even going to try to give back more than 900 of these kids. the trump administration now says they have decided that 914 of these kids who they took from their parents are not eligible to be given back to their parents. judicial deadline or not. so what s going to happen to those more than 900 kids who the government took but now the trump administration says they re not making any plan to give them back? honestly, we do not know. the aclu has been leading this case against the government. they tell us their lawyers are still working on trying to work on reunification, that the government says they re not bothering with. the aclu says they re trying to get more information from the government to make these reunifications happen, but for now the trump administration says for 914 of these kids they re not going to do it. court ordered deadline is tomorrow. watch this space. just one free hearing test at
and playing the part of robert driscoll, who represents accused russian secret agent maria butina, as her defense attorney, that part will also be played by me. i know that sounds cheap. it s a delicate balance here. what we re saving on the salaries of actors with speaking roles, we re making up for in terrible acting by me. so what s going on here is that accused russian secret agent, maria butina, has been in jail a week and half. she was arrested last weekend right before the trump-putin summit in helsinki. she was actually arrested before the summit started even though we didn t find you about it at the time. the court didn t unseal the case against her until a few hours after the summit was concluded. the coincidence of those two events is interesting because she is accused of being an agent of the russian federation, right, secretly mounting an
to put it onto a hard drive and provide it to defense counsel. judge, okay. bottom line is the government wants to provide this to the defense right away immediately so they can begin to prepare their defense in the courtroom. the problem we re having is, your honor, agreeing on a protective order. a protective order from the government s position is essential, not just for the normal reasons of protecting third parties personal identifying information, but also to protect potential ongoing investigations. and just given the sensitive nature of this case. in our discussion, the question that seems to be overlying the conflict between the two party, to put it frankly, is whether or not the defense counsel wants this information right away so he can prepare for a defense in this court or defense counsel wants this information so they can use it on cable news. the reason i put it that way, your honor, we proposed a basic protective order that says the information can be used for defense
heads up about a deadline coming up tomorrow. by the government s own count, we now know the trump administration has taken away from their parents 2,551 kids between the ages of 5 and 17. they took them away at the border. now, a federal judge, as you know, has ordered the administration to give those kids back. the deadline for the kids ages 5 to 17 is tomorrow. at a hearing in that case yesterday, the justice department said that it has so far on the eve of the deadline only given 1,012 of those kids back to their parents. again, 1,012 kids out of more than 2,500 taken away. as of last night, the night before the deadline, they have only given back less than half. worse than that, the government said last night they were not
operation in this country on behalf of the russian government to influence the republican party around the 2016 presidential election. since they unsealed her case, we have learned a lot of interesting stuff about what exactly the government is accusing her of. it s all fascinating. i think we are all hard wired as humans to think secret agent stuff is fascinating otherwise there wouldn t be books with shiny covers in bookstores. we love this stuff. in terms of the country and this presidency and the big scandal that has followed the president home from that summit with putin in helsinki last week, there does remain one really big as yet unanswered question about the maria butina case. does her case stand alone or does it link into the larger russia scandal, the other prosecutions, the russian government s effort to swing the