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- [00:02]
A
Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
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B
Christian Bale was preparing for his role in American Psycho. Dressing the part, hitting the gym for the first time in his life, even getting his teeth redone. There was just one problem. He didn't actually have the part. Leonardo DiCaprio did. Listen to our podcast what went Wrong every week as we unearth the chaos behind Hollywood's biggest movie flops and most shocking successes. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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A
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com well, welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, where are we going to start? What are we going to cover? There's so many things that are going on in the world, in the courts. Where do we start? And I want to start here. This was the weekend that marked the official premiere of the docu Bribe. Melania. You know that story. Here's what Jimmy Kimmel had to say about it.
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C
This weekend, the long anticipated documentary Melania will hit theaters. According to the Wall street journal, Melania pocketed $28 million of the licensing fee for the film. You know, between this and her marriage, she's probably the highest paid actress in the world. Melania, the movie is expected to bring in between 1 and 5 million DOL dollars at the box office, well behind the horror movie Send Help, which incidentally would have been a much better title for the documentary.
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A
Well, yes, there's nothing subtle about what's happening here, what Jeff Bezos is doing. But meanwhile, while he's pumping tens of millions of dollars into the Trump family's pockets, he's in the process of inshidifying the Washington Post. So add this to your bulging file of pathetic billionaires. Meanwhile, the FBI raised the election office in Fulton County, Georgia, an ominous warning of what might lie ahead for the mid elections, the 2028 elections. Tulsi Gabbard lurking in the background, Donald Trump putting out these batshit crazy posts about Italian space satellites and China manipulating the election and arresting Barack Obama. Meanwhile, the FBI has also now arrested CNN anchor Don Lemon, independent journalist who was at that church event up in Minneapolis as an independent journalist filming him. And he has now been arrested in even though federal judges said there was no evidence to charge him. And there's obvious First Amendment implications. We now have some more Epstein files. What's in those files? But overshadowing everything has been what has happened in Minneapolis and the blowback to the murder of Alex Preddy. We've seen the alleged de escalation, but also Donald Trump is out now attacking Preddy again. There are new videos about Alex Preddy, but I now that we recorded this podcast moments before the Justice Department announced that it was in fact reversing its position and that it would have a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Preddy. Now, the caveat here is that this is Pam Bondi's Department of Justice. So what will they investigate? How will they investigate it? What will we actually learn? Will it mean an end to the COVID up or is it just a new phase of the COVID up? We don't know. But I just wanted to point out that this podcast was recorded before the announcement that they would in fact have a civil rights investigation. But there's so much going on and we need to take a deep dive into a very, very dark week. So to help us sort all this out, we are very fortunate today to be joined by Christy Greenberg, who's the host of the YouTube show Courtside with Christy Greenberg, a former deputy chief of the criminal Division of the U.S. attorney's Office for the South Southern District of New York and a legal analyst for Ms. Now. So, first of all, welcome to the show, Christy.
- [04:20]
D
Thanks for having me.
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A
Do you wake up some mornings just thinking, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe that this is real life. I mean, really having done what you've done.
- [04:32]
D
Yeah. Every day it's new chaos and it's new. It's death by a thousand cuts for the rule of law in this country. Every day it's something else that when you think you can't be surprised anymore and can't be any more disgusted, something new happens from this administration that manages.
- [04:52]
A
To shock the conscience in just the last few days. Look, I want to do a deep dive into the non investigation into the shooters of Renee Good and Alex Brady. I want to talk about the ice tactics in Minneapolis where we're going, and remind people that the Epstein files are still out there. But I wanted to ask you about the story that broke early Friday morning about the arrest of Don Lemon, former CNN host, who was arrested by the FBI apparently on the direct orders of the attorney General. So give me your thoughts about what's going on there and what this means for the administration's obvious offensive against the First Amendment.
- [05:34]
D
Well, usually when a judge tells a prosecutor there's no evidence here of a conspiracy, there's no evidence here of a crime, usually the prosecutor does one of two Things either says, ok, you know, let. Let's move on, or the prosecutor says, look, I disagree. I think there's something here. Let me see if I can beef up what I've got. Let me see if I can show more evidence, more information to the judge or to a grand jury to. To be able to support the charges. But what you don't do is what these prosecutors have done, which is it doesn't seem like they've changed their case at all. It just seems like they've tried to continue to appeal to somebody else. They, they went to. There was a magistrate judge who initially said, not there. They then appealed to the district court judge, which is unheard of. District court judge, who is a conservative, said, no, this is not how this works. I'm not looking at this. There is no national security emergency here. And then they went to the 8th Circuit, to the appeals court and tried to get arrest warrants. I mean, this is, again, so abnormal. I can't think of a situation, not only in the Southern District of New York, but anywhere where prosecutors have done that, especially in a case where this was not a national security emergency. You know, I wonder, with that kind of language and that kind of urgency, I expect, fully expect, that these prosecutors will seek to detain Don Lemon, given the way that they are speaking, which is outrageous, because I don't think there's any credible evidence here that, that he engaged in any force or threat of force or violence. He was just filming other people who are protesting in a church. So.
- [07:18]
A
And that's what makes this different.
- [07:19]
D
Sorry.
- [07:20]
A
Yeah, that's what makes this different. Right. Is he was there. He was actually filming. Now, whether whether or not you consider him a journalist or not, this feels like a different sort of a case than someone coming in and, you know, throwing a stink bomb into a church or something like that. This did not happen here.
- [07:38]
D
Right. And for these kinds of violations, you need some kind of force or threat of force or intimidation, some kind of physical, physical obstruction that you can't just be there observing and filming. That's not a crime.
- [07:51]
A
So you mentioned national security emergencies. Yet one of the other big stories of the week was this rather extraordinary FBI raid on the Fulton county election office as Donald Trump continues to try to weaponize the DOJ to support the big lie. And one of the weird twists of that was that Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, is skulking around, and I'm sure you saw Trump went off on this mad tirade on social media where he's Saying, you know, arrests are coming, arrest Barack Obama. He is relitigating many of the debunked theories. He's actually bringing up the Italian space satellite switching vote thing again. I mean, for people who are like, don't worry too much about whether or not Trump is going to mess with the elections, this felt like a really sort of an ominous signal of what they are prepared to do. What was your take?
- [08:52]
D
I completely agree with you. I think it seems to always come back to the elections. Not only do we see that in Georgia, where he is just fixated on continuing to try to litigate the 2020 election, but you even saw it when he was talking about the tragic deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. He talked about the fact that, you know Renee Goode, that her parents were Trump supporters. And so weird.
- [09:21]
A
It's all about him, right? It's always about him.
- [09:23]
D
Always about him. And in that situation, Pam Bondi said, well, look, there are ways to get out of this in Minnesota. And among them, there were three things she mentioned. Share the food stamp data, you know, stop your sanctuary policies, and third, give us your voter rolls. So it always seems to come back to the election. So for anybody thinking that this is going to be a cakewalk in 2026, I mean, I don't think recent history should give us any confidence that they're not going to pull some stunts here for the midterms.
- [09:57]
A
So let's go back to Minneapolis because this was an incredible week where you did feel like the earth was kind of shifting under our feet with public op, you know, Donald Trump, you know, faced with the incredible blowback to the videos of Alex Preddy that show that his administration had been consistently lying, one lie after another. So Kristi Noem sidelined somewhat, Greg Bevino, the sort of, you know, coast playing Himmler apparently sacked. And they bring in Tom Homan. Lots of talk about new tone, pulling people back, deescalating. What is your sense about what's changed and what has not changed in Minneapolis?
- [10:40]
D
Well, even this, I believe it was either last night or this morning. Donald Trump was calling Alex Preddy an insurrectionist. So I don't know that maybe that change in tone was temporary because it seems like he's right back at it, smearing the victim. And honestly, I know there was a video that came out of an encounter that Alex Preddy had with law enforcement 11 days prior to the shooting. And frankly, I mean, you know, in terms of this, the legal matter here, I mean, it's a red herring. It's irrelevant what happened 11 days prior. What mattered was, was the officer's use of force objectively reasonable at the time? And when you're using deadly force, the question is, was it, were you in danger of imminent death or imminent, you know, serious injury? So what happened 11 days before, it's just not relevant to any inquiry here that investigators should be doing. And the fact that they aren't doing it, they're refusing to do that investigation. When, when an officer shot somebody 10 times and the man is dead. And in the case of Renee Good, I believe it was four times and. And is dead. The fact that there's not even questions being asked and I mean that is, that is outrageous. We should be outraged. I mean it is. And not only that, if you're not going to investigate to then refuse to share the ev. Minnesota state authorities who want to investigate now. I mean, it looks like a cover up. It is a cover up. When you won't share the evidence and let anybody look at it.
- [12:17]
A
Well, I'm gonna come back to that in just a second. But to your point about the way that maga, a lot of right wing media seized upon that old video of Alex Preddy maybe kicking the taillight of the car, I think it just kind of shows their desperation to take the narrative back. The narrative got away from them so quickly and so decisively. I mean, you could just see, I've talked about this before. I think you really got the sense that they were losing the normies, even the non political normies. This broke through in a very, very dramatic way. Their lies were so obvious. I mean at some point you would think that even, well, forget the hardcore MAGA types, but the MAGA adjacent types are going to go. These people lie with such facility, with such readiness. What should we believe them about? Not to mention the incredible reversal on second amendment rights where even the NRA said whoa, whoa, whoa, this has gone too far. So I thought that was absurd. To your point, whatever he did 11 days before does not justify shooting him in the back of the head and then shooting him 10 times. There's no relationship whatsoever. But you're making a really important point here. The status of the investigation. Normally, let's talk about this. Normally, if a police officer or a federal agent shoots and kills somebody, there is going to be an investigation. Normally they're taken off duty immediately. That eventually happened here. But as far as you update me, we do not know the name of the agents who shot and killed Alex Preddy. Even now, after all of this time. That's correct. How can we not know that?
- [14:00]
D
That's correct. There's been a real push from this administration to not only physically mask agents in the street to make sure they're not wearing identification so that you don't know who they are. And, you know, we still don't know their names. You're even seeing it with something like the Epstein files. Where in the Epstein files that have been released, you have the prosecutor's names redacted, you have the law enforcement agencies names redacted. I mean, even in the filings, it's only the U.S. attorney who files and not line prosecutors. That is not. I mean, that's just not how it's done. I, I understand that there can be concerns for safety, but this is the job. I mean, I prosecuted violent criminals, murder cases, gang cases. My name was on the, the, you know, the, the filings. Like, people knew who I was, people knew who the agents were. If, especially if we had hearings and they had to testify. That's, that's just the job. And there is a public interest in knowing who these people are so that you can ask them questions, so that you can follow up. And it seems like this administration, again, doesn't want anybody to inquire, who are these people? What was their background? What was their training? How long have they been, you know, members of ice? You know, do they have any criminal backgrounds? Were they at January 6th? I mean, there are lots of questions that people are asking about who these people are because their conduct was so outrageous, and the fact that not only is the administration not asking them, but again, they're preventing us from knowing who these people are so that the media can't ask the questions. And again, state authorities can't ask the questions. It is, it is a, you know, it is not a bug. It's. It's a feature of the system. It is what they're trying to do. They want anonymity for agents, because with anonymity, I think, comes maybe some greater sense that they can act outside the bounds of the law. It seems very much that that is being encouraged by this administration. When you, JD Vance and Stephen Miller.
- [16:02]
A
Saying you have absolute immunity, absolute immunity and anonymity. Right?
- [16:08]
D
Yeah.
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A
You have absolute immunity, anonymity, and we will not investigate you. There will be no Department of Justice investigation into the murder of these two unarmed protesters.
- [16:21]
D
Right.
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A
What could go wrong?
- [16:23]
D
And again, I mean, there is no. Legally, they don't have absolute immunity, but in effect, they actually do, because when the federal agencies won't investigate them and they won't Share the evidence with the state authorities who can investigate them, then in effect they are immune. And again then they're anonymous. And so the media can't ask questions. They're setting up a very dangerous system where it's just a permission slip for lawlessness.
- [16:52]
A
And we've seen that. So talk to me a little bit about this. So JD Vance claims and Stephen Miller claims they have complete immunity because they're federal agents. Talk to me about the law there. You just said they are not actually immune. What is their status?
- [17:08]
D
Look, so these are tough cases to make. When federal agents are acting and engaging in their federal duties as federal law enforcement officers, there is immunity for carrying out those duties. However, when you are acting so beyond the bounds of what your duties are, again, that's a factual question at that point as to whether or not these agents were actually, you know, going well outside the scope of their jobs. I would argue in each of these cases that they were. So the, the immunity is not absolute by any stretch. It is a hurdle to overcome for sure. It's going to be litigated in any case, but it is not absolute, not by a long shot. And we, we've seen that in cases. We saw that in George Floyd's case in, in Minnesota. So these cases can be successfully prosecuted. They're tough. But again, when you have in the case of Alex Preddy, a lifeless body and after he's already been shot four times, two agents then shot him six more times, it's not a hard case to make for excessive force. Anybody with eyes can tell that that was excessive. I think the same thing for Renee Goode. The first shot people can debate. I thought that was excessive. Clearly I thought he could have stood out of the way of the car. But the second and third shot where he is to the the side of her car, not in its path and he just shoots right at her head. Again, these don't seem like particularly difficult cases. Anybody should just believe their eyes to know that this was wrong.
- [18:51]
A
Well, you mentioned George Floyd and this reminds me of just the game changing power of citizens with cell phones and cameras. Because you wonder what happened in the era before those cameras were around. You know, the police would always say it was in self defense or the person did that. And I think there were a lot of Americans who were inclined to give the law enforcement agency or the police the benefit of the doubt. Now, as you point out, you are seeing the evidence with your own eyes. It is dramatic, the effect. I do think that as we look back on this last week, These little platoons of Minnesotan with those cell phones accomplished what a lot of ranting and raving and protests and acts of Congress were not able to do. They were able to document exactly what happened in the way that we've been discussing. And as Americans saw that, it shocked their conscience. But let's go back to a key point that you made earlier, that what we are seeing is not just the murder of these two unarmed protesters and then the attempt to smear them and lie about them, but there is an ongoing, and you use the word cover up about this. And I guess the question is, can you break that? Can we break the COVID up? Can the federal government actually keep this, you know, can they keep this information secret? What are the outlets to be able to break it, if any?
- [20:25]
D
Yeah. So Minnesota state officials have gone to court over this. They have, have asked a judge, please instruct the federal government to preserve the evidence. And a judge actually then issued an order saying to the federal government, to the Department of Justice, you cannot destroy or alter evidence. I mean, just take a step back at how extraordinary that is, that such an order was not only applied for, but actually granted and issued, that it was deemed necessary. So again, assuming that this DOJ actually complies with that order, we've seen time and time again with this administration that they consider judicial orders to be suggestions.
- [21:09]
A
Suggestions.
- [21:10]
D
But, but, you know, assuming they comply, the evidence will be there. You know, statute of limitations, at least in Minnesota state for, for murder charges, for these charges, that there isn't one. So. So, you know, in theory at least, you know, they could potentially, if the evidence was shared with them at a later time by a different Department of Justice, they could bring charges. However, you know, that makes it all that much harder. If you don't have access to witnesses, memories fade. If you don't have or are not able to speak to people on the ground to identify who was there to gain access to the forensic at the time. You know, things like in Renee Goode case, you want, you want to access the car in particular. That would be a very important piece of evidence. In Alex Preddy's case, you want access to his phone. He was filming for most of the time. You want to be able to pick up on that interaction. Any body cam videos. You want to see that now, you don't want to see that years from now.
- [22:12]
A
Who has Alex Pretty's phone right now? Who has Alex Pretty's phone today?
- [22:17]
D
So from what I gather, I don't know that this has been, you know, clearly stated, but The Department of Homeland Security is conducting an investigation into the agents. Not a criminal investigation, but an. An investigation to see if they failed to follow protocol, which is absurd. And then they are investigating a criminal investigation of Alex Preddy, the victim, not the people who killed him, the victim. So presumably the Department of Homeland Security that's conducting that criminal investigation has possession of Alex Preddy's phone. Again, outrageous.
- [22:56]
E
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- [23:36]
A
So how optimistic are you that Renee Goode and Alex Pradi will ultimately get justice?
- [23:45]
D
I think a lot of that is up to us and thank goodness for the very brave people in Minnesota who continue to protest and keep this top of mind in the news cycle for us. But you know, I just, I worry with this administration that, you know, today's outrage, you know, fades away to the next day's outrage. And it's not anybody's fault. It's just there's so much going on that it's, it's hard to keep track. So I do hope for their families and really for all of us who are really just taking a step back, appalled at a lot of the tactics that ICE and Border Patrol agents are engaged in these days, that it doesn't go away, that people continue to demand justice. And I think if that drumbeat keeps happening, that maybe there will be some accountability at a minimum. A civil lawsuit. It sounds like both families have retained counsel and may be looking for remedies there, which again, are difficult to get. But given how awful the facts that are already publicly known are, I like their chances at least in a civil lawsuit.
- [24:57]
A
So you mentioned the tactics of the ICE agents and this is one thing that can you continues to be shocking to the average person who's watching these videos. Breaking the windows of cars, cutting people's seatbelts, dragging elderly men out of their houses, using five year old boys as bait. And the fact that, and I'm really glad that the New York Times and the Washington Post did a deep dive into the militarization of ice because you look at these pictures and you go.
- [25:25]
D
What do you think?
- [25:26]
A
You like parachuting into Fallujah? You're in an American city. City. You're in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, of all places, and you are kitted out with all of this weaponry and not just the masks, but I'm sure you saw the story in the New York Times and the Washington Post how they're using technology and weapons that were designed for war and the way in which they have. I think that a lot of Americans look at that and they go, how do they get away with that? You know, even abusive police departments don't behave this way in this particular way. And I think that that's one of the things that turned public opinion. I want to get your take on this is it really does look like an invading force. You drop 3,000 heavily kitted out, you know, agents who then behave like thugs into a city like Minneapolis, and the chaos becomes too much. But just talk to me a little bit about the tactics they're using and the militarization they're using on American citizens and residents of this country.
- [26:34]
D
So the state officials in Minnesota took this to court and basically said, ICE is out of control. Their tactics are out of control. What they are doing to peaceful protesters is unlawful. And a judge issued a temporary restraining order. And basically, it didn't say a lot that wasn't already reiterating what the law was like. Hey, if you're a peaceful protester, you can't use pepper spray on them. If they're a peaceful protester, they're allowed to film and observe. They're a peaceful protester. You know, you can't stop and detain people unless you have reasonable suspicion to believe they are committing a crime. You know, just really reiterating law was very, you know, as I read the order, you know, pretty basic. And the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals paused it. And I mean, so it's. You wonder, like, where do you go to get relief? I mean, the. They've also gone and said, hey, we need to stop this operation entirely. And the same judge, Judge Menendez said, well, you know, I don't know that I have the authority to do that. That, you know, the num. To say how many numbers of agents should be there. But can we talk about the tactics? She. She actually said at one point during the oral argument, where is your lawsuit about these ICE agents who are going into homes without a judicial warrant, which is completely illegal? We we do have the Fourth Amendment. You cannot do that. She's. Where's that lawsuit? So I don't believe she's issued her order yet. So I don't know. Kind of reading the tea leaves, I'm not sure. She shuts down the whole operation. I don't. It didn't sound like where she was going. But looking at particular tactics that are plainly unlawful, like that one, seems like that should be something the courts can stop them from doing. And yet we see time and again that again, there are many times, I think the judges have said in Minnesota, we're looking at all of these circumstances where there are court orders in detention situations and ICE isn't abiding by them.
- [28:50]
A
This is fascinating to me. The judges up there, including some very, very conservative judges, appear to have reached the end of their tether. Judge Schultz, is that his name, who essentially said, look, ICE is not a law unto itself. And he ran through a list of like 100 court orders they had just completely ignored. And this is somebody who's, I think, was a Scalia clerk and everything. I mean, he's got very solid conservative credentials. And he's looking at them and saying, saying you are like lawless, whether you're Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative. To see a federal agency that is just ignoring. He says ISIS ignored more orders in the last several weeks than most agencies have ignored in there or challenged in their entire history. So it does seem like the judges on the ground are becoming incredibly impatient and frustrated. Is that your sense?
- [29:42]
D
Yes. But then the question is, is, so what. What are you going to do about it?
- [29:47]
A
Right?
- [29:47]
D
Are you going to actually, you know, then issue an order with teeth that actually, you know, impose sanctions? Like there are things you can do, hold people in contempt. Again, Greg Bevino on. Was supposed to be testifying at Friday today was supposed to be testifying in a contempt proceeding, and that got canceled. I don't know if it got canceled because he's no longer in Minnesota now. I don't know if that was maybe part of the reason he's no longer Minnesota is because of that, the threat of that upcoming hearing. But again, every time it seems like with this administration, you start to maybe get towards a real ruling that may mean something, a contempt ruling, it goes away. We saw that with Judge Boasberg in the Alien Enemies that case, when he tried to hold people in contempt and he made preliminary findings of contempt, he was overruled by the appellate court. So I think you are seeing in this way, you know, the how not Only slowly the justice system works. But how loathe the justice system is to really, you know, hold people in contempt and really hold their feet to the fire. If it was anybody else, with normal people, just any day, people, I mean, be held in contempt pretty quickly. But with this administration, it seems like it's been kid gloves and it's frustrating.
- [31:14]
A
Well, this really feels like a crisis for the judiciary because I think many of us had always assumed that if there were egregious abuses of rights that you would be able to turn to the courts, you'd be able to turn to the federal judiciary to make sure that those rights were upheld. So this feels like a massive stress test to be able to do that. I'm not going to say it's a crisis of legitimacy, but people are watching. The other thing that's turned on its head is that for like most of my life, if there was an abuse of civil rights, you would hope that it would be the federal government that would come in and uphold civil rights if state and local officials did not do so. Now we're in the situation where everything is turned on its head and it is the federal officials who are violating the rights. The arsenal of weapons that state and local officials have are, are perhaps, you know, are they adequate to deal with it? Because this is not the way the legal universe has worked up until now. I mean, you go back to the 60s and everything, right? It's the federal, you know, Division of Civil Rights would come in and would, would do something to, to rectify a wrong. What happens when the federal government goes rogue? Can this. Do the states have the ability to push back and, and reassert those rights or not? What do you think?
- [32:33]
D
Think? Yeah, I think we've seen with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights division throughout the years. It's, you know, sometimes it's very active, sometimes it's dormant and priorities change depending on the administration. It is one division where politics really does shape the priorities of the division and what kinds of cases they deem are the civil rights that need to be, you know, need to be serviced and paid attention to and you know, but it is a very important division and to see the just complete abdication of responsibility to investigate again officer shootings, which in the justice manual are considered, you know, high profile civil rights incidents. They require actually, you know, within 72 hours an urgent report to be made to, to, to the division in any such case. The reason for that is because it's obvious that they are always investigated at some level by the Department of Justice. Again, you know, maybe, you know, maybe not all of them are given the same, you know, kind of investigation, but at least some investigation is done by the Department of Justice. Typically, they're considered cases of national importance. And, and so to see it just not be looked at at all, and for the states to have to pick up the slack and, you know, that's naturally tough. That is what the federal government is supposed to be doing. But I'm also confident that, that these state officials, the way that they're talking in Minnesota about this, they have a lot of experience with this. Keith Ellison, the attorney general there is a lot of experience with civil rights. So. So I am confident that they could be able to put together an investigation if they were given access to the evidence. To me, that is the sticking point. They have nowhere to start even getting into whether the laws can apply if they can't get access to the evidence.
- [34:43]
A
So when you were at sdny, you worked on lots of criminal cases with both the Department of Homeland Security and ice. And of course, you know, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino would say that, look, what they're doing up in Minnesota, in other cities, is they are making us safer. They're going after the worst of the worst. They're getting criminals. They're getting criminal aliens off the street. So how do you respond to their argument that they are, in fact there to arrest criminals? And I do think there's a kind of a consensus that if you are an illegal, if you're an illegal immigrant or an undocumented immigrant and you've committed a crime, well, then we probably ought to do something about that. So is that what's happening? Are they, in fact, fact engaging in law enforcement, going after the worst of the worst, the criminals?
- [35:28]
D
So I, I want to make sure. I, I hope I get this right. I believe I was just reading in the New York Times that they had done a look at, with within the first two weeks, I believe, of this operation in Minnesota. How. What, what is the percentage of the people that they are sweeping up that have criminal record records? And I believe it was 8%. So I don't. I. 8. And again, it may be. It's possible I'm misremembering that it's, you know, people who have violent criminal records or criminal records. But it was, it was a very low number of the worst when you're talking about the worst of the worst. And so, you know what I see happening again, I worked a lot of cases where with, with ice it was very different back then. People would come to me as a prosecutor, present me with a file, the person had committed a felony, and you would look to then deporting that person who had then illegally reentered after already having been deported. Those were the kinds of cases we were seeing. And, you know, at the time I was doing that as a junior prosecutor. That was when Barack Obama was our president and it was actually a top priority of his. We did a lot of those immigration cases. A lot of people didn't love those cases, but we did a lot of them because it was a priority of his. And nobody was in, you know, going into anybody's homes without a warrant to do them. They would come to me and my colleagues and we would, we would get them, we would get them search warrants if they needed search warrants. I, I mean, it just, again, it worked. People, people were being deported that were crip. That were violent criminals. And there wasn't this upending of people's rights to do was done lawfully. And I would say it was done lawfully even in the Biden administration and in the first Trump term when I was there and Tom Homan was running ICE at that point. You didn't hear these kinds of stories during that term. You just didn't. So something very different is happening. And I attribute at least part of this to the fact that when Christy Noem came in, I believe it was like February of 2025 to head up, up the Department of Homeland Security. She said that we were going to change the priorities and we are going to take a lot of the people who are working in the Department of Homeland Security in a unit that's known as the Homeland Security Investigations. Right. Those are the hsi. They're the ones who do the criminal investigations. Right. And they do amazing work. I have worked on child exploitation, human trafficking, cybercrime, money laundering. I mean, I've worked, worked great cases with dhs. They are the real deal. HSI agents know how to prosecute serious crimes. And they're taking those individuals who are experienced in identifying criminals and working those cases, prosecuting them, and then deporting them. They're taking them off of those cases and instead putting them on, you know, basically make, basically putting a. Put on your ICE hat. And now you're just going to deport people. And so I would argue, are you going to then deport more illegal aliens by doing that? Yes. But are you actually safer? Are you actually getting the worst of the worst that, that way? Are you actually getting the criminals No, I think you're getting fewer criminals. Again, can I point to any hard data on that? I can, but just, just facts are facts. If you are prioritizing something different, you're taking the people who know how to prosecute criminals who are here illegally, and you are diverting their attention to other things, to just plain immigration enforcement. You are losing a valuable resource in the fight against crime.
- [39:25]
A
You know, as I was listening to you, I was thinking about, you know, the change in emphasis and priorities under Christine Noem. You mentioned that these deportations had been going on under Barack Obama and under Biden, and we didn't hear about them that much. This was clearly one of the big changes, is because Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller et al, and Donald Trump wanted everybody to know about everything, right? So what you've had is one of the big shifts is the almost cinematic, performative cruelty of it. Remember when they went into the. Was it the apartment block in South Shore of Chicago? They actually were rappelling from the helicopters. They made their own sizzle reel, right? They made like a music video, you know, with, you know, music, because they want people to see this. And so a lot of this, and they like the whole Greg Bevino thing, you know, it is cosplay. It is like, we want to show you all this. It's backfired really badly on them, though, right? That rather than do the job and do it efficiently, they figured, you know, screw that. We just want to look like, you know, we're. We're in this Rambo movie with a Michael Bay soundtrack to it.
- [40:37]
D
And when you see for me, the enduring image of Kristi Noem is when she went to Sicot, that awful prison in El Salvador, and she took a photo of herself in front of all of these men who are crammed together in a cell and, you know, a place that is well known for torture. And she used that as a photo op. That was like her step and repeat. And I mean, that is a woman who just lacks any humanity. I mean, she is out there. I mean, there were just so many examples. I mean, you mentioned Chicago, another example that got some coverage, but I don't know that it got as much as it should have was the case of, I think it was maybe close to 100 or so Guatemalan children who in the middle of the night were in various shelters, foster homes, in the middle of the night being snatched from their beds and then brought to a plane to deport them. And luckily, lawyers were able to stop them when they were on the plane. I mean, and then the administration lied and said, oh, well, their families want them back in Guatemala, which turned out most of them didn't have family or if they did, their families didn't say they wanted them back. And just a lot of lies and cover ups. And again, how are you snatching children in the middle of the night, these poor terrified children? I mean, what are you doing? Just the cruelty is the point. Because they, they clearly with all of this militarization of it, they, they know they can't get the numbers just from the deportations alone that they want. I mean, Stephen Miller had said 3,000 arrests a day. They know they can't get to that number. So what do you have to do? You have to hope people leave. You are trying to scare people into leaving.
- [42:31]
A
Fear is the point.
- [42:32]
D
Feeling this isn't their home. That part of the objective of all of this. It is not just that Kristi Noem enjoys putting on all the gear, which I think she does, but they, they don't want, want to just look tough. They're, they're sending a very intentional message to people in this country. And the question is, when you see the pushback in Minnesota of people saying, no, these are our neighbors, these aren't the worst of the worst, like you, you are taking people who are the fabric of our community and we don't like it and we're going to stand up for them. It's really a beautiful thing to see. It's such a stark contrast to the militarization that we're seeing from the administration.
- [43:09]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, the point's been made before. But do remember, I think everybody needs to remember that one of the reasons Christy Noem got her job, one of the first items on her resume for that position was her willingness to shoot her puppy in the face. Right. As a willingness to do anything. So when you basically say, yeah, the woman who killed the puppy, that's who I want to be in charge of, of this. What a surprise when it turns out that cruelty and brutality is the point of all that. Let's switch gears because with everything that's been happening between Greenland and Minneapolis, there are a lot of people say, well, whatever happened to the Epstein files? And we have had some filings about all of that. They are still there. We still have not seen them. And since one of the themes of our conversation here is cover ups, the COVID up in Minneapolis, talk to me about where we're at on the Epstein files and whether or not you see an ongoing, in real time cover up of what we were promised we were going to see and what Congress actually passed a law demanding that we see.
- [44:12]
D
So just before we started this interview, Todd Blanche said that I guess 3 million, I don't know if it's documents or pages have now been released from the Epstein files. So that will be a lot to, to get through and review a few things. He said, don't give me a whole lot of comfort that even the pages we are getting are going to be pages that are digestible. I think we're going to see a whole lot of redactions, a whole lot that's been withheld. And you know, he, he's given at least in a letter to Congress, reasons for that. He says, first it's about protecting the victims, which everybody agrees with, right? Nobody wants the victims names and personal information, things like their medical history, their sexual history. None of that should be public. Everybody agrees that they should be taking the time to redact that information. But then he also said, well, there's a lot of other stuff they're going to hide and they're going, the way they're going to hide it is by saying, well, there are all these privileges in the law that we can claim it. And he said, and the way that he messages it is, he said, we're withholding things, redacting things that are required by law. And I just want to be clear, when the government asserts these privileges like attorney client privilege or attorney work product privilege or you know, deliberative process privileges, those are not required by law. That is an affirmative choice that the department is making to say, I am claiming this privilege. It is just as easy for the department to say we're going to waive this privilege and we're going to share this information with the public. So it's a choice. Their hands are not tied. And when you look at things like attorney client, attorney client privilege, you know, begs the question, who's the client? Who I would argue the client is us, the public. But I do believe, you know, Todd Blanche had, was Donald Trump's former attorney before he was president. And I believe he still, still his client now. And so today Todd Blanche said again, just before coming to start this interview, I heard him say that, you know, nobody from the White House told us what to redact. But that doesn't ring true. Even if they didn't, I mean, we've seen Donald Trump say enough times that he's concerned about things that are in the Epstein files and that only credible evidence should be released. He has said that they also once they found Donald Trump's name in the files, then went back to report that to Donald Trump, which is not something prosecutors would ever do to let somebody whose name is in a criminal case file know that it's there and brief them on it. But that's what they did. So, you know, I have a hard time thinking that there aren't. There isn't coordination like he's saying. I mean, that just that that defies what has happened in the past year on this. But, you know, again, even if it wasn't explicit, it, you know, they understand the assignment and they. I would be very stunned if anything that is highly damaging to Donald Trump comes out in these files. I think there is something in there. I'm not saying it's criminal, but I think there's something in there he does not want us to see. Because otherwise, why not just release them like you said you would?
- [47:32]
A
Exactly.
- [47:33]
D
That's bothering him.
- [47:34]
A
Right?
- [47:34]
D
Whatever that is, I don't think we'll see it.
- [47:37]
A
Okay. This, of course, you know, goes to the heart of it, which is the amount of political capital that Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress have been willing to spend in keeping these records out of the public eye. If there's nothing there, then why are they behaving the way they are? And the extraordinary thing about it is that Donald Trump has proved that he's Teflon on a pretty wide range of behavior. Shooting people in the middle of Fifth Avenue, grabbing women, doing all of these things. And he has politically survived. He's gotten his base to accept all of. Of that. So what is it in these files that would be different from that? Because I think he thinks he can survive pretty much anything, and he probably can when it comes to his base. So the amount of effort he's putting in, I can't even imagine what it might. Well, actually, I can imagine. I can imagine rather graphically what it is, but I agree with you. I don't think that we're going to see this before the end of the term. Christy Greenberg, thank you so much for appearing on the podcast today. And Christy is the host of the YouTube show Courtside with Christy Greenberg and definitely subscribe to that as well. Again, thank you, Christy.
- [48:43]
D
Thanks for having me.
- [48:45]
A
And thank you all for listening to this weekend's episode of to the Contrary Podcast. I'm Charlie Sacks. You know why we do this, why we continue to do this? Because as many times as I say it, I think we constantly need to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [49:17]
F
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- [50:20]
G
Um, can we stop at a bathroom?
- [50:21]
D
Are you alright?
- [50:22]
G
And keep having stomach issues after eating like diarrhea, gas and bloating, abdominal pain and sometimes oily stools.
- [50:29]
B
Sound familiar? Those stomach issues may actually be a pancreas issue called exocrine pancreatic insufficiency or epi. Creon pancrelipase may help manage epi. Creon is a prescription medicine used to treat people who can't digest food normally because their pancreas doesn't make enough enzymes.
- [50:45]
H
Creon may increase your chance of fibrosing colonopathy, a rare bowel disorder. Tell your doctor if you have a history of intestinal blockage or scarring or thickening of your bowel wall. If you are allergic to port or if you have gout, kidney problems or worsening of painful SW joints. Call your doctor if you have any unusual or severe gastrointestinal symptoms or allergic reactions. Take Creon as directed by your doctor and always with food. Do not chew capsules as this may cause mouth irritation. Other side effects may include blood sugar changes, gas, dizziness, sore throat and cough. These are not all the side effects of Creon. Call 800-633-9110 or visit creoninfo.com to learn more. That's creoninfo.com I'm asking my doctor about.
- [51:15]
D
Epi and if Creon could help.
- [51:18]
G
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