In short
The MeidasTouch Podcast - Episode Summary: Ambassador Eisen Discusses Lawsuits Against Trump
Episode Overview In this episode, Ben Meiselas of The MeidasTouch Podcast interviews Ambassador Norm Eisen. They discuss significant political developments surrounding lawsuits against Donald Trump and the recent resolution regarding Jeffrey Epstein's files. The episode highlights the actions taken by the Republican Speaker, known as "MAGA Mike," and the implications of these legal matters for democracy.
Key Topics Discussed
- MAGA Mike's Resolution and the Epstein Files
- Context: The House passed a resolution (HR 4405) requiring the Attorney General to release all documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Speaker Johnson's Reaction: Initially resistant, Speaker Johnson eventually transmitted the resolution to the Senate where it was sent to Trump's desk without amendments.
- Voter Sentiment: There was criticism of Johnson's handling of the situation, with Epstein survivor Haley Robson labeling his comments as theatrical.
- Interview with Ambassador Norm Eisen
- Introduction to Lawsuits: Eisen discusses his organization's Democracy Defenders Fund, focusing on the extensive legal actions (over 200 lawsuits) taken against Trump's administration to ensure accountability.
- Epstein Files Case: Eisen explains the legal strategies used to compel the DOJ to release the files, emphasizing the importance of transparency and complete disclosure to the public.
- Concerns About Document Redactions
- Trust Issues: Eisen expresses skepticism regarding any potential redactions or omissions in the documents released by the Trump administration.
- Legal Oversight: He outlines how the Democracy Defenders Fund is leveraging the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to ensure thorough oversight and demand accountability.
- Corruption and Governance
- The Trump Administration's Integrity: Eisen characterizes the cover-up of the Epstein files as "the biggest corruption scandal" of Trump's presidency.
- Legal Proceedings: He shares updates on other legal challenges Trump faces, noting flaws in the indictment process against figures like James Comey, which raise serious questions about procedural integrity.
- Strengthening Democratic Institutions
- Public Engagement: Eisen emphasizes the need for independent media and public activism to counteract Trump's influence and protect democratic values.
- Call to Action: The episode encourages listeners to support the Democracy Defenders Fund and stay engaged in the fight for transparency and justice.
Key Takeaways
- MAGA Mike's Reaction: He ultimately caved under pressure, illustrating the shifting dynamics within the Republican Party regarding contentious issues.
- Legal Landscape: Ambassador Eisen's organization is at the forefront of holding the Trump administration accountable through strategic lawsuits and public advocacy.
- Public Trust: The episode stresses the importance of transparency in government operations, especially regarding sensitive information like the Epstein files.
- Democratic Resilience: The discussion reflects a broader theme of fighting back against authoritarianism and ensuring that democratic institutions are upheld.
Conclusion The episode presents a comprehensive analysis of the political and legal challenges faced by the Trump administration, with insights from Ambassador Norm Eisen on the efforts to demand accountability and ensure the release of critical information. The MeidasTouch Podcast continues to serve as a platform for discussing vital issues in the current political landscape while engaging listeners in the defense of democracy.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The chair lays before the house an enrolled bill.
0:07hr 4405 an act to require the attorney general to release all documents and records in possession of the department of justice relating to jeffrey epstein and for other purposes folks it's official maga mike johnson has caved after going through every possible permutation about how he was not going to transmit the house resolution to release the epstein files to the Senate after the Democrats put that unanimous consent motion to the floor and received no objections from Republicans. Magamike spent the night trying to figure it all out. He was literally pacing through the halls, looking absolutely shook, the halls of the Capitol building.
0:51A reporter caught up with him. It was like, what are you going to do, Magamike? Just look how frazzled he looked last night. Here, play this clip. Any reaction to the scene? I am seeing the bill without adding amendments or changing it. I am. I'm deeply disappointed in this outcome. I think I'm told I've been at the state dinner. I don't know. I was just told that Chuck Schumer rushed it to the floor and put it out there preemptively. It needed amendments. I just spoke to the president about that. We'll see what happens. So is he do you think he may veto it? You say you spoke to the president?
1:23I'm not saying that. Is he supportive of it in its current form? we both have concerns about it. So we'll see. I was standing with the crown prince. Are you frustrated with the majority leader? Are you upset with the majority leader? It goes, it goes, we're just hanging out with the crown prince. I mean, as Americans are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck. We don't like this. Yes, I voted for it. We may veto it. We're hanging out with the crown prince. Okay. And then moments before that, he was kind of saying that he was confident that the Senate was going to have his back, but Thune did not have his back.
1:58Here, play this clip. I'll tell you, there's a handful of Republicans, Judiciary Committee members, and a few others who are really struggling, as I have been, about whether or not they could even vote yes today because of this, because we don't have an absolute guarantee that this will be fixed in the Senate. I have a high degree of confidence in that. And that's why I'll be voting yes today. He said the Senate was going to change it. The Senate did not change it. The The Senate received the bill to release the Epstein files from the House when it was passed. And I'll just show you, we have Haley Robson, a former Trump supporter and an Epstein survivor.
2:33Here's what she had to say about Meghan Mike. Republican, you've spoken about that. I wonder what your reaction is to Speaker Johnson saying that this vote was a political show vote by the Democrats. Well, I was present in the room when they were doing the votes, as well as all the survivors. and I can say the only theatrics I saw was from him. I think some of his comments were on that fine line. This is not a hoax. There is no theater coming from us or the survivors on our end.
3:07I'm appalled by him in general and I've lost a lot of respect by him. Just the back and forth with Adelita Grijalva. You will never convince me. She was a deciding vote at the time for the petition. That's why you said that. OK, yes. Let's bring in Ambassador Norm Eisen from Democracy Defenders. You have hundreds of lawsuits against this regime to hold them accountable. One such lawsuit involves, and there's a variety of methods that you're doing this, though, involves the FOIA request to release the Epstein files from the DOJ to hold them accountable. So let's first talk about magamite caving, but then the corollary, which is if Donald Trump does actually sign this, thing.
3:50We know he's going to continue to try to cover it up. And so what do we do to get it? Norm, it's great to see on the Midas Touch podcast. It's so great to be on Midas Touch. And the reason that I love what you all do is because you are fighters and you exemplify the motto, be truthful, not neutral. And the place where we need to be the most truthful is about the biggest corruption scandal of the Trump administration, the cover-up of the Trump Epstein files. We know they exist. Now this bill has steamrolled through Congress. It was incredible to see Magamite crumble like a cracker on the steps there, that footage.
4:41He didn't know what to say. And then you have Chuck Schumer, very adroit in the Senate. He managed to get it through only one vote against it in the House. Unanimous consent in the Senate. Excellent parliamentary ledger domain Senate magic by Leader Schumer. And now it's on to Trump's desk. But even if Trump signed this bill, we can't be confident that there won't be redactions of documents that hollow out the impact, that documents won't be held back. And that's why we at Democracy Defenders fund over 200 legal cases in matters. Maybe the most important is our case to say we're not going to trust the Trump administration.
5:33Lord knows they squandered that trust on day one. We're going to have court oversight under the Freedom of Information Act to make sure that anything that is produced is complete. No documents are held back. No improper redactions. We're fighting in court to get the truth out, including to support the victims who who really believe that these files must be released. You mentioned Senator Chuck Schumer, and that was a really well done maneuver, making that unanimous consent and doing it lightning fire. I had the opportunity to speak to Senator Schumer yesterday. Here's what he told me. Let's play it.
6:13We got to make sure we get all of the Epstein funds. All. They can't fuck around with this. They can't say, oh, we'll give you this, but there are legal reasons we can't give you that. And we are going to be pursuing them relentlessly to get everything. Because I don't trust this administration. I don't trust Bondi. I don't trust Kash Patel. I don't trust the president. And they could screw around with this. It'll be all of our jobs to be on them and make sure that we get everything. Ambassador Eisen, if there was a common thread in the Epstein emails that the estate released, there was 23 ,000 emails, about 2300 email threads, over 1600 more than half involved Donald Trump in some shape or form.
6:58So they may as well be called the Trump emails. So we know and as a litigator, one of the ways you're able to determine if there are gaps or missing numbers or Bates numbers that are missing is by kind of comparing third party sources. So how do you go about, though, determining and how should we as the public kind of figure out when they do these drips and drops of document dumps? We know they're not they're going to hide the good stuff. What do we do? Well, you start with the documents that we're getting themselves and you look for are there obvious inconsistencies with what we know from the public record?
7:38You look at the redactions, what's being blacked out on the page. Does that make sense? But the most important thing you can do, and we've done it at Democracy Defenders Fund, use federal law, which requires the release of these documents. Get the courts involved. We've sued in court. So there's court oversight of the release and the judicial process assures that you're actually getting what you should be getting. And the Trump administration has helped us in that. They themselves have admitted the release of these arguments is in the public interest when they were trying to get the Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury files released to the public.
8:21They made that admission. We are hammering that admission in pushing for an order in our court. We're going to win this case. We're going to do oversight to make sure that anything that is released, according to the congressional bill, is complete. No documents are held back. No improper redactions. That's what we owe to the public, to transparency and above all, to the victims of the Epstein scandal. We must get those Trump Epstein files full, complete and unredacted. You know, Ambassador Eisen, you refer to the Trump cover up of the child sex trafficking Epstein ring as the biggest corruption scandal.
9:04There's a lot of close number twos. I think we can all concede in any one of your hundreds of lawsuits involve one of those close number twos, which in any normal error would be far worse than I even think Watergate, just any of them. And it seems like every single day we get another example of that. I mean, let's just take this morning as you and I were recording this during a federal hearing in Virginia in the Comey case. Prosecutors in that case confirmed that the operative indictment in the case against James Comey was never shown to or voted on by the entire grand jury before it was presented in open court, which obviously Comey's lawyers argue.
9:49That's a complete bar to the prosecution. We also thought that the biggest story of the morning from that hearing was going to be that prosecutors in the Comey case told the judge that they were under orders from the deputy attorney general's office not to disclose whether career prosecutors wrote a memo recommending against indicting Comey prior to Halligan going to the grand jury. the United States assistant attorney, Tyler Lemons, told Judge Nakmanoff he had not gotten permission to disclose what he could consider to be privileged or work product material. So they haven't even turned over a memo from the career prosecutors who Trump fired and pushed out where they said there's not enough evidence to indict James Comey and Letitia James and others.
10:44Just I'm getting lots of questions from people, Ambassador Eisen, saying they're not turning over the memo. They somehow indicted James Comey without presenting the indictment to the grand jury like WTF. This has never happened before. Ben, it's exactly as legally effective as if you and I wrote an indictment of Donald Trump right here on the Midas Touch. She had never been before a grand jury. She's an insurance lawyer. The reason they put Lindsay Allick in there was because the regular prosecutors refused to prosecute the case, wanted nothing to do with it because it's the charges against Comey are so bogus and made up.
11:34This is another example of where we have filed a legal brief on behalf of former judges to say to the court, this is a joke and it's a new low. The indictment wasn't even presented to the grand jury. It's none of us have ever heard of anything like this. This case is going to be flushed by the courts. It should be. We've already seen Donald Trump starting to lose some of these baseless criminal prosecutions. And this is another one that I think is doomed because of the incompetence. Who knows how much trouble we would be in if Donald Trump were a competent authoritarian. Instead, it's the gang that can't shoot straight Trump and his cronies like Lindsay elegant.
12:21Which kind of brings me to the last point, and I think it's a good way to talk about all of the litigation Democracy Defenders Fund, and everybody should go out and support Democracy Defenders Fund because you're doing great, great work. But the work that you're doing early on, we saw corporations, law firms, and we still do, businesses capitulate, bend the knee. They would settle phony lawsuits and frivolous lawsuits that he would file. They would enter into weird settlements before cases were even filed. And it was so disheartening. But here we are heading towards Thanksgiving and groups like yours and others are fighting and winning.
13:02And the groups that have stood up have won and not just won. They've exposed how weak and pathetic this regime is. Like we saw what happened in court when Lindsey Halligan, this horrible former insurance lawyer showed up there and a federal judge, Nachmanov, says, what the hell did you do? And she's like, I don't know, judge. You just expose these are scared, weak, pathetic humans and that we just need to be strong. And I think you're leading the way on that. So I just want you to talk more generally about what you're doing, because we need fighters like you right now. Well, we knew Donald Trump was going to flood the zone with his assaults on the Constitution and the rule of law.
13:42So we decided to do rule of law shock and all. And at Democracy Defenders Fund, we have over 200, I think the exact count now is 225 legal cases and matters, pretty much one for every day of the Trump administration. And together with our coalition, The Atlantic wrote an article analyzing the legal front as the part of the resistance that's working. And it is. We've got Donald Trump on the run in the courts. But, Ben, I'm going to return the compliment because it's not enough to win in the court of law. This is where you and the Midas Touch Network have come in so powerful. You've got to win in the court of public opinion, too.
14:31And we do that at The Contrarian, where we talk about these, the cases and issues. And you do it on Midas Touch par excellence. Nobody who does it better in broadcasting both the crisis for our democracy, but also the pushback that is working. So with voters having repudiated Trump in the referendum on November 4th, a landslide win, not just for candidates, but for democracy, with millions of people, the no hands protests have built from 3 million to 5 million to 7 million, peaceful, lawful, massive protests coast to coast. We're seeing all the pistons of the engine of democracy are really starting to work.
15:23What a difference from January 20th and that climate of fear and intimidation and the people who weren't sure the lawsuit struck the spark. Independent media has been an important part of that. And look at the latest stampede for Trump. Only one member of Congress, one person in the House voted to stop the release of the Trump Epstein files. Everyone else caved despite months and months of his pressure. So let's keep it up. Court of law, court of public opinion. Let's do it together. And the one who voted against the release is Clay Higgins, who rants and raves at the corner of bars about ghost buses.
16:13Ghostbusters. You ever heard about these ghostbusters? Anyway, everybody go to democracydefenders.org. You can take a look there at the active cases and the work that Norm and his team are doing. Ambassador Norm Eisen, we should do this more often. Thank you, Ben. Invite me anytime. Big fan and great being with you today.
16:59Next is bigger, bolder and built for 2026. Let's keep this momentum going, spread the word, we are just getting started. Shout out to the MidasMighty!
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From the publisher
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Republican Speaker “MAGA Mike” caving and transmitting the Epstein resolution to the Senate, where it was immediately sent to Trump’s desk. Meiselas also interviews Ambassador Norm Eisen about his lawsuit against the DOJ to release the Epstein files, as well as the hundreds of other lawsuits his organization, the Democracy Defenders Fund, has filed against Trump.
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