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The Breakdown for the Week Ending 11/9/2025
00:40:36
This week on the Breakdown, sources confirm what’s in the Epstein files is worse than previously known, plus court rulings barring the deployment of the National Guard and restricting ICE and CBP use of force.
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A
This week, a reporter named David Schuster revealed that multiple Republican House members have heard from their contacts at the Department of Justice and the FBI that the Epstein files are actually far worse than previously thought. That they're worse than the alleged photos of Trump with nude girls that Michael Wolf reported on, the ones that Pam Bondi refused to deny the existence of during her congressional testimony. Far worse than that. And that at least 100 House Republicans are ready to vote yes on the release of the Epstein files. Not the discharge petition, but the vote that would follow. They want to vote yes so that they can get out ahead of what's coming. I've spoken to multiple verified sources on the condition of anonymity that actually participated in the review of the Epstein files this past March. And I can confirm that what's in the files is much worse. I wrote it up this past July on Substack, and I reached out to my sources again after this news came out from David Schuster. I can also confirm, through sources again who wish to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, that the files were accessible to multiple multitudes of FBI and Department of justice personnel. Because of how they were stored, there was a lack of permission control. Everyone had access in those units. Trump, Bondi, and Patel actually did this to themselves through their carelessness with securing the files. In fact, my sources say they're actually surprised that this hasn't gotten out to Congress sooner. What FBI and DOJ personnel saw was so devastating that some broke down while reviewing them. Many having young children the same age as the victims, many being survivors of sexual assault themselves, all being kept in the building on lockdown, not allowed to leave, and forced to sift through mountains of evidence and testimony, photos and videos, all in the name of Kash Patel's pet project, part of which some believe was to politically target the survivors themselves. Many felt they had a duty to protect their co workers from seeing the contents. And many believed they had the duty to protect the survivors from retribution. And with all the FBI and Department of justice eyes on these unsecure files, it is no wonder Republicans in the House with contacts in both of these agencies are aware of the full scope of the content of the files and how many times Donald Trump appears in them. We know he is Pam Bondi said he was. So did Kash Patel. So we'll discuss what I learned from people actually assigned to review the Epstein files and more on this episode of the Breakdown. Hey, everybody, I'm Alison Gill. Welcome to the Breakdown. This past summer, a whistleblower reached out to Senator Durbin's office, prompting him to write a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. That whistleblower had said that Bondi pressured the FBI to put over a thousand personnel from the FBI's Information Management Division, the IMD, and from the FBI's Records and Information Dissemination Section, known as RIDS, on a project to review the hundred thousand or so Epstein documents and to flag any mentions of Donald Trump. Now at that point, I personally put out a call to anyone who had been tasked with reviewing the files to reach out to me anonymously, and I got multiple responses. After confirming their identities and verifying their employment using SF 50s, these multiple anonymous sources confirmed what was in Senator Durbin's letter. I learned that the 100,000 documents represented over 300,000 pages of material. Because many of the documents were multiple pages, the sources confirmed that they were put on 24 and sometimes 48 hour shifts. One source who wishes to remain anonymous told me they received an email on March 18 saying effective immediately, no one is allowed to leave the building. I asked if that was normal and was told no, it had never happened before. I confirmed that with other sources who have been there for decades locked in, I was also told that not only were the thousand plus analysts told to find mentions of Donald Trump in the files, but they were told to log the occurrences by document number and page number in an Excel spreadsheet. Now, at first there was a master file spreadsheet that everybody had edit access to, but that quickly changed when the powers that be realized that Excel doesn't play nice when you have at least a thousand editors trying to make changes. So they divided the spreadsheets up. They also confirmed there was a decent amount of Trump mentions in that master file. No one was willing to hazard a guess as to how many, though, which says something in and of itself. But I think what stood out to me the most from my conversations this week and last summer with FBI personnel was the absolute carelessness and chaos of the operation. The operation itself didn't have an official name, I asked, but it did have some names around the office. It was referred to colloquially by names like the Epstein Project, for one. Many people called it the Disaster, and also this bullshit. Now, as it turned out, no permissions were restricted to these files, so the Epstein files sat unprotected on a shared drive that could be accessed by the entire unit. And not just one unit, four units across two agencies, according to sources. Now, usually I worked for the government. Usually it takes the time to add permission certificates to specific files for a group of specific People. So, like, if you wanted to go click on a file on a shared drive and you didn't have permission to view what was in there, it would deny you access. But this operation was so hastily thrown together that they skipped that step completely. Now, initially, it was just rids, the Record Records and Information Dissemination Section, that was reviewing the Epstein files. Those folks are actually trained, well trained on how to redact files properly to protect people's privacy and ppi, to release things under the Freedom of Information Act. But because Patel and Bondi wanted this faster, initially, I'm told they wanted to wrap this up in one or two days back in March. It ended up happening, going on for weeks because of their ineptitude. But because they wanted it fast, they put at least a thousand people from IMD on it. But IMD didn't have the same Freedom of Information act request training as RIDs. So what? What the Department of Justice did is they actually created training videos and disseminated them embedded in PowerPoint decks that were also stored on that shared drive without restricted permissions and on unclassified networks. Additionally, toward the end of the Epstein project, several Department of Justice lawyers were deployed to oversee the review within the FBI. That's according to two sources, again, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. There were also at least two units in the Department of Justice Main justice with unrestricted access, and the instructions about what to find and flag changed on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. So these analysts would have to repeatedly start the review all over again. This is what made it go on for as long as it did. They kept changing their minds about what they wanted flagged and recorded and logged and marked for redaction. One analyst told me that, you know, they. They spent more time waiting for new instructions sometimes than reviewing the files. The entire process was described to me in many ways. A lot of people called it a clusterfuck. One person said they were in full panic mode. They called it a disaster, especially for the privacy of the victims. That was one of the main concerns of the analysts that were reviewing these files. Kash Patel actually wanted the entirety of the files unredacted, to himself, for himself. And many bristled at that and objected loudly because it was assumed he had an ulterior motive, that he wanted to reveal the identities of the victims to Trump allies. A smear tactic. Right. So with this many eyes on the Epstein files, it was inevitable that what was being seen would be spread around the office like wildfire. According to sources, there were people who had to Stop, get up, walk around, take breaks. Because the videos and photos they were seeing were absolutely gut wrenching. One source witnessed an agent with young children nearly break down what they were forced to review. The files were generically marked, so you actually didn't know what you were about to see when you opened them. They'd go through this, then they would be told to stop, they would get all new instructions about what to flag, and they'd have to go back and start over again. But in their haste and carelessness, Patel and Bondi allowed access to the Epstein files to at least a thousand people at the Department of Justice and the FBI across I can confirm through sources at least four different units. So it's no wonder that Republican House reps with contacts in the FBI and the Department of Justice are familiar with what's in the files, given the number of eyes on them. And the people I spoke to confirm that what's in the files is, as many House Republicans fear, far worse than previously thought. One source described hours and hours of videos of yacht parties and photo shoots and massages of clearly underage models. Countless pictures of men unknown to them. I asked. They said they didn't recognize many of them with photos of them with nude underage girls and models videos, just hours and hours. These reports also explain why House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva. Because once that discharge petition moves, a vote is forced in seven days. And David Schuster reports that at least 100 Republicans want to vote yes to release because their pals at the FBI and the Department of Justice who have seen these files because they were unrestricted to anyone in those units. The analysts spending days, 24, 48 hour shifts forced to review and repeatedly start over. Those agents have told them what's in the files and that there's no hiding from what's in them once they come out. Now, at one point a source said they were told to mark for redaction anything explicit, but that instruction was dropped when they realized that was an exercise in futility. Another source said they understood they were trying to protect the privacy of Trump's friends over the privacy of the survivors. A higher up said, quote, we don't want to surprise anyone, meaning the perpetrators, not the survivors. Quote. This is apparently adding to the expectation that once Rep. Grijalva is sworn in and signs the Massey discharge petition triggering a House vote seven legislative days later, more than 100 plus Republicans will vote with with all the Democrats to release the files to get in front of what's coming. Unquote had Patel and Bondi kept the review close hold or just at rids, which is a much smaller unit, there wouldn't be hundreds and hundreds of people with knowledge of what's in these files. They did this to themselves. And Mike Johnson refusing to swear in Grijalva is not the only thing they're using the shutdown for as an excuse to protect Trump and others in the files. Those training videos I mentioned, the ones that explain how to find and log mentions of Donald Trump specifically in the Epstein files. I filed a Freedom of Information act request on behalf of MSW Media for those training videos, and I'm suing the Department of Justice to hand them over. But we're being told that because of the shutdown, FOIA is not available and the courts are on hiatus from FOIA cases as well. This shutdown is about protecting Trump from the release of the Epstein files and everything else, like SNAP and the Affordable Care Act. Subsidies and mass layoffs are all casualties of this effort that people like Russ Vogt are trying to exploit in order to protect pedophiles. And Mike Johnson is going to continue to do everything he can to protect Donald Trump. And this week, House Democrats want to interview the Andrew formerly known as Prince to get a better understanding of the scope of the Epstein files. This thing isn't just going to go away. Now add to this that Mike Johnson and elected Republicans, people who have to get reelected, are reeling from Tuesday's shellacking in the 2025 elections. Not only is the House majority in massive jeopardy in 2026, but Democrats won so hard on Tuesday that people now believe the Senate might actually be in play. Democrats ran the board and they ran the board on affordability and democracy. The affordability part is really hard for Republicans to lie about, but they're trying. Now, Trump is on a mission to convince people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. And because prices are actually going down and we're all crazy if we think otherwise. He's even convinced Walmart to take a Thanksgiving family meal deal, reduce it by four people use cheaper brands so that he can say prices are going down.
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Our energy costs are way down, our groceries are way down, Everything is way down. And the press doesn't report it. The press reports, reports. Whatever the con people say. You know, I call the Democrats con men and women. They make up numbers. But when you look at 25% reduction in costs for Thanksgiving between Biden and me, meaning this administration, that's a tremendous number. That's a tremendous. It's the Biggest reduction in cost in the history of that chart or whatever it is. They do that. They do a synopsis of everything. They cover every element of Thanksgiving meals, 25% down. So I don't want to hear about the affordability.
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Don't talk to me about affordability. Well, that's a winning message. I hope that clip is in every single Democratic ad next year. Mike Johnson is taking a different tack. He's acknowledging prices are going up. He has to get reelected, but he's saying it's totes normal. Watch this. But food prices themselves are. Has still been going up. Grocery prices are still going up. How do you mention.
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C
Yeah, but the USDA has reported and all of the. The economists have shown food prices always go up. There's an inflationary level that's built into grocery prices, but they're going up at a much slower pace. In other words, the economic policies, even though all the provisions of the working families tax cut have not yet been implemented, that's going to make a dramatic effect. It's going to be like jet fuel to the economy. We have all these pro growth policies that will bring down costs, increase wages and increase jobs and more access to the. To the economic rung so that more people can climb with the ladder.
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You know what could end this all right now, fellas. Agreeing to stop starving us until we agree to let you gut our health care. Most Republicans want to do that because this is terrible for their election prospects, as evidenced by what happened last Tuesday. And because 79% of Americans want the Affordable Care act subsidies extended, including 59% of Republicans. Republicans in Congress would like nothing more, but they can't. Because if they open the government, the Epstein files could come out. That's their Alamo. If they open the government. Court cases like my lawsuit to get the Epstein files, training videos are all back on track. Democracy forwards, Freedom of Information act lawsuit to get all of the Epstein files. It all goes forward. If they could find a way to fund ACA subsidies and keep the government closed, they would. But they can't because once the ACA subsidies are funded in the Senate, the House has to come in and work, which they haven't done for weeks now. And once the ACA subsidies are funded, Dems will vote to reopen the government. This week, Dems backed the Republicans into a corner on this. They offered a clean CR if they would also extend the ACA subsidies for a year. And Republicans said no. Dems were bolstered to offer that bluff to them. Given what we did for them on Tuesday. The voters, we gave them that card to play, and they played it. And the Republicans took the bait. The shutdown has always been on them, but now it's undeniably on them. They refused just a clean CR with extending Affordable Care act credits for a year. They refused that. Now Trump is asking Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster to open the government, probably hoping to fund SNAP and Affordable Care act subsidies without having to swear in Grijalva. Because the Senate, if they nuke the filibuster, can pass the already House passed continuing resolution without having to reconvene the House. But like I said, if they want to add the ACA, the House has to vote on it. Those expire January 1st. The House has to vote on that, whether it's part of a continuing resolution or in a separate bill. Now, some are saying Mike Johnson is waiting until December 2nd, when there's a special election in Tennessee's 7th district. And if the Republican wins, it could cancel out Adelita Grijalva's vote. But that's not the case. That won't make a difference. The majority is half the house plus one. That's 218. Regardless of how this new Republican votes, Grijalva will be 218. No new Republican members can counter her signature on the discharge petition. The only way out is for someone to unsign the discharge petition. I reached out to some experts and you can unsign a discharge petition. So I imagine Mike Johnson is working over those four Republicans, offering them God knows what in a desperate attempt to get one of them to remove their name so he can open the government fund, the ACA subsidies fund snap, without having to worry about the discharge petition. But he's just delaying the inevitable. Unless they plan on refusing to swear her in until the end of next year, which, let's be honest, sounds ridiculous, which makes it entirely possible for this Republican Party. This week, however, a judge in Rhode island ordered the Trump administration to pay November SNAP benefits under the law, using the reserve money designated for this exact scenario. Congressionally appropriated funds of our taxpayer dollars to cover SNAP benefits during a shutdown. The judge, Judge McConnell, also accused the Trump administration of withholding SNAP benefits for political reasons, citing statements by Trump earlier this week in which he said the food stamp funds would only be released when the radical left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do and not before. But what did Trump do instead of following the law and following the court order to feed the hungry? He appealed Judge McConnell's order, but not until after the US Department of Agriculture notified states that it would fulfill obligations to fully fund SNAP in November, just hours after the Trump administration appealed the ruling requiring the payments be made late Friday. That appeals court, the First Circuit, denied Trump's bid anyhow, and then Trump appealed that to the Supreme Court, CBS reports. The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to freeze a lower court order that requires the Trump administration to swiftly provide full federal food benefits to roughly 42 million Americans, turning to the high court for emergency relief shortly after a federal appeals court left the decision in place. Trump's argument? He says he's afraid that if he accidentally feeds the hungry and it turns out he didn't have to, it'll be hard to get that money back. It'll be hard to snatch the food back out of their mouths. Our money appropriated by Congress to feed the hungry in the event of a shutdown. He thinks it's his. I have never seen a man, a leader, fight so hard to starve children and veterans and people and active duty service members. 42 million people rely on SNAP benefits, which shouldn't be seen as a handout to anyone other than corporations who refuse to pay a living wage. And rather than let the decision go to her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justice who sits atop administrative functions in the First Circuit, where Rhode island is, took it upon herself to issue a temporary administrative stay, forcing the appeals court 1st Circuit to act quickly and making it harder for her oligarch colleagues on the Supreme Court to more permanently stop SNAP funding. So while we're in the lurch for a little while, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson might have prevented a more permanent block to food assistance. We'll see how the appeals court responds. But the bottom line here is that Republicans who have to get reelected are terrified. And they should be. And that brings us to the UP notes because as you know, I always like to end the breakdown on an UP note. As I mentioned Tuesday, Democrats won across the board from New York City to New Jersey and a trifecta in Virginia, winning the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general races and they flipped 13 Virginia state seats. Dems won ballot measures in Maine for voting rights and red flag gun laws. We held all three Pennsylvania Supreme Court seats protecting voting rights in Pennsylvania in 2026 and beyond and also reproductive rights in that state. We won Prop 50 by a landslide. In California, over 12 million people came out to vote or used the mail in ballot system that we now have. That's more than came out in the 2022 midterms. And now Wes Moore in Maryland is looking at redistricting there. Republicans can't win on policy and we're still having free and fair elections. And we the people are also fighting back on grand juries and trial juries.
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An individual went up to one of the federal law enforcement officers and started jumping up and screaming at him, berating him, yelling at him. And then he took a Subway sandwich about this big and took it and threw it at the officer. He thought it was funny. Well, he doesn't think it's funny today because we charged him with a felony assault on a police officer and we're gonna back the police to the hilt. So there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else.
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No, you stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else. Judge Box of wine. Not only did a grand jury of the people refuse to return a felony indictment against sandwich guy Sean Dunn, a trial jury this week unanimously acquitted him on the single ridiculous misdemeanor simple assault charge. I don't know if this is jury nullification, which is where the jury knows he committed a crime according to the law but refuses to convict anyway, or whether they found that this was an assault because there was reasonable doubt that the Customs and Border Protection Officer, Mr. Alaira Moore, was actually the victim of an offensive touch by a footlong. And the reason that could be in doubt is because he actually had a stuffed Sando plushie in his cubicle at work and a felony foot long patch on his lunchbox indicating he thinks it's as hilarious as we do. Oh, incidentally, if you're watching this and you were on the sandwich guy jury, please reach out to me on signal. You can find my signal contact information in my Blue sky bio. Reach out and let me know if it was jury nullification. I will keep you anonymous and everybody share this video with everybody that you know, especially in the D.C. area that might have been on the sandwich guy jury. And while the sandwich guy trial was hilarious, and thanks to Molly Roberts at Lawfare for her coverage, there were questions like, do you recognize that sandwich? You can't handle the truth. It was comedy gold. And there were differences over whether the sandwich exploded when it hit Laramore's ballistic vest, prompting me to post, if the sub didn't split, you must have quit. That sandwich remained in its wrapper, did it not? While that's all hilarious, it's actually really important. It's an important outcome that 12 of us unanimously said no to, trumped up charges over assaults, alleged assaults against ICE and Customs and Border Protection because it's Happening everywhere. Grand juries and trial juries comprised of Americans refusing to indict and convict our friends and neighbors in the face of a government that continues to lie in court, fabricate evidence, destroy evidence, lie in press releases, all in an effort to justify deploying the military against us. We are the last line of defense against the bullshit and we're taking that job very seriously. We had Sidney Reed. Three grand juries refused to indict her on felony charges and then acquitted her in a jury trial for a misdemeanor. We have Miramar Martinez, who's about to go to trial in a case against her that's poised to fall apart because agents lied and destroyed evidence. We have the jury acquitting Ramos Brito after Timu Himmler. Greg Bevino, now de facto head of ICE and customs and border protection, lied on the stand about what he saw. And we learned this week he lied under oath in Judge Ellis's courtroom in Chicago. The courts are no longer taking the government at their word. They haven't for months now. This week, Judge Ellis in Chicago issued a preliminary injunction that's a more permanent and expanded version of her earlier temporary restraining order barring federal agents in Chicago from deploying tear gas, using riot control tactics without multiple verbal warnings. She ordered Greg Bovino to get a body worn camera. He has now submitted a notice to the court that he has one and he's been trained. He required them customs body worn cameras for all customs and border protection agents. She ordered the feds to put identifying badge numbers on at least two conspicuous places on their uniforms. She told them, you can't disperse a crowd or move a journalist unless there's imminent danger to another person. Judge Ellis says the government's version of the of these events is simply not credible. And as it turned out, Bovino admitted he lied when he said he deployed tear gas without warning because someone threw a rock at him. No one threw a rock at him. He lied and Judge Ellis caught him. Another up note, Judge Immerget has turned her temporary restraining order into a permanent injunction in the case blocking Hegseth from deploying the National Guard in Oregon. In Portland, quote, after analyzing the statutory provisions as applied to the facts in this case, this court arrives at the necessary conclusion that there was neither a rebellion or danger of a rebellion, nor was the president unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States in Oregon when he ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard under 10 U.S. code Section 12406. Now, Judge Immerget, a trump appointee continues the precise standard to demarcate the line passed. Which conditions would satisfy the statutory standard to deploy the military in the streets of American cities is ultimately a question for a higher court to decide. But based on this court's application of a case called Newsom to the factual findings at trial and the meaning of 10 US code section 12406, in light of history and tradition, this court finds that wherever the line precisely is, the government has failed to clear it. Therefore, for all the reasons stated below, this court permanently enjoins defendants orders to deploy federalized members of the National Guard to Oregon. Now, the Chicago National Guard case over in Chicago, that's before the Supreme Court. We know that. I talked about that on the breakdown here last week on the Midas Touch Network. The Supreme Court has given the party until November 17th to define regular forces, remember? So we'll wait and see what's going to happen there. But I think that case will go to the Supreme Court before the Oregon one does. Some more good news. Remember the huge propaganda campaign still going on from this government to lay blame for the shutdown on Democrats? It included mailers. It included Kristi Noem videos being played at airports to captive audiences in line for security. They have pop ups on government websites. Huge huge propaganda campaign to blame the Democrats, which isn't working according to polling. But that also included the government going in and changing furloughed government employees out of office email replies to include language blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Now multiple federal employees with the afge, that's a federal government union, sued multiple sued the Department of Education for doing that. And this weekend a federal judge permanently blocked the government from using furloughed employee email accounts to send partisan messages. Quote, the court concludes that it has jurisdiction over AFGE's claim and that the department has infringed upon its employees First Amendment rights. Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service. It ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians. But by commandeering its employees email accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the department chisels away at that foundation. Now political officials are free to blame whomever they wish for the shutdown, but they cannot use rank and file civil servants as their unwilling spokespeople. The First Amendment stands in their way. The department's conduct therefore must cease. That's Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee in the District Court for the District of Columbia. And finally, could we be a step closer to seeing the secret Jack Smith report on Trump's classified documents case volume Two of his final report that was never released. Are we a step closer to seeing that? Back In July of 2024, Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed the documents case against Trump, citing Justice Thomas in his immunity decision concurrence, saying Jack Smith wasn't appointed lawfully, which is kind of hilarious given the Lindsay Halligan shenanigans. Now, Jack Smith appealed that, but we never got the result of that appeal because Trump won the election. And on January 21, 2025, a day after Trump was sworn in, Judge Cannon issued an injunction blocking the release of volume two of Jack Smith's final report about the classified documents. She did so because, as she says, the cases against Trump's co conspirators Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira were still active and you can't release evidence against people who could still be convicted. But in February, Trump's Justice Department dropped those cases and they said they don't intend to ever bring charges again. So the Knight Institute at Columbia University, a nonprofit, filed a Freedom of Information act request for volume two, saying that since the cases against Nauta and Oliveira are dropped, there's nothing stopping the Release of Volume 2. It's in the public interest. It's in the interest of transparency. Isn't this the most transparent government ever? Well, Department of Justice under Trump denied their Freedom of Information act request, citing Judge Cannon's still active injunction blocking the release. So they filed a motion to intervene on her docket. They asked her to vacate her injunction. Hey, now to Oliveira are done. There's no reason for your injunction. Vacate it, please. And there it sat and still sits. Since February, for eight months, she's done nothing. So last month, the Knight Institute filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That's a court above Judge Cannon. And this week, a three judge panel gave Cannon 60 days to rule on the Night Institute's motion to vacate her injunction or else. Now, if Judge Cannon denies their motion, which I imagine she will, probably on day 60 at 11:59pm, which is January 2nd, if we're talking calendar days, if she denies it, that frees up the Knight Institute to appeal to this three judge panel of the 11th Circuit. Two Democrats. Well, two judges appointed by Democrats, one appointed by a Republican. So we are one step closer to getting volume two of Jack Smith's final report and we'll keep you posted. Also for Daily News, with swearing all of your news needs, you can subscribe for free to the Daily Beans audio podcast, wherever you get your pods and I'll see you here next week. I'm Alison Gill. Thanks for watching the breakdown. Sam, thanks for watching. Be sure to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast for new updates every single day.