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