BREAKING: Trump & Bondi CAUGHT in EXPLOSIVE new Epstein SCANDAL

BREAKING: Trump & Bondi CAUGHT in EXPLOSIVE new Epstein SCANDAL

Pam Bondi and Donald Trump pull a deceptive scheme to buy themselves some distance from the Epstein fallout. And I’ve got three interviews this week. I speak with Texas State Representative James Telerico about the Republican Jerrymander in Texas and his recent interview with Joe Rogan. I speak with Jamie Rascin about the discharge petition to compel the release of the Epstein files and Senator John Oaf about the Epstein files and his latest rallies in Georgia. I’m Brian Teller Cohen and you’re watching No Lie. So, I’m going to make this as simple as possible to understand. Trump and Bondi just coordinated to straight up con their own base into thinking that they’re seeking transparency with Epstein when in fact they are doing the polar opposite. We can all agree that the calls to release the Epstein files have hit a fever pitch. Trump can’t escape it. He’s dissembling. His always successful strategy of manipulating the media is falling flat for the first time ever. His excuses are all over the place. He’s claimed that the files don’t exist. Then he’s claimed that they do exist, but that they’re fakes that were forged by Obama. And so clearly he needed something to take the heat off of himself. He needed to buy himself time. Enter Pam Bondi. Trump takes his truth social and says, “Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval.” and Pam Bondi swooped in and replied, “President Trump, we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts. All very official. They are cosplaying as transparent. But the only thing that’s actually transparent here is the obfuscation efforts. Pam Bondi as attorney general already has access to the Epstein files, the thousands and thousands and thousands of materials. They’re already there. If she wants to release them, she could. but she knows she can’t because there’s clearly something that’s implicating her boss, Donald Trump. And so instead, she is pretending, playing makebelieve that the real treasure here are the grand jury testimonies. First of all, those are only a small fraction of what’s contained within the files, maybe 5 to 10% or something around there. Second of all, as part of the initial investigation when it happened years ago, all of those grand jury testimonies get summarized and are included in the Epstein files. So, she basically already knows what all of those testimonies say. And third, those testimonies are only related to the crimes of the two people who were convicted in those trials. That means Jeffrey Epstein and Galain Maxwell. We don’t need to know about their culpability. One of them is dead and the other is in prison. We need the other stuff implicating the other people, which of course the grand jury testimonies won’t tell us. But that’s the point. Trump and Pam Bondi don’t actually want us to have insight into that stuff. They expressly don’t want us to see it. And so instead, they’re sending us on a wild goose chase running after something that we never asked for. We don’t want the grand jury testimonies that incriminate a dead guy and his incarcerated partner. We never asked for that. But that’s what Trump and Bondi are making a big show of giving us because they need to knock everybody off the scent and buy themselves some time. And by the way, a judge might not even grant that request. Like there are strict rules regarding what grand jury testimonies can even be released and why they can be released. So Trump and Pam Bondi know that. But they also know that if a judge rejects their request, then they can just be like, “Ah man, we tried. If it wasn’t for that communist Marxist leftist judge, we definitely totally would have been able to give you everything you wanted.” And of course, again, Trump and Pam Bondi know that, but that is the point. They need to manipulate the base into thinking that they’re getting transparency when in fact they are getting obuscation. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the only goal of this administration is to prevent the release of these files, which is why Trump has leaned in on Republicans in Congress to block the release of the files, not once, not twice, not three, or four, but five separate times in the past week. twice in the rules committee, twice on the House floor, and once on the Senate floor. If Donald Trump truly wanted transparency, like he claims, he would release the files, but he doesn’t. And so instead, Pam Bondi blocks the release, Congress blocks the release, and they make up excuses to frame their actions as doing something helpful as opposed to the reality of the situation, which is that this is all just a slight of hand. So look, my question for Trump supporters is this, and I asked this in 100% good faith. What’s your goal here? Is it tribalism and protecting the leader of the Republican party at all costs, which by the way is your prerogative if that’s what you want to do? Or is it full transparency about what happened with Epstein and accountability for everybody involved in his crimes? Because you can have one or the other, but apparently not both. Because if that was a possibility, Trump would have released the files already. The fact that he won’t really does tell you everything you need to know. Trump came into office with a mandate to expose the people who commit crimes with impunity. And not only is he failing to do that, he is entrenching the very system that he vowed to dismantle. This president sold his supporters a bill of goods and he’s trying to convince you not to believe your lying eyes. Next up are my interviews with James Telerico, Jamie Rascin, and John Oaf. But first, just a quick reminder that in one video per week, this one, I have sponsors. So, here’s a quick word from some sponsors and then interviews with James Telerico, Jamie Raskin, and John Oaf. No lie is brought to you by Uplift Desk. If you work in front of a desk like I do, I often find myself discouraged that I spent yet another day for a long period of time sitting in front of a desk. I seriously thought that this would be a lasting problem until I found Uplift Desk. Uplift desk is at the forefront of ergonomic solutions, promoting better posture and health through adjustable standing style desks designed to help you live a healthier lifestyle. 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We spend what about a third of our waking hours working? And yet so many people feel stuck in jobs that they’ve outgrown or never really wanted in the first place. And look, I’ve heard it all. What if the next move is even worse? Uh, I’ve already put years into this place. I can’t afford to take a wrong step. Who am I without this title? Isn’t everybody kind of miserable at work? And look, those feelings are real, but they’re also why so many people stay stuck? That’s where today’s sponsor, Strawberry.me, comes in. They connect you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be. Whether you’re looking for a change or feeling stuck or facing a big decision or just seeking professional growth. It’s like therapy for your career. A coach helps you cut through the noise, define your next move, and turn vague goals into a real world plan with the kind of accountability that keeps you moving forward. 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And so now this is going to basically spark off a new cycle where where you know the the the maps are going to be gerrymandered even further in multiple states across the country. First and foremost, can I have your reaction to the fact that that this might happen now in California to counteract what Greg Abbott is doing in Texas and to ask if that’s having any impact on what the Texas Republicans are thinking? Well, I’m here at the state capital this weekend preparing for this special session that starts on Monday. And we should be coming together at the state capital to talk about flood relief for the victims in the Hill Country and across central Texas. we should be talking about how to prevent catastrophes like that from ever happening again. But instead of focusing on the real problems, Greg Abbott is doing Trump’s bidding by redrawing the Texas political maps and, you know, taking our districts into crazy shapes to guarantee the outcome they want. I mean, the president is attempting to rig the next election. Um, and so I’m I’m thankful that Texas Democrats, uh, my colleagues here in the state legislature are having conversations about how we can stop this, how we can stand up to Greg Abbott and Donald Trump. But I’m also thankful that that folks in other states are also having those conversations. I mean, we as Democrats can’t allow this type of power grab to go forward. We have to stand up. We have to match energy. And so I’m I’m thankful that folks in California are promising to retaliate if Greg Abbott and Donald Trump decide to move forward with this. In terms of the tools that you have, the Texas Democrats have at your disposal from the minority, you know, minority parties are generally rendered pretty pretty weak uh against the majority party. Is there is there anything that you would be able to do? Are there any tools at your disposal that you think would actually be effective at blocking what they’re looking to do? I do, you know, in the minority here in Texas, uh, we we have to use every tool in our toolbox. That that’s everything from the rules, using the rules to to the best of our ability, using our our platforms to raise awareness and organize people, and then of course, you know, they they still need all of us to to make quorum and be able to to conduct business. And so there’s a whole range of of options at our disposal for how to how to confront this. And I think my colleagues and I are trying to figure out what that looks like. And you know, honestly, we we haven’t even gled in. We haven’t even seen what the maps would look like. Um I think we want to we want to go through some of these these steps uh before we we decide what tool to use. But regardless of our strategy, I I hope that everyone, whether you’re a Democrat or an independent or Republican, realizes the danger of politicians silencing our voices and attempting to steal the next election. I mean, you know, Brian, you’ve done some great coverage on the big beautiful bill, but I mean, this was the largest transfer of wealth in American history, kicking millions of people off their healthcare to fund tax cuts for billionaires. They know that’s unpopular, but they think they can insulate themselves from the voters with this type of power grab. And if they succeed here in Texas, they’re going to do it in red states across the country. They’re going to rig the 2026 election. And if that happens, they’ll never have to fear the voters ever again, right? They can enrich themselves and their donors with no consequences, with no accountability. And and that really is going to the heart of our democracy. And I hope that’s an alarm bell for all Americans and all Texans. James, are are there any of your Republican colleagues who recognize that? Are there any Republican colleagues who have enough of a basic respect for democracy that they’re turned off by by what’s happening? or is this just, you know, kind of the the the next step in the full polarization of our politics that when Donald Trump hands down the uh, you know, issues the clarion call from up high that Greg Abbott calls in the special legislative session and every single uh, Republican legislator just kind of walks the walks the plank. Well, I think there are certainly a number of my colleagues who recognize that this is wrong, that it’s dangerous. The question is, are they going to stand up and say so? are they going to do something about it? Um, you know, I still have hope that that people on the other side of the aisle can have a moment of courage here and do the right thing. I’m not ready to give up on that possibility, but we as Democrats should be prepared for uh, you know, a a scenario where they don’t stand up and that means that we’ve got to fight back. Uh, so we can’t wait on Republican courage. We can hope for it. We can pray for it. Uh, but we certainly can’t wait for it. Uh, and so I’m hopeful that that U Democrats both here in Texas and honestly across the country are going to react to this and and meet the moment and stand up to this power grab. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the the speaker of the Texas state house get elected with the help of Democrats? Is that correct? That’s correct. So, so isn’t there some leverage that Democrats have here in terms of helping this Republican stay at top his position? Wasn’t there is there some basic agreement or understanding uh that that was struck between the Democrats and and the speaker to be able, you know, to to determine the extent of the abuse or the limits to the abuses of of his power that he’ll that he’ll uh usher in. Well, you know, I think that all remains to be seen. Unfortunately, I don’t think a lot of us um saw this coming. Maybe we should have, but I I honestly didn’t anticipate a mid decade gerrymandering attempt. I didn’t have that on my bingo card, unfortunately. But, you know, as you mentioned here in the Texas House, uh we still have some shreds of bipartisanship and Democrats are a very large minority. You know, a lot of people have this conception of Texas as this, you know, deep red state when actually it’s a lot more purple than it is red. and Democrats control about 42% of the seats in the Texas House of Representatives. So, we’re a a substantial minority and and with those numbers, you can you can cause a lot of chaos and and I I would prefer not to do that. I would hope that our Republican colleagues I would hope the speaker would work with us to prevent this power grab from moving forward. And you know, we should we should say, Brian, that if they’re going to do this in Texas, because we are increasingly a purple state, by getting greedy, they may draw these these districts so thin that we could end up flipping a lot of these districts if 2026 is a good year. So, I do know that some of my Republican colleagues recognize that political danger that by getting greedy, they’re actually they actually may be handing Democrats an opportunity to win. That doesn’t mean this power grab is acceptable. It’s incredibly dangerous. It’s an incredibly bad precedent to set and we should stop it, but there may be some unintended consequences if they move forward. Yeah. I mean, look, it’s not just it’s not just the unintended consequences within Texas, but we spoke about California um uh looking to gerrymander this state that I’m in right now. There are other states that Democrats have that could potentially be weapons on the left. We have New York. We have New Jersey. And so, you know, the greed of Donald Trump and Greg Abbott in this scenario may very well usher in a situation where not only would those maps, those lines be drawn so thin that Democrats themselves would flip them in a good year, uh, which 2026, at least the polling would suggest, uh, may very well turn out to be, but it could end up leading to a situation where maps in California, in New York, in New Jersey, and other states across the country also go much more blue by virtue of these gerrymanders that were done in a retaliatory fashion. And I just want us to pause and recognize that this is not how the system should work, right? You know, voters should be picking their politicians, not the other way around. Um, and right now, politicians are attempting to pick their voters by crafting the districts they want to guarantee the outcome they want. And that’s just a fundamental um disruption to the democratic process. And it again it insulates politicians in both political parties from from uh accountability from consequences for their actions. And that that again is is incredibly harmful to this American experiment. So although we need to match energy and we need to fight back and we need to stand up to these bullies, we should all recognize that this is not how things should work, this broken redistricting system is the rot at the core of our broken political system. and and it’s why I filed a bill in the last two legislative sessions to create a independent citizen-led redistricting commission in Texas so that we can take the power to draw political districts out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of the Texans we seek to represent. So that should be the ultimate goal. Uh we can’t unilaterally disarm, unfortunately. Um but that should be what we’re working toward in the long term. And actually the unilateral disarmament part is kind of what I want to dig into for just a moment. I believe there is a a California assembly member named Alex Lee. He’s member of the progressive caucus came out uh in in in defiance of Gavin Newsome’s proposal to usher in our own special session so that we would be able to do uh mid decade redistricting here as well. um and he was against it and basically uh um suggested that if we do this, this will just descend politics into a worse state than we were in before. And I push back against this online, suggesting that this isn’t, you know, this isn’t us kicking off a cycle of of gerrymandering because we’re in it. And Republicans have gerrymandered Ohio and North Carolina and West Virginia and Utah and Florida and looking to do the same thing in Texas right now. They’ve done it in Wisconsin. So there are so many states across the country where this has happened. And yet I I feel like there’s this mentality among Democrats that that like we have to so long as we sit at top our moral mountain even if we’re thrusting ourselves into political obscurity that somehow that somehow derives some benefit for us that we that we’re going to you know I I I don’t know maybe confer that that if we act in a certain way that it will be reciprocated by a Republican party that has thus far shown no desire to reciprocate that if we confer goodwill onto them that they’ll reciprocate. that goodwill even though they’ve not done it. And so I’m just curious for your reaction because you know, look, you’re you’re a progressive Democrat as well. And and I get the the moral stance that somebody could take about to could take against this issue, but practically speaking, I’m just curious uh how you would respond to uh to legislators here in my state who would be against this. Well, this is a a balance we have to strike. Um you know, Dr. King and the civil rights movement told his his uh movement to have a tough mind and a tender heart and to hold both of those things together. And for me, you know, having a tender heart means knowing why we’re doing this, having that moral clarity, knowing what the vision is ultimately that we’re trying to get to and not getting lost in the back and forth um that we’re seeing today. But then having a tough mind means you know being uh smart and strategic and realizing when our politics is already descending in this direction. We have to stand up to those those folks who are destroying um this American experiment. So we have to do both. We have to remember why we’re doing this. We have to remember what we’re ultimately trying to get to. We’re not just trying to win for the blue team. That is not our goal. Our goal is to is to get political power to make people’s lives better. That’s the ultimate goal, right? Um but to do that, you’ve got to be smart and strategic and tough. Um you can’t lay down. You can’t you we’ve seen that appeasement doesn’t work, especially when you’re facing fascism. So you have to be tough, you have to be strong, but also protect that that um that moral clarity, that moral compass um at the center of our work. Um, that’s not easy to do, but we do have to hold both together if we’re going to get through this. Literally could not have have said that better. That is uh that is that is exactly right. And I think that that has been a problem for Democrats for so long that once we get into power, it feels like we we uh lose our way and begin defending the processes of government as opposed to remembering why we’re there. It is not to defend the filibuster. It’s not to defend the status quo. It’s not to defend the maps or or to defend a system with least change. It’s to help people have health care and for women to have reproductive rights and for us to combat climate change and make sure that kids aren’t getting gunned down in schools and and so often, you know, far from protecting the institutions of government. Those are the impediments. So, break those down if it means that you can get closer to what you want to do. But, you know, look, people get into government. you think that like I’m here to to defend good government. And look, I I my whole thing in the leadup to the 2024 election, perhaps naively um and and certainly not strategically in retrospect was to to appeal to people’s sense of wanting to protect democracy, but really it’s it’s not just this nebulous idea of democracy or our institutions that that are moving people. It’s the things. It’s it’s going after, you know, again, health care and reproductive rights and climate change and and unions and jobs and and their the the pay that they take home at the end of the day and making sure prescription drugs are affordable. All the things that you actually run for, the things that impact real people. And and we have to remember to, you know, not not lose sight of that, especially with folks who, you know, get stuck in these political processes and are surrounded by all of it and uh and just kind of I don’t know if it’s like beltway brain or whatever you would call that at the state level, but that seems to be what it is. Yeah. Too many Democrats are defending the status quo and and I understand the the desire, especially in this Trump era, to protect our our institutions and our and our norms. I get all that. But the reason that I’m a progressive, the reason I’m a Democrat is cuz I want to change things. These systems, these institutions don’t work for a lot of people. Um and and if we’re not out there articulating a vision of how they should be different, how they should be better, then we end up just defending the status quo. and I’m not interested in doing that because the status quo doesn’t work. Um, and you know, you you know, Brian, that I was a public school teacher before I ran for office and it’s it’s the issue I’m most passionate about. And sometimes people in my party end up defending public education as is, but I’m not satisfied with the way our public schools are performing. I’m not going to be satisfied until our Texas public schools are the best in the country. I’m not going to be satisfied until every single child has the ability to fulfill their god-given potential. Um, that doesn’t mean I want to privatize public education or tear it all down, but I do want to improve it. I want to change it. I want to make it better and make it work for people. So, we’ve just got to we we can’t fall into the trap of defending broken institutions, broken systems, or defending the status quo. We got to be the party of change, which is our our historical heritage. Right. James, you were um you were on Joe Rogan’s show this past uh week and um you know that that that obviously is a space that Democrats have have uh there was a lot of a lot of coverage, a lot of focus on the fact that Democrats haven’t gone into those spaces, haven’t been on the same podcast that these Republicans went on. Uh haven’t been able to reach the the breadth of audience that that these Republicans uh were able to reach by virtue of going on these shows. Um, so first and foremost, I’m I’m curious and I listened to your whole episode and it was great. And and not only was it a great conversation, but but it seems like like Joe Rogan himself, I mean, you got a ringing endorsement from Rogan. And I wrote it down. He said, “You’re the kind of person I want in politics.” And so I feel like, you know, there has been this sense of like fear among Democrats to go into these spaces because they’re somehow hostile or dangerous. Uh, but I’m I’m curious in the aftermath of your interview with him, did you have that mentality going in and and what is your mentality now about going into these spaces? I I think it’s absolutely necessary that Democrats meet people where they’re at. You know, before I went on Joe Rogan’s podcast, I went on Fox News. Um, and I’ve I’ve been on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Um, been on the 700 Club. You know, I I’m trying to to go into places where Democrats don’t typically go because politics is about addition, not subtraction. Y So, if you just want to if you want to maintain a small, pure, insular group, then you don’t want a political party. You want a social club. And and that’s fine. But if you want a a political party that can win and gain political power to make people’s lives better, you have to create a winning majority, a winning coalition. And that should include a lot of Joe Rogan’s listeners. I mean, I sat down with with Joe for two and a half hours and there was so much common ground, so much that we agreed on. U we both agreed that the political system is broken. We both agree there is way too much influence from big money and billionaire mega donors. We both think that there should be more freedom and more opportunity for more people. I mean, that that is a lot of common ground. I’m not saying we agree on every single thing, but I do think we agree on the big stuff. And so if if Democrats aren’t going on to these shows and speaking to these these listeners directly, then we run the risk of folks not hearing about our values and hearing about our vision. And and that’s that’s a real danger as we saw in the last election. So, you know, I’m going to keep going into these places. Uh I’m going to keep sharing why I do this work and and why I’m a Democrat and and why I think we need change in this country and hopefully we will see the fruits of that in 2026. Did you hear from anybody um in the aftermath of of uh your appearance that maybe somebody who is in the center or on the right or just somebody who didn’t vote for you, somebody who doesn’t vote for Democrats, who is more willing to be open to Democrats or who just straight up said this is, you know, this is changed my perspective on politics altogether. I can’t tell you, Brian, just in the last this episode came out, not even um you know, 24 hours ago, and I’ve already been inundated uh both um on social media, but also um here in our capital office with calls and emails and and messages from Republicans and independents who listened to the episode and and said that they they found a lot they could agree with and were were very thankful that they heard from this different perspective. Um, it’s a little strange to have, you know, uh, folks on Twitter with MAGA stuff in their profile picture saying nice things about you, but I do just fundamentally believe that that our politics is is is not really left versus right, but top versus bottom. You know, I I I just think that we are all getting played here by these these billionaires and and special interests that are dividing us on purpose. I mean the culture wars in a lot of ways, you know, are a smokeokc screen. These divisions are manufactured. They divide us by race, by culture, by gender, by religion to keep us from seeing all that we have in common. To to keep us from realizing that there is far more that unites us than divides us. Because once we do realize that, then we’re going to come together across party lines, across racial lines, across cultural lines to take power back from the billionaires who are who are pitting us against each other. And that’s the real threat to the people in power. You know, the one small irony and and I know that that that you just push back against the culture wars and you’re right to do that. The irony of the Epstein stuff is that a lot of Trump’s base decided to vote him in his own warts notwithstanding because they believe that he would be the person to expose this the the systemic uh uh corruption that would allow somebody like Jeffrey Epstein and all of his clients who who you know are are thus far unnamed to get away with heinous crimes. And yes, it’s his heinous crimes, but also it’s what that what he what he represented. It’s an entire echelon of people who are unaccountable who um are are are bound by a different system of justice, a different tier of justice. And so they wanted him to come in because they thought he would be the person to to expose that systemic corruption to break it down. And the irony now is that in fact he’s the one entrenching it by by of course refusing to release the Epstein files. But when you when you talk about like this this top versus bottom, it’s not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom. That is the ultimate irony and what we’re seeing very much be the the I I don’t want to say downfall because, you know, I think that would just be too convenient, but but a major splintering of Trump’s own base is that is that that’s what he ran on. And yet now he’s entrenching the very system that he promised to break down. Well, and and you can’t blame him because I mean that’s what Donald Trump and JD Vance and all these people told these folks that of course that’s what they were going to do. And and so, you know, I I I know that the appeal of Donald Trump is that he’s not a typical politician. I get that. You know, I I do find even as a as a Democrat, I find some of the ways that Donald Trump speaks um you know, to be a little refreshing because he doesn’t sound like the typical poll tested, consultant-driven um politician. And and so I get why that was appealing. But now that he’s in office, you see that, you know, he’s cutting taxes for himself and his rich friends. He’s kicking his own voters off their their health care and off food assistance. And he’s not even releasing, you know, the Epstein files that could shed some light on this on this issue. Um, and so I I think that that ultimately actions speak louder than words. And I hope that people are realizing that Donald Trump is a con man. Always has been, always will be. um he he says the right things, he he pushes the right buttons, but ultimately when it comes down to it, he’s going to protect himself and and his uh you know, his powerful friends. Um and and I hope that’s a a realization for folks. But we as as Democrats have to provide an alternative. Um and what we’re providing right now, what we’re offering to voters is not going to cut it. So, our party has to have some deep introspection about what went wrong, how we need to be different, how we need to get back to our roots of fighting for regular people, and um and only when that happens are we going to be able to turn this country into a better into a better and more healthy direction. Perfectly put as always, James. Uh I’m grateful for for the work you’re doing reaching other audiences, getting out of the the usual liberal bubble in our bifurcated media ecosystem. so grateful for uh the work you’re doing to reach other people right now and as always uh for your voice. James Telerico, appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. I’m joined now by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Thanks for joining me. I’m to be with you, Brian. So, we have just found out that Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are asking uh a judge to release the grand jury testimony. This is not the Epstein files. This is something completely different really that no one is asking for. you have you have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of files. They opted not to have those even though they’re already in their possession and are instead saying we’re going to go through this lengthy process that may or may not work out where we’re going to get some testimony that we can then choose what to release from within that testimony if a judge even opts to grant it. So for those Trump supporters and honestly uh you know left, right, and center people who want this information, are they being conned by virtue of what Trump and Bondi are offering them right now? Well, no, cuz I don’t think anybody’s buying it. I mean, I think you just did a great job debunking it. The only thing I would add is that the um the grand jury files uh relate only to the prosecution of Epstein himself for what he did and of um uh Maxwell for what she did. But it it doesn’t include the whole universe of other people and criminal organizations and you know business organizations that we’re interested in. But isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that what we’re looking for here? It It’s a complete distraction. It’s a red herring. It’s a oh, don’t look over here. Look over there kind of thing. And you know, even for that tiny subset of the materials we might be interested in, and they’re pretty pretty much peripheral, but even within those, uh, rule 6E, um, will provide that much of it will have to be redacted to protect victims and other people. So look, all of that is just a decoy. They’ve got the materials within their possession and they can release everything just redacting the information that would be identifying information for the victims. Uh which is the only thing that should be redacted and that’s what the Democrats have been asking for. All we’re saying to Donald Trump is be true to what you’ve been asking for for years. Release the information in the possession of the government. And so can you talk about what efforts knowing full well that all he wants to put forward is this decoy. Um what can Democrats do? What are Democrats doing right now to compel this information? And I asked this because we’ve seen multiple efforts where Democrats have have sought uh have sought votes in the House both in the rules committee on the House floor even the Senate floor uh to compel the release of of these files. And two times in the rules committee Republicans voted it down. Two times in the House Republicans voted it down. one time in the Senate at the hands of Ruben Ggo. Uh Republicans voted it down. And so what are our options here moving forward? Well, we’ve also in the Judiciary Committee, the Democrats have demanded a full bipartisan hearing where we subpoena all of this information and we subpoena witness testimony from Attorney General Bondi, from FBI Director Cash Patel, from the Deputy Director Dan Banino. So they come forward and everybody tells us everything they know about this whole nightmarish scenario. Uh so that’s one thing we can continue to press that. Now Chairman Jordan’s answer was well yes we’re going to have her in to talk about everything, right? Implying therefore we can ask about those questions. All right. He said before the end of the year and then when we were saying this is ridiculous we’re not waiting till December, people started saying September we could do. Um, so who knows? We’ll we’ll keep uh we’ll keep pressing on that. But here’s the other thing. I I want I got to salute my counterpart over in the Senate, who’s the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Durban, who has discovered apparently from a whistleblower. I’m not quite sure how, but that you remember they had they had actually conscripted a thousand FBI agents to be working around the clock 24 hours um going through more than a 100,000 of these Epstein documents in the the files um and apparently told them to flag any mentions or appearances or pictures of Donald Trump, anything that appears there of Donald Trump. They’re supposed to flag it. Well, what were they supposed to do after they flag it? And we also heard separately, this was a couple weeks ago, that um the FBI director Cash Patel was using lie detector tests um against the FBI agents. And I I wonder whether you know these two things are related to each other. In other words, somebody finds something relating to Donald Trump, they turn it over. Are they then asked, “Are you loyal to Donald Trump? Will you do what we ask you to do? Are you going to turn this over to anybody else?” And you know, this might be one of the most massive coverups in the history of the United States unfolding before our very eyes because Donald Trump is obviously freaked out about some stuff that’s in there, right? And then the idea that you create this army within the FBI to scrape through everything just looking for mentions of Donald Trump. um is quite unusual and uh fascinating. Yeah. I mean, what does it say? Look, I’m no I’m no I’m no uh political genius here, but what does it say when you have to conscript a thousand people to scrub through these documents, all who answer to Donald Trump to search for Donald Trump’s names, to search for Donald Trump’s name within these documents? It probably doesn’t send the message that you think it’s sending. Um it’s worth asking too here. Uh, a lot of the push back to all of this stuff is, and Trump has said this, too, in in so many ways. Granted, he’s kind of muddled his own message because he’s also claiming that all of this is a hoax written by uh Biden, Comey, and and Brennan and and uh and uh and and Obama. So, kind of his message is whatever errant synapse fires in his brain at any given moment in time. But if there was a mention of Donald Trump in these files, why the Biden administration wouldn’t have released it previously. So, I’m curious what what your response is on that because it’s a talking point that we I mean, it’s it’s a it’s a pretty unconvincing talking point because Trump is the president right now. He ran on this, but I’m still curious what your thought is on this. In other words, okay. Well, let’s start with this. Up until Donald Trump, everybody tried to respect the independence and the integrity of the Department of Justice. Up until Donald Trump, nobody was telling the Department of Justice what to do. and um the uh the Department of Justice under Biden brought the prosecution against Maxwell. So obviously Biden wasn’t trying to suppress anything. The the GOP stories today make no sense. They’re totally conflicting. They’re saying on the one hand, Biden and Obama made all of this stuff up about about uh Donald Trump, but then they never released it. Why did they make it up if they never released it? Right. And then they say to us after Donald Trump campaigns on this that there’s all this stuff in there that he knows about and he should know considering he was Epste’s best friend for more than a decade that it all should be released after they’re campaigning on it. We say fine, let’s go ahead and release it. You seem to know there’s all this stuff in there and then all they say no why didn’t you release it? I mean it it just it it makes no sense what they’re saying. They’re just pointing fingers in a hundred different directions. The bottom line is here’s what we do know. Uh Epstein was a convicted sex offender. There was a federal a 60count federal indictment waiting for him. And then Donald Trump’s later labor secretary, Alex Aosta, who was then the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, reduced that 60count federal indictment on conspiracy, sex trafficking, prostitution, pimping, all of this stuff. Reduced it to one state count of solicitation. That was the sweetest sweetheart deal perhaps in the history of federal criminal prosecution. He gets this tiny gentle, I don’t even want to say slap on the wrist, a massage on the wrist where he spends half of the day free, half of the day spending the night in a slumber party uh at the jail house. Okay. And then he also gets uh a get out of jail free card for four of his unnamed associates who were named and theoretically would have been either indicted or unindicted co-conspirators. somebody put the fix in for the guy. We want to get to the bottom of that. Then later, a federal prosecution starts over again. That’s when he’s in jail and that’s when he takes his own life. And at that point, a lot of people were asking questions about whether this was truly suicide or not, including Donald Trump. Then it’s Attorney General William Bar, Trump’s attorney general, who goes over and says this is a perfect storm of mistakes and mishaps. Um, but he declares that it was a suicide, even though there was, you know, the momentary lapse in the videotape, which turns out not to have been 1 minute, but I think three and a half minutes. Uh, it’s since been discovered there were two people who were assigned to watch uh, his cell who disappeared. So, who knows? I mean that you know at this point we’re in like the fog of their conspiracy theory and a very strange sequence of events indeed. So Maxwell gets prosecuted. She’s sentenced to 20 years and then the third co-conspirator in that particular case also takes his own life. This is the the French guy who takes his life. All right. Then Trump runs around the country saying we’ve got to release the complete Epstein file. JD Vance says that. Pam Bondi says that. Cash Patel says that. In fact, it’s curious that all of the people who were talking about it suddenly get put into key positions in the Department of Justice and the administration and now they do perform a complete U-turn and they want to sweep the entire thing under the rug. Right. Ju just as a a a quick aside, what is the point of the sweetest of sweetheart deals for Jeffrey Epstein when normally these deals are given so that prosecutors can work their way up the ladder so that they can get as close to the big fish as they can? Epstein was the big fish in this scenario. And so what do you get by give like isn’t the whole point to try to get people like him? And so what do you what benefit do you derive as a prosecutor from Alex Aosta’s perspective by giving him such a good deal uh when he’s the person that that all the all the eyeire should be aimed at? Well, it suggests the possibility that there was in fact a bigger fish involved who wanted to put the whole thing to bed as quickly as possible because uh if there were other people that Epstein could be pointing the finger at and looping in as part of turning states evidence in order to get a better deal for himself, those people would have every interest in keeping Epstein on their good side, right? And so I mean what’s odd about this is that you know like many criminals Donald Trump kept returning to the scene of this crime. So many of the key actors in this event were put into his administration. Um so many of the lawyers involved like Alan Dersowitz who helped broker the sweetheart deal later became a lawyer for Donald Trump. Um, and then Trump campaigned on it and we’ve seen how he loves to project onto other people his own his own anxieties and insecurities. We got, you know, so if he is nervous about what Epstein might say, then he would say, “Oh, well, the Democrats are really nervous about Epstein and we’re going to blow the cover on this when we get in.” Right. I I got to ask this because I I think we’re starting to recognize that it’s beyond clear Trump doesn’t want these files released, that he’s doing whatever he can to to make sure that we’re not looking at this stuff, offering up whatever decoys he can find, sending us, you know, over to the grand jury testimony while he secretes, you know, 95% of the files that already do exist, that already are at Pam Bondi’s disposal. Will we ever gain full access to the Epstein files or will it always be that Pam Bondi and and by association by extension Donald Trump will be the final arbiters of exactly what information comes out? Like are are those two people are really the only people that have the full range of all of the files that exist? And so even if the the discharge petition come August or September when it when it finally ripens and the House can vote on this thing and it passes, will Pam Bondi ultimately have the final say into what information exactly comes out or is there a way to circumvent her as as um somebody who could kind of meddle in what comes out so that we can get the full range of the files? The wheel is still in spin, Brian. We don’t know the answer to your question. If you look at the the Democratic resolution or the rather the the resol democrat support the bipartisan resolution which has been uh put in by Massie and Bana um there’s a paragraph in there which says we want a complete accounting also of any of the destruction or altering or mutilation or aacement or impairment of different documents. In other words, we want a we want to know we want to see all the documents and if any of the documents have been altered or changed or removed in any way, we want a record of that. But but on that point, I mean, the cop on that beat is Pam Bondi and and and by by extension Donald Trump who may very well be implicated in this and so he has every interest in if there is some alteration, if there is some destruction of documents, he’s not going to say anything because he’s the person that that destruction would presumably benefit. And so who’s there to be the like there is all of these people are in the pocket of Donald Trump and so who’s the cop on that beat? Well, if you look at the history of corruption scandals in the nation’s capital, there are always people who are junior people who are interns who are staff associates who are basically invisible um and considered menial uh by the key actors. But they often times come forward and tell what they know. But I’m with you. I mean, if there’s a full-blown effort of cover up and certainly mobilizing an army of a thousand FBI agents to go and find anything mentioning Donald Trump’s name and then come and bring it to us. And at the same time, we hear that uh Cash Patel is administering lie detector tests against people in order to determine who’s trustworthy and who’s not. We have every reason to be afraid that there will be a cover up. But I just have to believe that there’s so much information that has come from Florida, that’s come from New York, that’s come from other sources, that’s come from journalists, that some people are going to be able to check them if their plan is just to obliterate the evidence, right? And presumably, if they had intended on on altering some information, doctoring some information, they would have already put it out there. So, there’s something that must be blocking them from doing this because I think they probably rightly recognize that if they do try to mess with things and put it out there, then it becomes an even more obvious cover up. It becomes an even bigger scandal than what it likely already is. And so, they’re probably just trying to do that calculation now with like, can we get away with this? How much could we get away with? Is it going to be an even bigger scandal? Shine an even hotter spotlight on us if we even try it. Yeah. because uh the cover up imports a whole new set of charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy and that takes it to a completely different level. Um there are just some things that are probably in there that are very hard to permanently erase including emails uh which are going to be very important I believe in this case correspondence and photographs. I mean, you know, you’ve got Michael Wolf, who’s a Trump biographer, who’s written four books, I believe, about Donald Trump, who went on uh a podcast last week um and said openly that uh Epstein had shown him lots of photographs of them together, uh Epstein and Trump, um and that some of the photos included Trump with uh topless girls sitting on his lap and laughing and so on. Um, well, it’s hard to make evidence like that go away. And if there are lots of people who have seen it or there might be other copies of it out there, it’s hard to make it go away. So, you start destroying evidence like that, you start destroying uh emails and texts um and those things reappear, then it it’s become clear that not only were you involved in some way in the original events, but you’re trying to cover it up, right? And you might be better off just making arguments about how, you know, well, yeah, the president may have been in compromising positions. It might not look good, but he didn’t really do anything bad. Meantime, uh, we don’t want to lose sight of what’s really going on here, which is this was a human trafficking, child sex abuse ring. And the Trump administration as an administration has been doing everything in their power to dismantle the antihuman trafficking, anti-child abuse programs and funding that we’ve got at the Department of Justice, at the Department of State, at HHS, uh, in in agencies and departments throughout the government. Um, they’ve been dismantling the funding to combat human trafficking. and the people who work on that have been um screaming from the rooftops that this is going to be a nightmare if you take America off the field. Yeah, that’s that’s an excellent often overlooked point in all of this. Let’s finish off with this. Um among your Republican colleagues in in the GOP conference, what are these people saying behind the scenes? Because these are people who’ve who’ve staked their reputations and built their brands and and spoken openly and proudly about their efforts to take down, you know, this this uh this deep state pedophile ring that that encompass the highest echelons of government. They uh Don Jr. spoke about it. JD Vance spoke about it. They’ve been talking about on podcast with with Tucker Carlson and all of their influencers. The president spoke about it from the highest levels of office. And now they find themselves taking vote after vote after vote, secreting this very information, preventing the release of the very information that they themselves put put themselves out there saying that they were going to deliver to their constituents. And so what are these people saying behind the scenes if you have the opportunity to speak to any of them? Well, um, a couple of them have taken the position with me that look um, this doesn’t look good, but it was all conspiracy theory. Um and um given that it was conspiracy theory, all they can really do is to just let it all hang out and show that there’s nothing there. Um and if indeed it it was all conspiracy theory and there are no names of the rich and powerful involved in this exploitative sex ring, they would let it all all hang out. But I think others understand what a dangerous territory Donald Trump has entered here. um because he brought all of the detention on this and the spotlight is now on him and I don’t think they know where it’s going to go, but they don’t think that he’s going to uh it’s within his character to try to really release anything and disclose stuff. He’s just going to try to fight it till the end of his presidency. And you know, he’s going to go from talking about, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia or insurrection, insurrection, insurrection to just talking about uh Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Yeah. I mean, I Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how much Well, we we’re about to get a get a a quick lesson in um in how potent the uh use of Biden’s auto pen is as a distraction technique. So, with that said, um Congressman, I appreciate your time today. I appreciate you keeping this in the spotlight, and uh we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you, Brian. Hang tough, man. All the best. I’m joined now by Senator John Oaf. Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks, man. Good to see you. So, we we have watched as the Republicans have staked so much of their credibility, so much of their identity on releasing these Epstein files. There was just a vote in the House uh and all of the Republicans came together unanimously to vote against advancing uh this effort to release the Epstein files. Can I have your reaction first and foremost to hearing so much about this issue that they presume purportedly cared so deeply about and now when they have the opportunity to actually substantiate what they said and get these files into the daylight, they’re the ones who served as the major impediment to it. Yeah. I mean, none of this adds up and you know, play a super cut of all of these MAGA figures and officials uh promising to do this. Even the attorney general as recently as a couple months ago, what she was saying to the Congress about having all these files on her desk and getting ready to release them. The president’s posts on Truth Social over the weekend, I think really revealed a deep insecurity and almost a panic about the 180 that they’re doing on this issue. And I think that for the president’s supporters, this issue of broken promises, whether it’s the EPS files or his promise to end the wars, which are still raging, or his promise to increase US oil drilling, which is declining, or his promise to lower prices, which are still rising, or his promise to be for working people when they’re defunding nursing homes and hospitals and clinics to fund tax cuts for the rich. His promise to tackle the national debt which is exploding. I mean, it’s adding up. And I’m hearing it from Republicans in Georgia that all of the broken promises are really damaging the president’s base and their confidence in this administration. And that’s what I wanted to dig into a little bit because you have we the advantage of of of you being here is that, you know, you are a Democrat in in a very purple state, but also we have the advantage of being able to see um see what arguments re resonate with folks on the other side. I mean, you’re not in a big blue bastion like New York or California. And so on this issue in particular, is this breaking through? because I think Democrats largely viewed, you know, the the Epstein part is is a small piece of what is a a broader theme that that you’ve just pointed out there, but is is that kind of thing breaking through to his regular base? Are you hearing from people who you wouldn’t otherwise have heard from or reach or or um been been able to be effective with as the result of kind of this breakdown of trust? Well, it’s not just the Epstein files. I mean, obviously the changing stories and the obvious lies and the 180 on Epstein is in the headlines right now, but there are a huge number of Republicans in Georgia who have even stated publicly their opposition, for example, to gutting all of the renewable energy and advanced energy manufacturing incentives that have supported Georgia’s economic growth. their deep concern about what’s going to happen to nursing homes and hospitals and health clinics that have been defunded and and on economic policy, right? Where this was supposed to be some kind of new populist pro-working class GOP, right? That was the whole Steve Bannon model. As they were building this legislation, you started to hear some of those voices within the MAGA movement actually sound the alarm that this was a betrayal of the principles that they had stated on the campaign trail. And and there is just there are not voters in Georgia who want to defund hospitals and nursing homes to pay for tax cuts for ultra wealthy people. That’s not popular anywhere. Well, I think the the most insidious part of this whole effort by Republicans is that a lot of these cuts were were purposefully put in and timed so that they would have the least political impact for the for the political party that passed them. And so, a lot of this stuff won’t take full effect until after the midterms, for example. Some of it won’t even take effect until after Trump’s out of office. Uh some of the good stuff goes away when Republicans will leave office. So they timed all of this stuff so they can extract the most political benefit or mitigate the most political harm for themselves. And I is that something that that folks in Georgia are recognizing that even though this stuff might have been timed so that it wouldn’t hurt them uh that that people are still paying attention to what’s going on and that they know the full breadth of what’s happening with the Medicaid cuts, with the food stamp cuts, with the rural hospital cuts, with the energy job cuts, and so on. Yeah, that that’s not going to work. I I mean, hospitals, nursing homes, clinics in Georgia and across the country are already now facing this financial cliff, and it ain’t that far away. Yeah. A lot of the nutrition programs start going away pretty much straight away. The the lapsing of the Affordable Care Act benefits that help middle- class families afford health insurance premiums will go away next year. So you’ve got all of this policy that’s bad for working families, bad for seniors and kids and pregnant women and rural communities and all for what? For a tax cut that overwhelmingly goes to the wealthy. And it just exposes that the the corruption in Washington is as deep as ever. I mean, if you go out and ask anybody on the street in Georgia, Democrat, Republican, independent, you know, what do we really need to achieve uh to advance our national interest to help families thrive and flourish and achieve prosperity and health and greater freedom? like the rich people needing more tax cuts is no one’s priority, but it’s what this Republican Congress and this administration produced because the corruption in Washington is so deep that they almost can’t avoid just being responsive to their donors. Is there a sense from the Republicans or independents who you’ve spoken with because because the the the GOP’s platform was so focused on on populist promises, right? uh lower grocery costs, lower egg costs, lower housing costs, lower rent costs, and they’ve done the polar opposite. And that’s not withstanding all of the other things that they’ve lied about, whether it’s the Ukraine Russia war, whether it’s releasing the Epstein files, um whatever it may be, whether it’s, you know, ushering in some manufacturing renaissance and instead Donald Trump is engaged in a trade war that’s left us isolated on the world stage. is the fact that there was such a a a blatant kind of um bait and switch that took place is that is that having some impact on the voters that you’ve spoken with because this is ex like the thing that that Trump and Republicans promised these voters. It is it is so far and away what they’re uh antithetical to what they’re actually delivering on. And I’m I’m wondering like in a media environment where everything is so bifurcated um where where it often feels like politics is so we’re all so calcified in our polarization. Is that stuff actually breaking through and having an impact? 100%. I mean, look, I’ve got a lot of Republican supporters and friends in Georgia who express to me privately how upset they are about the way this agenda is being implemented, about the sense of broken promises, and also they recognize that it’s a political disaster for the GOP in Georgia to have defunded hospitals and clinics to pay for tax cuts for the rich. And the the flip side of this is that for Democrats and for folks who oppose this administration, I’ve never seen a level of mobilization and enthusiasm and determination like I am right now. And here in Georgia, where I am the only Democratic senator up for reelection in a state that Donald Trump won, right? It is the most important Senate race of the midterm elections. The only path out of this spiral into authoritarianism and chaos and corruption means regaining power in Congress. We have to win this race. I am feeling that enthusiasm in Georgia. We had more than a thousand people come out on short notice in Savannah to that rally last weekend. But I want to ask your audience to help because they’re going to spend I think probably half a billion dollars to try to unseat me. I’m the number one target for destruction by the whole MAGA apparatus and I need help. And and um I’m going to put your campaign link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Highly recommend anybody who’s watching right now, Georgia, as the senator just mentioned, is going to be ground zero for their attacks. And so if you have an opportunity to give or you know you’re going to give at some point in this campaign cycle, do it early because the the earlier we have the opportunity to actually get on the airwaves and define Senator Osaf before the Republicans have to do it, the better off we’ll be. And I want to finish off with this because we we did see so much of an affirmative message from Trump and Republicans as we were heading into 2024. And so often it’s felt like Democrats were either pushing an anti-Trump anti-Republican message or or just kind of had some, you know, we we’d have we’d have Democrats in red states who would just kind of do Republican light. And if you’re going to do Republican light, you’re not going to energize the base. And and if you have a Republican out there, they’re probably just going to vote for a regular Republican instead of a Republican light. And so what is your affirmative message um to to folks in Georgia as we head toward 2026? I think that there’s an even deeper reform and anti-corruption message that we have to take to the nation that I’m taking across Georgia that resonates with Democrats and Republicans and independents, which is that our political system even before Donald Trump came on the scene was the most corrupt in the Western world. And the way that corporate money and secret money and billionaire money rule everything and the way that members of Congress live in fear of these super PACs, that’s what has distorted policym so that ordinary people can’t get ahead. That’s why insurance premiums are out of control. That’s why drug costs are so high. That’s why an ambulance costs $3,000. That’s why the housing market’s overrun with hedge funds and private equity funds. It’s the corruption in our political system, especially post Citizens United. And for us to be able to deliver for working and middle class families across the country, we have to reform this broken, corrupt political system. And I think that we can build a very broad coalition to get that done. Well, I I I appreciate the time today. And again, a reminder for everybody watching, Senator Oaf is one of the most important voices that we have in the Senate and certainly represents generational change in a way that very few people in the Senate do. So, if we have the opportunity to contribute to his campaign, help him stay there, um, I’m going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you’re listening on the podcast, it’ll be in the show notes. Senator Oaf, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to James Telerico, Jamie Rasin, and John Oaf. To listen to the audio version of this episode, click the thumbnail right here on the screen. And of course, to see more of my content, the subscribe button’s on the screen as well. [Music]

No Lie episode 277: Trump and Bondi use the “grand jury testimony” to distract their supporters from Trump’s Epstein links.

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