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You're watching the Legal Breakdown. Glenn, we have a crazy story here where we found out despite their uh attempts to claim that they aren't doing this meeting that Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, JD Vance, among possible others did opt to meet in private about what the next steps are with the Epstein scandal.
Now, the reason that I'm asking about this in particular is because there was a time in American politics where the executive branch uh president or vice president meeting with an attorney general behind the scenes would be enough of a scandal to talk about it for weeks or months as we saw with former President Bill Clinton. Wasn't even the president at the time. Former President Bill Clinton meeting with Loretta Lynch for a few minutes on the tarmac.
Now you've got Pam Bondi and JD Vance meeting in private to discuss the Epstein scandal. That would be bad enough unto itself. But on top of that, we know that this is in furtherance of a cover up because anything other than a coverup would just look like Pam Bondi releasing the files that she has at her disposal in her possession. So now we've got these people meeting together in what would normally be a scandal. The attorney general meeting with members of the uh of the presidential team, but but also to discuss what they are going to do in furtherance of this coverup.
So, first and foremost, what should we know here in terms of of of how inappropriate or illegal or unconstitutional it is for Vance to be meeting with Pam Bondi about how to do this?
Yeah, I'm so glad we're talking about this, Brian, because, you know, we need to continue to remind everybody how the rule of law and how governance is supposed to work, how it used to work, because we're going to have to get back to it working the way it was intended to work when we, you know, come out the other side of this dark, dark chapter in American history that is the Trump administration.
So, the reason this is so bad is because we want the American people to have confidence in the Department of Justice when it exercises its prosecutorial discretion. What do I mean? We want DOJ awesome powers to criminally investigate and prosecute people and organizations, businesses, companies, nonprofits. We want them to make prosecutorial decisions based exclusively on the facts and the law, not on politics. And that is why for, you know, as long as the Department of Justice has been around, there has been a traditional separation between the White House, the president and his, you know, closest adviserss and the Department of Justice, the the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and all of the people making the prosecutorial decisions.
Because what you don't want to have happen is for the American people to come to believe that the people prosecuted by the Department of Justice are being prosecuted for political reasons because they are the president's enemies. The people who who commit crimes who go unprosecuted are getting that break, that protection because they're the president's friends and donors. So figuratively, there's been a wall, a wall that's erected between the Oval Office, the president and his closest adviserss and the attorney general and the Department of Justice. And there are all kinds of rules, procedures, and prohibitions in place in writing that say, you know, DOJ employees and officials are not permitted to meet with folks from the Oval Office, from the White House. Only under very circumscribed um uh uh situations can the attorney general, the the deputy attorney general meet with somebody from the White House. Usually it's to talk about policy priorities, not to talk about who should or should not be prosecuted.
But they have so blown through all of those safeguards, that wall that is erected to give people confidence in the independence of the work of the Department of Justice. They've blown through it. They've blown up that wall entirely. And now, Brian, gosh, as you just related, they're having strategy sessions, the Oval Office, and the DOJ leadership about how to best cover up for Donald Trump. So the Trump Epstein Maxwell scandal goes away or doesn't do him any harm. I mean it doesn't get any more wrong for DOJ leadership to be participating in that kind of activity. You know that it is more wrong than anything I saw in my entire career with the Department of Justice.
>> Let's let's do a little experiment here. What do you think right-wing media would say if Joe Biden, for example, um, and his team, Joe Biden and Kla Harris, met with Merrick Garland for some off thereord meeting to discuss what they were going to do about Hunter Biden, which was a scandal that plagued the Biden White House, what they were going to do with Hunter Biden. Didn't relay any information from it. Initially got caught because the thing was going to happen at Kla Harris's residence. So, so ultimately they just scrapped that plan because they didn't want to be they didn't want to have to discuss that with members of the press and instead just did that strategy session at the White House.
Yeah, consistency is just not really a thing as far as right-wing media is concerned. You know, they would jump all over Barack Obama or Joe Biden, you know, for something as egregious as wearing a tan suit in Obama's circumstance, but you know, consistency is not a thing. So, you raised the incident of former President Bill Clinton when his wife, I believe, was a candidate for office um having what seemed to be an innocuous conversation on the tarmac by happen stance with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. And you would have thought that those two were coordinating to make sure Hillary could steal a presidential election. I mean, the the outrage in the right-wing media was just absurd. and and you could see right through it if you understand how to separate fact from fiction, truth from propaganda.
But, you know, yeah, now they're having open cover up sessions, you know, in the vice president's residence or in the Oval Office to try to kill the Trump Epstein Maxwell scandal. But you know what, Brian? Every distraction they're trying has fallen flat. And I predict they will continue to fall flat because this one seems to have legs.
When we look at this wall that that was erected between the DOJ and the White House, is that nothing other than just norms, is is there any recourse here for an openly corrupt, openly in the pocket of the president, attorney general, or have we just relied for over 200 years on on an understanding that there should be a figurative wall between the DOJ and the White House? And so and so really that that shows the weakness of of the system that all it takes is somebody who is acting outside the bounds of the law to to destroy what's what's you know kind of been propped up for the last few hundred years.
>> Yeah, Brian, I think what we have come to learn unfortunately in the age of Trump is that our system of governance is really only as good as the honor and integrity of the people involved in governing. And so things that were um respected as norms and traditions all born of wanting good reliable government, wanting the American people to have confidence in the institutions of government and the people who served in those institutions, you know, they were just norms. And if you have people like um Donald Trump who populates his own cabinet, his own executive branch with flunkies and sickopants and lap dogs, yes men, yes women, putting in charge of agencies, people who, you know, have vowed to destroy the very agencies they lead. I mean, this is what you're going to get. You know, the rule of law alone is not enough if you have an entire branch of government willing to either ignore or openly violate the the rule of law, never mind the norms and traditions.
So in other words, what Pam Bondi is doing here by virtue of meeting with, you know, members of of the White House is not necessarily illegal or unconstitutional, but it does show the weakness of a system that really does rely on on norms uh uh without any kind of statutory limitations put in place. Is that correct?
>> Exactly right. You won't hear me say Pam Bondi broke the law. She violated a federal statute. she violated the Constitution by, you know, sitting down and discussing things with Donald Trump because she didn't. However, I mean, if they are involved in some kind of a potential conspiracy to cover things up, well, now Brian, now Brian, we're getting into the area of what we would call a 371 conspiracy against the United States or to violate one or more laws of the United States. We can't say without the evidence of what's going on inside these meetings that that charge necessarily um is supported by what they're doing. But as of right now, I can't say Pam Bondi violated the law by going in and talking to Donald Trump uh about how to best stay out of hot water in, you know, the ongoing Trump Epstein Maxwell scandal.
>> Right? But it does put on full display the hypocrisy of right-wing media that pretended that Clinton meeting with Loretta Lynch uh was some was some grave national security threat and and somehow warranted months and months and months of breathless coverage and and cries about scandal and cover up and and all of this nefarious behavior. And then when we got something 10 times worse, objectively 10 times worse, the attorney general helping the president figure out how to evade accountability for the cover up of a pedophile ring. Like, what the are we talking about here? Not a peep from those people who thought it was so disqualifying when a former president met with the attorney general.
Yeah, this this is where we are. And you know, if there is any good news, if there are any points of light here to be found amidst the Trump induced darkness, the distractions are failing. um the cover up may crumble, may be exposed. What what I found in my many years of investigating and prosecuting conspiracy cases in particular, you know, if you have more than two or three co-conspirators, it becomes very hard to control the universe of people and information that begins to leak out for any number of reasons. So listen, hopefully this cover up, this conspiracy, if there is one underway, will, you know, disintegrate over time and maybe we'll even have somebody get sick and tired of what's going on inside the Trump administration behind closed doors, who will stand up, who will expose it, who will speak the truth. We had some of those people in the first Trump administration. And you know that would be very helpful in helping bring down this whole conspiracy in the event they're involved in one.
>> Well, you know, it's not just those people because of course, you know, the people involved in this uh have have all the culpability, but there is also, look, we've spoken about the people involved. We've spoken about right-wing media, but legacy media glombmed onto this story as well. Liberal media glombmed onto the story as well about Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch and their silence in the face of something that is happening uh right now that is objectively worse. Again, an attorney general doing strategy sessions with members of of the uh of the White House. Objectively worse than Bill Clinton meeting for a couple of minutes in some innocuous conversation on the tarmac. But the fact that they have all remained silent and I and I look, I get it. I get, you know, the flooding the zone with strategy, but we're talking about this. We're making time to talk about this. And and for all of those institutions and media outlets that spent God knows how many time how much time taking their cues from right-wing media when they uh had fainting spells about Clinton and Lynch. For them to be silent in the face of this right now goes to show that they're not operating in good faith either. Like they'll be falling over themselves to listen to what Fox News and members uh uh Republican elected officials say as it relates to to Bill Clinton. But now when you've got Donald Trump and Pam Bondi doing something, JD Vance doing something, and Cash Patel doing something, the fact that they're silent, you have no excuse for that. No defense for that. And so these people um as I said are are have some culpability here too in terms of what they decide is worth promoting and what they decide to stay silent on.
>> Yeah. And then you're making a pretty good argument in favor of independent media because corporate media, legacy media, um seems to have fallen down on the job. You know, it it it it seems like they bend over backwards sometimes to pick up on and even harp on stories like the Clinton Lynch meeting, which by all accounts, it couldn't have seemed more innocuous. Now, if there was something nefarious going on, okay, dig in and expose it. And yet, you know, maybe part of it is, as you say, a result of a result of Donald Trump flooding the zone with But you know what? You need, we need to pay attention to and highlight each story of Trump abuse because each one is worthy of, you know, being heard and understood by the American people who are the victims of Donald Trump's daily abuses.
>> Right. Well, look, uh, highly recommend for everybody who's watching right now, if you would like to support independent media, completely free, does not cost you anything, but a great way to support our work is to subscribe to our YouTube channels. The links are right here on this screen. I'm Brian Teller Cohen.
>> And I'm Glenn Kersner.
>> You're watching the Legal Breakdown. [Music]