MSNBC Highlights — Feb. 7

but we begin tonight Less Than 3 weeks into this new Administration and we are already facing what is rightfully being described as a constitutional crisis it comes not from the man elected to sit behind the Resolute desk but from the unelected one who appears to be pulling all the strings Tech billionaire Elon Musk it's happening in real time thanks to elon's madeup Department of government efficiency that he and a handful of young adults from his private companies have Unleashed on this country with nearly unfettered access to any agency or database they choose to infiltrate in

this short time we've seen them all but abolish the US agency for International Development with plans to reduce its Workforce from 5,000 to what's expected to be about 600 and it's being done without Congressional Authority which is required given that it was Congress that passed the law that formally established the agency of course this is just the start with little push back musk and his minions are gaining access to more and more US government agencies every day just today Trump said he instructed musk to check out the Pentagon and those people gaining access to the

most sensitive systems are not the best and the brightest yesterday one of elon's little henchmen resigned from Doge after his now deleted racist social media posts resurfaced according to the Wall Street Journal the posts from 25-year-old Marco elz included such gems as just for the record I was racist before it was cool you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity and normalize Indian hate at this morning right on Q Vice President James David Vance said LS should be brought back onto the team posting I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin

a kid's life oh okay so now he's just a kid a kid a kid who was given direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly every single payment made by the US government including Social Security checks that people rely on a kid I thought they were highly trained professionals man not kids to no one's surprise Elon jumped on his personal version of Truth social and tweeted an agreeance with JD and announced L's triumphant return this afternoon this after spending much of yesterday joking with his tritter stands Twitter stands about another one of his Junior

henchmen who on his LinkedIn went by the name big balls and who also had access to millions of Americans personal data the absolute unseriousness of these people stands in in stark contrast to the dead seriousness of what they're doing to our country and the many unknowns about what they could be doing with our data meanwhile the acting us attorney for DC Ed Martin who earlier this week said he would pursue legal action against anyone who threatens any Doge employees something that he offered no evidence has happened is now saying that he is beginning an inquiry

into those supposed threats after a referral from Elon Musk who apparently now in addition to wielding the power afforded to Congress in the Constitution also has the power to order Federal Criminal investigations Martin wrote directly to Elon we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable we will not rest or cease in this no one should abuse American taxpayer dollars nor American taxpayer workers are these American taxpayer workers I don't know about that we don't have any evidence of that and by the way we've heard

no such pledge from Martin after a conservative we website funded by the Heritage Foundation published what it called a Dei watch list with the names photos and identifying information of federal health workers involved in diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and did at one point describe them as targets apparently in Elon and Don's America the federal government is no longer here to protect you it is here for one purpose and one purpose only to empower and protect Elon Musk and his friends joining me now is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland ranking member of the House Judiciary

Committee I do want to start with that threat from um Mr Martin your thoughts on that he is has not offered any evidence that anything has happened other than these names being published by wired and other journalists so whatever could he mean by pursuing these so-called threats he's not given any evidence of it and no one should threaten anyone let's just be clear about that what do you make of his threats I mean he didn't utter a peep when Enrique tario recently pardoned um issued a social media statement uh on X I believe um with

the name of the female FBI agent who he accuses of various nefarious crimes and says that she should be arrested and put in jail and bringing all kinds of social uh pressure on her he's not done anything to uh try to insulate the FBI agents who've come under attack by all of the freed P proud boys and oathkeepers and 3centers and violent insurrectionists so um that guy uh is uh a j6 Enthusiast he's a j6 lawyer and he's doing everything in his power to exact retaliation against the federal prosecutors and the FBI agents and the

cops who simply did their jobs for America you know I I still recall and it still Sears in my mind Ruby Freeman and Sh saying that you can't describe the feeling of your federal government coming after you and training the entire awesome power of the White House on you as just an individual person what we have now is the US attorney from Washington as well as the Heritage Foundation through its donation to this watch list group you know the people on that on that list they put their faces in there they put their identifying information

some of them have gotten unsolicited pizza delivery so that people letting them know they know where they live people have gotten swatted I don't hear any any impetus from this federal government under the Trump Administration to protect any American who as you said are being threatened and they are also demanding to know the identities of these FBI agents as you just said and who knows whether those will just wind up in the hands of Elon Musk who seems to think this is all hilarious um at this point what what what protection do ordinary Americans who

are not trumpers what protection do we have at all well the association of FBI agents went to court yesterday to try to protect not hundreds but thousands of FBI agents uh who are within the Scopes of uh Donald Trump and uh his team of people trying to whitewash January 6 um they consider it essential to completely rewrite the story of what happened and turn these criminals who they called political prisoners and hostages uh into Heroes and patri and Patriots and then turn the people who enforced the law to defend the Democracy including cops who were

wounded and injured and hospitalized turn them into the villains of the story it's just so outrageous and you know they have spent the last few years talking about the weaponization of government without any evidence for it all obviously to prepare for their weaponization of the government to make people think that this is normal it it's it's kind of bizarre watching our country sort of descend into this sort of you know what what in the past would have been called sort of third world sort of hun Behavior but it is happening in real time and I

will note that Marvin Dunn uh you know what I'm sorry Marvin Dunn but the former police officer dun Marvin dun as another as another Dunn U was justed by one of these J Sixers in the street Harry Dunn um in the in the streets of DC um you know by one of them but anyway let me let me move on to the actual thing I think that people are really freaking out and terrified about these unelected people they are not not NE they're not government employees nobody knows you know Doge doesn't exist it isn't real

um they now have access to maybe hundreds of millions of people's data your the Congress passed a law trying to stop Tik Tock from operating out of fear that the Chinese government would get Americans data through Tik Tok um this is now a group of people some of whom are have expressed openly racist views views um you know that are particularized against certain communities um or who are just un serious in some of the Goofs they've done online don't seem very like serious people they can do whatever they want with this data by the time

the courts adjudicate this won't it be too late won't they maybe have already downloaded it and repurposed it for whatever well that's why we need the courts to move so quickly and to enjoin um any further leakage or any corruption and misuse of this data while we can and it may be getting late I mean you mentioned the Chinese government and Elon Musk is of course very much in bed with the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist party so if they want any of this data they've got a very clear Channel by which they can

get it um and it's an absolute violation of the Privacy Act and a whole bunch of other federal laws that are being violated but Elon Musk has been sending his uh juvenile fascist night crew to federal agencies and departments throughout Washington uh including coming into my district to Noah uh to NIH um the FDA in order to get not just all the financial records but Personnel records at NIH patient records uh records from uh various studies um and various grants um so they want to run rough shot over the entire legal infrastructure protecting the Privacy

rights of the people all for their own purposes which may be governmental they may be corporate they may be private they may be political uh and right now all we've got is the opportunity for courts to step in to say that this data must be returned to the government and we've got to end this raid on it by Elon Musk I want to just note for the audience that uh Donald Trump has announced today that he's going to fire some January six investigators um calling them some of them corrupt um you respond responded actually to

this normalized Indian hate guy um and it's it's sweet that you don't want to ruin a kid's life saying to JD Vance something to bear in mind next time you oppose gun safety laws but does that mean that this kid should have access to private data of tens of millions of Americans um and I will note one more thing just for the audience the New York Times is reporting that the treasury Department has installed an ally of Elon Musk in a key position overseeing the nation's payment system replacing a career civil servant who had resist

in granting Mr mus CR cutting team access to payment data the payment data seems particularly important and particularly sensitive by the time again if the Supreme Court gets this case and I have no faith I'm being honest that John Roberts won't just enshrine this under law and say that Donald Trump does have the unitary authority to spend America's money and not it's not Congress by the time it gets there again won't it be too late they have the payment system they've got the the normalized Indian hate guys back on the job can we even stop

this um well I mean speed is of the essence here for the reasons you're saying Joy um it is an overwhelming amount of information about a huge number of people and so if the courts move with Dispatch they might be able to prevent a lot of damage from being inflicted but nobody should normalize what's going on here um just after the election three days after the election a um right-wing uh streaming Network started airing a six-part Russian propaganda special um attacking the FBI now I say it was a Russian propaganda special because specifically um it

was made by a producer who has made a living making propaganda for the Kremlin um one of the producers the guy who financed and produced this film this duck you Series this attack on the FBI he has been paid by the Kremlin to produce videos that are designed to lure westerners including Americans to leave the west and move to Mother Russia that project was was funded by the presidential foundation for cultural initiatives which is a state entity created in the Kremlin by Vladimir Putin in 2021 uh this guy served on the board of a Russian

propaganda outlet that was designed to look like an American news site it was launched in the months leading up to the to to our 2024 election it was full of pro-russia and anti- Ukraine content this guy has uh produced he Geographic biographies of pro- Kremlin dictators including I kid you not an eight series singing the Praises of the dictator of Kazakhstan uh and that was paid for by a charity controlled by the dictator of Kazakhstan uh he also created a Pro Kremlin anti- Ukraine film that was paid for by a pro Kremlin anti- Ukraine oligarch

who has been under us sanctions for more than a decade um he and his company produced another anti- Ukraine film last year that featured claims smearing President Biden um that were um delivered by a guy who is under indictment in this country and sanctioned by the US government as a Russian agent so this is kind of their their over this is this is this is what these folks do um but their newest this this multi-part antibi documentary that came out three days after our election in November uh it was directed by a former host from

Russian State tv which is sanctioned in this country as a vehicle for Kremlin sponsored disinformation and disruption efforts targeting the American people and our elections now at this point you're thinking okay dog bites man right some streaming Outlet is running a pro-russia anti-us government thing okay right I know you're thinking this sounds very familiar there's a lot of things like this we know Russia runs all sorts of psychological and and disinformation campaigns against us a big slick Kremlin Affiliated propaganda operation against the FBI something designed to smear the FBI yeah that that tracks we know

the kind of stuff that they do to to try to mess with us as a country the FBI probably knows to expect it they probably know how to handle these kinds of operations and threats from Russia as long as they're from Russia Senate Financial disclosure forms show that President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the FBI was paid $25,000 by the company with the producer who has made the Russian propaganda for the kreml who made this new film attacking the FBI cash Patel was paid $25,000 by that production company apparently for his participation in the anti-

FBI film Mr Patel appears in the film he's in episode four he also got an executive producer credit on the film as well this was first reported today by the excellent investigative reporter David Korn at Mother Jones um but we can show you this is from cash Patel's required Financial disclosure form to the office of government ethics as part of his nomination to be the director of the FBI Global tree Productions that's this production company run by this Russian American propagandist who was part of the Kremlin funded influence campaign to get westerners to move to

Russia who sat on the board of the Russian propaganda site apparently designed to sway our election here's the record of their $25,000 payment to the man Donald Trump wants to put in charge of the FBI that payment apparently pursuant to his participation in their anti- FBI documentary we have reached out to Mr Patel and to the White House and to the film producer for comment tonight we have not heard back I should tell you the Washington Post has also picked up this story tonight a spokesperson from Mr Patel did tell the post tonight quote the

Senate has evaluated all potential conflicts and concerns have they though have they are you sure was everybody totally aware of this one Democrats on the Judiciary Committee uh did manage to push back cash Patel's confirmation vote in that committee uh by a week that was before this new reporting came out as of now the vote on his nomination is scheduled for next Thursday I think we can expect all Democrats to pretty easily vote against cash Patel for FBI director but until next Thursday that's how long Republicans on that committee have to decide whether whether they're

okay with this too happening right now house Democrats are outside the Department of Education saying they're not being allowed in as they try to oppose the Trump administration's efforts to diminish and ultimately eliminate that department here was California congresswoman maxi in waters just moments ago this man is blocking the door he says he's a federal employee he won't tell us who gave him permission to do this all he knows is he's going to stand here and tell the members of Congress who are elected who vote for the funding for all of them in this building

and for the student loans and for the tital one families he's going to tell us that we can't come in and talk with anybody congresswoman Waters is joining us by phone right now thank you so much for taking the time what were you and your colleagues doing at the Department of Education well thank you so very much uh one of the members of uh the Congress of the United States Mrs Tano uh had tried to get an appointment with the acting secretary to talk with the acting secretary about what this decision was all about what

were they trying to do were they actually trying to close down the uh Department of Education and so he did not get a response he tried over and over again and so he decided uh to have a press conference at the Department of Education and so about 20 members of Congress joined him uh to go to the Department of Education number one to tell them do not do not please do not shut down the Department of Education what is this all about the children are depending on you the tier one funds are desperately needed the

loan funds all of this money is tied up in decisions that are made here at the Department of Education we couldn't get in they sent A Man Out who said he was a security guard he said he was a federal employee he said that you we could not come in don't matter who we are uh we cannot come in because we didn't have uh a special appointment nobody informed him to uh allow us to come in so we stood there we talked we tried to explain to him how important it was for him to go

and let the assistant secretary know that we were outside and that we wanted to come in uh that we were members of Congress he refused to move and we saw in the background that they had uh you know put together uh about 20 police officers behind the door so that I guess if we tried to get in they might stop us we didn't try to get in we simply tried to make our case but this is very important the Department of Education is responsible for student loans for Title One funds they assist our state in

making sure that children have access to education educ ation is so important in our country in this democracy preparing children uh to be you know uh productive citizens preparing children to take over the important roles in this country preparing them to sit on boards etc etc etc yeah Congressman I I I'm reminded of what happened just last night too because we saw a post from Senator Ed Mary who was denied access outside the EPA building last night was greeted by a private security guard apparently um and was told he couldn't come in is this the

new tactic or strategy Democrats are embarking upon to draw attention to the many things that are happening right now within the Trump Administration should we expect more of these types of efforts yes you can expect more as you know we had thousands in front of the Treasury Department just two days ago we were locked out this is where Elon Musk had gone in and has access to all of the aage systems uh in this country and who has all of the access to all of our private information the social security numbers on everybody in this

country all of what is happening with the tax revenue on and on and on all of the bills to be paid he has all of that Elon Musk is basically a government gangster Who's acting as Pro uh a co- rather uh president of the United States of America America and he is wreaking havoc on this country Congress Waters can you hold on for a second did you did you say that Elon Musk has people's tax ID number Social Security numbers do you do you know that he actually has that information yes we know he got

it he's got it yes ma'am we know that he's in position of it yes and what's your worry that he would do with that what that about what he would do with that information with all of the private information that he has he can do anything that he wants to do I think he's capable of monetizing it he has the he has every database to put together that he wants that is available to him with all of this information to do anything that he want to do with it he could turn it into Market opportunities

etc etc I don't trust him he's the richest man in this country and not only is he in control of our payment system they have gone abroad do you know uh that South Africa is being threatened by Elon Musk and the president of the United States because he wants to build a battery Factory in South Africa and he wants them to eliminate the 30% requirement that was fought for when we fought a part TI and they put in their constitution that the businesses coming into Africa that want to do business have to have Partnerships with

the people who live there 30% and he is now being threatened and now president Trump said they're gonna take away all of their us Aid money if they don't let them do it you certainly bring up some of the conflicts of interests uh with the Elon Musk involvement in all of these different areas thank you Congressman Maxine Waters for joining us we appreciate you Shining Light good evening from Washington DC I'm Michael Steel in for CHR hay Donald Trump's war on the government is intensifying and he has empowered the world's richest man Elon Musk to

do the job musk and his minions are storming Federal buildings and causing Havoc protesters are hitting the streets and Gathering outside government buildings to block musk's access and voice their outrage today house Democrats arrived at the Department of Education seeking a meeting with employees of M's Department of government efficiency but they were blocked from entering it was at least the fourth time this week that members of Congress were denied entry to a federal agency that they fund as elected officials and Americans are trying to figure out what to do to stop this court uh this

activity the courts are responding today a judge in Washington put a temporary hold on musk in Trump's plans to fire almost the entire staff at usaid even so musk is plowing ahead and he's doing it with the president's full approval is there anything you've told Elon Musk he cannot touch well we haven't discussed that much uh I'll tell him to go here go there he does it he's got a very capable group of people very very uh very very capable they know what they're doing but as this continues we are learning more and more about

this quote capable group it was just yesterday when one 25-year-old musk staffer who had sensitive access to the treasury payment system quit his job when the Wall Street Journal connected him to a social media account full of racist hatred he was apparently posting stuff like quote I was a racist before it was cool and you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity and normalize Indian hate and get this Elon Musk is mad that the staffer had to quit go figure he attacked the journalist even who wrote that story folks oh but it

gets better JD Vance you know him the vice president of the United States posted that he agreed with musk and apparently so does Donald Trump one of the Doge Engineers was fired for some inappropriate posts the Vice President says bring him back what do you say well I don't know about the particular thing but if the vice president said that did you say that I'm with the vice president thank you Peter yeah there it is this is all part of an emerging pattern folks today reporters found that another must staffer reposted white supremists online and

we also learn today that yet another one was fired from a previous job with the cyber security firm for leaking company secrets and because all of this centers around Elon Musk the guy Donald Trump dispatched to dismantle the government Trump is having to answer a lot of questions about musk I mean just look at the cover of the latest Time Magazine Elon Musk behind the president's Resolute desk holding a cup of coffee and you would think Trump would hate this kind of stuff right because he has in the past because musk is getting all the

attention but he appears to be taking it all in stride is Time Magazine still in business I didn't even know that Elon is doing a great job uh he's finding tremendous fraud and Corruption and waste you see it with the US aid but you're going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government he's got a staff that's fantastic he really loves musk staff the people breaking what works for you in government to make it work for them now there's hope because there are Republicans on Capitol Hill and they're ready

to stop this no I'm just kidding no they're not they could it you know put up those guard rails for Trump and reign in the unelected billionaire but they won't we see this as an active engaged committed executive branch Authority doing what the executive branch should do some of my colleagues are screaming like they're part of a prison right he's basically doing an audit um so I hope that he'll soon be issuing a thorough report to Congress and the public this is a reform movement uh and for all the outrage Bingo that my Democrat colleagues

and many in the Legacy Media are playing they ought to Pace themselves because it's going to be along the four years Republicans are not just going to stand up to Donald Trump at this point forget it they've had decades worth of chances and now here we are Susan Glazer is a staff writer at the New Yorker where she recently wrote about Elon musk's revolutionary Terror ail Ryan is the Washington bureau chief and Senior White House correspondent for black press USA they join me now uh Susan let's let's start with your New Yorker piece on what

this musk Purge is all about you wrote If cutting the federal government is what this is all about then Trump and musk would not be bothering with tiny usaid whose estimated budget of some $40 billion is less than 1% of the federal governments the point is not a policy fight it's an execution they're killing one agency to terrify a thousand others those words are so true and it is so obvious talk a little bit more about from your reporting what are you hearing and understanding what's really going on here and how these dominoes are starting

to play out and fall out around the country across federal agencies yeah that's right I mean look I think it's really important the Republicans Elon Musk Donald Trump they think they have a strong hand they think that nobody cares uh foreign aid is unpopular that government has been demonized pretty successfully for decades by the Republican party uh you know essentially you know going back to the Reagan Era right uh you know it's been a core part of the ideology of the GOP that the best thing that the federal government can do is get out of

the way many Americans across the political Spectrum believe that they don't see uh you know what the government does to keep your drinking water clean to keep the planes safely in the sky to uh stop infectious diseases outside of the country before they get here which is one of the core missions of us Aid funding that's now being cut and so in part it's it's a reflection of their political assessment that these are vulnerable targets because remember Donald Trump is a bully and what he likes is to punch down whether he is punching at Canada

and Mexico and Denmark rather than going after Russia and China or going after uh you know a tiny foreign aid agency so that I think that's part of it the other part that's really striking though is that it is it's not about policy Michael and I I really I find it hard this week right because everybody wants to say like oh let's make the case for favorite policy it's not about policy let's be honest about that at least uh you know if you want to have a a disagreement with Republicans on Capitol Hill and Democrats

about what they're funding then do that we know how to do that as a country we have a system that works for that Congress appropriated this money there were negotiations and complicated deals that resulted in what we have right now Elon Musk is taking a hatchet to the federal government and hoping that he can do as much damage as possible before the courts catch up with him so let's just be honest about that's what's happening here so and and talking about being honest uh April there was this this recent letter from uh the acting us

attorney for the District of Colombia Ed Martin who quite honestly uh may not actually be authorized to practice law in the district of Colombia but uh what you know it's the Trump error in this letter he he notes that uh thank you for the referral of individuals and networks who appear to be stealing government property Andor threatening employees if people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply une ethically we will investigate them and we will quote chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable this is the this

is a prosecutor DC prosecutor chasing people to the end of the Earth what do you finding out there as you sit in those briefings at the White House as you talk uh to members on the hill um how is this going down and also talking to those who are in the Republican party as well how it's going down uh what many um who are working with Doge are hoping for and relying on are for those who are in these agencies and in these Department to rat on their fellow colleagues and that's what they're doing in

an effort to thin out what they consider the waste an active thinning this isn't an audit this is an active thinning of government in this moment and what we're understanding is everybody will be impacted but they are definitely relying on those who are having whisper campaigns and tattling on their fellow colleagues we're in a whole different time than where we had been before and um what you were talking about was with the Postal Service I mean we're seeing that um in the FAA we're seeing that in transportation we're seeing it potentially getting ready to happen

in the Department of Education um they're relying on the military to do the same thing it's in every department and we also saw today they were taking down the the signs for the US Aid um the the the the logo that's on the building this is what they're relying on this is not professional this is hearsay in a lot of instances and where's the backing up you're doing this audit where are the receipts the young people would say we're talking about news today of a bit of a reprieve for the men and women of the

FBI agents who have been forced to fill out a rather ominous questionnaire that detailed their involvement in anyway in any of the January 6 cases men and women of the FBI who then learned that the justice department was leaning on FBI leadership to hand over those names a demand FBI leadership first refused to comply with and instead turned over ID numbers the men and women of the FBI who woke up this morning then to the news that after all that acting FBI director Brian Driscoll in effect blinked in this standoff with the justice department and

did in fact turn over the full names of every FBI agent who worked on any January 6th case to put it bluntly this was unnerving not just because of the risk it poses to the men and women of the FBI and their families but also because of of what it says about the current strength of our institutions of that institution but what happens next is arguably just as important and instructive within hours of news that the names of all the FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases had been turned over to the justice department

there was another development we learned this quote the Trump Administration has agreed to keep private a list of FBI employees who worked on January 6 cases unless it first provides a two-day head start for the employees to seek a Court's intervention the agreement between the FBI agents Association and Donald Trump's justice department deescalate for now a showdown between the bureau and the Department of Justice the agreement also quote bars the entire federal government not just the justice department for making any part of the list public without giving two business day's notice that would allow attorneys

for the FBI Personnel to ask the judge for further releas for now it is a breakthrough for those FBI agents and their families who had their names handed over to the justice department relief however temporary from what was reported to be deep anxiety felt by countless FBI agents and while there is no guarantee that they'll be protected forever the imminent threat of having their identities out there has been alleviated at least for today it is also a reminder that Although our institutions are being being challenged in unprecedented ways they are not without power they're not

without access to the courts the FBI is an institution with a storied history not a perfect history but essential to American life and Americans security so let what happened today be one of our first lesson when the FBI pushed back Donald Trump's justice department was willing to reach a compromise it remains to be seen if cash Patel the incoming FBI director will change the FBI beond recognition but for now round one goes to the workforce the men and women who want to get back to the business of protecting the American people it's where we start

today with some of our favorite reporters and friends with me at the table former top official at the Department of Justice and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew weisman's here also joining us former Federal prosecutor former lawyer with the doj National Security division Brendan blue is here also joining us is New York Times justice department reporter Glenn thrush Glenn we may as well move this forward what does happen when cash Patel gets there well we I should say that that has not yet he has not yet been confirmed um and we're expecting at the earliest of the

middle of this month is being a vote on his um on his confirmation forgive me I'm losing my voice it's been a long week we had we had to the script we made it to Friday and I took it out in your honor I should have left it in we we made it to Friday well I just hope it's not going to be a long weekend um but I I think curiously enough I've spoken to some some people over the past couple of days who have actually said to me we're looking forward to having cash

Patel a guy who has an enemies list and talked about turning into FB turning FBI headquarters into a museum uh having him on board because he'd be more accountable uh and have to testify before Congress unlike interim leadership so um I think we're dealing with a situation here in which the um the Department of Justice and Emil B who is the number three person in the justice department number two person in the Justice Department right now has been the prime mover um um essentially walked into a bit of an ambush because in addition to kind

of the institutional Authority that the FBI still has there's still that residual uh Power in terms of its hold on the public because there's a big difference and I think I said this uh last time we spoke big difference between going after the Chiefs um the people who made the supervisory decisions about these cases and individual field agents who were simply doing what they were told to do so I think part of this the question here is and I think more so than cash Patel Pam bondy um who has really gone out of her way

to portray herself as having a degree of IND dependence from the White House will Pam Bondi the new attorney general um provide sufficient protection for the FBI's Workforce that this particular attempt uh attempt at getting these names which has already chilled the building um will stop Andrew wman I think it's really important to not have the overturn window sort of Move Along where we don't remember how crazy this is there is no legitimate reason for these names to ever be public um these people whether the field people the agents and and analysts and staff who

worked on the January 6 cases or the senior leadership they were doing righteous work um we have Amel B and now Pam Bondi the official attorney general describing the January six prosecutions as a grave National Injustice as has Donald Trump that is false the people who worked on it were doing something for the public the names of the people who worked on it to have it ever be public that that they worked on it to have a Target this is shouldn't be oh they have 48 hours to get to court it should never be released

so I just want to make sure people understand how nutty this is the second part of what is that issue is not just the list which by the way now there is that list and there's the fear that somebody is going to leak it against the court order that's in place not to um and so understand the precariousness for all of the people on that that's thousands of people who have to worry about that for doing their job for us and the second part is they're all subject to um heightened scrutiny for employment action how

do we know that B in his memo says that's the purpose of the list people who did their job to to figure out what happened and who's responsible for January 6 cases that every single judge who has had these cases has said it's righteous um these are people who are being held to that kind of scrutiny this is really the inmates running the show um could anyone at the FBI investigate a cas Cas that the director of the FBI didn't direct them to investigate no everything if that that would be firable if you did something

that was not approved um now granted the director is not approving each and everyone but if you did something that was against um the senior leadership and against policy and that by the way that's true whether Republican or Democratic whatever the policy is you have to follow it there's no question that January 6 cases were righteous just just let's remember and I've said this and lots of people have pointed this out these cases were ones that um Republican leadership in congress were supportive of on the day of and the day after you keep making that

point Ted Cruz was saying that MIT McConnell was saying it um but also the cases began under the Trump Administration on Trump 1.0 I guess I asked that because um I'm from the West so there are all sorts of stories about um grizzly bear attacks on our local news I I've never seen a scenario where when the grizzly bear and and in this story the grizzly bear is is is you know Trump and the mega movements where a parent doesn't doesn't protect the family from the grizzly bear why isn't Chris Ray all over Fox News

saying I led the department no one freelanced it went out on a case I made them do it I called I made the call that these were crimes worthy of investigating and and I'm not saying lungs on this show but why isn't he all over television defending his Workforce well you know that's a great question and I you know the I and you I think um agree that he should not have stepped down um that it was a sign of um that the justice department doesn't have and the FBI doesn't have this sort of apolitical

history per the you know Congress has a 10e term that's supposed to mean that um it it's regardless of sort ofid president and by stepping down he was really saying that's really on paper only and each President should just have a new person that's not the way it's supposed to work it also leaves the workforce leaves an impression that he did something wrong and so he's going to let it change a policy there's no policy at the FBI you could you could change priorities there's no there's no January 6 was a policy priority of Chris

rays but it won't be a I mean it to your point about the Overton window Christopher Ray walking out sends the clearest signal to to the to the F to the to the American people having any power in this moment it's that they heard what Glenn's talking about that actual FBI agents who stopped child sex traffickers who stopped serial killers who stopped drug cartels they were screwed because some of them had to go interview January 6 insurrections and their names are on a list Christopher Ray told all of those people to investigate January 6 where

is he right so let me just give a shout out to one group of people who have been speaking up and that is the the judges in DC the judges who were handling the cases um that and again these are Judges that were nominated by Republicans Democrats including Trump uh nominees have all been speaking out and they in all of the cases that have to be dismissed per the Department of Justice order um you have um the former Chief judge barl Howell you have judge chucken you have um Amy Burman Jackson uh just uh today

talking about Michael fen's heroism will never be moot um speaking out about the fact that these cases cannot be whitewashed um and so you know what you are seeing is one branch of government really doing what it's supposed to and being fearless and I hear your point about other people I just wanted to like and that's a totally legitimate point but it's worth noting that there are people who are saying this is wrong um