'They can't hide the ball': Judge cracks the whip on Trump lawyers in deportation case

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org/slash defend and donate today.

Speaker 2 This is a 30-second ad.

Speaker 2 In just 30 seconds, there are likely to be an average of over 30,000 cyber threats to all businesses. Since I've been talking, more than 10,000 likely just happened.

Speaker 2 Hey, cyber threats don't wait, and neither should you. With advanced security solutions, Comcast Business can help keep your network and data secure and your business reliably up and running.

Speaker 2 Get threat ready with Comcast Business. Learn how at ComcastBusiness.com slash cybersecurity.

Speaker 3 Today, yet another law firm that Trump targeted has won against him in court. This time, it was the firm Sussman Godfrey.

Speaker 3 The judge called what Trump is doing in threatening this firm, quote, a shocking abuse of power. The judge blocked Trump Trump from essentially continuing to go after the firm.

Speaker 3 Not to state the obvious or anything, but that firm won that ruling because they chose to fight him instead of making concessions to him and giving in.

Speaker 3 In fact, every law firm that has fought Trump's attacks in court thus far has won.

Speaker 3 And that makes it really embarrassing to be one of the law firms that chose not to fight him, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, You didn't have to give in. You would have won in court if you'd fought it, but you gave in anyway.
Bad call, right? Why would anyone hire you to fight for them on anything

Speaker 3 ever?

Speaker 3 Save yourself. Save your firm.
Get out of your so-called deal with Trump and fight back. Because hey, look, everybody who's fighting back is winning.

Speaker 3 Whereas in the meantime, you've destroyed your law firm's reputation. for eternity.
Again, until you change your mind.

Speaker 3 Today also, the federal judge hearing the case of Kilmar Obrego-Garcia told the Trump administration that they do not have the option to disobey the court's order to return Mr.

Speaker 3 Obrego-Garcia to the United States. We will have more on that in a moment.
It was a very dramatic confrontation in court today.

Speaker 3 Tonight, we've got tens of thousands of people turning out right now on a Tuesday.

Speaker 3 to see Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in two back-to-back anti-Trump rallies. They are holding in Bakersfield and then in Folsom, California today.

Speaker 3 Tens of thousands of people turning out for these two events. Again,

Speaker 3 these guys turned out 56,000 people over two nights in L.A. and Salt Lake City just this weekend.
Now they are tearing up

Speaker 3 basically Central California as we speak. I mean, all this stuff happening on one day,

Speaker 3 it's on. It is absolutely on.
And we're going to have more on all of those stories over the course of the hour tonight. So like I said, I'm very, very happy that you're here.

Speaker 3 It's a big show, especially for a Tuesday. It feels like a big show.
It feels like a Friday already.

Speaker 3 But we're going to start tonight with something that is quite different. We're starting tonight with a whistleblower story and a whistleblower who is here tonight live along with his attorney.

Speaker 3 And let me tell you a little bit why we are starting with this story.

Speaker 3 So we've been focusing a lot on the way that people are standing up to try to block what Trump is doing, to try to show that they disagree with Trump, to

Speaker 3 sort of

Speaker 3 show their

Speaker 3 resistance to what he's trying to do.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think that's the real story in the country.

Speaker 3 But because we've been really focusing on that, we sometimes don't get into the nitty-gritty of the sort of strategy of what Trump is doing.

Speaker 3 And tonight's one of those nights that we're going to look at a little bit.

Speaker 3 Because it turns out, when you are in the middle of an attempted authoritarian takeover of your country, one of the things that happens is that the actions of the government get very opaque.

Speaker 3 It gets harder to figure out what they're doing.

Speaker 3 In contrast with a normal small D democratic administration, when you're in the midst of a would-be authoritarian takeover, official pronouncements from the government, like from White House spokespeople,

Speaker 3 they just become bombastic propaganda with no factual content that you can't rely on for the truth of what's being asserted.

Speaker 3 They ignore public records requests wholesale. They, for example, have fired all the people who are responsible for handling public communications in a professional way.

Speaker 3 They've even fired the people who are responsible for handling FOIA requests.

Speaker 3 And of course, it is a hallmark of authoritarian governance that you can't allow a free press, right?

Speaker 3 That extends in our time, in our experience, to everything from Trump's bombastic threats to try to intimidate news organizations and individual reporters from being critical of him or asking hard questions of him.

Speaker 3 It extends from that to using the various powers of the government to take away broadcast licenses or to damage the sources of funding for news organizations.

Speaker 3 And of course, it applies to him and his allies trying to sue various news organizations into oblivion.

Speaker 3 As of yesterday, it would also seem to appear to include the administration defying a direct court order that they have to allow the Associated Press back into the White House press pool.

Speaker 3 They have been ordered to do that, and they are not doing it.

Speaker 3 It is central to authoritarian governance that the press must be shut down, beaten up, or cowed so that the public doesn't learn what the government is doing in any kind of reliable and ongoing way.

Speaker 3 I mean, again, to state the obvious, authoritarian governments do not exist to do what's best for the people.

Speaker 3 So they find that it's best that the people don't find out all that much about what they're up to. Therefore, the free press has to go.

Speaker 3 And in our case, in our experience, in this time that we are living through, one other way they've been able to hide or obscure a lot of what the government is doing is by doing so much of their work through this Doge thing, through this bizarre, semi-secret, semi-governmental operation that is both led by the president's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, and officially not led by Elon Musk at all.

Speaker 3 The ostensible purpose of this very opaque, very mysterious Doge organization is to cut spending from the government, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, it's clear that that is not what they're doing, but that is how they have described the purpose of the organization.

Speaker 3 Elon Musk, the president's top campaign donor, said that at Doge he would cut a trillion dollars out of the government's budget. Then he said he would cut $2 trillion out of the government's budget.

Speaker 3 Then as of last week, he said at an all-for-the-cameras cabinet meeting that it would actually be about 92% less than that.

Speaker 3 It would be about $150 billion by next fiscal year that he and Doge were going to cut.

Speaker 3 After that, the New York Times and other entities, other news organizations pointed out that Doge's accounting of that relatively tiny amount, that $150 billion, was itself riddled with errors.

Speaker 3 And there was no way that what they were claiming to have saved added up to anywhere near $150 billion.

Speaker 3 And then after that, they took down the government website that lists what the government is actually funding and cutting. And now they're being sued for taking that down.

Speaker 3 So the claims that Doge is all about cutting wasteful spending, cutting trillions of dollars out of government, those clearly aren't true.

Speaker 3 So what's Doge doing? If it's not cutting trillions of dollars out of the government, and it's really not, then what exactly is this very opaque and mysterious part of the government up to?

Speaker 3 What is Doge up to? What is it for?

Speaker 3 Well, as always,

Speaker 3 it is most helpful to watch what they do and not what they say.

Speaker 3 And from the actions that we can observe of what Doge is doing, there's nothing about what they're doing that looks like government efficiency, right?

Speaker 3 So I think we can sort of set aside the pretext. We can set aside their claims about what they're doing, at least what they're trying to do.

Speaker 3 What are they really doing? What can we see about their activity to show us what they're doing and why?

Speaker 3 There are a few different sort of buckets that we can see in terms of what Doge is doing.

Speaker 3 And I would say the first bucket is them just breaking stuff.

Speaker 3 Right? The Social Security Administration broken.

Speaker 3 So they no longer answer the phone, their website doesn't work, their field offices are totally overrun and non-functional, breaking Social Security Agency.

Speaker 3 The IRS, they're doing the same, just breaking the agency. Today's April 15th, today's tax day.
We'll see how well this tax season works out. Same with student loans.

Speaker 3 They shut down the Education Department and its handling of federal student loans. They moved student loans randomly to the small business administration,

Speaker 3 which is not at all equipped to handle it. Now nobody's answering the phones or the email and the websites don't work on student loans.
Nobody knows what's happening to their student loans.

Speaker 3 So that's one sort of category of what we can see them doing. That's bucket one, right? They are breaking stuff.

Speaker 3 Bucket two,

Speaker 3 they are slashing stuff out of the government that they appear to not even understand.

Speaker 6 You propose more than $11 billion in cuts to local and state programs addressing things like infectious disease, mental health, addiction, and childhood vaccination.

Speaker 6 Did you personally approve those cuts?

Speaker 6 I'm not familiar with those cuts.

Speaker 6 We'd have to go. We'd have to go.
There's like more than 50 pages of

Speaker 6 cuts that I actually went through all the other. The cuts were mainly DEI cuts, which the president.

Speaker 6 There were a lot, but I'll give you, for example, about $750,000 of a University of Michigan grant into adolescent diabetes was cut. Did you know that?

Speaker 6 I didn't know that, and that's something that we'll look at.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that. We cut what?

Speaker 3 We cut what?

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 3 you didn't cut that. Who cut it? Oh, is that Doge?

Speaker 3 Part of what Doge appears to be doing is cuts that nobody has asked for and nobody can defend. I mean, here's Kennedy at HHS saying, whoo, we cut adolescent diabetes research? That sounds terrible.

Speaker 3 That doesn't sound like something I'd do. I better look into that.
Yeah, my dude, that's supposedly something you did.

Speaker 3 I did?

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 3 Hmm, better look into that.

Speaker 3 I mean the same goes with the cuts to, now famously, you know, Ebola response and prevention. Oops, we didn't mean to cut that.
And the people who handle our nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3 Oops, didn't mean to cut that. I mean, same goes presumably with the cuts to the firefighters cancer registry, which Donald Trump himself created.
That just got cut. Did Donald Trump want to cut that?

Speaker 3 Who knows? These cuts, they just, I don't know, they sort of make themselves.

Speaker 3 So there's them breaking stuff. There's them cutting stuff that they don't even appear to know they are cutting.

Speaker 3 The third bucket, I think, is stuff they do mean to cut, and they're quite gleeful about it. Things like, you know, HIV prevention.
They're delighted to cut that.

Speaker 3 Libraries, museums, the part of the National Highway Transportation Safety Board that oversees the self-driving cars at Elon Musk's Tesla company.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're delighted to get rid of all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3 So these are just all the things that we can observe, right? We can observe them smashing stuff up so it doesn't work, cutting stuff that they don't understand and that maybe isn't even on purpose.

Speaker 3 We do see them cutting stuff on purpose as well.

Speaker 3 But now we're getting to what I think of as the really heavy part of it, the really heavy part of this authoritarian project.

Speaker 3 Because some of the stuff that they have been doing that has seemed inexplicable is starting to become explicable, is starting to become understandable.

Speaker 3 Because part of what we are now seeing, this many weeks into this administration,

Speaker 3 is that when it has appeared that they're just messing with various agencies or trying to access various data systems within agencies, it's not a pointless rummaging. that they are doing there.

Speaker 3 It's not just rummaging around in there and flipping switches and seeing what breaks.

Speaker 3 Part of what is now emerging is that they've been in these government systems because they're trying to use the government to hurt people as much as they can.

Speaker 3 So, for example, it turns out they were messing with all the information on international students in a government database so they could target individual international students to snatch them off the street and arrest them and throw them in immigration prisons.

Speaker 3 It turns out they were messing with sensitive systems inside the IRS and the Treasury, at least in part, so they could use that data to go after immigrants as well.

Speaker 3 Turns out they were messing with sensitive systems inside the the Social Security Administration because they have taught themselves that one way you can really destroy people's lives in this country is if you take the names of living people and declare them dead inside the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 3 And now on top of that, today,

Speaker 4 something new.

Speaker 3 As we have been watching the actions of this government, and particularly the opaque, hard-to-parse actions of this doge entity that has been set up under the auspices of the president's top campaign donor and none of us are allowed to know what they're doing as we've been trying to figure out what they're actually doing and why

Speaker 3 we've now got a brand new set of allegations that we've never encountered before

Speaker 3 and if these allegations are true they suggest an apparently

Speaker 3 sort of a new sort of bucket, a new type of behavior from these guys that we are only learning about today, thanks to a whistleblower in IT IT who has the technical skills to actually see what they're doing and who has now come forward to Congress and to the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers.

Speaker 3 He has come forward to explain something else that he believes these guys are doing that we didn't know before.

Speaker 3 And if he is right,

Speaker 3 it would seem to explain yet more about what previously seemed inexplicable. What he's describing is also something that seems very, very bad and very dangerous for our country.

Speaker 3 All right, so here's the story. NPR was first to break this story today, reporter Jenna McLaughlin publishing a more than 7,000-word piece citing more than 30 sources.

Speaker 3 But the core of the story is based on a whistleblower disclosure from an IT staffer at the National Labor Relations Board named Daniel Beroulis.

Speaker 3 And last month, Mr. Beroulis says that Doge staffers arrived at the headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.
Board.

Speaker 3 He can't be positive they were from Doge, but whoever they were, he says they accessed National Labor Relations Board data systems for about a week, and then they deleted the accounts they had created in order to work in those systems.

Speaker 3 So they got in for about a week, and then they deleted the accounts they had created to work inside those systems. Now, what's in those systems?

Speaker 3 Well, National Labor Relations Board has a lot of internal data that's really sensitive. The point of of that agency is they adjudicate labor complaints at various companies.

Speaker 3 So their internal systems include a lot of really sensitive, proprietary data about U.S. companies and about their employees and about unions and about whistleblowers.

Speaker 3 It includes really sensitive stuff like witness testimony and legal information about ongoing cases.

Speaker 3 According to Mr. Berulis' disclosure, he believes Doge staffers took steps to make sure that whatever they did while they were inside the systems at the agency was not logged.

Speaker 3 So in the internal data systems of the agency, there were no traceable records of what they did inside the system because they configured their access to the system in ways that they could either manually or automatically remove traces of what they had done.

Speaker 3 But while they were in there, Mr. Barula says there was a large exfiltration of data.
A large exfiltration of data, almost all text files.

Speaker 3 And when I say it was a large exfiltration, to give you a sense of how unusual this was for the agency, this screenshot from Mr.

Speaker 3 Berulis' disclosure shows that large spike in outbound traffic leaving the agency and how unusual it was compared to normal activity on their systems.

Speaker 3 He says the logs that should have shown what that was just attributed that large exfiltration of data to a deleted account. And he says the location where the data went

Speaker 3 had been obscured. There was no listing as to where the data went.
Mr. Berulis then found that while these people were inside the system,

Speaker 3 this is worrying, they had disabled the core security systems that keep the agency's systems and data secure and private.

Speaker 3 Quoting from NPR, Someone had disabled controls that would prevent insecure or unauthorized mobile devices from logging onto the system without the proper security settings.

Speaker 3 There was an interface exposed to the public internet, potentially allowing malicious actors access to the NLRB's systems.

Speaker 3 Internal alerting and monitoring systems were found to be manually turned off, and multi-factor authentication was disabled.

Speaker 3 Now, why would these guys disable all the security on the system at this agency and then leave it that way when they got out?

Speaker 3 I don't know, and neither do you.

Speaker 3 But this is also from Mr. Barulis's

Speaker 3 whistleblower disclosure. Quote, I noticed increased logins blocked by our access policy due to those logins being out of the country.

Speaker 3 For example, in the days after Doge accessed NLRB's systems, we noticed a user with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming.

Speaker 3 Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created accounts that were used in the other Doge-related activities. It appeared they had the correct username and password.

Speaker 3 Now, these attempted logins from Russia were only stopped, quote, due to our no out-of-country logins policy. But there were more than 20 such attempts.

Speaker 3 And what is particularly concerning is that many of these login attempts occurred within 15 minutes of those accounts being created by Doge engineers.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 3 I mean, the allegations here, to sum them up, kind of go like this. Now, NBC News has not independently verified these allegations.

Speaker 3 This is simply what has been described in a whistleblower's disclosure from Mr. Berulis.
But what he is saying is this. According to what he can tell,

Speaker 3 they get in.

Speaker 3 They structure their access once they're in there so nobody can see what they're doing while they're in there.

Speaker 3 While they are in there, lots of data from this very sensitive agency gets taken to parts unknown. Then they leave all the doors unlocked and all the alarms off.

Speaker 3 And then immediately, someone with an IP address in Russia starts logging into the system using one of the Doge accounts with what appears to be a working username and password.

Speaker 3 And then there's one last piece of this. Mr.

Speaker 3 Berula says that within the agency, they saw enough to convene a formal review of what they perceived to be a serious breach, a theft of the agency's sensitive data.

Speaker 3 They started their formal review. They prepared a request to CISA, the cybersecurity agency at Homeland Security, to help them investigate.

Speaker 3 As that process of requesting help from CISA was underway, Mr. Beroulis

Speaker 3 got a personal threat.

Speaker 3 Quote, in the days after Beroulis and his colleagues prepared a request for CISA's help investigating the breach, Beroulis found a printed letter in an envelope taped to his door, which included threatening language, sensitive personal information, and overhead pictures of him walking his dog.

Speaker 3 It is unclear unclear who sent it, but the letter made specific reference to his decision to report the breach. Law enforcement is investigating the letter.

Speaker 3 In a letter to the House and Senate Committee Oversight Over NLRB, the agency here, Mr. Berulis' lawyer, who's from the nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid, he tells the chairs and the

Speaker 3 ranking members of those committees, quote, the threatening note made clear reference to this very disclosure Mr. Berulis was preparing for you as the proper oversight authority.

Speaker 3 While we do not know specifically who did this, we can only speculate that it involves someone with the ability to access NLRB systems. This meat space action, meaning real life,

Speaker 3 this meat space action where a threat was physically delivered to my client's home

Speaker 3 is absolutely disturbing in its manner and the implications suggested therein. Accordingly, we have been and will continue to be coordinating with appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Speaker 3 Given the aforementioned, we request that both law enforcement agencies and Congress initiate an immediate investigation into the cybersecurity breach and data exfiltration at NLRB and any other agencies where Doge has accessed internal systems.

Speaker 3 Now, we tried to get comment tonight from the White House and from NLRB.

Speaker 3 In addition to requests by NBC News for comment from NLRB and Elon Musk, there was a statement to NPR from an NLRB spokesperson in which the spokesperson denied that NLRB granted Doge access to its systems.

Speaker 3 They said Doge had not requested access to the agency systems. They said an internal investigation conducted after Mr.

Speaker 3 Berulis raised his concerns, quote, determined that no breach of agency systems occurred.

Speaker 3 The whistleblower himself and his attorney are going to join us here live next.

Speaker 4 Stay with us.

Speaker 7 New reports from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warn that brutal winter weather and funding cuts are putting refugees at risk. Staff on the ground report devastating conditions as the cold sets in.

Speaker 7 Families living in flimsy shelters with no heat. Children exposed to freezing winds without warm clothes are at risk of frostbite.

Speaker 7 Sick and elderly people sleeping on the frozen ground without blankets or protection. Here's the harsh reality.
Funding shortages are so severe that the lives of refugees are now at risk.

Speaker 7 At this critical moment, your support can make a life-saving difference and reach a refugee within 72 hours of an emergency.

Speaker 7 Donate today to help UNHCR deliver winter survival kits, including warm blankets, heating stoves, shelter materials, and winter clothes to those facing the harshest conditions. Please don't wait.

Speaker 7 Donate now at unrefugees.org slash rachel.

Speaker 5 Think advertising on TikTok isn't for your business?

Speaker 8 Think again. We've generated over over a hundred thousand leads, which has converted into over 40,000 sales for our pet insurance policies.
My name is Trey Farrow. I am the CEO of Spot Pet Insurance.

Speaker 8 TikTok's Smart Plus AI-powered automation takes the guesswork out of targeting, bidding, and optimizing creative. If I can advertise on TikTok, you can too.

Speaker 5 Drive more leads and scale your business today only on TikTok. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com/slash TikTok ads.

Speaker 9 Start your day with the MS Now daily newsletter. Each morning, read sharp insights from the voices you trust.
Catch standout moments from your favorite shows.

Speaker 3 The second Trump administration has gone to unprecedented lengths to radically transform America.

Speaker 9 Stay up to speed on our latest podcasts and MS Now events and get fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. It's everything you love about MS Now delivered to your inbox.
Sign up at MS.now.

Speaker 3 It's from a letter to Congress released today by the nonprofit group

Speaker 3 Whistleblower Aid about a whistleblower who's just come forward named Daniel Beroulis. Quote: Mr.

Speaker 3 Berulis is coming forward today because of his concern that recent activity by members of Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, have resulted in a significant cybersecurity breach that likely has and continues to expose our government to foreign intelligence and our nation's adversaries.

Speaker 3 This declaration details Doge activity within the National Labor Relations Board, the exfiltration of data from NLRB systems, and concerningly, near real-time access by users in Russia.

Speaker 3 Notably, within minutes of Doge personnel creating user accounts in NLRB systems, on multiple occasions, someone or something within Russia attempted to log in using all of the valid credentials, usernames, and passwords.

Speaker 3 This, combined with verifiable data being systematically exfiltrated to unknown servers within the United States and perhaps abroad, merits investigation.

Speaker 3 Joining us now is NLRB whistleblower Daniel Beroulis and his attorney, Andrew Bakay. Mr.
Berulis, Mr. Bakay, I really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 3 I'm sure this is a stressful time for both of you and a stressful experience being on national TV talking about it. I really appreciate your trust to do this.

Speaker 4 Thank you for having us on.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 Mr. Berulis, let me ask you about some of the pushback that we've had here.
NLRB said in a statement that Doge didn't access National Labor Relations Board data.

Speaker 3 They said that Doge never had access specifically even to the building in which National Labor Relations Board is housed. What's your response to that statement from the agency?

Speaker 3 We're having a hard time sort of making heads or tails of it.

Speaker 4 I totally get that. I think it's an initial knee-jerk reaction.
The truth is, it was almost immediate after they got notice of this.

Speaker 4 There's not going to be corroborating evidence like I've presented that they're going to be able to present to say, to back up these.

Speaker 4 what I did is I tried to proof the negatives along the way and I compartmentalized the investigation so as part of this I definitely was careful to not

Speaker 4 you know say anything that wasn't true or include anything that I couldn't back up with secondary sources and so I think if we can get the right people in here for transparency I would absolutely love it if I was wrong about this it's just we need other people we need We need real forensic analysis, and that's what we were trying to do with the cert.

Speaker 4 And that goes back to what we requested which is an independent investigation because again Dan provided not only what he saw but the forensic details to back up his concerns.

Speaker 4 And so part and parcel of an investigation is to of course speak to others and there will be other individuals who will be able to corroborate what Dan saw.

Speaker 4 Because they saw the

Speaker 3 In terms of what you witnessed, you presented this screenshot showing what appears to be a large surge in data leaving the agency.

Speaker 3 For people who aren't familiar with what the NLRB does and what kind of data that might be, what is the sensitivity of the kinds of data that's housed in NLRB systems?

Speaker 3 What worries you about that potentially being exfiltrated to parts unknown?

Speaker 4 Sure, absolutely.

Speaker 4 So what we're looking at there in the picture is the outgoing data out of our external, from our internal network.

Speaker 4 There's also a correlating spike in the outgoing data from the database that houses our internal case data.

Speaker 4 So things like proprietary company secrets, union organizer names, private affidavits of unfair labor practice complainants.

Speaker 4 These are things that traditionally would be kept in a judicial system behind lock and key, and not anything to do with efficiency for sure.

Speaker 3 Why would

Speaker 3 the security systems that protect the secrecy and

Speaker 3 the sort of sanctity of that data ever be disabled?

Speaker 3 Is there a sort of good faith reason that somebody would allow

Speaker 3 insecure mobile devices to access that data or remove multi-factor authentication for people who are trying to access those data?

Speaker 3 Those security systems being disabled within NLRB systems, to me, just seem completely inexplicable.

Speaker 3 At least they don't seem like the sort of thing that could be done in a good faith sort of way. But am I missing something? Is that something that IT professionals do for other reasons?

Speaker 4 No, you're absolutely correct. They're considered indicators of compromise.

Speaker 4 And the people that I work with are very meticulous. They're borderline OCD, and these aren't mistakes that I've ever seen them make before.

Speaker 4 So for all these controls to be off in this small amount of time,

Speaker 4 it doesn't speak to being accidental.

Speaker 3 Once you and your colleagues decided sorry, go ahead, Mr. Brackey.

Speaker 4 No, and one of the things I also want to point out to you, because you did an outstanding job, Rachel, in going over exactly how foreign intelligence likely was able to try and access NLRB databases.

Speaker 4 This is more than just the NLRB. Dan is here because he's been brave enough to come forward with what he saw, what he witnessed, what he can actually establish through forensic data.

Speaker 4 We have heard from others who are, there are many people like Dan but who are afraid to come forward.

Speaker 4 And we've also heard that in addition to how the systems were being treated by Doge within NLRB, what we've also seen is that these systems were also connected to Starlink.

Speaker 4 Now why is Starlink critical? Starlink is critical because the information that flows through Starlink goes directly to Russia.

Speaker 4 What has happened was back in last year, the Department of Defense has stopped using Starlink in any way, shape, or form because that is viewed as a direct pipeline there.

Speaker 4 And this is something that is also being seen in other agencies, not just NLRB.

Speaker 4 The other thing that's really concerning is that, and I don't want to say that this was done intentionally, it could be done unintentionally by accident by those who are working within Doge, which is they have allowed certain specific critical infrastructure in other agencies such as within the Department of Energy, where you have nuclear regulatory agencies overseeing our nuclear stockpile, et cetera, where that has been now opened to the open internet.

Speaker 4 So critical infrastructure throughout the country has unfortunately been provided access to the open internet, which means our foreign adversaries, like Russia, can and may have access to all of that.

Speaker 4 So the way that I would frame this is that what Dan is seeing and what others like Dan are seeing within our government is that this is like Chernobyl

Speaker 4 and them seeing the control systems light up post-meltdown. This is where we are.

Speaker 3 Let me be clear.

Speaker 3 On the issue of foreign access to NLRB systems. What you saw, Dan, is a Russian IP address.
So you can spoof an IP address.

Speaker 3 It could be somebody pretending to be in Russia and not actually being there.

Speaker 3 Attempting to log into these systems in very close proximity to the time that Doge was creating, Doge, as you say, was creating accounts in order to access these systems. But

Speaker 3 there's no proof of who that was or if in fact that was a foreign intelligence service or even a foreign actor, right? It was just a Russian IP address, right?

Speaker 4 So there are some caveats, but to the effect, yes, it was the same geolocation multiple times.

Speaker 4 And it's just one of the small factors that adds up to the bigger picture.

Speaker 4 You know, you have one of these, you see, you consider it maybe a fluke, but you have 40 or 50 of these indicators, and the bigger picture becomes clearer.

Speaker 3 Let me ask you about the threat that you received, Dan.

Speaker 3 You and your colleagues at NLRB had decided to pursue a formal investigation into what you regarded as a breach of the data and systems at your agency.

Speaker 3 You prepared a request to CISA at the Department of Homeland Security to help you with that investigation.

Speaker 3 And then you received a threat

Speaker 3 at your home where you live?

Speaker 4 Where I hadn't lived for too long either. I've only been there two months.
The only place that I've actually updated that address is in the OPM database for my payroll with the government.

Speaker 4 That's really, I haven't even updated my bank card yet.

Speaker 3 So can you tell us about the character of the character of the threat?

Speaker 4 i think it was vague enough to not be um

Speaker 4 can i just uh yeah i i i can jump in there for dan because this is actually quite difficult for him to talk about because it is quite personal so this is a letter who somebody had drafted i and within the letter there was specific information about dan that can only be obtained through for example um internal databases within the government Because it's not anything and we've conducted we've had individuals conduct an investigation.

Speaker 4 We've had our own investigative team conduct an investigation to see whether or not any of this is really easily accessible online and it's not.

Speaker 4 And so there is information that very few individuals would know. It could be something that was submitted to the government on an SF-86, a security clearance background investigation, et cetera.

Speaker 4 And the fact that he's only been at this residence for two months or less. We have that.

Speaker 4 We have the fact that somebody literally figured out where he lives, taped this note to his door, and flew a drone above him while he was walking his dog.

Speaker 4 I mean, I've only seen this once or twice in the years where I've represented whistleblowers or conducted investigations like this.

Speaker 4 When I saw this, this made me pause and get concerned about Dan and what's going on.

Speaker 4 And this is pure and simple witness and whistleblower intimidation, because this came forward before we even filed anything with the government, which means that somebody was monitoring his use of systems within the government, which for me is, you know, is an indicator as to where this is coming from.

Speaker 4 And the funny thing is, is that this was clearly done to intimidate him, to stop him from coming forward, but it didn't.

Speaker 4 And the reason why Dan came forward is not just to ensure that the truth comes out, but that other folks like him have the courage to come forward.

Speaker 4 Because a lot of people believe or think that something is amiss, that this is happening within our agencies and within our government. But guess what? It is.

Speaker 4 And we have the evidence to establish that. And we need other people to come forward because you know what? And one of my colleagues has said this once in the past, and it's so true.

Speaker 4 Courage is contagious. And this is in part why Dan is here and speaking with you today, not behind a silhouette

Speaker 4 or a screen, but directly to you today and to everybody. So that way we can hear what's actually happening.
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 4 It's really to the point of where I feel like there's a culture of fear in the government right now that we're trying to combat.

Speaker 4 And by coming forward and standing up, even with this happening, I feel like fear and apathy are the death of democracy.

Speaker 4 And we can kind of fight that if somebody is able to just show that they can do this and it's okay.

Speaker 4 I have plenty of other friends at other agencies that are terrified right now to come forward with what they have.

Speaker 4 And my hope is that they see this and they're able to do that now. One of the things that Dan has told me is that he hopes that he's wrong.
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 This is not something that we want to be the case, but we've been able to stress thesis not just through Dan's own research and investigation, but through subject matter experts with whom we've worked in preparing this disclosure.

Speaker 4 And so what we're asking for is an investigation, somebody to look at this and take this seriously. Because, you know what?

Speaker 4 There's personal identifiable information affecting American citizens that's flying out from the United States government, likely to Russia. But if that's not enough, then it's our national security.

Speaker 4 I mean, at some point, we all have to collectively wake up and say no and rebuild.

Speaker 4 Because unfortunately, I'm concerned that we're in a place where we can't undo what has been done, but we can know what happened, who did something wrong, hold people accountable, even if it's, you know, at some point in time in the future, and rebuild, because that's where we need to be.

Speaker 3 And again, the request here is for an independent investigation by law enforcement and Congress.

Speaker 3 National Labor Relations Board whistleblower Daniel Berulis and attorney Andrew Bakay.

Speaker 3 Mr. Berulis, as I said at the outset, I know this is a very stressful time and this is a stressful thing, including being on television with me right now.
I thank you for your trust in doing it.

Speaker 3 Thank you for your bravery. Thank you both for helping us understand.

Speaker 4 Thank you very much. Thank you for your coverage.
All right. Yes.

Speaker 3 All right. More news ahead here tonight.
Stay with us.

Speaker 5 Think advertising on TikTok isn't for your business?

Speaker 8 Think again. We've generated over 100,000 leads, which has converted into over 40,000 sales for our pet insurance policies.
My name is Trey Farrow. I am the CEO of Spot Pet Insurance.

Speaker 8 TikTok's Smart Plus AI-powered automation takes the guesswork out of targeting, bidding, and optimizing creative. If I can advertise on TikTok, you can too.

Speaker 5 Drive more leads and scale your business today only on TikTok. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com slash TikTok ads.

Speaker 9 MS Now presents the chart-topping original podcast, The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Each week, Nicole speaks with some of the people who inspire her the most.

Speaker 9 This week, she sits down with American historian Heather Cox Richardson.

Speaker 3 Where we are looks a great deal like the periods in our history when we have reclaimed democracy and built something more inclusive on the other side.

Speaker 9 The best people with Nicole Wallace. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Exactly one month ago, the Trump administration abducted and imprisoned a Maryland man named Kilmar Obrego-Garcia. They flew him and hundreds of other men to a prison in El Salvador.

Speaker 3 The government has since called imprisoning Mr. Obrego-Garcia, at least, a mistake.

Speaker 3 Five days ago, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 decision, ordered the Trump administration that they needed to bring him back. They needed to, quote, facilitate Mr.

Speaker 3 Obrego-Garcia's return to the U.S. Well, they haven't done so yet.

Speaker 3 And today in court, a federal judge in Maryland just excoriated Trump Trump administration lawyers over the administration's refusal to comply with that order, the administration's refusal to go get Mr.

Speaker 3 Obrego Garcia, or at least prove that they're trying to.

Speaker 3 The judge, quote, just so everyone knows where my current thinking is, Mr. Obrego Garcia has already won his injunctive relief.

Speaker 3 It was affirmed not only by the Fourth Circuit, but by the Supreme Court. We're here today to talk about the scope of the remedy, which means that while expeditiousness is of

Speaker 3 the utmost importance, because it is a fact now of this record, that every day Mr. Obreco Garcia is detained in the prison in El Salvador, that is a day of further irreparable harm.

Speaker 3 At the same time, if not this court, then who to engage in process? It's process that is in the roots of our Constitution. So we have to give process to both sides, but we're going to move.

Speaker 3 There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding. We will talk about the contours of this, but that's where I am right now.

Speaker 3 At one point, the Trump administration lawyer argued about the meaning of the word facilitate, calling it a term of art within immigration law.

Speaker 3 The judge said in response, quote, I'm not even sure what you mean, but as a factual matter, I do need evidence in this regard, because to date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done, nothing.

Speaker 3 I've asked for daily reports daily by individuals with personal knowledge, and I've gotten very little information of any value. Trump administration lawyer.

Speaker 3 Your Honor, I think what we have submitted reflects that there have been significant steps. In particular, we cited to this issue was raised at the highest possible level.

Speaker 3 We cited to this issue was raised at the highest possible levels yesterday.

Speaker 3 It was raised in the Oval Office between two heads of state, between the President of the United States and the President of El Salvador. The issue was specifically discussed.
The judge.

Speaker 3 A reporter asked a question. The defendants have never responded to the question, what steps have you taken? The plaintiff is asking, why don't the defendants just ask? You will release him?

Speaker 3 We've got no, I've got no answer on that. And in response to this notion that what happened in the Oval Office is satisfactory, that's not before the court.
I mean, you include a transcript.

Speaker 3 I don't know if this transcript, what this transcript is supposed to be assisting me in. But the bottom line is it was a very simple directive.

Speaker 3 My question that the court, the high court squarely affirmed, I can ask, what have you done? I've gotten nothing.

Speaker 3 I've gotten no real response, nor have I gotten any legitimate legal justification for not answering the question. That's why we need to move to the next step.

Speaker 3 Because in fairness, if you're not going to answer the questions that the plaintiffs put within the scope of my order, then you will justify why. You will cite privilege.
You'll follow the rules.

Speaker 3 I will make a determination. That is what we do in this House.
That is the most fair I can be.

Speaker 3 And she said, and I don't consider what happened yesterday, meaning in the Oval Office, as really evidence before this court.

Speaker 3 Lawyers for Mr. Obrego-Garcia then asked the judge to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court over their failure to comply with the court's orders.

Speaker 3 The judge did not rule out finding them in contempt. She said, first, she wants to make the Trump administration submit evidence and sit for depositions and quickly.

Speaker 3 Trump administration's lawyer voiced his concerns about scheduling those depositions quickly. He said, quote, Your Honor, I don't know right now their availability.

Speaker 3 I assume that can be arranged in a seven-day period, but I can't say that conclusively.

Speaker 3 Whereupon the judge said this, well, cancel vacation. Cancel other appointments.
I'm usually pretty good about things like that in my courtroom, but not this time. So I expect all hands on deck.

Speaker 3 It won't be a convenience issue. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 I will be flexible if you need to accommodate depositions, you know, whether it's in the courthouse because you have the court available to call balls and strikes as the depositions go on.

Speaker 3 I'm going to be available. If you need to do it at odd hours or weekends, I'm also available.

Speaker 3 Trump administration lawyer. We will move expeditiously, Your Honor.
Judge. Okay, I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 After today's hearing, that Marilyn Judge put in writing her order requiring the Trump administration to turn over evidence of its efforts to facilitate Mr. Obrego Garcia's return home.

Speaker 3 The judge spelled out an expedited schedule. She is instructing Obrego Garcia's lawyers to submit their requests for evidence by tomorrow evening.

Speaker 3 Those requests can pertain to, quote, the current physical location and custodial status of Obrego Garcia, what steps, if any, defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the U.S., and what additional steps the Trump administration will take and when to facilitate his return.

Speaker 3 The Trump administration missed reply to those requests no later than 5 p.m. on Monday.
Mr.

Speaker 3 Abreco-Garcia's lawyers may also depose at least four members of the Trump administration on this matter by next Wednesday. Joining us now is Reena Gandhi.

Speaker 3 She's a partner at Murray Osorio Immigration Law Firm. She's one of the attorneys representing Mr.
Abreco Garcia in this matter. Ms.
Gandhi, I really appreciate you being here tonight.

Speaker 3 Thank you for your time.

Speaker 10 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 So we got this transcript right before the show started tonight, and we have been sort of going through it

Speaker 3 and pulling from it as we can. Let me ask you if I missed any important details or mischaracterized anything of what happened at today's hearing.

Speaker 10 No, I think that is a very good summary. Those are the highlights

Speaker 10 that I certainly took away.

Speaker 4 No, I think that was accurate.

Speaker 3 What do you expect to happen next over the course of this next week in terms of what is now a court-ordered, but not yet manifest

Speaker 3 order

Speaker 3 to have your client come home?

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 10 I do believe that we will be able to get some answers from these very people who wrote these affidavits providing us not very much before.

Speaker 10 I think when confronted with very specific questions where they can't just file a report saying we're not required to say anything,

Speaker 10 will hopefully return results.

Speaker 10 But they can't hide the ball here anymore, you know, and this hearing today really helped us move forward, move towards bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia back home.

Speaker 3 Are we now in a situation, and I'm not a lawyer, I'm just observing these things as a lay observer here, but with the Trump administration and the president himself asserting that it is not within the power of the U.S.

Speaker 3 government to bring your client home, that it's up to El Salvador because they operate the prison where the U.S. is paying to hold him.

Speaker 3 Is that assertion from the president and from the Trump administration essentially wholly outside these legal proceedings now and sort of beside the point?

Speaker 3 It seems as if the judge is proceeding on the evidence that's been put forward to the court and not on the basis of these sort of political statements that have been made by the president and others to excuse what the administration isn't doing.

Speaker 10 Well, that's precisely right. Before the court, no evidence has been presented.
There's no reason, no argument for why they can't at least show what they have done and what they plan to do.

Speaker 10 Unfortunately, I think it's because the answer is they haven't been planning to do anything. But hopefully with the next two weeks, we'll be able to get some real answers.

Speaker 3 Rina Gandhi, a partner at Morio Sorio Immigration Law Firm, one of the attorneys representing Kilmar Obrego Garcia,

Speaker 3 The plight of your client here has captured the mind and the heart of the country in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 Most of the people who have heard his name for the first time here will never ever know him as a person, but what the government has tried to do in his name has absolutely galvanized people to recognize the scale of what this administration's ambitions are

Speaker 3 toward destruction of human rights and civil rights. Your representation of him is a real service to the country.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 10 I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 As we covered at the top of last night's show, Harvard University is the first university in the United States to just flatly and publicly refuse to capitulate to the Trump administration's blitzkrieg against academia.

Speaker 3 Trump has been threatening to weaponize federal funding against any college or university that won't roll over and let him essentially take over the administration of the school and even its academic curriculum.

Speaker 3 He's thus far canceled or frozen funding to six of the eight schools in the Ivy League and one school in the Big Ten.

Speaker 3 Columbia was the first school that Trump targeted. Columbia obviously made some concessions and therefore sort of set its fate in motion.

Speaker 3 But Harvard is just saying no.

Speaker 3 And that may totally change the dynamic here, not just in terms of whether Harvard actually manages to win their own fight against what Trump's trying to do, but also, I think a lot of people are hoping that this might put steel in some other institutions' spines that they ought to be fighting back to.

Speaker 3 Now, in terms of the colleges and universities, Trump may have been going after the Ives first, but him doing that has afforded other colleges the chance to sort of get their act together, to figure out what they're going to do before he inevitably comes for them.

Speaker 3 And we're seeing the results of some of that right now, interestingly, in the Big Ten.

Speaker 3 Started at Rutgers in New Jersey in late March, the university's Senate passed a resolution to band together with the other members of the Big Ten against what Trump is doing.

Speaker 3 The resolution calls for establishing a mutual defense compact, which in part calls for participating institutions to make available at the rest of the institution under direct political infringement the services of their legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response.

Speaker 3 Then we saw the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, their faculty senate voting to adopt the same resolution. And then so did the faculty council at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Speaker 3 So that's three of the Big Ten schools, which not to confuse things, but even though they're called the Big Ten, it currently consists of 18 schools.

Speaker 3 Joining them is UMass Amherst, which is not a Big Ten school, but they're applying that same concept to call for a public and land-grant university mutual academic defense compact.

Speaker 3 So we've got Harvard leading on their own after almost all the other IVs were targeted, right? Now we've got the other institutions, the other

Speaker 3 higher education institutions in the country who know that Trump is coming for them, realizing that you can see it coming.

Speaker 3 And the way to do it is not to fight on your own, to be prepared and to get organized and to make sure you're not fighting alone. I mean, fighting authoritarianism 101 says don't fight alone.

Speaker 3 Whether you organize, you know, along athletic conferences or academic rivalries or being a, I don't know, a bunch of colleges along the same interstate, whatever organizing principle you choose,

Speaker 3 get together.

Speaker 3 Do not fight alone, and be ready before they come for you.

Speaker 3 All right, one last note before we go.

Speaker 3 A guest on our show earlier tonight made a claim about the Defense Department ending its use of Elon Musk's Starlink internet service over concerns that Starlink information passed on Starlink can be viewed by the Russian government.

Speaker 3 That is an assertion that was made by our guest, but we should note we have not found any evidence that the Defense Department has stopped using Starlink over those types of security concerns.

Speaker 3 If we learn more, we will tell you more. But that does it for me tonight.
I will see you again tomorrow and every night this week at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Speaker 3 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 3 Learn more at MS.now.