How Money and Corruption Obstruct Criminal Justice | A Conversation with Vicky Ward

The Warning with Steve Schmidt

iHeartPodcasts

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

With the Epstein case not going away, Americans are seeing first hand how power and money can protect the worst criminals. Steve Schmidt sits down with investigative journalist Vicky Ward to discuss Epstein, the importance of narrative control and her new book "The Idaho Four." Subscribe for more and follow me here: Substack: https://steveschmidt.substack.com/subscribe Store: https://thewarningwithsteveschmidt.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thewarningses.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveSchmidtSES/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thewarningses Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewarningses/ X: https://x.com/SteveSchmidtSES

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Steve Schmidt with the warning, and I am delighted today to be joined by one of the preeminent
0:05.9	investigative journalists in the English-speaking world. Vicky Ward, a Vicki Ward.
0:12.7	There is a new Netflix documentary out about it, and of course I'm talking about the title of her
0:20.5	book, appropriately focused on the
0:23.6	victims, the Idaho for the terrible murders committed by Brian Kroberger in town of Moscow, Idaho,
0:34.5	a bucolic university town in the reddest of red states. And the book is about all of
0:46.0	the schisms in our society. We'll also talk this afternoon a little bit about Jeffrey Epstein
0:53.4	because Vicki Ward has investigated that
0:57.2	case. And when we talk about class in America, when you talk about power in America, when you talk
1:03.9	about accountability in America, it seems that Jeffrey Epstein's hand keeps reaching up from the grave.
1:12.9	And so as we get the conversation started, Vicky, what is at the core, what drew you to this case that makes you want to go so deep into such a very, very dark story.
1:36.0	This one is the Coburger story, right?
1:39.0	The Idaho for, well, you're right, Steve.
1:42.3	It's a big departure for me. You normally look at corruption and power and money and this is very different. I was wrapping up a podcast series about the Federalist Society called Pipeline to Power. It's about the ties between Yale Law School, which most people think of as very progressive,
2:06.3	but it's about the ties between Yale Law School and the Supreme Court on the conservative side.
2:13.8	And it was very, very interesting, but it took me a very long time.
2:17.7	I'd spent two years thinking about originalism and sort of wonky constitutional legal theory.
2:27.7	And I'm the mom of twin sons who are now 22 in November of 2022 when the murders happened, they were both in
2:36.8	college. And so there was something about the photograph of the four victims in Moscow,
2:45.3	Idaho, these beautiful four college kids that really just stayed with me because these kids were so ordinary.
2:54.6	It could have been any of our kids.
2:56.5	And I kind of couldn't get that photograph out of my head.
	...

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