Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
Politicized DOJ: Anti-Trump Law Professor Warns of Indictment Dangers. Plus: Is Biden's Ukraine Policy Compromised by Personal Interests? And Is Left v. Right Still Relevant?
Video Transcript
August 10, 2023
post photo preview

Watch the full episode here: 

placeholder

 

Good evening. It's Tuesday, August 8. Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.

Tonight, the fact that many of us are immersed in the daily news cycle can mean on the one hand that we're more informed but on the other, this intense immersion sometimes results in extraordinary situations becoming rapidly normalized. In the digital era, a news cycle of three weeks can feel like it's a full year, which means that our ability to take a step back and contemplatively evaluate events with in-depth analysis can be easily compromised. To invoke a horrid cliché – one that applies here, though – the speed of the flow of information and the intensity of the 24-7 news cycle can easily cause us to focus on individual trees at the expense of seeing the entire forest. Such is the case with the fact that there are now three separate criminal indictments and likely more to come brought against the former president and current frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump. Two of those are federal indictments, which means they have been filed by an agency, the U.S. Department of Justice, that works under the authority and power of the sitting American President, Joe Biden, who only narrowly defeated Trump in certified Electoral College results of 2020 despite a wide array of obstacles that could not have been any more unfavorable to an incumbent president, starting with the COVID pandemic and all the resulting economic harm that it fostered. Trump is, no matter how you cut it, a direct political threat to the ability of Joe Biden to remain in political power. The fact that Trump is now being prosecuted by the administration of Joe Biden and not for classic or easily recognized crimes such as murder or bribery, extortion or other forms of political corruption, but instead on charges that depend upon novel and dubious interpretations of law. That is an extraordinary set of events that has become and quickly normalized as the result of a dissent-free media that treats these accusations as unquestionably valid and treats Trump as an already proven criminal. 

An op-ed published today, remarkably with The New York Times, does one of the best jobs yet in illuminating how destabilizing and dangerous these indictments are likely to be. Its author is a vocal Trump critic, Jack Goldsmith, who is a high-ranking official in the Bush Justice Department and is a long-time professor at Harvard Law. He writes,

 

There is no getting around the fact that the indictment comes from the Biden administration when Mr. Trump holds a formidable lead in the polls to secure the Republican Party nomination and is running neck and neck with Mr. Biden, the Democratic Party’s probable nominee.

 

We'll examine Professor Goldsmith's arguments and the broader historical and political context whereby the D.C. ruling class has eagerly and recklessly abandoned their long-standing view that only "banana republics" prosecute former presidents and opposition leaders for crimes of a political nature.

Then: the most unhinged arrange an evidence-free conspiracy theory in the last 20 years – the worst – since Jeffrey Goldberg used the pages of The New Yorker in 2002 to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein had a secret alliance with al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden came not from boomer pages on Facebook, nor from the bowels of Fortune. It came instead from the largest and most powerful media corporations. For years, they recited as gospel, a deranged script that was cooked up by the CIA, that maintained that Russia had seized control of the levers of American power through various forms of sexual, personal and financial blackmail held over the head of Donald Trump, which Moscow used to force Trump to do Putin's bidding at the expense of the interests of the United States. They continued to insist on this conspiracy, even in the face of Trump's attacking the most vital Russian interests, such as when he reversed President Obama's decision and sent lethal arms to Ukraine, in 2017, or then spent years badgering Germany to abandon Nord Stream 2. Those are the most vital components of future Russian plans for economic growth, and Trump did everything in his power to sabotage them. And the defenders of this conspiracy theory barely blinked – let alone apologize and issued retractions – when their Jack Smith of 2018, former Bush-Cheney FBI Director Robert Mueller closed his 18-month investigation without even mentioning, let alone vindicating, this laughable and paranoid McCarthyite tale. In Newsweek, today, political science professor Max Abrams asked a provocative question, only half tongue in cheek. His article appears under the headline “Does Ukraine have kompromat on Joe Biden?”

 I always find it so amusing whenever our media class takes what are very common practices: it uses the Russian term for that as though the Russians invented that by calling blackmail kompromat. But that's the media just discourse. In this article, Professor Abrams argues with obviously compelling evidence that the case for suspecting Ukraine's leverage over Biden is far more credible than the fever-swamp dream that Trump was controlled with sexual and financial blackmail by Putin. Professor Abrams examines the multiple evidentiary basis for concluding that Joe Biden is vulnerable to all sorts of leverage that the Ukrainian government could wield over him, in large part due to the various ways that his son, Hunter Biden, profited enormously by selling at least a perception, if not the reality, of his father's influence in that country. Abrams reviews the evidence now lost under a pile of intense partisan media dials that Biden's interference in Kyiv, whereby he boasted of having a prosecutor fired, directly benefited the gas company Burisma, which was paying Biden's son roughly $80,000 a month. We'll speak to Professor Abrams tonight about his argument and how, as is so often the case, the Biden administration is the living, breathing embodiment of what Democrats breathlessly accused Trump and his administration of being. 

So much of this points to a vital but often overlooked fact. One of the central questions in American political life, if not the central question, is not whether someone is now on the right or the left in the sense of how those terms have been traditionally understood. What is often more determinative is whether one sees this widespread, intense and deep distrust of America's leading institutions of authority and believes that that distrust is valid and deserved. In other words, the defining metric for placing someone on the political spectrum is not so much liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican but instead is whether one is pro-establishment or anti-establishment when it comes to the most powerful political and financial actors in this country. 

As we do every Tuesday and Thursday night, as soon as we're done with our one-hour live show here on Rumble, we will move to Locals, which is the platform that is part of Rumble, for our interactive Aftershow, to take your questions and comment on your feedback. To obtain access to that aftershow, simply sign up as a member to our Locals community. The red Join button is right below the video player here on the Rumble page. That gives you access not only to that show every Tuesday and Thursday night, but also to the exclusive and original written content that we post. And doing that helps the independent journalism that we do here as well. 

We are also encouraging our audience to download the Rumble app, which is very high quality and, certainly, has functionalities far superior to the browser that will enable you to follow this show and other shows as well, such as the one on which I appeared earlier today, The Russell Brand Show, and other. It also enables notifications, which means as soon as we go live with our show, it will notify you immediately. That will help you not to have to wait online for the show to begin or try to remember when it starts. And you can also encourage others to download that app and follow their favorite shows on Rumble that way as well.

As one last reminder, System Update is also available in podcast form on Spotify, Apple and all other major podcasting platforms. Each episode is posted 12 hours after we first broadcast it live here on Rumble and rating and reviewing the show help spread the visibility of the program.

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now. 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
13
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Answering Your Questions About Tariffs

Many of you have been asking about the impact of Trump's tariffs, and Glenn addressed how we are covering the issue during our mail bag segment yesterday. As always, we are grateful for your thought-provoking questions! Thank you, and keep the questions coming!

00:11:10
In Case You Missed It: Glenn Breaks Down Trump's DOJ Speech on Fox News
00:04:52
In Case You Missed It: Glenn Discusses Mahmoud Khalil on Fox News
00:08:35
Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted

For years, U.S. officials and their media allies accused Russia, China and Iran of tyranny for demanding censorship as a condition for Big Tech access. Now, the U.S. is doing the same to TikTok. Listen below.

Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted
49 minutes ago

I just gotta say, Glenn is really shining lately! I mean, he’s always good, but the last system update? WOW! I just saw Useful Idiots this morning. Aaron Maté had Briana Joy Gray as a cohost. (I LOVE both of them.) Aaron was skeptical of Epstein’s serious involvement with Musaad after referencing another Hero, Michael Tracy. Glenn’s show today put everything in the best, most appropriate perspective. Moreover, he ended with the principled difference between evidence and proof. Glenn did a fantastic job of saying: there’s no conclusive proof of Intelligence ties, but let’s not be naive enough to just drop it! And this after Tucker went out on a limb at Turning Point USA. I LOVE their 1-2 punch! Glenn, you’re not just principled, you are a friend with substance for Tucker.

I recall this judge being livid at Acosta ruling. Judge Loretta Preska: In late 2023, Judge Preska ordered the unsealing of numerous court documents related to a civil lawsuit filed against Epstein's associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. According to ABC News, these documents identify scores of Epstein's associates and were unsealed in early 2024.
Judge Esther Salas: In a separate case involving Deutsche Bank and its dealings with Epstein, Judge Salas was assigned to oversee the lawsuit just days before her son was killed and her husband was critically injured in a shooting at their home in July 2020. The motive for the shooting remains unclear, according to Fortune.

Another day, another revelation of Israeli war crimes.

"However, S. testified that aside from one person found with a knife and a single encounter with armed fighters, the scores of others killed — an average of one per day in his battalion’s combat zone — were unarmed. According to him, the drone strikes were carried out with the intent to kill, despite the majority of victims being located at such a distance from the soldiers that they could not have posed any threat.

“'It was clear that they were trying to return to their homes — there’s no question,' he explained. 'None of them were armed, and nothing was ever found near their bodies. We never fired warning shots. Not at any point.'”
https://www.972mag.com/drones-grenades-gaza-chinese-autel/

post photo preview
Game of Thrones Actor Liam Cunningham on Gaza Activism and UK Censorship; Journalist Zaid Jilani on Mamdani, Epstein, the State of the Dems and More
System Update #484

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXdqj3PgQpk8vYLh-ut4u7e6VaTgC8MjNdW-_qgEq1br3RI3zuTY6hiIxjyGR_qss2YBBiwl9ha80koSvut2g9APY6el5t3Cq7r6OuBdv1PpnKK8hzLYhAv8b23rgjdrylVJxsHcpYORJw7f2R_oErk?key=VlIHstP5tnI3rCSEFk6TqQ

There are times when we cannot cover everything that is going on that we think deserves attention, and one of the ways we try to rectify that is to bring on guests who we believe are highly informed, engaging and provocative. We have two guests tonight for you who are most certainly all of those things. 

The first is Liam Cunningham, who is the long-time working Irish actor likely best known for his central role as Davod Seaworth in the HBO hit series, Game of Thrones; but for our purposes he is also a very passionate political activist and analyst who has spent decades involved in political activism, in the last two years focused like many people, on the Israeli destruction of Gaza. 

Right after that, we’ll talk to the very independent, heterodox and cantankerous journalist – which I mean in the most flattering way – Zaid Jilani. He was my colleague for years at the Intercept until he left for all the right reasons. We're going to talk about a wide range of topics with him, including the fallout from the DOJ's announcement that it's closing the Epstein investigation with no further disclosures, the state of the race for New York City mayor, where Zohran Mamdani's primary win has sent a lot of people, especially the city's richest, into full meltdown mode. 

AD_4nXdqj3PgQpk8vYLh-ut4u7e6VaTgC8MjNdW-_qgEq1br3RI3zuTY6hiIxjyGR_qss2YBBiwl9ha80koSvut2g9APY6el5t3Cq7r6OuBdv1PpnKK8hzLYhAv8b23rgjdrylVJxsHcpYORJw7f2R_oErk?key=VlIHstP5tnI3rCSEFk6TqQ

The Interview: Liam Cunningham 

Liam Cunningham is an award-winning Irish actor, as I said, best known for his role in HBO's series Game of Thrones. Various outlets, including The Irish Times, have called him one of Ireland's greatest actors. He's been a political activist for decades, but recently he helped to organize and became a spokesperson for the "Freedom Flotilla,” in which Greta Thunberg and other colleagues were arrested and deported by the Israeli government for attempting to deliver aid to the people of Gaza when the IDF was blockading it. I've followed his work for some time, especially his political work and we are delighted to have him for his debut appearance. Hope it's not the last on the show. 

G. Greenwald: Liam, it's great to see you. I know it's so late in Dublin. I really appreciate your staying up to talk with us. 

Liam Cunningham: No, that's fine. It's way past my bedtime, but an absolute yes. For you, sir, anything. 

G. Greenwald: I appreciate that. All right. So, let's begin with what I just mentioned, which is the role that you played in kind of helping to organize and becoming a very well-known spokesperson for the boat that was intended to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza as a way of circumventing the IDF's blockade of food, water, medicine and the like.

I think a lot of people didn't realize at the time what an actually dangerous and courageous mission it was. I remember in 2011, a very similar flotilla attempted essentially the same thing to deliver food to the people of Gaza when there was a blockade there and the IDF actually attacked that ship and killed 10 people on board. You had Nobel Prize winners, holocaust survivors and the IDF just didn't care. They violently attacked it. What was the impetus for your involvement in this particular action, even knowing how dangerous and provocative it might be?

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Trump Mocks Concerns About Epstein; Trump Continues Biden's Policy of Arming Ukraine; Trump and Lula Exchange Barbs Over Brazil
System Update #483

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXdQ7dlWcVsr6gxA7vqLq-1A7mWjxjCfmkfW_idQ9AUuXFgbpYHaApRU0dHG1K-go6WP1EuQHkZ0TcaDhxBsLpBdDAN1Xt3U3Nh4bCNCrJAW6mSVm7ZY4a80mI9TZNNPvyHV75EmE75jxNEG2gV41zA?key=vLeq5wNRjH8OhqLXJDWEpg

 Much of the MAGA world was in turmoil, confusion and anger yesterday –understandably so – after the Trump DOJ announced it was closing the Epstein files and its investigation with no further disclosures of any kind. After all this happened, some attempt was made to try and pin the blame or isolate the blame for all of this on Attorney General Pam Bondi. Yet, Donald Trump himself, today, when asked about all of this, went much further than anyone else when meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House again: President Trump actually mocked and angrily dismissed any concerns over the Epstein matter and how it was handled. 

On our second segment, one of the uniting views of Trump supporters over the last four years has been opposition to the Biden administration's policy of arming, funding, and fueling Ukraine in its war against Russia. Yesterday, however, at the same meeting with Netanyahu, Trump announced that he would continue the Biden policy that he had spent so many years criticizing by now providing defensive arms at least to Ukraine, and he did so based on the longstanding neocon/liberal view that Putin is completely untrustworthy and therefore Russia must be thought because of Putin. That's what Trump himself said. 

Then, we’ll comment on Trump’s lengthy tweet attacking Brazil for its ongoing prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, during the BRICS Summit being held in Rio de Janeiro. This was something we were going to cover last night and didn't have time to, but we will tonight. Brazil's President Lula da Silva quickly responded, very defiantly, by basically telling Trump to mind his own business. 

AD_4nXdQ7dlWcVsr6gxA7vqLq-1A7mWjxjCfmkfW_idQ9AUuXFgbpYHaApRU0dHG1K-go6WP1EuQHkZ0TcaDhxBsLpBdDAN1Xt3U3Nh4bCNCrJAW6mSVm7ZY4a80mI9TZNNPvyHV75EmE75jxNEG2gV41zA?key=vLeq5wNRjH8OhqLXJDWEpg

AD_4nXdFPqAU_UAlxnVl4bAGguNJXNdZxNBG5GYQRQ4rQ0s9nbGI3hy31ARaIkofh9-MnqDExEgQJwprJhlZCLFqt5TQ1AMEZL4dZuVcwfkWAUE9s8HKeccp7h8P74Smsa9IfJxGBCcOeBSZBRmO9vG3uQ?key=vLeq5wNRjH8OhqLXJDWEpg

Last night, we covered quite extensively the decision by the Trump Justice Department, not even six months into the administration, to completely shut down and close and stop all investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, as well as announcing that there will be no further disclosures of any documents of any kind, that whatever they've released so far, which has basically been nothing – not basically, has been nothing – is all you're going to get. 

This is a blatant betrayal of multiple promises made by key Trump officials over the last four years, before they were in the White House, but was also a complete 180 in terms of what key Trump influencers and pundits had been saying, including several pundits who are now running the FBI, such as Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, as well as the Justice Department, including Pam Bondi. 

We even showed you an interview that Alina Habba, the Trump attorney who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, appointed by Donald Trump, did with Pierce Morgan while she was in the government, just in February, where she claimed they have a whole bunch of very incriminating lists with shocking names. She said there's video and there are all kinds of documents that are shocking, in her words, and she said they're going to be released over time because we've gone long enough where people who do these sorts of things, including are involved in the Epstein scandal, have no accountability. She said that is ending with the Trump administration. There's going to be accountability. 

Yesterday, the Trump Justice Department said, “No, there's nothing here. We looked. There's no such thing as a client list.” We know we've been promising and that JD Vance repeatedly said, “Where's the client list?” Donald Trump Jr. said, “Anyone hiding the client lists is a scumbag.” Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi accused Biden officials of basically covering up predatory pedophilia by refusing to release the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Now, they're saying there's no client list, that thing we've been talking about and accusing Biden officials of hiding and promising to disclose, that doesn't exist. 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Trump DOJ: There's Nothing to the Epstein Story; State Dept: Syria's Al-Qaeda are No Longer "Terrorists"
System Update #482

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXchraXAcM2XesxWhHUd_N92bq3HtZGBU0u87-_fbhgSvF_mW53lPXSclX3vc961GSDXkWZcNNf8FOPD8HtRT03BCNEDdQml65kDYVIePskT17DYTDjhr2qdoot9YMrl2ICIsDNxtoo3No9gS_87UbA?key=KgbZuF9MUUu9LACQfXBJhw

One of the most significant scandals among MAGA pundits and operatives within pro-Trump discourse generally over the last four years has been the one involving Jeffrey Epstein. 

Now, in less than five months, the DOJ announced today, the one under Pam Bondi, that they are closing the investigation, given the certainty that they say they have that Epstein had no client list. There's no such thing as an Epstein client list, he never tried to blackmail anyone and no powerful people were involved whatsoever with his sexual abuse of minors. They also say that he undoubtedly killed himself: there's no question about that. 

All of this is such a blatant betrayal of what was promised all of these years, such that all but the most blindly loyal Trump followers – like the real cult numbers, a lot of them almost certainly paid to be that – are reacting with understandable confusion and anger over what happened today and over the last several months. We'll delve into all of this and what this means. 

Then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today that the group that al-Golani once led, long known as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, is no longer officially a designated terrorist group. This is al-Qaeda. We'll explore what all of this shows about the utterly vacant and manipulated propaganda terms, terrorist and terrorism. 

As a note, we did not have enough time, so we’ll talk about President Trump’s tweet attacking Brazil and its government, on the day of the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, some other time soon.

AD_4nXchraXAcM2XesxWhHUd_N92bq3HtZGBU0u87-_fbhgSvF_mW53lPXSclX3vc961GSDXkWZcNNf8FOPD8HtRT03BCNEDdQml65kDYVIePskT17DYTDjhr2qdoot9YMrl2ICIsDNxtoo3No9gS_87UbA?key=KgbZuF9MUUu9LACQfXBJhw

AD_4nXf8opZ5QUDtAVaICU5qTM5Y1LjnKXrCQiFXaCgRyR0Wajit4anClkk9fzlucH9EsxtIoMf80nPijX1q2-P9anbJF2Br6tuTIhvUEcswwY_3YO8e6XnO1COADsy13uka9aFDYMs6gyeuA1ekGHkGHXo?key=KgbZuF9MUUu9LACQfXBJhw

Earlier today, the Justice Department issued a statement, essentially announcing that they no longer consider any of the questions surrounding what had long been the Epstein scandal to be worthwhile investigation; that essentially all of these questions have been answered, that there's really nothing to look into. 

You can read the Justice Department's statement here.

They're saying this client list that most Trump supporters, I would say, have been accusing the U.S. government, of hiding to protect all the powerful people on this list, now, that they're in power – people like Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, now they're in charge – they're saying, no, actually there is no client list at all. There's at least no incriminating client list, whatever that means. 

I don't know if there is a client list or not, but according to them, there's no incriminating client list. I don't know how you can have a client list that's not incriminating: to be a client of Jeffrey Epstein seems inherently incriminating. They seem to have said what the White House briefing said today when asked about this, because as we'll show you, Pam Bondi went on Fox News and was asked, “Are you going to release the client list?” And she said, “It's sitting on my desk for review.” 

Trump had strongly suggested he would order it released. Now they're saying, “You know what? There is no client list.” 

So, all these claims that Jeffrey Epstein had recordings of prominent individuals who he invited to his island, who had sex with minors, evidently, there's no incriminating material of any kind that would implicate any powerful person. Just not there, they checked. They checked the storage closets, they looked under the beds, just couldn't find anything. All the stuff they had been claiming was there for years, screaming and pounding the table on podcasts, making a lot of money over it, too, accusing Biden officials of hiding this all for corrupt ends, just not there. They looked, couldn't find it. 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals