Transcription
The DOJ has officially released the Epstein files, is what I would say if the DOJ had released the Epstein files. But Todd Blanch just came out at a press conference and essentially said that Donald Trump and Pam Bondi have completely washed their hands of this investigation because they have released not even half of the files. Not even half of the files have been released, and they said they're done. You should be too. It's time to move on.
And then Todd Blanch decided not to stop there and dug his and Donald Trump's grave with the admissions he made through the rest of the press conference. But it begins with Todd Blanch announcing how many files they've released and how many files they won't. He aired on the side of overcollecting of materials from various sources to best ensure maximum transparency and compliance, which necessarily means that the number of responsive pages is significantly smaller than the total number of pages initially collected. That's why I mentioned a moment ago, we're releasing more than 3 million pages today and not the six million pages that we collected. Oh, so there's just three million files we don't get to look at. Three million.
And why all of a sudden, over the past couple of weeks, has Pam Bondi decided to reveal, well, actually, there are millions more files? They've been trying to tell us that it's only a couple here and there, and you know, maybe a few pictures, a couple dozen emails, and there's 6 million, and you overcollected. If they're not damaging, why can't you release them? If they're not damaging, why can't you release them? They're admitting that they're not going to be complying with the law. And even worse than that, they're admitting that we will get nothing out of this and that they knew nothing all along. Listen to Todd Blanch truly just dig his own grave with this statement.
So, just to clarify, are is the public going to learn the identities of the men who abused the girls with the information that you're releasing? And if not, why not? And then I have a quick follow-up.
>> I mean, you just baked in an assumption into your question that I have never said and I don't know to be true. Is the public going to learn about men that abuse these girls? Like, what does that mean? I mean, I don't understand what that means.
Well, I mean, the men who abused the young women through Epstein's um, through. We said in July, and it remains as true today as it was in July, if we had information, we meaning the Department of Justice, about men who abused women, we would, we would, we would prosecute them. Right? We talked about the work that we're doing. That's why I said that there's that I said this earlier. There's this built-in assumption that somehow there's this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we're covering up or that we're not, we're choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case. I don't know whether there are men out there that abuse these women. If we learn about information and evidence that that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. But I don't think that the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files that abuse women, unfortunately.
>> Okay. Just so the public isn't going to learn anything. You've released documents that the right has been hyping up for years, that Pam Bondi went on Fox to throw herself a parade for, that Donald Trump has talked at lengths about, and we're going to learn nothing. There's no list. There's no justice. There's no accountability. That's it. And you're just moving on. And you're telling us it's fine. And you're telling us we shouldn't care? Are you serious?
Well, of course they are. And they told us why. A lame-ass excuse that breaks the law, but very much protects them. And I think the legal language that we saw from Todd Blanch really explains it all.
>> I want to address what we didn't produce. The categories of documents withheld include those permitted under the act to be withheld. Files that contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims' personal and medical files and similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Any depiction of CSAM or child pornography was obviously excluded. Anything that would jeopardize an active federal investigation. And finally, anything that depicts or contains images of death, physical abuse, or injury, also not produced.
Oh, nothing that would jeopardize a federal investigation. Huh. The same federal investigations that Donald Trump is kind of kind of threatened, but also kind of floated, but said, "Well, well, we don't really want to know. We can't, we can't really look, or maybe we should, or maybe we should." It is all very up in the air. There is no concrete answer that is going to come. The files they are releasing do not constitute anything. They have already made it clear that the bigger issue than the files they won't release is the files they will release with full redactions. And that is what Todd Blanch is saying here. That we are going to cover up anything that could be potentially related to an investigation we can just start whenever we want. That's what the point was. That's been the point all along of saying, you know, Larry Summers or Reed Hoffman or Bill Clinton, Donald Trump just wants a a crutch, something to lean on and say, "Well, federal investigation, we might be looking into this. We might be looking into this. It'd be a problem for the DOJ. They just don't want us to know. They just don't want us to know." And he clearly doesn't want us to know about Donald Trump, even though he actually just kind of admitted that Trump is implicated in what he had to say right here.
Very quickly, can you assure, can you assure the American public that President Trump, like every other prominent person whose name came up in relation to the Epstein files, that all documents, photos, and anything relevant to him connected to the case are being released?
>> I, I mean, yes, I can assure that we complied with the statute. We complied with the act. And there is no, we did not protect President Trump. We didn't protect or not protect anybody. I mean, I think that there's a a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. And there's nothing I can do about that. But President Trump, of all the people in Washington D.C. and around this country that have said for years the same consistent message about Jeffrey Epstein, it's President Trump. And so there's not been a change of course or anything. And certainly his direction to the American people and the Department of Just, sorry, his direction to the Department of Justice was to be as transparent, release the files, be as transparent as we can. And that's exactly what we did.
So you didn't protect Trump. Does that mean Trump is in the files? Saying we didn't protect Trump and Trump didn't ask us to protect him and we didn't remove the photos. One, you did. And there were several instances of you posting photos of Trump and Epstein together or Epstein with a picture of photos of him and Trump, and then you took it off the DOJ website. So you did protect Trump, but you're saying that you didn't have to. So by didn't have to, you mean that he's in the files? They're saying he's in the files. That's the closest thing we're going to get to them saying he's in the files. He's in the files. We've known he's in the files, and we know that he's been directing this the whole time. No matter what Todd Blanch says.
>> You mentioned a letter to Congress. How and to whom did you notify the White House about the production that you're announcing today before you came out and spoke to us?
>> How did I do what?
>> Notify the White House. What was your interface with the White House? You said there's a letter to Congress. Who did you update at the White House about this?
>> Well, I don't know. I don't really understand the question. You mean who did I update them?
>> Did you provide them an explanation of what today's release would be?
>> Look, we, we, I, my team has certain communications with the White House. Let me just be clear. They had nothing to do with this review. They had no oversight over this review. They did not tell this department how to do our review, what to look for, what to redact, what to not redact. They, they absolutely knew that we were, I was doing this press conference today and that we're releasing the materials today. But there's not, there's no oversight by the White House into the process that we've undertaken over the past 60 days.
>> I wanted to ask a question.
>> Oh yeah. The White House didn't direct us. The White House didn't say anything. The White House, the White House doesn't even know what's going on. You ask the White House, they're going to say, "Epstein who?"
It is really important to recognize kind of the broader narrative goal that they want to push here, and that is that this is a small operation. When they say, "Well, there were 6 million documents, but only three million of them were really needed," what they're trying to push with that is, well, everything's kind of peripheral. These are like, bump into a couple of people saw him at dinner and waved because they didn't know who he was, maybe there was a party, but who cares? He just did business, that was it. They want you to think that this is as small as possible. That's what the peripheral documents are about. That's what the extra, the extra fluff is about. It's the same way that Trump says, "Well, yeah, people bumped into him in Palm Beach. They just bumped into him." They wanted to pretend like this was very unorganized, that it was two people. It was Epstein and Maxwell, and that's it. And don't think about Donald Trump. And don't think about how the White House was involved. They want you to think as small as possible. But it is a huge operation. Huge. And it didn't even do the job, according to Todd Blanch, because he had this lame excuse for the problems that are about to come.
>> With the production of this magnitude, mistakes are inevitable. We of course want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made. And so the department has established an email inbox for victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns when appropriate. That's that's been in existence since December. And we've been doing that since then.
Mistakes will be made. Why? Why will mistakes be made? Why should mistakes be made? You've had a year to do this, and then you had a deadline, and you didn't. And then you said, "Well, we have 6 million documents, but we're only going to give you three, and all of them will be heavily redacted, and there will be no photos of Donald Trump." So, why are mistakes going to be made? Do you want more time? Because at this point, it seems like you can just take all the time you want. Things are so bad for Donald Trump right now that he is willing to distract us with Epstein to stop focusing on Minneapolis or the economy or his cognitive decline. That is where we are at with this. But what do you mean mistakes will be made? They shouldn't. And if they are, which they already have been because they've been breaking the law for over a month now, there needs to be prosecution. Which is why I'm so glad Thomas Massie said this.
>> We're escalating the things that we can do. And we're starting with what we feel is the most polite, expeditious way to get to a release of the files, which is to ask for a special master. And we're hoping that Judge Ingelmire will receive our amicus brief and do that. And like you said, there are next steps beyond that. There's contempt, which requires a referral to the DOJ. Now, the problem with that is if you refer contempt of Congress to the DOJ, they're not going to prosecute it. They never do, and they wait for Congress to expire. So there's also inherent contempt, which hasn't been practiced in over 80 years. We're drafting that, and that's more desirable than impeachment because inherent contempt is resolved in one chamber of Congress, whereas impeachment would have to go also to the Senate. So those are the, you know, escalating degrees of things that we can do. But I also want to remind those folks at the DOJ, you can be prosecuted by a future DOJ for violating this law because it...
Everyone who so much as got a cup of coffee for Pam Bondi or Todd Blanch should be held accountable. This is crazy. They are openly admitting and rubbing our faces in the fact that they think that they are wholly unaccountable to us and they can protect pedophiles as much as they want. But that is not the case. We cannot stop talking about this, and I promise you, we are not going to on this show. And if you want to support channels that are going to make sure that that happens, go subscribe to Brian Tyler Cohen. Now's a great time to go subscribe to Don Lemon. I think they're making it very clear that they don't want good people doing good journalism. If you could subscribe to this show, it makes a huge difference. So does leaving a like. So does sharing with your friends. So does leaving a comment. It goes a long way in building out liberal progressive media online. We need to do that. I'm going to keep doing so. Keep on fighting, y'all. Don't let them silence you. And until next time, I'll see you.