Gratitude

Jill (00:13)
Welcome back to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Kimberly Atkins-Stor, Barb McQuade, Joyce Fance, and me, Jill Winebanks. I hope Santa left you some Hashtag Sisters-in-Law goodies under the tree. If not, hoodies and t-shirts are available at politicon.com slash merch. You can find the link in our show notes and do get the hoodie that Kim designed herself. In today’s show, we are going to be discussing more developments in the Epstein files, the courts ruling that the National Guard cannot be deployed in my state, and some really interesting developments about voting rights. But before we get to the more heavy duty stuff, I wanted to look forward to having you tell me what did you really enjoy this year, just truly feel energized by, that you want to focus on having more of in next year. Kim, I’m going to start with you.

Kim (01:13)
So one thing that I have really been doing on a regular basis in 2025 that ⁓ I’m really glad I’ve done is practicing gratitude daily. It’s actually the first thing that I do in the morning before I pick up my phone or jump up and start my day is I take a little bit of time and I express gratitude for either a particular thing in my life or for my health. It’s often for my family, know, both the Atkins family and the Storr family. It’s often for when I’m feeling good and the fact that my body is strong and can heal itself even after illness. ⁓ It’s for my sisters. It’s for a lot of things. And I found that by starting my day grounded in that space, it really helps give me a better perspective, especially when…I and we all have jobs where we deal with a lot of really tough and depressing and really gut-wrenching issues. Being grounded in that gratitude really helps get me through. So that’s definitely a practice I’m keeping up.

Jill (02:18)
That’s a beautiful practice. love that. Barb, what about you?

Barb (02:22)
You know, this year I had some reminders about the importance of spending time with family. My kids are now kind of scattered around the country, and so I really treasure the times I can spend with them. My mother is getting older, and I treasure the time I have with her. And so, one, focusing on building in time in busy lives is not just going to happen.

And really relishing it. know, things don’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be anything special. Just hanging out together and enjoying each other’s company, I think is really important. And so I am just going to continue to strive to build time for more of that in 2026.

Jill (03:04)
Everyone should do that. And Joyce, what about you?

Joyce (03:08)
You know, Barb and Kim’s answers are lovely and speak to what good people they are. I think a gratitude practice and appreciation of family is so important. ⁓ I’m going to be the self-centered sister. And I’m going to say that what I took away from this past year was a sense of, I’m going to confess, utter relief, but also a lot of happiness that my first book was well received because, know, when you write a book about democracy and the rule of law, you’re not really sure that anybody other than your husband and your best friend is going to read it. And so I was super grateful that I had the good fortune to be on the road with my book right when that fabulous off-year election happened, where Democrats and pro-democracy forces made incredible gains. And people were in the mood where instead of just hoping that it was OK to be optimistic,

They said, look, our hard work can pay off, and so we should ⁓ read this book, and maybe there’s something that we can do going forward. I’m going to cherish that experience from my first event here in Birmingham, where Doug Jones grilled me for an hour in front of the hometown crowd about the book, to other cities, where I was lucky to be with some of Barb’s and my former US attorney colleagues, to the National Press Club in Washington, which had a sold-out audience, which was just nuts.

I’m super grateful to everybody who read my book and to my amazing sisters who supported me while I was writing it.

Jill (04:38)
So I would say I’m more in the category of Kim and Barb because what I realized this year was how valuable being in the moment is and appreciating the moment. As you all know, I, Brisbane was very ill and he has thrived and I am so grateful for every extra day I’ve had with him, but also with my friends, to be with friends and to share ⁓ even horrible political discussions has been a joy and I really want to maximize the time that I have for those things this year with my husband, with Brisbane, with my friends. And I think that will make me much happier this year.

Joyce (05:24)
You know, I was meaning to tell y’all and I forgot to text my law school roommate who’s let’s just say a little bit on the conservative side of the spectrum, texted me an outraged picture showing me her Christmas present from her sister-in-law, which was actually a hashtag sisters-in-law mug. Y’all love it. And she characterized it as my commie sister-in-law sent me this. I’m so grateful for the fact that we were able to bring a little bit of joy and levity to the political conversation and permit that to be furthered. So there’s that too, Jill.

Jill (06:00)
I love it, love it.

Joyce (06:10)
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Kim (07:33)
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Barb (08:08)
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Well, this week, the Supreme Court dealt the Trump administration a strong rebuke in its effort to militarize American cities. Jill, this was on your home turf in Chicago. What did the Supreme Court decide?

Jill (09:28)
it’s such good news. ⁓ They basically said, at least for now, that you cannot have the National Guard deployed in Illinois. And that’s the Illinois National Guard, as well as there were some guards brought in from, I think it was Texas. And let me just say, they’ve done nothing. They’ve wasted their time here. We’ve been paying them money, and they have been stuck at a base because they can’t be deployed.

So hopefully they will get home for the holidays now. And I hope that they will. Of course, we expect more in the courts. Basically, the court just said there’s no reason to have deployed them. So this is not the end of the case. This is a temporary ruling that says that the district court judge, who by the way, quoted Carl Sandberg’s poem Chicago in deciding this, something that I just thought was wonderful.

She said no, and the court refused to stay her decision. So for now, they cannot be deployed, but there is more to come.

Barb (10:35)
Yeah. So Kim, you know, in finding that Illinois had shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits to grant, to allow this temporary restraining order to stay in place, the court seemed to accept an interpretation of the relevant statute. This is the one we’ve mentioned before that doesn’t have a catchy name. It really needs one. Yeah. Title 10, United States Code, section 12406. And this was an interpretation of that statute that was ⁓

described in an amicus brief by a law professor and former DOJ official Marty Lederman. And he had a different take on what this statute means. Can you tell us about that reading of the statute and why it matters in this case?

Kim (11:19)
Yes, yes. So specifically, Barb, the statute is 10 USC, section 12406, ⁓ subpart three is the relevant language here. And what that reads is whenever the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States, the president may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard. That’s the relevant part of it here. Now, in this argument,

The government, the Trump administration argued that that term regular forces, that’s really what was at issue, what that meant. And it said, well, regular forces doesn’t just mean the military, also means civilian federal law enforcement officers like ICE officials and others that were sent into these cities ⁓ in order to effectuate ⁓ these ⁓ quick deportations and detentions.

detentions, ⁓ ICE and the Federal Protective Service. Illinois argued, no, no, regular forces in this only means the military. So when the government sends the military in, if they can’t effectuate the laws, execute the laws of the United States, then they can send the National Guard, not just these ICE and Federal Protective Service agencies. Well, here comes Marty Liederman who says, wait a minute.

Before we even get to that issue, we need to decide whether the president had the authority to send ICE and the Federal Protective Services in the first place. If he doesn’t have that legal or constitutional authority, then none of this matters. He most definitely then can’t send in the National Guard on top of that if he’s unable to execute the laws.

with these people that he sent in that he may not even have the legal authority to do that. And the Supreme Court was like, yeah, that kind of makes sense at this point. At this point, ⁓ you know, six members, ⁓ including three members of the conservative bloc, ⁓ that would be Chief Justice John Roberts, ⁓ Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, who gave a concurrence, he would have ruled slightly narrower than that. It’s not important for this discussion, said,

The ad makes a lot of sense. So for now, in this preliminary stage, the government hasn’t shown enough to be able to lift this stay, so we’re going to go ahead and let it stay.

Barb (13:49)
Yeah, I thought it was really interesting because I had not ⁓ seen the parties making that argument before.

Marty Liederman, is pretty well known as a former DOJ official. He’s a law professor, so he’s highly respected in this area. he says, yeah, regular forestry, what are you talking about people? That means military. And the court is like, yes. So I thought that was a really interesting decision. So Joyce, what do you think this interpretation by the court means for Trump’s use of National Guard troops in other cities?

Joyce (14:22)
Yeah, you know, ⁓ I just love this so much the way it plays out with Marty filing his amicus brief in the court, going back and asking the parties to brief his issues. ⁓ It’s just sort of a lovely interplay. know, Barb, I guess what it means for now is that other places, other jurisdictions are entitled to similar injunctions or a denial of a lift of stake. This is always this confusing conversation that we have.

where Trump does something, a governor goes in and asks the court to stay it, the district judge enters that stay. so linguistically, this gets really confusing, but it’s still an injunction of sorts with the courts, in essence, telling the federal government, telling Donald Trump, you can’t deploy these forces. That’s what it comes down to. So other jurisdictions, maybe with the possible exception of the District of Columbia, where the president has enlarged authority,

But perhaps even there, given this rubric, are entitled to a similar sort of stay. You know, the Supreme Court speaks across the country, and they’ve adopted this view of the statute, which will be binding everywhere, at least for as long as there are five votes for it.

Barb (15:39)
Yeah, I think this could really have some far-reaching ramifications. Well, Jill, as Kim mentioned, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. You know, I don’t know if you see it the way I do, but I feel like as time goes on, Brett Kavanaugh often writes these concurring opinions. It’s almost like he’s got to show everybody that, look, folks, I still have these conservative bona fides, but I’m also a really good guy, so don’t hate me.

He’s trying to pander everybody across the political spectrum. okay, what does Kavanaugh have to say now? But sometimes he makes it worse, right? Like with the ⁓ Noam versus Vasquez. the Kavanaugh stops. Right, and now they’re calling him Kavanaugh stops because he wrote separately to say, this is all fine. ⁓ What did he write in this concurring opinion? What’s his view?

Jill (16:29)
So, you know, it’s interesting. I’m not going to try to psychoanalyze Justice Kavanaugh, but he may have, you know, to your point, made things worse because he was saying, okay, let’s consider the impact of this going forward. I want it to be narrower, he said, because if we consider a hypothetical example, it would be ridiculous to say that the president couldn’t do what he wants to do with the National Guard. So he gave a very long

⁓ hypothetical. Suppose a mob rapidly gathers outside the US courthouse in Philadelphia in response to an unpopular decision ⁓ and then the people inside, the prosecutors and the judges are in danger and the courthouse is going to be burned down and couldn’t he call in the most logical nearby thing which is the National Guard? He can’t.

Kim (17:23)
You know, Jill, I felt like he was projecting a little bit. It’s like, there’s this courthouse, say it’s in, I don’t know, Washington, D.C. Say it’s right across from the Capitol. Say a big crowd gathers outside of it. You can call the National Guard, right?

Jill (17:38)
Right, yeah, I mean that was sort of his point. He did agree in this instance that the decision was correct to not grant the stay, but he was warning that it might be too liberally interpreted. And he did not go along with the dissent, which is another interesting thing that I’m sure we’re going to be discussing.

Barb (17:59)
Yeah, well, let’s talk about that. Kim, we had three justices dissent. And ⁓ aside to our dear listeners, guess who? Guess who dissent?

Joyce (18:06)
I can’t guess Barb, can’t guess, tell me.

Barb (18:10)
It should become a drinking game because of the frequency that this three descends. ⁓ But Kim, what is the argument of, actually there’s like kind of two who are just automatic, Alito and Thomas are the automatics. Corsus joins them this time. What was their argument, Kim?

Kim (18:28)
So first of all, have to say, I really can’t. So the Alito dissent that Clarence Thomas, Justice Thomas also joined, the part that made me literally laugh out loud was, I’ll just read one sentence from it. To make matters worse, the court reaches out and expressive tentative views on highly important issues where there is no relevant judicial precedent and which we have received scant briefing and no oral argument. This is Sam Alito.

Barb (18:31)
I say it without laughing.

Joyce (19:01)
Give me a break.

Kim (19:02)
Dare they make a ruling like this on the shadow docket. That was just too much. That was just too much. ⁓ But essentially, it’s the broad unitary executive thought that of course the president has the ability to execute federal immigration laws using civilian law enforcement resources. And how could we ever even second guess that? That’s inherent in the power.

of the presidency. So it was a really broad take to have. Again, I agree with Barb. It’s not super surprising. Gorsuch was a little bit more restrained. He said, listen, this is the kind of case that brings up a whole host of legal and constitutional questions. And we haven’t really vetted them out. He didn’t really do this shadow docket pearl clutching.

that Alito did, but he said he would rather that the court take up the whole thing essentially and give it more careful consideration as opposed to just taking a piece of it and just ruling on the basis of that, even though this is in the temporary, preliminary posture. He just didn’t like the way the court did it.

Joyce (20:22)
Didn’t you feel like he was just the flip side of Kavanaugh? know, Kavanaugh is the one who says, ⁓ I’m a good guy, but I still have conservative bona fides. He says, I’m a conservative, but I’m still not a bad guy, right?

Kim (20:34)
Yes,

that’s exactly what it

Jill (20:38)
But I thought he was pretty nasty in his language. ⁓ He was very much attacking the majority and undermining their points in a way that I thought was unnecessary.

Joyce (20:52)
His opinions have grown increasingly nasty. And I wonder what that is. I don’t know him personally, but when he was confirmed, he was presented as a good guy, a conservative, but a good judge and a good jurist. And I wonder what has soured him.

Barb (21:07)
Yeah, I don’t know. When I read his writing, I just think the arrogance just jumps off the page. But that’s my view. That’s my opinion.

Joyce (21:15)
And of course it’s right.

Jill (21:17)
You

Barb (21:18)
⁓ Well, Joyce, as Jill said, this is not the end of it. This is a preliminary decision. It’s on the shadow docket. ⁓ We will still see a merits argument down the road in this case. So the court could reach a different conclusion then. And here’s my question. In the meantime, could the Trump administration take this decision by the Supreme Court as a roadmap and say, ⁓ you need me to make findings that I can’t

execute the law with regular military forces. Now, I’ll just go ahead and announce that finding. I am unable to execute the law with regular military forces. There, now I’ve met this magic legal requirement and we win. What do you think about that, Arne? Is that possible or is it ⁓ not likely?

Joyce (22:07)
You know, with any other president, that would be a silly suggestion. But this is Donald Trump, and I think we have to take that possibility seriously. Because to prevail on the regular military forces standard, they’d have to show that, assuming that they had a legitimate reason for bringing in the military, ⁓ which could be, I guess, using the Insurrection Act as an excuse to get around Posse Comitatus’s prohibition on domestic deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes.

They’d have to show that they still couldn’t do it with military troops. And of course, this administration hasn’t gone that far, at least not yet, although Trump has repeatedly, I think, suggested that he might be willing to get there. You know, I think the good news is even then he’d have an uphill battle since there’s literally no unrest in the country right now ⁓ that would qualify to ring that bell. As the judge recently pointed out, Karen Emmergut, the Portland

Oregon judge in her decision out there. But look, it’s super concerning despite that practical reality because Trump has a tendency to find a law that gives a president extraordinary powers during an emergency and then to use that law in an extreme and an unprecedented fashion. And so we cannot rule that out, especially with the midterm elections around the corner. But one silver lining is that Trump has really

push this argument that the courts can’t review his decisions when he decides that the deployment is warranted. And at least in this limited, very temporary fashion, the Supreme Court has disagreed. So I’m not out on the ledge that Kim and I usually share. I don’t think that this is a brand new Supreme Court that has all of a sudden become the good guys. But I take heart from this idea that the Supreme Court isn’t willing to write its job out of existence.

and sort of keel over for Donald Trump.

Barb (24:05)
Yeah, that’s a good point. Judicial review at least is something that we can cling to in 2026.

But we just got through Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year’s is coming up fast. It’s been a blast. We’ve done a lot of cooking in my house. And something that’s easy to forget is that at this time of year, the kitchen is center stage. It sure has been in my house. And whether it’s putting up and taking down the tree, lighting the candles, holiday parties or family reunions, there are a lot of mouths to feed and everyone’s expectations are high. We heard a lot of calls over the past few days of, it ready yet?

That is a sound that fills many homes. Luckily, we here at Sisters-in-Law have found Hexclad, the cookware that’s as serious about performance as you are about making a great meal.

Kim (25:03)
Yeah, it’s really, really great, especially at this time of year. You really need cookware that can handle anything. And my favorite hex clad piece and what has been the MVP this week in my household is the wok. It’s like a big pan that’s shaped like a wok. And I think my husband’s going to use it to make stir fry tonight, actually. But I used it to fry chicken because it’s my family tradition to eat.

fried chicken on Christmas morning as you open presents. I used it to help make the filling for my chicken pot pie. I also love using it for Asian dishes, for pasta ragu. You can use it for so many different things and you clean it up in just a minute. Their pans give you that perfect sear, crazy durability, and easy cleanup without needing babying. Everything has stainless steel strength and toxin-free nonstick convenience.

The six piece set is perfect for anyone who wants all of the essentials covered, while the 12 piece unlocks endless shared feasts and more. Not only do they actually get used, hex clad also looks so beautiful on the stove top and in your cupboards, and they perform flawlessly, and they come with a lifetime warranty. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

Joyce (26:20)
My son saw mine as soon as they came in. He had just bought his first place and he kidnapped them from me. He’s very mean. He’s actually a really good cook. He raves about them. He says the quality is absolutely amazing and that the design makes it incredibly easy to clean up. So I think now that the holidays are over and nobody thought to give me a set, including the child who stole mine, the time has come for me to go ahead and get myself a little gift.

I hope y’all will join me, embrace your inner chef, and bring some style to your kitchen by adding hex clad to your cooking arsenal.

Jill (26:59)
And Joyce, don’t wait because for a limited time, Hexclad is having a huge holiday sale. Head over to H-E-X-C-L-A-D dot com to get up to 50 % off. That’s 50 % off. If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to buy, this is it. That’s Hexclad dot com for up to 50 % off. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them that our show sent you. The link is also in our show notes.

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Kim (28:12)
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Barb (28:31)
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It’s been a week full of disclosures of parts of the Epstein files since the Friday before Christmas when it all began. But you know, that was the deadline for DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Congress passed after the shutdown. And instead, DOJ treated it like it was the start done, ignoring the fact that they were in flagrant violation of the law. I mean, this was the deadline, not the start of what they were supposed to do.

So now there will be more disclosures coming likely this week. Donald Trump has not been accused of any criminality in connection with Epstein. I think it’s important for us to say that. But he also hasn’t taken steps to ensure the release of the Epstein files, which is a promise that he campaigned on. So Kim, what do you make of this most recent news from DOJ that a million documents that they didn’t know were there have been discovered?

Kim (31:23)
Okay, you and Matt, it’s like the Easter Bunny came and just dropped these million documents and, you know, who knew that they were there? They couldn’t find, I mean, I think at this point, and I agree with ⁓ what you were saying, Joyce, that this was a law that was passed by Congress after Trump campaigned on releasing all these files. It’s a law that was signed into law last month by President Trump that said that they had to release these documents by the 19th.

And then they turned around and, from what I could see, violated this law by not releasing the documents by this month. Now they’re claiming, well, there are just so many. And even if we worked around the clock, apparently they called in DOJ staff and begged them to work over the holiday weekend to going through and redacting these documents and taking out sensitive information about victims and about, I think also flight schedules are not allowed to be in there and things like that.

that they just couldn’t feasibly do it. I thought that these files were on Pam Bondi’s desk back in January. I feel like the story keeps changing to the point that they have lost all credibility. And it seems to me that it is a reasonable inference to say that this is a stalling tactic. And I can’t see any evidence that dissuades me.

from saying that that’s exactly what this is. I will say one more thing that makes me think that that’s it. The way that they sort of dimed out some things, like the pictures of Bill Clinton in a hot tub, but then even when there are documents that basically affirm what we already knew, is that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends. They hung out together. There’s video and evidence of that. But when any document related to that comes up, they claim that it’s fake.

or that it’s been misinterpreted, or that it’s misinformation and they’re sort of trying to color what is released. That all adds up to something in the milk and clean.

Joyce (33:21)
Yeah, I mean, that makes total sense to me. know, Barb is a practical matter from a prosecutorial point of view. What’s the significance of this new discovery of previously unknown documents?

Barb (33:35)
Like how could this possibly have been unknown, right? I mean, you pointed this out on X-Choice. ⁓ The Justice Department and the FBI and the Southern District of New York are all the same organization. So how is it that DOJ was just told by the Southern District of New York that there’s about a million more, what are you talking about? You’re all the same organization. You’re all part of the prosecution team. If this were a discovery production in a criminal case,

the whole organization would be responsible for searching its databases and turning this over. This is a case that went to trial against Ghislaine Maxwell. They had to have assembled all of this material and gone through all of it to decide what it was going to use as exhibits, what needed to be produced to the defense as part of its discovery obligations, including information favorable to the accused. And then there’s lots of other stuff that doesn’t get turned over, but it’s not like it’s just

stuffed in somebody’s attic, like somebody reviewed every single page of all that material. The idea that there’s a million pages that are just found now is beyond incompetent. It just blows my mind, especially since they’ve known that this bill was passed well over a month ago with this December 19th deadline for producing all of it, not starting, not good try, not here’s some of it that’s going to come out on a rolling basis.

I read that at some point Todd Blanch said, we had 200 lawyers reviewing and redacting these documents. Well, good for you, Todd Blanch. Maybe you needed 300, because this was not a discretionary task. This isn’t something where you can ask for more time. This is a federal statute, a law. It’s extraordinary, yes, but it is still a law signed by Congress and signed by the president saying you had to produce all of it by December 19th. The idea that we just found this, it just doesn’t fly. This is all part of the same organization.

Gross incompetence.

Joyce (35:34)
I feel so much better listening to you say that because when it first came out on the news, I was literally yelling at the television. My family was like, dude, calm down. I thought it was unbelievably annoying and disingenuous. It just echoes the point that Kim is making, which is that the constantly changing story undercuts DOJ’s credibility. As long as we’re having a Festivus-style airing of the griefers.

Barb (36:03)
Yeah, that was a little bit of a Festivus rant.

Joyce (36:05)
will add an additional one. As someone who has worked on trafficking cases, ⁓ I’m unbelievably annoyed that this is about politics and politicians and powerful men and not about the survivors and the victims. so I guess, Jill, I have this question for you because you worked on sexual assault issues in the military. You understand how important it is to always center victims and survivors in a case like this.

It seems really obvious that this public ping pong game of political implications is not good for the survivors. Is there a better way? I mean, can you explain to us how this should be being handled as opposed to how it is being handled?

Jill (36:50)
Yes, but before I do, I have to join the rant because I was appalled. I mean, this is so clearly not just incompetence. It’s not just a mistake. It’s deliberate. There can be no other excuse. They never thought they’d actually have to produce this stuff. I’m sort of surprised they didn’t destroy it all. They also were careless in some victims’ names actually got released.

One had to keep calling repeatedly to have her name redacted. And we still don’t have any of the things that Congress really has emphasized, things like bank records, things like the pros memos, the prosecution memos. And so this is more like the Marx brothers or the plumbers and the stupidity with which they acted. But okay, let’s get to your question. Just, I had to release that from my psyche.

Joyce (37:47)
the festivus

Jill (37:49)
Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I was on a committee that looked at sexual assault in the military. one of the things we found, and this goes back, you know, when I was in law school, rape cases could not be brought unless there was corroborating external evidence. And women were subject to being cross-examined about what they were wearing at the time of the assault. ⁓ So I really remember how bad it was for women.

And I have seen in the military, but also I’ve worked with a friend who started a program in Arizona called Ruthplace that helps sexual assault survivors. And part of the trauma is not being believed. And these survivors all reported and were ignored. And we’ve learned now that one ⁓ in 2009 had filed a complaint that could have stopped years and years and years of assault on

other young women if she had been believed. So we now know that survivors weren’t even interviewed. Ghislaine Maxwell was, and as a result, she got special treatment. She was interviewed even though she was obviously lying. For example, she said, I never saw Jeffrey do anything wrong. But she was believed and given special treatment. So how do you think that makes survivors trauma?

It makes it much worse. They need to be brought front and center. They need to be interviewed. They need to be publicly ⁓ praised for what they’re doing. And yet they should not be forced to be the ones to name names. The names are there. There are ⁓ at least memos that say there were 10 co-conspirators. Where are those names? And why haven’t they been investigated? This was exactly the wrong way to proceed.

horrendous.

Joyce (39:48)
⁓ Thank you for that. I I think that that’s a smart and a balanced conversation, right? Because yes, it’s an investigation. Yes, you need victims to come forward and testify. But to your point in this setting, too much of the burden is being placed upon them and they’ve really become an excuse for the administration’s misconduct without doing anything that helps them. it just, I think it continues to be deeply disturbing. ⁓ Kim, I wanted to ask you from your journalist’s perspective,

What do you make of the fact, and maybe you’ve already answered this in part implicitly, but what do you make of the fact that DOJ is releasing materials, then having to take them down and in some cases putting them back up? You know, there’s this DOJ Epstein Library that anybody can go to and download this stuff if you’re fast enough for the government closet back.

Kim (40:40)
Yeah, I mean, this like, now you see it, now you don’t, kind of. It’s hard, based on everything we’ve seen, to know if it was misfeasance or malfeasance. know, whether it was just incompetence or whether there was something nefarious and, you know, they needed to, they wanted to scrub something that they had not yet scrubbed. It’s so hard because this is all such a mess. It shouldn’t have to be this way. The point that I think it’s very important to know that this was investigated and litigated.

these files, I think I’m waiting for next week for them to say, actually, it’s 10 million documents. Like, it’s impossible for us to predict. know, it just feels like there’s one thing after another that it’s hard to give them any benefit of the doubt.

Joyce (41:23)
Yeah, that seems fair. I mean, Barb, Jill just mentioned that one of the items that was released suggests that there may have been as many as 10 co-conspirators under consideration for prosecution at one time. There’s also an email that suggests that there some other memos, including written by prosecutors, including one discussing possible corporate liability and another referencing a possible perjury prosecution. What do you make of all of that and the fact that no additional cases happened?

Barb (41:53)
Yeah, this is one of the dangers of releasing information. know, the typical practice of the Justice Department is not to release this kind of information because the fact that no one else was charged, and remember the people who were making these charging decisions were Maureen Comey and other reputable prosecutors during the Biden administration. ⁓ They thought either that the evidence was insufficient to charge anybody else.

Or it could be that they viewed those people as witnesses to the extent that any criminal culpability was greatly overshadowed by their ability to serve as witnesses in the case. ⁓ There are lot of reasons prosecutors declined to bring cases, know, resource allocation and other kinds of things. So ⁓ it’s concerning to me that those things are out there. Now, on the other hand, this is extraordinary. We have seen Congress pass a law that says that

the identities of everybody except the survivors and victims themselves ⁓ should be produced. Attorney General Pam Bondi does have the ability to withhold information if it would harm a pending criminal investigation, ⁓ but could not withhold material solely to prevent personal reputational harm or political harm. That is the reason that the Justice Department often doesn’t produce some of these other documents.

law trumps policy. And so I think they need to produce these things. And pursuing those 10 people, even if these so-called co-conspirators, even if the Justice Department concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge them criminally, it may be possible that there are civil damages that could be collected by plaintiffs who would have a different standard of proof, only preponderance of the evidence. Or it may be that if they had access to these people, they could question them.

and help them identify other people who are perpetrators on their own. So I think that ⁓ the victims and survivors are right to be ⁓ unhappy that the names of these people haven’t been produced because of the multiple redactions in these documents.

Joyce (44:05)
You know, Jill, that takes me back to thinking about the survivors and their role in all of this. I wonder what your sense is beyond the Epstein case itself or what’s now the Epstein investigation. How does DOJ’s handling of this release impact victims, not in the Epstein case, but in other cases? Will women and men who are trafficked still be willing to come forward?

Jill (44:31)
Of course not. That’s an obvious consequence of how badly this has been handled. They weren’t believed when they reported it originally. No one talked to them, even now when we have supposedly a different standard and that we do believe sexual assault survivors. And more are going to suffer because reports have been ignored from the very inception of this investigation.

And also laws that might have corrected some of the issues here haven’t been passed because Congress didn’t get the information. They didn’t investigate. They didn’t get the information. And I think that that’s something that we need to have. One of the reasons for allowing, and Barb mentioned this, but I really, I am uncomfortable with releasing grand jury investigations, 302 reports.

because they really are ⁓ not always true. They could be proved less so. So I think that we have to move forward and not revert to the past. Congress and victims need this information now.

Joyce (45:46)
Well, I’m sure we’ll be discussing this more in the coming weeks, but that I think gets us caught up for what’s going to be happening in the week ahead.

Kim (46:04)
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Kim (49:17)
The Justice Department used to work on enforcing voting rights laws to ensure that elections were more fair and secure. But the current Justice Department’s voting section, led by a former Stop the Steal attorney, is doing something different. Demanding states turn over sensitive voter information about every voter in an apparent effort to determine who should be purged from them.

Well, let’s start with a little con law lesson here. Let’s start with the elections clause of the Constitution. What does it say about whose job it is to maintain voters, voter rolls and keep them up to date?

Barb (49:59)
That would be the states, Kim. States for 100. The states shall decide the time, place, manner for holding elections. That includes keeping the voter rolls. It does allow Congress to pass laws about voting nationwide, but it doesn’t say anything about the executive. And so it is on the states to keep and protect the integrity of these voter rolls.

Kim (50:29)
And that’s a good important distinction, Barb, because yes, it allows Congress to pass things like the Voting Rights Act or the National Voter Registration Act that sets up some rules that protect against things like discrimination and actions. And through that, that’s an act of Congress. And if somebody has allegedly violated the Voting Rights Act, yes, then the DOJ as the executive branch that prosecutes violations of law

can go in and investigate and enforce that law. But what the executive, the DOJ, cannot say, hey, show me your voter roll information. Why don’t you send it to us? And we’ll tell you whether we like it not. No, there is nothing in the Constitution that provides for that. And that’s really important. Well, Jill, the DOJ nonetheless has been demanding this data for months. this isn’t just, ladies and gentlemen, this isn’t just name and address information that if you go to your town hall,

you can probably access and see who is registered to vote in your town or not. That isn’t available anyplace on a national level like they want. But they want things like partial social security numbers, driver’s license information, things that if people got a hold of that, that could be just a ⁓ personal security risk when it comes to things like identity theft. But this week there was an interesting report in Stateline.

that really set out what the government, or gave some clues as to why the government is gathering all of this information. And Jill, it sure sounds to me like they want to take over an important state function, as Barb laid out.

Jill (52:10)
That is exactly a good reading of it, Kim. Not much more needs to be said about it. This is a state function. I mean, you can even remember back to the phone calls into Georgia and everybody was outraged because the president has no role in protecting the elections in Georgia, but they were interfering. This is clear interference. It is, we should not diminish the role of

it being something that could lead to identity theft if you have a national database with social security numbers, addresses, driver’s license information, and not only is it in one place, but under the MOU, it would be shared, for example, with the Department of Homeland Security. And there is no legitimate reason for the federal government to be involved in this. And then they went further and said, and after we review it, we’re going to tell you who you should

rubbed from your voter rolls. That’s not the federal government’s job. It’s something that the state does routinely. They check against all sorts of ⁓ databases to make sure that people are legally voting, that they don’t have a second residence where they are also registered to vote. Those are things the state does and does properly. It is not a federal job. And you know, I hate to be

sort of suspicious, but I don’t think that it is unwise to be suspicious of this administration, that they have something evil in mind. This is not a proper thing. It must be stopped.

Kim (53:48)
Yeah, and what’s interesting, and to that point, Jill, so when somebody moves and say you register to vote in a new state, there is a system called Eric that states you. So like when I moved from Virginia to Washington, DC and registered in DC, that allows DC to contact Virginia and say, hey, we got a registered voter here that said that they moved from your state. You might want to update that because she’s a DC resident now.

That exists and states use it as bipartisan. People have been using that for years. But to that point, Joyce, when I was writing a column about this gambit this week, I was speaking to ⁓ someone at the Brennan Center, Eileen O’Connor, who said she was afraid that this different system that’s being pushed by folks like Cleta Mitchell, remember our friend Cleta Mitchell? Guilty, who pleaded guilty.

Jill (54:39)
Yes, yes,

Joyce (54:42)
Yes

Kim (54:43)
as part of the Stop the Steal movement. It’s called EagleEye or EagleAI. I’m not even sure how to pronounce it. And given that there’s already a system, what is EagleAI, Joyce? And why are some conservatives pushing for folks to use this system instead?

Joyce (55:00)
Yeah, so it’s really important to understand the stakes here. And this is a great question to ask him. Conservative forces are preparing to challenge individual voters’ qualifications in upcoming elections using provisions in some states that allow third-party challenges. That means some random guy can go in and charge whether you’re qualified to vote in those states. You know, in red states, there may be pre or

post-election challenges that will be brought by, for instance, the Secretary of State or others. There was one like that in Alabama ahead of the last election, challenging sort of without ⁓ being too specific, people who they alleged weren’t citizens who were voting. So you can imagine all of these people who made the difficult trip to this country.

living on the margins in the shadows and they wake up one morning and say, you know, I think I’ll just go vote illegally and guarantee I’ll get kicked out of the country. I mean, that lawsuit, boy, that whole argument that Trump pushes makes no sense. But anyhow, ⁓ and candidates will also be using this sort of Eagle AI data for ⁓ challenges if they lose elections. You know, this data that they’re trying to accumulate, this is exactly why so many secretaries of state

have pushed back when they were asked by the Trump administration to turn over their voter files, the state files, like Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, who told Trump to go jump in the Gulf of Maine when he asked for her data. Some of y’all may even remember in 2016, really in early 2017, after he was inaugurated the first time, Trump launched this election integrity commission and it supposedly was about finding voter fraud.

except that it came up empty handed. And then a couple of months into its operation, do y’all remember, it was forced to fold and it quietly disappeared because it came to light that they were doing just this, that they were trying to acquire voter information files. And that, you know, way back when in 2017, that was sort of the precursor for what’s happening today on steroids. So that’s the context for Eagle AI.

And it’s a system that performs data matches based on public voter data, and I think they hope based on the government files. So you can see how dangerous that is, both from an identity theft perspective, if it gets into the wrong hands, but also for our elections. And let’s just underscore the obvious, which is this data and its use can be highly flawed. You can have people with similar names, similar addresses, people who’ve moved, or just human error that gets injected into these systems.

And it can cause legitimate voters to be questioned. And with this administration’s threats of prosecution and such, anyone who sees that they’re being questioned, their legitimacy as a voter, you know, they may just decide that it’s safer to stay home and to not vote at all. And of course, beyond suppressing voters, it’ll undercut confidence in elections because that’s how Cleta Mitchell and her friends always spend this sort of thing.

So look, this is all part of a mass voter suppression plan that conservatives have. They’re going to try to staunch the bleeding as the most unpopular president in our history leads his party into the midterm elections. And they’re going to try to do it by taking away your right to vote. So let’s get ready to fight, folks.

Kim (58:28)
Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. yes, there are mostly Democratic-led states are suing to stop this from happening, and also some Republican-led states, like you mentioned, Joyce, up in Maine. Here’s one problem. A lot of states have already turned this data over to the DOJ. States like Mississippi, Tennessee, ⁓ Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Arkansas.

And I am very worried that suddenly ⁓ all the people in the blue districts of these states are suddenly going to have their voter registration question. So I highly encourage people to check your voting role information. ⁓ Check it right up and through. Right now, National Voting Registration Act prohibits states from changing their voter rolls within 90 days of an election. But this memorandum of understanding that the DOJ is asking these states to sign would require

them anytime the DOJ flags a name to remove it from their voter rolls within 45 days and it makes no provision for that grace period at the end. So keep checking your stuff right up until ⁓ election day. Hopefully you live in a state where you can do same same day registration or just make sure that up until the last day that you can register you’re on there. You have to be vigilant. You have to the onus is on you now aside from making sure you’re

personal security is intact from this information floating out there. But there are going to be challenges that are made. Like thousands of these challenges were made in Georgia, for example. My stepson, who was registered when he was an Emory student, which is legal, which is allowed, he’s able to do that, was bumped off voter rolls twice from these challenges that were done using Eagle AI, saying, no, he lives in DC. It’s real, it’s happening, and it’s only ramping up ⁓ more from now on.

Stay woke y’all.

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Jill (1:03:28)
It’s now time for our favorite part of the show. I really love the listener questions. I know you do too, because it really makes me think about questions that I might have taken for granted, but then I try to answer them and I realize I have to really think about how to explain them. So if you have a question for us, please email us at sistersinlawatpoliticon.com or tag us on social media using hashtag Sisters In Law.

If we don’t get to your question during the show, keep an eye on our feeds throughout the week where we’ll answer as many of your questions as we can. And Barb, my first question is for you, and it comes from Laura. She says, there is a lot of discussion about future prosecutions of Trump’s cabinet members as they do not have the immunity that he has. Do you think Trump will pardon them in advance?

Barb (1:04:27)
Such an interesting question, Jill, as you well know, ⁓ all the president’s men can and have been indicted for crimes. It’s really interesting, isn’t it? think until the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, we all assumed that so could a president. But we know people like John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy and a whole trove of Attorney General Mitchell, a whole bunch of ⁓

Jill (1:04:47)
The Attorney General!

Barb (1:04:53)
close aides and cabinet members in the Nixon administration were convicted of crimes and went to prison. But I wonder if those arguments today would fare any differently. I could imagine a Supreme Court extending that immunity because if the president is this unitary executive theory and he can only operate through his aides, you could imagine some argument that they’re immune too. But of course, there is no precedent that says that.

⁓ It seems like a stretch of an argument. And so it would not surprise me at all to see President Trump on his way out the door, pardoned blanketly, prospectively, ⁓ all of the people who worked for him in his administration. Unless, of course, someone gets crosswise with him and then he’ll leave them to the wolves. So that means that everybody in his administration who has already arguably violated the law needs to

stay in his good graces so that they can get those pardons that they’re going to need. ⁓ Because so many of them have taken conduct that seems inconsistent with the law in many ways. ⁓ Some of the actions that we’ve seen, whether they’re criminal or merely ⁓ subject to sort of civil liability or just bad government, remains to be seen. But I could imagine the president just sort of presumptively, proactively ⁓

granting pardons to prevent his administration from being prosecuted in future administrations.

Jill (1:06:29)
I agree with you that anything in this administration is possible, but it is a nightmare to think about overcoming the Nuremberg defense. was just following orders. was just implementing. It’s too, too horrible to even contemplate. I have a great question for you, Joyce, from Cathy in Tucson, Arizona. Why isn’t Congress protesting the addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center?

Is it really under executive authority?

Joyce (1:07:00)
This is such a great question, Kathy. Congress should be jumping up and down and screaming and shouting because this is absolutely not the president’s call. It’s Congress who created the Kennedy Center to honor President Kennedy. And, you know, I think the hope is that Congress will stop being supine. That’s my eternal hope and prayer and wish for 2026. But the good news here is that there’s now a lawsuit. Joyce Beatty, one of the members of Congress who’s a trustee.

She has filed a lawsuit. looks to me like she probably has standing or at least a good argument that she has standing. And she will challenge the addition of Donald Trump’s name, interestingly enough, to a memorial. So it’s now the Donald Trump Memorial, but go figure.

Jill (1:07:46)
Kim, I have a great question for you from Kate in Canada. She asked, Representative Massey and Representative Conner mentioned inherent contempt with respect to Pam Bondi. Representative Massey said, quote, it doesn’t have to go through the courts, end of quote. Can you explain this?

Kim (1:08:08)
Yeah, so ⁓ both of those lawmakers in an effort to ⁓ force the release of the Epstein documents that we talked about have floated the idea of holding Attorney General Pam Bondi in inherent contempt. So that is one of three kinds of contempt of Congress that exists. One is criminal contempt of Congress, where Congress ⁓ asks for the Justice Department to bring charges against ⁓ someone for failing to ⁓

adhere to a congressional subpoena or order. ⁓ And then that goes through the course, obviously. There’s also civil contempt where the House or Senate can essentially sue someone for failing to comply. ⁓ And then there is a third type that is called inherent contempt. That gives ⁓ Congress the power to send the sergeant of arms, the congressional sergeant at arms, out to compel ⁓ some sort of congressional order, such as a subpoena or

production of documents. So what they’re essentially saying is that they would send the sergeant at arms over to the DOJ and bring Pam Bondi to testify before Congress to explain why the Epstein files have not been ⁓ produced and there it takes courts out of it entirely. Now, whether they can actually do this is rather unknown. This third type of contempt was really made

while the government was still being put together, it envisioned a time when the courts were not yet set up and Congress was in place, remember that’s Article One, and they needed some way to have some enforcement power. It has not been used in modern times. My fear about actually trying to do this is, aside from the politics of it, which I don’t think would look great for them in doing that, is that we don’t want a court order.

that comes out, it will certainly be challenged. And I worry that because this is an inherent power of Congress, that courts can come back and rule, you know what, not only is this Congress’s power, but it’s non-judicial, meaning that it can’t be appealed in court, that courts can’t even step in to stop something like this if it is misused. So I worry that something like this would just risk.

breaking some else that we all need broken right now. Like the last thing we need is a Congress who feels empowered just to send the sergeant in arms out, start hauling people in for whatever reason or no reason at all. We have the courts. You can hold them in contempt. You can force production of this. The courts are perfectly equipped to do that. Just do that if you really want to do it. I actually think the most effective thing they’ve done is public pressure. And the fact that we’re talking about it, that it’s on the news, and I think that is the better tool to try to compel.

these documents to be produced. But I worry about going all 18th century on this particular problem that it could just risk a ruling that they don’t want.

Jill (1:11:02)
That brings us to the end of the show. I want to thank you all for listening to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Kimberly Atkins-Stor, Barb McQuade, Joyce Fance, and me, Jill Winebanks. Follow Hashtag Sisters-in-Law wherever you listen, and please give us a five-star review because it really helps others to find the show. And don’t forget to kick off the new year with Hashtag Sisters-in-Law merch and other goodies at politicon.com slash merch.

And please show some love to this week’s Jones Road Beauty, Hexclad, Com, Factor, and Wild Alaskan Company. The links are in the show notes. Please support them because they make this podcast possible. See you next week with another episode, hashtag Sisters in Law.

Barb (1:11:52)
Jill, I can really tell you have been subbing ⁓

Jill (1:11:57)
Well,

it’s hard. Three hours is a long time. It was a three-hour show, but I did have some great guests. mean, fabulous. And some interesting issues that don’t get much attention. So I sort of had fun with it. was Yeah, I’ll bet. That’s great. I liked it.

Barb (1:11:59)
long time ⁓