Month: July 2020

Briefings

Background Briefing: July 6, 2020

On By gram

 

To Avoid Prison Will Epstein’s Procurer Implicate Powerful Men?

We begin with Thursday’s arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell who will be appearing before a judge in New York on Friday facing six counts including enticing and transporting a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity. In spite of AG Barr’s attempt to control the case by removing Geoffrey Berman the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, it is likely that since the Public Corruption Division of the SDNY is handling the case, that Maxwell could agree to tell all to avoid spending the rest of her life behind bars in exchange for naming names such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew.  Elie Honig, who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York who is now a legal analyst at CNN where he has an article “Indictment puts Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in a tough spot”, joins us. We look into whether the content of Epstein’s safe allegedly full of compromising tapes and videos of prominent men having sex with underage girls Maxwell helped procure for Epstein, which became inadmissible with Epstein’s mysterious death, will emerge as evidence against Maxwell. And since Berman is testifying behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, it is likely we will learn more about why Barr tried to fire him and what the Attorney General is trying to cover up this time since his tenure has been dedicated to protecting Trump from the law Barr is supposed to uphold.

 

Trump’s Full-on Fascist 4th of July Speeches

Then with Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday a full-on fascist incitement against not just those seeking social justice in the country, but against the notion of social justice itself, we speak with Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy at Yale University whose latest book is How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. He joins us to discuss Trump’s deliberate demonization of non-white Americans as a device to sow discord and division ahead of an election Trump appears to be losing but for the desperate prospect he is signaling to his base to take up arms against their fellow Americans.

 

The Cumulative Effect of the Books by the “Axis of Adults”

Then finally we speak with Laura Miller, a book and culture columnist for Slate where her latest article is “I Read (Almost) Every Memoir by a Former Trump Official. Only together do they reveal the full picture“. She joins us to discuss the latest book by his niece that Trump is trying to stop and whether the cumulative effect of books by “the axis of adults” warning the public about this dangerously ill informed and hate-filled leader will be sufficient to remove him from office.