Speaker 1: Welcome to the Oath and the Office. I am John
Speaker 1: Fugel saying, and I am so pleased and proud to
Speaker 1: welcome the star of our show, the Mac, the Alpha
Speaker 1: and the Omega, the Ayah Toola of Rock and ROLLA
Speaker 1: the man who enriches the lives of students in the
Speaker 1: poly side apartment at Brown but only because he was
Speaker 1: kicked out of Wu Tang clan for being too hardcore.
Speaker 2: People of Earth.
Speaker 1: You wanted the best, you got the best I give you,
Speaker 1: Professor Corey Bretschneider, How was that was that?
Speaker 2: An okay intro? Professor?
Speaker 3: I love this, John, I mean honestly, I'll come to
Speaker 3: do the show to talk about the constitutional issues, the
Speaker 3: threat to democracy. But the thing that really gives me
Speaker 3: pleasure is that each week these intros get more and
Speaker 3: more absurd and brilliant.
Speaker 2: So think I listened.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that if I find the right code to
Speaker 1: being your hype man, I can get into law school.
Speaker 2: It seems like that's how it works. Professor.
Speaker 1: It's good to see you. It's been a pretty crazy
Speaker 1: couple of days. And one of the themes that you
Speaker 1: often cover in your work is that democracies don't usually
Speaker 1: collapse through one awful dramatic event. Instead, leaders gradually turn
Speaker 1: institutions designed to serve the public into tools that serve themselves.
Speaker 2: And let's talk.
Speaker 1: About America the sweet Cory, because nothing says the intel
Speaker 1: community is in good hands, like Donald Trump getting up
Speaker 1: at three point fifty four in the morning and changing
Speaker 1: his Director of National Intelligence nominee on social media like
Speaker 1: he's rearranging his fantasy football lineups. I don't know, professor.
Speaker 1: I have many questions about what's going on here.
Speaker 2: I think I.
Speaker 1: Understand the Office of Director of National Intelligence. It impacts
Speaker 1: all of our lives. It oversees seventeen intel agencies, handles
Speaker 1: classified information, and coordinates counter terrorism, cyber threats, and foreign
Speaker 1: espionage and nuclear risks. So logically, Donald Trump puts Bill Pulty,
Speaker 1: a mortgage official with no national security experience, in that job.
Speaker 1: I've got it right, so far right. And then he says, okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's temporary. Here's my nominee, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: Jay Clayton. But just before he's nominated, Jake Clayton goes
Speaker 1: on CNBC two weeks ago and suggested there might be
Speaker 1: possible opportunities where conceivably, you never know, it could have happened.
Speaker 1: California engaged in election fraud, and within days of saying that,
Speaker 1: because you know, again, if you're in MAGA and you
Speaker 1: say California election fraud, that's like having a PhD.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So then Trump announces he's the nominee to oversee our
Speaker 1: satellite intel and our covert opts this guy because he
Speaker 1: thinks they cheated in California, or at least he's willing
Speaker 1: to lie about that. So last week Jake Clayton was
Speaker 1: the future of American Intelligence professor. This week Bill Pulti,
Speaker 1: who never left, is back from the G seven. Trump
Speaker 1: canceled his own nominee Senate hearing, and I guess said
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud. This country gets no confirmed
Speaker 1: intelligence chief unless the state passes the incredibly unpopular Save
Speaker 1: America Act with his Proof of Citizenship voter bill that
Speaker 1: takes rights away from Americans, makes it harder for women
Speaker 1: to vote, and reauthorizes FIZA on his term. So Bill Poulti,
Speaker 1: the mortgage guy with no national security experience, is back
Speaker 1: in the chair. Have I gotten this right?
Speaker 3: Corey?
Speaker 2: Have I gotten the facts right?
Speaker 3: So far, there have been a lot of twist and turns.
Speaker 3: This episode, we're going to talk about Bill Poulty. We're
Speaker 3: going to go in depth on this FISA law and
Speaker 3: explain what it is, where it comes from, and why
Speaker 3: it's so dangerous at this moment. And our theme is
Speaker 3: going to be transparency, understanding what's happening more generally in
Speaker 3: this country when it comes to threats to democracy. And
Speaker 3: of course I don't want to miss the fact that
Speaker 3: Katie Fang, in this incredible lawsuit trying to get transparency
Speaker 3: in the Epstein files, is going to be our guest
Speaker 3: in the second half. And the connection to this theme
Speaker 3: is really about understanding the secrecy that exists within the
Speaker 3: exact A branch, not just in regard to the Epstein files.
Speaker 3: We've been focused on that, but I just want to
Speaker 3: set this up. You know, we have an apparatus, a
Speaker 3: national intelligence apparatus, which has a court, its own court,
Speaker 3: the PIES, a court which isn't subject to the exact
Speaker 3: same rules as normal Article three courts. And there are
Speaker 3: powers that have been granted not just through the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy eight FIS A law, but through its extension by
Speaker 3: George W. Bush to really give the ability to intelligence
Speaker 3: officers without a warrant to spy in American citizens.
Speaker 4: Now there are rules, you know, it.
Speaker 3: Has to be in regard to people outside the country
Speaker 3: who are suspected of possible threats to the US government.
Speaker 4: But I don't want to lose the bottom line.
Speaker 3: What this law does in its current form is that
Speaker 3: it gives this administration the ability to skip the Fourth Amendment,
Speaker 3: to skip the protection against Unreasonable Search and Seizure, to
Speaker 3: skip the warrant process, and to spy in American citizens.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, you could say George W.
Speaker 3: Bus or Obama or Clinton, maybe it wasn't so bad.
Speaker 3: But now we're talking about and not just Trump, but
Speaker 3: this Bill Poulty, somebody without national security clearance through Senators
Speaker 3: are rightly worried, is going to spy on American citizens
Speaker 3: in order to shut down Trump's opponents and to help him.
Speaker 1: Because how did Trump go after Letitia James? How did
Speaker 1: Trump go after the New York State Attorney General going
Speaker 1: after mortgage payments? And He's hired the mortgage guy to
Speaker 1: go after to use that, to use the National security
Speaker 1: apparatus to go after his perceived enemies for their real
Speaker 1: estate dealings.
Speaker 4: That's what it comes down.
Speaker 1: And this from a guy who launders money for the
Speaker 1: Russians with New York State real estate. I mean, Republicans
Speaker 1: wanted to quickly confirm this guy Clayton because they're trying
Speaker 1: to solve the surveillance, you know, and intelligence operations. So
Speaker 1: Trump's trying everything now to this voter I D.
Speaker 2: Bill.
Speaker 1: He's essentially blackmailing the Republicans on his own side, right,
Speaker 1: That's that's not going to work. This is a very
Speaker 1: I mean, the Same of America Act is deeply unpopular.
Speaker 1: This is the one that says if women have changed
Speaker 1: their names in their lifetimes, gotten married, or for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: you're become widowed, you might not be able to vote.
Speaker 1: You better find your birth certificate. I mean, we have
Speaker 1: intelligence leadership and national security surveillance, an election administration all
Speaker 1: becoming LinkedIn here. This seems like a really potentially dangerous fusion.
Speaker 3: Professor, you know, it's a great topic for this podcast.
Speaker 3: We're willing to go on depth and to unpack things.
Speaker 3: Look at all the different balls in the air that
Speaker 3: we have. We have the possible nomination of Jake Clayton,
Speaker 3: who was the SEC chair, who was the US attorney
Speaker 3: for the Southern District of New York, whose past Senate
Speaker 3: confirmation is seen, as you know, despite what you rightly
Speaker 3: pointed out in the horrible statements, not part of Trump
Speaker 3: world in the way Trump wants. And then you have
Speaker 3: a pure loyalist and Bill Poulti, somebody that couldn't know
Speaker 3: way could be confirmed by the Senate. And yet he's
Speaker 3: you know, toying which one am I going to give
Speaker 3: you and what the Senate.
Speaker 4: Is rightly doing.
Speaker 3: And you know, that's the optimistic thing here is they're
Speaker 3: seeing the danger of Bill Poulti as the acting chief
Speaker 3: and they're especially seeing this is the thing I really
Speaker 3: don't want to lose that for so much of American history,
Speaker 3: our laws have been set up to delegate massive power
Speaker 3: out of trust to the executive branch to the president. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to skip warrants here.
Speaker 4: There's a war on terror.
Speaker 3: We're going to trust that whatever administration is isn't going
Speaker 3: to use it to shut down descent to spy on opponents. Now,
Speaker 3: with Bill Poultie, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he's
Speaker 3: going to do. And thankfully we have senators, including I
Speaker 3: mentioned Senator Widen, who will be our guest in a
Speaker 3: few weeks, who are recognizing this is a danger, not
Speaker 3: just because Bill Poulti is a danger, but because legislation
Speaker 3: that enables somebody in that position to skip warrants, it
Speaker 3: puts them in a perfect position if they want to
Speaker 3: destroy democracy, to spy on opponents, to shut down descent.
Speaker 3: It is scary, and that's.
Speaker 4: What this fight is about.
Speaker 3: And thankfully, you know, the story easily could have been skipped,
Speaker 3: this renewal of Fiza and the section that was added.
Speaker 2: Y stuff to be at our show with Cory it
Speaker 2: really is.
Speaker 3: But I'm telling you, man, if we don't recognize what's happening,
Speaker 3: this is the doorway in which it's just a little
Speaker 3: bit of democracy gets destroyed, a lot of it using
Speaker 3: the National Security Operatus to spy on opponents.
Speaker 1: Well, and they said when they did this bizarre three
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning lineup change, well, the president enjoys
Speaker 1: a slight bit of intrigue, that's what they said. The
Speaker 1: President enjoys like it's the finale of Survivor.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a.
Speaker 1: Slight bit of the apprentice American Intelligence apparatus.
Speaker 2: He enjoys a slight bit of it.
Speaker 1: Like he's still programming a reality show. One week it's Tulsi,
Speaker 1: that it's Bill Poulty, then it's Jay Clayton, then it's
Speaker 1: Bill Paulty again, and I guess next week it's.
Speaker 2: Gonna be Kid Rock.
Speaker 1: But Professor, what would the founders have thought about a
Speaker 1: chief executive effectively saying I refuse to move forward on
Speaker 1: intelligence leadership unless I get the election law.
Speaker 3: I want you know what ties all of these different
Speaker 3: threads together.
Speaker 4: You know, what do all this save act?
Speaker 3: What does all this have to do with the confirmation
Speaker 3: of the Director of National Intelligence or the use of
Speaker 3: acting of acting DNI. What it has to do with
Speaker 3: is that Trump is thinking about one thing, how do
Speaker 3: I spy on my opponents?
Speaker 4: How do I destroy them? How do I hang on
Speaker 4: to power? How do I not lose the mid terms?
Speaker 3: And all of these things are his different mechanisms. That's
Speaker 3: the lens that he's seeing it all through to well,
Speaker 3: to shut down our civil liberties, shut down our democracy,
Speaker 3: and extend his own power. If you see it all
Speaker 3: through there, then it all makes complete sense. Those these
Speaker 3: are the bargaining ships that he's trying to use. You
Speaker 3: asked about the Founders, and we really need to pivot
Speaker 3: to history, because you know, the Founders were worried about
Speaker 3: the war powers that in England, the monarch had the
Speaker 3: ability to initiate war, to carry it out. And with
Speaker 3: those war powers came the danger of shutdown of national
Speaker 3: civil liberties, of civil liberties within the United States, and
Speaker 3: so they them up. They limited the president's power in
Speaker 3: Article two. And what we've done in the twentieth century
Speaker 3: over time, and even Carter, who in his signing statement
Speaker 3: Offiza talked about the need to balance, as he put it,
Speaker 3: human rights and his speech signing the law human rights
Speaker 3: on the one hand, and also the need for national security.
Speaker 3: That's what he was concerned to do. He created an
Speaker 3: apparatus which was.
Speaker 4: Then extended during the G. W. Bush administration to.
Speaker 3: Allow for undermining the very protections that the Framers put
Speaker 3: in there against the president that was going to shut
Speaker 3: down our civil liberties. And I'll just mention again the
Speaker 3: most important not just the limits in Article two, but
Speaker 3: the Fourth Amendment, which says government can't just spy on
Speaker 3: us with no reason. It needs reason in order to
Speaker 3: do what it's doing. And there's a restriction on unreasonable search,
Speaker 3: in seizure, the monarchist idea that king could simply just
Speaker 3: spy on or shut down his opposition. No, they were
Speaker 3: resisting that, but through a series of laws, including five.
Speaker 3: There's a danger of undermining that, especially and I can't
Speaker 3: emphasize this enough, especially in the hands of Director of
Speaker 3: National Intelligence, who's going to use all these tools that
Speaker 3: the government has to shut down opponents. I will say
Speaker 3: one other thing, which is a lot of the debate,
Speaker 3: is about Jake Clayton. Well, if Jake Clayton's in charge,
Speaker 3: maybe we can reauthorize FIZA, we can have all this.
Speaker 3: I met Jay Clayton, I got to shake his hand
Speaker 3: at Brown, been told by a lot of people he's
Speaker 3: a decent guy. You know. Maybe, but I don't think
Speaker 3: we can hand over this power to this administration, whether
Speaker 3: it's to a confirm Jake Clayton or not.
Speaker 4: So I don't want to just.
Speaker 3: Talk about the need for a confirmed Director of National Intelligence.
Speaker 3: One thing I'm very excited to talk to Senator Widen
Speaker 3: about is the reform of our laws to not trust
Speaker 3: that a president.
Speaker 4: Is going to abide by the Fourth Amendment.
Speaker 3: We need the actual protection and oversight of courts and
Speaker 3: so No, I don't like this idea of simply affirming FIS.
Speaker 4: It needs to be reformed.
Speaker 3: I believe why it is among those. I'm also hearing
Speaker 3: about people like Ram Paul joining.
Speaker 2: This after love being on his side. That's great.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to take the help that we can
Speaker 3: get at this point because what we really need to
Speaker 3: do is to reform these laws.
Speaker 1: No, we're gonna have to be awkward roommates with a
Speaker 1: lot of libertarians that make this work.
Speaker 4: You know, I love that John awkward roommates.
Speaker 1: It's everything that we've talked about though, because we keep
Speaker 1: expecting it's going to be like Star Wars episode three, right,
Speaker 1: like Revenge of the Sith, like some big thing's going
Speaker 1: to happen, and we will watch in real time as
Speaker 1: our republic becomes an empire in falls where it's going
Speaker 1: to and in reality, No, it's it's just gradual democratic erosion,
Speaker 1: and it's easy to miss it because it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: through big operatic events. It's just through boring, procedural maneuvering.
Speaker 1: And now our intel services are being run through like
Speaker 1: midnight social media posts and loyalty tests and Senate panic attacks.
Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 3: And I have to go a way to put it, John,
Speaker 3: And I'll just say one other thing, which is so
Speaker 3: much of the apparatus is already in place. Our democracy
Speaker 3: was eroded over time without knowing it, all with the
Speaker 3: belief that, oh, a president wouldn't survey his political opponents,
Speaker 3: wouldn't use this information to shut down so.
Speaker 1: Both he would ever be so pathetic and thirs to
Speaker 1: do that in the open, My god, no president would
Speaker 1: have so little gain. They let themselves be seen doing that,
Speaker 1: they'd have dignity at least.
Speaker 4: In the past they hit it.
Speaker 3: But you know, I really think we've got to rethink
Speaker 3: the whole structure, this idea of trusting the executive branch
Speaker 3: when it comes to our civil liberties.
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: The Framers put the Fourth Amendment there for a reason,
Speaker 3: and it has to be enforced.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: That leads us to Gavin Newsom over there in California
Speaker 1: saying that Donald Trump's DOJ is investigating both him and
Speaker 1: his wife. Now, you know, congrats Gavin Newsom. If that's true.
Speaker 1: I know it will help with the fundraising and getting
Speaker 1: the campaign kicked off. But whether those investigations produce any charges.
Speaker 1: The governor's point is that the investigation itself can become punishment.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this. Donald Trump's not going after
Speaker 1: Jim Comby because he believes Comy's a risk to people
Speaker 1: for assembling seashells a certain way.
Speaker 2: And he's not.
Speaker 1: Going after Komy to try to put him in jail
Speaker 1: for He's trying to go after Coby to bankrupt Comy
Speaker 1: with legal costs. That's what he's done his entire life.
Speaker 1: He's got billions of dollars in inherited wealth, and we
Speaker 1: have learned that if you have the money, the court system,
Speaker 1: the judicial branch, can be a thing you use to
Speaker 1: hurt people. This is something I don't think the founders
Speaker 1: ever could have foreseen that you can just sue people,
Speaker 1: sue people, sue people because you know they can't. Oh,
Speaker 1: you don't pay your contractors, let him sue you, and
Speaker 1: if they sue you.
Speaker 2: Sue them back.
Speaker 1: This is this guy's whole life, and he's got an angle.
Speaker 1: He's trying to punish someone, and he's using the libres
Speaker 1: of our government to hurt people for telling the truth
Speaker 1: about him. You've talked so much about how authoritarian systems
Speaker 1: weaponize legal institutions. Do you agree that investigations like this
Speaker 1: themsel are the power abuse.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, in the seventeen ninety eight shutdown of the opposition,
Speaker 3: there were convictions for criticizing the president. They did it
Speaker 3: in the open, and they relied on the courts to
Speaker 3: imprison people. Well, this is a different technique because courts
Speaker 3: repeatedly are rejecting these lawsuits. They will when it comes
Speaker 3: to Gavin Newsom. And let's not leave out too that
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom is saying that his wife is also a
Speaker 3: target of this investigation. And yet what we've seen is
Speaker 3: that and you know, Trump is expanding this power rep
Speaker 3: but what we've seen is courts refusing to act on
Speaker 3: these lawsuits. And I think that is what will happen
Speaker 3: in the case of Gavin Newsom. They refuse to move
Speaker 3: forward with the Letitia James case. I don't think this
Speaker 3: James comy ridiculous lawsuit is going anywhere. We'll see judges
Speaker 3: and if need be, juries pushed back. But as we
Speaker 3: talked about last week, and really this story is an
Speaker 3: extension of our discussion with Harry Linman, who was in
Speaker 3: the Department of justice for a long period of time.
Speaker 3: It's not about winning, it's about say people. It's about
Speaker 3: the chilling effect. And we talked on the Oath in
Speaker 3: the Office Substack last week about the chilling effect.
Speaker 4: The idea is that you just have to threaten people.
Speaker 4: You don't have to actually carry out the threat to
Speaker 4: make them or.
Speaker 2: You don't even need chargers to be filed.
Speaker 3: And that's what's going on with these ridiculous lawsuits. And
Speaker 3: you add to the fact that this ridiculous acting Attorney
Speaker 3: General thinks that even if there's no basis in law
Speaker 3: that the president of the United States has the right
Speaker 3: the power to do that. You know, the first person
Speaker 3: to say, hey, you can't do that should be the
Speaker 3: Attorney general. This guy is the president's personal lawyer who
Speaker 3: sees Article two creating the presidency as a kind of dictatorship.
Speaker 3: The president can do anything he wants. Now, even if
Speaker 3: the lawsuits don't go anywhere, and I don't think they will,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter because they're going to get the effect
Speaker 3: that they want. And when we saw universities backing down
Speaker 3: to Trump, when we saw those law firms, including firms
Speaker 3: that surprise me like Scatin Arms, backing down.
Speaker 4: That was the chilling effect. They didn't wen't going to
Speaker 4: win in court.
Speaker 3: It didn't matter.
Speaker 4: People didn't want to deal with it. And that's what's
Speaker 4: going on here.
Speaker 1: I mean, does the Constitution provide adequate safeguards against a
Speaker 1: president using his investigative powers against his political rivals? I mean,
Speaker 1: this show has kind of turned into, oh, here's something
Speaker 1: else the Founding fathers didn't think of.
Speaker 2: I mean, all these.
Speaker 1: Stress tests, does the Constitution provide any kind of safeguards
Speaker 1: against this sort of thing?
Speaker 3: Well, you know some of the framers, Patrick Henry is
Speaker 3: I'm fond of quoting.
Speaker 4: He did see the danger.
Speaker 3: He was like, this presidency that you're creating an Article
Speaker 3: two is so powerful and the checks so weak, the courts,
Speaker 3: the Congress.
Speaker 4: They're going to just blow through them. Now.
Speaker 3: What has worked in the past is citizens, you know,
Speaker 3: on this show and others, and the election the midterms,
Speaker 3: standing up and saying no, we're not going to deal
Speaker 3: with this. Now there is another check, and that's jury's
Speaker 3: I talk in my book about the Nixon grand jury,
Speaker 3: the grand juries, and the Founding period who refused to
Speaker 3: indict political opponents of John Adams. What all of those
Speaker 3: have in common is that it was not public officials,
Speaker 3: it was citizens who pushed back. And here, I think
Speaker 3: that's going to be part of it. And let's not
Speaker 3: forget the heroism. You know, people like James Comy aren't
Speaker 3: backing down. Gavin Hoosome, of course, is not backing down.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's time for bravery. And that's what
Speaker 3: we're starting to see, and let's continue to celebrate that.
Speaker 2: Corey.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the break, I just want to
Speaker 1: ask what parallels scare you the most here? Is it
Speaker 1: Nixon or Hungary or Turkey or other democracies in decline.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, democracy is so fragile, and I always
Speaker 3: go back to that John Adams period of seventeen ninety
Speaker 3: eight because the right to free speech is so precarious.
Speaker 4: The Supreme Court is supposed to protect it.
Speaker 3: But what scares me about seventeen ninety eight is that
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court lobbied Samuel Chase, lobbied for this Edition Act,
Speaker 3: and then sat on the trials to shut it down.
Speaker 3: So the idea that we're going to just have the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court protect us or the judiciary protect us, I'm
Speaker 3: worried about that both because there are ways through legislation.
Speaker 3: That's what we've been talking about in the fis of
Speaker 3: law and its extension to evade the Constitution. There are
Speaker 3: ways of shutting down free speech by ignoring courts. So
Speaker 3: we really need a revival in this country of our
Speaker 3: commitment to constitutionalism. And in the meantime, what we've got
Speaker 3: is Gavin Newsom and James call me and Letitia James
Speaker 3: and people refusing to back down. And that's why we're
Speaker 3: doing this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the Constitution is like a dog. These
Speaker 1: people left locked in a hot car in August. We
Speaker 1: got to take a break. Professor back in a moment,
Speaker 1: and Katie Thing will be joining us very shortly.
Speaker 2: Don't go away.
Speaker 1: This is the Oath and the Office.
Speaker 4: Hi everyone, it's Corey.
Speaker 3: I'm jumping on here to let you know that Amazon
Speaker 3: Prime Days is featuring my book The Presidents and the People.
Speaker 3: Five leaders who threatened democracy and the citizens who fought
Speaker 3: to defend it. It's only two dollars and ninety nine
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Speaker 3: about why the presidency itself is a danger to democracy
Speaker 3: and why five times before Donald Trump we've seen presidents
Speaker 3: threaten democracy. Even some of the supposed hero people like
Speaker 3: John Adams and Woodrow Wilson, I argue, actually, we're deeply
Speaker 3: authoritarian in their understandings of the Constitution. But this isn't
Speaker 3: a book without hope. In fact, it's a book all
Speaker 3: about hope. It's a book about citizens who fought back,
Speaker 3: some of whom you've heard of, like Frederick Douglas, Others
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Speaker 3: Ellsberg for the book, and it's about his role. And
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Speaker 3: against authoritarian presidents, but they prevailed. They prevailed by appealing
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Speaker 4: So in a dire time, check it out.
Speaker 3: This is a book about hope, and I think it's
Speaker 3: really a remedy to what we're facing every week with
Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: At any rate.
Speaker 3: I hope you liked the book, and thanks so much
Speaker 3: for listening to this podcast and for making it so successful.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the office, I'm John
Speaker 1: Fugel saying, hey, you know, Corey, with all the great
Speaker 1: ratings and reviews for this show, we should tell people
Speaker 1: to subscribe. I think I mean, what would be number
Speaker 1: three this week on Apple Government Podcasts?
Speaker 2: Good lord, we.
Speaker 3: Are number three last week on Apple podcast Government. And
Speaker 3: if you've been with us for a long time, as
Speaker 3: so many of our amazing listeners have been, thank you
Speaker 3: you've put us there. If you're new to the show,
Speaker 3: you're joining us for the first time, hit that subscribe
Speaker 3: button on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to us.
Speaker 1: Right on, Corey, I'm really sorry we have to talk
Speaker 1: about Pete hag Seth.
Speaker 2: You've been so good to me.
Speaker 1: I hate to make you do this, but Secretary of
Speaker 1: Jaegermeister is back to his old tricks. He doesn't like
Speaker 1: it when military brass say, hey, these black men and
Speaker 1: women are due to be promoted as generals because of merit.
Speaker 1: That really up sets them. DEI was there to keep
Speaker 1: unqualified white men from getting jobs they don't deserve. Light
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth. So once again we have reports that he
Speaker 1: has delayed it or blocked even more promotions for senior
Speaker 1: military officers, and they just so happened to be African
Speaker 1: American or female.
Speaker 2: Corey, I don't even know what to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a difference between changing military policy
Speaker 1: and changing who is allowed to rise within the military hierarchy.
Speaker 1: Right for them to come in and say, we don't
Speaker 1: want a woke military, we don't want a dei military,
Speaker 1: that's one thing, but it appears that was just the
Speaker 1: code we knew for we don't want anyone other than
Speaker 1: white heterosexual males to advance in this military.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, I'd love to talk endlessly about
Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth and his ridiculous costplaying of exercise and business.
Speaker 2: Interesting person and spirituality is great too.
Speaker 3: And as much as I'd like to do that, I
Speaker 3: also want to talk about the ideology that this is revealing,
Speaker 3: which is the supposed ideology of what sometimes called meritocracy.
Speaker 3: Who's not for meritocracy that sounds like a great thing,
Speaker 3: or color blindness, which.
Speaker 4: Also could be a good thing and.
Speaker 1: Some but when you don't want to, when your racism
Speaker 1: is threatened by the idea of being color conscious. You'd
Speaker 1: much rather talk about color blindness.
Speaker 3: So let's look at the context that they're using these
Speaker 3: words in, and as benign as they sound, that's what's
Speaker 3: going on here. This supposed Secretary of War really Secretary
Speaker 3: of Defense, because the name, my understanding is is still
Speaker 3: the Secretary of Defense, despite what he might call themself.
Speaker 1: I call them the Secretary of America because I'm a
Speaker 1: past go on.
Speaker 3: But you know this, this meritocracy idea is just being
Speaker 3: used as a mass for racism, and the same I'll
Speaker 3: say for color blindness, whether it's Pete Hegseth or Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 3: And the white supremacy that we're seeing here that again
Speaker 3: and again in these news stories that people of merit
Speaker 3: Let's not lose that word to the claiming people claiming
Speaker 3: meritocracy are being denied women because or because of their race.
Speaker 3: It is blunt discrimination. Let's call it what it is,
Speaker 3: white supremacy, an attempt to create second class citizenship for
Speaker 3: women and Black Americans who are part of the military.
Speaker 3: And he's doing it in the open, and the reporting
Speaker 3: again and again shows that how disgusting. Let's not let
Speaker 3: him claim that word meritocracy.
Speaker 1: I mean professional militaries, unlike politics, are designed to reward competence.
Speaker 1: It's like sports or dance, Like you can't fake some things.
Speaker 1: You can't fake it through. And I mean what happens
Speaker 1: when military advestment becomes tied to ideological conformity or white supremacy.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do authoritarian governments typically reshape military leadership.
Speaker 1: I've read plenty about how angry they were when Harry
Speaker 1: Truman desegregated our troops after World War Two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I should say too.
Speaker 3: You know that there's a long history, of course, of
Speaker 3: white supremacy in the military, although we had an integrated military.
Speaker 3: Woodrow Wilson resegregated the American military, was called out in
Speaker 3: real time by William and Roe Trotter and others. And
Speaker 3: it finally was at the behalse of the Civil Rights
Speaker 3: Committee during the Truman era that Harry Truman, through an
Speaker 3: executive order, desegregated the American military.
Speaker 4: Over the opposition of a lot of members of that military.
Speaker 3: But yet it was done successfully and we got to
Speaker 3: the point and I think the most important document actually
Speaker 3: in all of this, despite the importance of those two
Speaker 3: other historical periods. Is the military's brief in the Michigan case,
Speaker 3: which was about whether or not we could continue to
Speaker 3: have and I'll use the phrase that you use race
Speaker 3: conscious admissions in college. And what the military said in
Speaker 3: their brief in the Michigan case it was so important,
Speaker 3: was to function, we can't have discrimination in the top ranks.
Speaker 3: We need to have diversity, Yes, diversity in the top
Speaker 3: ranks of the military. And we're not going to go
Speaker 3: back to a period of all white male officers and
Speaker 3: an integrated core of enlisted military. And that idea that
Speaker 3: the military needed to be integrated at all levels was
Speaker 3: such a profound reason why the Supreme Court in the
Speaker 3: Michigan case upheld color conscious policy. Clarence Thomas has long
Speaker 3: hated that decision and finally has destroyed it through the
Speaker 3: Harvard case and the UNC case. And we now have
Speaker 3: color blind understanding of our constitution. And now in the
Speaker 3: military we're seeing what that really means. Color blindness means
Speaker 3: white supremacy.
Speaker 4: And the end.
Speaker 3: Of what was the military's policy finally of a strong
Speaker 3: you want a strong fighting for us, don't have an
Speaker 3: all white male officer corps. That was their point and
Speaker 3: Pete Hegg said, sees it a very different way.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's such idiots and our military why just Winata
Speaker 1: has become a real hero over the years in terms
Speaker 1: of fighting for affirmative action, filing briefs and court cases
Speaker 1: about affirmative action, because our military has gone on the
Speaker 1: record many times saying that having a more diversified caret
Speaker 1: a pool has been good for America's national defense. We
Speaker 1: got to hit a break or Katie Philk's going to
Speaker 1: get mad at us. Back in just a moment with
Speaker 1: our very special guests. This is the Oath in the Office.
Speaker 4: Hi everyone, it's Corey again.
Speaker 3: This time I'm jumping on to let you know about
Speaker 3: the Oath in the Office substack. If you're not on substack,
Speaker 3: you should be and check it out. What we're doing
Speaker 3: every week is taking our stories that we're talking about,
Speaker 3: taking the interviews that we're talking about, and we're providing
Speaker 3: some context, and we're also providing links to different articles
Speaker 3: that really explain the issues. So the Oath in the
Speaker 3: Office Substack, check it out.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fiegel,
Speaker 1: Sang Professor. I'm very excited about our guest and I'd
Speaker 1: be excited about this guest even if they weren't suing
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche over access to Epstein related records.
Speaker 3: What a pleasure to welcome Katie Fang. You know her,
Speaker 3: of course from her show on MSNBC, and she's in
Speaker 3: addition to being a television host and a legal analyst,
Speaker 3: and now she is just especially excited to have her
Speaker 3: on the Oath in the Office to talk about this
Speaker 3: really pioneering lawsuit that she's bringing against Todd Blanche using
Speaker 3: this legislation that's passed that was supposed to get us
Speaker 3: access to the Epstein files, and listeners will be interested
Speaker 3: to know, of course, you know, how can we get access?
Speaker 3: And we've talked so much on this show about the
Speaker 3: role of citizens, not just public officials and courts, and
Speaker 3: here we have a citizen who's trying to answer that
Speaker 3: question to actually do it in real time to get
Speaker 3: us access to this material.
Speaker 1: So Katie was the world of media type. She's one
Speaker 1: of our great journalists as well.
Speaker 3: So Katie, welcome to the Oath in the Office. We're
Speaker 3: so excited to talk to you. I have a lot
Speaker 3: of questions. Can you just start off by telling us
Speaker 3: about this lawsuit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so thanks for having me. It really is a
Speaker 5: thrill to be here first time.
Speaker 6: Long time. Oh let's see.
Speaker 5: So obviously a lot of us had been slogging through
Speaker 5: the various tranches of information that had been dropped by
Speaker 5: the Department of Justice, and we were all getting collectively frustrated.
Speaker 5: And I had noticed that part of what was happening
Speaker 5: is I would kind of like a dog picking up
Speaker 5: on a trail of a scent of something, right, I
Speaker 5: would start following it, and then I'd keep on hitting
Speaker 5: specific roadblocks, and part of it was I'll give you.
Speaker 6: Actually, this is a great example.
Speaker 5: Like yesterday, I did this big episode on my YouTube
Speaker 5: channel about a woman named Kathy Rummler who just had
Speaker 5: some bullshit apologist fluff piece in The Times come out
Speaker 5: in advance. I think of her trying to launder and
Speaker 5: whitewash her reputation before she appears in front of House
Speaker 5: Oversight for her transcribed interview in a few weeks. And
Speaker 5: I saw this text exchange between a redacted name and
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein, and I she got the gender totally wrong
Speaker 5: for who this person is, Like, I eventually sleuthed it
Speaker 5: with the help of other enterprising you know, viewers and subscribers.
Speaker 5: I was not only wrong about gender, it was actually
Speaker 5: a woman who her name is Melanie Walker, and she
Speaker 5: was like asshole buddies with Bill Gates and kind of
Speaker 5: was one of the people who facilitated the Gates Epstein connection.
Speaker 5: And to make a long story short, I was just wrong, right,
Speaker 5: So I'm talking about this text exchange, and the focus
Speaker 5: wasn't Melanie Walker or Gates per se, although part of
Speaker 5: this text exchange between Epstein and Walker was her saying, oh, hey,
Speaker 5: by the way, you know, I think I can try
Speaker 5: to help out with Melinda French Gates, who most certainly
Speaker 5: doesn't want to eat you. And we know that Melinda's
Speaker 5: spidery sense started tingling and that was actually part of
Speaker 5: the reason why she ended up getting divorced frankly from
Speaker 5: Bill Gates. But I guess this is such a quintessential
Speaker 5: example of how these improper reactions have led it to
Speaker 5: become very hard for me as a journalist and just
Speaker 5: as a public citizen, but specifically as a journalist to
Speaker 5: report on things with not only accuracy or but with depth. Right,
Speaker 5: Because I'd like to keep on chasing this down and
Speaker 5: So these brilliant lawyers at the Public Integrity Project, Brendan
Speaker 5: Ballou and sam Ward Packer, people that are doing the
Speaker 5: God's work, God's work right on earth right now. Brendan
Speaker 5: is one of the former J six prosecutors who represents
Speaker 5: Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges and their lawsuit because Congress
Speaker 5: passed a law but wouldn't put the J six plack
Speaker 5: up like they were supposed to to honor the law
Speaker 5: enforcement officers and put it in some random mass location intentionally,
Speaker 5: and Speaker Johnson has his head up his ass about
Speaker 5: why he can't do it right. So they're representing them,
Speaker 5: and they're also representing in a slew of lawsuits involving
Speaker 5: the billion dollar one point eight billion dollar slush fund. Anyway,
Speaker 5: these lawyers and I got together and we're are like, look,
Speaker 5: if you look at the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it
Speaker 5: was never written to give people a cause of action
Speaker 5: like you and me and others. In fact, you know,
Speaker 5: it doesn't even have a private right to a cause
Speaker 5: of action for the survivors whose confidentiality has been violated,
Speaker 5: which has now necessitated them trying to propose a law,
Speaker 5: which is ridiculous these poor people now have to go
Speaker 5: through a whole other you know, hoops to jump.
Speaker 6: Through for justice. But I was like, okay.
Speaker 5: So we looked at this and we're like, okay, no
Speaker 5: private right to a cause of action. But under the
Speaker 5: Administrative Procedure Act, if you don't do what you're supposed
Speaker 5: to do under the law in your federal agency, then
Speaker 5: you can sue. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 5: So we kind of cabbled something together, and it's the
Speaker 5: very first lawsuit of its kind pursuing into the Epstein
Speaker 5: Files Transparency Act. And to be clear, it asks for
Speaker 5: most importantly a special Master who would sit there and
Speaker 5: the DOJ would come forward and say, oh hey, look,
Speaker 5: here's a redacted piece of paper. I have like a
Speaker 5: whole pile of redactions over here. Here's a REDACTEDS from yesterday.
Speaker 6: This is an exact example, right.
Speaker 5: So this is a text message between text message emails
Speaker 5: between Kathy Rumbler and Jeffrey Epstein, where she castigates Cigaret McCauley,
Speaker 5: who's a longtime advocate and lawyer for the Epstein survivors,
Speaker 5: and calls her victims rights. My ass is what this
Speaker 5: woman says, His former Obama Council Kathy Rumbler. Anyway, her
Speaker 5: email address is redacted. It's like the dumbest shit, And I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, so dumb, it's very deliberate.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, yeah, Listen, the violation of the laws here
Speaker 5: is either just gross negligence to absolutely intentional misconduct, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, it runs that spectrum. But anyway, special Master
Speaker 5: would get this from the DOJ and they'd say this
Speaker 5: is shit and you can't do this, and it would
Speaker 5: be able to rectify that right, among other things.
Speaker 6: So that's kind of the gist of the lawsuits.
Speaker 5: And then it helps me as a journalist, be able
Speaker 5: to chase down more information in story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're used to journalists, of course, having access
Speaker 3: to information through FOYA or through other techniques. But part
Speaker 3: of what you're saying is this law that was passed,
Speaker 3: the Epstein Transparency Act. Although it doesn't say that journalists
Speaker 3: have standing to sue, you're saying I do have standing
Speaker 3: to sue because I've been.
Speaker 4: Harmed as a journalist. I can't do my job.
Speaker 3: So tell me more about the standing obstacle, because I
Speaker 3: could imagine one of the questions that you're trying to
Speaker 3: answer in all this is it doesn't look like there
Speaker 3: was standing for journalists written into the law, but you're
Speaker 3: trying to say that under the Administrative Procedure Act and
Speaker 3: also because I am harmed as a journalist that I
Speaker 3: have standing, So say more about that. Why are you
Speaker 3: harmed as a journalist and have standing under the law?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's part of what's so pioneering
Speaker 3: and brilliant about this that you have this law, Well,
Speaker 3: who's going to enforce it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: I guess they didn't think about that. Well, that's the
Speaker 3: role of litigation. Come in and say, I.
Speaker 6: Was sure, here's the thing they did.
Speaker 5: So Rocanna Massey were the co sponsors of this law,
Speaker 5: and ro Kanna has said that when the iteration of
Speaker 5: the law went to Republicans for bipartisan support and it
Speaker 5: included enforcement mechanisms within the law, the Republicans said.
Speaker 6: We won't sign off on it.
Speaker 5: So, which makes sense for these Republicans, right, It's like
Speaker 5: they want the performative victory lap. We support you know,
Speaker 5: the victims, and we're all for transparency, but god forbid,
Speaker 5: you want to bake in to the law and.
Speaker 6: Enforcement mechanism to give it teeth.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, we can't do that, like to grab the
Speaker 5: smelling salts, because that's just one step too far for Republicans.
Speaker 5: So because there isn't a built in mechanism for enforcement,
Speaker 5: and because there isn't a built in mechanism for the
Speaker 5: cause of action to bring it, Like you said, you
Speaker 5: got to have standing to get through the door for
Speaker 5: a lawsuit. And I'm arguing that I have informational harm.
Speaker 6: And economic harm.
Speaker 5: The informational harm is the failure by them to abide
Speaker 5: by the law has created an inability for me to
Speaker 5: chase down more information and stories number one and number two.
Speaker 6: The economic harm, which I do.
Speaker 5: Sustain, but is not the point of the lawsuit because
Speaker 5: let me be clear, I'm not looking for money from the.
Speaker 6: DOJ at all.
Speaker 5: But the economic harm is, as we know, I have
Speaker 5: a YouTube channel and I have subscribers, and if I
Speaker 5: don't get the views or I'm going to get the subscribers,
Speaker 5: or if people on subsect don't read my pieces about
Speaker 5: Epstein because I can't push them even farther into what's
Speaker 5: been made available thus far by the DOJ, then I
Speaker 5: suffer economic harm and just really quickly. That is part
Speaker 5: of the problem, is it not. The DOJ is using
Speaker 5: the Epstein Fouls Transparency Act to be able to weaponize
Speaker 5: us as journalists to only give the information that they
Speaker 5: want us to give to the people. And that's a
Speaker 5: disgusting perversion of what this law was intended to do.
Speaker 5: This law has the word transparency and its title for
Speaker 5: a reason. But if you stop when you think about it,
Speaker 5: to allow the Trump DOJ to get keep in traffic
Speaker 5: cop the information that is disseminated means that I just
Speaker 5: end up just being a megaphone for them. Yeah, but
Speaker 5: it's not me as a reporter or journalist providing truth
Speaker 5: and evidence to the people that want to consume it
Speaker 5: in the media, like from the media, right, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 6: Just just parroting what they give me.
Speaker 3: That's all. I mean.
Speaker 1: They need a happy stnographer, that's what they want here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so grateful you did it for so
Speaker 1: many reasons. I mean, because let's be honest, they have
Speaker 1: broken their own law every day since December nineteenth of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. That's right, they have been in violation
Speaker 1: of their own law. Pambondy, Todd Lanch Donald Trump have
Speaker 1: broken their own law every day since December nineteenth, and
Speaker 1: the DOJ is arguing that, oh, many of these redactions
Speaker 1: were necessary to protect the victims, including minors. We know
Speaker 1: that that is a lie, because they did not protect
Speaker 1: the victims. They protected the men who raped children. You know,
Speaker 1: I found out my name was in the file because
Speaker 1: someone subscribed to a Beacon Theater mailing list and I
Speaker 1: was doing a show there. But I tell everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything wrong because my name's not redacted.
Speaker 1: That's how you know I'm innocent. It's the guilty people.
Speaker 1: It's the people that we're waiting for indictments on while
Speaker 1: we're indicting folks for picking paint chips out of a
Speaker 1: reflecting pool. Your complaint is beautiful because you're seeking the
Speaker 1: appointment of this independent Special Master, which I think just
Speaker 1: beautifully messages to the universe that we can't trust this
Speaker 1: DOJ to police their own compliance with the law. But
Speaker 1: between I have to ask, between the redactions and the
Speaker 1: seemingly deliberate miss deadlines and the crappy explanations the withdrawal
Speaker 1: of material it was already released, what part of this
Speaker 1: worries you?
Speaker 5: The most that their stuff that's gone that we'll never
Speaker 5: know about. The spoliation of evidence, as we call it
Speaker 5: in the legal world, the destruction of documents and other evidence.
Speaker 5: That is particularly damning for not only people like convicted
Speaker 5: fellon Donald Trump, but also other people in the epstein
Speaker 5: elite and in that orbit, because you're going to ask
Speaker 5: me to eventually have to reverse engineer it to prove
Speaker 5: something's gone. But if you continue to allow these people
Speaker 5: to have unfettered access as the gatekeepers to this information,
Speaker 5: that's my greatest fear. My fear is not John Fugel
Speaker 5: saying being unfairly accused of having done something that's not it. Like,
Speaker 5: I know that there could be an investigation into your
Speaker 5: name and you would be clear right. But yeah, But
Speaker 5: here's the thing. Number one, there is an a wholesale
Speaker 5: absence of investigation in the file so far, which just
Speaker 5: goes to show that there was a failure of the
Speaker 5: system for law enforcement. Although I am corrected all the
Speaker 5: time by survivors in the survivor community that say, no, Katie,
Speaker 5: actually the system didn't fail.
Speaker 6: It actually worked exactly the way it.
Speaker 5: Was supposed to do, which was to protect I agree
Speaker 5: people that were wealthy and had power. But my greatest
Speaker 5: fear is having to verse engineer to prove that something's gone,
Speaker 5: because that ends up being exponentially more difficult for me
Speaker 5: to do as somebody who wants to investigatively look into something, and.
Speaker 6: As a trial lawyer.
Speaker 5: That hurts my heart too, right, because in my world,
Speaker 5: it's always based on evidence, and it's based on what
Speaker 5: you can prove. And so I'm hoping though, that by
Speaker 5: me always ringing the bell on a daily basis about Epstein,
Speaker 5: that I keep it at the top of the public discourse,
Speaker 5: and even through all the shit show of everything that's
Speaker 5: going on, I also know it's an incredibly powerful achilles
Speaker 5: heel for not only Trump this administration, but for other
Speaker 5: people like Kathy Rummler, who by all accounts was a
Speaker 5: you know Obama White House counsel and just like you know, elite,
Speaker 5: top of the cream of the crop when it came
Speaker 5: to the lawyers. But I don't care if you're a
Speaker 5: Democrat or a Republican or a no party affiliation independent.
Speaker 5: If you have done something wrong, my justice compass says
Speaker 5: that you have to pay the price for it.
Speaker 6: And at this point, if there's no statue.
Speaker 5: If the statue limitations has been blown criminally for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: then at a minimum there should be some measure of
Speaker 5: civil recourse. And even if that doesn't exist, then some
Speaker 5: measure of accountability should be that we find out the
Speaker 5: truth about what happened to these poor people.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, just to reiterate, we have a
Speaker 3: law that did pass Congress, was signed by the President
Speaker 3: that then creates a right of Americans to see these files,
Speaker 3: to have transparency. When it comes to this lawsuit, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not easy to get legislation passed. That's what it does.
Speaker 3: And as you've been explaining what your lawsuit does so brilliantly,
Speaker 3: is say, well, you know, if there this isn't just
Speaker 3: some abstract right. Law isn't just a sort of symbolic
Speaker 3: statement that we have.
Speaker 4: Some abstract right.
Speaker 3: There are actual entitlements of actual people to receive this information.
Speaker 4: Now, who are those people?
Speaker 3: You're arguing it's journalists who will be harmed by not
Speaker 3: getting access here. We've been talking more generally on the
Speaker 3: show about the debate about renewal of the FISA law
Speaker 3: and about transparency generally. One question I have for you,
Speaker 3: sort of big picture is, of course, have done a
Speaker 3: lot to limit the ability to sue in court, to
Speaker 3: have standing, to get access to really what those in
Speaker 3: power are doing.
Speaker 4: And yet what we've seen not just in.
Speaker 3: The Epstein matter, it's part of a wider phenomenon of
Speaker 3: the executive branch hiding what it's doing and what happens
Speaker 3: in the shadows. Well, it's all sorts of corruption and
Speaker 3: crime and nefarious activity. We know that from history and
Speaker 3: from this administration. So one question I have for you
Speaker 3: is even beyond the Epstein files, I mean, is this
Speaker 3: a part of a movement of journalists to gain access
Speaker 3: to see ways of getting information about what's going on
Speaker 3: behind closed doors? Or do you really just see it
Speaker 3: as a way of indicating the law and seeing entitlement
Speaker 3: to get this information protecting victims.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's kind of yes, and yes, there is law.
Speaker 5: The rule of law has to be respected in every
Speaker 5: facet of our society. If not, then it's chaos, is
Speaker 5: it not? Is it not anarchy? Is it not just lawlessness?
Speaker 5: Like the idea is the most powerful law firm in
Speaker 5: the world is the United States Department of Justice. If
Speaker 5: you contemplate as we've seen now on the negative side,
Speaker 5: the abuse of the power that exists in that federal agency.
Speaker 5: I've always said, it's the largest law firm in the world,
Speaker 5: and yet they're not required to abide by the law.
Speaker 6: But you expect me to do so. That makes no sense.
Speaker 5: That really destroys the idea of not only the rule
Speaker 5: of law and also the adage that no man is
Speaker 5: above the law.
Speaker 6: Right number one.
Speaker 5: But number two to the first part, what you're seeing
Speaker 5: here is a definitive movement, if we can call it that,
Speaker 5: of an approach by independent media.
Speaker 6: Because let's be clear, no.
Speaker 5: Mainstream legacy media outlet brought this law right, all of
Speaker 5: the power of their money and their legal teams and everything.
Speaker 6: Not a single one of them did it.
Speaker 1: You think they'd want the clicks, You'd think you.
Speaker 5: Would think that they would want the information. And by
Speaker 5: the way, let me be clear, this is not an
Speaker 5: assault on mainstream legacy media. But there is a nuanced
Speaker 5: part of it that I am saying is a part
Speaker 5: of what I am doing here, which is I would
Speaker 5: like to think that I'm a part of really a
Speaker 5: group of independent journalists who have said that the price
Speaker 5: of selling your soul for access journalism isn't worth it?
Speaker 5: Thank you, the idea that you cannot ask a very
Speaker 5: just straightforward question and then you get this reactive you
Speaker 5: know what about ism, or this reactive lie and then
Speaker 5: you don't follow up on it because it is something
Speaker 5: of critical importance that people want to know about, because
Speaker 5: you have a fear that you'll never be invited back
Speaker 5: on air force, or you won't be able to go
Speaker 5: to the White House correspondence dinner, which we've all been to.
Speaker 5: Like that is what I would like to think is
Speaker 5: what this lawsuit is a part of a bigger movement
Speaker 5: of us saying it's just not worth it. It's okay
Speaker 5: to say it's not worth my soul to do this.
Speaker 5: I owe something bigger, and I'd like to think ory
Speaker 5: that that's what we're doing. I'd like to think that
Speaker 5: that's the huge part of this lawsuit amongst all the
Speaker 5: other work that's being done in independent media right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, say more about that. Why is corporate
Speaker 3: media not intervening? Because on the one hand, you're right
Speaker 3: that there's a worry about access journalism, but yet, I mean,
Speaker 3: isn't there, in the most crude terms of profit, motive
Speaker 3: to find out the truth to see what's out there,
Speaker 3: or have things become so broken that they are so
Speaker 3: worried about this administration. Now, you know, I understand that
Speaker 3: maybe CBS isn't going to be at the forefront of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it varies network to network professor why
Speaker 1: Disney Mojo this week than CBS.
Speaker 3: But I do think, I mean, and let correct me
Speaker 3: if I'm wrong, that it really is that you are
Speaker 3: the one doing this. You and your team are pioneering
Speaker 3: this lawsuit, and I'm not seeing some of the groups
Speaker 3: that you might think would join you, The New York
Speaker 3: Times or MS.
Speaker 4: Now, I mean, why is that?
Speaker 5: Because you know, for them, I agree that it would
Speaker 5: be profitable to be able to bring more eyeballs to
Speaker 5: either the TV screens or to the Internet to be
Speaker 5: able to read this stuff. But I think that they,
Speaker 5: as I know, I mean, it's not a secret, you know,
Speaker 5: they're worried about backlash from this administration. And I sincerely
Speaker 5: believe that they think that Brendan Carr, the FCC or
Speaker 5: somebody else is going to come after them and materially
Speaker 5: affect their bottom line and they don't want to run
Speaker 5: that risk. And so for them, they're like oh look,
Speaker 5: here's this pioneering, first of it's kind law suit.
Speaker 6: Let's see what happens.
Speaker 5: And the reality is the relief I'm seeking would benefit
Speaker 5: everybody across the world, like it wouldn't.
Speaker 6: Just be for me.
Speaker 5: And so you know, look, they're like, sure, let Katie
Speaker 5: Fang be the sacrificial lamb on this and let her,
Speaker 5: you know, deal with the consequences of it. And so
Speaker 5: there was some measure of calculation on my part of Okay,
Speaker 5: what do I have to lose to do this?
Speaker 6: And there is measure of risk here, But in.
Speaker 5: My mind, it also sets the tone, like, for example,
Speaker 5: the Department of Justice responded to a motion for preliminary
Speaker 5: injunction that we have set for hearing on June thirtieth
Speaker 5: in front of this really strong federal judge in DC
Speaker 5: because while the suit is pending, I asked the court
Speaker 5: to intervene on five specific areas through this preliminary injunction
Speaker 5: motion because I said to the court, these are the
Speaker 5: most some of the most egregious violations of the Epstein
Speaker 5: Files Transparency Act that can be easily and immediately remedied
Speaker 5: while the case is pending.
Speaker 6: And you know, the Department of Justice's response to me wasn't.
Speaker 5: Predictably, it was you don't have standing, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 5: although that was super weak sauce their strongest argument that
Speaker 5: they're relying upon is, hey, Katie Foya, the Freedom of
Speaker 5: Information Act exists for you to come and get info.
Speaker 5: And yet they conveniently ignore all of the restrictions and
Speaker 5: limitations on FOYA that would prevent me from being able
Speaker 5: to see some of the stuff I currently see by
Speaker 5: way of this Transparency Act online. And so for them,
Speaker 5: they don't really appreciate the nuances of this lawsuit.
Speaker 2: Look, that's not their job.
Speaker 5: That's well, their job is to stonewall right, like this
Speaker 5: YearIn is supposed to happen a week ago on June sixteenth,
Speaker 5: and they're like, sorry, we can't do it, and so
Speaker 5: the judge is like, tough shit, you'll have to do
Speaker 5: it June thirtieth. Then, like he wasn't going to push
Speaker 5: it any farther out. But you know, for them, when
Speaker 5: you think about everything that's been going on, and then
Speaker 5: you think about that reporting about the situation room meetings
Speaker 5: over the Epstein files, you have to understand that there
Speaker 5: is something so much bigger going on that they're trying
Speaker 5: to actively conceal. And so why would you in mainstream
Speaker 5: legacy media flirt with danger of you know, getting.
Speaker 3: Some type of that is exactly right, exactly right, I
Speaker 3: have to say, if you know, that's their best argument.
Speaker 3: And I think you said this is in front of
Speaker 3: Judge Sullivan, and I'm feeling pretty good about your argument
Speaker 3: because and it really does come down to democracy, because
Speaker 3: FOYA obviously predates the Sepstein Transparency Act and the democracy
Speaker 3: the Congress, the signature of the President made the decision
Speaker 3: that there was need for new legislation. If everything answered
Speaker 3: by oh, let's just look back at FOYA.
Speaker 4: You already have a rent. Well, what is the point
Speaker 4: of this thing?
Speaker 3: And I used to teach a class at Fordham Law
Speaker 3: School on statutory interpretation and beauty. That's just a sort
Speaker 3: of basic idea of statutory interpretation that the new law
Speaker 3: isn't that same.
Speaker 4: As the all law.
Speaker 1: They got him to sign the law, though, Marge Green
Speaker 1: and Lauren Bobert. Marge Green and Lauren bober are gonna
Speaker 1: be the heroes of all of this at the end
Speaker 1: of the day because they helped get him to sign
Speaker 1: the law. He didn't want to sign. They put him
Speaker 1: in the corner, and now he's there. And Katie, to
Speaker 1: your excellent point, I don't expect legacy corporate media to
Speaker 1: do this kind of work. That's the job of journalists,
Speaker 1: not media. Media's job is to make money. Journalist's job
Speaker 1: is to seek the truth and make people.
Speaker 2: In power uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: So I so admire what you're doing because it's exactly
Speaker 1: what I expect the line, And I'm not a I
Speaker 1: don't hate corporate media. I've worked in corporate media my
Speaker 1: whole life. I do all the cable news shows. But
Speaker 1: it's not their job to go and pursue justice. It's
Speaker 1: their job to get eyeballs, to get ratings, to get clicks.
Speaker 1: It's the job of journalists to actually render us a
Speaker 1: decent society. And I got to ask the DOJ inspector General.
Speaker 1: Now they're launching their own audit of the department's compliance.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like this really strengthens your case. Yes,
Speaker 1: outside judicial oversight is still necessary, but I mean, if
Speaker 1: you prevail, what does success actually look like is the
Speaker 1: release every last remaining document, is the release of court
Speaker 1: ruling defining the limits of executive secrecy. How would you
Speaker 1: like to see the public trust restored from this suit?
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't think it's ever going to be restored
Speaker 5: in this DOJ I think that sure? Yeah, I think
Speaker 5: the destruction of the integrity of and that's one of
Speaker 5: the saddest things. I mean, there is centuries of just
Speaker 5: institutional knowledge and experience that has gone from the Department
Speaker 5: of Justice, either due to people being summarily fired illegally
Speaker 5: or by them leaving because they couldn't in clear conscience
Speaker 5: stay there. But justice for me would be literal professor
Speaker 5: to your point, compliance with the statutory language of the law. Right,
Speaker 5: that is what justice should be defined as. And then
Speaker 5: what flows from that compliance with the federal law, which
Speaker 5: was enacted not as a supplement to FOYA, but as
Speaker 5: a totally separate, standalone law in.
Speaker 6: Addition to FOYA.
Speaker 5: You know, whatever flows there from, maybe that is justice.
Speaker 5: Maybe something comes out from an illegally redacted document that
Speaker 5: brings one survivor closer to being able to identify an assailant.
Speaker 6: I'll give you an example.
Speaker 5: In France, as a result of the Epstein files, drops
Speaker 5: of information we've done here in the United States, ten
Speaker 5: new victims have stepped forward. In France, one of them
Speaker 5: could not identify the name of the agent that was
Speaker 5: working for Jean Luke Brunnell, who was business partners with
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein in his modeling agency, until she saw his
Speaker 5: name appear in the Epstein files and she was able.
Speaker 6: To step forward.
Speaker 5: I mean, for me, you know, when I was at
Speaker 5: the redacted reading room in New York and DC, they
Speaker 5: have a tribute to the survivors and it's these candles,
Speaker 5: and there's approximately twelve hundred of them, although by last
Speaker 5: count the DOJ itself acknowledged at least fourteen hundred. But
Speaker 5: Danny Bensky, who I've become close to who is an
Speaker 5: Epstein survivor, said, you know, Katie, it is visually beautiful done,
Speaker 5: but people need to remember each one of those candles
Speaker 5: is a life. So even if it's helping one person
Speaker 5: get one step closer to what they define as justice,
Speaker 5: And how are we not on the right side of
Speaker 5: history for this, Like, how are we not having done
Speaker 5: the right thing by it? There's a part of me
Speaker 5: as a lawyer who says restoration of rule of law.
Speaker 6: There's a part of.
Speaker 5: Me as a woman who says this is the right
Speaker 5: thing to do. There's a part of me, as the
Speaker 5: mom to an eleven year old girl, like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 5: we're creating a better, safer place where people can't think
Speaker 5: that they can hide behind their money means an influence.
Speaker 5: There's just so much to it that I feel like
Speaker 5: would be such an amazing step towards accountability. But right now,
Speaker 5: as we have this conversation amongst all of us, and
Speaker 5: no matter how well intentioned we are, we're going on
Speaker 5: six months of the law being broken. That's right, with
Speaker 5: nothing happening, nothing moving. It is the most stagnant sense
Speaker 5: of injustice, and so something has to be done.
Speaker 6: And that's what we decided to do with this lawsuit.
Speaker 2: Amen, thank you for being the one to do it.
Speaker 3: What a profound place to end this amazing conversation. I
Speaker 3: have to say, you know, this podcast is all about
Speaker 3: the rule of law, the idea that a president takes
Speaker 3: an oath that puts him in an office that in
Speaker 3: many ways is supposed to be anyway above him, that
Speaker 3: the president doesn't control the law, the president is under
Speaker 3: the law, and yet we have a president and the
Speaker 3: Department of Justice who are trying to undermine that. Now,
Speaker 3: theses all sound like abstract ideas until you see that.
Speaker 4: When it comes to a law passed to let all
Speaker 4: of us.
Speaker 3: See these Epstein files, what's going on as a president
Speaker 3: trying to control that law, to make it all about
Speaker 3: himself and to have his toadies in the Department of
Speaker 3: Justice do the same. And what you're doing is such
Speaker 3: a common sense, simple vindication of democracy to say, there
Speaker 3: is this law, there are all sorts of reasons why
Speaker 3: it was passed, and we have a right. We have
Speaker 3: rights under that law, including the right of journalists to
Speaker 3: see this information and share it with the rest of us. So,
Speaker 3: Katie Fang, thanks so much for bringing this lawsuit, for
Speaker 3: explaining these wider issues on the oath in the office.
Speaker 4: It was really a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 6: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys so much for the ability to spend
Speaker 5: this time with you and with your viewers and listeners.
Speaker 6: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks so much, professor.
Speaker 1: Thank you as always, What is the best way for
Speaker 1: our listeners to keep up with you, Corey and You're
Speaker 1: brilliance the other six days of the week.
Speaker 3: Well, what an episode we talked about the fives of
Speaker 3: law and the last of transparency there and then we
Speaker 3: had to somebody who really Katie Fang is fighting for
Speaker 3: transparency to see the full Epstein unredacted Epstein files a
Speaker 3: brilliant strategy in court. I hope it prevails, and so
Speaker 3: thanks to her for an amazing discussion. Thanks to you, John,
Speaker 3: as always for an amazing discussion as well of the
Speaker 3: wider issues in this week's attack on democracy. You can
Speaker 3: find me as Democracy prof that's on Blue Sky. You
Speaker 3: can find me on Twitter at Bretschneuer Exit Bretschneider C.
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Speaker 4: We're growing every week and tell a friend.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, John for another amazing episode of The
Speaker 3: Oath in the Office.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you, and I want to think
Speaker 1: Wendy and Beywolf and everyone who puts the show together.
Speaker 1: You can hear me every night on SiriusXM Progress. My
Speaker 1: book is called Separation of Church and Hate. Professor Bretschneider,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and thank you Katie cleg and
Speaker 1: we will see you guys next time on the Oath
Speaker 1: and the Office