“RELEASE THE FILES!” Trump’s Epstein Files Controversy & What’s Really Going On with DOGE?
PDS Published 02/25/2025
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Where are the Jeffrey Epstein files?
That is a question a lot of people are asking right now for a number of reasons, starting with a call from Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Because she just wrote a letter to FBI director Kash Patel requesting that, in line with his stated commitment to transparency, he release:
The complete flight logs from Epstein’s private jet and helicopter,
Ghislaine Maxwell’s “little black book,” as well as any other records she had that contained the names of her or Epstein’s associates,
Video surveillance footage from Epstein’s Palm Beach residence,
And any other documents or records related to these matters.
With Blackburn further writing:
“Over the course of many years, Jeffrey Epstein built a heinous global sex trafficking network that caused irreparable harm to countless women. Since Mr. Epstein’s death in 2019, there is still much about this tragic case that is not known.”
“This critical information identifying every individual who could have participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s abhorrent conduct is long overdue. The survivors of Mr. Epstein’s horrific crimes want transparency and accountability, and they—and the American people—deserve nothing less.”
Also condemning the previous FBI director, Christopher Wray, claiming he did not release information when asked.
She also CC’d Attorney General Pam Bondi on that letter, which is notable because just last week, Bondi said during a Fox News appearance that Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk to review.
So now some are asking, okay, so where is it? Right, when does the public get it? Why is there a hold up?
With those questions notably coming from a lot of conservative politicians, asking not just for the Epstein files but information on other high-profile cases. [][]
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna writing that there have been multiple requests to the DOJ about the Epstein files, but:[]
“The DOJ has not responded. Reaching out on X because we can’t seem to get a response from the AG.@AGPamBondi what is the status of the documents? These documents were ordered to be declassified.”
And pressure is coming from Democrats, too.
The likes of Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeting this morning:
“The AG still not releasing the EPSTEIN FILES is weird and raises the question of who she might be protecting 🤔”[]
With the implication there being President Trump, right.
There has been tons of reporting on Trump and Epstein’s previous friendship, leading to tons of speculation about what he did or did not know.
With that just being one of many Epstein-related theories and rumors, right.
But this morning, you had tons of people resurfacing reports of their ties.[][][]
And so Epstein was the number one trending topic on X today amid these demands for the files to be released.[]
Another reason why it was trending was because commentator Benny Johnson posted a claim from a source who said the FBI is destroying files, including potentially ones related to Epstein.[]
And while that clip has gone viral, no major outlet has corroborated it or even reported on it, so even though it is getting a ton of attention, it is unverified.
But that did not stop politicians and Elon Musk from sharing posts about it. [][]
Musk also tweeting in support of Marsha Blackburn’s efforts and letter to the FBI.[]
And so all of this has added to the online pressure mounting for Bondi and other officials to follow through and release the files.
So we will have to see if they come out any time soon, if backlash continues to swell until then, or what comes next here.
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Time for your daily dose of DOGE!
And by that I mean, tragically, we have reached the seemingly inevitable part of the show where we have to talk about the goings-on of Elon Musk and his toddler-in-full-tantrum-mode rampage through America’s bureaucracy.
First up, things have somehow gotten even messier and more chaotic with Musk’s whole “what did you do last week?” email to federal employees.
Right, as we talked about in yesterday’s show, Musk had made a post on Saturday saying that all 2.3 million federal workers would be sent an email requesting that they detail what they did last week.[]
With Musk asserting that “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
And not long after, the HR arm of the Office of Personnel Management sent an email asking employees to write five bullet points about what they accomplished last week.
BUT it said absolutely nothing about Musk’s threat regarding failure to respond.[]
So what happened next was utter chaos, with many of the agencies led by newly installed Trump appointees explicitly telling their charges to ignore the email or that response was voluntary.
While other agencies said their workers had to respond still or strongly encouraged them to do so.
But then, in a press conference yesterday afternoon, Trump falsely claimed that the only agencies that weren’t complying were the ones that dealt with confidential matters of security, like the FBI.
With him then further adding to the confusion by contradicting what so many of his appointees had told their employees and claiming that workers who didn’t respond to the email would be “sort of semi-fired — or you’re fired.”
Which like… I would have loved for someone in the room to ask how someone can be “semi-fired”... but hey… maybe that’s why they don’t let me into the White House…
Right, so seems impossible that this could get any more confusing, but somehow it did.
Because The Washington Post reported yesterday afternoon that OPM — the same agency that sent the first email — told HR leaders of other federal agencies that their employees could ignore the email and they wouldn’t lose their jobs.
This according to three different sources who were familiar with the matter.
And specifically, one of those sources told the outlet that this latest directive was given in a call midday yesterday.
With a second person briefed on the call adding that the OPM wasn’t sure what to do with the emails of employees who already responded, but claiming the agency had “no plans” to analyze them.
BUT — key thing here — The Post reported that the OPM call actually took place shortly BEFORE Trump made his confusing comments about workers getting “sort of semi-fired.”
And later in the day, after our Monday show was up, we saw Musk doubling down on his threat AGAIN, writing on X:
“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”[]
But THEN, later that same evening, the OPM published a memo providing guidance on the “what did you do last week?” email.
And there, the agency said that basically said people should respond, but that decision is ultimately up to each agency, writing:
“Agency heads may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.”
And adding, “It is agency leadership’s decision as to what actions are taken.”
So, based on the language there, it seems like people won’t get fired for not replying UNLESS they work for an agency that decides to require their response.
Though, as we talked about yesterday, there are a lot of legal implications that could complicate that.
But regardless, what we’re seeing here is a situation where you have the OPM — which should be the bottom line — saying one thing to agency leaders while Trump and Musk are saying something totally different to the public.
And it’s unclear if those two are just trying to spin this situation to make it look like they’re firing more people than they really are, or if this is a real threat.
Because we’ve seen time and time again how much influence Musk has over Trump and how he actually administers policy.
So if I were a federal employee who had to decide to respond to this email or not, I’d be pretty on edge — I mean, what would you do?
Okay, so that’s the update to the email chaos.
But on the note Musk potentially trying to spin this to make it seem like he’s doing more than he actually is, we also have to talk about the fact that there have been some MASSIVE errors with DOGE’s only public accounting of its work.
Right, over the last week or so, numerous outlets have reported a number of serious flaws with DOGE’s so-called “wall of receipts” —
Which is a new tracker of all the savings the agency claims it has made through staff reductions, lease cancellations, and terminated contracts.
And when DOGE first made that tracker live, the website claimed that the agency had saved the federal government $55 billion.
And while there has been a lot of media coverage unpacking those claims, one of the most thorough and well-explained pieces came from The New York Times.
Which reviewed hundreds of federal contracts and interviewed both experts and the recipients of canceled contracts to reveal that the math behind DOGE’s numbers:
“is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes.”
Now, one thing I want to note here is that since The Times published their story, DOGE has since updated the tracker and is now claiming that it has saved the government $65 billion.
But The Times’ analysis still stands because it is based on systemic issues with DOGE’s accounting that haven’t changed and have also been backed up by numerous other reporters and experts.
But because their analysis is based on that initial $55 billion figure, that’s what I’m going to be drawing from for the purposes of this story.
Okay, so with all that said, let’s dive into it.
So, right off the bat, arguably one of the biggest overarching issues here is that despite repeated promises of transparency, there is actually no way to account for the vast majority of the $55 billion DOGE claims to have saved.
Right, even DOGE itself explicitly said that the 1,125 contracts listed on “wall of receipts” at the time of this analysis accounted for just 20% of their overall spending cuts — though The Times said it “could not reconcile those numbers.”
So what’s the other 80%? What is the bulk of the money they claim to have cut?
Well, the simple answer is: we have no fucking clue.
Right, DOGE claims that the remaining dollar amount comes from various efforts like fraud deletion, asset sales, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and more.
But it provides absolutely no data or specific estimates on those alleged savings, so The Times says “it was not possible to independently verify that number or other totals on the site with the evidence provided.”
But beyond that, there are numerous fundamental flaws with the scant 20% that DOGE has actually accounted for.
Right, the limited dollar values DOGE has posted for each contract come from data in a central tracking system for government contracts.
But The Times found some issues with how DOGE was doing its math — which the outlet illustrated really well in one example where DOGE says it saved $5.4 million by canceling a contract for DEI services for the Department of Homeland Security.
And to get that figure, DOGE took the total potential value of the contract — around $7.5 million — and subtracted it subtracted the $2.1 million that appears to have already been spent.
Okay, so that seems simple enough, but this isn’t a word question for first graders — we’re talking about the incredibly complex system for allocating federal contracts — literally nothing is simple.
And experts say that estimate is likely far too high for a number of reasons.
First of all, data in the federal contracting system can be several months out of date, so this figure could be an undercount of what was already spent.
It also doesn’t account for the added costs of terminating a contract that the government still has to pay out, like winding down staff, closing offices, ending leases, and offloading equipment.
With one expert saying that leaving out those figures makes DOGE’s estimates a “meaningless metric.”
What’s more, CBS News also found another type of error regarding DOGE’s accounting: the agency triple-counted the $655 million maximum value of one contract for USAID with numerous sub-contracts.
And while DOGE eventually removed two of the duplicate listings, The Times found that it still overestimated the savings on the remaining line item by at least $270 million.
But that was just one of several overestimates: In another example, DOGE claimed it saved $232 million on an IT contract for the Social Security Administration.
But The Intercept found that the group actually only canceled a tiny part of the contract that let users mark their gender as “X,” so the actual savings was just over half a million dollars.
Then there have also been much more obvious errors.
Like when the “wall of receipts” tracker was first rolled out, a $8 million contract for IT services to ICE had been mistakenly entered at the value of $8 billion —
Which would have accounted for almost half of the combined value of all listed contract cuts.
And while DOGE did eventually fix the problem, it also made some very misleading claims about the situation on X.
With the agency saying that the discrepancy was a clerical error their team was aware of, and asserting that “DOGE has always used the correct $8M in its calculations.”[]
But that post on Musk’s own platform got community-noted.
With users pointing out that we literally have receipts that show DOGE’s tracker including the wrong number then updating it after numerous reports.
As well as the fact that DOGE’s claimed savings of $55 billion haven’t changed despite the fact that “multiple line items have been revised after errors were pointed out.”.
And that isn’t the only time DOGE has made misleading posts about its alleged savings X.
Last week, it retweeted a Treasury Department post saying the IRS had “rescinded a previously planned $1.9B contract” and done so “in connection” to the group’s work.[]
With DOGE including a screenshot of a $1.9 billion contract with an unnamed vendor that had been marked as terminated.
But when The Times contacted the vendor in question, they said their contract had actually been canceled in the fall, meaning that DOGE was literally taking credit for something the Biden administration did.
And that’s not the only time that happened — an environmental scientist in Michigan also told The Times that DOGE had included a federal contract he had in its list of savings despite the fact that the contract had expired in December.
Now, notably, these are just some of the findings out there by The Times and other outlets, but the last thing I want to hit on here is another misleading thing DOGE does with its “wall of receipts” tracker.
Right, according to NPR, “more than a third of the listed contracts posted online would not actually save any money if canceled.”
And that’s not some huge secret — DOGE itself literally lists those as saving the government $0.[]
They just include them so they can say they canceled a higher amount of contracts, even if there’s no real impact.
So yeah, pretty crazy shit that just adds to the dog-piling on DOGE — no pun intended.
Which brings us to the final piece of DOGE-related news I want to talk about, which is that we saw Jon Stewart adding to that criticism and absolutely ripping into DOGE on the Daily Show last night.
First arguing the agency would be better served going after these types of cuts:
$3 billion in federal subsidies to oil and gas companies that, quote "already turn billions in profit,"
$1.3 billion from the carried interest loophole that hedge funds benefit from — right, that allows investment managers to slash their taxable income.
$2 trillion to defense contractors for the F-35 fighter jet that in his words "blows” — w ith that being a critique of the jet's numerous setbacks, high costs, and safety concerns. (broll)
And then going on to say:
"But see this is where the real money is -- the real money -- the money our free market-ish system uses to prop up corporate profit at the expense of the taxpayer. Pharmaceutical companies get everything from our government -- tax breaks research grants patent extensions worth billions of dollars and what do we the people get for it? The highest drug prices in the Western Hemisphere." (15:27-15:49)
With him then doing this bit where he smashes his mug on his desk and but he gets so angry that he seemingly ends up actually slicing his hand open.
But ultimately concluding that the idea of DOGE isn't the problem -- it's how it's going about it, saying:
"I want Doge to work. I want better efficiencies. I want to get rid of the alphabet agencies that don't do enough, make the Pentagon pass an audit but we are DOGEing in the wrong place if we want to really change the system."
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If you’re looking for the absolute dumbest way to spend your money this summer, look no further than FYRE Festival 2.
Yes, it’s the reboot of that FYRE Festival, the one that fell apart spectacularly in 2017, even worse though not as funny as the disastrous Wonka experience in Glasgow last year. [Image, then Image and image]
Right, because the event was marketed as a once-in-a-lifetime, ultraluxurious getaway with beautiful villas and a lineup of musical talent and models including Blink 182, Migos, Major Lazer, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber. [B roll, 00:16]
But when the guests, who paid thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars for their tickets, arrived on the island, they found none of that.
Instead there were FEMA pop-up tents, wet mattresses, cheese sandwiches, no running water, no internet, and no concerts. [Image and image]
So that humiliating calamity earned itself two documentaries and a Broadway musical, as well as several lawsuits and a six-year prison sentence for its fraudulent organizer: Billy McFarland. [Image]
But McFarland told The Washington Post that while he was behind bars, he wrote a 50-page plan to parlay all that “interest and demand in Fyre” into new projects. [Quote, find “50-page”]
So now, we’re getting FYRE Festival 2, which he insists is definitely totally real. [Image, second photo]
With him saying, “I’m sure many people think I'm crazy for doing this again. But I feel I'd be crazy not to do it again. After years of reflection and now thoughtful, the new team and I have amazing plans for Fyre 2. The adventure seekers who trust the vision and take the leap will help make history.” [Quote]
So this event will run from May 30 to June 2 on Isla Mujeres [Pronounce 00:39], an island in the Mexican Caribbean off the coast of Cancún.
With its website promising an “electrifying celebration of music, arts, cuisine, comedy, fashion, gaming, sports, and treasure hunting.” [Quote]
Now if you’re skeptical, McFarland reassures us that he’s not the one handling the details this time around.
Instead, he’s reportedly got a major Mexican festival producer, as well as partners for hotels, travel and ticketing, helping him make this happen.
And yes, NBC said those partners confirmed that they are actually partnering with him.
So after a limited release of tickets back in 2023, the main release of 2,000 tickets went on sale yesterday.
And there are four different passes you can buy, depending on how credulous you’re feeling.
First, the 1,400-dollar Ignite general access pass, which actually grows to 1,600 dollars after service and processing fees, plus travel and accomodations you have to purchase yourself. [Show passes]
Then there’s the 5,000-dollar Fuego VVIP pass, the 25,000-dollar Phoenix artist pass, and the 1.1 million dollar Prometheus pass. [Same asset]
With that last one promising a number of special perks, including:
On-stage access to the Water Stage, fight team access at the Fight Pit, a curated itinerary of FYRE Experiences, 24/7 private chauffeur service, dedicated on-site concierge and access to the PROMETHEUS Marina. [Quote same link, find “marina”]
You could also bring eight guests with you, and get flown from Miami to Cancun by private jet, then to the festival by helicopter. [Quote same link, find “helicopter”]
At which point a dedicated chauffeur will take you to wherever you’re staying. [Same quote]
Which, depending on your choice, could either be a 4-stateroom yacht or a four-bedroom villa. [Quote same link, find “yacht”]
Or alternatively, with that money you could buy 28,947 “Don’t be stupid, stupid” T-shirts from BeautifulBastard.com, and I guarantee you none of them will actually be cheese sandwiches. [Webpage]
But according to McFarland, at least one person has already bought the Prometheus package. [Post]
Which seems to many like a leap in the dark, because as of right now, no lineup of talent has been announced.
Sound a little familiar?
With McFarland telling The Today Show he’s not in charge of booking, and then having this interesting exchange with a reporter.
[Clip, 01:27 - 01:51; Clip, 02:30 - 02:41] Caption: [Billy McFarland:] “So we’re gonna have artists across electronic, hip hop, pop and rock. However, it’s not just music. We might have a professional skateboarder do a demonstration. We might have an MMA champion teach you techniques in the morning.” [Reporter:] “You say ‘we might have.’ Are any of these ‘for sure haves?’ Are they booked?” [Billy McFarland:] “So I think what makes FYRE so cool is that we are selling the experience of FYRE. I want to be one of the first festivals that can sell out with no artists.” … [Reporter:] “Is it a risk to buy a ticket to FYRE Festival 2?” [Billy McFarland:] “I think it’s always a risk. You’re taking a risk because I made a lot of bad decisions and messed up the first festival. Until it’s experienced, there is a risk component to it.”
But you have some people saying that even if he does pull this off, it’s still outrageous because the original festival’s investors never got their 26 million dollars back.
Though McFarland says 10% of the profits from Fyre 2 will go toward that, including a minimum of 500,000 dollars. [Quote, find “ten percent”]
With him also promising on Instagram last year that 1% of all the ticket sales will go “directly to the family and friends of incarcerated people.” [Quote]
Though the latest announcement makes no mention of that pledge.
Whatever the case, McFarland seems to have big long-term plans, with The Guardian quoting him as saying:
“Since 2016 Fyre has been the most talked about music festival in the world. Obviously, a lot of that has been negative, but I think that most people, once they kind of get under the hood and study the plans and see the team behind Fyre 2, they see the upside … And if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry.” [Quote]
So what do y’all think, is it just another scam? Is it real this time? Are the people buying tickets in for a surprise?
Links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/02/24/fyre-fest-lineup-tickets-location/
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The crypto world is in shock right now after it spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how a group of hackers managed to steal $1.5 billion.
Right, this is the single biggest heist of its kind ever, with the exchange Bybit disclosing that 400,000 ethereum (and related) coins were stolen on Friday.
Experts in the field say that the way the theft happened makes it pretty clear this was done by the North Korean Lazarus Group.
For example, they’re known to quickly exchange stolen tokens for Bitcoin or Ether.
This is because some other coins have ways to “freeze” wallets that have stolen tokens, but Bitcoin and Ether don’t.
On top of this, they used decentralized exchanges as another way to hedge against the possibility that their accounts would be frozen.
Researchers from the blockchain analysis group Elliptic also pointed out that there were a lot of efforts to “layer” the transactions. []
This is just a way to try and obfuscate where the funds are going, but due to the nature of blockchain technology, technically it’s possible to track… just VERY time consuming.
But many in the crypto space see this attack as possibly a defining moment in the industry because of how it bypassed the “gold standard” of safety. []
Right, here’s a little inside baseball, but trust me it’s super important for the story and I’ll try to keep it simple.
Hot Wallets are generally accessible from the internet with encryption and make transferring coins MUCH easier.
Their drawback is that being on the web is a weak security point.
Cold Wallets aren’t connected to the internet and need encryption as well, theoretically making them extremely difficult to access outside of physically being there.
Bybit reportedly only had enough coins on its exchange Hot Wallets to do day-to-day transactions. []
The rest were kept in Multisig Cold Wallets.
So imagine a cold wallet, but it now needs multiple people to give their encryption keys to get access.
Yet somehow the hackers were able to access these EXTREMELY secure Cold Wallets and move the money around.
It’s still a bit unclear exactly HOW they managed to do this, but the leading theory is that the cold wallets were “manipulated by a sophisticated attack that altered the smart contract logic and masked the signing interface, enabling the attacker to gain control of the ETH Cold Wallet.”
In layman speak -- the hackers managed to trick systems within Bybit to get access to these wallets during a routine transfer of coins.[]
One leading theory is that there was possibly a lot of social engineering going on.
Lazarus Group is known for spending a TON of time building up unique personas to try and get the trust of key figures in industries.[]
By doing this, they could possibly trick targets into giving them access through malware to things like the UI needed to get into the cold wallets.
Regardless of how it was done, this attack is causing companies and people across crypto to reevaluate how they do their security.
Speaking of which -- you probably don’t need the levels of security they do.
But at the same time this is probably a good reminder to change your passwords and don’t click on random links in emails.
Because while you probably don’t have $1.5 billion to lose, hackers won’t mind taking far less from you.
In a small bit of good news, Bybit is claiming that even if they can’t recover the money they are solvent and everyone’s coins are still back one-to-one. [asset from Bybit on this]
(we’ll have to wait and see if that’s true, because this isn’t the first time a crypto exchange has made this claim only to go under after everyone starts pulling their coins).
Other than that, do attacks like this change how you view crypto if you were a fan?
Or is it just another example of the arms race between hackers and security experts?
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A judge just shut down AP’s attempt to get back into the White House! []
Right, we touched on this a little bit when it happened but in case you don’t remember, here’s the recap.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the US Interior Department to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The Associated Press decided that they were going to keep using the original name but acknowledge that Trump had changed it.
Saying that their AP Stylebook is used internationally and that this call was to ensure clarity with those international audiences. []
Team Trump? NOT a fan of that call.
They barred AP reporters from attending presidential events. []
Which grew to include not just meetings in the Oval Office but also other areas of the White House as well as Air Force One.
With Trump outright dismissing the entire AP organization as “radical left lunatics” and saying,
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.” []
And the AP took the problem to the courts on Friday - with the goal being to get a restraining order to prevent the White House from banning their reporters. []
And the attorney for the AP during the hearing said that this lawsuit boils down to Trump and his staff punishing one outlet over another by keeping them out of these events. []
Events which they say they have been included in for over a century and cover on behalf of thousands of newsrooms and broadcasters around the world.
Adding that, without intervention from the court, they will face irreparable harm which would then be felt by their readers and member organizations. []
With the filing reading,
“The AP’s exclusion from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other spaces open to other members of the press pool severely hinders its ability to produce timely, thorough, and informative reporting.” []
The Trump administration’s attorney, however, argued that the AP had not suffered that "irreparable harm” because they are still able to report on events that they weren’t allowed to attend. []
Because they have access to the pool notes given to all members of the White House Correspondents’ Association. []
And he went on to say that just because the AP historically had special access, that doesn’t mean, quote, “such access is constitutionally compelled in perpetuity." []
Going on to say that it’s Trump’s prerogative to choose which outlets are allowed in special areas like the Oval Office or Air Force One. []
To that point, however, AP pushed back saying that this case isn’t a matter of whether Trump HAS to speak to them but about his decision to single them out.
With their attorney saying,
“We’re not arguing that the president of the United States has to answer The Associated Press’ questions. The issue is that once he lets the press pool in he can’t say, ‘I don’t like you. You’re fake news. Get out.’” []
But at this point as least, a judge has sided against AP.
With U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden deciding against issuing the restraining order.
Saying that the AP’s problem is, quote, “not the type of dire situation” that would require intervention against the White House. []
And adding that he is, quote, “not inclined to act precipitously on the Executive Office of the President.” []
But he did schedule another hearing on the matter on March 20th for the AP to further argue its case.
He also offered a warning to Team Trump - saying that legal precedent from other cases where the White House banned reporters didn’t look good for them. []
And he even seemed sympathetic to the arguments against them - including the claim that the White House is apparently trying to coerce or punish the AP over a language choice.
Which he said amounted to “viewpoint discrimination.” []
But that warning didn’t put a damper on the White House celebration - with the Press Office saying in a statement,
"As we have said from the beginning, asking the President of the United States questions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a privilege granted to journalists, not a legal right.” []
And then even threw up a map with the name “Gulf of America” on it and a big red “Victory” stamp on the monitors in the briefing room.
We also saw the Interim US Attorney for DC Ed Martin saying on X before the ruling,
“As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.” []
Which the New York Times calls an “extraordinary statement” that is “suggesting that Justice Department attorneys are the president’s lawyers rather than representatives of the government.” []
And Martin certainly added fuel to this inferno of a story because we saw Democratic members of Congress quickly hit back against him.
Including Virginia Representative Don Beyer who responded on X,
“Washingtonians deserve federal law enforcement who will protect their rights without violating the Constitution, and focus on fighting crime rather than trying to censor the free press and political opponents. Basic understanding of punctuation would be nice, also.” []
And that punctuation bit is likely a dig at the misplaced apostrophe in Martin’s statement.
We also saw Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut responding to Martin and saying,
“This is insane. If you wonder why some of us think the rule of law is about to fall, it’s this. The U.S. Attorney for DC is not ‘President Trump’s lawyer’ and its job is not to ‘protect his leadership’ nor prosecute people who ‘refuse to put America first.’” []
As for what happens next here, we’re just going to have to wait for the hearing in March.
Where the AP has said they will, quote,
“...continue to stand for the right of the press and the public to speak freely without government retaliation.” []
In the meantime, I would love to know your thoughts about this in those comments down below.
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