Lawrence: Federal judge publicly calls out Trump Justice Dept. out for its Epstein case 'diversion'

The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

NBC News

Policy, Msnbc, Politics, President, Washington, Congress, Government, Senate, News

4.4 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tonight on The Last Word: The DOJ is set to begin releasing Epstein files to Congress on Friday. Plus a Judge calls out Trump’s DOJ’s “Diversion on the Epstien case.” And Trump has the attorney general he’s always wanted - that and more with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, and Yale Business Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The last word with Lawrence O'Donnell starts right now.
0:03.9	Hello, Lawrence.
0:04.8	Hey, Alicia.
0:05.5	I will not see you tomorrow because I'm not going to be here because I have something very important to do.
0:13.5	I'm going to be across the street, actually, at Radio City Music Hall where Penn and Teller are having their 50th anniversary show. The longest
0:24.7	running partnership in show business history appears at Radio City Music Hall tomorrow night.
0:33.2	50 years. I've known both of them for 30 of those years, I guess. Maybe.
0:40.5	Are you going to be a part of one of the acts?
0:43.3	No, no, no, I can't. You know, magicians can't do that. They can't use people they know
0:47.1	in the tricks. You know, that's out of the question. I will be hiding in the audience,
0:52.3	marveling at what they do, as I always have. And while we're at it,
0:57.9	Alicia, I'm not going to be here next week either. I'm going to get another week of vacation,
1:02.5	my final week of summer vacation next week. But then I will be coming back with the House
1:09.9	Representatives, with Congress, the day after Labor
1:12.4	Day, when all sorts of big things are going to start to happen in Washington again.
1:16.4	Big things indeed.
1:18.4	Thanks, Alicia.
1:21.1	Thank you.
1:22.5	Well, the long Labor Day weekend that we are all looking forward to cannot come fast enough for Donald Trump.
1:29.1	And so today, he took the day off.
1:33.1	Donald Trump did nothing today.
1:36.3	He wasn't publicly seen anywhere today.
	...

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