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3572 - Trump's DOJ; America's Forgotten War w/ Jamie Holmes - The Majority Report with Sam Seder | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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3572 - Trump's DOJ; America's Forgotten War w/ Jamie Holmes

The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Tue Feb 03 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3572 — Trump’s DOJ; America’s Forgotten War w/ Jamie Holmes
Date: February 3, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode blends sharp political analysis with an in-depth historical interview. The first half riffs on the current dysfunctions in Trump’s Department of Justice, new details on the Jeffrey Epstein case, and larger themes of governmental corruption and accountability. The second major segment features an interview with Jamie Holmes, author of The Free and the Dead: The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel in America's Forgotten War, uncovering the hidden history of the Black and Native resistance during the Seminole Wars in Florida.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. Trump’s DOJ and Weaponized Justice (04:00–17:45)

Shifts in DOJ Power Structure
- Ed Martin, former DC US Attorney, demoted to a minor DOJ position, signaling intra-crony power struggles. Speculation on Pam Bondi’s decreased visibility, perhaps due to mishandling Epstein files or falling out of favor.
- Todd Blanche, former Trump defense attorney, is now Deputy Attorney General, raising serious questions about DOJ independence and priorities.
- Sam Seder (06:44): “It does suggest that there has been some… power balance within the DOJ that has changed. I don’t know how relevant it is—just one set of cronies versus another…”
Epstein Docs & Accountability
- Many Epstein documents were removed after accidentally revealing victims' names. There's a perceived lack of commitment to genuine investigation or justice.
- Todd Blanche’s FOX News appearance: Blurs lines between ‘partying with Epstein’ (legal) and actual crimes (child abuse/trafficking). Deflects responsibility, despite public evidence and victim willingness to cooperate.
  - Notable quote (Todd Blanche, 10:13): “It is not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein… But if we have evidence that allows us to prosecute… you better believe we will.”
  - Emma Vigeland reacts (10:51): “What do you mean you need witnesses? You have dozens and dozens of victims who are saying, we are willing to cooperate right now.”
- Discussion of DOJ as vehicle for Trump’s retribution. Indictments against perceived enemies (e.g., James Comey, Letitia James) follow Trump’s public calls.
  - Blanche (11:55): “If you’re going to work in this department, you are going to execute on the president's priorities, and that's what we do.”
Crisis in Accountability, Parallels to History
- Hosts draw lines from Nixon, Iran-Contra, to now: cumulative failures of US institutions to hold elites accountable, with ramifications for public trust and justice.
  - Emma Vigeland (13:45): “The DOJ is going to basically function as a retribution vehicle for the pettiest man alive, who’s a pedophile protector at the very least…”
  - Sam Seder (16:25): “It just shows that there is just an immense amount of corruption built into the system.”
Transnational Corruption & Epstein
- “Global elite fixer” dimension: Epstein as connector between intelligence, finance, and power structures. Questions into QAnon as a deflective operation suggested.
- Matt Lechian (15:22): “This stuff is—this blows the Nixon tapes out of the water.”

II. Interview with Jamie Holmes: The Black Seminole Chief and America’s Forgotten War (24:57–52:52)

A. Origins: Discovering the Seminole Wars’ Hidden Story

Holmes describes finding a reference to a “rainbow coalition” of Native and African Americans in Florida, fighting the US Army for 40 years—a story missing from American textbooks.
- Jamie Holmes (25:35): “If you look in US History books today… usually you’ll see a description that says, the Seminole, Osceola was the leader of the war and he passed away… The story is so much richer and so much more interesting than it gets credit for.”

B. Setting the Historical Table (27:22)

Early 1800s Florida: Newly acquired from Spain, sparsely populated (35,000 settlers, 45% enslaved), with approx. 5,000 Indigenous people from several tribes, not just Seminole.
Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act (1830): Accelerates forced expulsions, sparking resistance.
- Holmes (28:03): “The story is the resistance of the Seminoles and their allies to this act of forced removal, more or less… And additionally, [it’s about] attempts by private citizens… to enslave the Black Seminoles.”

C. The Major Figures and Resistance

Osceola: Often mythologized as Seminole war leader, but was actually Creek, shaped profoundly by violence against his people (31:32).
- Holmes details the creation of a “heroic adversary” narrative to clean up the image of ethnic cleansing for history books.
- Holmes (33:32): “He is useful… to Americans… It’s a much better story to say here’s a warrior and this is a war… than what was actually done, which was this sort of brutal forced immigration.”
- Emma Vigeland draws modern parallels to Gaza: “It sounds very familiar—I mean literally you could be describing Gaza today…” (34:21)
Abraham (Sawanak Toscanuki): Black Seminole chief, leader among a population of free and formerly enslaved Blacks living with Indigenous groups, negotiating a precarious, often hidden freedom (35:52).
- The ‘Black Seminoles’ included free people, “servants” under Muscogee tradition (not chattel slaves), and self-emancipated individuals or POW descendants.
- They “pretended” to be enslaved for protection (35:52).
- Holmes (37:53): “The majority of them were free and pretending to have been purchased by the Seminoles for self protection.”
- Documentation was unreliable; lack of proof left Black Seminoles vulnerable even after removal westward.
Dealings With Colonizers
- The Seminoles and Black Seminoles were acutely aware of differences between Spanish and American ideas of race and slavery.
  - Holmes (44:18): “Neither the Seminoles, nor the Spanish, nor the Black Seminoles thought of themselves as slaves. Only the Americans did.”
  - Spanish rule allowed more fluid class structures and freedom for people of color, prompting mass emigration when Americans took over.
John Horse: Afro-Indigenous subchief who later led some to Mexico to avoid recapture and enslavement. Noted for his cunning and daring, including a famous jailbreak (46:26–48:19).

D. The Outcome: "Unilateral Surrender" and Legacy

The US mostly abandoned the campaign—unable to “win” against small, mobile groups deep in the Everglades, with disease decimating US troops (49:02–51:06).
- Holmes (49:02): “The US government more or less gives up and declares victory. It’s sort of a unilateral surrender.”
- Paralleled to Vietnam and other examples of unwinnable, unjust wars.
The surviving unconquered Seminole and their descendants remain in Florida to this day, with their story largely absent from mainstream US history.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Emma Vigeland (13:45):
"It’s incredible that we’re living through this moment in history where the DOJ is going to basically function as a retribution vehicle for the pettiest man alive, who’s a pedophile protector at the very least and is declining before our very eyes. It’s crumbling empire stuff."
Jamie Holmes (25:35):
"There was a rainbow coalition in Florida in the 1800s between Native and African Americans that fought off the U.S. army for 40 years, and nobody knows the story because of our Eurocentric view of history."
Sam Seder (51:06):
"In many respects, it’s sort of like our first Vietnam. The parallels there are pretty striking."

Key Timestamps

04:00 — News roundup: DOJ infighting, GOP shutdown standoff, Maryland gerrymander
08:39 — Ed Martin’s ouster, DOJ crony wars, Trump’s influence
09:32 — Fox News segment with Todd Blanche on Epstein prosecution
13:45 — Discussion: DOJ as “retribution vehicle”; historical accountability collapses
15:22 — The transnational elite, Epstein’s global role, QAnon as psyop theory
24:57 — Interview with Jamie Holmes begins
25:35 — Holmes: How he discovered the Black Seminole story
27:22 — Early 19th-century Florida: political and demographic context
31:32 — Osceola’s true origins, motivations, mythologizing
35:52 — The complexity of Black Seminole status and freedom
44:18 — Differences in dealing with Spanish vs. American colonial regimes
46:26 — John Horse’s exploits, Mexico-bound resistance
49:02 — The US “gives up,” parallels to later unwinnable conflicts
51:06 — The legacy: the unconquered people, hidden history

Tone & Style

Informal, incisive, often irreverent: Frequent asides and dark humor about the political moment, paired with earnest and detailed historical inquiry during the Holmes interview.
Direct speaker attribution: Quotes and insights are attributed by name for clarity.
Blend of analysis & digression: Especially in the first half, dense news summary interwoven with commentary and larger historical implications.

Final Thoughts

This episode offers both a biting critique of current political rot—especially the corruption and cronyism under Trump’s DOJ—and a compelling recovery of buried American resistance history, linking past and present struggles for justice, autonomy, and historical truth. Jamie Holmes’ interview provides an accessible but thorough account of the Black Seminoles’ remarkable fight for survival and freedom, casting new light on a chapter too often omitted from US history.

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Transcript

Sam Seder (0:02)

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Emma Vigeland (1:01)

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Sam Seder (1:04)

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Brian (1:40)

Wow.

Emma Vigeland (1:42)

Not safe for work.

Sam Seder (1:43)

Exactly. Sorry.

Jamie Holmes (1:45)

Game.

Matt Lechian (1:46)

And that's.

Sam Seder (1:48)

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Sam Seder (18:18)

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Jamie Holmes (31:32)

He comes out of the Red Sticks in what is now Alabama and Georgia. And his boyhood, he would have seen this split in the Creek people. So the Seminoles break off from the Creek Confederacy or the Muscogee people and come down in several waves. 1750s, 1790s, 1814, around then, and there's a split in the Creek people. And there's a war, 1813, 1814, between the red Sticks where Osceola comes out of and the White Sticks who are allied with than General Jackson. And there's a battle of Horseshoe bend in which 800 red sticks are killed and widows and children, Osceola among them, make their way down into Florida. Osceola is probably around 10 years old at this time, if you date his birth to 1804, which some people do. And he is, he has a memory of this loss. He watched his people divided. He watched, he watched this known of in any case, this brutal defeat. And then the general who is responsible for it becomes the President of the United States, sends down a functionary into Florida to give him this spiel about friendship. Really, they're trying to save money, they want them off the land cheaply, without a war. And he is oriented towards payback righteously. So he gets it. He does pay with his life. He dies of some ailment, we're not sure exactly what, in American newspapers and even abroad, he becomes the face of the war. And he becomes one of the most famous Native Americans in American history, in American history textbooks. Why is this? That's a question all on its own is at the start of the war, he's not a Creek, he's loyal to the Mikazuki chief, Sam Jones. How did he become the face of the war? So part of the book deals with that and as far as I could tell, it's because of a few actions that he is responsible for. He killed Wiley Thompson. He was a prominent voice in the meetings, the negotiations that they had. He was quite vocal and he is useful to a degree to Americans who are trying to sell this as a war rather than a forced eviction of families, including women and children. It's a much better story to say here's a warrior and this is a war and he's brave or he's whatever he is, he's quote unquote savage. However you frame it, whether you're sympathetic or not, a warrior and a war is a better story than what was actually done, which was this sort of brutal forced immigration.

Jamie Holmes (35:52)

Yeah. So again, to your point about what stories get told and which don't, there's a history of writers who discuss this story, who more or less ignore the black Seminole story as well. The population is comprised of several different quote unquote categories. There's black Seminole royalty who are formally free, who have papers to document their freedom. That includes Abraham and his family and a black Seminole. I can't forget if he's a chief or sub chief, Tony Barnett, I think he's a chief and his family. Of the estimated 500 black Seminoles who are there at the time, probably about 100 in these ratios. There are several different estimates of these ratios, but as best we know, 20% or 100 of those are servants. According to the old Muscogee way. This is not chattel enslavement. It's. As far as we know, the only requirement of this form of slavery is that you pay a portion of your crop of your corn as tribute, which sounds quite a bit like a tax to me and not enslavement. And then 480% of those are self emancipated, either people who freed themselves by escaping the plantations in Florida or further north, or children of POW prisoners of wars who were captured, some by the Creeks who allied with the British in the Revolutionary War. Their children by the old Muskogee rules could be full members of the tribe. But in essence you have. When Florida drafts the state constitution, there's a clause in there, it wasn't passed this way, but that's how it was drafted. Trying to ban all free black people from entering the state. So unlike when the Spanish had it and you had three classes and a large population of free people of color. What Florida is trying to institute is really a two tier system of white settlers and enslaved people. So there's really no space for a group of 500 free black people in the interior of Florida. So what they do is they pretend to be enslaved. They all pretend to have been purchased by the Seminoles. And if you look at their rights, the rights under chattel slavery generally, and these rules vary, movement is restricted, you need to pass. You cannot accumulate vast wealth. You can be sold and separated as property. And after 1831, after Nat Turner's rebellion, there are laws which ban the ability to teach an enslaved person to read. So if you compare them to what the black Seminoles, the rights the black Seminoles had, there was a law, according to Wiley Thompson, Jackson's Indian agent, that they could not be sold. Laws are broken, but there was a law against it. They traveled freely, they had vast livestock and they were knowledgeable. Some of them were trilingual, bilingual, they were worldly. So all of that and they were. And by the way, there's the governor of the territory of Florida writing a letter. In one letter he says they are slaves, but in name. So there's several references. I know a Seminole chief, he owns 80 enslaved people. He is none the better for owning them. He's poor, he can't even afford to feed his own family. So the majority of them were free and pretending to have been purchased by the Seminoles for self protection. Chief Abraham owned his son Renti. So that tells you Renti is not his is not an enslaved person. This is protective ownership.

Jamie Holmes (40:17)

Yeah. So there's an old Spanish policy beginning in the late 1600s which would recognize civil rights in exchange for military service. I think you had to say you were Catholic. But enslaved people who escaped down into Spanish Florida could say they were Catholic, fight in the militia and they would recognize their civil rights. So there's a history in Florida, and the British do this as well, of exchanging civil rights for soldiery. This is in the United States today. You can get a fast track to citizenship if you serve in the armed forces. So what it looks like is that part of the story is that the Seminoles just adopt this policy. We are welcome. A gun is a gun in Florida. Come down, we'll grow our military and you'll be offered some protection under Abraham and in these allied villages. But the situation, the question you're asking is how do you prove how can. And the answer is that they can't. So if you're a POW or a child of a POW taken in a raid, or if you've liberated yourself, there's no documentation on you. So this in a way is a double edged sword because nobody can prove that they own you. But also you're vulnerable. There's a book called Rogues paradise which talks about how kind of lawless Florida was at the time. There are a lot of profiteers, there are speculators, there are people who see black Seminole population as a vulnerable population and who are making claims on them. The former Indian agent Gad humphries illegally enslaves 29 black Seminoles on his private plantation. In Abraham's case, there's a newspaper article which says that his freedom papers trace to Alabama later on. He says there's credible evidence that he was born among the Seminoles. He asked directly in 1852. He says, I don't know where I was born, but I was born among the Seminoles. Reporter says that that language, which is the Muskogee language, is his mother tongue. So I believe that that document was forged because you would have to take that document and go to the cities or the army bases and you would want it recorded in the record books. So there is a record book in which Abraham must have presented that document to secure his formal emancipation. But the lack of documentation is a constant problem for them throughout this period. And when they travel west to the Indian Territory, what became Oklahoma.