This week on the Wheelhouse.

Government transparency, accountability and justice for all.

Thank.

For Connecticut Public.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

The show that connects politics to the people.

We got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

Today on the Wheelhouse, we're looking at how the U.S.

government is handling the Epstein files and other classified materials.

Officials are being asked what the people's government is hiding from the people is over classification of information and abuse of power.

We talk about these items with Sam Lebovic, a professor of history at George Mason University.

Sam, thank you so much for being here.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

So happy to have you here.

I want to ask folks, they can have the occasion to talk to us today.

Is there a time when you thought the government was breaching your trust?

Any old top secret docs you'd like a look at?

Call us up at (888) 720-9677 (888) 720-9677.

Good show coming up, I hope, on government transparency and accountability.

Sam.

In December, the Pew Research Center, they found that trust in the government is near an all time low.

Sam, can you break down what contributes to decline in this trust?

Sure.

I mean, it's a lot of things.

I you know, when you look historically, the big turning point is probably the late 1960s through the early mid 1970s.

I, I would put a lot of, emphasis on the Vietnam War and the fallout of the Vietnam War as a kind of large turning point.

And I think that would lead you to emphasize a couple of things.

First, you know, bad foreign policy fighting wars that people don't want to be fighting really leads people to distrust the government, particularly when they think the process behind the intervention into a war wasn't transparent, wasn't clear, and was developed in secret which was the case in Vietnam.

And it's been the case with a lot of foreign wars since, you know, the other thing that wars, foreign wars do is suck resources away from domestic politics, from the domestic economy, and make people's lives worse.

And so, you know, if government isn't providing what people want from from their for their life, right, not providing the kind of economy, the kind of resources that really leads to a decline in trust as well.

So I would focus a lot on policy, you know, in the way that the government is falling short.

But then what sort of turbocharging that lack of trust is, I think the rise of secrecy, and the ability to say, well, we're not even really sure what the government is up to.

We talked about the 60s and 70s as obviously the Vietnam War, era.

You talked about secrecy and, maybe bad foreign policy.

In what ways was the American people, or were the American people able to find out abou what was happening in Vietnam?

Yeah.

I mean, it's a it's a. Tricky it's a tricky question and sort of depends on when you're asking.

So, you know, by 1963, 1964, the US has already been providing support to South Vietnam for many years and is kind of increasingly involved in fighting the war.

And in those years, the New York Times, foreign corresponden Scotty Reston says, basically, the American people are in a war and they don't know, you know, it had been developed kind of on the quiet, on the down low.

You know, then there's an anti-war movement that really begins to pick up steam and begin to sort of try to publicize and talk about what's happening overseas.

And one of the things that comes out of that, out of that pressure is, an insider of the government, Daniel Ellsberg, begins to think that the war is unjust, and decides to take, copies of the top secret history of the war, the Pentagon Papers, and sort of photocopy them overnight.

Over many weeks, he sort of secretly, photocopies these classified documents and then provides them to New York Times and ultimately The Washington Post.

And that provides a kind of back story of how the US is being led into the war of many decades.

So it's an ongoing challenge to inform the public about what's happening in the war and when to start it.

But that kind of Pentagon Papers moment is a key moment, both in terms of public knowledge of the war, but also the history of secrecy.

And has that changed or evolved the process of what sort of classified and what's not, or at least, how the government might protect that information that gets leaked?

Yeah.

I mean, one.

Of the funny things that comes out of all of the fallout from the Vietnam War and then all of the revelations shortly after that about CIA wiretapping and mind control experiments and coups, all of which came out in 1975, in the year of intelligence, the year of the Church and Pike Committee hearings is actually there's no real change to the secrecy system, which was established in the early Cold War and still keeps going today, going strong.

You know that the basic laws don't really change.

The Pentagon Papers leads to a very famous Supreme Court case, which most people think kind of clears up what the law of secrecy is, but it actually doesn't clarify very much.

Because it's the Nixon administration really went for an outrageous kind of punitive response to the Pentagon Papers and tried to prevent The New York Times from even publishing.

And the Supreme Court says that's not constitutional.

You can't stop the press from publishing documents if it has them.

But if you read the decision, it actually looks like maybe five of the justices would have been okay if The New York Time had been criminally prosecuted for publishing or so not prevented from publishing.

But you can publish, but then you face jail time.

That case is never brought to an ambiguity.

They're about whether it's illegal to publish secrets.

And the other thing the Ellsberg case doesn't really help us with is resolve, whether it's constitutional to leak classified information.

So Ellsberg thinks he's informing the public, and he has a First Amendment right to give secret documents to the newspapers if it informs the public about what's being done in that name.

And you might think that the, you know, Ellsberg doesn't go to jail.

So you might think that he got off or that there was a First Amendment right.

Found in the Pentagon Papers case.

But actually, what happened in the Pentagon Papers in the Ellsberg case is that the Nixon administration formed a small unit to clean up leaks in the government.

They were called the plumbers because they're dealing with leaks.

Before they break into the Watergate office, they actually break into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to get dirt on him, to try to discredit him publicly.

And when that breaks during the Watergate scandal, the prosecution of Ellsberg for leaking information is thrown out of jail.

I'm sorry, thrown out of court because it's, illegal.

And so he's led off, but not because he has necessarily a right to provide that information to the public.

And what we found a sense is that leakers, don't have good rights under the First Amendment.

And if you leak classified information, even if you're intending to inform the public, even if you think the public has a right to know, that's no defense.

And you can do do jail time.

A lot of focus on the term leaking and leakers.

We'll hear that a lot in rhetoric, but this is the government that's getting involved in break ins, with Ellsberg and, of course, Watergate.

When the Vietnam War intensifies, Watergate is uncovered.

Public trust also declined.

So that's really over a ten, 15 year period.

There.

And those incidents, in those instances, it's reporters that are breaking this news to the public.

I'm thinking about with Watergate, it's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and then the Pentagon Papers, of course, we're talking about Neil Sheehan talking t whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

That's the 1970s.

Last week in a press conference, President Donald Trump threatened journalists wh first reported on an operation to rescue a second airman who was shot down in Iran.

Here's what President Trump said.

We're looking very hard to find that leaker and talked about there's somebody missing.

They basically said that we have one and there's somebody missing.

Well, they didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information.

So whoever it is, we think we'll be able to find it out because we're going to go to the media company that released it, and we're going to say, national security, give it up or go to jail.

National security, give it up or go to jail.

We also hear the word leaker in there.

Let's get your reaction to that, Sam.

Yeah.

I mean, this is one of the classic problems, with the law of secrecy, right?

The the the key criminal statute here is the Espionage Act, which makes it illegal to disclose information related to national defense to people who aren't authorized to receive it.

And that law was written in 1917.

It actually was adapted from a law written in 1911, which is before we kind of have our the modern respect given to the first Amendment, which is really a mid 20th century development, where we begin to say that the press has very, very strong rights to publish without government interference, or to publish without the threat of government retaliation.

And s the question is whether or not the press has First Amendment rights to, publish classified information or to protect their sources.

And the law is ambiguous because the, the statute is badly written and it sort of pre-dates the modern First Amendment, and the case law is really unclear.

So what the press tends to say in these cases is that the First Amendment implies a right to kind of source privilege, just like, you know, you have attorney client privilege or doctor patient privilege.

The press says we should have a, a right to keep our sources, anonymous, from federal investigation.

And the federal government will say.

And it has done for many years, like Donald Trump says here.

No, no, national security trumps those concerns.

And we don't have clear, a clear decision on the issue.

You know, I think that the key problem is that the leaker of classified information, doesn't really have a defense under the current law.

You can't say, well, this was improperly classified, or the public has a right to know what they should never have been kept secret in the first place.

The way the law is written, if you disclose information that was classified properly or not, that's that's, that's a crime.

So there's kind of two levels of problem here.

One is what protections to the press have to keep its source, you know, free from prosecution.

But then the deeper problem is, should sources inside the government have rights to give information to the press if they think it's genuinel in the public's right to know?

In order to delve deeper in that, can we look at specific people?

Let's take a look at, Ellsberg for instance.

I know we talked about Ellsberg earlier, sort of, protections that Ellsberg might have had, but also Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Let's look at those cases, and then let's take a look, if you can, at the national security impact.

If there was, that was argued, could you go ahead and do that for us, Sam?

You know, so in the Ellsberg case, the government really comes out and says there's going to be immense harm to national security if the Pentagon Papers, really, you know, the Republic will fall, diplomatic alliances will be will be broken.

The war will go terribly.

And, you know, none of that ends up happening.

It's very easy to kind of make alarmist claims about how any kind of small piece of information that leaks is going to really harm the national security, and you can sort of spin out great fantasy scenarios of all the damage that's likely to happen.

You know, one of the ironies is that informatio leaks kind of all of the time, things go out in all sorts of ways.

And if it's not, you know, it's only those sorts of leaks that are unfavorable to the government that really get hit with the ball.

You know, we could maybe think about the signal gate controversy.

In this country.

Yeah.

And so, that's the kind of claim that's made, you know, the question about the Wikileaks, the Wikileaks case is a good one for illustrating the broader point we're trying to talk about, which is the source there is is Chelsea manning, who, you know, provides the information to Wikileaks.

Chelsea manning is found guilty of Espionage Act violation and is given 35 years in jail.

You know those that sentence is commuted up to seven years by Obama.

But there's sort of no defense that someone like Chelsea manning really has.

Once it becomes clear that they've given over the information to a source.

Sorry, to the press, the the difficult question in that case was always could Assange, the publisher of that information, also be prosecuted?

And it had not previously been the case that you would prosecute the press, you wouldn't prosecute the newspaper, you prosecute only the source.

And Assange was prosecuted as a kind of conspirator in the leak and publication of the information and ultimately took a plea deal.

And what's a little unclear is whether that would also now extend to the mainstream media.

And if they were to publish a source, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the language of the law is unclear.

And the that that precedent makes it look like perhaps, the law could be extended to cover the press, and that would be a real threat, a real threat to press freedom.

Americans love, talking about classified documents and whether or not the should be given to the public.

They like to talk about distrust in the government.

How do they perceive these whistleblowers, though, that that are trying to or allegedly are tryin to give them this information?

So how do we perceive an Ellsberg, Manning, or Assange are these people I'm not saying that there's any kind of, documentation or polling out there regarding these people, but how do we perceive them, I guess?

Do we see them as, as as people that are defenders of information?

Or do we look at them as just whistleblowers or, sort of impish in that regard?

Yeah.

I mean, as is typical of everything in American politics, it's polarized, right?

People who like who like, the leaks, who are in agreement with the policy decisions tend to hold them up as kind of heroes.

But noble truth tellers, people who disagree, you know, with the information that was leaked tend to say that traitors.

But what's interesting is in the sort of war on terror when people like Edward Snowden or Chelsea manning leaked information, the debate in public, I think, tended to focus less on what information did they provide and what did that actually do to inform the public.

And it focused much more on the psychology of the leaker.

You know, are they good people?

Can we trust them?

You know, are they narcissists?

And a lot of times, interestingly, the media held up Ellsberg from the Pentagon Papers as like the right kind of leaker, like the noble, smart, wise insider who could be trusted not like these, you know, not like these kids in the war on terror who don't really know what the right thing is.

The irony is that if you look at media coverage of Ellsberg in the 1970s, it was all about in conservative newspapers.

He's a narcissist.

He thinks he knows better than the government.

He's a womanizer.

He has psychological problems.

He can't trust him.

He's a radical leftist.

So I think always when these leaks happen, we turn them into a referendum on the kind of psychology of the leaker.

Try to work out whether we think the leaker is a good person.

I think it would be more productive to think about.

Well, what information do they provide?

And is it actually information that we think we have a right to?

Polarity is real.

Just, just anecdotally talking to the Pew Research Center, last year about public opinion polling in the president, over the last 80 or so years, it really jives with, the responses will really jive on whether or not the perso is a Republican or a Democrat.

That's how they support the president.

It sounds like that's what's happening with the leakers here as well.

If you're a conservative, you might think differently about Daniel Ellsberg.

We also saw former President Joe Biden fall under investigation for mishandling classified documents.

We talked about Trump earlier charged under the espionage Act after an investigation in his Mar a Lago residence.

Sam, could you clarify how we got from preventing foreign spying to charging U.S.

presidents?

Sure.

So the Espionage Act, you know, really has two kind of sections in that we're talking about here.

One of them is section seven, 94 is about, you know, taking information and giving it to a foreign government, what you think of as classic spying.

Right.

And that section works to prosecute people like the Rosenbergs and, you know, sort of alleged spies or real spies.

But there's another section 793 that is really, you know, not an espionage law.

It's better sort of in terms of information handling law.

And it basically has a whole host of, clauses that say you can't do certain things with classified information.

You can't share it with those on authorized receive it.

You can't lose it.

You can't retain it without authorization.

And so forth.

And that's what's been at stake in both the Maryland.

Oh, and the Biden, garage kind of documents.

Is was this informatio retained without authorization because these are documents that have been classified?

You know, kept without authorization, and then that the too that's being used to prosecute those cases is the Espionage Act, because it's the sort of most powerful tool for the job.

I actually think thes are probably better understood as kind of presidential records act problems or transparency problems, but because the documents were classified, it's easier to invoke national security.

And the Espionage Act has more teeth.

And so that's kind of how we've been prosecuting them.

From Connecticut Public Radio.

This is the Wheelhouse.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

You've been listening to Sam Lebovic, a history professor at George Mason University.

Sam is going to stay with us after the break.

We're going to take a deeper dive into how the DOJ has handled the release of the Epstein file and what role redactions play.

Hit us u (888) 720-9677 (888) 720-9677.

This is the Wheelhous from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This hour, we are getting a deep dive into one particular section of U.S.

history.

Government accountability and transparency and classified information to understand the psychology behind governing.

The officials who argue on behalf of the Constitution were adding a big time lawyer into the equation.

Barb McQuade is the former U.S.

attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Barbara, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Well, thanks, Frankie.

I'm glad to be with you.

And still with us.

Sam Lebovic, a history professor at George Mason University.

Folks, I want to know if you're reading the available files released to the public from a federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

If so, what questions do you have about it?

Maybe we can tackle those here today.

Give us a call (888)720-9677.

Barb, let's backtrack to January when the Department of Justice released the latest batc of files, including 3 million.

3 million pages related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.

Can you pass through that for us?

Not all 3 million pages, but at least, Yeah.

Get your, get your magnifying glass out.

But just help us understand the, the why those, were released.

Yes.

It's a very unusual situation, Frank.

Ordinarily, those kinds of records would not be released.

Only the records that are produced as evidence in a criminal case.

So we'd already seen exhibits produced in the trial against Glenn Maxwell, for example.

But because of the very significant interest, some of it stoked by members of the far right and Pam Bondi herself, we talked about a client list being on her desk right now awaiting my review.

There was a great deal of pressure in Congress and ultimately the passage of a federal statute, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that required the Justice Department to release the entire files.

Now, it did have in the statute in the language itself, some specific exceptions.

One, of course, makes perfect sense.

Information pertaining to the private information of victims and survivors.

We don't want their names being thrown out there.

We don't want, you know, nude photos, any photos of their faces, private information, etc.

about these individuals.

That was one exception.

Another was for national security, very much along the lines to what you and Sam were just talking about.

Although ultimately the Justice Department said no documents were withheld in this case on that basis, which makes some sense to me.

It's not really a national security type of case.

It's mor of a sexual exploitation case.

And then the final window and this is the one where there was a lot of room, I think, for mischief was that the attorney general could withhold from disclosure, any information relating to an ongoing criminal investigation.

And so what we sa there was a specific deadline.

It was December 19th, 30 days after the enactment of the law.

President Trump signed the law into effect.

And that 30 day window came and went without production.

And the Justice Department said, we're still working on it.

They produced some documents, but not all of the documents.

It took them about another month to produce all of them.

And their reason, they said, was it took them ultimately 500 lawyers, to review what was more than 3 million documents.

They had to make these redactions as required by the order.

And so it took that long.

Frankly, that part doesn't bother me so much.

I'm not surprised it did take that long, and they did ultimately produce them.

But as you have suggested, there were very significant redactions, some of which were for these, victims and survivors.

Some of the victims and survivors information was not redacted.

To their great dismay.

And then there were many, many pages that were redacted that have been the subject of some controversy.

Is it a and that's what I'm saying.

I think it's more about the redactions there.

So we have that case where you're talking about three, essential sort of categories here.

One would be national security.

Another one would be the victims and keeping their information sensitive and perhaps private.

And then there's the ongoing criminal investigation.

So are the redactions.

Are many of them that, the public is at least focused on?

Are they really worried about national security redactions?

Doesn't sound like an were withheld for that reason.

The victims and whether or not their information is actually be redacted, or is it that third category, anything that's been redacted for ongoing criminal investigations?

Yeah.

So the Justice Department issued a report about this, and we've been a little bit cagey about that third category.

You may recall that Pam Bondi made an announcement in the fall.

I think it was in November that said she was directing the U.S.

attorney in the Southern District of New York, Jane Clayton, to investigate Democrats and only Democrats who, were named in the Epstein files.

Todd Blanche, who's now the acting, attorney general, has said he does not expect any additional people to be charged.

So it sounds like there is nobody even under that third category yet.

Nonetheless, we've had journalists who have combed through these things and found some discrepancies for example, there was an index that listed a report of a victim, claiming some allegations about sexual assault by President Trump.

That document was never produced.

It wasn't until this reporter began publicly noting this, for the record, that ultimately we saw the production of this document not may or may not be credible, but it was a victim who said when she was a teen, President Trump engaged in unwelcome sexual acts toward her.

And made disparaging comments about her.

There were other documents indicating that that information was known widely because it appears in a PowerPoint presentation as far back as July of 2025, where they put together a list of prominent people named in the Epstein files.

And so it's hard to believe that of all the documents, not in the 3 million that got redacted improperly was one that related to President Trump by his own attorney general.

But is such a coincidence that it seems a little far fetched.

And I think that raises the question.

Well, if we caught him in this one, then what about all those other redactions?

Is it possible that President Trump or other powerful people, had reports about them also redacted, but we don't have, the ability to detect it because we didn't see this accidental cross-reference somewhere else.

So I think that some of the skepticism.

Barb, in the Epstein files, personal information of victims and survivors exposed, including information on underage victims.

What does this tell you about how the DOJ has handled the release of these files?

Well, it seems sloppy.

You know, they blew past the deadline anyway.

And I think that they said at the time, you know, look, it's 3 million documents.

We've got hundreds of lawyers looking at this.

We need more time.

I think that, a prudent lawyer would have put survivors and victims interests at the top of their list of priorities and issued a report that said we cannot ensure that we have complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act by the deadline.

We need more time because it is important that of all else that we do in this case, that we protect the private information of survivors and victims.

It seems that instead there was an effort to, redact information, redact harmful information about President Trump and others and get it done and behind the president as quickly as possible.

You know, even this statement by Todd Blanch quite summarily saying, we don't expect to charge anyone else.

Well, why not?

Like are you are you thoroughly looking at this?

Are you meeting with victims and survivors?

You know, I think one of the disconnects is victims.

And survivors may not have known who their assailants were by name.

And so perhaps working with them, they could help put together and connect the dots and find other individuals.

You know, there's no statute of limitations for child sex trafficking.

So it isn't like in many other cases where they're out of time because this happened more than five years ago.

You know, there was that shameful scene where Pam Bondi testified before Congress and instead of acknowledging the pain of the survivors or even turning to face them or agreeing to meet with them, she talked about what we ought to be talking about is the fact that the stock market's at 50,000, and instead of point, she said, dollars.

So clearly that was a line given to her by someone.

And Barb, that's what I want to get to now, just really quickly before we bring Sam back in.

Sam makes the point earlier that some of this can be and I don't know if I threw this at Sam two earlier about polarity.

But does some of this barb have to do with polarity?

Whether or not the victims get protected here in the redactions does.

Has politics played a factor in that as well?

Oh, sure.

I think one of the interesting things about the Epstein files, though, is that there is a lot of crossover appeal.

We saw, you know, Thomas Massie and, Nancy Mace and some other Marjorie Taylor Greene, some other far right members of the MAGA, movement who themselves think that these documents ought to be disclosed.

So I think this is one of those that cuts into this idea that there's a world of the haves, the Epstein class, the elites.

And then there's the world with the rest of us who follow different rules.

And so I think the polarization here might be breaking a little differently with us.

Still, as Sam Lebovic, professor of history at George Mason, the Trump administration released previousl classified documents last year related to Martin Luther King Jr.

President John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy.

These were three assassinations that happened, of of course, people might consider, Martin Luther King Jr political as well.

Political figures, civil rights figures here.

What are your thoughts on these releases?

I don't really I don't I wasn't following them that closely.

I don't I don't really remember the particular details.

Yes, the public, but, I guess I want to say, after the release of documents connected to, Robert F Kennedy's assassination, CIA Director Joh Ratcliffe said in a statement.

Today's release delivers on President Trump's commitment to maximum transparency, enabling the CIA to shine light on information that serves the public interest.

So I don't know is this is happening at the same time where they're being maybe I'll ask it this way where they're being accused of of not being as transparent on the, Epstein stuff.

Is any of that polarity talk we're talking about have anything to do with what's happening here with John F Kennedy?

Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Kennedy?

Would either of you be able to help us out with maybe why some of those were released and some other documents haven't been released?

Yeah.

Bob, do you have thoughts on that?

Well, yes, I guess I would say that the polarization, is a factor here, but as I said, it cuts a little differently in this case because it was really the MAGA extremists who are pushing for the release of the Epstein files.

You know, I think they saw pictures of Bill Clinton in there, and they thought that this was, you know, the so-called left wing elites who were in bed, so to speak, with Jeffrey Epstein.

And then it turned out that, you know, we've got Donald Trump in there.

We've got, other prominent people of both parties.

And so it seems to me that this one is breaking along, not just not Republican Democrat lines, but along the lines of, you know, working class individuals and the so-called elites.

You know think about some of the people who got caught up in this Kathy Rambler, for example, was a white House counsel in the Obama administration.

There are Professors Lawrence Summers, from Harvard University, former Treasury secretary.

There are people in these files who, you know, are related to education in the Democratic Party.

So I don't think it breaks cleanly along party lines.

The way we've seen some other issues.

Do.

I think that's why it's been such a sticking point for President Trump that many of his traditional supporters are pretty outrageous.

Well, they should be abou the conduct of Jeffrey Epstein and want accountability not just for him, but for other people who abuse children.

Now, I will say, I think one of the disconnects there is that as a federal prosecutor, I know that just because you associate with someone who is despicable is not itself a crime.

And so it may very well be that there are no other criminal prosecutions able to be brought here.

But I think the survivors deserve, at least some effort from the Justice Department to help them, find out who their assailants were so that those decisions can be made either through criminal charges or potentially through civil lawsuits.

I'm rememberin now why I brought up the files with John F Kennedy and such.

This is, about 60 years or so after this assassination happens.

You have this document released.

New York Times reported that personal information, including Social Security numbers, were exposed.

So sort of similar to what's happening with the Epstein case here and, and certain files being redacted and not.

Can you all shed some light on the process of how documents are released to the public?

How is personal information a national security information protected?

And then why might something take 16 years, 60 years to come out?

Six zero.

Yeah.

I mean, the big picture here in terms of like releasing historical documents, and this touches on your the first question as well is that it's basically up to the discretion of the administration.

You know, you could imagine a kind of legal regime that had mandatory, you know, disclosures of things after a certain year.

You know, this is ancient history and political terms.

You know, you would still want to make sure you had someone look at it and redact the personal information, social Security.

But that's not the way that the process works.

You know, a lot of the classification system is all set up on executive order, and it's not a kind of statute governing how classification works.

Declassification gives a lot of discretion to the administration.

And I think you could imagine a regime that was much more kind of ordered and systematic.

Of course, that would take resources.

You need people to actually go through and do the looking and the redacting.

And that means you need to hire people into sort of the national archives and federal employees into agencies that are not currently places that are hiring.

But the system is really geared around presidential, all sort of an administrative discretion and authority, in the kind of historical documents world.

And I don't thin that's really fit for purpose.

And you get these kind of absurdities where you're still getting releases of things and decades after the fact, and then done in a kind of from what you're saying and in a kind of quick fashion, that doesn't actually do the kind of due process you'd want before releasing.

From Connecticut Public Radio.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Frankie Graziano, you've been listening to Sam Lebovic and Barb McQuade.

They'll stay with us for the final part of our discussion.

We've talked a lot about sensitive information kept from the public.

Some defense, if you will.

Next, what happens when the federal government is on offense?

When?

This is the Wheelhous from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

All hour.

We've talked about classified information and why the federal government may keep certain sensitive material from its people.

The Trump administration is being accused by lawmakers of using its power against the people.

Still with us to talk about it is the former U.S.

attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Barb McQuade.

Thank you so much for being here.

And yeah, thanks very much for having me.

Frankie and Sam Lebovic, history professor at George Mason University.

Not a lot of time left to take your questions.

So be very brief in your calls here.

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Barb, a fight has ensued between the House Oversight Committee and former attorney General, Pam Bondi.

It's actually the Senate committee that was involved here subpoenaing, Bondi in March when she was still attorney general to appear, before them yesterday.

Actually, this is the whole House Oversight Committee.

Frankie Graziano is losing his head this morning, attorney general to appear before them yesterday for a deposition into th government's files on Epstein.

But she didn't appear before this committee.

Why is that?

Yeah, well, she says, well, I'm no longer the attorney general.

You you should talk to the attorney general, not to me.

But what the committee wants to hear from is from Pam Bondi, because she was the attorney general at the time these decisions were made.

One of the sticking points here, where there's been a conflict in the production, is remember, we said there were those three exceptions where they could withhold documents, national security, personal information of the victims and ongoing criminal investigations.

What the the statute said an impermissible reason to withhold information is internal deliberations of the Justice Department.

However, in their report, the Justice Department said nonetheless, they withheld those internal deliberations on the basis of executive privilege.

The law on executive privilege is there is such a thing, but it's qualified.

And if Congress expressly calls for a waiver of that privilege, it should be deemed, inapplicable.

And that's what this Epstein Files Transparency Act specifically says.

So the Congress is entitled under its own statute to those deliberative processes.

And that's really important.

Remember there was that sweetheart deal that Alex Acosta gave in Florida to Jeffrey Epstein back in the day.

Why was that?

He dismissed those charges.

They considered charging other people as coconspirators at some point.

Who were they?

Why did they decide against that?

What other people may have been involved in all of these things?

So those are the decisions that Pam Bondi could testify about.

Not her successor.

Maybe Todd Lynch knows those things.

Maybe he does it, but I think they are entitled to her testimony.

There is a saying that, anything that could help, the members of Congress legislate in any way, including the space they are entitled to that testimony.

And so, I think that if push comes to shove and this gets litigated, Pam Bondi will have to testify, but she's going to make it difficult for them.

Throughout these hearings, lawmakers are insisting that Americans have the right to know about Epstein's crimes and ties to him.

Does that match with how Americans have felt about some of these landmark events we discussed earlier, like Vietnam, in the scheme to get president, Richard Nixon reelected?

Yes.

You know, I think when it goes back to the Watergate investigation, we saw an effort by President Nixon to withhold the recordings of the conversations in the Oval Office that ultimately were the smoking gun that led to his resignation from office.

He tried very hard to protect those on the grounds of executive privilege, going all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled against him, and who said that even though there is a qualified privilege for a president to withhold certain kinds of things about deliberative processes or conversations and other kinds of things that that privilege must yield, at least in the face of a grand jury criminal investigation as was occurring in that case.

And so this is a slightly different twist on it.

But I think there are parallels to that effort by Nixon that ultimately failed, that gave us that Supreme Court precedent.

And now, Pam Bondi desire to avoid testifying before a congressional hearing.

I think that it's, it's parallel.

It's slightly different, but I think that the considerations are the same and that ultimately a court will rely on United States v Nixon to require Pam Bondi to testify if Congress pushes the issue now, whether they will, with a Republican controlled Congress at this time, I don't know, but perhaps with a new makeup of Congress after the midterm elections, we could see a different result.

Any reaction from you there, Sam, based on we're talking about Watergate here and bringing up some of the Nixon stuff here.

Yeah.

I mean, I think two points.

The first is, Bob's absolutely right about the importance of us because Nixon is setting the precedent for that being an executive privilege with some limits.

I think it's important to note that the whole idea of executive privilege is actually it's really unsettle in the law up until the 1950s.

And it really gets codified in the, in some Justice Department files and memoranda in the 1950s, actually, in response to kind of mccarthyite investigations, trying to look for subversives in the government, and they start to say, well, no, there's this thing executive privilege.

It's really important.

And then that theory gets sort of locked in in the, in Watergate.

But it's not something that, you know, you can trace some example earlier into American history, but you can't find it so clearly defined.

And then the second thing, also about the separation of powers, is that Bob's absolutely right to emphasize the role of Congress here.

You know, earlier in talking about Watergate, you talked, mentioned sort of Woodward and Bernstein, who obviously play a role, you know, they get the movie version of Watergate, has them as the heroes, but it's actually the congressional, investigations and congressional hearings that do the heavy lifting of shaking loose, you know, the tapes and then the, you know, the smoking gun and enforcing the kind of Supreme Court issue so the press can do some of this.

But ultimately, it's Congress that has to do the heavy lifting.

Fascinating that you brought that all up there.

We're talking about the 1950s, too, and codifying this, this law, related to, executive privilege, into existence there.

I'm glad you're doing this heavy lifting because we have some students from Avon Old Farms here today that are learning about government, and it's good for you all to to help us understand that there are rules that actually govern these things.

There is a constitution that exists.

There are amendments that are made to it.

Congress is passing laws.

The presidents are as well.

So it's very, there's some executive orders as well.

That's why I say the president's.

So I'm glad we're talking about all that.

Barb.

The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported that former Attorney General Pam Bondi fired, in part because President Trump grew frustrated with her inefficiency in goin after his political opponents.

Like FBI Director James Comey.

Let's take you now to last fall when bond is testifying in front of Congress.

She actually did testify at some point in front of Congress.

U.S.

Senator Richard Blumenthal points to a social media post from the president as he urges body to address the role Trump had in the federal indictment of Comey.

Here's that video.

It was very open and.

Public.

That you should indict James Comey and others because.

They are guilty as hell.

No more delay.

Now, five days before you indicted or grand jury, at your instructions.

Indicted.

James Comey, I'd like to know from you what conversations you've had with President Trump.

About the indictment.

Of James Comey.

Senator, Senator, I am not going to discuss any conversations I have or have not had with the president of the United.

You say that.

And then Bondi and Blumenthal go back and forth a bit.

Blumenthal trying to show in this hearing, Barb, that Trump is calling the shots with the Justice Department.

What do you think about that piece of tape we just showed?

Yeah, this is a really interesting, destruction of a very significant post-Watergate norm.

There were a number of policy changes made after Watergate because of the abuse of the Justice Department by President Nixon.

In the words of John Dean, we were using government to screw his word, our political enemies.

And so as a result, one of the things that got implemented after that was a policy to limit the communications between the white House and the Department of Justice.

It's a little fuzzy, but essentially it prevents the president from directing criminal prosecution.

There may be times when the president needs a heads up that there's an indictment about to be filed, or there needs to be some coordination because of some diplomatic effect on it.

But otherwise the president should not be calling the shots.

And the goal is to avoid even the appearance of political influence on charging decisions and the rule of law.

What we've seen now in this administration is Donald Trump brazenly blowing through that, as evidenced by this email.

But as recently as yesterday, Todd blanched, saying Americans should be gla the president is taking a role as the nation' chief law enforcement officer.

You know, his banner hanging his face on a banner hanging from the Department of Justice, his speech last spring about how he is the chief law enforcement officer.

You know, if you by this unitary executive theory, I suppose he is he's the head of the executive branch.

But because of the fear that criminal prosecution will be weaponized as a political tool, that is why we've had this norm since the Watergate era.

Is it enforceable Probably not only politically.

And we, the people, I think, need to extract a commitment from our next president that they will abide by that norm to stay out of charging decisions so that they can be based on fact and law and not partizan political agendas.

We talked about Comey and then in her testimony to Congress in the past, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former white House aide, linked President Trump to the January 6th insurrection.

She's now under federal investigation by the civil Rights Division, by the DOJ, alleging that she lied to Congress.

Is the DOJ going after people on President Donald Trump's behalf?

And then, Barb, I guess we have to do this.

We talked about him being head of the executive branch.

Where does that say that he is America's chief law enforcement?

Officer, as you were kind of getting at what Todd Blanch said earlier.

Yeah.

You know, I think there's a big difference in government between what an official can do and what an official should do.

Can the president, now, under Trump, the United States, the immunity case, can the president order seal Team Six to assassinate, his political rivals?

Yes, he can, and he'd be immune from criminal prosecution.

But there's a second question.

Which is, what should a president do?

Should a president direct that order?

Of course not.

Should a president, can a president direct his attorney general to prosecute his political enemies?

Yeah, I guess he can, as the chief executive.

But should he do that?

And I should, if the answer is no.

I would think that in ordinary circumstances, these would be impeachable offenses.

The Congress would say that's not how the law is supposed to work.

But what we've seen now is, a Congress that has been an enabler of this president that has really made impeachment, an empty tool.

And so perhaps what we nee is for presidential candidates to commit to voters that they will take office only if they will agree to abide by these kinds of norms.

And I think that's the only way we enforce it.

Or we send people to Congress who have the spine to play their proper role of protecting the people from this abuse of, legal weaponization.

We only got about 30 seconds to do this.

Sam, as we close out here, I want to get.

Actually, we have about a minute left.

I want to get your perspective about what some of the impacts might be going forward as tension seemingly grows over the demand for further government transparency and faith in the government and media.

Yeah.

How damaging can conspiracy theories, be?

Everything that's happening here.

Would you just help us, butto this up here, Sam, at the end.

Final thoughts?

Yeah.

I mean, I think the one of the long term trends here is the real growth of the size of the presidency in American politics since the Cold War.

I don't know whether we're due for a reset or recalibration.

But in any of these questions, the only ultimate solution is political and kind of the mobilization of people to create the kind of government they want the like, the kind of officials they want to produce, the kind of institutions they want.

So I think if people are unhappy with the kind of current distribution of powers, you know, courts and law can only do so much.

The ultimate solution, the ultimate way forward, is ultimately going to be at the ballot box.

Sam Lebovic, professor of history at George Mason University, great to have you on the show this morning.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for joining us for the full hour.

We really appreciate it.

Sam.

That was a dynamic conversation.

Barb McQuade.

Her new book, The Fix Saving America From the corruption of a mob style government, is out now.

Or excuse me, it's out in June.

Barb.

Where can people get it?

Oh, they can get it at Amazon and local independent bookstore.

Thank you so much, Barb, for telling us about that.

And thank you for your time.

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure.

Today's show was produced by Tal Richardson.

It was edited by Patrick Scahill and Tess Terribles.

Great job guys.

Our technical producer is Dylan Reyes.

Thank you to the folks from Avon Old Farms who joined us in studio and in our control room this morning.

Thank you for the support of our show.

Special thanks to Megan Rodriguez-Hawkins, Davina Cordero, Megan Fitzgerald, Connecticut Public Visuals team and our operations team.

Download The Wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.