Speaker 1: Joining me now is ms NOW legal analyst Christy Greenberg.
Speaker 1: She's the host of Course Side with Christy Greenberg and
Speaker 1: a former federal prosecutor and Steve Schmidt, co founder of
Speaker 1: the Safe America Movement, host of the podcast The Warning
Speaker 1: with Steve Schmidt and a former Republican campaign advisor. Good
Speaker 1: morning to you both, Christy. How would the DOJ discover
Speaker 1: a million more documents that they didn't know about it?
Speaker 1: I understand this is coming out of the Southern District
Speaker 1: of New York, but given the direction from Congress, how
Speaker 1: does this even happen?
Speaker 2: Well, one way it happens is the fact that Trump,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration decided to fire the lead prosecutor on
Speaker 2: the Epstein and Maxwell cases, Mariene Comy Breen Coomy would
Speaker 2: know where all of these files are. This is you
Speaker 2: have a number of prosecutors who are trying to essentially
Speaker 2: follow where all the documents are and figure out what's
Speaker 2: in the file. Well, Marien Commy knew what was in
Speaker 2: the file and they fired her. So and she's actually
Speaker 2: suing the DOJ to get her job at So what
Speaker 2: DALJ should do if they actually cared about making sure
Speaker 2: they had everything and that every eye was dotted, every
Speaker 2: t was present. If they actually cared, which they clearly don't,
Speaker 2: they would bring her back and give her her job.
Speaker 2: How does this happen? Yeah, it's a bunch of people
Speaker 2: who really don't know what's going on. We're trying to
Speaker 2: find things and are clearly failing and doing so.
Speaker 1: Steve, How does the manner in which the files have
Speaker 1: been released affected how President Trump is perceived in all
Speaker 1: of this? How is that affecting the actual president in
Speaker 1: perception where he's concerned.
Speaker 3: Well, the President's approval numbers are in a state of collapse.
Speaker 3: He's an approval level in the thirties. We've seen the
Speaker 3: electoral implications for that in special elections from Mississippi to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. The net effect of all
Speaker 3: of it is the release has confused the Shay situation
Speaker 3: even more than it was confused about who did what.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that will not come out
Speaker 3: of a million files or ten million more is some
Speaker 3: smoking gun piece of evidence that catches Gslaye, Epstein and
Speaker 3: Donald Trump in bed with one another. The simple truth
Speaker 3: of this is that Jeffrey Epstein was somebody that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is very close to they're best friends, and there
Speaker 3: is across American society at the elite level, top level,
Speaker 3: Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, presidents, potent case billionaires. This was
Speaker 3: all cleaned up when they were with Jeffrey Epstein. They
Speaker 3: didn't see any of the girls, They didn't see any
Speaker 3: of the stuff on the walls bs. Bill Gates is
Speaker 3: an example of somebody that fits in a cohort of people, like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to save the world. But he didn't have
Speaker 3: much interest, I suppose, in saving any of the girls
Speaker 3: that he saw walking around. If you're an adult male
Speaker 3: and you walk into a room, a house, a building,
Speaker 3: or whatever, and you see a guy who's in his
Speaker 3: fifties surrounded by teenagers, what does I tell you. There's
Speaker 3: no secrets here, there's no mystery power abused innocence law
Speaker 3: enforcements did not believe the innocent girls. They believed the
Speaker 3: powerful men. The corrupt federal prosecutor who cut the lenient deal,
Speaker 3: exposing the rule of law as a joke in this country,
Speaker 3: goes on to become a cabinet secretary. There's nothing new
Speaker 3: to learn in the Epstein files. The American people know
Speaker 3: everything there is to know. About Donald Trump and this relationship.
Speaker 3: It's a cop out that, oh, maybe he didn't do it,
Speaker 3: maybe something bad didn't happen. Nonsense. This is the most
Speaker 3: notorious child sex predator of the twenty first century. His
Speaker 3: accomplice was moved to a minimum security prison after a
Speaker 3: social call by the Deputy Attorney General. We have an
Speaker 3: uneven justice system. What the release of the Epstein files
Speaker 3: has done is take a society that has no trust
Speaker 3: in any institution, in any leader, and make it worse.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna ask this out there, Steve, thank you
Speaker 1: for that. I want to ask Christy about that notion
Speaker 1: of what the public knows and what's being released. Because
Speaker 1: Congress has clearly taking an interest with this. Ro Conna
Speaker 1: and Thomas Massey say that the releases so far failed
Speaker 1: to comply with the law that has been passed. Given
Speaker 1: that if that is the case, Christy, what recourse do
Speaker 1: either of them have Do the legislators who went forward
Speaker 1: to codify this or to pass this this demand for
Speaker 1: the DOJ what can they do?
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing they should do is seek information
Speaker 2: about the basis for any redactions or documents they're being withheld.
Speaker 2: If it's victim information that I would identify victims. There's
Speaker 2: no problem there. Everybody agrees that should be redacted from
Speaker 2: the files. But if they are asserting some kind of privilege,
Speaker 2: whether it is deliberative process, attorney work product, or attorney
Speaker 2: client privilege, which the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, suggested
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump is asserting, when in fact I don't
Speaker 2: think that the client here is Donald Trump. He was
Speaker 2: Todd Blanche's client when he was his lawyer before he
Speaker 2: became president. But right now we the people are DOJ's client,
Speaker 2: so he has no basis to assert an attorney client
Speaker 2: privilege over any materials. So they should find out why
Speaker 2: what privileges are being asserted, what the basis is, and
Speaker 2: if there are any exceptions, identify them. And then I
Speaker 2: think there is a very strong argument under the Act
Speaker 2: that there is no permission for documents to be withheld
Speaker 2: on the basis of privileged information. That is what they
Speaker 2: are relying on, I imagine to redapt documents like prosecution
Speaker 2: memos which SDNY prepared and had. There was a heading
Speaker 2: in one of those prosecution memos from November of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: when Donald Trump's DOJ was in office that said anticipated charges,
Speaker 2: and this was after Galaine Maxwell was already charged. So
Speaker 2: what that tells me is that sdn Y was anticipating
Speaker 2: bringing charges against other co conspirators. That is the likely
Speaker 2: inference from that they were meeting with the Deputy Attorney General.
Speaker 2: If they had nothing there, they weren't looking at it
Speaker 2: anybody else. There's no reason to bring this up to
Speaker 2: the Deputy Attorney general. So that whole memo is redacted
Speaker 2: other than saying anticipated charges and that a meeting with
Speaker 2: the Deputy Attorney General took place. That is exactly the
Speaker 2: kind of information that the American people want to see.
Speaker 2: If st Andy did want to bring charges against other people.
Speaker 4: Who stopped it, who was responsible for that decision, and
Speaker 4: what was the evidence that would have allowed them to
Speaker 4: bring such a case. Those kinds of things are what
Speaker 4: should be seen, and I don't think privileges apply, So
Speaker 4: that kind of isolation of what those privileges are that should.
Speaker 2: Be determined in court. The congressional Republicans and Democrats that
Speaker 2: passed this bill, they should file a lawsuit asking the
Speaker 2: judge to compel this Department of Justice to produce any
Speaker 2: inappropriately withheld or redactive materials. The judge should rule on
Speaker 2: those privileges and exceptions and then issue an order that
Speaker 2: inappropriately redacted or withheld files must be produced. If the
Speaker 2: DOJ fails to comply, then they are in contempt of
Speaker 2: a court order and can be found in contempt of court.
Speaker 2: Any other avenue here doesn't really work, because sure you
Speaker 2: could find them in contempt of Congress, but are they
Speaker 2: really going to put these guys in jail or detain them. No,
Speaker 2: and you can refer them for criminal prosecution to the DOJ,
Speaker 2: but the inmates are running the asylum, so that's not
Speaker 2: going to do any good. This has to be handled
Speaker 2: in court. That's what their next.
Speaker 3: Move should be.
Speaker 1: Steve, I've got about sixty seconds left. I just want
Speaker 1: very quickly, can you explain why this story seems like
Speaker 1: it is breaking through for Republicans now?
Speaker 3: Well, it's breaking through for Republicans because the Epstein conspiracy
Speaker 3: was at the root and branch of so much of
Speaker 3: the MAGA movement. The allegation was was that there was
Speaker 3: an international conspiracy of pedophiles that were running the world
Speaker 3: and at some crazy level. You know, they don't seem
Speaker 3: to be so far off. I do want to say
Speaker 3: something because the last answer was a legal response to
Speaker 3: what's a political question. The contempt of court is meaningless,
Speaker 3: means nothing to this administration. Congress is a coequal branch
Speaker 3: of government. The administration is not compliant with the law.
Speaker 3: Congress has inherent contempt authority in the Constitution. So it's
Speaker 3: great to say, well, just wave away. Congress won't use
Speaker 3: the authority because why this next election the platform of
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party must be to use the full power
Speaker 3: available to make what's happening the abuse of power stop.
Speaker 3: Congress has an absolute power to lock up Pam Bondy
Speaker 3: in the Congress for failing to comply. It is an
Speaker 3: undisputed power. It's been used many many times by the Congress.
Speaker 3: And if Donald Trump is talking about using the Alien
Speaker 3: and Sedition Act, what it requires is a democratic leadership
Speaker 3: to pull their heads out of there you know where,
Speaker 3: and to use the inherent authorities of the Article one
Speaker 3: branch one hundred percent of the time, with one hundred
Speaker 3: percent conviction that they're not subordinate to the executive they
Speaker 3: will comply or not, and that there will be a
Speaker 3: constitutional standoff over and over again. The entry position of
Speaker 3: all people on all of these issues, is that the
Speaker 3: Democratic side cannot, for some reason use the same level
Speaker 3: of power that is being used against them lawfully constitutionally,
Speaker 3: is just wiped away. Can't happen why, I don't know.
Speaker 3: But unless it does happen, we're in danger of losing
Speaker 3: the Republic because the Trump administration is wanting in their
Speaker 3: disregard for a congressional law, they don't have a choice
Speaker 3: to comply with this. And the fact that they're obstinate,
Speaker 3: that they're refusing, that they're contemptuous, has been the dominant
Speaker 3: theme from our one of this administration, and it's been
Speaker 3: tolerated not by the American people but by the Congress
Speaker 3: and the American people. We'll have to have a power
Speaker 3: of Congress to make it stop or it goes on
Speaker 3: and on and on.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much, Steve. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I hate to cut you off, but we have got
Speaker 1: to take a break now. But I want to think
Speaker 1: both you and Christy Greenberg C. Schmidt for getting it
Speaker 1: started on this hour with Velsi and still