Epstein Troubles In Congress, 2016 Election Interference, Columbia Student Discipline

0:02House Republicans are breaking early for summer recess to end a fight over releasing information about Jeffrey Epstein. I think that Americans want to see justice and transparency. Will the controversy die down on its own? I'm Michelle Martin, that's Sasha Pfeiffer, and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:20President Trump claims President Obama manipulated intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump's director of national intelligence has released documents that she says are proof of this claim. What do those documents actually say? And Columbia University has suspended or expelled dozens of students for participating in a pro-Palestinian protest last spring. The university is still in talks with the Trump administration to try to get its federal research funding restored. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

0:56This message comes from NPR sponsor FX, presenting The Lowdown, starring Ethan Hawke, introducing you to Lee Raybon, a quirky journalist slash rare bookstore owner slash unofficial truth seeker who is always on the tail of his latest conspiracy. This time, his most recent expose puts him head to head with a powerful family that rules Tulsa, meaning only one thing. He must be on to something big. FX's The Lowdown, all new Tuesdays on FX, stream on Hulu. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Live Right. Publishers of Jill Lepore's new book, We the People. Lepore offers a bold new history of the U.S.

1:39Constitution, detailing why it has proven so hard to amend toward social progress. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore has thrown us a lifeline, while Library Journal calls it essential reading for all Americans. Jill Lepore's We the People, available now. This message comes from Schwab. Everyone has moments when they could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Today, House Speaker Mike Johnson is sending lawmakers home early for their annual August recess. Johnson is trying to avoid dragging out a fight among Republicans over releasing the details of federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.

2:23And Johnson defended the decision to shut down the House floor during the fight to release the records. We have a moral responsibility to expose the evil of Epstein, and everybody was involved in that. Absolutely. And we're resolved to do it. But we also have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent. Republicans hope the controversy will die down while they're away, but some are betting that won't be the case. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Cresales has been following this and is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Claudia. Good morning, Michelle. So the Republican-led House was due to leave Thursday for more than a month.

2:55They've already voted on some of their biggest priorities, and they were planning to get out of town by the end of the week anyway. Is leaving a day early really a big deal? It really is. It's pretty rare to see the House floor paralyzed like this, even for a day. And they've been blocked all week from taking up significant bills. And this comes in a crucial last week before an extended recess, leaving House Republicans with pretty tight deadlines on pretty big legislation when they get back in September. And this is all tied to a controversy Republicans fueled during the 2024 campaign, including President Trump promising they'd force a release of Justice Department files tied to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

3:40But they've yet to do so. And in a political calculation, Democrats on the House Rules Committee have forced a series of votes on the matter, even drawing some GOP support. So Republican leaders responded by effectively shutting down this panel. They're responsible for sending major high-profile bills to the floor. And as a result, they're sending the House home early. So as you've just told us, this has eaten up a lot of oxygen on Capitol Hill and beyond. Is it realistic to think that taking a break is going to actually let things die down? It may not be. Many say the opposite will happen. And it's already happening.

4:17For example, Missouri GOP Senator Josh Hawley told reporters this week he's hearing about it from his constituents and he's not alone. And another member, this is in the House, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey, he's often tussling with the administration on a variety of issues. And now he's helping lead a bipartisan petition that could force a vote to release the Epstein records. Massey told me that this so-called discharge petition could trigger this vote when they come back. I think this will build momentum. I don't think it will dissipate. I think that Americans want to see justice and transparency.

4:56And I think when we return in September, it will become a problem for the Speaker and the President. And he says this is a watershed moment for Johnson, and it's such a significant decision before them that it could cost the party the midterm elections for control of the House. So obviously we know that Democrats are very interested in this for obvious reasons, but what about within the Republican conference? How does this divide break down? It's a pretty deep divide. We've seen Johnson trade barbs with Massey, saying he doesn't understand his mind and bless his heart. So this is clearly an issue many Republicans do not want to talk about.

5:35However, we've seen Massey collect even more Republican signatures for his petition. And some of the more vocal members of the party, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, say this is a betrayal to Republican voters. So the House may be going home, but this headache may not be going home anytime soon for the Republican Party. That is NPR's Claudia Corsales. Claudia, thank you. Thank you. President Trump was asked about the Epstein case yesterday. Rather than talk about that, he pivoted to a nearly eight-year-old controversy, Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said last week that she had released proof that President Obama and his national security officials had manipulated intelligence to go after Trump.

6:18Here's Trump talking about Obama yesterday. It's there. He's guilty. This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. We're joined by NPR cybersecurity correspondent Jenna McLaughlin to tell us more about this. Good morning, Jenna. Good morning, Michelle. Can you explain exactly what the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has published? Yes. So there's two new publications. The first is a document collating a little over 100 pages of newly declassified Obama-era emails. These were exchanged in the lead-up to the 2016 election and afterwards.

6:54And then there's a timeline of events with some annotation and notes. Gabbard has been sharing a lot of her conclusions about those materials across social media and on TV. So you can read through those documents. You've been reading through those documents. What is the gist of what they say? I have. Many of the emails are focused on the question of whether Russian hackers had or could successfully hack the election. By that, I mean cyber attacks, changing voting tallies at scale, taking over voting machines, things like that. Obama administration national security officials from several different agencies said, It was probably unlikely that Russian hackers could breach election infrastructure on a large scale, at least not without being detected.

7:35Then in 2017, right after the election that was won by President Trump, Obama asked the intelligence community to come up with an assessment on everything that they knew about Russian interference in that election cycle. Within that assessment, the intelligence community concluded that Russia did attempt to influence the election and American voters' confidence about it. Now, Gabbard argues they changed their tune after Obama's request. Here, listen to her talk about it on Fox News. So creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia neither had neither the intent nor the capability to try to, quote-unquote, hack the United States election for the presidency of the United States.

8:25Do those emails actually say that? Is there actually a contradiction with the 2017 intelligence assessment? Honestly, they really don't say that. Gabbard appears to be conflating two separate things. The intelligence officials who wrote this report never said that Russia hacked the election. They said that Russia had attempted to influence the election, using disinformation on social media, hack and leak campaigns of the Clinton camp's emails, bot farms, things like that, all things that have been made public over the years. It's hard to measure exactly what impact those campaigns had, even to this day, but experts do broadly agree with the conclusions made back in 2017.

9:03Yes, we've been hearing about this for a long time. So what's been the reaction to these new claims? President Trump and his supporters are touting it as a major revelation, But notably, a representative for President Obama offered a rare response. He called the claims outrageous. He said nothing that Gabbard published contradicts the conclusions from 2017. And finally, he noted that back in 2020, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, then led by President Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio, affirmed those very claims. That was NPR's Jenna McLaughlin. Jenna, thank you. Thanks, Michelle.

9:44More than 70 student protesters at Columbia University are being disciplined for their participation in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in May. This comes as university officials continue to negotiate a deal with the Trump administration over hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen research funds. Education reporter Jessica Gould of Member Station WNYC is with us for details. Good morning, Jessica. Hi. Recap for us what that spring protest was about and then how the university responded then and now. Sure. So towards the end of last semester, a group of students protesting Israel's military actions in Gaza took over a section of the library at Columbia.

10:23They occupied a reading room to call attention to the deaths and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. and they chanted and there was some vandalism. And it was a disruption to the study period before finals. Ultimately, the police came and cleared the building. And we learned this week that Colombia has suspended or expelled many of these 70 protesters. And this is significant because we know the Trump administration has been watching how universities handle protests. And that's part of its calls to universities to combat anti-Semitism. The administration focused first on Columbia and, as we've seen, is putting pressure on Harvard and others as well.

11:04Right, and part of that pressure is withholding huge amounts of federal funding for the university to do research. Columbia is trying to get that money restored. What is the status of those money restoration talks? Columbia's acting president, Claire Shipman, says in a letter to the school community that they're working to make improvements to the campus climate, including addressing anti-Semitism. She said the fact that Colombia is getting this pressure from the government doesn't make those problems on campus any less real. Many of Colombia's Jewish students have said they've faced discrimination and hate, especially since the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel nearly two years ago.

11:45And Muslim students have also said they've faced harassment. Go into a bit more detail about steps the university is taking to address anti-Semitism and then whether this is a direct response to the Trump administration's criticism. Yeah, Colombia has been clear that it's made the choice to work with the federal government on an agreement. And they've said that they're continuing to work toward that goal. So there have been changes to protest rules, campus policing, you know, disciplinary policies. That's what this is about here. And the university has also outlined new partnerships with Jewish groups.

12:20It's also adopting a new definition of anti-Semitism, which is from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. But there's some criticism of that decision. Some faculty and students worry that this new definition, you know, equates some criticism of Israel with discrimination against Jews. And they worry about that chilling free speech. I also continue to hear from many students and faculty, including Jewish students and faculty, who warn that the Trump administration is using anti-Semitism as a pretext to control universities. And they worry that won't reduce anti-Semitism and might even make it worse.

12:59That is Jessica Gould from member station WNYC in New York City. Jessica, thank you. Thanks.

13:13The man who earned the nickname the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, has died.

13:25Osbourne hailed from the industrial English Midlands, which for a century was a hub of metal manufacturing. That region became known for creating a new kind of metal when Osbourne founded the band Black Sabbath in 1968. The band's sound was defined by heavy, distorted guitars and lyrics inspired by the occult and by Osborne's Keenan Wales. His struggles with addiction and outlandish behavior attracted controversy. But the new heavy metal sound he helped pioneer was the inspiration for a generation of musicians that followed. They learn to channel aggression and rage into music that is also sophisticated and skillful.

14:10Ozzy Osbourne reinvented himself several times, notably in the 1990s as the bumbling father in his family's MTV reality show, The Osbournes. Black Sabbath played its final show earlier this month in front of 40 ,000 fans in its hometown of Birmingham. Ozzy Osbourne was 76 years old.

14:32And that's Up First for Wednesday, July 23rd. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Sasha Pfeiffer. Your next listen is Consider This. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day. The team at Consider This takes a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you. Learn about a big story of the day in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell. Krishnadev Kalamur, Denise Rios, Jenea Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.

15:05We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

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