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The Breakdown Audio | I Just BLEW UP Trump’s EPSTEIN LIE in NEW FILING to DOJ
00:22:23
Allison responds in court to the government’s argument that there’s no widespread interest or government misconduct in the Epstein matter. She’s demanding the redaction training videos.
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- [00:00]
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It's Sunday morning and that wonderfully relaxed feeling of a long, lazy day lingers in the air. If you want to make the moment last, may I suggest the perfect solution? The Martin Sheen Podcast. Join me, your host, Martin Sheen, for beautifully crafted 20 minute programs filled with never before heard stories of my life, along with personal reflections and poetry that inspires. The Martin Sheen Podcast is the perfect Sunday refresh. A chance to take a deep breath, relax, and know that the stress of Monday may be just around the corner, but not here, not now. So make this your weekly moment of calm as we explore faith, hope, love, and what it means to be human. And know this, this journey is ever unfolding as I invite you to see what's next with me, Martin Sheen. And thank you.
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Hey everyone. Happy New Year. As happy as it can be. There's a lot going on in the news this weekend with the illegal war in Venezuela, the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro by the Delta forces without the appropriate blessing of Congress. And I've, I've often compared this administration to a house in an episode of Hoarders. It's a mess. It's a big old mess. It's overwhelming by design and it often leaves us feeling powerless, like it's just too much to deal with all at once and you want to just walk away. But the best way to clean the house is to just pick a corner and start cleaning. And my corners include, I mean, there's a few of them. I, you know, we curated the Jack Smith testimony here on the Midas Touch network yesterday. That video is available now on my substack. And thank you. I've condensed it down to about a night, you know, 90 minutes worth of the 34 clips I felt were the most important. So thank you for watching that here. And today I'm working on getting the Epstein files review training videos, and I will not be detracted from that mission. So I know there's a lot going on, but this is very important. This is my corner. And I have an exclusive update for you on that front today. As many of you know, last summer I received information from multiple credible sources within the FBI and the Department of Justice who were tasked with reviewing and, and redacting the Epstein files. And they told me that there are training videos, some embedded in PowerPoint presentations that were shared on unclassified networks, on a SharePoint and in emails. And we actually saw a couple of weeks ago after Jason Leopold's FOIA request was fulfilled, one of those emails with one of those PowerPoint presentations attached. But they didn't actually release the video. And in those videos, they explained to the analysts in the Information Management Division, that's the imd, how to find tag and log mentions of Donald Trump and Donald Trump's name in the files that they received confirmed from the FBI New York field office and the Southern District of New York. Now, months later in July, Pamela Bondi issued a memo on a holiday weekend, you know, in the night then. And she announced in that memo that after thorough review, they found nothing of interest. There's no client list. There's no uncharged third parties we can go after. And they closed the investigation. Investigation opened under the Biden administration and as we know in January from multiple survivors and their lawyers speaking to Congress, that Trump came in in January, shut down that investigation, boxed up all the files, stole them, sent them to Main justice, and fired the prosecutors, including Maureen Comey. So after I learned about the training videos, I held that piece of news for about five minutes from multiple credible sources. And in those five minutes, my lawyer, Kel McClanahan at National Security Councilors filed a Freedom of Information act request on my behal on behalf of MSW Media to get those training videos. And after getting no response, I filed a lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia, and the case was randomly assigned to Judge Beryl Howell. After that, we filed a motion for summary judgment for expedited processing of my request, asking the court to order the FBI to put my request at the top of the pile, at the top of the queue. And in order to get expedited processing, there has to be widespread public interest or the possibility of government misconduct. And as I reported here on the Midas Network, on December 9, the Trump administration filed its opposition to my request for expedited processing, arguing they actually argued that there's no record of widespread or exceptional public or media interest, that I failed to demonstrate sufficient public interest in the Epstein matter. And today I'm going to share with you my response to that argument. For the first time, no one's seen this. This is an exclusive. You won't see this anywhere else. So welcome to the breakdown. Yes, you heard me right back on December 9, the Trump administration actually argued that I, MSW Media, failed to establish a widespread public or media interest in. In the Epstein matter in order to hurry up and get these videos. The government said, quote, in the ordinary case, agencies process records requested under FOIA on a first in, first out basis. In extraordinary situations, however, an agency will grant expedited processing and process records as soon as practicable Expedited processing is then the exception to the usual rule. After all, if every request were granted expedited processing, no one would receive its benefit. As a result, the overwhelming majority of requests must remain in the ordinary processing queue and await fulfillment of earlier filed requests. To this end, Congress concluded that requests for EXPEDITION must meet not only a high substantive standard, but a key procedural hurdle as well. A requester may rely only on the record before the agency when seeking judicial review of an agency's failure to expedite processing of a request. This prevents a requester from submitting a paltry request to the agency and then attempting to supplement that facially deficient request with additional non record submissions. And as part of a motion in federal court, plaintiff MSW Media, known as msw, pursues a judicial grant of EXPEDITION despite providing no more than two sentences in support of its request. That is entirely insufficient to justify expedited processing. All told, MSW has not met its burden. Having failed to do so, its motion should be denied. So it's really important here that the government is arguing that I have just two sentences justif justifying expedited processing and that that's not enough because that will become. The importance of that will become evident in a minute. Before we get to that, let me share with you the two sentences they're talking about. This is the two sentences in my original motion. The ongoing story of how FBI and DOJ reviewed the Epstein records is one of the most newsworthy and fast developing topics in the news today. MSW media has a pressing need to report on these videos and shed light on the FBI's role in this matter, which raises significant questions of government misconduct. Those are my two sentences. Now, the government says that doesn't cut it, but put a pin in this because the government said on December 9, quote, and for the exceptional media interest standard, MSW declined to provide the kind of evidence necessary to establish such media interest. In other words, no one can possibly know how much interest there is in the Epstein matter without being shown, even though we all know how much interest there is and we see it every day, all day in the news and even spent a million dollars in overtime to review the files this past March, and Congress nearly unanimously passed a law about it. Save Clay Higgins and the President signed it. President signed a law about it. Even despite all that, you MSW media still have to prove to us with, I don't know, a list of news articles that the US EPPs that the story of the Epstein matter is important in the United States. That's Their argument. Well, allow me to retort again, my amazing lawyer. National security counselors Kel McClanahan, filed a new Year's response, if you will, to the government, because that's how we like to ring in the New Year. MSW Media. That's me cleaning my corner. And the basis for our response is a case from 2020 that addresses this exact issue. It explains why my two sentences are, in fact, enough. That case poetically has to do with a FOIA request in the Mueller case. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued Trump's Justice Department to get the documents Bill Barr reviewed in advance of his public announcement, falsely claiming the Mueller report exonerated Donald Trump and that he didn't commit obstruction of justice. So why is that poetic? Well, my network is called MSW Media. MSW stands for Mueller. She wrote my first ever podcast that I started in my kitchen with a $30 microphone, and that was about the Mueller investigation. That's also the podcast that the federal government investigated while I was working for the Department of Veterans affairs and then removed me from my job. So let's look at this 2020 FOIA case that informs MSW Media's response to the claim that the Epstein files aren't of any interest to the public. Okay. Judge Amy Berman Jackson writes in 2020 in that Mueller FOIA case, quote, Crew, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that on April 18, 2019, Attorney General Bill Barr held a press conference in advance of the public release of the report, the report prepared by Special Counsel Mueller on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. During that press conference, Attorney General Barr, quote, stated that the evidence developed by the Special Counsel is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense. Later that day, Cruz submitted a FOIA request to DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel seeking, quote, all documents pertaining to the views OLC provided Attorney General Barr on whether the evidence developed by Special Counsel Mueller is sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense. CREW also sent a request for expedited processing to the Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs. Expedited processing? You see where this is going? DOJ informed CREW that OPA had denied the request for expedited processing by stating that Cruz FOIA request is not a matter in which there exist possible questions about the government's integrity that affect public confidence. Really. So there's the background. Judge Jackson. Judge Amy Berman Jackson then addressed the expedited processing piece, which is what I have asked for in My FOIA case for the Epstein training videos Judge Jackson writes, the Freedom of Information act requires agencies to make requested records available to the public unless one or more specific statutory exemptions apply and charges agencies to, quote, determine within 20 days whether to comply with such a request. The statute also requires that, quote, each agency shall promulgate regulations providing for expedited processing of its request for records 1 in cases in which the person requesting the records demonstrates a compelling need and two in other cases determined by the agency. The statute specifies that, quote, compelling need means with respect to a request made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged federal government activity. Agencies must respond to expedited processing requests within 10 days. Quote in accordance with this provision, DOJ promulgated rules setting forth the circumstances that would warrant the expedited processing of the FOIA requests, including whenever it is determined that they involve a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government's integrity that affect public confidence. There's that widespread and exceptional media interest standard where where there could be questions about the government's integrity. I would say training videos instructing the FBI to redact the President's name from the Epstein files constitutes a matter of exceptional media interest and raises questions about government integrity. But the DOJ says they do not, and I have failed to prove that. But in that case, in 2020, Crew provided only a couple of sentences asserting that there was widespread media interest in the Mueller case. Here was CRU's original request. This is their two sentences crew seeks expedition because the subject matter of the request is of widespread and exceptional media interest. CREW and the requested information involves possible questions about the government's integrity which clearly affect public confidence. Again, for reference, here's my original request. The ongoing story of how FBI and DOJ reviewed the Epstein records is one of the most newsworthy and fast developing topics in the news today. MSW Media has a pressing need to report on these videos and shed light on FBI's role in the matter, which raises significant questions of government misconduct. Those seem very similar, but here's what Judge Jackson wrote in a footnote in her order back in 2020. In its briefing, DOJ expensed considerable effort explaining why Cruz request failed to meet DOJ's media related standard for expedited processing. While it is true that CRU provided nothing more than its own assertion that the matter was of widespread public interest, DOJ's belated objections on those grounds are misplaced since the agency did not identify any deficiency in this regard as a basis for its decision. It cannot argue now that its decision was appropriate based on some newly developed theory that was not stated in the record before the court for review. So with that 2020 Cru Foia in mind, I would now like to share my lawyer's response to the government's argument that I failed to establish a widespread and exceptional media interest where there exist possible questions about the government's integrity. Here's how we open our response. According to LexisNexis4631, documents identified as news, including the terms Jeffrey Epstein and either Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation, were written in the six month period between the inauguration of Trump on 20 January 2025 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's receipt of MSW Media's Freedom of Information act request on 22 July 2025. We continue, quote, the court should not deny itself the benefit of what is effectively common knowledge simply because MSW Media did not spell it out in its request over 50 years ago, this circuit stated, we cannot shut our eyes to matters of public notoriety and general cognizance when we take our seats on the bench. We are not struck with blindness and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men. Three years ago, Justice Gorsuch and Sotomayor observed that judges should not be ignorant as judges of what they know to be true. As citizens. No FBI official could reasonably be expected to be ignorant of the widespread media interest in the Epstein files, especially since, according to reports, most or all of the FBI FOIA office was tasked with reviewing them for release. The videos being requested in this request were created by the FBI FOIA Office. And despite all of this overwhelming evidence, the FBI asks this court to conclude that it had no way of knowing whether expedited processing was warranted because MSW Media's request did not explicitly cite the news articles by name. Now Here comes the 2020 Mueller case. My lawyer writes the court should follow the lead of the 2020 decision in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington vs. DOJ when evaluating FBI's arguments in that case. Judge Jackson held that since the court is limited to the record before the agency in expedited processing cases, the usual Administrative Procedure act rules apply to the agency decision making process, such that as here in my case, an agency's mere recitation of the language in the agency provision on expedited review does not suffice as a reasoned explanation for its denial of an expedited processing request. Judge Jackson concisely explains here. Cruz stated in its request that the Attorney General of the United States had mischaracterized some of the core conclusions contained in a report of great public significance written by the Department's own duly appointed special counsel in advance of its public release. Since DOJ provided no explanation for its flat assertion to the contrary, it doesn't stand up to judicial review. So basically, what the judge is saying here and what my lawyer is saying here is that the FBI just can't regurgitate the policy on expedited processing to deny it. You have to show that you've reviewed and made a determination, and you have to show your work. Otherwise, it doesn't stand up to judicial review. But get this. In my case, the FBI never even made an administrative decision. The first time it provided any determination was in its opposition brief, and it provided no declaration to support that determination. The Court should follow Judge Jackson's lead and find that DOJ failed to meet its evidentiary burden. Should FBI attempt to provide a belated explanation presented in a declaration describing the alleged infirmities in MSW Media's request, the Court should decline any such effort to expand the record beyond the record before the agency at the time of the determination, unless FBI provides evidence that the purported reasons were actually considered at some time in the administrative process, which would entail providing the entire administrative record and not just the correspondence. In other words, if you had discussions about my request and my expedited processing, and you came to the conclusion that there's not widespread media interest or exceptional media or public interest, you need to you give us all those documents and emails and discussions because they're not in the record before the court. And actually, it's too late to do that now. So here we are, and then we bring it home. Here's our conclusion. The FBI makes several other arguments in its opposition to this motion, but all of them are solidly predicated on the Court's acceptance of the dubious contention that it must assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the FBI FOIA office remained completely ignorant of the unprecedented level of media interest in the Epstein files and that no FOIA officer involved in the determination at issue, if such a determination was even made by a FOIA officer, that they relied on any other information besides the three sentences provided in MSW Media's request. Such a conclusion would effectively allow agencies to feign complete ignorance of even the most profound national debates solely because a requester failed to explicitly spell out why Jeffrey Epstein is newsworthy with prolific citations. So there you have it. That is our response to the government on the Epstein files. And I just want to take a minute to shout out my lawyer, Kel McClanahan with National Security Counselors. It's a nonprofit organization. He's doing all this work for MSW Media for free. He's doing it all pro bono. He's not getting paid at all. But they are a nonprofit and if you have the means and you'd like to donate directly to them to help with their work, it is tax deductible and you can help Support them@nationalsecuritylaw.org Donate Again, it goes directly to them to help cover the costs of making these filings doing this kind of pro bono democracy work. So thank you very much to them and thanks to Kel and thanks to CRU for filing their 2020 FOIA request for those documents in the Mueller case. Because we did end up getting that Bill Barr Office of Legal Counsel memo and it showed that he didn't do a deliberative process at all, as a matter of fact, and some other judges found that his redactions were inappropriate, that he mischaracterized the work, he lacked candor, et cetera. So all of that came to light because of that FOIA request. So thanks to them. And we did cover that on the old Mueller She Wrote podcast too, which turned into MSW Media, the plaintiff in the Epstein FOIA case. So thanks to you for watching and supporting independent media. And for more news, you can catch me weekday mornings on the Daily Beans Podcast. And thanks to Midas Touch and the Midas Mighty for giving me this platform here. Happy New Year to all of you. I know there's a lot in the news. Pick your corner. Start cleaning. I'm Alison Gill and I'll see you next week on the Breakdown. Thanks for watching. Be sure to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts for new updates every single day.
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It's Sunday morning and that wonderfully relaxed feeling of a long, lazy day lingers in the air. If you want to make the moment last, may I suggest the perfect solution, the Martin Sheen Podcast. Join me, your host, Martin Sheen, for beautifully crafted 20 minute programs filled with never before heard stories of my life, along with personal reflections and poetry that inspires. The Martin Sheen Podcast is the perfect Sunday refresh. A chance to take a deep breath, relax and know that the stress of Monday may be just around the corner, but not here, not now. So make this your weekly moment of calm as we explore faith hope, love, and what it means to be human. And know this. This journey is ever unfolding as I invite you to see what's next. With me, Martin Sheen. And thank you.