too often, police shootings, law enforcement shootings, I always think that the adult, civil, human thing to do is to withhold judgment until the facts are in, especially in a moment of political polarization and anger and rage. Of course, the Trump administration and Kristi Noem did the precise opposite. And this time, the American people are gonna see it, because, again, we may not have every angle on that, but it is very obvious that not only did she show a total lack of compassion for what had just happened. An American citizen, a woman, is dead. She lied to us. There was no vehicle stuck in the snow. There was no, you know, attempt to use the vehicle as a weap. And America will see the facts and then reflect on the lies that Kristi Noem just told. And to the larger question that you ask, Sadly, I'm not one bit surprised about this. This was inevitable. When you have a leadership, when you have an administration that turns everything, everything into a war in which violence and testosterone and aggression are the only solutions. And this is true of the way they've done immigration. This is true of what happened in Venezuela, in Nigeria, in Iran. The way they think about our. When everything is about aggression and violence as the preferred solution, it was a matter of time before an individual, before this happened.
- [27:53]
Ari Melber
What is the. The right response to this for the. For the federal and local authorities?
- [28:00]
Jim Himes
Well, the right response has already been set aside. The right response was for responsible leaders like Christina. Well, one would hope responsible leaders to wait until the facts are out there, because what happens is Kristi Noem's lies, obvious lies, are going to make people angry. So now we're going to have more protesters. They will be called domestic terrorists by Donald Trump and Kristi Noem. And that leads to a very ugly situation. But the right answer right now, frankly, is what the mayor said. Protest, do it peacefully, and let's let the facts out. Presumably, one would hope there are internal investigative procedures that the Department of Homeland Security might do to actually find out what happened and hold people accountable if what we all saw appearing to be the case is, in fact, the case. But again, Americans really need to grapple with the fact that they have an administration for whom violence and aggression is the preferred solution.
- [28:58]
Ari Melber
Is there a larger policy change, in your view, that should happen where this type of militarization and aggression being used in situations that are broad daylight American citizens in this case, or perhaps some undocumented. But that this is a over, over aggressive posture for the United States to be taking, even apart from the fact that the administration does have goals of increasing capture and deportation, which is lawful enforcement.
- [29:27]
Jim Himes
You know, maybe I'm not a law enforcement expert. You have plenty of those. But to me, this doesn't feel like a policy problem. You know, let me draw an analogy. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was watching a video of two men who had been in one of the boats that was target two men who were probably wounded. They were hanging onto a scrap of wood and they were incinerated after being observed by our military for 41 minutes. Right. That was another example of if you see the video, it will have quite an effect. And here's the point I'm trying to make, which is that when you put good people, and I have no idea who these DHS officers are, but when you put even good people like the admiral who oversaw that raid into a culture and a context in which you know that violence and aggression and rage and lies are what get you promoted, this kind of stuff happens. So this is more about, I think, a culture change than about a policy change. And that happens when we, when we finally deliver the electoral mandate, the electoral response to this kind of behavior.
- [30:30]
Ari Melber
Yeah, understood. And I see the point you're making there. And both involve, of course, what's done in the name of the United States and what, what people look at. And as you mentioned, part of that video not available to the public yet on the, on the foreign policy front, but what people want done in their name and what they want to do about it when informed. Congressman Himes, I know you're busy tonight. I appreciate you joining us.
- [30:51]
Jim Himes
Thank you, Ari.
- [30:52]
Ari Melber
Thank you. Al Sharpton has been with our coverage as I've bounced around there. And we wanted to see what Noam had to say. And we then fact checked it and moved forward. But your thoughts here tonight?
- [31:02]
Al Sharpton
I think that clearly we can look at what we see. We're being told by this administration and by Noem, don't believe your lying eyes because there obviously was no cars coming after anyone. There was no one that was in any way trying to flee. There was no rioters. I would hope when I see Congressman Himes saying that these misleading statements will lead to anger, and they will, and they should. We all should be angry, but nonviolent. We worked in that city on George Floyd, There had been some violence. We told people that's exactly what they want you to do. Don't become the rioters that don't exist, fitting in. Because the best thing that could happen to those forces that are abusing in many ways, people in Minneapolis and other places in the name of deportation and all, is that if there's violence there, because then you become the profile that is not there. This from all we can see was an unarmed woman, US Citizen, white female, that at best was saying, I'm leaving a scene. She did not deserve a sentence of death. And this country cannot stand by and allow this to happen.
- [32:22]
Ari Melber
Reverend Al Sharpton on this important story and drawing your experience. Thank you very much. We will be right back. 2026 has started with a lot of controversy for Donald Trump's presidency. He is facing accusations of breaking the law abroad and at home and a big legal inquiry that has taken up most of our broadcast tonight with that terrible shooting in Minneapolis. Now I want to turn to lawmakers dialing up pressure on DOJ under Trump for breaking a different law, which is another big story that he might prefer to go away. The DOJ is breaking the Epstein law that Trump signed, the Epstein Transparency Act. They have released a tiny portion of files when they face the original death headline, which landed in December, exactly one month after the humiliating loss that Trump faced when his own party rebuffed him and required him to stop hiding documents and covering up for Epstein for whatever reasons Trump and his policies had done. And now we see lawmakers in both parties saying that it is clear that Trump DOJ is breaking the law and they're threatening criminal sanctions over that.
- [33:38]
Jacob Frey
Typically, like with contempt, you might refer that to the doj, and then the DOJ never prosecutes itself. And then the problem goes away at the end of the Congress because it's contempt, because they're not in compliance with the congressional subpoena, which expires at the end of Congress. This law does not expire at the end of Congress. And so they've got a real problem. The contempt that the Congress refers, they could be in jeopardy of that, that even after this Congress cease fired.
- [34:08]
Ari Melber
Massie is speaking in sort of the legal process there. But the bottom line about the real problem he's mentioning is a reference to that soon enough. And mind you, he's a Republican. He's saying they could be out of office and an ensuing administration could actually hold them in contempt and people could get in trouble. Chuck Schumer says Congress wants that list of government officials that's required and asks what they're hiding. There's also the admission from the DOJ that there's 2 million Epstein documents still under review. With 12,000 documents that reach up to over 100,000 pages released, that would actually mean they've only done 1% of the files that they say exist. Lawmakers turning to external pressure, a bipartisan group wants an audit of this process. Democratic senators also trying to put the heat specifically on Trump's chief of staff seeking more information because she claimed in a recent interview that she's looked over these files that Trump has named but isn't doing anything awful. Trump's DOJ has said this review could take weeks more. This is after they've had six weeks, give or take, and claim they'd done a review and claimed they had 200 lawyers working on this. Any normal law firm dealing with this type of investigation and requests would have completed it by now. Now, so what are they hiding? Christy Greenberg, former prosecutor, is here next.
- [35:34]
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- [36:58]
Jacob Frey
If this were a private law firm with 5% of the resources to the DOJ, this would have been done by the deadline. The biggest problem isn't that they're missing the deadlines. It's what they're redacting. So they're citing the Privacy act and they're trying to pretend like that overrides a law that we just passed that says you can't withhold records to prevent embarrassment.
- [37:20]
Ari Melber
That's a Republican talking about the Epstein cover up dragging into the new year. We're joined by former prosecutor Christy Greenberg and MsLibel analyst. Your view on the DOJ's compliance here, breaking this law.
- [37:33]
Christy Greenberg
Well, I think the biggest issue I see is there's been really poor communication coming from the Department of Justice. We saw a letter on the day that the deadline on December 19 from Todd Blanche to Congress explaining, hey, this is what the process is. We have these NSD lawyers, National Security Division lawyers who are reviewing this and this is what we're doing. And he said we're reviewing privileged information and we're redacting that, which I don't believe the act calls for any kind of privileged information to be withheld. He's saying we are redacting only what is legally required. But it's not required that they decide that certain information is privileged. That's a choice that the Department is making to say that information is privileged and they're going to redact.
- [38:20]
Ari Melber
Yeah, but I mean, even before you get to with that, Massey's a Republican lawmaker from Kentucky. His view, along with a lot of experts, is they're not releasing enough documents that when 99% are hidden, something's up.
- [38:33]
Christy Greenberg
Well, they're certainly not releasing enough documents. This week there was a letter that came from the Southern District of New York to the judge in the Maxwell case. And in that letter they said more than 125 lawyers from my old office, the Southern District of New York, are spending all or substantial part of their day reviewing Epstein files. In that case, I don't know why we only have 125,000 pages. If you have a majority of the office working on this, we should be seeing a lot more than.
- [39:01]
Ari Melber
And the original letter claimed there was 200 lawyers working on it. And other reporting said that they were reviewing this prior to the law being passed. So taken together, it looks like those statements either aren't true or whatever those lawyers are reviewing isn't getting released. And so it seems that their strategy, best I can tell, is to drag this out as long as possible and then wait to see if they really get sued and then go to court and off we go to a very slow drip.
- [39:28]
Christy Greenberg
I think that's right. And I also think that, again, to Massie's point, it's not just the timing, it's what they're doing. If all you were doing was redacting victim information, that is a relatively quick process. You're looking for identifying information. You can go through and do that. You have the list of names. You, you, that, that's pretty straightforward. If what you're doing is saying, but there are all these other privileges that may apply, that then takes a lot more time. And especially if you're looking at internal communications and memos now, you're adding more time to the process. And again, I don't see any reason why they need to hold back that information from the public.
- [40:06]
Ari Melber
Todd Blanche doesn't have any of this type of high level experience. He has different experience. Pam Bondi bungled this so much that they've kind of pretended she's not Attorney General. You don't hear from her on, on this case anymore. Do you think Blanche is in over his head?
- [40:21]
Christy Greenberg
I mean, I, I don't think. Again, this seems pretty straightforward. It's. You have a file, they know a lot of these documents. I mean, they don't even seem to know what the documents are. There was 2.7 million pages of discovery that was just produced to Maxwell that was made public in 2021. So, so it's very clear. They should have known that there were a lot of documents that they needed to review. And those documents are already electronically available. So he knows the process of what you do to redact documents. This is not the hard part. The hard part is actually investigating and prosecuting sex trafficking, not redacting a file that already exists and compiling the documents so he shouldn't be in over his head. I think they are making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be because they don't want to provide all the information to the American people.
- [41:08]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And there's still three years left in this term. So even if it's long delay, there's been a lot of evidence that people care about this case. So it could go all the way up to the Supreme Court and back and they'd still be dragging this through Trump's second term, which is why it looks like they're hiding something. Christy, always good to see you. Thank you very much. We will be right back.
- [41:30]
Jacob Frey
They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.
- [41:54]
Ari Melber
Mayor of Minneapolis Speaking at that briefing today about the shooting by an ICE agent, DHS Secretary Noem was asked about his remarks. This is moments ago from that press conference. I'm going to play you what she said said.
- [42:08]
Christy Greenberg
Mayor Fry called the claims.
- [42:10]
Kristi Noem
Of self defense bs. How do you respond to that? I say that he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's very clear that this individual was harassing and impeding law enforcement operations. Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he's been taught to do in that situation and took actions to defend himself and defend his fellow law enforcement officers.
- [42:31]
Christy Greenberg
Secretary, can you expand too on the agent's injuries?
- [42:34]
Kristi Noem
The president said that he's lucky to meet a lot. The officer was hit by the vehicle. She hit him. He went to the hospital. A doctor did treat him. He has been released, but he's going to spend some time with his family. I can't. But the FBI will continue the investigation and release more facts when it's appropriate. Secretary Young, has the agent been elite assistant lead? No, we're following the standard protocol procedures we do in situations like this.
- [43:05]
Ari Melber
This is the gap between what the video shows, what some local authorities have said and how Noem just responded. She has made several statements today that don't match the evidence in the video that we have. The baseline here is a debate about whether this was lawful action. The government is trying to defend what the ICE agent did, but doing so in a manner that actually is straining credibility. This is not a story that's going to go away in a day or two. There is a legal process. We heard from the top law enforcement official of Minnesota tonight that they will also do a local investigation and try to figure out what happened and whether this was merited. As for the more simple misleading claim by Noem that this is following the training that is false. Whether or not it's a crime is a much more complex investigation. But law enforcement officials in the United States are trained only to use force as a last resort or this deadly force, and only to use deadly force when they face the threat of deadly force or serious bodily injury. That is not exactly what the video shows. And the training on shooting into moving vehicles is also that is to be limited. If the officer had no belief that there were weapons inside the car, training would go against, not for that use of force. We'll be right back.
- [44:21]
Angie Hicks
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Ari Melber
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Jim Himes
Trump remains confident that his fans support the invasion, saying Maga loves it. It Maga loves what I'm doing. Maga loves everything I do. Maga is me. Maga loves everything I do and I love everything I do too. In conclusion, I am he as you are he as you are me. And we are all together. I am the walrus goo do the.
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Ari Melber
Coup Colbert bringing us a little bit of light amidst these dark times. Donald Trump's view of Maga is compromised by the facts indeed. Megyn Kelly, guests on Theo Vaughan other folks already speaking out this week against his Venezuela plans.
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Angie Hicks
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair done well. Kitchen sink install done well. Deck upgrades done well. Electrical Upgrade done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high quality pros@angie.com.