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UNBIASED Politics
February 2, 2026: What the Epstein Files Release Revealed PLUS Listener Q&A; Don Lemon's Arrest and Partial Government Shutdown Explained.
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Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com, start for free, and finally breathe. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, February 2nd. We definitely have a lot to talk about, but. But first, I just want to give you a heads up that while this episode was delayed a bit, it didn't come out until a little bit later than it usually does. I did end the news cycle for this episode earlier this afternoon as I typically would. So any news that broke later in the day today will be included in Thursday's episode. Let's start today's episode with the big news story from Friday, which is the release of roughly 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 pictures related to the DOJ's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. All right, so this is how we're going to do this. First, I will start with a summary of sorts. I'll kind of tell you how we got here, why these files were released, and briefly what they consist of. From there, we'll go right into a Q and A because you guys had so many questions. And I think by answering all of those questions, we will adequately cover this story. So let's start by zooming out and looking at the big picture. Jeffrey Epstein, as we all know at this point, is most famous for sex trafficking and sexual abuse of minors as well, specifically exploiting hundreds of underage Girls in the 2000s at multiple personal properties in New Jersey, Florida, the US Virgin Islands and Manhattan. Now, outside of his sex trafficking scheme, he was a very, very well connected person. Person because he managed the assets of a lot of really wealthy clients. We're talking like billionaires. So people like Les Wexner, the founder of L Brands, Leon Black, the, the chairman of Apollo Management, and. And these people paid him a lot of money. According to the Senate Finance Committee, Leon Black alone paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning services. That was just one wealthy client. So Epstein had a lot of money and with that money, he bought various properties around the world. And he was in the same circle as a lot of powerful people. Starting in the 2000s, allegations of sexual abuse started to come out against Epstein. The first formal allegation started in 2005 when Palm Beach, Florida, police investigated a report that he had sexually abused a 14 year old girl. The parents of this 14 year old girl had gone to the police and told them that Epstein had paid her for a massage and ended up sexually abusing her. That investigation ultimately led officials to identify more than 30 other victims, with multiple victims being high school girls that had come forward and told police they were also paid to give these sexual massages. Then in May 2006, Palm Beach Police officials signed paperwork to charge Epstein with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor. But the Palm Beach. Palm Beach County's top prosecutor, State attorney Barry Kreischer, decided that the case was going to get sent to a grand jury instead. And two months later, in July of 2006, a grand jury indicts Epstein on a single count of felony solicitation of prostitution. However, because the Palm beach police chief and the lead detective within the Palm Beach Police Department didn't like the fact that the state attorney went ahead and made the decision to take the case to a grand jury and only present a single prostitution charge, they got the FBI involved and they basically told the FBI, hey, you guys need to open a federal investigation into this. And the FBI ended up finding even more victims. And in May 2007, the assistant U.S. attorney who worked on the case submitted a 60 count draft indictment to her supervisors, along with this very long memo that essentially summarized the evidence she had put together in support of the charges. Two months later, at a July meeting with Epstein's attorneys, the U.S. attorney's office, which was led by Alex Acosta, who we will talk more about later, offered to basically end the federal investigation into Epstein if Epstein agreed to certain conditions. So one of those conditions was pleading guilty to the state charge against him, plus an additional state charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. The second condition was agreeing to to recommend that the state court sentence him to serve 18 months in county jail, followed by 12 months of house arrest. The third condition was registering as a sex offender in Florida. And the fourth condition was agreeing to some sort of financial settlement with the victims. And this was called, this is called a non prosecution agreement, which I will explain in just a second. But one of the more controversial aspects of this non prosecution agreement was the fact that none of the victims were informed of or consulted about the. Well one, the non prosecution agreement itself before Epstein signed it, or the, the potential resolution of the state case. And under law they had to be notified. And again, we'll talk about that more in a minute too. So a non prosecution agreement is an agreement between prosecutors and the defendant where the prosecution basically says we won't file charges against you so long as you satisfy these conditions. And that's what Epstein did. He, he signed this agreement and he ended up pleading guilty to the state charges and, you know, carrying out those other three conditions. And in exchange, he was never federally prosecuted. And not only that, but then the non prosecution agreement barred future federal prosecution as well. So when Epstein pleads guilty to the state charges, he ends up getting an 18 month sentence and he serves 13 of those 18 months. And I should mention too, that during those 13 months, he was allowed to leave the jail every day, Monday through Friday, and to go to work and work from his office in palm beach for 12 hours a day. So he really only spent nights and weekends in the jail. But nonetheless, that's what happened. He signs this very non, very controversial non prosecution agreement with federal officials and ends up serving time for his state charges. Now, you might ask, why in the world would federal prosecutors offer him this kind of deal if they had the evidence to charge him with multiple federal crimes? And we don't really know. According to prosecutors, it's because they thought they were going to have a difficult time prosecuting this case and they wanted some sort of final resolution that would result in some jail time. Other people, though, think that, you know, Jeffrey's legal team and his connections had a lot to do with it. So Epstein had a lot of attorneys on his team that were former federal prosecutors themselves and were pretty well connected. Epstein's connections outside of his legal team were also very powerful, as we know. So. So another theory is that those powerful people were able to get to the federal prosecutors and have them agree to this non prosecution agreement that would block any additional federal investigation. But regardless of what the real reason for the deal was, Epstein gets shielded from federal charges and he serves 13 months in a Palm beach county jail. He gets out of jail in 2009, and for the next 10 years or so, multiple women who, you know, know, say they're victims of Epstein attempt to get Epstein's non prosecution agreement voided on the basis that they were never consulted about the agreement. And there's a federal law called the Crime Victims Rights act that says victims are entitled to advance notice of a plea deal and an opportunity to be heard. And courts have also extended this advanced notice requirement to non prosecution agreements. And eventually a judge did find that the non prosecution agreement that Epstein signed was in fact illegal for this reason. But in 2018, which was almost two years after Trump took office, and that's relevant because Trump had appointed Alex Acosta as his labor secretary, the Miami Herald, which is a newspaper based in Miami, obviously revisits the handling of the Epstein case, specifically focusing on Acosta's handling of Epstein's non prosecution agreement. And that investigation sparked renewed public interest. And in the middle of 2019, Epstein is arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in New York. New York federal prosecutors basically argued that they were not bound by the terms of the earlier non prosecution agreement because that agreement was only binding on the U.S. attorney's office in Florida. So Epstein is arrested in 2019, this time on federal charges, specifically sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. At this point, Alex Acosta resigns as Trump's Labor Secretary because of the public criticism that followed the Miami Herald investigation. And just one month after Epstein's arrest, he's found dead in his jail cell. His death was officially ruled a suicide, but there are, of course, many other theories surrounding his death. Most notably that one of Epstein's high profile associates, who didn't want their name exposed, hired someone to kill him in his cell. So that, you know, more did not come out in the prosecution of Epstein. In 2023, four years after Epstein's death, a judge in New York ordered the unsealing of thousands of documents related to Epstein's federal prosecution in New York. And since then, documents have been released on a rolling basis, but we never really learned anything that we didn't already know. You know, we knew for sure that Epstein was trafficking a lot of girls, some underage. We knew that Epstein associated with some pretty high profile people and had them at his island. We knew that there were many, many names mentioned in the files, but we never really knew exactly who was involved in illegal acts and, and to what extent, and to what extent they had a relationship with Epstein. There was a lot that was still unknown. So over the last year or so, Congress has really pushed to get all of the documents released. And at the end of last year, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency act, which required the DOJ to release all unclassified Epstein records in its possession. There were a few exceptions here, so, you know, victims names had to be redacted and any material that depicted child sexual abuse had to be redacted. There were also a few other exceptions, but that is why we're here. Okay, so that law passed Congress. It gave the DOJ a December 19 deadline. December 19 came and went. Now we're here. The files have been released. Before we get to the Q and A, I want to make note of a few things. Number one, this release includes a lot, okay? Pictures, videos, court records, FBI documents. Doj documents, news clippings, emails, tips, I mean, a lot of stuff. We typically never see this much in any given case. So we're being flooded with lots and lots of information. And with that, we're seeing a lot of information on social media without a lot of context. So as we go through these questions, I'm going to do my best to add as much context as I can. The second thing I want to say is that because this release consists of so much I, it's not going to be possible for me to touch on everything. So for today's Q A, I'm going to focus on the more general questions, like why the files were released now, how to tell whether certain files are real or doctored, whether the Trump allegations are real, whether charges can be filed against the people named in the files, etc. Then on Thursday, if time allows, in that episode, what I think I'll do is answer some of the more specific questions that you guys had about specific people. Right? So the claim about Bill Gates's std, Elon Musk's emails to Epstein, other high profile people in the files, whether Zo, wrong mom, Donnie was included in the files, things like that, more specific, tailored questions. So hopefully that works for everyone. We'll start with the first question in today's Q and A, which is why did they release the files? Now, amongst all the other issues and current events, big picture, the DOJ released the files now because they were required to by law. And as I just mentioned, the DOJ was supposed to release all of the unclassified files in its possession by December 19th of this past year, which was the deadline that Congress set. But the DOJ ended up taking longer than that because it said that it needed time to thoroughly review for redactions. We now know that despite them taking extra time to review, some of the documents released do in fact contain victims names. So it appears the DOJ's review was not thorough enough. In fact, some victims have since filed a lawsuit asking that these files be taken down and the proper redactions be made. But the short answer here is that the DOJ released these files now because, you know, regardless of everything else going on, there's always going to be other things going on. But it was required to by law, and it was already more than a month past the deadline that Congress had set. Next question is, how do we tell which files are authentic versus doctored online? Now, I picked this question because I think it's important to talk about and I want to tell you guys how you can actually verify these documents yourself. So my best advice here would be, number one, obviously only rely on reputable sources that you trust. Right? I wouldn't necessarily look at a screenshot or a picture posted by a random social media account and believe it. If a more mainstream outlet or an independent journalist that you trust and is reporting on the same thing, then you can trust it. Because the reality is, you know, the bigger the claim, obviously the more likely that more trustworthy sources will be reporting on it as well. And then two, you can always cross check most things on the DOJ's website and obviously this takes some time, but it's possible to do so if you go to justice.gov Epstein you can search through all of these files yourself. There is a text box search on the website. You just type in a keyword and it'll pull up all of the files that contain that word. That would be your best bet at verifying authentic files. Unfortunately, in the world of AI, you kind of have to approach things with a bit of doubt. But if you see multiple reputable sources reporting on the same thing, that's a good sign that you know whatever it is is authentic. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll finish the Q A and then we'll move on to some other stories. 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That's Zocdoc.comunbiased Zocdoc.comunbiased Thanks Zocdoc for sponsoring this message. Welcome back. Moving right along with the Q A, are the Trump parts real? And then someone asked a more specific question which was was that clip about measuring vulvas really in there? I think by clip this person meant like complaint or passage or something. There's no video clip of that. But as I answer this question, I am going to walk through some allegations that are a bit vulgar. So I would just caution you, if you're listening with your kids, maybe just skip this question and come back to it later in saying that perhaps one of the most talked about parts of the files has been this list of tips that were received over the years by the FBI National Threat Operations center that specifically mention Trump. So to give you some more context, this specific list of allegations, okay, you may have seen it on social media. There's like yellow, yellow highlights in it. And it's basically a list of all of the allegations that have come into the FBI that mention Trump. That list is actually a list that was just compiled last year in August. It is not clear why the list was created by the FBI so recently, but but it was a list that was included in emails that were sent by Officials in the FBI's New York field office on the child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. So we don't know if this task force in the FBI's New York field office was looking into these allegations further or if this was a list that was requested by administration officials. We, we don't know. But it's a, it's a list that specifically lays out the tips that the FBI has received that mention Trump and I'll read through a few of the allegations on that list. I do want to preface it by saying these are allegations and we'll talk about, you know, the response, if any, that, that the FBI offered to these tips. But the. I do. I just want to be clear that these are allegations. So one of the allegations, and this is the one that some of you specifically asked about, it says, quote, donald Trump, the president had parties at Mar? A Lago called Calendar Girls. Jeffrey Epstein would bring the children in and Trump would auction them off. He measured the children's vulva and vaginas by entering a finger, rating the children on tightness. The guests were elder men and Elon Musk, Don Jr. Ivanka and Eric were also there. Attorney Alan Dershowitz was also there with attorney Bob Shapiro. We were taken in rooms, forced to give oral sex to Donald J. Trump, forced allow them to penetrate us. I was 13 years old when Donald J. Trump raped me. End quote. The complainant also wrote that Ghislaine Maxwell and Ivanka Trump were witnesses to the crime. The complainant wrote that it's been going on for 20 plus years and that Maxwell had brought the girls into the United States from a van in Mexico and told them they were going to foster care in America. Now, we know that this tip came in on July 7, 2020, and we also know the IP address that the tip came from was tracked to Ontario, Canada. But the first and last name of the complainant have been redacted and there was no contact information submitted with this tip. You so it doesn't appear to have been followed up on another tip summarized by the FBI reads, quote, online complainant reported she was a victim and witness to a sex trafficking ring at the Trump Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California between 1995 and 1996. Complainant reported Ghislaine Maxwell as the madam and broker for sex parties, clients of whom included Epstein, Robert Leach and Donald Trump. Complainant reported participating in orgies and that some girls went missing, rumored to have been murdered and buried at the facility. Complainant reported being threatened by Trump's then head of security that if she ever talked of what went on there, or who she saw she would, quote, end up as the fertilizer for the back nine holes like the other cunts, end quote. That tip was submitted on July 8, 2020. So one day after the previous tip, and that came from an IP address tracked to California. The FBI noted that the complainant was spoken to and deemed not credible, and that upon further research, the FBI found that the complainant was involved in three separate incidents in which police requested mandatory psychiatric evaluations. Another complaint submitted to the FBI was summarized and says the following, quote, redacted. Reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in New Jersey. That friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13 to 14 years old when this occurred. The friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein, end quote. Now, we don't have a submission date for this tip because the actual complaint document has since been removed from the DOJ's website. However, in the summary list of complaints provided by the New York Field Office Task Force, the FBI did make a note that it had spoken with the caller who identified the friend, and that the lead was sent to the Washington Field office to conduct an interview. And I do just quickly want to talk about this. This page that was taken down. So I just mentioned the. The complaint document was removed from the DOJ, DOJ's website. And I know that a lot of you asked whether it was true that the DOJ had taken down pages naming Trump since the release, and the answer is yes. We don't know why certain pages have been removed from the DOJ's website, but they. They. They have been. It could be because there's personally identifiable information about victims. It could be something else. We don't know. That third tip that we just talked about, the one that I said had been taken down, I have a hunch that one specifically was taken down because the person who submitted the tip was identified by name. I don't know if you caught that as I was reading it, but none of the other tips included any unredacted caller names besides that one. Now, that doesn't mean all of the pages that have. That have since been taken down were. Were taken down for that reason. That's just my hunch about that one document. The other thing I should mention is that this list of Trump complaints that was provided by the New York Field Office task force is what's been taken down. There are Separate documents of the actual complaints themselves that you can still find on the database. But that list, that kind of compiles all the complaints into one document, and that's what's no longer available. So, again, just so we're all on the same page, these are tips that were submitted to the FBI National Threat Operations Center. In some cases, we know the FBI followed up and deemed, you know, the caller not credible. In other situations, the FBI sent them for an interview. In other situations, no contact was able to be made. But in every situation, the response varied. So, just to get back to the first part of the question that was asked here, which was, are these allegations true? No one can definitively say whether any of these allegations are true. What we can say is that they are merely allegations and that there were no charges that stemmed from these allegations. Which indicates to us that there was never any additional evidence to corroborate the tips, or there was never any, you know, in depth investigation into the tips. That's not to say they're true or not. It's just to say there were never any charges brought. Which tells us the FBI never obtained any corroborating evidence. Whether that's because corroborating evidence just doesn't exist, or it's because they weren't able to get in touch with the complainants, or it's because they, they didn't try to find corroborating evidence, we don't know. All right, next question. How recent are the allegations against Trump? Are any of the allegations from. From confirmed victims? Were there investigations into the allegations? So it's hard to date all of the allegations because some of them don't have dates from the dates that I've seen. The most recent tip appears to have been submitted in 2020, but there very well could be more recent submission dates that I just haven't seen. Now, the second question here was, are any of these allegations from confirmed victims? We don't know that either. We know that of the victims that have come forward publicly so far, none of those victims have accused Trump of any wrongdoing. I would also imagine that confirmed victims do have some sort of direct line of communication with federal investigators. So if they did have allegations to discuss, you know, they would have someone to go to directly rather than through this online tip line. But again, there's not a lot we can say with any degree of certainty. And the extent of what we know about any investigations into the allegations are the notes that the FBI made about each tip. So, like I said, for one of them, the FBI sent someone to the Washington field office for an interview. In another instance, the FBI called the complainant but didn't get a response or didn't get a call back. So those notes that were written by the FBI make up the extent of what we know about any possible investigations in into the allegations. Next one. I read that Trump cut off contact with Epstein after he was a creep to Trump's staff. Is that true? Trump has said that and it's been reported and other people have, have corroborated that. So back in 2019, Trump told reporters that he hadn't spoken to Epstein in 15 years, which would have been 2004. Then in July of last year, the White House communications director said on CNN that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar? A Lago for, quote, being a creep, end quote. About a week after that, Trump told reporters that the reason he and Epstein were no longer friends was because Epstein, quote, unquote, stole young women who worked at Mar? A Lago. According to journalists at both the Wall Street Journal and at the Miami Herald, a Mar? A Lago club member told them that Trump had kicked Epstein out of Mar? A Lago after Epstein, quote, unquote, harassed the club member's teenage daughter. Sarah Blasky of the Miami Herald wrote, quote, the way this person described it, such an act could irreparable, irreparably harm the Trump brand. Leaving Donald choice, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein, end quote. That incident reportedly happened around October 2007, and that's also when Mar A Lago's registry listed Epstein's account as closed. The New York Times reported last year, though, that Trump told some of his associates that the reason he distanced himself from Epstein was because of Epstein's state charges in 2008. And then there's also this 2019 report from the Washington Post that said the wedge between Trump and Epstein happened back in 2004 when they were both bidding on a house on Palm Beach Island. So we, we don't know exactly when Trump and Epstein's friendship ended, but multiple different stories have seemingly been corroborated by other people. Will anyone be held accountable? And along similar lines, someone asked, can anything released in the files now be investigated further? And who would initiate that? Some related questions. What is the statute of limitations for these cases? Can they be tried for sexually abusing minors? So whether anyone will be held accountable depends on whether prosecutors, whether state or federal federal decide to open up any investigations, right? One of the the DOJ's top officials, Todd Blanche, said yesterday the DOJ's position on potential additional charges remains unchanged and that it's not considering bringing any additional charges at this time. He told Dana Bash on cnn, quote, I can't talk about any investigations, but I will say the following, which is that in July, the Department of justice said that we had reviewed the files, the Epstein files, and there were nothing, there was nothing in there that allowed us to prosecute anybody. The entire world can look and see if we got it wrong. There's a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him. But that doesn't allow us to necessarily. That doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute anybody, end quote. With that said, though, other prosecutors in other jurisdictions like New York and Florida can certainly conduct their own investigations with these files that have now been released and bring charges against people if the evidence is there. So the DOJ might do it, but there are prosecutors in other jurisdictions that can. As far as the statute of limitations, it really varies by crime. So sex trafficking, for example, there really is no statute of limitations, which means charges could be brought at any time, especially when minors are involved. There was a 2022 law called the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims act, which basically got rid of all of the time limits for federal civil and criminal prosecutions related to child sex trafficking and abuse. But then, you know, you have like something like prostitution related charges might be treated differently. And then, of course, each state has different state laws with their own statute of limitations. So it really just depends on what charge would be brought and then whether that's a federal charge or a state charge. And if it's a state charge, what state is bringing the charge? Speaking of states, the next question is, can any state governments charge those named in the files? Yes, so long as there is additional evidence that offers probable cause that a crime was committed. Now that the files are out there, prosecutors, whether state or federal, are welcome to look into charging other individuals that are named, you know, named in the files. Specifically with state charges, though, state prosecutors would have to find violations of their own state laws. Right. So a Georgia state prosecutor couldn't charge someone for alleged crimes committed in New York. A Georgia state prosecutor would have to find that illegal acts took place in Georgia and bring state charges accordingly. So that's how state prosecution would work. Next question, can Trump be impeached for being named in the files? The short answer is no. Being named in the files is. It's. That's not grounds for impeachment. That's just, I mean, it's allegations, right? You can't impeach someone for that. But I'll give you the longer answer too. Under the Constitution, a president can be impeached for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, right? Sexual abuse, especially when it involves minors, would certainly classify as high crimes or misdemeanors. But there has to be some sort of credible evidence of wrongdoing. It can't be based on rumors, tips or allegations. What Congress could do is hold hearings or request testimony to try to get more information as to whether there's any truth to these allegations and then from there file an impeachment resolution if if the evidence warrants it. But unsubstantiated allegations alone are not enough. And also keep in mind, as I briefly mentioned earlier, several Epstein victims that have come forward publicly said they are not aware of any wrongdoing by Trump. And that doesn't mean that he's totally innocent. It just means that the evidence that is currently available to us does not point to any substantiated claims or credible evidence of illegal acts by the President and therefore impeachment is not at play. And the last question was, will all of the files ever come out minus victims names, and can they be destroyed to control what is seen? The DOJ has indicated that it has released all that it can at this point. So remember, the law that Congress passed did include exceptions, so the DOJ doesn't have to release every single file. And certain things are legally protected too. So we we probably won't ever see every single single document. And again, like I said, the DOJ has indicated that it's done, it's released everything that it can. As for the second part of this question, destruction would be against the law. Federal records can only be destroyed if the National Archives and Records Administration approves it. The DOJ cannot unilaterally destroy documents, at least not legally. And the other thing too is that the Epstein Transparency act requires requires the DOJ to release any communications, memos, directives, logs, metadata concerning the destruction, deletion, alteration or concealment of documents. So could documents be destroyed? Sure, anything is possible, always. But it would certainly be illegal. Okay, that ends today's Q and A. Like I said, I tried to pick the most frequently asked general questions, and I know there are a lot more questions. I hope today's Q and A at least shed a bit more light on the situation and provided you with at least some valuable context that you didn't have before. I can't trust this enough. There are 3 million pages here and it hasn't even been a week, so more is bound to develop. I will definitely be adding updates to this story. And as I as I mentioned, if Thursday's episode has, you know, if we have extra time in Thursday's episode, assuming this week doesn't get flooded with its own news, I will do a second Q A where I address your more specific questions about, you know, specific people and things in the files. So let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll talk about the current government shutdown because the government is in fact currently shut down. We'll also talk about Don Lemon's arrest. And then we'll finish with Quick Hitters. 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As I said before the break, the government is in fact partially shut down right now, which I feel like no one even realizes. But we're going to talk about it. Last Thursday, we talked about the possibility of a shutdown because Democratic lawmakers were holding out over DHS funding. Specifically, they were saying they didn't want to fully fund the DHS without negotiations over immigration enforcement and ICE policies because of everything that's been going on. So when the Senate voted on this package of six funding bills late last week and included the dhs, Democratic lawmakers, along with a handful of Republican lawmakers, voted against it and it did not pass. So as of Thursday afternoon, it was looking like the government was going to shut down Friday night at midnight. But then later in the day, as it always happens, like an hour after Thursday's episode went out, news broke that Democratic and Republican lawmakers, along with the White House, had reached a deal that would potentially prevent a shutdown. And the deal was that they would vote to pass a package of five funding bills, basically funding everything except the dhs, and then pass a separate continuing resolution to temporarily maintain DHS funding at current levels for the next two weeks while they continue to negotiate changes to ice. And that's exactly what they did. So on Friday afternoon, the Senate passed this $1.2 trillion funding package by a vote of 71 to 29. And that package funds send several federal departments through the end of the fiscal year, including the Departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. And then the separate two week continuing resolution extends DHS funding through February 13th. February 13th, at midnight, DHS funding will lapse. But here's where the partial shutdown comes in. The House did not pass either the spending package or DHS continuing resolution before the Friday night deadline. Because of that, funding authority for the departments covered by those five bills lapsed and the government partially shut down. Now, when the House came back to work today, they started the process of voting on both measures. As of now, Speaker Johnson is saying he expects the government to reopen tomorrow, which is Tuesday. And remember, for a law to pass Congress, the House and Senate have to pass the exact same same version of the bill. So if the House changes anything in either the spending bill or the continuing resolution between now and the time it votes on them, the measure would have to go back to the Senate for another vote. But so long as the House keeps the text of the measures exactly the same and passes them exactly, you know, exactly the same as the Senate passed them, the government will reopen as soon as the president signs them into law. Then, just to be clear, once the House passes the measures and they are signed into law, that will mean the entire federal government, with the exception of the dhs, will be funded through the end of the current fiscal year, which also means we don't have to worry about another government shutdown until September 30, when the current fiscal year ends. As for the DHS, it's looking like Congress is going to have to negotiate some ICE reforms if they want Democratic lawmakers and to come around and eventually pass a funding bill for the department. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there will have to be, quote, strong common sense legislation that reigns in ICE in order for Democrats to support long term funding for the dhs, saying also, quote, if our colleagues are not willing to enact real change, they should not expect Democratic votes, end quote. And some of those reforms that Democrats are asking for include requiring federal officers to wear body cameras, which DHS Secretary Noem did say this afternoon, federal officers will start to wear or federal immigration officers will start to wear body cameras. But Democrats are also asking that federal immigration officers are banned from wearing masks, that the roving patrols come to an end. And they're also trying to mandate judicial warrants for arrests rather than simply administrative warrants. So we'll have to see what happens there. But as I said on Thursday, and I want to make this clear, even if the DHS funding eventually lapses because, let's say Congress can't come to an agreement on reforms, ICE and Border Patrol can still operate. The agents might not get immediate pay, but they'll still work. And that's because they are considered essential workers. Immigration enforcement and border security are considered essential. So they still operate despite a shutdown. And the other thing I mentioned on Thursday is that ICE enforcement and detention operations would continue despite a lapse in funding for dhs. And that's because the big beautiful bill, which was signed into law last year, provided ICE with $75 billion in additional funding specifically for detention and enforcement. So even if Congress can't agree on ICE reforms and Democratic lawmakers hold out on providing the DHS with funding, ICE can still sustain regular enforcement and detention operations with that additional $75 billion that it received through the one big beautiful bill Act. Okay, we'll know, by the way, tomorrow what. What the trajectory of the government reopening is, is looking like. As I said, Speaker Johnson does expect the government to reopen on Tuesday. Switching gears a bit, on Friday, journalist Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents for his role in the recent Minneapolis church protest. According to court documents, Lemon and eight other defendants were all indicted on one count each of conspiracy against religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating, and interfering with exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship. Both of these charges stem from the Face Act. So let's rewind just a little bit, just so we're on the same page. Roughly two weeks ago, in the wake of Renee Goode's fatal shooting, protesters walked into a church service in St. Paul to protest a pastor's possible role as an ICE lead. Somewhere between 20 to 40 protesters interrupted the church service, shouting various things like, justice for Renee Goode. ICE out. Shame on you. Things of that nature. Don Lemon was present at this protest, but he has maintained that he was there acting as a journalist rather than a protester. However, and this is important, claiming to act as a journalist doesn't. Doesn't necessarily automatically protect someone from conspiracy liability, and we'll talk about why in a minute. But in a video posted by Don Lemon to his YouTube channel two weeks ago, Lemon documented his experience on that day. And in the beginning of the video, he's standing in what appears to be a parking lot with. With some other people. He mentions that this protest was a, quote, unquote, secret operation where the protesters invite people to show up. Lemon then interviewed one of the protesters that he was with before they headed over to the church. And the protester told him, quote, this is more of a clandestine operation. We show up somewhere. They don't expect us to come there, and then we disrupt business as usual, end quote. Disrupt is actually a key word there. Then once inside the church, Lemon is filming what's taking place, and he says, quote, so right now, it's kind of mayhem. We're not part of the activists, but we're here just reporting on them, end quote. Then at the end of the video, Lemon says, quote, that was interesting to watch. I just imagine it's uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here, end quote. So it does appear from the video footage available to us that Lemon was not actually, you know, quote, unquote, protesting. He was inside the church documenting what was happening. But it doesn't appear that he participated in any of the, any of the shouting. Nonetheless, in the days that followed that protest, the FBI announced that at least three individuals had been charged and said the DOJ's Civil Rights Division was looking into filing charges against additional protesters. And of course, now we know that Don Lemon and eight others, including another independent journalist, have been charged with these two charges under the FACE Act. Now, the FACE act is a 1994 law that makes it illegal to use for force, threats or obstruction to stop someone from accessing or participating in certain protected activities like practicing religion. Importantly, peaceful protests or expressions of opinion don't violate the Face Act. But when a protest turns into interference, that is when you have a potential violation of the law. So if someone blocks a entrances or exits of a protected place like a place of worship, disrupts services inside a protected place to the point where people can't practice their religion, uses force, threats or intimidation against those inside or trying to enter or exit a place of worship, that is when we see a violation of the law. And that's what these defendants have been charged with. Now, whenever we see a conspiracy charge like we're seeing here, there has to be a couple of things at play for that conspiracy charge to stick. Number one, two or more people have to agree to commit some unlawful act. Number two, at least one person has to take what's called an overt act to move the plan forward. An overt act is any action that shows people are working toward their agreed upon crime. So both have to be present in agreement and an overt act. And that's why if you read through the indictment, you'll see the DOJ lays out the agreement that was allegedly made between these nine co defendants and the various overt acts that were taken by each defendant. So specifically, the indictment says that all nine of the defendants met in a shopping center for a, quote, unquote pre op briefing. And at that briefing, two of the defendants advised the other seven defendants, including Lemon, of the plan and quote, provided instruction on how the operation would be conducted once they arrived at the church, end quote. Then the indictment says in furtherance of that conspiracy, the defendants carried out 29 overt acts, including at least 13 by Lemon. And since you guys have specifically asked about Lemon, I will give you a few of the overt acts that the DOJ says he took in furtherance of this conspiracy. Overt act number one was live streaming his show on the morning of the protest and and explaining to his audience that he was with a group that was gearing up for a resistance operation against the federal government's immigration policies. The DOJ also alleges that as part of this overt act, Lemon, quote, took steps to maintain operational secrecy by reminding certain co conspirators to not disclose the target of the operation and stepped away momentarily so his mic would not accidentally divulge certain portions of the planning session. End quote. Lemon's second alleged overt act was thanking one of the other defendants for what she was doing and assuring her that he wasn't disclosing the target of the operation. The third alleged overt act was Lemon telling his live stream audience that they were going to head over to the operation and reminding his audience that he wouldn't be giving any information away. Later in the indictment, the DOJ says that Lemon's interview with the pastor at the church was also in overt act. So that is the conspiracy he's been charged with, along with eight other defendants. Now, whether anything comes of these charges against any of these defendants, including Lemon, is going to come down to the following questions. Did these individuals have an agreement with one another to interfere with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship? And two, did these individuals take some sort of overt act in favor of furtherance of that agreement? And the answers to those two questions don't have to be the same for every single defendant. Okay, Some defendants can be successfully, you know, charged and convicted. Others might get their charges dropped. The answer doesn't have to be the same for everyone. It really all comes down to how involved each of the defendants were in coming to this alleged agreement with one another, especially Lemon. If he wasn't there as a protester, did he actually agree with others to disrupt this church service? That's what this will come down to. So basically from here, now that these defendants have been charged, they'll presumably face trial, assuming their charges don't get dropped or, you know, they don't agree to some sort of plea deal before then. But at trial, if it gets that far, the DOJ will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these people agreed with one another to commit the illegal act of interfering with the exercise of religion and that they took some sort of overt act in furtherance of that plan. Okay, let's do some quick hitters. This first one is a bit longer than it than a typical quick hitter. The DOJ announced it's opening a federal civil rights investigation into Alex Preddy's fatal shooting. As we've talked about in recent weeks, the DOJ has two separate roles. The role we are most familiar with is its prosecuting role, but its other role is investigating civil rights violations. The DOJ actually caught a bit of criticism for deciding not to open a civil rights investigation in the wake of Renee Good's death. In Preddy's case, it's not exactly clear why the DOJ decided to open a case, but Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch said in part, quote, there are thousands, unfortunately, of law enforcement events every year where somebody is shot. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice does not investigate every one of those shootings. And there has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances that warrant an investigation, end quote. So just to be clear, this investigation will look into whether the agents who shot restrained Preddy willfully violated Preddy's constitutional rights, including but not limited to using excessive force, possible violations of the First Amendment. The investigation could lead to federal civil rights charges against the specific agents involved in if the DOJ determines that these officials, acting in their official capacity, did in fact willfully deprive Preddy of his constitutional rights. The next quick hitter President Trump said Sunday the Kennedy center will close later this year for two years while it undergoes renovations. In Opposed to Truth Social, Trump said in part, quote, the Trump Kennedy center will close on July 4, 2026 in honor of the 250th anniversary of our country, whereupon we will simultaneously begin construction of the new and spectacular entertainment complex. Financing is completed and fully in place. End quote. Next one President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to be the next Fed Reserve Chair. If confirmed by the Senate, Warsh will take over for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Warsh is a former Fed governor himself who was previously under consideration to be Treasury Secretary in Trump's second term, and he was a candidate for Fed Chair during Trump's first term. If you want to learn more about him, I will be publishing an article to Subsack this week, so if you're not already subscribed to Subsack, be sure to do that. I publish articles there. The subsect link can always be found in the show. Notes of each episode and the two immigration agents who fired the shots that killed Alex Preddy have been identified by ProPublica and as 43 year old Jesus Ochoa and 35 year old Raymundo Gutierrez. Ochoa joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014. Unfortunately, I did not have time to get to critical thinking today. We will get back to it on Thursday. I hope you have a great next couple of days and I will talk to you on Thursday. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. 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