200 progressive groups urge against sweeping bail changes

Republicans have killed a House effort to approve subpoenas for the CEOs of four major banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon — to obtain documents related to "suspicious" financial transactions flagged as part of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) motioned the House Judiciary Committee to subpoena the banks for the documents after a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) asked for a vote to "table" the motion, meaning they wouldn't even debate it before a vote. While Democrats were winning the vote with the support of Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY), the committee chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) held open the vote until every Republican could rush back to vote in support of tabling the motion.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) then requested that documents be subpoenaed from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent around "suspicious" transactions of Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

Republicans voted to table that motion.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) requested to subpoena the Bureau of Prisons to turn over documents related to the transfer of Maxwell from the Florida minimum security prison to the prison camp in Texas that offers fewer restrictions.

Republicans killed that motion as well.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) then motioned that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino be subpoenaed to produce the files related to Epstein, including all of the witness interviews and search warrant materials.

Republicans tabled the motion.

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace unleashed on FBI Director Kash Patel for what she called a "sick, twisted and cruel" way of destroying the FBI.

On Tuesday, Wallace welcomed New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, who exposed the FBI for going after an agent who was blamed for being part of an investigation he had nothing to do with. Another was shoved out at a time his wife was facing cancer and having an adverse reaction to chemotherapy.

Last week, three fired FBI agents filed a lawsuit against the FBI and Kash Patel. On Tuesday, two more are seeking solutions to fight back against their firing.

Chris Meyer and Walter Giardina, both decorated combat veterans with years of service in the FBI, are now also suing after their firing, too. These agents were likely the two that the previous three supervisors mentioned fighting for in the previous lawsuit, Thrush said.

"Last month, Mr. Patel summarily fired Mr. Meyer and another top agent in the Washington, D.C., field office who had been targeted by the right, Walter Giardina," the report said. "Mr. Patel did so after being told that the terminations were unlawful and that pushing out Mr. Giardina, who was caring for his dying wife, would be 'inexcusably cruel,' according to a lawsuit filed by three F.B.I. supervisors also dismissed by Mr. Patel."

"There's a special provision in the law that allows FBI agents who are veterans to have due process, whereas if they had not been veterans, they could be fired without cause," said Thrush.

They requested due process as part of an official investigation before they were fired, but they were denied it.

"You know, these were not folks who were aspiring in the political arena or wanted to make a lot of money or wanted to even trade in these jobs for more lucrative private sector gigs. They wanted to spend their entire career in the bureau," Thrush said.

Thrush noted that Walter Giardina was a midshipman who graduated from the Naval Academy.

"One of the phenomena of Trump's two terms, and he's done it a lot more quickly in a second term because of the purge that he ordered, is to run out of the FBI, the very human beings that could most likely make him a successful president," said Wallace.

She pointed out the exchange between Patel and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) in which the senator asks about key people being taken off of jobs involving terrorism and trafficking to deal with deportations. Patel claimed he cared about those issues, but those experts working on the cases are the ones being shoved out.

"And there's something so cynically tragic about depriving the FBI — like the people in charge of stopping and catching the people that trafficked children and women and international drug cartels. I mean, to take the people who would wear capes if it didn't give them away and run them out of the agency for which he could get the most credit for doing a good job and the things he says he cares about is so sick and twisted and tragic," said Wallace.