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UNBIASED Politics
November 20, 2025: Here's What's in the Epstein Law; Will the DOJ Actually Release the Records? PLUS Steps Taken to Further Dismantle Education Department...Is it Legal? And More.
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, November 20th. Let's talk about some news. But first, as promised, I do need to fill you in on all of the details surrounding my new segment which I have officially named Drumroll. Hopefully you can hear that in the microphone. Peace Talks. And a very big thank you to to the listener that actually suggested that name. It was one of the first suggestion suggestions that came in. So Peace Talks will officially debut on Monday just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. And this is how it'll work. I now have live on my website a submission form which I will link in the show notes of this episode. If you click that link, it'll take you to the webpage that has the submission form. And I don't need your name or your email address or anything else you know, any personally identifiable information. When you submit. I just want you to tell me about your situation, your dilemma, your family feud, whatever it might be. Now, I don't want you to make it five paragraphs long, okay? But I do need you to give me enough detail and context so that I can give you a tailored response or tailored advice. That's the key. So it shouldn't be something as vague as I'm a Republican and my mom is a Democrat. Can you help us get along? It has to be something specific enough. A specific dilemma, if you will, to where I can give you specific advice. And this isn't just for family dynamics, by the way. This can be, you know, you can write in about a work dynamic, intimate relationships. Your kids, friends, parents, the cashier at the local grocery store who always wants to talk politics with you. It can be any dynamic at all. I am going to take two to three submissions each episode and like I said, the segment will always be on Mondays. If I don't get to your submission in one episode, I will try to get to it in the next or at some point thereafter. But you can always resubmit at any time just to kind of bump it to the top of the list. So again, the link to the submission form is in the show notes of this episode. You can also go directly there by going to unbiasednetwork.com peacetalks and. And yeah, and just submit, submit whatever your dilemma is. I'm really, really excited about this segment. I hope that as many of you write into me as possible because I think this segment has a lot of potential and I just think there's, there's a lot of potential to help a lot of you. So with that out of the way, let's now talk about some news. We, of course, have to start with the Epstein bill getting signed into law. And what I want to do here is just kind of catch us up from where we left off in Monday's episode and, and then we'll talk about what this law actually says and what the DOJ is now required to do and not required to do. So when we last talked, which was on Monday, the House was getting ready to hold a vote on this bill. The next day, on Tuesday afternoon, the House passed the bill in a 4:27 to 1 vote, very much bipartisan. From there, the bill went to the Senate. And before the bill even arrived in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requested requested what's called unanimous consent to pass the bill immediately once it did officially arrive to the Senate. Unanimous consent is this procedural tool that lets the Senate approve legislation right away. There, there's no debate. There are no amendments. There's no roll call vote, nothing. As long as not one senator objects, the legislation is immediately approved. If approval is requested via unanimous consent. Even if one objection. Even if there's one objection, it kills a unanimous consent request. So it can be a pretty difficult tool to use. But in this case, all senators were on board with the request, and therefore the bill passed automatically once it arrived from the House. One point worth mentioning here is that Speaker Mike Johnson had asked Senate Majority Leader Thune to make changes to the bill once it reached the Senate. Johnson had repeatedly raised concerns about the scope of the Epstein Vials release, saying that he wanted to make sure the victim's privacy was protected and that the DOJ wouldn't release child sex abuse information. And just so we're clear, the bill does include a provision that allows the DOJ to redact that kind of information using its own discretion. But what it seems like is Johnson wanted the provision in the bill to be more clear about what had to be redacted. He didn't want to just leave it up to the attorney general to decide. He wanted there to be a clear provision as to, you know, this kind of material must be redacted. Johnson told reporters that he had spoken to Thune over the weekend and planned to push for an amendment to ensure that the bill did not cause what he called permanent damage to the justice system. However, Thune ultimately rejected Johnson's request. He said Senate lawyers had already reviewed the legislation and determined that it was sufficient as is and that the priority was just getting the information out as quickly as possible. Notably, had the Senate incorporated the amendment that Johnson requested, the bill would have had to have gone back to the House for another vote because as we've talked about in the past, both the House and the Senate have to pass the exact same version of a bill for it to go to the president's desk. But because the amendment was not adopted as and the Senate passed the same version of the bill as the House, the bill was immediately sent from the Senate to the president the following day, which was yesterday. Wednesday, President Trump signed the bill into law. So now that the bill has officially become law, let's talk about what it requires the DOJ to release and what it allows the DOJ to withhold. First and foremost, under this law, the attorney general has 330 days to release all unclassified records in the DOJ's possession related to Jeffrey Epstein or Disane Maxwell flight logs or travel records for any aircraft, vessel or vehicle tied to either Epstein or his entities and records related to individuals named or referenced in connection with either Epstein's criminal activities. So civil settlements, immunity or plea agreements, or investigatory proceedings. The DOJ also has to release all unclassified records that relate to entities with known or alleged ties to either Epstein's trafficking or Epstein's financial networks any immunity deals, non prosecution agreements, plea bargains, or sealed settlements involving Epstein or his associates any internal DOJ communications concerning decisions to either charge, not charge, investigate or not investigate Epstein or any of his associates all communications or records concerning the destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment of any of the Epstein records and all documentation of Epstein's detention or death. This includes incident reports from the prison, witness interviews, medical examiner files, autopsy reports, as well as written records that detail the circumstances and cause of Epstein's death. So those are all of the records that the DOJ is required to release. But I want to stop here for a second because a lot of people had questions about the word unclassified and, and what that means for what has to be released. So the law specifically requires the DOJ to release all unclassified Epstein records in its possession. In this context, unclassified means either, you know, records that are not currently classified under federal classification rules, those being top secret, secret, confidential records that have never been classified, or records that were previously classified but have since been declassified. So if it's not classified, it has to be released. But a lot of you have asked, well, can't the administration just go ahead and classify whatever documents that it doesn't want to be released? And the short answer is no, but it is a bit nuanced, as most things are under existing executive orders, documents and records can only be classified if their release would cause identifiable damage to national security. Security classification cannot be used for documents and records that simply show misconduct or that may just simply lead to embarrassment. Classification also cannot be used simply to protect politically sensitive information. It can only be used when the release of those documents would cause identifiable damage to national security. So if the administration were to use classification to prevent the release of Epstein files that if it deemed to be, you know, politically inconvenient for whatever reason, that would violate not only the rules of classification, but also this Epstein law itself. And we'll talk about more. We'll talk about that part of it more in a minute, because the Epstein law does talk about this. And so given that, some of you might be thinking, yeah, it might violate the law, but what if the administration decides to do it anyway? Are there any repercussions? The answer is yes, there are a few things that could happen. First, it would likely go to court, and a court order would force the disclosure. A court would force the administration to disclose these records. But worse, it could also expose administration officials to not only investigative proceedings, but even contempt proceedings, which they could face jail time for in a worst case scenario. Now, as far as the President goes, he could be impeached and potentially removed from office if he were to be convicted by the Senate. So there are consequences of violating the law. But that's the deal with classification. Classification only applies to records that, if they are released, would cause identifiable damage to national security. I hope that clears up any questions that you might have had going into this episode about that language, you know, unclassified being used in the law. Now, the next section of the law deals with prohibited grounds for withholding or when the DOJ cannot withhold records. And it basically says that the DOJ cannot withhold records or redact records on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity. And that applies to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary. The next section of the law discusses when the DOJ can withhold records, and it lays out a few different scenarios. So The DOJ can withhold or redact records that contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims personal and medical files, records that depict or contain child sexual abuse materials, records that would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that the withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary. The DOJ can also withhold or redact records that depict or contain images of death, physical abuse or injury of any person, as well as records that contain information specifically authorized under criteria established by executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy, and are properly classified as such. So that goes back to the whole classification discussion that we had. Notably, every redaction that the DOJ makes has to be accompanied by a written justification that is not only published in the Federal Register and but also sent to Congress. So the attorney General can't just redact information and not explain why they have to provide an explanation or justification to Congress. The attorney General is also required under the law to declassify information to the maximum extent possible and provide summaries for anything that truly cannot be declassified. Finally, the law says that any decision to classify covered information after July 1, 2025, has to be publicly reported with an explanation. And this of course, also means that any decision to classify information before July 1st of this year does not have to be publicly reported with an explanation after completing the release, which will presumably be anytime between now and mid December unless there's a delay and we'll touch on that more in a second. And the Attorney General then has another 15 days from the date of release to submit a report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees outlining what was released, what was withheld, the legal basis for any redactions, and a full list of government officials and politically exposed persons named in the files. And that report to the congressional committees cannot contain redactions. So that's the entirety of the law. It's actually pretty short. It's only about five pages if you want to read it. I actually have it linked in the Sources section as I usually do. And you can always find the sources by clicking the Sources link in the episode Show Notes. So if you do want to read through the five pages, it's it's certainly there for you. Now something else that we have to talk about is the fact that last week President Trump instructed the DOJ to investigate what he described as Democrats ties to Epstein. He in a true social post, he said that he would be directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate Epstein's relationships with Bill Clinton Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JP Morgan Chase and others. Attorney General Bondi responded to the President's request, thanking him, and announced that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, his name is Jay Clinton, would lead that investigation. Now, this is despite. Despite the FBI and DOJ releasing a joint memo back in July. You might remember it saying that it had conducted an extensive, exhaustive and extensive review of the Epstein case and the Epstein files and that no one else was expected to be charged. Specifically, what that memo said is, quote, we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged threats, third parties, end quote. And the reason I say you might remember that memo is because a lot of people were talking about it. This was the same memo that said that their review found no client list and that there would be no further disclosure of Epstein files that would be appropriate or warranted. But now things seem to have changed a bit because despite the DOJ and FBI saying in July that there was no evidence that could lead to an investigation against uncharged third parties, now the DOJ, through the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has opened up an investigation into Democrats ties to Epstein. So, as we talked about, the bill specifically says that the Attorney General is allowed to withhold any record related to an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution so long as the withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary. This means that Bondi could legally withhold documents based on this new investigation. But questions do remain. How long can the documents be withheld? If there's an investigation, what exactly is considered narrowly tailored to the investigation? Another logical question is this. If the administration only ordered an investigation into Democrats tied to Epstein, then wouldn't the DOJ still have to release any, you know, all documents not related to Democrats? And one would think the answer is yes. But the DOJ could also say, well, you know, there's also other people tied to this investigation outside of just Democrats, and therefore, we need to withhold, you know, these other documents as well. So, again, the questions are how long is temporary? And what is considered narrowly tailored? But yes, per the language of the law, the Attorney General is allowed to withhold documents related to an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution. And, and this newly launched investigation falls into that category. Now, Bondi has since said that she will, quote, follow the law. That answer is a bit vague because the law says that, you know, she's allowed to withhold certain documents amid a federal investigation. So it didn't, it didn't really clear up the question of whether all documents are going to be released, but that was her response. Let's take our first break here and when we come back, we do have a couple of other things related to this Epstein Law that we have to discuss. And then we'll move on to Trump's meeting with the Crown Prince, as well as the dismantling of the Education Department. Monday Sidekick the AI agent that knows you and your business thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything seriously. 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Head over to bombas.comunbiased and use code UNBIASED for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M b-s.comunbiased code UNBIASED at checkout bombas.comunbiased and Use code UNBIASED at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Welcome back. Okay, so before the break, we really covered the entirety of the Epstein law. We also talked about what this new federal investigation means for the release of documents. But one other thing to talk about is the possible destruction of files. This is a claim that's been circulating on social media. And what I'll say is that federal law is very clear that government records cannot be destroyed by officials. Two different sections of the US Code, as well as the Presidential Records act and the Federal Records act, make the destruction of federal records illegal unless they're approved by the National Archives and Records Administration. And by the way, the president, who arguably has the most authority in the federal government, doesn't even have the authority to order the destruction of records. It is still not permissible if the president were to order the destruction. Destroying records with the intent to obstruct an investigation or federal process, which is what would be the case here if records were destroyed is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and it does apply to any executive branch official. So could the administration try to destroy files, as some have claimed? Sure. But just keep in mind that it's very much illegal. And the Epstein Law itself mandates that the DOJ has to release all communications or records concerning the destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment of the Epstein files. So those are just some things to keep in mind. Anything is possible, of course. Always, always. Anything is possible. But just know those things that we just talked about. One last question I wanted to quickly answer, and I briefly answered this on Monday as well, but the question I keep getting is whether the president can simply just order the DOJ to release the files. And the answer is yes, with exceptions. So the president doesn't have the authority to, you know, unilaterally order the release of grand jury testimony or other court sealed materials. Those things are protected. But when it comes to most other documents, the president could order their release so long as the release doesn't violate other federal laws. And any president could do that. Obama could have done it, Biden could have done it. Trump could have done it. But they didn't. So now that the bill has been signed into law, it's not really a question of if we'll see the files at this point, but rather when we'll see them, because again, even that provision that allows the withholding of records amid a federal investigation limits that withholding to the point where it has to be temporary and it has to be narrowly tailored. So we should eventually see all of the files. It's just a question of when. Okay, let's move on to Trump's recent meeting with the Saudi crown prince. So on Tuesday, President Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MBS for short, @ the White House. They discussed several issues during their Meeting ranging from nuclear energy agreements to cooperation on minerals that are needed for batteries and electronics. Trump also announced that the United States would move forward with selling F35 fighter jets and other American made military equipment to Saudi Arabia. And MBS announced that Saudi Arabia would actually be investing $1 trillion into the United States, which is an increase from the previous amount of $600 billion. But there was one moment during their press conference in the Oval Office that caught a lot of attention. ABC News chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce says to MBS, quote, Your Royal Highness, U.S. u.S. Intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9, 11 families in America are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? End quote? And this led to President Trump asking Bruce which outlet she was with. She told him, abc News. And he replied, quote, he fake news, abc, fake news, one of the worst in the business. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing. Referring to mbs, he says, but he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that. End quote. MBS then went on to essentially deny that he was involved and said that Saudi Arabia has taken all, all the right steps in investigating the killing, that Saudi Arabia has improved its system to make sure something like that doesn't happen again, and that it's always sad and painful when someone loses their life for no purpose. But the fact that Trump came to MBS's defense is what has most people talking. So allow me to provide some context here. Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who wrote columns for the Washington Post. And earlier in his career, he had worked closely with senior Saudi officials, including serving as an editor at major Saudi newspapers. Over time, he became more openly critical of the Saudi government and of MBS's policies. On October 2, 2018, he went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up documents for his upcoming marriage. And he just never came out. Turkish investigators said that he was killed and dismembered inside of the building by a Saudi team. And a U.N. investigation reached the same conclusion. In 2021, the U.S. intelligence community released a report saying that MBS, quote, approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, end quote. The office of the Director of National Intelligence based its finding on, quote, the Crown Prince's control of decision making in the kingdom, direct involvement of a key advisor and members of MBS's protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, end quote. The ODNI also based its finding on the fact that, quote, since 2017, the crown prince has had absolute control of the kingdom's security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince's authorization, end quote. And that report then goes into more detail. It says, quote, the 15 member Saudi team that arrived in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, included officials who worked for or were associated with the Saudi center for Studies and Media affairs at the Royal Court at the time of the operation. CSMARC was led by a close advisor of MBS who claimed publicly in mid-2018 that he did not make decisions without the Crown Prince's approval. The team also included seven members of MBS's elite Persona personal protective detail known as the Rapid Intervention Force, or rif. The rif, a subset of the Saudi Royal Guard, exists to defend the Crown Prince, answers only to him, and had directly participated in earlier dissident suppression operations in the kingdom and abroad at the Crown Prince's discretion. Direction. We judge that, and I'm continuing on with what this report said. We're almost done. It says, we judge that members of the RIF would not have participated in the operation against Khashoggi without MBS's approval. The crown Prince viewed Khashoggi as a threat to the kingdom and broadly supported using violent measures if necessary to silence him. Although Saudi officials had pre planned an unspecified operation against Khashoggi, we do not know how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm him, end quote. So that was the report from the US intelligence community in 2021. Before that report from the intelligence Committee, Trump was quoted saying, I believe this was back in 2018 or 2019. When asked whether MBS ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump said, quote, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Mbs, on the other hand, has repeatedly denied ordering the operation while also expressing regret that it happened. So that's the deal with that. That's why it's making news. The talk was all about Trump coming to MBS's defense when the reporter from ABC asked MBS about, you know, about the operation that ultimately killed Khashoggi. Okay, moving on to the Education Department, a lot of questions about this. Earlier this week, the Education Department announced that it would transfer much of its programs to other agencies. And, and this is something that we knew was going to happen. So one of the top things that Trump wanted to do when he took office this time around is, was, is dismantle the department. And I've covered this in great detail in the past. But essentially the Education Department has been controversial since it was created in 1979. And it wasn't just Republicans that were against it in the beginning. There were also some Democrats that were against it too. So keep in mind that prior to the Education Department's creation, federal education programs were managed under the larger Department of Health, Education and Welfare. That department was eventually split in two and became the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The Education Department is currently one of the smallest departments in the federal Cabinet. It only accounts for 4% of the US budget. But when President Carter signed the bill creating the Education Department all those years ago, he, he, he argued that the, that the department would eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy, that it would cut red tape, that it would promote better service for local school systems and even save taxpayer dollars. Importantly, though, we have to talk about what was going on at the time, right? So the nea, or the National Education association, which is a teachers union, made its first ever presidential endorsement to President Carter in 1976. And to win the support of the NEA, President Carter promised a cabinet level Education Department. And despite initial congressional resistance, Congress ultimately did agree to create the department. Obviously, we have it today. That means Congress approved it. The main argument at the time in favor of creating the department was that it made sense to bring together the different education related activities that the federal government was responsible for. So there was an Office of Education within the Department of Health, Welfare and Education. But other programs like the Head Start Early Childhood Program and Education Research and Development activities, were overseen by other parts of the government. So the argument was that those activities could be better coordinated and maybe even operate more efficiently if they were brought together. But again, there were people on both sides of the aisle that were against it at the time. One House Democrat was quoted saying that the idea of an Education Department is a really bad one, but it's NEA's top priority that there are school districts in every congressional district, and most of us simply don't need the aggravation of taking them on. Now, this isn't to say that everyone was against it, okay? Because obviously Congress did end up creating the department, so it did have support. But this is just to say that the initial opposition to the department was somewhat bipartisan. Compared to what it is today. The opposition back in the 70s and 80s really started with President Reagan, who ended up beating Carter when Carter sought reelection. But President Reagan's attempts to eliminate the department were unsuccessful. So people who oppose the department mainly argue that the smaller the federal footprint, the better that the department creates federal bloat and it overreaches into state and local authority by exercising too much control over certain matters. And today, you know, those matters are Covid mask and vaccine mandates, unisex bathrooms, etc, kind of those hot topics that we're seeing now, which are obviously very different than what were the hot topics back in the 70s and 80s. But opponents also argue that because education isn't mentioned at all in the Constitution, the Framer's intent was to leave education to the states, and therefore education should be left to the states. And, and there should not be an entire federal department dedicated to education. So those are the main arguments for and against. But to get back to what's going on today, earlier this week, the Education Department announced that it would transfer six of its department offices to four other departments. And these include the Department of Labor, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of the Interior. Keep in mind, there are about six, 17 main department offices. So this recent announcement includes six of those offices. Under these new agreements, the Labor Department will administer the offices of elementary, Secondary and Postsecondary education. The State Department will oversee the Fulbright Hays Overseas Research Program, as well as all international education and foreign language initiatives. The Department of the Interior will oversee the Office of Indian Education. And the HHS will take over a campus Child Care Access program, as well as the Foreign Medical School Accreditation Program. As far as Title 1 and Title 2 programs, these will also be transferred to the Labor Department along with the Offices of Elementary and Secondary Education, which just means that the Labor Department will now be responsible for sending the money to the states rather than the Education Department. Notably, the Office for Civil Rights, which handles discrimination complaints, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which houses the offices that oversee implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education act and Vocational Rehabilitation, as well as the federal student loan and grant programs, were not included in these new agreements, meaning that those will remain with the Education Department, at least for now. Because Trump did say back in March that his plan was to eventually move the oversight of special needs programs to the HHS and the oversight of student loans to the Small Business Business Administration. So that is within his plans. It just hasn't happened yet. Basically, what we're seeing right now is the attempt to transfer programs currently under the Education Department to other departments within the federal government. Now, there's a couple things to keep in mind here. Number one is that only Congress can eliminate the Education Department entirely. It was created by Congress. It has to be dismantled by Congress by transferring some of the departments, the Education Department's tasks and programs to other departments. It's kind of like a workaround for the administration, but it's unclear whether that's even legal or permissible. The President cannot contradict statutes, okay? So the president cannot override laws. So with things like student loans, which were specifically assigned to the Education Department through the Higher Education act, the law would actually have to be amended to allow for any other department to handle student loans. Same with Title 1 and Title II funding. Those were. Or programs, Title I and Title II programs. Those were assigned to the Education Department through the elementary and Secondary Education Act. So the President can't move statutory programs like these to another agency or department without congressional approval. The second thing to keep in mind is that we don't have a ton of detail as to what these agreements actually entail. The agreements that were announced earlier this week by the. By the department. You know, some of the questions that come to mind are, have the transfers already started, or are these agreements just planning for the future? Are these transfers conditional on. On congressional approval? Is the administration transferring full statutory control or just administrative housing? So there's still a lot that's. That's not necessarily available to the public here. There's still a lot of questions to be answered, and these things will presumably be answered in time, but we just don't have the answers right now. Once we do, I'll be sure to update you. These will likely go on to face court battles, and we'll get some answers there. But regardless, once we have more answers, you know, I will, of course fill you in and let you know more. Let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll do quick hitters, rumor has it, and critical thinking. You know how I always say that the goal is to be informed but not stressed or overwhelmed? Well, I feel that way with home security, too. When I go out of town or I'm out of the house all day, I don't want to feel stressed about what's going on when I'm not there, but I do want to be informed. And that's where Cove comes in. Cove is an affordable DIY home security system that lets you protect your home for less than a dollar a day. It's totally customizable, meaning you just take a quick quiz online and they help you build a system that fits your home. The setup is simple. It only takes about 30 minutes on average. 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My living room is glowing because the whole house is dark except for the Christmas tree. The smell of pine has taken over my house. The Polar Express is queued up on the tv. My couch has been rearranged into what I like to call the pit. And and the pit is packed with a bunch of pillows and one or two Cozy Earth bubble cuddle blankets. The oven timer goes off. I grab the warm cookies out of the oven, place them on a holiday themed plate, cozy up in the pit and press play on the remote. That is what I'm excited for. Coziness is key this holiday season. And that's why I highly recommend investing in the Cozy Earth bubble Cuddle blanket. Some Cozy Earth pajamas and or some Cozy Earth bed sheets. You truly can't go wrong with any of Cozy Earth's products. And everything is so cuddly. And the best news is that Black Friday has come early at Cozy Earth right now you can stack my Code Unbiased on top of their site Wide sale, giving you up to 40% off in savings. These deals won't last, so start your holiday shopping today. And if you get a post purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. That's Code Unbiased on top of their site Wide Sale, giving you up to 40% off in savings. And wrap the ones you love in luxury with cozy Earth. As we get older, all we really want for the holidays is more time and memories with the people we love. But of course that can be hard to do. We all have our own lives. Sometimes we live hours and even states away from each other, so it's hard to find that time. But that's why I love gifting my loved ones aura frames. Because aura frames keeps you connected to the people that you love even when you're far apart. So far I've given one to my mom, one to my mother in law. I I'm gifting another one this Christmas, but I can't say who it's for in case they're listening to this episode. But this is how it works. So you pick out whichever aura frame you think the person will like. You can either ship it directly to them with a personalized message, or you can send it to yourself and then just give it to them in person. Once you purchase the frame, you just download the Aura app and connect to wifi. And then once you're connected to wifi, you can share pictures and videos directly to their aura frame straight from your phone. You might not be able to wrap this togetherness, but you can certainly frame it. For a limited time, visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by wire cutter by using promo code Unbiased at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code unbiased this exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year. So order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning it at checkout Oraframes.com promo code UNBIASED Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back. Time to go over some quick hitters. The DOJ admitted this week that not every member of the grand jury in former FBI director James Comey's case saw the final version of the indictment, which could actually result in James Comey's charges getting dismissed. Basically, when a prosecutor wants to indict someone, they have to present the case to a grand jury and the grand jury has to first hear the evidence and and then they go on to vote on the exact charges in the indictment. If prosecutors change the charges or they add new charges, prosecutors have to go back to the grand jury and get approval again. So in Comey's case, the prosecutor basically admitted at a hearing this week that the first indictment was presented to the full grand jury and they voted on it. But the second version of the indictment, which only included two of the original three charges wasn't seen by the full grand jury or even the majority of the grand jury. Despite this, prosecutors filed the indictment in court anyway, as if the full grand jury had approved it, and that could prove to be a major procedural issue and ultimately allow Comey to get his case dismissed. Speaking of indictments, U. S representative Sheila Sherfless McCormick was officially indicted this week after years of House ethics scrutiny scrutiny over alleged campaign finance violations. Prosecutors say that the representative conspired with her brother to steal $5 million in FEMA funds by using their family's health care company to take money from a COVID vaccine contract funded by FEMA. Officials alleged that in July 2021, the family's company received a $5 million overpayment which which the defendants allegedly conspired to keep for themselves, routing it through multiple accounts to hide its origin. Prosecutors allege a, quote, substantial portion of those funds was funneled into the representative's campaign. Sherphilis McCormick has since released a statement saying the indictment is unjust, baseless and a sham, and that the timing of it all is curious and clearly meant to distract from far more pressing national issues. Speaking of members of the House, on Tuesday, the House voted against censuring House Delegate Stacey Plasket over messages that she exchanged with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing with Michael Cohen, who was President Trump's former personal attorney. In a 2019 congressional hearing, lawmakers were questioning Michael Cohen about Trump's hush money payments to women leading up to the 2016 election, and during that hearing, House Delegate Plaskett was texting with Epstein about the hearing. At one point, Plaskett asked Epstein what Cohen meant in parts of his testimony, and when Epstein gave her the answers, she later used that information from Epstein in her own questioning of Cohen. Notably, Plaskett is a non voting delegate from the US Virgin Islands. This means that she can participate in debate and she can serve on committees, but she can't actually cast votes when the House votes on legislation. Despite her non voting power, though, Republican Representative Ralph Norman brought a resolution to censure Plaskett over this text exchange with Epstein and Accenture. By the way, it's really just a formal statement of disapproval. It's mainly symbolic, but it can carry consequences like removal from certain committees. So in this case, if the resolution had passed, Plaskett would have been removed from the House Intelligence Committee Intelligence Committee where she currently serves. But the effort failed. The House voted 209 to 214 against censuring her, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to block the measure. And another individual put in the spotlight as a result of the Epstein document release is Larry Summers. Summers has announced that he will step down from the board of OpenAI and step back from his teaching role at Harvard University amid newly released emails that show him seeking advice from Epstein on Summers relationship with a woman that he described as a mentee. Summers was formerly a president of Harvard, former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, former top adviser, top advisor under Obama. And prior to the recent document release, it was public knowledge that Summers knew Epstein because Summers was president of Harvard when Epstein donated more than $9 million to the university and Summers was on the list of people who had flown on Epstein's private plane. But what was not necessarily known to the public is the extent of their relationship, which these email exchanges have shed a bit more light on. Earlier this week, a panel of judges ruled that the new congressional map passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year is discriminatory and that the state needs to instead use the maps from the last two elections. Texas has since appealed this case directly to the Supreme Court and is hoping to get a ruling from the justices in in the next week or so, considering candidates for these newly drawn districts in the state only have until December 8th to file. And the reason this ruling is a big deal is because there is a possibility that Texas's attempt to to redraw their maps ahead of 2030 will actually backfire. And that's because California went ahead and said, hey, look, Texas, if you guys are going to try to add five new red districts, we're going to try. We're going to draw new maps to try to add five new blue districts. And California is moving ahead with their new map because theirs was passed via ballot measure earlier this month. So it could turn out that Texas can't even use their map in the 2026 midterms, and yet California can, which would result in five new blue districts in California, but no red gain in Texas. So people are watching this case out of Texas pretty closely. All right, now it's time for Rumor has It. This is my weekly segment where I address recent rumors submitted by all of you and either confirm them, dispel them, or add context. First. One rumor has it that President Trump called a reporter piggy. This is true. While Trump was aboard Air Force One earlier this week, he was taking questions from reporters as he usually does. The first question came from one of the female reporters who asked him, quote, Mr. President, what did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said, you knew about the girls, end quote. Trump replied in part, quote, I know nothing about that. They would have announced that a long time ago. It's really, what did he mean when he spent all the time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard and all these other people that he spent time with, end quote? He then called on another reporter named Jennifer and said, yeah, Jennifer, go ahead. And Jennifer was attempting to ask him a question about Venezuela. But the first reporter tried to ask another question, specifically whether there is anything in these files that would be incriminating. And the first reporter was trying to ask this second question at the same time that the reporter named Jennifer was asking her question. So Trump turned to the first reporter and said, quote, quote, quiet, quiet, piggy, end quote. The White House later provided a statement on the issue writing, quote, this reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane. If you're going to give it, you have to be able to take. End quote. Next one Rumor has it that all SNAP recipients will have to reapply for benefits and that there is rampant, rampant SNAP waste and fraud. This one appears to be true, but let's add some context here. So Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins went on Fox Business this past Monday to speak with Maria Bartiromo. Bartiromo is the host. And Bartiromo was actually the one that brought up this overhaul by the Trump administration and said, quote, let's talk about the reopening of the government. SNAP benefits are flowing again after the 43 day shutdown left millions waiting for their November payments. What can you tell us about the resumption of business? The USDA says all eligible families are getting their full benefits today while the Trump administration announces an overhaul of that program. You're requiring every SNAP participant to reapply as part of a crackdown on fraud. You pointed out data from 29 states showing 186,000 deceased individuals were still receiving benefits. 120 people under arrest so far. So what? Somebody died and their heirs started receiving SNAP benefits. What happened? End quote. Rollins then responds, basically saying that one of the first actions that she took after being sworn in was she sent a letter to every state saying, business as usual is over. We know that this program, that being snap, is rife with fraud, but she says that it was all anecdotal at that point because there was no program data that was being collected by the federal government. So those letters were asking the states to provide the government with data on recipients. And she said that 29 states complied with the request and what they've found since getting that data from the states is that 186,000 deceased individuals are receiving benefits, 500,000 people are getting two times the benefit, and thousands of people are getting benefits in three, four, five, even six different states. So while Rollins didn't explicitly say herself that all SNAP recipients would have to reapply, she seemingly did confirm it in her response to Bartiromo. But importantly, that data that I just cited came from Rollins herself. Right. The USDA has not released this data to the public, so I do not have that data to review myself. That is just what came from Rollins. It's also worth noting that this crackdown on fraud is not a new thing since the shutdown. In fact, back in May, the administration announced the arrest of six people, people who were charged with a bribery and fraud scheme that generated more than $66 million in unauthorized transactions under SNAP. This has been a priority for the Trump administration since President Trump took took office in January. And so it's not necessarily, you know, it didn't just start now. The, the crackdown on SAP didn't start now that the government's reopened, but instead started months ago. So to wrap this up, we know that the USDA does or has publicly said that it wants everyone to reapply. We don't know what that process would look like in practice, but they do say that they that is something that they're looking for. We also know that there is fraud, especially involving EBT card theft. But the magnitude of the fraud is what we can't confirm. Last one. Rumor has it that Trump and Clinton, President Trump and Bill Clinton engaged in oral sex. This is false. But let me just say there are some things that I say on this show that I just never thought would be coming out of my mouth. Okay? And this is one of those things. So when the House Committee released those thousands of pages from or thousands of pages of documents from Epstein's estate, one of the emails included in that Release was a March 2018 email thread between Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein's brother Mark. And Mark writes to Jeffrey, quote, how are you doing? A while back you mentioned you were pre diabetic. Has anything changed with that? What is your boy Donald up to now? End quote Jeffrey replies, quote, all good. Bannon with me, end quote. Implying that he was with Steve Bannon. Mark then replies, quote, ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba, end quote. Then in a follow up email, Mark writes, quote, you and your boy Donnie can make a remake of the movie get hard. End quote. Epstein responds Quote, you mean Donnie T. End quote. And Mark answers, I'd rather be in Donnie D's shoes. So this rumor about Trump and Clinton started because one of Clinton's nicknames is Bubba. So people automatically jumped to the conclusion that Mark was asking if Steve Bannon had pictures of Trump blowing Clinton. But Mark has since gone on to do multiple interviews to say that Clinton is not the person he was referencing in the email. And in a phone interview on Tuesday on News Nation, Chris Cuomo asked Mark about the email in question. And as Cuomo was reading the contents of the email, Mark interjected, he said, quote, Let me stop you right there. I'm not discussing the contents of that email. This is a private email between Jeffrey and myself. Two brothers talking. It's nobody's business what we wrote. The only thing I responded to, because people got crazy so, was the Bubba reference, and they tried to pin it on Clinton. So I made a public statement that it was not any reference to Bill Clinton. I like Bill Clinton, and I'm sorry to him that he had to go through that. But the email had nothing to do with Clinton, and that is my last word on that. End quote. Mark also told an outlet called the Advocate that, quote, they were simply part of a humorous private exchange between two brothers that were never meant for public release or to be interpreted and as serious remarks. End quote. All right, let's finish with some critical thinking, because the impending release of the Epstein piles is what everyone is talking about. Let's go back to that. Specifically the fact that Trump ordered this new investigation into Democrats tied to Epstein and how that could hold up the release. Today's questions are for everyone, regardless of where you stand on the issue. So the first question is this. As we discussed earlier, the law says that any withholding as it relates to an investigation or prosecution has to be narrowly tailored and temporary. How would you define these terms? Does. Does temporary mean weeks? Does it mean months? Does it mean years? Does it mean something else? And does narrowly tailored mean. You know, maybe it means only the specific portions of records that would directly interfere with the investigation, but maybe it could be defined even more than that. Or maybe your definition is different. I guess another way to ask this, or think about this is if Congress were to step in again and define both of those terms, how should Congress define them? And then finally, the last question is, how would you feel about an independent review panel outside the doj, outside the White House, that would oversee which records truly meet this active investigation or prosecution exemption? And what would be the pros and cons there. That's what I have for you today. Don't forget to get your submissions in for the Peace Talks segment that will officially air on Monday. And again, you can find the link to submit in the show notes of this episode or just by going to unbiasednetwork.com peace talks and I am very much looking forward to helping as many of you as I can. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Monday.