Monday, February 9th, 2026 Today, Trump posted a disgusting racist video on Truth Social and the right wing is making excuses; Tulsi Gabbard hid an intelligence report about a phone call involving someone close to Trump; DHS requested expedited deportation for five-year-old Liam Ramos, but a judge said no; members of Congress will review unredacted Epstein files; the federal judge will allow Marimar Martinez to release ICE text messages about her shooting; another judge says Trump can't block funds for the Getaway Tunnel project; the New Mexico governor has signed the Immigration Safety Act; and Dana delivers your Good News.
Monday, February 9th, 2026
Today, Trump posted a disgusting racist video on Truth Social and the right wing is making excuses; Tulsi Gabbard hid an intelligence report about a phone call involving someone close to Trump; DHS requested expedited deportation for five-year-old Liam Ramos, but a judge said no; members of Congress will review unredacted Epstein files; the federal judge will allow Marimar Martinez to release ICE text messages about her shooting; another judge says Trump can't block funds for the Getaway Tunnel project; the New Mexico governor has signed the Immigration Safety Act; and Dana delivers your Good News.
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Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Monday, February 9, 2026. Today, Trump posted a disgusting racist video on True Social. And the right wing is making excuses. Tulsi Gabbard hid an intelligence report about a phone call involving someone close to Trump. DHS requested expedited deportation for 5 year old Liam Ramos, but a judge said no. Members of Congress will review unredacted Epstein files. A federal judge will allow Maramar Martinez to release ICE text messages about her shooting. Another judge says Trump can't block funds for the getaway tunnel project. And the New Mexico governor has signed the Immigration Safety Act. I'm your host, Dana Goldberg. Hey, everyone, it is Monday. It's Monday. It's Monday. Welcome back. Allison is out today. She'll be back with us tomorrow this weekend. She did sit down, though, for a 45 minute interview with the lawyer representing the Gabbard whistleblower, Andrew Bacai. So. So you're going to want to listen to that interview. You can watch it at Mueller She Wrote Dot com. Or we're going to run it. We're going to run it here for you later in the show. So whichever works for you, definitely sit down and do that. I had an incredible weekend. I was doing the HRC gala in New York, and I had the pleasure of hugging Don Lemon and just telling him how grateful I am, for what he's doing, his journalistic integrity. This is all about the First Amendment. It's about protecting the First Amendment. And we know these arrests on these black journalists is exactly what it's. It's intended to do, is try and silence that. So he gave in a wonderful speech and raised another $500,000 for the human Rights Campaign, which I'm very proud of. So, yeah, it was a good weekend. Oh, and I met Jane Krakowski. I mean, if you're. I'm talking 30 Rock, the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I mean, you. You know, Jane, she's. She's also as lovely in person as she is on the screen. She's a really, really wonderful woman. So it was nice to meet her. It was just a good weekend at work. In addition to that interview from Allison, there's also a new episode of Unjustified, wherever you get your podcast, so make sure you check that out. And without further ado, I'm not going to leave you waiting. Let's hit the hot notes.
Hot notes.
All right, everyone. First up from Raw Story, right wing influencer Ben Shapiro insisted that President Donald Trump did not have the attention span to realize that a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes has been posted on his True Social account. The whole thing is bullshit. And this is a quote. There's a video that he posted over at True Social that apparently contains an image of the Obamas as apes. This is from that MAGA star, Ben Shapiro. He went on to say, do I think that President Trump ever watched the whole video? I have serious doubts. President Trump has a habit of late night truthing where he just sort of gets up at 3am or he's up at 3am and he just starts truthing things out. He said. And I'm almost certain that the President never watches the entirety of any video. That's what he said. He said, I don't think it has the attention span to get through any of the videos that he has tweeted. I think he sees that there is something that is pro Trump, so he puts it out there. And if there's an ugly image in there, either he ignores it or he didn't see it in the first place. As a general rule, I just want, before we move on to the next story, I need you all to know this. That video was posted. It. It's abhorrent. First of all, the President of the United States, a horrible racist. They blamed a staffer. They blamed a staffer for the video. And then what was weird is that Caroline Levitt went on in a press conference and defended it, saying, this is, this is fake outrage. We have other things we need to worry about. So she basically was like, yeah, the staffer posted it, but we're going to defend it. And then wouldn't you know, in an interview on probably Air Force One, Trump was like, yeah, I posted it. I post. I didn't watch the end of it. It was about voter fraud. I didn't watch the end of it, but yeah, I posted it. And then the journalist said, would you like to apologize? And he wouldn't fucking apologize. The whole thing is a mess. Everyone threw each other under the bus. And as we know, the President's racist. He's always been racist. He's been racist his entire life. His father was racist. He's racist. It runs in the family. So I just wanted to get the rest of that into this story because it was a clusterfuck. Next up, we do have one from the Chicago Sun Times. Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent to Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago's Miramar Martinez last fall, it could only serve one purpose, to sully his reputation. But the Trump administration has shown zero concern about the sullying of Mrs. Martinez's reputation. And I apologize. It's Ms. Martinez's reputation. This is what a federal judge pointed out on Friday. That's partly why U.S. district Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed. This is a big deal. We'll be allowed to share the text messages with the public. So we're all going to know what those ICE officers were talking to each other about on their cell phones. As long as the names are redacted. Except for Border Patrol Agent Charles Exhumes. Okay, he's the guy that actually shot Martinez five times on Oct. 4 on Chicago's Southwest side. And this is a quote, miramar Martinez is a United States citizen. Again, this is from the judge. She's a resident of this district, and under our legal system, it bears repeating, she is presumed innocent of any offense of which she has not been convicted. The judge then added, agent Exum's text messages provide insight into his perspective of the shooting. They bear on his credibility. They provide insight into how others within Homeland Security leadership and within other government entities responded to the shooting. This is a big deal. I really want to see what's in these. The messages in question were between Exhume and his family and colleagues. They came into Martinez's possession during the exchange of evidence in her failed prosecution and could be released as early as Monday. This is from her attorneys. In one text message that's already been released, Exhume seemed to brag about his marksmanship. He said, I fired five rounds and she had seven holes. That's what he allegedly wrote. Put that in your book, boys. These guys are such pieces of shit. This is why reform's not gonna work. The bad apples to their core. To their core. Martinez was born in Chicago and works as a teacher's assistant at a Montessori school. She's taking an incredibly prominent role in resisting the Trump administration's deportation campaign, particularly since last month's shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Preddy by immigration officers in Minneapolis. Martinez told the Chicago Sun Times and WBEZ this week that she's been afforded an opportunity that good and pretty never had. She then traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak in a public forum to the Democratic members of Congress. Her attorney, Christopher Parenti, says she plans to attend President Donald Trump's State of the Union address later this month. Oh, my God. I am just finding out with a story that there's a State of the Union address later this month. And, wow, if we are going to see dementia dawn in action, that's going to be the place. You know, I don't normally watch these, but you know, Allison and I are going to, so you don't have to. And then we're going to talk about it on the beans. But that's still a month from now and Lord knows a lot of things going to happen between now and then. All right, everyone, this next story is from Ms. Now. The Department of Homeland Security unsuccessfully sought to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of Leon Canejo Ramos, That's a sweet five year old, formally detained with his father by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minneapolis. This is a local school official. That's what they said on Friday. The government filed a motion Wednesday seeking to end asylum claims for Liam's family. This is according to Minnesota Public Radio, which first reported the news Thursday night. Mississippi NOW has not viewed the filing. At an asylum hearing Friday, the family was granted a continuance, according to Zena Stenvic, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Liam goes to school. Stenvik cited a legal representative of the family as the source of the information that she is sharing. The legal representative said the family expressed thanks for the outpouring of support, asked for prayers and requested privacy. Danielle Moliver, the family's attorney, told NPR on Thursday that the filing was retaliatory. Muliver did not respond to MsNow's request for comment Friday, and it's unclear when the family is next due in court. The news comes less than a week after a federal judge ordered Liam and his father released from detention in Texas. In a brief order issued Saturday, U.S. district Judge Fred Beeryl quoted both the Declaration of Independence and the Bible in his combination of the detention we read that here on the beans. Liam and Aras were Both taken by ICE officers January 20th outside their home in Minneapolis. We've all seen the photo of that sweet boy wearing a Spider man backpack and that blue bunny hat at the scene, and it went viral, drawing national attention to the case. A school official claimed that ICE agents detained Liam as he returned home from school with his father and then used the boy as bait to try to lure other adults out from the home to as someone inside asked to take custody of the boy and was rejected. Stenvik previously told Ms. Now, four other children from that school district she presides over were in the same Texas detention facility where Liam and his father were held. The school district shut down Monday after receiving a bomb threat. In her latest statement, she said the Friday ruling provides both additional time and continued uncertainty for a child in his family. As educators, we know uncertainty is difficult for students and deeply disruptive to learning and well being. This is again from Stenvic and went on to say, our concern remains centered on Liam and all children who deserve stability, safety and the opportunity to be in school without fear. And it's just wild to me if you've been following the story. Liam's father came into the United States through a legal port of entry. He came in the right way. They don't care if people come in the right way. They don't want them here at all. That's what we're seeing. And this administration and this fucking Department of Homeland Security can't just let things go, admit when they're wrong, admit when they made a mistake and just let it go. They're still trying to make the lives of this family, huh? Hell, it's disgusting. The cruelty is the point. We've seen it over and over. We'll keep you posted on that story. We know there's going to be more things happening. This one's from NBC. Members of Congress will be able to begin reviewing unredacted versions of the Justice Department's files on Jeffrey Epstein on Monday morning. This is according to two sources familiar with the DOJ's plans. The review process will take place in person at the Department of Justice. According to a letter to members of Congress obtained by NBC News, the members will be able to review the material on computers at the DOJ offices, but not the physical documents themselves. What the fuck? Don't trust that they have had the documents in their possession for so long. I do not trust that what they've uploaded into these computers are actually the full unredacted files. The letter states that members can review the documents in person provided they give the Department of Justice 24 hours notice. Okay, the option at this point is only available to members of Congress, not their staff. They may take notes, but can't bring any electronic devices. The review will only be for the 3 million files currently available to the public, not the extensive trove of more than 6 million documents in total that the DOJ still has in its possession. And why not? If you're going to allow them to see unredacted files, why the not the other 6 million? That doesn't make any sense. Or have you not scrubbed them enough so that they're acceptable to Congress? I just, it's so gross what is happening with this child sex trafficking ring and the COVID up by our government. I mean, out of all of the things that they are Covering up this has to be one of the most grotesque. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche promised members of Congress to access to the material when he announced the release of all the documents officials planned to make public last Friday. Reps. Thomas Massie and the Republican from Kentucky and Hannah, the Democrat from California, the co authors of the law that resulted in the Department of Justice releasing the massive trove of documents, only partially wrote Blanche a letter later that day asking for access to the unredacted files. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also sent Blanche a letter last week asking for the opportunity to review the material as soon as possible. Well, Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to appear before the committee next week, next Wednesday, and members want the opportunity to review the material before she appears. I'm going to get back to this. Leadership and members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will be given priority in their review, but all members of Congress will have access at the same point. Now they're going to have Pam Bondi in front of them. The last time they saw her was when she tried to stonewall all of this. Okay. And probably ended up lying to Congress. I don't know if she was under oath or not. Without Allison here, I'm not going to pontificate on that. However, this time I don't know if she will be as well, but I'm assuming if she's front of Congress, they're going to make sure that she is. But they now have some comparisons with testimony, and it's going to be really, really clear that she's been lying to them this entire time. And I hope they hold her feet to the fire. I really hope they do. All right, this one's from the Times, everybody. A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from suspending billions of dollars of funding for a rail tunnel under the Hudson river pending future arguments in the case. Construction of the new $16 billion rail tunnel that's the biggest transportation infrastructure project in the United States has come to a halt earlier in in the day, four months after the Trump administration suspended its federal funding, now Judge Jeanette Vargas of the Southern District of New York ordered the federal government to unblock the billions in federal grants to the program as the case proceeds through the courts. If the Trump administration complies, the project could soon restart construction. And this is a quote. Plaintiffs have adequately demonstrated that they would imminently suffer irreparable harm, Judge Vargas wrote in her 11 page ruling, if the project was forced to shut down its operations. Elected officials in New York and New Jersey held out hope that the Trump administration would relent before the end of the week. But it was not clear what would mollify the president. I think it is, and I'm going to get to it if this story doesn't. His administration has sought to pressure. Yep. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York and the minority leader, to help name New York's Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after Donald in exchange for the release of the frozen gateway. Funding you with all of this, like the extortion from this government is staggering. Top administration officials have told Chuck, I saw him last night. I call him Chuck. He probably doesn't like that. But told Mr. Schumer and recent I'll give him the respect he had earned at one point. Mr. Schumer in recent weeks said the money would be released if he agreed to help name the facilities in Mr. Trump's honor. And that's according to four people familiar with the private conversations. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity. Of course they did, because they weren't authorized to reveal the private discussions. The White House gave a different reason for the prolonged suspension in a statement last month pinning responsibility on Senator Schumer and the other Democrats for refusing to negotiate and alluding to their stances on immigration policies. I think they got the refusing to negotiate part, but I don't think this has anything to do with immigration. That boy wants his name on Penn fucking Station. Unbelievable. All right, everyone. Going back to my home state. This One is from K Fox 14 in Santa Fe. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed four bipartisan bills into law focusing on improving health care access, investing in statewide infrastructure, and addressing immigration detention facilities. And I quote, halfway through the session, we're showing what's possible when we focus on getting things done for New Mexicans. Again, this is from Lujan Grisham. These bills represent major progress on issues that matter to working families, including safer roads, more doctors and social workers to serve our communities. Among the new laws is House Bill 9. It's known as the Immigration Safety act, which would not directly close down immigrant detention centers, but it would forbid counties and local law enforcement from contracting with U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is a big deal. This legislation mandates that public bodies terminate any existing immigration detention agreements as soon as possible and prohibit the use of public property for federal civil immigration detention. According to the legislation, enforcement of the law will be responsibility of the state attorney or local districts, as public agencies are requiring to align their policies and contracts with the new law as quickly as legally possible. The signing of the bill comes after the legislation was passed by the New Mexico Senate by 24 to 15 vote on Tuesday. New Mexico joins other states that have also introduced or passed similar legislation, including California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington. And I wouldn't be surprised if eventually some red states jump in on here. They don't want the detention centers in their backyard and we were sort of shocked. It's not because they don't want those people in their neighborhoods. They don't like the inhumanity of it all. They know these detention centers are incredibly inhumane. I would not be surprised if some of these red parts of our country starts telling them, go yourself. You're not building here. All right, I know that was a very cursy ah, way to end this segment. Next up is an in depth interview between Allison and the lawyer representing the Gabbard whistleblower. So stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
We'll be right back.
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Hey everybody, it's Alison Gill. Welcome to the Breakdown and thanks to Midas Touch for hosting, this show. Let me tell you A Tale of Two Whistleblowers. Back in 2019, a Trump lawyer named Eisenberg over classified a politically embarrassing document, stashed it in a code word classified system so that no one could see it because it was politically embarrassing. Embarrassing enough that if that document got out, it could take down Donald Trump's presidency. But a brave CIA analyst knew about that document, filed a report under the whistleblower protection laws in August of 2019. The Inspector General at the time, Michael Atkinson, deemed it an urgent and credible matter. But Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Trump's dni, Joseph Maguire, delayed the transmission of that report to Congress for three whole weeks, almost a month, citing executive privilege concerns. Now, that document they tried to hide was the transcript of Trump's call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Its transmission to Congress led to Trump's first impeachment. Now let's fast forward to Trump's second term in office. Four days after his inauguration, Trump fired pretty much all of the inspectors general, all but two. Right? And a few months later, in May, a whistleblower from the intelligence community filed a report with the intelligence community Inspector general, the icig. Now, the interim ICIG deemed the matter urgent, but couldn't determine the credibility. But then DNI Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard obstructed transmitting this report and the underlying classified document the report is based on to Congress not for three weeks, but for eight months. And we only learned about the existence of this whistleblower report last week, one day after the Wall Street Journal reported on it. And joining me to discuss the matter is the lawyer who represented both of these whistleblowers and is currently representing this one. Please welcome Andrew Buckai from Whistleblower Aid. Hi, Andrew. How are you?
Pretty good. How Are you. Pleasure to meet you.
It's a pleasure to meet you, too. I'm very, excited to talk to you today. I have so many questions. First of all, did I get anything incorrect in the opening screed I just went through?
No, I think you pretty much summed it up very. Well, great, thank you.
There's more questions, obviously.
Oh, yeah.
Because according to a letter you wrote to the Inspector General named Christopher Fox, this whistleblower retained you in November, of last year. It's about six months, a little bit.
Earlier than that, but around that time period.
Yeah, around that time period. but it's maybe five or six months after they filed their initial report. What caused them to reach out to whistleblower aid, and how did that introduction happen?
So, without getting to too many specifics about my communications with my client, basically the fact that this disclosure wasn't being transmitted to Congress, and the fact that my client, after requesting to be able to go to Congress back in July of last year, the fact that there wasn't any movement on that, looked to find an attorney who knows how to handle these matters. And naturally it just made sense that they would reach out to me. And so my first interface was to try and introduce myself back to the IG's office. I do work with that office and other IG's offices on a number of matters. Quite often it's what I do, and try and get this moving. I mean, it's as simple as that. The goal is very simple. And that is, let's follow the law, let's get the client the ability to go to Congress, and let's make sure that the disclosure gets there and to the right people.
Yeah, agreed. Now, the first Zelenskyy whistleblower we learned later was, a CIA whistleblower. and it's important for people to understand the structure of the Inspector General over the intelligence community. It's the Inspector General for the whole intelligence community. The individual Alphabet agencies do not have their own,
They do, actually.
Oh, they do, they do.
Yeah. I actually used to work for CIA ig. But I guess the nice thing, the one thing, is that, because if you're a member of the intelligence community, you have that, in that case, you know, the ability to go to the ICIG instead of your home, agency. But, you know, in this particular case, it also made a lot of sense that this person went to the ICIG because it pertained to ICIG activity. so, yes, you can go to your home, ig, nsa ig, CIA, ig. And they're presidentially appointed, Senate Confirmed, as is the Intelligence Community Inspector General.
And when you say it pertained to icig, stuff, you're talking about the dni.
Gamma.
Tulsi Gamma.
Yes. Dni. Correct. It pertains to DNI activities in this particular case.
Okay.
I think what I had was confusing in my mind is that there's only one place to go to foia. All of the intelligence issues.
yeah, no, it gets. Well, and the thing is, this is actually confusing for a lot of people, even those who are within the intelligence community, because, you know, if you're working for, a non national security related agency, or the intelligence community agency, you, you have a lot more flexibility to go to Congress. For example, the reason why intelligence officers and contractors have to go through this particular process to try and get to Congress is because it makes sense. By the way, this makes logical sense. The information that they have, even though somebody on Capitol Hill, a member of the staff of the House or Senate Intelligence Committee, has a security clearance, obviously they may not have the proper clearance to get that information. So this process is in part designed to make sure that that information gets to the right people the right way. And in this particular case, that's particularly true. the information here, the underlying intelligence, at issue, is so sensitive, only the Gang of Eight can see it, which means that they're about, you know, there are certain pieces of intelligence, or, you know, compartments, if you will. And there are about seven or eight of them. And if they fall in one of those categories, the only people who can hear it are the, the chair and ranking member of the Intelligence committees. You got four right there. The speaker of the House, the ranking member, the Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader. Right. So it's a limited number of people who can see it, which arguably makes this a little bit easier. You don't have to figure out, you know, the people can see this.
Right. And because, you know, when I was thinking when the first reporting came out, but it was too classified to send to Congress, my first thought was, what is too classified for the Gang of Eight?
Why?
You know, there is. Is there anything but.
Yeah.
now, did this, does this whistleblower, come from ODNI or a different agency within the intelligence community? Or can you tell us?
I won't say what agency they're with, but they're. They're within the intelligence community. They're a member of the intelligence community.
Okay, now, about the structure of this. Am I right in that There's a report like a complaint, and then an underlying highly classified document at the core of at least one of the counts in the complaint. Is that how this is structured?
Yeah. so basically everybody's focused, as they should be right now about, Gabbard not providing my client, the ability to go directly to Capitol Hill, to the right folks, and not timely sending over the underlying disclosure, which, by the way, we can get into a little bit, is apparently heavily redacted for reasons that are not related to classified information. but what's the underlying disclosure about? And I'm going to get into it a little bit. So in the spring of last year, there was intelligence that was gathered by an agency that captured, activity that's being conducted by somebody close to the President without getting anything more specifics. And that intelligence was of this particular agency. Gave Tulsa Gabbard a heads up.
Right?
Not necessarily unusual. If it's something that the head of an agency should be aware of, that's fine. But what happened next is where the problem starts, at least for Gabbard, is that upon receiving a hard copy of that intelligence, that information, she then went to, the President's Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, and discussed it. We don't know what those conversations were. We don't know what happened there. But the following day when she returned to the DNI's office, she directed that intelligence not be distributed any further within the intelligence community. So typically what would happen is, is, is that this intelligence, this, communication that was collected, right, between somebody close to the President and other actors, would be distributed to the offices and analysts and individuals who have the need to know, who need to act on this intelligence. And she came back and said, no, don't distribute it any further, and more to the point, make me the only one on the distribution list. But because she went to, the President's Chief of Staff, this, particular agency also sent it to Susie Wiles form, as I understand so, and then it did not get distributed within the Intelligence Committee. So the heart of this has never been really addressed. And I'm not confident that members of the Senate or the House, the Gang of Eight, who have a need to know have seen this. and that's where the concern is. The complaint is about the blocking of the distribution of the intelligence, but the intelligence is really important to be viewed by those who have a need to know.
Understood. That sounds awfully familiar to me. That sounds a lot like what happened with the Zelensky call transcript, that they Refused to put Thinman's edits in, stashed it in something called an NICE system. Tried to limit the eyes on it, now did she? And during that impeachment, there was a lot of discussion about, over classifying something that might be politically embarrassing, to an administration. Is it against the law to over classify something to prevent other people from seeing it? And did that happen here?
So the short answer to that is yes. I mean, the goal is to not over classify any documents, particularly. You can't hide behind classification because something's embarrassing. and the level of classification is dependent upon, you know, how the intelligence is collected, what the intelligence has. It's, you know, you always hear intelligence, officers and former officers talking about sources, methods, because you don't want to show the world who your source is. You can burn a source, somebody can die, or a method, whether it's technical or otherwise, that allows you to capture that information. So, at the same time, you can have intelligence that is part of an operation and it's classified accordingly. In this case, though, this is where I want to kind of drill down to a finer point, which is the intelligence is not, in my understanding, over classified, although it appears to have been the excuse provided for having difficulty to get it to Capitol Hill, to the Gang of Eight. But then all of a sudden, and I've only learned this very recently, is that there's, an assertion of, executive privilege. And as I understand it, whatever has been transmitted to Congress, and I don't know what has been transmitted to Congress, and by the way, I haven't even seen the underlying disclosure.
you have clearance to see it?
Yeah, well, I have a security clearance, but it doesn't. Again, it doesn't mean that I have the ability to see something like that. Even when I was in the Intelligence Committee, I was only read on, read in onto certain programs as I needed to know and then read out. So, you know, but here's the thing. They're not redacting for Congress because of the classification now. They're redacting from Congress because they're asserting executive privilege. What I found really interesting was that on Tuesday, this week has been kind of blending together, by the way, I don't know if it's been for you. I don't even know. And I'm in London right now. So far, actually, it's. I'm in London right now. It's been just a kind of a whirlwind for me. But the, but in the, in the, Wall Street Journal article that came out on Monday, I believe the icig, put out a comment that, you know, this pertains to executive privilege and that by its nature, you know, we're, asserts presidential communications or activity. So it's kind of funny that they also, you know, the Intelligence Committee is also obviously defined the obvious in terms of why would you assert executive privilege? But that should be, you know, as a former, you know, investigator and whatnot, I would call that a clue and something that, you know, one should, you know, perhaps dig a little deeper into. But you actually, you really, nicely captured something which is classified information is typically what, folks are concerned is misused to hide embarrassing things. In this particular case, they couldn't do it because it could go to the Gang of Eight. So now it becomes executive privilege.
Ah.
yeah. And I seem to remember Joseph McGuire, the DNI, and the first Trump administration, refusing to answer congressional questions about his discussions with the President pursuant to executive privilege when it came to this particular. That particular Zelensky document as well.
Right.
yeah, but the underlying intelligence.
I wouldn't know if there will be an executive privilege issue to that. So, you know, that's some. That is a fight for Congress, to go to battle with the executive branch. but my role here is to help my client have the ability to meet with those members.
Right.
As they should. And you sent a letter, I, believe to the ODNI saying, if we don't hear back from you on how to address Congress or guidance on how to address Congress by Friday, this past Friday, then on Monday, we're going to go. And I wanted to ask you, when you are asked, asking for guidance from Tulsa Gabbard's office on how to present this, is this sort of like a, SEPA situation where they have classified information in court and they want to learn how, figure out how to. And litigate how to use it in court by using substitutions or summaries. Is that kind of the guidance that you're looking for from Gabbard?
That's a good analogy. It's actually a little bit different. It is that, you know, those, the staff members on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, they have security clearances, but it doesn't mean that they're reading onto a specific program or operation that has to get into, the Hill. And in this particular case, because it's only restrictive to the Gang of Eight, that then means that even the members of the staff can't see the underlying intelligence at issue. So the reason why I Go to the ic and you're asking for guidance. You're not asking for permission. What you're asking for is let's coordinate, help facilitate between the DNI and the ICIG and Congress who the points of contact need to be. And like I mentioned before, the irony behind it being limited to the Gang of Eight is actually, by definition, you already identify the very eight people you got to go to. So it actually should be easier in some respects. Doesn't mean it's not highly sensitive. Obviously it is. but the process has, I think, been weaponized, unfortunately, in favor of hiding what happened.
It sounds like it. And it's not like they have a pattern doing that in the past, you know, so it's. It's. I, think something that needs, to be investigated. As you. As you've said multiple times now, the second part of this complaint is, is that an intelligence agency failed to refer a criminal matter, a potential criminal matter, to the Department of Justice. can you tell us which agency failed to refer that criminal matter or what the criminal matter is? I think that that's the one that, the initial icig, interim or acting icig, Tamra Tamara Johnson, ah, said she was not able to determine credibility. And she said it was. I think I read that it was because she was obstructed, somebody wouldn't answer her questions or something like that. So it sort of remained, unable to determine its credibility. But can you tell us a little bit about that count?
Yeah. So I'm not familiar as much with that particular allegation. you know, obviously there are a lot of processes in place to make sure that intelligence is properly handled, that people, particularly who are American citizens, aren't being targeted as part of an intelligence operation. This particular case, they were not. It was. Everything was done lawfully, and somebody just seemed to have popped up, you know, this communication, this transmission. And, so that's. That's one thing I do want to get to, this credibility issue. And it's been kind of, unknown.
That doesn't stop you having to transmit the report to Congress.
So it's interesting. So, first of all, absolutely correct. So that is not an issue. So the way this process works is that if the complaint or the disclosure is deemed to be urgent and credible by the icig, they can immediately go to the Hill. If they cannot make or do not make or make the determination that's not urgent and. Or credible, then they go back to the whistleblower and say, this is our finding. And if you Want to go to the Hill, tell us, and we'll facilitate that with the processes, et cetera. Right. But what this case is interesting because I'm going to go into what I didn't know when I learned it as counsel. Same thing for my client. So on June 6, on whistleblower8.org for those of your followers and those who are watching and listening, want to see the documents. If you go to whistleblowera.org, you'll see a letter that I sent to the Hill earlier this, To Tulsa Gabbard earlier this week that you referenced about me. If we don't get guidance by Friday, that I will be going on Monday and beginning the process of doing outreach to members of Congress. then in that letter, you'll see, exhibits. One of the exhibits is correspondence that my client received from the Intelligence Community IG, and this was on June 6, I believe. And that's where, my client was notified that the acting IG at the time, Tamara Johnson, made that if to be true, this would be an urgent concern, but, she was unable to make credibility determination. I understood that from my context that somebody was unable to. Were unwilling to. I don't want to go into the intent there. Maybe somebody was traveling to participate in that, in the underlying fact finding. I have reason to believe that that would be Dulce, Gabbard. Okay, fair enough.
I have reason to believe she wasn't traveling. but, you know, that's just my personal opinion.
Be that as it may, okay, you could make a determination. It doesn't matter. And we in the client still requested. The whistleblower still requested to go to the Hill and have this information transmitted back in June. I did not know until this week that two days later, the acting IG received a new information, presumably by Tulsa Gabbard. I'm making an assumption there. And reversed her or corrected her decision in an amended memorandum saying that she found that the disclosure was not credible. What I find to be concerning is the timing of that, because one, for your listeners, if you were to go to a, Washington post article from June 6th or 7th, around that timeframe, there were news reports that Tulsa Gabbard, put in place, somebody into the intelligence, community IG's office by the name of Dennis Kirk. The timelines suspiciously line up. Why is the. Just for background. I know this is a great venue to do this because there's a lot of explaining and, going to the background of how things are.
I was really curious about the all of a sudden not credible finding. And, like, who was it? Tamara Johnson. so, yeah, tell us about Dennis Kirk.
Yeah. So, first, as a just general overview, the inspector general, the inspectors general do internal investigations and oversight over the agencies within which they reside. They're part of the agency, but they're independent and neutral. So all presidentially appointed Senate confirmed inspectors general, report. Yes, they report to the president through the director or secretary of the agency, but they have a dual reporting requirement, then to Congress, and they are an independent body. For example, their attorneys within the IG offices don't report the attorneys at the agency or at the department, because how can you conduct oversight over an investigation, an audit, or an inspection of the very agency that you're a part of? So they're separate. They're intentionally separate. Right. So going into the Kirk situation is that apparently Tulsa Gabbard had placed this person into the ICIG's office to monitor the activity within the IG's office. That destroys the independence and neutrality of the IG. And what I find.
Not that, ah, having her previous top, aide, Christopher Fox, be the, ICIG puts it in jeopardy enough. Not that that's, you know, not enough to put it in jeopardy and have a conflict of interest, but she's installed somebody in the ICIG office, which, again, destroyed, just kind of destroys the independence of that particular unit.
And also, this is before Fox came on board. I don't know Fox. I mean, I have no idea one way or another about him. But Tamara Johnson was a career federal soldier servant. Just like in any position in government, when the appointment, the presidential fund becomes vacant, somebody's got to be acting. The work of the organization has to continue. So she was appointed as acting. And while she's acting, you have this person in there monitoring what's going on on behalf of the Director of National Intelligence, perhaps disclosures about her very conduct. And then this is the interesting thing that has been. I think that needs to be understood is that my client received that letter on June 8th. June 6th, if I recall correctly. And two days later, according to the ICIG's correspondence to Congress this week, this is when my client and I learned this. You're going to love it. the acting Director of National Intelligence changed her opinion, or m. Changed her opinion in terms of the credibility of the underlying disclosure. I didn't know about this until Monday. My client didn't know about this until Monday. We found out this week. That's news to us.
That is extremely, peculiar. and Also, didn't, Christopher Fox say in a letter to you that Tamara Johnson had administratively closed this matter in June of last year?
That was, I believe, in the letter that he sent to Congress. So I have not received any correspondence. He went, he went over, you know, the. Yeah, that's the thing there. If in the DNI posted on X, they went over the chronology of events for the decision making process and, you know, it just. There are things that. The strangest thing for me is that there was no update to my client. And then when I came on board and was interacting with the office, which, you know, from my experience has been, you know, there are a lot of good folks who work there, you know, that's not something that I was aware of. That surprised me and that concerns me. Why is this secret change all of a sudden happening? Which, by the way, doesn't change the fact that he still could go to Congress.
Right. All that still exists.
All that still exists. And we're still waiting months later. The other thing that I want to get into is this notion of credibility. And how do you define credibility? And apparently in the case of the ig, in terms of what I've just seen this week presented by Fox to Congress is that if information is provided by a whistleblower that may be secondhand or that they've read, they cannot provide the document because it's so sensitive and classified that when they speak to the alleged subject of the investigation, the wrongdoer, if you will, and they say, well, I didn't do it. That person's credibility, because they're talking about themselves firsthand, is higher than somebody saying that they heard this as part of a meeting or, you know, whatever the case may be, and that shuts it down. That's not. That's a crazy way of determining credibility, in my mind. My opinion. I don't think I know that no lawyer or investigator would conclude, any activity with talking to only two parties. He said, she said, he said, he said, she said. Whatever the case may be and making conclusions strictly based on that. By the way, this 14 day urgent concern process is not sufficient time to conduct an investigation. It's merely an initial determination if it should go to Congress immediately. Right.
That's kind of like a temporary restraining order. Like we can't, yeah. Look at all the merits and everything right now, but for now, transmit it and, you know, do an investigation on the full merits of the case.
Exactly. Because, you know, things may be hitting the fan. You should be aware of this Congress and We're going to try to get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime, at least it's on your radar. That's kind of the whole point of this. And this never got on Congress's radar. And there has been, to my knowledge, no investigation of the underlying issues. So you have. And this is what I mean, this is the reality of life. And, I'm here to represent folks who are trying to get. When you see something, you say something. When you see something wrong, you go to the IG or whatever the case may be, and members of Congress are. It is the world that we live in. Go into their own corners and they'll say, well, the IG set's not credible, therefore this has no credibility. And that word hits because of what people hear when they say it's not credible, therefore it must be flawed and there's nothing there. That's not the case here. It's an initial determination to say, is there something that needs to be investigated? And the standards that are, I believe, my opinion, are being relied on and making a credibility determination are flawed. again, red herring. Still should go to Congress. And why have we waited eight months to get there? Which, by the way, Congress told us not have. The Gang of Eight doesn't have the underlying information because they're still withholding and redacting it. And I have no idea m. If the underlying intelligence was ever transmitted to Congress.
Wow.
so let's say you don't hear from Gabbard's office on guidance for going to give an unclassified briefing to Congress. and so you, let's say you go Monday, because you haven't heard. What does that look, like? I assume it's the Gang of Eight. even though you don't know the classification, you know, what's the classified matter is, would at that point your client just take it upon themselves to summarize what it is or substitute what it is or give hints to what it. Like, what is an unclassified briefing, given the highly classified nature of the underlying document, look like when you don't get guidance from the dni.
Right. So basically, there is some additional information, obviously, that I know that is unclassified, but I hesitate to share it because I just want to be mindful of, you know, the equities at play for everybody. Right. And so there are some. There are things that I can then elaborate upon for members of Congress and senators. by the way, her. Beyond the Gang of Eight, but ideally within the intelligence, committees, to Give them an understanding what this is about. So that way the Gang of Eight knows what they're doing, this is serious, and that they need to push, and assert their oversight role under Article 1 as Congress for the Executive, and try and at least get to the bottom of this and figure out what's going on. as far as a whistleblower going to Congress, that would certainly be a conversation, that I would have to have and my team@whistleblower.org would have to have with, Congress, because we would want to make sure we would be able to get this person to the Hill in a safe and secure manner to protect their identities, safety, and all of that stuff. So. And then they can elaborate in an unclassified manner. And then, of course, when it's unclassified, it's going to be limited, but something's better than nothing, right? to go into what the general issues are. And then.
Right.
Like if it were a Zelenskyy call, you would say, seems like he was going to withhold aid unless they opened an investigation, like a summary type of a situation.
Yeah. And I did that. Even in that case, I was able to say, this involves a phone call. This involves this, this, and this. You know, dig, this isn't, you know, nonsense. In fact, when I was working on the Zelensky call I was giving, I went to the Intelligence Committee. So I tried to meet with them, met with one of them, and literally, as I was concluding my briefing, an email with a letter attached to it from the ICIG came over in 2019, and one of the lawyers stood up. I went, looked at his document. He called over the other lawyers to take a look at this, and they all turned pale. And then they looked at me and said, we just received an email from the ICIG alerting us that they're being precluded from coming to Congress, with an urgent concern. And the timeline, the chronology, everything matches up. Just came forward with. Literally, as I'm there, I was on.
Stage with Renato Marioti at a live show in Chicago when came up on my phone that Adam Schiff has learned of a whistleblower report of immense proportions. And, yeah, we.
It.
And it all unfolded from there. now, this may be unrelated, but we've oddly. there's some new reporting from Reuters about Tulsi Gabbard, that last spring she went down to Puerto Rico and seized voting machines as part of an investigation into Nicolas Maduro over false claims of foreign election interference. I know that you can't talk about what's in the. Is that related at all or not related at all?
Not related at all. Not related at all. We can rule that out. I mean, the fact that there's all that stuff happening as well, it just compounds a problem. But yes, it's not related to that one.
Okay. Totally different, awful thing happening.
Yeah.
Different problems. Different problems.
That's a very lawyerly way to put it. Now, you told Aaron Burnett that there needs to be an investigation into this. what does that look like? what kind of investigation? Given Democrats don't have a majority in the House like they did when, the Zelensky whistleblower complaint came in. What sort of investigation can, be undertaken here if you don't have subpoena power? And even if you did, you don't have a cooperative DNI or doj. So what does an investigation look like for this particular issue?
To your point, if we're talking about a congressional investigation at this juncture, it will require courage, in people acting apolitically and in the interest of national security, purely to try and find out what's right and what's wrong. National, security, the things that are happening globally that affect every American citizen, that affect everybody in the world, should not have a left or right posture on this. This should be apolitical. Let's make sure we're all safe. So it's going to take some courage on some folks part. I would say there are a couple of investigations that can happen depending on how you scope it. One, why was the underlying intelligence being withheld from disseminating within the intelligence community for action? Why are they being blocked from the things that they need to do, that they need to know to do their jobs? That's kind of a big thing that's just hanging out there. you can, of course, conduct an investigation as to what Tulsi Gabbard did or didn't do with respect to trying to prevent that distribution of intelligence. you can look into what she has done or not done with respect to getting this urgent concern to Congress timely and providing my client timely guidance, which we were still yet waiting for, to go.
You could ask, Tamara Johnson about that Credibility determination.
Right.
Dennis Kirk. Right.
You can find out what happened there. You know, there's, there's a lot of things, again, it depends on what you want to scope, do you can scope out. The thing about the investigative world, and that's a world that I've worked in for a number of years, is that you Know, it depends what is the focus on? Right. And it could be multiple different things. So that. Because I'll tell you this, if you have one global investigation and all these things, they'll take years to complete. But, you know, you focus what the, what the questions are. You know, focus one investigation on the intelligence, focus on the activity of Tulsa Gabbard, focus on. And maybe related. You know, but yeah, those are the things that I would want to know from my client standpoint. I want to know what the heck happened that delayed this.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Why are we.
Any excuses? Oh, executive privilege, government shutdown, staffing changes.
Just.
This is. That's great. By the way, again, deflection. The disclosure was filed. the initial contact of the IG's office happened, in April. Okay. But the disclosure wasn't finalized until May. So just to let you know, when you make an initial phone call to the IG's office, that doesn't trigger the 14 day timeline. It starts when they've got everything from you, from the whistleblower. Because it wouldn't make any sense if you say, hey, my first phone call is, I want to meet with you. Clock starts. But you're traveling for a week and you just lost seven days. That doesn't make any sense. So the clock started in May and in early June. June 6th. This determination was made. the time between June 6th and the government shutdown and the change in staff and the new IG didn't happen for months.
Yeah, I think he got there.
So what happened.
Got there in October, I think. And. Yeah, so what happened Right around then.
Yeah, so what happened between June and October?
you know, barbecue.
There's stuff.
There's just stuff. There's things. People are busy, having fun.
I, mean, it's fine. You can have fun. We also have your life. Right. But you know, there's not. That's not going to slow down. Oh, by the way, and that's the other thing is, it doesn't slow down. It shouldn't take even five months to get it there.
So people freaked out that it took a month to get the Zelensky report to Congress.
We took. So think about that. That was disclosure about communication, by the president with a foreign leader. And I had that. We filed the disclosure. It was actually my dad's birthday, August 12th, of 2019. That's why I remember that date. And, in just over a month, we got it to the Hill. This one's eight months. And now we're asserting executive privilege to hide the classified information from the Gang of Eight. It's a shell game. It's really disturbing. And here's process wise. You know what's interesting is process is boring, but, when things don't go the right way, they start eliciting clues again, as we say in the investigative world. Tulsi Gabbard could have, ah, first, her staff could have simply called the Hill and said, hey, we've got something that's coming your way that's really sensitive. We're trying to figure out how to get it to you, but we're giving you a heads up right now. Give us a week or two, whatever. Right. That's an approach that, as I understand it from former senior, officials in that world has been done. And when Gabbard would have transmitted that to Congress, she's actually allowed by statute to provide comment. So if she wanted to say that the disclosure is erroneous or whatever the case may be, she could have drafted a cover mem.
We think this is stupid, but here it is. By law we have to give it to you.
Yeah, so Vince says she's hiding.
And says she's hiding it. So again, the process failure raises a lot of questions because now we don't know what we don't know.
Yeah, well, it's not like I said, this administration has a history of hiding things that are politically embarrassing for them. Totally transparent, most transparent in history. I'm the most transparent ever. yeah.
Okay.
Free of consciousness is not transparency. Just putting out there.
Oh, yeah.
Very, very well. so a lot of people tend to ask, especially folks who are super engaged, really, politically aware, folks who watch the breakdown, watch Midas Touch, watch my shows, always are like, what can I do? What can I do? The first thing I want to tell people is that you can support Whistleblower Aid. It's a nonprofit. You can make a tax deductible donation. we'll put the link here, up on the screen. It's whistlebloweraid.org beans you can donate to help, these amazing lawyers protect these incredibly brave, whistleblowers. It's a lot of process. There's a lot you have to go through for the legal process to. It's a lot to navigate. It takes really, really brilliant lawyers. so you can help there. And then obviously I'm going to tell you flip Congress so that if the Republicans don't want to investigate this particular issue and others, we will have, a little more power and control the committees to be able to continue investigations. Is there anything else you can think of, Andrew, or any other information about this? Again, I know you can't give us any indication about what's in this. We know what it's not. It's not the Maduro Puerto Rico voting machines.
It's not that. Not that.
Anything else you want to say about what people, regular folks like us, can do, or anything else you want to add about, what you know about this complaint?
I can't add anything else about the complaint, but. And thank you for mentioning what, wisdomloria.org, what we do, it's not, I mean, so what we do is just kind of give everybody an understanding. We provide, free legal services to federal employees. I mean, that they would not necessarily be able to afford otherwise to make sure that they are able to lawfully disclose, things that they see that are wrong, the violations of law, rule or regulation. And particularly for members of the intelligence community, if they mishandle that, if they mishandle classified information, they can be charged under the Espionage Act. So doing this right matters. And then the other thing that we do that's really different from some other organizations is that, we provide wraparound 360 services. So we've actually had in the past where we've had to, ensure that individuals are protected physically, for fear of retaliation, not through adverse actions like being fired. But, you know, being doxxed is a real thing. And so we go to great lengths to make sure that we have thought through the processes to make sure that our clients are safe, comfortable, and well taken care of. It's, it's a lot. This is to become a whistleblower at any time, even, even when things are, you know, in the normal world where we live in is a heavy lift now more so than ever. And the folks who are coming forward because government, so many people have been removed, there are senior officials. There's a lot to lose. It's very, it's, it's challenging, but, but we're here to help.
Yeah.
And I have to say, even though Trump came in, fired all the inspectors general, tried to get rid of any kind of oversight apparatus that he possibly could. you know, by gutting the Public Corruption Unit at the doj, you know.
Just all of this stuff to get.
Getting rid of all the oversight, getting rid of foia, gutting FOIA offices, despite all that, there are still career professionals in these agencies that want to and need to blow the whistle, that have the kind of services that whistleblower aid, provides. And so we should be encouraging, fo. I mean, when I was in the. I worked for government for 12 years, it was encouraged to blow the whistle. You weren't put. You didn't get in trouble. if you pointed out some fraud waste, it was a thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. Or if you did something wrong, you just said, I made this mistake, let's say fix it immediately. And everybody was happy and wonderful and great. So to have these brave individuals, especially now in this environment, they need to have that protection. and I'm glad that you give them that.
you know what's interesting? there's one other thing that I will add is that because, for example, you mentioned the Department of Justice, there are a lot more attorneys coming forward, and that actually is really challenging because of the privilege and all the rules that are unique to counsel. So we're working through a lot of issues to make sure that the folks who want to come forward are doing so in a way that protects them. That's why we're here to help.
All right, well, I appreciate that. and I appreciate you taking the time. I know it was a lot of questions today. I appreciate you taking the time to explain everything in granular detail. I, think it means a lot to the folks watching.
Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
Yeah, no, it's my pleasure. Seriously. and I hope, I look forward to maybe speaking with you again after Monday, to see what goes down, in Congress. so, everyone here on Midas, thank you. Thank you for watching the breakdown. You can follow me@muellershirote.com and, we will see you next week on the Breakdown, everybody. Stick around.
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Everyone? Then good news, everyone. Good news, good news. And the good news. Confession, corrections, idioms of the world of the Senate. Send it all to us. Give us your lyrics, your woobies, your will be stories shared swears. Find the cat. What the. My Allison and I love to do that, even though we're really, really bad at it. So. And just a reminder, you can see the pod pet picks if you become a patron. The good news picks, they're at the bottom of the show notes and each of the patron episodes so you'll be able to get them there. And that is just one perk of describing. no, of subscribing. Of describing. You heard me, everyone. Allison's not here to correct me. There's going to be some bad pronunciations, I think, on this one. So write in for correction. That's what this is for. And you can go on dailybeanspod.com click on contact and send your good news there. All right, we're going to start off with some good trouble. Okay, here we go. This is what we want you to do. We want you to tell your senators to reject the SAVE act, or the Save America act, as it's been renamed. The SAVE act could block millions of American citizens from voting by requiring people to produce Documents like passports or birth certificates to register to vote. The Brennan center shows that 21 million Americans don't have these documents readily available. We should be protecting the freedom to vote, not restricting it. Congress should reject this anti voter bill. So you can use this form or you can call senators. We're going to have a link to the form in the show notes and you know how to call your senators. So we're going to make sure that there's a link there. So you have all the resources. You need the same act. What's really interesting is this. It's going to hurt people like married women that have changed their names. But also J.D. vance isn't his fucking name. That's not J.D. vance's name. He was born with some other name on his birth certificate. So technically, if this thing were to go through, J.D. vance shouldn't get to vote. Ted Cruz shouldn't get to vote because that's not on his birth certificate. It's Raphael. You see where I'm going with this? But it was intentionally to hurt women that have changed their last names because of marriage. This is very misogynistic bill. so let's make sure that this doesn't pass. It will also, it will also tremendously hurt trans people if they have changed their name on their, documentation because a lot of them, it will not match their birth certificates. so they're also trying to hurt that community. So let's just make sure this doesn't go through. And next up, we've got Jim Pronouns. He and him. You want goats? We've got goats. For good news, I want to talk about Central Vermont Council on Aging, which is the CVCOA. Among other things, they support 13 Meals on Wheels Mow program serving 64 towns. They landed a former French Laundry chef to provide training to the Meals on Wheels staff on how to create delicious, medically tailored meals to older adults in central Vermont. The trainings are going to be recorded by a professional television film studio, so they'll be available to all Meals on Will programs nationally. This is awesome. The goats starting at 12 o' clock are.
Ah.
Vincent Van Goat Mayhem. Larry, Walter and Moshe. The dog is Remy. I am crushed that the photos were not attached to this story. So hopefully we will get them because I know when Allison returns tomorrow, she would love to see Vincent Van Goat Mayhem. Larry, Walter and Moshe. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, we had a little bit of a mishap with attachments. The photos are at the bottom. Here we go. Oh, my God. We have A whole brood of these goats. Oh, and the pubs. This is awesome. Allison, we'll still make sure that you have these when you return. Goats. Goats. Goats. Those are for you. All right, next up, we have Jules, pronounced she and her hello, beans queens. Thank you for the daily shot of hope that you provide. You helped me keep my shit together in these anxiety filled times. I wanted to let you know about the Overground Railroad. We're a group of diverse volunteers from all over Michigan who support immigrant detainees at the detention center in Baldwin, Michigan, the largest facility in the Midwest. The volunteers visit detainees to help keep their spirits, write letters of encouragement and support letters for their court hearings.
This is awesome.
We also help by putting money in their commissary account so they can purchase necessities and make phone calls. When individuals are released, a volunteer volunteers here picks them. We often learn that they will be released the day of release and some host them, for an overnight stay. Then we provide transportation to their final destination. We also provide essential items like coats and cell phone chargers because they're released with what they had on their person when arrested. I just picked up one gentleman who was arrested in Georgia who had no warm clothing or coat. Additionally, we help with bus fares and even legal help. Through these efforts, we strive to show compassion to our immigrant neighbors who have been arrested by the Trump's ss. If any of the beans faithful would like to help, the Overground Railroad would be grateful. Donations go through a local church and are tax deductible for my POD pet tariff. I have a picture of my rescue who was dropped at a shelter after being pelted with BBs. Oh, my God. I hate people so much sometimes. And one went into his eye, rendering him blind, in case you want to guess the breed. I'll include that information down below. Henry's wisdom panel DNA. Let's see. Let me look at Henry. Henry looks like a lab pity. Let's say Chihuahua for fun. And. Yeah, a lab pity Chihuahua. Let's see what we have under the redaction. We got Henry's wisdom panel. DNA is a plot hound, a treeing walker, a coonhound, a Chihuahua. I got Chihuahua, a beagle, an American Eskimo, and a corgi. I call like, no, I believe you. Like, I believe the submission. Jules, I just. Didn't you think there was some lab in that baby? There had. Okay, maybe it's just me. Jules, thank you so, so much for this submission. I love that the Overground Railroad exists and you're doing so much good work. So everyone, if you can help out, this is something you want to donate to, please do that. I know that everyone's trying to find some place to help support and this is a good one. All right, up next, we've got Nikolai, pronouncing him hello, AG and dg. Thank you for all you do to keep people from Earth One informed so we don't have to watch the news and accidentally vomit when we see or hear the orange twat, aka Mr. Creosote. Yeah, creosote. Okay, creosote. Over 10 years ago, I went to see Amy Mann in San Francisco and coincidentally, it was Halloween night. So just before she sang Voices Carrie, she congratulated everyone for the holiday. And that kind of made me think that during the song she changed the lyrics for that occasion because all of us, all I was hearing and the chorus was hush, hush, keep it down. Oh, keep it now this is scary. Instead of hush hush, voice is carry. That's really funny. So every time she sang, every time she's saying that, I was laughing so hard and I look left and right for support, but people around me were avoiding eye contact for some reason. And all I was thinking was, what's with this crowd? Can't they get the joke? Years passed. I have a 16 year old daughter now who listens to everything I play. And so we heard that song again recently and I realized that I was still hearing this is scary. And it hit me. This probably never happened. It was just my imagination. I still feel stupid. Don't feel stupid. I, as an immigrant from Bulgaria myself who came here 25 years ago, recognized what a totalitarian twat Trump is ever since he appeared on the scene because he had so many in the past and still today, unfortunately. Hence I'm attaching a photo of me voting in 2016. You can't miss the bird. Much love to all and always look on the bright side of life. I should have sang that, but we're just going to say it for now. P.S. i'm going to see Monty Python Spamalot next month in San Francisco. A dream come true. I love this. I love a good bird watching photo, Nikolai, with your voting ballot. And I know you didn't vote for Donald. A nice little round circle all filled in for Hillary Clinton. Oh my God. So, so sweet. I love these submissions. I love that we now know about the overground railroad. Just a reminder, call your senators, tell them to reject the SAVE Act. That's your good trouble. And of course we've got this Central Vermont Council on Aging, supporting 13 Meals on Wheels. All this good trouble, all this good news. Today was wonderful. Wonderful. I obviously miss my co host. She's going to be back with us tomorrow. But until then, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of your planet, take care of your mental health. And I think sooner than later we're going to start saying vote blue over Q. So why the not start now, even though Allison's going to come back tomorrow and be like, we're not there yet. But anyway, that was it. how do I end by myself? I can't even remember without Allison here. Okay, I'm going to do her part. I've been AG and I've been dg and them's the Beans.
The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information Please visit msw media.com com msw media.