Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/23/25: Microsoft Workers Rebel On IDF Support, Bibi Blackmailed Bill Clinton, IceBlock Founder Wife Fired By Trump Admin

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Ryan and Emily discuss Microsoft workers rebel against IDF support, Bibi blackmailed Bill Clinton, IceBlock founder's wife fired by Trump admin.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off.

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and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Microsoft workers, who put this element up on the screen, have told their bosses at the company that they're no longer going to work on Israeli tech. Now, Microsoft is heavily involved, as DropSight has reported, with Israel's genocide in Gaza, providing enormous amounts of cloud computing and other technological support for the assault on Gaza. The amount of money that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has sent to Microsoft has massively increased since October 2023, according to internal company documents

that we reviewed and reported on. This is an escalation from Microsoft workers who are now drawing a line and saying that they will just simply not work on this account. Now, that doesn't mean that Microsoft won't be able to find workers inside the company who will do it, but the publicity around it and the difficulty around it raises the stakes for Western companies who are continuing to be so intimately involved in what the world is now seeing of not just people getting mowed down at aid distribution sites,

but dying in droves of starvation and malnutrition. You think this resonates at all? Yeah, I think it's been resonating. I mean, Crystal and I covered what happened with the church and also the Christian village in the West Bank. Oh, the IDF just announced, by the way, that they finished their review of the bombing of the church and that it was an accident. It was an accident. So that's all resolved. Good, yeah, glad we got to the bottom, that they finished their review of the bombing of the church and that it was an accident.

It was an accident. So that's all resolved. Good, yeah, glad we got to the bottom of that one. But that was a real shift. And I think whenever a shift like that happens, you start to see more focus on every sort of subsequent, people take more seriously when they see. It's a good point.

Because it just erodes. You have a new prism for how you're viewing what's going on. Right, it erodes trust. So if everyone's telling you this is Pollywood and it's all, you know, staged and fake, and that's your predisposition to when you see these awful, awful images, those arguments that had been sort of blocking you from taking seriously the images and the claims of suffering,

then you have, those arguments against it have so much less credibility. When you have one experience like that, it changes, yeah, like you said, it's a new prism. And I've noticed that in the last week, I think. And speaking of staged and faked, we didn't talk about this a few days ago when it was released, but it's a fascinating development.

The IDF put out this extraordinary short propaganda film of them for 43 seconds not shooting civilians. Let's roll this clip and then discuss. If you're listening, what you're seeing are hundreds of hungry people kind of mobbing an aid truck that's coming in through northern Gaza, and you're hearing commanders tell the soldier, IDF soldiers, don't shoot, don't shoot. And at least four times in this short clip, they say, don't shoot, don't shoot don't shoot and at least four times in this short clip They say don't shoot don't shoot don't shoot and then the people who did not get shot and have applauded

the IDF for not shooting them This this was then posted by the Israeli military as evidence of their you know most moralness But so the IDF posted So the IDF posted that video. IDF posted that video. It doesn't take a whole lot of deconstruction to start to raise questions about it. It's like, okay, congratulations, you found 43 seconds of your folks not shooting unarmed civilians who were seeking aid, what is going on with your rules of engagement that officers had to repeatedly order troops not to fire on

unarmed people? I've been critical of the US military my entire life basically, but there's no world in which US troops looking at a group of people who are mobbing an aid truck and kind of taking the flower off the aid truck would have to be told not to shoot. None of the soldiers there are under any risk whatsoever. Like it's clear what the people want the people want the food that's on the truck There would be no no are no other army in the world would think oh We should shoot at these people So that that they had to keep saying hey, we're filming here guys. Don't shoot like we're doing a propaganda film here

Can you please you guys please not shoot the civilians? Don't shoot like we're doing a propaganda film here. Can you please you guys please not shoot the civilians? It reminds me of the one that the GHF put out several weeks ago Where it's a guy speaking to camera for like seven seconds talking about how effectively they're distributing aid Mm-hmm, and how there's no violence and it's this is an amazing accomplishment a tremendous success Is what Tammy Bruce State Department called it yesterday and at the very end of the clip, you hear gunfire from, there's no Hamas anywhere near these things. That's why they're like 15 kilometers away

from any populated area. And so it's like, and that's the take they posted. They couldn't even get a seven second clip where they weren't shooting in the background. So this was really striking. It made me think. So I did the show yesterday. So I came from out northwest DC down to the studio here.

I also went home. I saw a lot of people on my way in and my way out. I didn't shoot any of them. None. The most moral television host in the world. Yeah, I saw a bunch of people this morning. Some of them were hungry probably. Probably not.

Maybe a few were like. Define hungry, right. Yes. I didn't shoot, I have not shot anybody all day long. Noble Peace Prize. And I don't think I will shoot anybody for the rest of the day. All right, I'm gonna come next week with a letter

nominating you for the Nobel Peace Prize. I appreciate it. There's a lot of stiff competition this year. Yeah. So my chances are not very good. So this is the state that they're in with their propaganda. Here's 43 seconds in which we didn't shoot unarmed people. Now, a warning. If you're not following this closely,

a lot of this might be new to you and might be graphic. Maybe you want to scroll through this if you don't want to see it. It is very graphic. But the intensity of the violence is just exploding. So we can put up C3 here. This is all stuff within the last 24 hours. This is a strike on a home that killed 15 civilians, including

an enormous number of children. You've had an increasing number of strikes where you're seeing the, yeah, you don't even want to look at that, you're seeing fetuses blown out of pregnant women's bodies. These are toddlers who were born after October 7th, you know, who have known nothing but this. Here's a man who died of starvation. Well over a hundred people now have died of starvation. Here's a clip that was circulating just two guys just sitting out on the pier just bombed and killed. Just for sitting on the That's it. And then on filming their own murders. So we keep hearing that they're getting closer and closer

to a ceasefire. But an enormous number of the people in Gaza are now kind of beyond the point of no return. I reported on one where we didn't post this, but you can see it on my Twitter feed. If you want, a paramedic was hit yesterday. I hope he's still alive. He was alive as of yesterday, according to medical sources.

You can see him. He's taken into the hospital with getting an auction. You compare his picture to a picture of him from a couple years before. He's just shed so much weight. He's just skin and bone. And the medics were getting food much longer than the regular population. Only in the last couple of days at Nasser Hospital, for instance, did the hospital staff stop getting food? This patient stopped getting food a long time ago. Now it's basically every person for themselves,

whatever they can find. So it's just going absolutely bananas. Now meanwhile, they cut off internet to Dar al-Bala, which is the remaining kind of civilian infrastructure left in Gaza. It's actually where Abu Bakr grew up and was from. It's where his family is. And it's where a lot of the UN and aid organizations are housed, because there's nowhere else

for them to operate at this point. So they've now launched an incursion into Dar al-Bala. They cut off internet to it. They're bombing the hell out of it. Saraya Al-Quds, which is a resistance faction, put out a statement that you can put up this next element, that they've now lost contact with Rome Breslovski, who is one of the 20 remaining hostages, assumed to be 20 remaining

hostages who are still alive. How Hamas had warned, and actually IDF commanders have warned, like if we continue to assault these particular areas, we're very worried that we're going to kill more hostages. They've already killed an untold number, uncounted number at this point, but a significant number of hostages. And so now there's this reporting that they've lost contact with Rome. So this is in the context of Witkoff heading to, you know, there's reports that he's going to be heading over there as they're trying to finalize an agreement. The negotiations heavily are around aid and how aid would be distributed, because if this

aid system continues, then the death by starvation and the slaughter at all of these aid distribution sites would continue and Hamas is saying we can't we can't agree to that. Yesterday Tammy Bruce, this is an incredible moment of the State Department where she said this is a it's a tremendous success like the the Gaza humanitarian foundation aid distribution and one of the reporters like well the result of the success is starvation like that's that's your that's your definition of success. It's like before people weren't dying of starvation,

now they are. I'm not sure under what terms that counts as a success. The ceasefire timeline is interesting because it seems to me like, and you've covered this closely, I think we've talked about it, that the escalation correlates. The closer a ceasefire appears to be politically,

the closer the Trump administration suggests they are to a ceasefire. Whenever Wittkopf is negotiating, it seems like you end up. It's like they empty the warehouses of bombs on, yeah. So I don't know, hopefully we're to get a reprieve to this soon, but too late for a lot of people. So let's also take a trip down memory lane. This is crazy.

It's the 1990s. Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Clinton, and Monica Lewinsky. Stick around for this one. Discover the exciting action of BenMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to Lewinsky. Stick around for this one. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebene, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it

all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed.

Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What would you do if one bad decision

forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said you are a number, a New York state number and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So in a scandal that has been largely lost to contemporary memory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was alleged to have blackmailed then-President Bill Clinton by revealing to him that Israel had collected tapes of phone sex calls between the 42nd President and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The story is worth revisiting amid allegations that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in a long-running Israeli blackmail operation of his own.

Clinton met with Netanyahu in the Oval Office in February 1997. Subsequently, according to testimony Lewinsky gave to the special counsel's office, Clinton's secretary, Betty Curry, reached out to Lewinsky to invite her to an Oval Office meeting, telling her Clinton, quote, had something important to tell her, unquote. It would turn out to be their final sexual encounter. But Clinton also used the opportunity to tell her that a, quote, foreign embassy had tapped his phone and recorded their conversation, Lewinsky said.

Clinton did not specify which embassy, though the meeting with Lewinsky came the month after his meeting with Netanyahu. The special prosecutor's report was far more concerned with Lewinsky's claim of the sexual encounter that day because it contradicted Clinton's claim that they had had only one encounter that year than they were with the fact that a foreign government was spying on the president and letting him know about it. The prosecutor was also interested in Clinton's response, namely that he proposed cover stories.

These are cover stories that the two could employ if they were confronted with the tapes. Clinton suggested the pair say they knew they were under surveillance and the phone sex was a quote put on for whoever was listening. That's an awfully flimsy idea, but look, he was guilty. The man did not have much to work with. Now in April Netanyahu and Clinton met again for a quote, private visit. On a Saturday then in May, 1997,

Clinton again had Curry invite Lewinsky to the White House. During that visit, he broke up with her, Lewinsky testified. The next fall, so this is fall of 1998, Clinton hosted Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a summit at Yye River, Maryland. Toward the end of the summit, at 7 a.m., after a long night of final negotiations and handshakes, Netanyahu approached Clinton privately

to demand the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, long a cause celeb of the Israeli far right. That's according to reporting at the time from the New York Times. Now, Netanyahu brought up the sex tapes in the time from the New York Times. Now Netanyahu brought up the sex tapes in the context of the Pollard demand, according to subsequent reporting by Washington Examiner editor Daniel Harper in his book Clinton, Inc. The audacious rebuilding

of a political machine. He writes, quote, not wanting to directly threaten the powerful American president, a crucial Israeli ally, Clinton was told that the Israeli government had thrown the tapes away, but the very mention of them was enough to constitute a form of blackmail, Halpern reported. The talks almost broke down as CIA Chief George Tenet told Clinton he would resign on the spot if Clinton agreed to the terms. So instead, Clinton agreed to quote, review Pollard's case. He did not release him. Pollard was eventually freed in 2015 under the Obama administration.

Now on the last day of his first term, Trump pardoned Pollard's handler. Back in Israel, Pollard is now an outspoken supporter of extremist national security minister Ben Gavir, Itamar Ben Gavir, and has called for the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza. supporter of extremist National Security Minister Ben Gavir, Itamar Ben Gavir, and has called for the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza. I don't know, Emily, what do you think?

What did Netanyahu tell Bill Clinton? I'm so curious. Is there another foreign embassy that this could be? So this is very casually in the book of Daniel Halper, right? Who is, I mean, you probably- Tell us about him as a reporter. Well, I was even going to ask you, I mean, he's sort of a right-of-center Bush era. I mean, I don't want to get this wrong, but that's my kind of-

Yeah, he was doing a lot of these Clinton-ink style, yeah. Right, and then was covering foreign policy like during that time period. I remember Daniel Hopper a lot from the kind of blogging years, if that makes sense, like the Bush era blogging years. But this is very casually in the book. And there was another book, I think, was called Gideon's Spies in 98, published in the UK,

that reported the same thing. Yeah. That it was, that Netanyahu, that, and that it was Israel that had gotten these tapes. Because basically what happened, like, back then it was probably pretty, maybe even easier than it is now. A lot of people were learning about this affair. It was everywhere.

Before it was reported by Drudge and then by Newsweek, it was the talk of elite Washington. That's how, like Linda Tripp was telling book agents and book publishers. Yeah, Lucienne Goldberg. Yeah, Jonah Goldberg's mom. Yes. Exactly. And she's telling people. And like, you know, actually, what's his name?

George Conway, right? He was, who's now the Resistance Democrat guy, Kellyanne Conway's ex-husband. And Coulter. And this whole right-wing world. Brett Kavanaugh was working with Ken Starr. George Conway was in that group. Coulter was defending Paula Jones. Right.

She was on the Paula Jones defense. Paula Jones lawyers learned about Monica way early. So in other words, a lot of people in Washington knew about the Monica affair while it was still ongoing. So if you were a foreign embassy that learned this, then it would not have been hard for Israel and others, not just them, to learn about it. It would then not be hard for you to go and tap Monica Lewinsky's phone.

You don't even have to tap the White House at that point. You just get Monica's phone line. Which is way easier, of course. And then, boom, you're going to pick up all of these calls that continue to happen. How do you like Bill Clinton's cover story? We knew that we were being surveilled by a foreign government, and so we decided to do fake sex tapes with an intern.

I mean, I was gonna say, I think actually that may, so first of all, I think it gives it more credibility that it's casually in the book. And I think Daniel Halper is sort of broadly pretty pro-Israel, I have to go back and look, but I think that's sort of baked into a lot of the coverage that Daniel Halper has done. But I think the fact that this is sort of casually

just inserted into the narrative of the book lends credibility to it and people aren't challenging it. It's the same thing with the Alex Acosta quote that Vicki Ward put in her story that like barely raised an eyebrow at the time and across the there weren't all other people from those meetings in the Senate coming out and saying this never happened. So anyway, all that that's like a bit of a tangent but it also makes you look differently on the way Clinton vociferously denied the affair, because it's possible that they were really serious about this defense for foreign policy

reasons. They had motives beyond just protecting Clinton, that they were also dealing with the potential foreign policy consequences of this entire thing being known to an ally. It was crazy. By fall of 98 when the White River thing is happening, this is Eastern Shore, I remember when that was happening, Eastern Shore, Maryland, the world kind of the public knew about all of this. So like the value, the value of that blackmail by then was much diminished by the fact that it was everywhere

already. And then you had the midterms where Democrats overperformed despite all of this stuff. Right, because when did he, when did it all break, that he admitted it? I don't remember exactly when it was. Oh, man. That's a good question. That timeline is important in this context.

But yeah, I mean, the whole thing, this is such a- August. Oh, so he admitted it in the grand jury testimony in August 1998. But I don't think we knew that till 99, did we? No, but then he admitted it in the grand jury testimony in August 1998. But I don't think we knew that till 99, did we? No, but then he knew it was going to leak, so they put it out immediately. OK.

Yeah. So by the time that Netanyahu at Wye River is allegedly blackmailing him with the tapes and telling him that. And it's an interesting phrasing That that he's alleged to have used which is hey those tapes I mentioned like don't worry. We destroyed them It's like oh sure you did, but it's a way of you know Mention you bring them up and but you know of course. I'm not threatening you. This is crazy, right?

I would never do such a thing well It's kind of like it's actually kind of like the Epstein Bill Gates email which reportedly was you know it was about the woman that Bill Gates had an affair with like the professional poker player. I think she's a professional poker player that Bill Gates had an affair with and Epstein basically sent Bill Gates an email being like hey I think he asked for for some type of payment related to the, not for any sexual stuff,

but just a scholarship, something like that, just to let Bill Gates know he knew about this woman with whom he had an affair. Yes, exactly. You can't, and is it a smoking gun? No, because it's not, hey, I'm blackmailing you, I know you had an affair. Give me money for this.

Or it was like he had some charitable thing. He wanted money, quote unquote, charitable thing. He wanted Bill Gates to get money, too. And so he's not saying, this is blackmail, unless you give me this money. He's just saying, hey, I know. I know. Yeah.

I know about this thing. Many such cases. Yeah. Many such cases. Yeah. Many such cases. Yeah. So, and yeah, the part about the CIA is interesting too, like, because this was a bipartisan thing at the time that the CIA and whether you're Republican or Democrat, were, and it was, I think it was under Reagan that they caught Pollard, actually. Jonathan Pollard is a spy. They were absolutely committed to keeping him behind bars and not releasing him.

And when Obama let him out in 2015, it was more like parole. He served 30 years or whatever. He served an enormous amount of sentence. He's still very active in politics. He's even floated that he's going to run for Knesset under the Ben Gavir banner, basically. It is so crazy how many, like you can play six degrees of Monica Lewinsky with politics at any given moment, or six degrees of Clinton Lewinsky scandal at any given moment. I mean, it's just, it still affects so many different things in so many ways.

Absolutely wild. Yeah. Really central moment. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Yes, indeed. All right. Next, we're going to talk to Carolyn Feinstein,

who was the wife of the guy who made the ice blocker. She worked for basically the trustee office inside the Department of Justice, basically as a bankruptcy fraud staffer. And she was canned by the Department of Justice due to her connection with her husband's ice blocker app. Let's talk to her about this. Make instant deposits or same day withdrawals. Download the BenMGM Ontario app today. Visit BenMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wage your Ontario only.

Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene.

The podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebene and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house.

Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on the street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast, it's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakley, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name, Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie.

We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February, 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, One of sexy sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things that the White House is most upset about is a new app called IceBlock, which allows people to report ICE agents' sightings. And then if you have that app, you're going to get an alert if you're within five miles

of one of these sightings. One of the odd consequences of their fury at this app is that they figured out that the wife of the app developer, Carolyn Feinstein, worked for a division of the Department of Justice, and they promptly fired her. So Carolyn Feinstein is joining us now to talk about this saga and this app.

Carolyn, thanks so much for joining us. Can you start out by letting us know what were you doing for the Department of Justice? Well, thank you for having me. With the Department of Justice, I was with a small program called the US Trustee Program, and I was an auditor for them where we looked at fraud and abuse in the bankruptcy

system. So my job was to look at cases and see if there were any places where they were not following the bankruptcy rules and follow up on that. Okay. And so help us understand a little bit the timeline as it pertains to you leaving that job over the last couple of weeks. So your husband develops the Ice Block app. At one point, you disclose that you're getting death threats and the like to your employer, to the Department of Justice, and this all culminates in you being fired, being asked to leave. Tell us basically what happened. Sure.

About three weeks ago, my husband Joshua Aaron was doxed and they released our personal address, confidential information. So I preemptively contacted the Department of Justice stating, hey, there may be a threat here. I wanted to protect the department as much as I could. And after that, this was just this past week,

Laura Loomer doxed me individually on X and that was on Wednesday or Thursday. By Thursday, Laura Loomer, according to Tom Homan on a different news channel, had contacted him and he had contacted the Department of Justice about me. This was Friday then that I received an email out of nowhere stating that my employment with the Department of Justice was terminated effective immediately.

But here's the thing about that. I wasn't just terminated, I was targeted. And I was targeted because of Joshua's involvement with the app. As you say, what's the distinction between terminated and targeted? Terminated could be for any reason under the sun that is justifiable by the department or the government as a whole. Targeted, in my opinion, is that I was sought out to be terminated because of the actions of my spouse. And I think that that's probably true. Let me ask it this way, and I don't want to sound insensitive.

It seems like, and I don't want to read into your own mind, but from your husband's perspective, Joshua's perspective, this White House is utterly out of control and is engaging in actions that are deeply harmful to the community such that he would design this app to protect people against the agents of this very government. If that's, and I believe, I agree with him. Like I think that his analysis is correct.

But if that's the analysis, going to that same government and saying, hey, FYI, my husband did this app, and now we're getting threats. Just wanted to let you know so that you can be aware of my work schedule and perhaps do something to protect me. It feels naive. This is the government that is doing the thing that your husband clearly believes is wrong and evil, like why, what

would you, wouldn't you expect that same government then to be like, oh, you're married to him? Well, you're fired. I understand that sentiment, but I also have experienced and strongly believe our government is full of incredible dedicated people. And when I worked for the U.S. Trustee Program, part of our mission describes transparency. We advocate for transparency from debtors, from creditors, from anyone involved.

So as a part of that program, I want to practice what I preach. And so that's why I preemptively went to them. I also knew that I could go to that program. And as far as I was aware at the time, these statements that I was telling them, they were going to protect me. There may be different factions,

different portions of the administration that practice things differently, but the people I've directly encountered within the federal government as a whole have been dedicated just all around quality people. So no, I wouldn't have expected that from the people I've encountered directly. And you also explained this, I think you have minority shares in the company that holds the IP address for the app. And tell us about, just tell us to what extent

you may have had a financial stake in IceBlock and then what your communication was with the DOJ about that. So this brings up a good point. One thing I'd like to mention is that when I received the termination of employment letter, the reasons in that letter stated lack of candor during an internal inquiry.

And that just in lay terms is line, VO, mission, or leaving something out. Those reasons differed from the prepared statement the Department of Justice released to the press, which included describing my relationship to the company that you're stating, a minority share. That had been previously disclosed to them. And then it also insinuated that somehow that relationship endangered the lives of ICE officers

and threatened law enforcement. So which is it? Why was I fired? Because those are two separate reasons. So yeah, basically what the DOJ is saying publicly is that you didn't, that's what they're alluding to, that you didn't disclose that you had this minority share in the LLC that operates this. So you're saying that you did, and when did you disclose that to them?

Right. That, I wouldn't be able to cite an exact date I can just say in the past it has been disclosed. And so do so if they had said okay well you did disclose it now you actually are a minority shareholder of an app that is intended to disrupt you know law enforcement would that have been a justifiable reason for them to say I you of an app that is intended to disrupt law enforcement, would that have been a justifiable reason for them to say, all right, you're fired?

To begin with, that minority share, by the way, part of my position with the US trustee was to investigate companies, just to make sure everything's on the up and up. And as you're probably familiar, charters, incorporation documents, that's a good 20-second search with the Secretary of State. At any time, in addition to my prior disclosure, they had the ability to check with the state of Texas and pull those documents, say, okay, here's the minority share.

That was never concealed. As for equating that to endangering law enforcement, endangering the people that are part of the government that I proudly worked for, I would never put those individuals or those programs in danger, nor did I have the ability to. My work with the US Trustee Department was absolutely separate from anything involving immigration or immigration enforcement. I didn't have access to their files. I didn't have knowledge of their operations. I had no way to be involved in that.

And what is, so like your general response, because this is, and you just made this point as well, you said, it is insulting to me because I dedicated myself to my career to serving the people of the United States, and now the DOJ is claiming I was attempting to harm some of them, and that's not true. There has been some targeting of ICE agents. So what is your response to the argument that an app like IceBlock, and being at least a minority shareholder in a company that holds the IP address,

all of that, what is your response to the argument that this does make it easier for anybody who wants to harm an ICE officer to harm an ICE officer? Well, just to reiterate, I am not involved with the IceBlock app, but as a citizen, as someone who may encounter ice or other situations, this Ice Block app, as it's stated on their website and in the app, the intent is to inform, not obstruct.

The other applications that are similar, like Waze, could serve the same function. So the apps themselves do not endanger anyone. People's actions, people's patience, and people's understanding of what's going on with ICE operations is what could change a situation. Is there any revenue coming from this app? Not a penny. Joshua Aaron does not want to profit from people's suffering. So he does not accept any funds for this app.

How much does it cost to run? Like is an app like this fairly simple or is there is it now so widely used that there's some significant amount of kind of like Cloud costs or whatever else is associated with running something like this. Do you have any sense? There are costs involved, but I don't know what they are. Do you regret agreeing to be a minority shareholder on it? I mean, like I said,

I'm somebody that thinks that this app is good and we're a free country and if somebody wants to let their neighbor know that they saw an ICE agent down the street, they should be able to do that. But given what happened, was that a mistake? No, this company that I hold a minority interest in was formed years ago.

And the purpose of it was actually to develop a healthcare application that's still in the works. When the Iceplock app was developed and released, Apple requires a developer account. And the company already had a developer account with Apple, so that was used basically to save costs and out of convenience. Did you know, not to cause an argument at home, but did you know when Josh registered it that he used the LLC that you were affiliated with? I believe I was aware of that. Yeah.

Okay, because my wife and I actually share an LLC and I could imagine me going and just setting something up using it and her later being like, wait, you did what? Now I'm fired. You're probably familiar then, part of the reason that I just taken ownership, a small piece of that company,

is should anything unfortunately happen to Joshua, I have the ability to wind down operations, to close up shop without involving more paperwork in courts. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's basically what we've got going on too. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, so he probably told you you don't quite remember. You are trying to start an argument, aren't you? He is. He is. He's messy. I kind of am. Well, that argument already happened if it happened,

I assume. Well, what's next for you? Bigger and better things. I am just exploring what those things will be right now. All right, well, keep us updated. And the app seems like it's gaining in popularity. So I guess, and this probably only brings it more attention. And, you know, Loomer's, Loomer probably boosted it

by doing that, I would think. What do you think? The last I heard, there were almost a million users. So that really sounds like for a crowd sourced app, it can really be put to good use in the community. Right. Well, Carolyn, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Got it. Not the biggest deal here, but what do you think? Did he tell her that he was using the Family LLC? I'm more interested in when she told the Department of Justice that she had a minority share in the LLC. That, I think, is a pretty big question. Not that... I think they were firing her either way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to be honest, I think at the end of the day, if your boss, even if your boss is wrong,

if your boss says, we think this app is harming our ability to do our work, it seems inevitable that that's going to happen. Now, whether the app in and of itself is good or bad, I'm honestly of two minds on—Pisco asked me the other day about alligator alcatraz, and it's the same thing with some of this stuff. I'm of two minds about it, because on the one hand, not having enough detention centers is what created so much trafficking from cartels through Mexico because we stopped detaining people while they were waiting, asylum and all of that. Same thing, these ICE guys walking around, not identifying themselves in plain clothes,

grabbing Ramesa Ozturk off the street. This stuff is incredibly disturbing. You have to do some of it because there are actually criminals. So I'm sort of split on the app itself, but it seems obvious that there was going to be a termination in this case. And the other disturbing element, and before we go, we can put up E2 here. This is footage that's gone mega viral of an ice detention center, like, you know, surreptitiously recorded, people living for

extremely long stretches in these, you know, this is not where somebody goes for like an hour and then is processed somewhere else. Like people are like living, like basically on top of each other inside of these makeshift detention camps. And not having to do that under the Biden administration, Obama administration, and first Trump administration, not having to do that is what made,

it's so attractive for that time period that people would come over and claim asylum because if you have to do that, you don't have such an easy opportunity. And first, like this affects people who have legitimate asylum claims, like the Venezuelan barber who was fleeing communism and ended up in Seacat like it's it's some it's messed up and a lot of countries you know

managed to control their immigration policies without resorting to that though I mean or or this alligator Alcatraz or so like I mean a lot of countries don't have the volume that we have but yeah Anyway, yeah it's everything these days. We can't have nice things anymore in this country Ryan. I guess not. We can't have competent anything. Anyway good luck to Carolyn, good luck to Marty. Marty was super interesting. You've known him a while. Yeah.

Going back to HuffPost. Yes, before he was put in prison. Interesting. Yeah. Well, it was super fascinating. So we'll stay on that story. Of course. And Ryan, you back this week? We're doing Friday. I'm, if he, my wife's getting surgery related to getting her port taken out. So we'll just see when that surgery is. But hope to be able to join. Play by ear, best wishes to Elisann, and we will see you back here soon.

Yeah. and I'm going united by passion. Podcasts that amplify the voices of women in sports. Thank you for supporting iHeart Women's Sports and our founding sponsors, Elf Beauty, Capital One, and Novartis. Just open the free iHeart app and search iHeart Women's Sports to listen now. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories

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