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This past summer, I spoke to multiple anonymous sources at the FBI and Department of justice who participated in the Epstein redaction project. Over a thousand personnel locked in their offices put on mandatory overtime, some for 24, even 48 hour shifts, forced to review these Epstein files and log the mentions of Donald Trump in the nearly 300,000 pages for redaction in an Excel spreadsheet. Now, the sources also confided in me that there were training videos embedded in PowerPoint presentations on an unsecure, unclassified shared drive that provided instructions on how to flag and find mentions of Donald Trump. Now, I have sued the government to get those training videos. But this week, Jason Leopold at Bloomberg received multiple FBI emails pursuant to his own FOIA request, Freedom of Information act request, confirming that exclusive report that those training videos exist. They also confirm the existence of the Excel spreadsheet, the mandatory overtime hours they worked, how much they were paid, what it cost the taxpayers to hide Donald Trump's name in the Epstein files. So I'm going to show you all of these emails and I have a personal announcement at the end of the show. All of this on today's episode of the Breakdown. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Breakdown here on the Midas Touch Network. Thanks to the Midas Touch for giving me this platform. I'm Alison Gill. You'll recall, back in July, I've talked about this on multiple episodes here on the Midas Touch Network. I spoke to sources at the FBI and DOJ who participated in the project to review the Epstein files. I did all that in the summer and they reviewed the files this past March. And this week, the FOIA whisperer, Jason Leopold at Bloomberg received about 75 pages of emails from top officials at the Information Management Division, that's the IMD at the FBI. And he received these emails pursuant to a Freedom of Information act request. And quite frankly, it's incredible what these emails confirm. It's kind of flown under the radar this week. So let's take a look. First, from my reporting in July, two sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed the existence of training videos instructing personnel on the process of tagging mentions of Trump and that the videos were actually embedded in a PowerPoint deck or decks that lived on the shared drive. So that's my reporting. Now look at this email that Jason Leopold got. It was sent on March 22nd of this year. You can see the Epstein Transparency Project, PowerPoint sent as an attachment. It's right there in black and white. I also noted over on the breakdown that video exists of trainers explaining the process of flagging instances of Donald Trump appearing in the files. And those videos went out on unclassified networks within the Bureau. And here you can see these files were sent attached to this email unclassified. Next, sources told me that individual analysts were told to flag mentions of Trump by document and page number by logging them in an Excel spreadsheet. Now look at this same email from March 22nd. You can see right there an Excel spreadsheet attachment called CH Redacted tracking template Guess, Guess whose name fits nicely behind that redaction box. Now, I don't know what's under there, but next sources mentioned they stored things on a SharePoint site and that the files weren't restricted so anyone at IMD could see them. And here is an email from March 23 that says videos posted to the Transparency Project SharePoint site are as follows. Video 1, how to use the SharePoint site. Video 2, how to redact using Adobe. And video 3 is the Transparency training video. That right there confirms the training video exists and the use of the SharePoint drive. I also learned that the trainers toward the end actually came from the Department of Justice and not from the Bureau. And this email confirms that look, it says IMD continues discussions with DOJ and is awaiting clarification regarding regarding additional criteria for the next phase of this project. And finally, that lawyers I learned that lawyers were assigned from the Department of Justice to oversee what was being flagged for redaction. And here in this email from again Jason Leopold's FOIA request, you can see updated RIDS and dojoip attorney point of contact lists have been posted on the main page of the Transparency Project SharePoint site. Redaction questions can be directed to those points of contact. It's kind of amazing to see what my sources, my anonymous sources, told me four months ago right here in black and white in these emails. Now, Jason Leopold also got information on the overtime paid to the agents. They paid Almost a million dollars, $851,344 in overtime for working on the Epstein files. 17th and March 22nd. That's almost a million dollars of overtime for five days of work. And bureau personnel also reviewed videos, according to an April 15 email. One of the videos was from the New York City jail where Epstein was found dead a month after his arrest in 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Now, finally, on May 2, an FBI employee from the New York field office sent an email and attached a document titled Epstein Overview Final that summarized their work. The FBI withheld a copy of the attachment. That is something we didn't know existed. At least I didn't. But we know now that there is an executive summary out there and it's subject to release under the Epstein Files Transparency act that was signed into law last week after nearly unanimously passing Congress. Pamela Joe, by the way, has until December 20th to release all the files and all of this sort of associated information. And if there's anything she wants to redact or withhold, she has to, by law, by the Transparency act, explain or summarize those redactions and give reasons for withholding anything. If she fails to do that, it triggers a lawsuit and a judge will tell us whether she inappropriately withheld anything. I mean, I guess it depends on the judge, but this is going to be in D.C. but right now I really want to know what or who is behind this redaction box. Also, since we last spoke here on the breakdown, massive losses for Trump's doj. And we saw a lot of this coming, right? First, the indictments against Jim Comey and Letitia James were dismissed by Judge Curry, who is from the District of South Carolina, who ruled that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed. First, her appointment violated the law used to appoint her. Section 546, which gives the attorney general 120 days of an interim U.S. attorney. But the previous U.S. attorney, Eric Siebert, who was fired for refusing to indict in these two cases, served for 120 days, used up her whole Pam Bondi's whole 120 day thing for interim U.S. attorneys. And the only entity after that 120 days clock expires, the only entity that can appoint a U.S. attorney without advice and consent from the Senate without going through the confirmation process is the District Court. Now, it didn't happen here. Secondly, Lindsey Allegan's appointment violated the appointments clause of the Constitution. And because the only remedy for unlawfully appointing a U.S. attorney is to dismiss the charges like they did in the classified documents case. When Judge Eileen Cannon found Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, he wasn't. But that's not the point here. And because no other lawyer signed on to these charges, Judge Curry dismissed the indictments. Judge Curry actually cited the Trump case, USV Trump, with Judge Cannon to say, y' all said, y' all say that the only remedy is dismissal. So I'm dismissing. Now. I personally wanted this to drag out, wait like drag on way longer so we could learn what Judge Nachmanoff would have said about all the other motions. Vindictive and selective prosecution. The Bronston literal truth defense and grand jury misconduct. But the Comey case is over. We'll see if Pamela Joe tries to breathe life back into this case. Well, she can't really against in the Comey case because the statute of limitations is expired. But maybe she'll try to bring the charges again against Letitia James. She can also appeal Judge Curry's dismissal, which I'm sure they will. But she can also try to find lawyers willing to bring the charges again even though there's tons of evidence out in the public now that shows that Letitia James did nothing wrong. Or she can go ahead and appoint Lindsay Halligan a special attorney or a special counsel at the Department of Justice. So we'll see what she tries to do here. Next up in embarrassing Department of Justice losses and embarrassing Trump losses. Specifically, Trump tried to revive his previously dismissed lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and a zillion other people. It was dozens of other defendants, including the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jim Comey, Andy McCabe. There were a ton of people, plus 10 does, right? Jane or John Does. But after a really embarrassing hearing before a three judge panel on the very conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump was told to pound sand. And conservative Chief Judge Pryor wrote for a unanimous three judge panel that Trump's frivolous lawsuit from 2022amounted to a shotgun pleading and upheld, by the way, the million dollar sanctions fine that the lower court Judge Middlebrooks issued against Trump and parking lot lawyer Alina Haba. I'm willing to bet, well, we know Trump is going to appeal this, but I'm willing to bet the Supreme Court isn't going to touch this one. And I mean, he can appeal en banc, but Judge Pryor is the chief judge of the 11th Circuit and he's super conservative and really good friends with Clarence Thomas, if you can believe that. So that also happened this week. And last week I told you about how Costa Rica said in a bombshell report from the Washington Post that they never closed the door to accepting Kilmara Abrego Garcia, that he can be deported there and they will take care of him, to protect him, give him his freedom, make sure he's not refouled to El Salvador because there is currently in the United States a court order blocking the government from removing Mr. Abrego to El Salvador. And we learned last week and I talked about it here that Costa Rica said we never closed the door. He's always been welcome. And that proved that the doj, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State lied to the court. Now, I had said, I hope his lawyers send notice to the court about that. But Judge Sinis closed the evidentiary file. But his lawyers did notice the court, Judge Crenshaw, in Mr. Abrego's criminal case, they used it in his criminal case to bolster their argument to dismiss the whole indictment for vindictive and selective prosecution. These are the two trumped up charges they brought him up on to return him to the United States to cover up for the fact that they didn't want to go through discovery about why they didn't return him in the first place. And they write, when the Court first addressed Mr. Abrego's motion to dismiss for a vindictive and selective prosecution, it decided that it need not resolve Abrego's arguments on actual vindictiveness at this juncture, given that his showing of a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness entitles him to discovery and a hearing. But the government's brazen and misleading conduct regarding Costa Rica further proves the government's actual vindictiveness of allowing the court to resolve that question. Now, this conduct also makes it impossible for the government to rebut the realistic likelihood of vindictiveness that Abrego has established, a realistic likelihood that the government's recent conduct has only made more concrete and more evident. So what Mr. Abrego's lawyers are saying is we know the court, you found there was a likelihood of vindictiveness and that we didn't have to solve what that vindictiveness is right now because we can have discovery in a hearing. But this new reporting from the Washington Post is so egregious. Not the reporting, but the conduct of the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, is so egregious, we don't think we need discovery or a hearing. We think you can just resolve the vindictive and selective prosecution motion. Now, as of the time of this show, I looked. There's nothing on the docket in response to this request from Mr. Abrego's lawyers. But I'll keep you apprised. And last week I did the criminal contempt cabbage patch, because criminal contempt proceedings are, you know, we're going to be back on in Judge Boasberg's court. And they are. This week, they are underway. This week, the Department of Justice threw puppy killer Kristi Noem under the bus by issuing a memo to Judge Boasberg stating she was the one that made the decision to keep the planes in the air to El Salvador after Judge Boasberg ordered them turned around. That was an emergency hearing in March. Now, in response to that filing this week, Boasberg issued an order saying the court must now determine whether Secretary Noem or anyone else should be referred to for potential contempt prosecution. The court therefore orders that by December 5th, that's this Friday, the government shall submit declarations from all individuals involved in the decision not to halt the transfer of class members out of U.S. physical custody on March 15th and 16th, 2025. Such declarations shall detail their roles in such a decision. In addition to the contempt and, and the perjury and all of this, all the other rebukes by judges in multiple cases on multiple dockets in. In many jurisdictions, there are now, Roughly according to Politico, 225 judges, 225 that have rejected Trump's mass detention and deportation policy that he put into effect this past July. Over several cases over the past 13 years. Just as a little background, the conservative Supreme Court made it harder to file class action lawsuits. In response to that, judges began issuing nationwide injunctions instead, instead of certifying nationwide classes for class action lawsuits. And that was no different at the beginning of this year, where lower courts would issue emergency injunctions, usually in immigration cases, blocking the government nationally from deporting large groups of similarly situated people. But in June, in a case called Trump v. Casa, the Supreme Court ended the nationwide injunction and in these kinds of immigration cases, said that individual habeas petitions had to be filed in relevant jurisdictions, meaning that the court was going to be flooded with a ton of individual cases. So instead of one judge saying, all right, you can't deport anyone to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies act from anywhere in the nation. But because there's no nationwide injunction now, those defendants had to go to their individual jurisdictions and file habeas claims in those individual jurisdictions with individual legal teams. And you could have similarly situated people, but they had to be within that jurisdiction. So you could only. Lower court judges could only issue an injunction within a jurisdiction like the Western District of Texas, for example. Now, a couple weeks later in July, as I said, DHS changed its immigration policy, permitting the government to detain immigrants who are in deportation proceedings, including those who have lived in the interior for years, are married to citizens, have children, have jobs, those who are seeking asylum, or other seeking other legal pathways to citizenship. You know, because the law says that the attorney general can choose to detain these folks, but they don't have to. And we've always, for 30 years, not done that. But Trump changed That and said, detain them all while they're waiting, while they're going through the process. So the court has been flooded with these cases because we can't have nationwide injunctions. All these individuals are suing. And Politico reports at least 225 judges have ruled in more than 700 cases that the administration's new policy, which also deprives people of the opportunity to seek release from an immigration court, is a likely violation of law and the right to due process. Those judges were appointed by all modern presidents, including 23 by Donald Trump himself. All hail from at least 35 states. That's according to a political analysis of a thousand. No, excuse me, thousands of recent cases. The number of judges opposing the administration's position has more than doubled in less than a month. Now, get this, 225 judges have said this is illegal. Eight judges have upheld Trump's policy, 225 to eight. Those eight. Of those eight, six are Trump appointees. But some nationwide relief may come soon, because after the Supreme Court said no more nationwide injunctions, the courts are now going back to class action, even though they're harder to get. The Supreme Court has spent a long time, a decade at least Since I think, 2013, making it harder to file class action lawsuits. But they are doing that now. And it says judges in Massachusetts and Colorado recently certified class action lawsuits against ICE's new approach. And on Tuesday of this past week, a judge in California approved a nationwide class which could immediately force the administration to provide bond hearings to those subject to the ICE policy. So we will keep an eye on some of this nationwide relief, but this is what's happening in the courts right now. And the fact that it's 225 to 8 is pretty significant. But there's a lot of problems going on in other parts of this administration as well. Trump is considering firing Kash Patel. A reporter with solid sources named Carol Lennig says that her sources close to Trump told her that he and other White House officials are fed up with Patel's bad headlines that he's generating about, for example, using government plane, using the FBI plane for private vacations. We counted on the unjustified podcast, 18 trips so far to Vegas and the country music thing and something called Boondoggle Ranch. They're also mad because he's tweeting out what amounts to, you know, bullshit in ongoing investigations. Remember in the Charlie Kirk shooting, he came out, said, we have our man. And then he had to say, well, we lost our man. It's not that man. Oh, we have another man. We don't have that man. And so that's really embarrassing to the administration. And I guess that's upsetting Trump and people close to him. Now, Caroline Levitt denies that Donald Trump is weighing firing Patel. And when asked by reporters how she knows Trump has denied this, she said she was actually in the White House in a meeting with Trump and Patel when the headline came through on her phone. Awkward. But she said, oh, I asked him and he said, no, I love Kash Patel. He's right there in front of you. Let's take a photo so we can show everybody that I, that I don't want to fire you. And we'll see what happens. But if that weren't enough, Trump's poll numbers are still taking a nosedive. This week, a new Gallup poll put Trump's approval rating at negative 11 points. Now it's 36, 36% approval rating with 60% disapproving. ARG and High Point polls have him at a 35% approval rating. These are all time lows for, I think, second and first terms. And also, Republicans are bailing on Mike Johnson. Here's the poll of confidence in Congress. It's at 23% among Republicans. Independents have it at 15. Democrats have it at 4%. And recent polling says the race in Tennessee's 7th district is now a toss up. A toss up. This is a district Trump won by 22 points. That election is this Tuesday. We're rooting for Afton. Let's see if we can flip it blue. I think we have a good shot. We got, we gained 30 points. We still didn't win in Florida 1 and Florida 6 earlier this year. And think of everything that's happened between now and then. That 22 points down in the last election makes it is a flippable district. This is the year to run for something. If you have a Republican in a ruby red district around you that is running unopposed, run for that seat. Whether it's the water board or the school board or Congress or state legislature or assembly, city council, county supervisor, run for that seat. If there was ever a year to make enough headwinds to flip seats blue, it's this year, 2025, 2026. So we'll be watching on Tuesday to see what happens in Tennessee seventh. Also, former Trump administration is friend of mine named Miles Taylor wrote in his book Blowback about why he decided to reveal his name after writing critically about the first Trump administration anonymously. He put out a book under Anonymous. He put out an article under Anonymous, the Lodestar. The famous Lodestar article. And he had been doing that for a long time. But he decided to publish a book in his actual name and reveal himself as the author of those writings. And he talked about in blowback the price of dissent. He compared it to the economic concept of supply and demand. Right. He said the price of speaking out against the Republican Party, against Trump, against maga, is high. That price is high. And how do we lower that price? We increase the supply of dissent. And as more Republicans speak out against this administration, that creates a permission structure for others to do the same. And we're seeing more cracks in the dam. This week. In addition to Trump thinking about firing Patel, Republican Roger Wicker in the Senate put out a joint statement with Democrat Jack Reed announcing new rigorous oversight of the Caribbean boat strikes and oversight of the Pentagon. And they did this. They made this joint statement after learning from the Washington Post on Friday that, quote, as two men clung to a stricken burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed Defense Secretary Hegseth's order to leave no survivors. This is what the six Democratic lawmakers were talking about when they reminded active duty service members that they don't have to obey illegal orders. That is in illegal order. Hegseth is a murderer. And also more defections. In Indiana, a Republican senator named Mike Bohasic. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that properly. He's going to vote no on Trump's redistricting map in Indiana because of something Trump said about Governor Tim Walz in a deranged rant about the Thanksgiving holiday. Naturally, Trump referred to Tim Walz as the seriously R word. Governor of Minnesota. Now, Indiana Senator Bohasic issued a statement on social media in response. And it says, many of you have asked my position on redistricting. I've been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter. Those of you that don't know me or my family might not know that my daughter has down syndrome. This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references. And his choices of words have consequences. I will be voting no on redistricting. And perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority. Ouch. Now, Trump's psychotic rant came in the aftermath of a tragic shooting in D.C. that killed one of the members of the National Guard that he needlessly deployed to the District a few days after a judge ruled their deployment unlawful. He could have withdrawn those troops at that point, but he didn't. And that shooting also left a second Guard member in critical condition. The shooter is an Afghan national. And of course, Trump blames the entire country of Afghanistan, all brown people, and the Biden administration for this tragedy. But we have to remember it was Trump that ordered the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And as it turns out, the shooter's asylum was granted this past April by the Trump administration. Now, Trump claims the shooter wasn't vetted properly, but the New York Times blew that out of the water as well. They said that he was part of a CIA paramilitary zero unit essential to assisting the United States by securing the remaining U.S. and NATO bases in Kabul. After Trump's withdrawal, orders were carried out. The slain Guard member, her name is Sarah Beckstrom. She's from West Virginia. She joined in the hopes of one day becoming an FBI agent. That was her dream. She was 20 years old. An ex boyfriend of hers told NBC she did not want to deploy to the Capitol. She said she'd miss her home and her family. She should have never been there in the first place. And her family will never see her again. The other guardsman is a 24 year old, a US Air Force staff sergeant named Andrew Wolf, who does remain in critical, critical condition. But this is what happens when you use American cities as military training grounds and you use the military as pawns in your propaganda. But Trump doesn't care about these service members. He, he only sees their shooting as a means to an end. He does not care about them. Listen to this response when he was asked if he planned to attend Sarah Beckstrom's funeral. Do you plan to attend Sarah's funeral?