Dear listeners,
Some of the Epstein files have been released, pursuant to the law ordering their release, but there's a lot of blacked-out text and pictures that have people suspicious. The Justice Department is supposed to redact certain information — like information that could identify victims — but there appear to be errors of both under- and over-redaction, including a transcript from the grand jury that indicted Ghislaine Maxwell that was entirely blacked out before the DOJ tried again and redacted what appears to be just victim-related information. Of course there’s the ever-present question of whether all redaction “errors” are errors, or whether this administration — sent into a litigious panic months ago over the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of a skeevy letter wishing Epstein a happy 50th birthday that bore Trump’s signature in the guise of public hair for an hourglass female figure — has its thumb on the scale for the president.
Meanwhile, the Pulitzer Board, facing ongoing defamation litigation from the president, has made discovery requests including for extensive medical, financial and tax records from the president. The board may well be entitled to these in discovery, but don’t get your hopes up too much: the president can likely avoid disclosure of medical information if he agrees to forego claims that the Pulitzer statements caused harm to his physical or mental health; the financial information, meanwhile, would be under a protective order, and absent a leak (always possible) we likely wouldn’t get to see it.
A Los Angeles man who towed an ICE vehicle around the block during a raid was acquitted of stealing government property, a reflection of local discontent with the immigration crackdown in the area — still, we would still not generally advise you to tow government vehicles. Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan was less fortunate: she was convicted in federal court of obstructing an effort by federal immigration agents to detain someone she had called to her courtroom. And Caroline Ellison, former partner to Sam Bankman-Fried in multiple senses of the term, has been sprung from Club Fed in Danbury, Connecticut.
Speaking of Sam Bankman-Fried, the New York Times reports he’s transformed himself into something of a jailhouse lawyer. His father, Stanford Law professor Joseph Bankman, told the Times his son is just trying to give back in whatever way he can: “Sam gave most of his income to charity every year he had income. Now all he has is his time to give.” Unfortunately, he seems to be about as good at jailhouse lawyering as he was at crypto investing. His key piece of legal advice seems to be that you should run your mouth, and he apparently talked former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández into taking the stand in his own defense, to bad effect. Oh, well.
Plus, we look at a maybe-not-so-fearsome terrorism indictment and we discuss the ongoing contempt saga that has caused Ken to feel a surprising emotion regarding Charles C. Johnson: pity.
We hope you enjoy our final episode of 2025 and we’ll be back with you in January.
Best,
Josh
