Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Mini Show #18: SCOTUS, Buttigieg Money, AOC, Epstein's Assistant, Whitmer Plot, Lab Leak, & More!

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk SCOTUS, AOC bailing on Amazon workers, Dr. Fauci covering up lab leak, Pete Buttigieg's dark money, next moves in the Epstein case, and more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Daily Poster: https://www.dailyposter.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal and Sagar. We're gonna be totally upfront with you. We took a big risk going independent. To make this work, we need your support to beat the corporate media. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, they are ripping this country apart. They are making millions of dollars doing it.

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are you waiting for? Go to breakingpoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Hello, everybody. We didn't want everybody to have to wait. So we jumped on and made sure that we could do a special edition for Breaking Points, a major day in the Biden presidency. What is it, Crystal? Well, two big decisions coming down from the Supreme Court with regards to the Biden administration, vaccine mandates and vaccine and test mandates. So one of them goes Biden's way, but it's the less consequential one. And the other one decidedly goes against Biden. So I'll tell you the first one that actually went his way, it was a 5-4 split, was on requiring health care centers that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding to have their staffs vaccinated. And in that instance, the Supreme Court said basically like, OK, you've got the sort of stick of being able to say if you don't follow our rules, we're going to pull your funding.

I guess we'll go along with that. The much more broader, much broader and more consequential case was the one that impacted all employers, over 100 employees. And it said either your staff has to be vaccinated or they have to get tested on a weekly basis and wear a mask while they are at the workplace. That one was struck down. All of the conservatives on the court voted against it, ultimately cited against the Biden administration there. That was set to go into effect on Monday. So this has real world consequences right now. And effectively, Sagar, and I'm interested to get your take on this, but a lot of this comes down to kind of where and who they

think has power. So when Congress authorized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration agency, they wrote this law that gave OSHA very broad powers and said, you know, you can do basically whatever you want to make sure that workers are safe. The Supreme Court justices, the conservative justices seem very uncomfortable with that broad mandate. And what they indicated here is that they wanted specific language from Congress. We, of course, know that Congress is nowhere close to passing much of anything, let alone something as controversial as this. So that's kind of the lines that this ultimately broke down along. It was very much what we predicted after listening to the oral arguments. And that's where we ultimately stand. Yeah, I mean, look at the end within the decision. And I do think this is

generally keeping with it. They said, look, vaccine mandates themselves are not unconstitutional. They're like, but Congress has to do it. And this kind of fits with some of the election, the eviction moratorium stuff that we had covered previously around. A lot of this just goes just so how sclerotic our institutions are, such that Congress is so inept that the administrations try to do workarounds, which are clearly dubious legally at best. And my favorite part, Crystal, was actually and we'll put this tweet up there on the screen, is that Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, had a retweet which he characterized the vax mandate as a, quote, workaround for the federal government to force vaccination by going around Congress. And that retweet actually made its way into the actual Supreme Court concurring opinion of Justice Gorsuch. So Biden. So I think it was a like, not a retweet. No, it was. I'm looking at the retweet. I'm

looking at the retweet. We've got it here. It's from a great friend of the show, Stephanie Rule of MSNBC, which is kind of hilarious. But yeah, it really is something. Ron Klain. So the tweet from Stephanie rule says this seems like clearly a workaround for the fact that this can't go through congress right and ron clain is supposed to be the smart one in the administration and he goes and amplifies this and then it goes they weaponize it against him and say see even you guys know you're supposed to be doing this through congress now what i will say i just want to read the section of the OSHA Act of 1970 that gives these broad authorities to OSHA. They say it permits OSHA to issue binding rules that provide, quote, medical criteria,

which will assure insofar as practicable that no employee will suffer diminished health, functional capacity or life expectancy as a result of his work experience. And so because OSHA had, again, by Congress, been granted pretty broad powers with regard to keeping employees safe at work, the Supreme Court had to actively say in their decision that although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, and this is the exact language of the judgment, it is not a quote occupational hazard in most. And I think that given what we've experienced in the pandemic, I really think that is an extraordinary stretch. I was looking at the number of workers just in the meatpacking industry who were infected with COVID and ultimately died.

There were hundreds of meatpackers who died during this pandemic, tens of thousands who were infected. So a lot of folks are looking, and I agree with this, looking at this and saying, it's not an occupational hazard to be exposed to this. And look, if you're young and you're healthy, whether you're vaccinated or not, you're probably going to be fine. But not everybody's young, not everybody's healthy. Lots of people are immunocompromised and have other comorbidities that put them at risk, even if they are vaccinated, even if they are boosted. I mean, look at Governor Jim Justice right now. He says he's extremely unwell because he's older, because he's very heavy, and he is vaxxed and boosted.

So I do think that is quite a stretch given just the health data that we've seen during the pandemic. I think it's interesting when you put it that way. I hadn't seen that particular part of the decision. The part that I'd focused on was on the narrow part of it around kicking it to Congress ultimately. And I think from that perspective, I do ultimately, and this is why I was against it from the very beginning, is I thought that going and trying to use the OSHA language very clearly meant that it was going to be, A, this was clearly a workaround, and B, the constitutionality of it was dubious necessarily, especially whenever

it came to the court itself. But, you. But when we consider it, Crystal, and we were talking about this a little bit before, within the broader context, this was just a historic loss for Biden on a lot of different levels in terms of today, well, you and I are recording this on Thursday, but, and Glenn Greenwald put it this way, there are 7% inflation in the last 24 hours,

33% approval rating for Joe Biden from the Quinnipiac poll. Kyrsten Sinema reaffirms her filibuster support while Joe Biden is at the Senate in order to try and whip votes for that explicitly. And the Supreme Court strikes it down the vaccine mandate. I mean, there's no really way to say it. It was like the worst 24 hours probably of Joe Biden's presidency. And I think, you know, from it's interesting when I think about it, too, from that perspective. And this was it was this we talked about on the show voting rights. OK, like you said, you can agree or disagree, whatever. Why are you spending so much immense political capital, number one, behind something

that nobody cares about right now? And number two, which is wasn't even going to pass. I mean, presidents only go to the Capitol in order to, you know, spike the football and or put the real last ditches of pressure on senators for a big time vote. But ahead of this one, they knew it wasn't going to happen. And if anything, the fact that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema did it while he was there probably boosts their own domestic political popularity and shows how fundamentally weak he is within the Democratic Party. I mean, that's the stunning part. Yeah. Well, and here's the thing is I'm all for putting votes on the floor that are going to make people uncomfortable. Voting rights, that's not the primary priority of most Americans. So if you're going to put, you know, if you're going to put $15 minimum wage on the floor, you know, and put pressure on people, this is a broadly

popular bipartisan supported thing. Put everybody on the record, Joe Manchin, you want to vote against that, be my guest. Then you're making a statement, then you're making it hard. Things that are even more popular than that, like the Medicare prescription drug price negotiation, that has like 85% approval. Put that on the floor, go to Congress, make a point, name and shame, call them out, put pressure, all of those things. And then not only are you putting your own people under tremendous pressure to go along with things that are insanely popular in their own states, and they don't get to hide behind like, you know, the morass of build back better and these sort of broad talking points about overspending too much money.

Do that. And then you're also demonstrating the American people like, oh, if you actually want these things to happen, then you need to back us and give people a reason to vote in the midterms. But that, I mean, I can't even describe how pathetic and impotent their strategy ultimately is. Because like you said, on the filibuster stuff, you know, they're not going to do the carve out for voting rights. You know, it's impotent. The very least you could do is ask for what you actually want, which is the whole filibuster gone. So you're coming up with a car mount that's impotent to start with and that you know is going to fail. It's utterly demoralizing for anyone who's associated with it whatsoever.

The one thing I will say, and this is inspired by, did you watch our great vice president's interview with Craig Melvin at all? She had some really – We will have coverage of this. I promise people. Yeah. So she got asked by Craig Melvin, you know, like, isn't it time to switch up strategies here, um, on coronavirus? Because obviously look, people, you should encourage people to get vaccinated, but you got a group that's just not going to do it. So what else you got? No answer whatsoever. No answer whatsoever. And so, I mean, you just look at this whole spectrum of morass and incompetence. And I just wonder if they'll actually take the Supreme Court decision and say, well, you know, things are bad with COVID and you're dissatisfied. It's really not our fault. We did the thing we're supposed to do. It's the Supreme Court decision and say, well, you know, things are bad with COVID and you're

dissatisfied. It's really not our fault. We did the thing we're supposed to do. It's the Supreme Court's fault and use it as a way to shift blame rather than as a way to say, all right, well, what can we do within our powers? What can we pressure Congress on to actually deliver for people? I hadn't considered that. Perhaps it could be the best thing ever. It could just make them say, look, especially to the upper middle class, people were really freaked out. They'd be like, look, we tried, but we got to move on now. Perhaps that could be the attack. I personally am sad because I think that the blue states and the deep blue, blue cities like here in Washington and more will just use this as an excuse in order to keep masks forever.

But that probably was going to be the case whatsoever. I mean, but when you put it all together, it's a terrible 24 hours for the Biden administration. It shows a couple of things, too, which is that they are so inept that members of their own party don't respect them and so disrespect them that they get political capital by defying them on the very day that they come to Congress. By the way, this is a story that we skipped on right on on breaking points, though, Crystal. I mean, Stacey Abrams, remember her whole scheduling snafu where she just like fakes not appearing with Biden in the state where he happens to be appearing. And by the way, she has still not told anyone what that scheduling conflict was. Everybody in the Democratic Party who is, you know, at least has a prop is basically in any sort of purplish state is like, stay the hell away from me. He has no support, has no ability in order to compel Congress to do anything.

And then, you know, even when he did resort to try and do this, the SCOTUS immediately shut it down. So it's a big it's a big shot for the president. It really is, domestically, probably his worst day in office. I think that's almost inarguable. Here's what I would say. Look, I think the Supreme Court decision is wrongly decided. And I also support it, as you know, the vaccine mandate with the testing option. However, it does show you there's no substitute

for having all three bodies of government be somewhat functional. So, you know, this isn't the first time that they've kicked things back to Congress knowing damn well, nothing is going to happen in Congress. President does have a lot of power. This president hasn't particularly wanted to use it using executive, using mandates. And, you know, I mean, we should be reluctant about seeing executives take a lot of power because we know that that's been used for nefarious ends many times. There's just no substitute for actually having the real checks and balances of the system. Today was, you know, was a great day for total institutional collapse, inaction, morass, leaving us nowhere, you know, nowhere better than where we started.

I don't disagree on my part. Look, I mean, I was open about it. I didn't support the mandate. I do think the Supreme Court, in my opinion, made the right decision. But I don't disagree that ultimately we do need to see Congress have weigh-ins on these things on a case by case basis. And even what we're, and what I mean by that is exactly up or down. I mean, this is something that the Senate and the Congress, the House of Representatives used to have all the time. And we went astray a long time ago when we started packaging all this BS into these multi-trillion dollar bills that nobody understands and that everybody has cover for voting against. This is just one more case for let's just get rid of the blocks to that. these multi-trillion dollar bills that nobody understands and that everybody has cover for

voting against. This is just one more case for let's just get rid of the blocks to that, force it to actually work. Because look, I mean, no one's going to save you all the way around. So I don't know really what else to say. I thought it was important that we do this for people so that they can take away a little bit of not just our perspectives, but probably the biggest news in a long time. So I'm glad we did this, Crystal. Yeah, indeed. And to leave on a little bit of a hopeful note, something we did cover on breaking points, the movement on the right and the left regarding banning stock trading is a model for how pressure can be applied and potential progress can be made when people, when politicians find it in their self-interest to pursue something that is also in the public good. And so that's sort of a model that we should hold on to moving forward.

Really well said. Time now for our weekly segment with The Daily Poster. Joining us this week, we have Andrew Perez. He is senior editor and reporter at The Daily Poster. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, Andrew. Thanks for having me. All right. So you did some digging here along with one of your colleagues of Pete Buttigieg and some of the money that is backing him. What little we can glean. And let's just say there's a lot of serious lack of transparency around this. Let's throw this tear sheet up on the screen. Pete Buttigieg's

dark money donors, a dark money group started by the 2020 presidential hopeful, has not disclosed its donors as promised. Just lay out for the audience what you found here. Sure. Yeah. So a dark money group started by Buttigieg after his presidential campaign has raised, at least in 2020, they raised seven six-figure donations, donations over $100,000. And they raised several $50,000 donations as well. And they have not disclosed the source of any of that money. They had said that they were going to last year. And actually, it even says so on their ActBlue donation page that they'll disclose their donors. But they have not done so yet and they did not answer our questions about it. So this is the question that I have.

How is it legal for somebody who is the transportation secretary to have a political dark money front group in the first place? Is this common? I mean, how does it work in terms of his affiliation? Yeah, well, so he stepped down from the group in 2020 when he when he was appointed transportation secretary. But, you know, if you look at the group's website, it literally still calls itself Team Pete HQ on its Twitter page. So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty clear that this group is affiliated with him. I think they had said that they were going to slow down fundraising in 2021. And, you know, the group really isn't doing much. But, you know, I think we all understand that, you know, Pete is Buttigieg is young, he's ambitious, and he's

definitely going to run for something again. Right. So this is sort of his campaign and waiting whenever he's done serving in public office. So this is sort of like the shadow campaign that's there, you know, and people can funnel money there to express their support of him, whether the public knows who those individuals are not. Just put this in the context of there's been all of this, you know, castle intrigue here about Kamala Harris. Everybody knows she's very unpopular, that if Biden doesn't run again, she'd be, you know, a deeply flawed candidate. There's a whole lot of donors who've been having these reportedly secret meetings trying to figure out how they could sneak Pete in there instead. So just put your reporting sort of in the context of those broader conversations. Yeah, I mean, Buttigieg could very realistically be a 2024 candidate if Biden doesn't run or after that.

So, yeah, I mean, I think it's it's it's definitely important. You know, this group matters and, you know, because, yeah, Pete could run again for president. He could run again for something else. So, you know, having a campaign and waiting is is a pretty is a pretty smart way to, you know, to be prepared. I think the other thing about this is Pete like to use the fact that he's young to indicate that he would somehow be different. You know, he talked about generational change. But this looks like the same old, same old, just with a younger guy. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, this is, you know, raising dark money is a very, you know, hardcore political move. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, so these, you know, hardcore political move. Yes. Yeah, and, you know, so these, you know, so he had a PAC that's capped at like $5,000 donations. Here, you know, with a group like this, there is no cap on how much you can give. And yeah, so they, you know, they raised one donation

that's $250,000. We have no idea who gave it. We have no idea who gave any of this money. And, you know, one of the things that we think is relevant is, you know, he's running the transportation department that's going to be tasked with spending more money than any other cabinet agency from the infrastructure bill. You know, they have a pot of over $500 billion that's going to be spread all over the country. And, you know, he's going to be the public face of these programs, too. You know, just this week he was ining, touting some of the funding. And so, yeah, he's going to be all over touting this funding. And, you know, it's definitely relevant because you

have no idea if any of these donors have any interest before the Transportation Department, if they have any interest in the infrastructure money. So, you know, we think it matters and we think it's worth covering. Yeah. You know, do we know anything about at least some of the billionaires and others that he's been associated with in the past? Like, give us an idea of who we at least know is involved in the past and could be connected to this. Who was in the wine cave.

Yes, who was in the wine cave. He's an old reference. I don't remember who was in the wine cave. But, yeah, I mean, I think it had been shown that Pete had, like, several billionaire donors. And, yeah, I think there was a report from CNBC that, you know, some of his donors had contracts from when he was in South Bend. So, yeah, I mean, you know, Pete is just, like, you know, a pretty standard run pretty standard run of the mill Democratic politician in that regard. Yeah, I think it also exposes, Andrew, just the perniciousness of money in politics in general, because, you know, let's say he does go on to run for president or Senate or some other office that has power associated with it. I mean, it's very clear how there could be corruption, how there could be a quid pro quo. If you've got people who are saying, hey, I'm going to I'll put some money in now with a wink and a nod that you're going to look out for me on this infrastructure bill.

You might look out for me, you know, later on or I'll be there to back you. If you funnel this infrastructure, my money, my way, I'll be there to back you with your further political ambitions. We're not saying that that is what's going on here, but that appearance of potential corruption and the total lack of transparency so that journalists like you can't even look into whether that might ultimately be the case is one of the big reasons why we have such tremendous collapse in trust of all of our institutions. Great reporting here as always, Andrew. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you. Thank you. We've got some new disappointing details coming out about AOC and her commitment to the labor movement involving a great friend of the show here, Christian Smalls. Let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the screen. According to the New York Post, Amazon workers were heartbroken after AOC bailed on a promise to march with them.

This actually pertains to an action that happened over the summer. AOC had said that she was going to come, and then Christian Smalls told the Post she decided to pull out and didn't really give a reason. He said, I figured she would follow her word, and it was heartbreaking. I felt bad for the workers that were excited to see her. It was a slap in the face. And because she sort of stood them up with that last rally, they didn't even bother reaching out to her. For a second one. For the second one, which, again, it's just sad and it's disappointing,

especially because AOC had been a public face of the campaign against Amazon. Yeah, in New York. With regard to, you know, in New York, bringing their headquarters there. Obviously, she consistently speaks out about labor rights and unionization. So the fact that she had indicated she would be there and then decided for whatever reason to pull out without explaining to them why,

it's just disappointing, especially when, listen, Congress is broken. There's not a lot getting done there. So using your large platform to call attention to these kind of struggles would be an incredibly significant and important thing to do. I mean, the labor struggles that are going on right now are the best thing that's happening in America. If you've got a platform, you care about these issues, you should be using them to do everything you can to push those workers forward rather than disappointing them. Yeah. And her office just declined to comment. They didn't even give a reason. I mean, you shouldn't, you should give a reason, you know, at least something. Yeah, I mean, anyone would understand if there was some legitimate. Right. Maybe there was a vote.

A vote or whatever. Yeah, whatever. I mean, come on. But yeah, she didn't show up. It's also kind of surprising to me that it didn't, it took until now for this to even come out. But yeah, look, I mean, it goes to a lot of the virtue signaling politics that we have, which is something we were talking about in our show on Monday, which is that, yeah, like you said, you have a bunch of people who are right-wingers who are like big pharma, corruption, all this, and they don't want to do anything about big pharma. And you have a bunch of people who are LARPing and tweeting about unions. And like every once in a while, you know, they'll show up with like a photo or something. But yeah, I mean, this is, this would have meant all the world to them. I mean, we had

Smalls here on the show. The thing is with Smalls is that he's not just, as I understand it, he's trying to certify like a new union. That's a real, really tough thing to do. Very uphill battle, a lot of legal and logistical hurdles for him to have to handle given the fact that he was unfairly tarred, you know, by this company in the first place. This is not somebody who you should – I mean if he had asked us, for example, and we would have said that we were going to go, like we absolutely would have done it. Like you can't not. And you know we're much less important or at least visible than she is. So I think it's very hypocritical and especially that she won't give an answer as to why.

What's the reason? You know, at least provide – at least lie. I don't know. Pretend that you care. They don't. I mean, I just don't, I don't understand. What's the risk? You know? Yeah, I agree. What's the risk in showing up and lending your support to what is ultimately a courageous stand? Chris Smalls lost his job because of his willingness to speak out. And he has put himself out there as many other activists and organizers ultimately have, because you know the power that corporate America has, and especially Amazon. So to sort of, you know, disappoint them and not even have a good reason or explain a reason why you did so is just disappointing. Some interesting news on the Epstein front, even though Ghislaine Maxwell has now been convicted. You guys will remember they brought on for the BBC an expert lawyer in order to analyze the

verdict. Alan Dershowitz, who was literally a lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, also was on the Trump impeachment case. All goes all the way back to the OJ trial. He never really sees, he doesn't have a spotlight that he doesn't want to miss. Anyway, it has now come out, let's put this up there on the screen. Alan Dershowitz used his leverage with Trump and his proximity there and lobbied him to preemptively pardon Ghislaine Maxwell after speaking to her family. Now, what they say is that there was a phone call between Alan Dershowitz and a member of the Maxwell family, at least of which he then lobbied the Trump administration in order to try and get a pardon for her. Now, this is really interesting

because Dershowitz obviously had a lot to lose from this trial. The reason why is that some of the testimony and accusation relied on Virginia Gouffre, who is one of the accusers in the Maxwell trial and in the Dershowitz allegation. She accuses Alan Dershowitz of sexually assaulting her when she was underage. She's also a prominent accuser against Prince Andrew, as well as many other different billionaires and powerful people. You can go and look at the list of people that she's named. He wanted to push a pardon for the Maxwell family because he himself helped broker the sweetheart deal for Epstein

and because a prominent accuser in that trial, if it was validated that what she was saying was true, would then validate an accusation against him, which is something that he actually then tried to smear her during his BBC appearance. It all just comes full circle on Alan Durkowitz. He had a lot of skin in the game here, let's just say.

A lot of skin in the game. Also, so Michael Wolff, who's kind of can be sketchy in terms of a journalist, but... With a grain of salt. Yeah, he reported in his book that Trump did actually consider this request,

pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, preemptively pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell at the end of his term. And then I had forgotten, but do you remember this? He got asked about Ghislaine Maxwell a couple of times at the end. And he said, he told reporters at White House Coronavirus Briefing about Ghislaine Maxwell, quote, I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, but I wish her well, whatever it is. Then he got asked again by Axios' Jonathan Swan, and very similar message about just like, yeah, I wish her well. Yeah, I wish her well. I'd wish you well. I'd wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty. And again, according to Michael Wolff, he started at the end of his term to inquire

whether she'd brought him up and whether there was anything he needed to be worried about there, whether she was going to roll on him. So if you put those pieces together, it seems like he didn't want to piss her off in these final moments of his presidency, understanding that, hey, a lot of things could come out ultimately in this trial. I mean, look, she actually didn't say anything about him. She never testified. This was the last chance in open court that we ever got at unsealing a lot of documents, at looking what the FBI had. There's a lot of stuff happening. speculation now, let's put this up there on the screen, that Sarah Kellan, a former assistant to Epstein, who scheduled some of the massage appointments

and sent cars to pick up people and did all sorts of sketchy stuff, she might be targeted via prosecutors. I just don't think so, Crystal. You don't think so? They dropped the charges against the guards. They're cleaning the house. They have no reason to pursue this. They got exactly what

they wanted. They put Maxwell behind bars. Nothing about the Epstein suicide. Nothing about any of the billionaires who he cavorted with. All of the money remains covered up in open court. It's all in sealed financial documents. You get little slivers here and there from Deutsche Bank and the fine against there. But this is it. It's like they tied it up like a little bow.

I don't think they'll ever risk opening this up in court ever again. What did you think about this case? Yeah, because this is another person who was right there at the center, would have known the people involved would be in a position to name names and expose this whole sort of like pyramid scheme of sexual abuse that

Ghislaine Maxwell's trial really didn't touch on at all. What do you think? She claims that she herself was a victim, that she was picked up when she was 21 years old. She'd been cast out of, I guess she'd been raised Jehovah's Witness. She'd been cast out of the community. She divorced a man that she married at age 17. This is what she's saying, that she was in this very vulnerable place and they took her in and manipulated and abused her too. And then she also then becomes complicit and actively involved in abuse of other girls.

This is her story. What do you think of all that? It's a very convenient story. It's something I would also say if I was caught doing a lot of this stuff. You can go ahead and call yourself a victim. Maybe it is true. That also doesn't absolve you of the fact that you actively were complicit in the sexual exploitation of young girls. And look, you know, maybe consider it a sentencing.

But, like, that's not something in terms of stopping you from charged of all this. I, again, think this is a total distraction. I'm not saying she shouldn't go to jail, obviously with Maxwell, but so much of the top was just totally left off in the trial. I mean, Dershowitz's thing

is much more of a glimpse into how this stuff really works. That's right. Ahita wants to get her pardoned so he can get off the hook, make sure he doesn't

get accused. He wants to make sure that a lot of the other people that she accused, Virginia Gouffre, Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, all these guys who slept at Epstein's mansion on multiple occasions.

I mean, all the billionaires, Leslie Wexner, just for some reason signed over, like what power of attorney or whatever. It is a little glimpse. That stuff is just gone. It is a little glimpse into how this game was played and how they got away with it for so long because in Dershowitz, just as one example of someone who was involved in this whole sordid affair,

and of course he denies any allegations of impropriety or anything that he's been accused of. But here's a guy who is extraordinarily prominent in American public life, who has direct access to the president of the United States, has direct access to the airwaves on BBC and also on Fox News that day, too. By the way, they did disclose the conflicts of interest that he has. He is an extraordinarily prominent lawyer, so he's well-connected within sort of the legal judicial realm and is able to secure this sweetheart deal, helped to secure the sweetheart deal for Epstein. So you see the way that power protected power. And that is the story of how they got away with this for so many years before there were ever any potential consequences.

No, I think that's exactly right. All right, guys, we have yet another development in the case against the alleged Gretchen Whitmer kidnappers, that whole plot, which was exposed shortly before the presidential election. Of course, we've been tracking here how first we learned that perhaps a majority or more than a majority of those involved in this plot were feds. Okay, so that's revelation number one. Then we start to learn about these people and what just a crew of criminals effectively they are. One of them gets pulled because he has a domestic violence incident with his wife. Another one is accused of perjury. Another one has some consulting shop that he's using to grift off his

government work. I mean, it's just been one thing after another with these folks. It's really undermined the case that the government is trying to make against these kidnap plotters. So here's the very latest. Let's throw this up on the screen. And BuzzFeed, to their credit, they are the only ones who have been doing any work in journalism on this. So the latest is the government now says a key informant in the Michigan kidnapping case was a double agent. Claim is the latest complication in a high profile case that once seemed like a slam dunk. So here are the details. Federal prosecutors say a key FBI informant was a double agent who was actually working against the interests of the government by trying to destroy evidence and prevent arrests.

That confidential informant, Stephen Robeson, played a central role in the investigation that led to the arrest of 14 men for allegedly participating in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. At the direction of his FBI handlers, Robeson reached out to potential targets. He organized meetings. He paid travel expenses for people to attend such events. And now the government appears to be totally disowning its own operative, saying that he deceived the FBI and at times actively aided targets of the investigation. So again, take note. They actually, at the direction of his FBI handlers, he was reaching out to targets, organizing meetings, paying for travel expenses.

This was all at the government's direction. That shows you how influential these informants were in helping to create and facilitate this plot against Gretchen Whitmer, which is, you know, that's all stunning in and of itself because you're not supposed to be actually creating plots. You're supposed to be observing and exposing them, not, you know, facilitating them and inventing them out of whole cloth. And it seems like he played an incredibly central role in putting this whole thing together. And now the government says, oh, we thought this guy was on our side. Actually, it turns out we got to disown him because he was working too much on their side. Well, it's very important to understand that because the defense

was trying to get all that admitted as evidence. And now that's why they're disowning him in order to try and cast this out of the trial. Yeah. At this point,

who do they have left to testify in this trial? Honestly, I don't know. The feds themselves have been compromised. And now we know. The more that comes out in the discovery process,

you just learn time and again how many feds were involved in this, how it looks like a complete setup, so much of sketchy characters, including the agents themselves who then got fired from the agency for beating their – I mean, look, it is very clear to me. If they know what's better for them, they should drop the case because the more that continues to come out on this – I'm not standing for the people who they're charging, by the way. But I also think that they very clearly at least got up to that line of entrapment

here. And that the more it comes out, it's an embarrassment to them, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We continue to just learn how much they leverage informants and allow them to commit crimes and try to use them in order to set people up. And whenever it hits these politically charged cases, especially their behavior in October of 2020, it just looks outrageous in its implications for what it meant to the political scene. It seems like what happened here with this dude is that as discovery has gone on, it has become clear that he went way too far in terms of how much help he gave to the plotters that they've charged.

But that sentence of the case. And so now they have to say, oh, well, actually he wasn't, even though we were helping him and we thought he was, he wasn't actually ours. He was actually on their side. That's why you provided them with so much help and support,

which may have gone, you know, it may have been a situation where they saw, oh, if this is our guy and they can show all the things that he did to help further this plot, it's going to be hard to argue against an entrapment defense. I just want to say, I mean, this is exactly the playbook that was run during the war on terror. It's the exact same tactics. And, you know, there was very

unsympathetic at the time to make the case in favor of the individuals who were being indicted on terrorism charges. It's the same thing here. It is not, these are not sympathetic individuals. And so it can be dicey and complicated to make the case, you know, that this was effectively, the feds were way too involved here that they furthered the plot in a way that, you know, ultimately amounted to entrapment. But the more that we learned, the more that it really looks like this. And this doesn't serve, this doesn't make the public safer. This doesn't serve the public interest. Not at all.

It serves political ends of some, you know, prosecutor, law enforcement officials getting to say in their resume that they exposed this plot. And that's what, you know, that's the only end that this ultimately furthers. It does not make us safer when you have the government actually creating more plots than would have existed before. So again, the more we learn about this, the more questionable the whole thing ultimately seems. There you go. Some very big news on the lab leak front. So the House Republican Committee has released some new emails that they reviewed from the National Institute of Health of discussions of the lab leak hypothesis between Dr. Fauci and the head of the NIH and many other prominent scientists. Let's put that up there on the screen. These emails are vital because what they show is that there was an institutional effort to push back and stop any discussion of the lab leak hypothesis within the National Institute of Health. Specifically, Bob Gehry, he was shown in the emails and was spoken to by NIH leaders who advised him, quote, not to mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists.

So within that, it is very clear here that Dr. Fauci, that Francis Collins, the head of the NIH, and others were shown in summaries of calls and emails with leaders who were experts in the field of virology, specifically told them to shut down discussions of a lab leak hypothesis in February of 2020. And I think this is very important because here's the thing. February 1, 2020. Try to remember that time. There was no discussion around coronavirus. I looked it up, actually. I was freaking out a little bit around then. I got a call from a friend of mine late January who said, this is a big deal in China. I'm looking at the data. This is a disaster for old people. We are going to have a massive lockdown in America. The first segment that we did on it was right after Valentine's Day, late February on rising. I actually went back and found

it. But that's, again, it just shows you that February 1st, 2020 was a very, very early time. And immediately at that time, they were saying, do not mention any lab origin hypothesis as it will fuel conspiracy theorists. This is not afterwards. This is during the initial outbreak and showing you that from the very beginning, they were deeply concerned about the idea of a lab leak, so much so that they were willing to shut down discussions of it. And the emails themselves show that at such an early time of shutting down the discussion on this crystal, that they knew the political explosiveness and the backlash that they would face when the truth came to light. Two years later, it's clear as day. At least, if not the origin itself,

although I think there's overwhelming evidence pointing to the lab leak, that within the cover-up, from the very beginning, they did everything they could in order to make it go away. I mean, so the cover-up, in certain ways, is worse than the crime. Because, look, no one is saying here that the Chinese intentionally,

or that Fauci intentionally manufactured a pandemic around the world. Lab leaks happen all the time. Yes, as we learned throughout the course of this pandemic. It is not that unusual. And to say, OK, this is devastating and this is why this is so important we come back to it, like, it's really important to know how this absolutely devastating pandemic that is going to ultimately kill a million Americans, how this started and what we can do to prevent the next one. And so what you see in these emails, when you read them, the initial instinct from the scientists that Fauci is consulting is that it probably came from the lab. Oh, yeah. They say it's, you know, 70-30 or 60-40,

that they think it probably came from the lab versus natural origin. And then over the next couple of days, they say, well, maybe it's more like 50-50. Well, 50-50 is still like, you know, that's a jump ball. That's like, okay, we have competing theories and we need to air this out

and evaluate the evidence and do investigations and figure out what the hell happened here. And what they say is that further debate, this is the direct quote, further debate, and they're talking about on the origin of the pandemic, would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular. And that it could also damage, quote, international harmony. Those were the words of Dr. Collins, a former director of US NIH. They're not worried about science in general or science in China in particular, because if you're worried about science, you wouldn't want to find the truth because that's what science is supposedly about. What they're really worried about is the things

we've talked about here. They're worried about their grant funding. They're worried about their projects, whatever their pet projects are that they view to be career enhancing. That's what they're really ultimately worried about here. This is truly a smoking gun. Especially when you think about the way that Dr. Fauci talked

totally dismissively of the lab leak hypothesis. The whole year of 2020, yes. He's still to this day holding on to the wet market theory. Which not even China stands behind anymore. That's what I love. So, I mean, to look at the tone of these emails, which start off as very like, I actually think it probably came from the lab to like, I'm 50-50 here.

And then to compare that to the public tone from Fauci is just completely, it's just obvious that he was playing politics. He liked, for political reasons, a certain theory, not because that theory was more likely. And then the rest of the media, he sets the tone for the rest of the media. This theory gets completely blackballed. You can't discuss it or you're a racist. That was the real move was to say you can't even talk about it or you're a racist. And now here we are so many months and years later with mounting evidence that actually the obvious thing that likely, you know, that scientists thought likely happened is, you know, increasingly evident that that is probably what occurred here. But the perverting of science for political ends, this is a smoking gun proving that that is what's been going on all along. Yeah, it's really awful. And it again just shows you about the cover-ups and the lack of rigor in our journalistic institutions to look past the clear

ideological cover-up of all of this and have no curiosity. Why does the House GOP have to do this? Many journalists are well-sourced enough in order to go and get the data for themselves. They could have done it in June. They could have looked at the spike protein and all the unique elements of this virus back in June of 2020 when Bret Weinstein went on Joe Rogan's podcast to tell the world about it. Why did it have to go that way? You know the answer. And the most cowardly and disgusting thing that Fauci does is he conflates criticism of himself with criticism of science. And most recently,

when Rand Paul was questioning him before Congress, a really cowardly move he made was to suggest that criticism of him is conflated with death threats and that you are thus responsible for death threats against him and his family by criticizing of him. When you're in the public eye, it comes with the territory. I know that sounds very callous. We get uncomfortable and odd messages all the time. I'm like 190th famous as Dr. Fauci. And that's just simply how it goes to have the unique privilege of having this job and being able to speak on this platform. Same whenever it comes to Fauci. And this is how this all went down.

Let's take a listen. You deny, you deny, but the emails tell the truth of this. This wasn't the only time. Your desire to take down those who disagree with you didn't stop with Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford. You conspired with Peter Daszak, who you communicated with privately, and other members of the scientific community that wrote opinion pieces for Nature. Five of them signed a paper for Nature, an opinion piece. 17 signed a paper that called it conspiracy theory, the idea that the virus could have originated in the lab. Do you think words like conspiracy theory should be in a scientific paper? Senator, I never used that word when I was referring to it. You're distorting virtually everything. Did you communicate with the five scientists who wrote the opinion piece

in Nature where they were describing, oh, there's no way this could have come from the lab? That was not me. What I did- Did you talk with any of those scientists privately? You keep distorting the truth. It is stunning how you do that. Did you talk to any of the scientists privately? Yes. Who wrote the opinion? You did.

What were they telling you privately? Well, let me explain. You know you're going back to that original discussion when I brought together a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind. So not only you distorting it, you are completely turning it around as most of the scientists that came to you privately. Do they come to you privately and say, no way this came from the lab? Or was their initial impression, Dr. Gary and others that were involved, was their initial impression actually that it looked very suspicious for a virus that came from a lab. Senator, we are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed almost 900,000 people.

And the purpose of the committee was to try and get things out, how we can help to get the American public. And you keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality. Do you think? The arrogance crystal of obfuscation. The only straight answer that he gave was, yes, I did communicate with him privately. That was the only one. And then he goes, oh, you're distorting. And apparently he was hot on a hot mic saying, Jesus Christ, what a moron. That's what went viral. People love the fact they're like Fauci owns Rand Paul. you're distorting and apparently he was hot on a hot mic saying jesus christ what a moron that's

what went viral people love the fact they're like fauci owns ran paul ran paul is an ownable figure i get it well that's that goes back to your point about how it sucks that this is partisan yes because then i mean yeah ran paul he wants his political moment and he gets fine you know hey out of that that's his incentive and it does mean that you should be you know, hey, out of that. That's his incentive. And it does mean that you should be, you know, leery and be have questions because he has he has an incentive here to create these moments as well. But, yeah, when the media isn't looking for these answers, when the Democratic Party, this shouldn't be partisan. Everyone should want to know how this started and what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen again. Democratic Party actively wants to cover up any nefariousness that was done here in the early stages. It's damning. It's utterly damning. They had caught red-handed acknowledging at the beginning. I mean, he's right. They convened

these scientists and their initial instinct was it probably came from the lab. At least some of these scientists said, it looks very unlikely that this would have developed in nature. They cite the like furin site or whatever and say it's very unlikely that this naturally developed. And then the, so that's their internal discussion. And the public discussion is, it didn't come from the lab. I'm very certain the evidence shows it.

We're going to publish this piece in Nature that really just totally shut down. I mean, that one piece was so effective in shutting down any other lines of inquiry from the media. For over a year. Slavishly follows along, introduces this talking point that if you even say anything about it,

you must be a racist, you must be a Trump white nationalist hack or whatever. And this is it. This is the roots of the cover up right here before your face is as clear as day. Yeah. And unfortunately, you'll hear about it on YouTube. You're never going to hear this in the media. You'll never hear it. You know, everybody's going to say it's some Republican conspiracy or whatever.

And this guy will probably retire with a freaking award from Presidential Medal of Freedom or whatever. I don't know what to say about this world. Okay. Indeed. Alright, guys. Thanks for watching. We're going to have more for you later. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your Not the Father week on the

OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind

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