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Justice Department Releasing Remaining Epstein Files; Deputy AG Says DOJ Has Opened Civil Rights Probe Into Alex Pretti Shooting; FBI Seizes 2020 Fulton County Ballots During Elections Office Search; DOJ Compiled List of Tips That Made Allegations Against Trump; Anti-ICE Protests and Marches Planned Today Across the U.S.; Lawmakers Working to Avoid Partial Government Shutdown. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 30, 2026 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- issue.

ANN WILSON, LEAD SINGER OF "HEART": Well, thank you for having me.

KEILAR: It's our pleasure. Ann Wilson, thank you so much.

And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Happening now, CNN is reviewing today's release of the Epstein files, millions and millions of documents that include thousands of videos and photos. We'll take a closer look at what is in these files.

Plus, the DOJ revealing it has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents. We're following the latest there.

KEILAR: And many questions after the FBI executed a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia as part of a probe into alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election. Many asking about who you see right here, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. What was she doing there at that raid?

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: We start this hour with a Breaking News. The Department of Justice releasing its remaining documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche saying the records will be posted throughout the day, including more than 2,000 videos, more than 180,000 images. Some of the material, so explicit, you have to verify being an adult before you can actually access it.

KEILAR: Many of Epstein's survivors have been publicly pushing for years to have these documents come out, but it took a law passed with near-unanimous support in Congress to finally bring these documents to light.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Victims of Mr. Epstein have gone through unspeakable pain, and there's nobody that should say anything differently. And I -- to the extent that there's frustration, I understand where that comes from, just from what we know about Mr. Epstein. I hope that the work that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months, hopefully, is able to bring closure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Evan Perez is here with us now. And Evan, there's been a lot of speculation about President Trump being named in these files, and we're learning now the FBI actually compiled a list of allegations related to the president back in August. What are you learning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. So this was in 2025 that the FBI compiled a list of all of these sexual assault allegations that involved the president of the United States, that some of them stretched back years, decades, that were related -- associated with this case, and we don't know what of anything is actually credible here.

As a matter of fact, we believe that a lot of these could not be verified. Some of them were second- and third-hand accounts that people were relating things, and that's the way the FBI works, right? Some of this is in 302s, what they call 302s, which are essentially witness statements, and anyone can make any allegations.

The FBI takes it down, and then it takes time and effort to try to verify whether any of that stands, and so that appears to what has happened here. And what's notable here is that there's some of them that have very salacious accusations about the president, and again, a lot of them are unverified at all by the FBI.

It appears that at least a couple of the documents that we're talking about here have been removed since they were posted earlier by the Justice Department. We don't know why that is. They've done this in previous tranches that they've released, but look, I mean, we know that Jeffrey Epstein and the president of the United States were friends, that they were close friends for a period, and then they had a falling out.

The president has described that over the number of years, and he's also said repeatedly that he had nothing to do and did not know anything about these -- about the activities, the illegal activities of Jeffrey Epstein with underage girls, and so that's what's notable, one of the notable things. A lot of these documents, you know, 3.5 million documents in all that have been released in all of the Justice Department's work here, they've had hundreds of lawyers over the last few weeks who've been focused only on this, leaving behind all their other work to try to meet this deadline, which of course they've blown past by a number of weeks.

And so we are still going through a lot of these documents. Some of them are things we've seen before, including things related to the Ghislaine Maxwell case, of course, she was convicted in 2022 for being associated with some of these crimes. And so we're still going through a lot of these documents to see what else we learn in here.

There was also some allegations about Bill Clinton, a lot of Bill Clinton mentions here, including someone who was his former White House counsel, who makes reference to Jeffrey Epstein. She worked as a lawyer, apparently, for Jeffrey Epstein and his estate, and refers to him as wonderful Jeffrey and things like that. So, there's a lot of political figures associated with Epstein, which is not surprising given the company that he kept.

KEILAR: Evan, thank you so much for that, really appreciate it.

And now to some other major Breaking News from the Justice Department today.

[14:05:00]

Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche also saying a civil rights investigation has now been opened into the shooting death of Alex Pretti, a shooting at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.

SANCHEZ: The announcement happening as the Trump administration is facing nationwide protest against ICE and the president's immigration crackdown today. CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House, where recent comments from President Trump are under new scrutiny. Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boris and Brianna, I mean, for two days we saw President Trump doubling down on this idea of an investigation, saying that he wanted to be privy to an investigation. He wanted it to be an honest investigation. He was clearly reading the room about this fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti.

But now, we've seen a slight pivot in his language, not just about Pretti, but about the stance in Minnesota overall. And I'll start with his very late night, I believe it was around one in the morning, post on Truth Social about Pretti. This is what he said.

He said, "Agitator and perhaps insurrectionist, Alex Pretti's spark has gone way down with a just-released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE officer. And then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle. So hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off to pieces."

Of course, this is in reference to that video that surfaced this week that shows Pretti yelling at agents and then kicking this taillight. We do not have any indication of what happened before or after this video was taken. But clearly, a different stance here. Just a reminder, President Trump had yet to weigh in really on Pretti, other than saying that it's an unfortunate event that it had happened.

It's certainly not the way that he had weighed in on Renee Good, when he over and over again called her a domestic terrorist. But it's not just the language around Pretti that has changed. It's also what President Trump said about a potential drawdown in Minneapolis. Just a reminder, we heard from Border Czar, Tom Homan, yesterday, when he was in Minnesota, basically reiterating that there would be, for certain, a drawdown of federal law enforcement in that state as they are trying to turn down the temperature and move forward.

But then this is what President Trump said when he was asked about it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you be pulling back immigration enforcement agents out of Minnesota?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We want to keep our country safe. We'll do whatever we can to keep our country safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, not pulling back?

TRUMP: No, no, not at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, we haven't heard from Homan on these remarks. We should note that Homan was sent there to de-escalate the situation, to try and keep the immigration operation going, but to figure out a way to move forward with local law enforcement officials and local officials throughout the state. We'll see, obviously, if he reacts to this.

I will tell you, before Homan even said that we would be doing this drawdown, that the United States would be doing this drawdown of law enforcement in the state, White House officials were reiterating that to me. So, this is a very different approach and a different stance than what we've been hearing for the last several days.

KEILAR: Yeah. Kristen Holmes, important reporting. Thank you.

And still to come, former CNN Anchor, Don Lemon appearing before a judge for the first time since his arrest. We're following some new developments in the case.

SANCHEZ: And time is running out to avoid a partial government shutdown at midnight. Where talks stand right now on Capitol Hill, when we come back on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:36]

KEILAR: Two independent journalists, Georgia Fort and our former CNN Anchor and colleague, Don Lemon, have been arrested. Lemon and Fort were live streaming as dozens of anti-ICE protesters rushed into a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota back on January 18th. Both Lemon and Fort say they were there as journalists, not protesters. Lemon's lawyer says he's been charged two federal crimes, conspiring to violate someone's constitutional rights and violating what's called the FACE Act which prohibits the use of force or threats to intentionally interfere with someone expressing their First Amendment right to religion.

SANCHEZ: CNN has also released a statement saying in part, quote, "The FBI's arrest of our former CNN colleague, Don Lemon, raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment. The First Amendment in the United States protects journalists who bear witness to news and events as they unfold, ensuring they can report freely in the public interest, and the DOJ's attempts to violate those rights is unacceptable."

Criminal Defense Attorney and former Prosecutor, Mark O'Mara joins us now to discuss. Mark, great to see you as always. So, conspiring to violate someone's constitutional rights and violating the FACE Act, what do prosecutors need to secure a conviction?

MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, to prove it, they would need to see an intentional act, a criminal act to do just that, that Don Lemon, along with other co-defendants at this point, intentionally set out to violate the FACE Act.

And the FACE Act is normally used to protect somebody's rights, even those rights to profess religion. It's interesting to see it used sort of as a reverse, almost, to argue that Don Lemon, a journalist, it would seem, was violating a right by reporting of it. And I will tell you, you know, I always am the one to say we have to wait until all the facts are in.

Well, there are seven hours of facts, right? There's seven hours of Don Lemon's video, and it's going to see if he was an agitator or a journalist. And quite honestly, I'm presuming and almost hoping that the FBI will actually look at those tapes and decide whether or not this is a case that should be prosecuted.

KEILAR: OK. So, you know, if someone's a cynic, they might look at this and say, this is going to be tough to prosecute a journalist in this case.

[14:15:00]

However, that process of being arrested, of retaining a lawyer, of going through all of this, the interruption, the message to other journalists, there's more going on here than just what is the outcome of this. What do you make of that?

O'MARA: No, no, you are absolutely right. It has an enormous chilling effect on the First Amendment because look at what it's saying to everybody else out there with a cell phone who wants to look at what an ICE agent is doing or what a Congressperson is doing, or wants to show (ph) to walk in Congress when you're allowed to walk in. It has such an enormous chilling effect. But taking out of context, it's scary.

Taking in context with some of the other statements that are being said, I mean, they're calling what happened there an attack. It may well have been an attack by whoever went into the church without permission, but to arrest somebody who was actually documenting it and the little bit that I've seen about the video, he seems to say several times, "I'm not here as a protester, I'm here as a journalist." We have to give them the due that they have. Even if it was a close call, we want our journalists there.

The two of you should not worry about being arrested if you say something untoward about DOJ and now, do you guys have that concern? Maybe you now have to?

SANCHEZ: I don't.

KEILAR: I don't.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: Should we?

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGH)

O'MARA: It was sarcasm. The intent --

SANCHEZ: Of course.

O'MARA: -- is to scare journalists from reporting, isn't it?

SANCHEZ: Well --

KEILAR: Yeah. I think it's a good point. I do think to that point there are people asking themselves questions as journalists that they wouldn't normally ask themselves.

SANCHEZ: No doubt. I think also, we benefit from having the institution of CNN and all that comes with it in terms of lawyers, et cetera, policies, standards and whatnot that independent journalists may not necessarily have. Even then, isn't it as simple for Don Lemon and other independent journalists to say the First Amendment, that's enough defense?

O'MARA: We have to hope that it's going to be, but a couple of DOJ attorneys convinced a federal grand jury to indict him. So, that's very scary. I've never been indicted by a federal grand jury. I've represented literally hundreds of people who have been and not only is it extraordinarily expensive and chilling and keep you up at night, but will Don maybe not go to the next church to report on it? Will the next Don Lemon or any other Don Lemon not go? The chilling effect is the scariest thing about the First Amendment which we know is already being assailed over the past several years.

We need journalists, if I can call myself sort of one, we need to be very worried that this is a scary moment in our history when journalists can be arrested.

SANCHEZ: Mark O'Mara, appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for being with us.

O'MARA: Great to be here. SANCHEZ: Of course. Three million pages, 2,000 videos, 180,000 images -- the Justice Department finally releasing the remaining Epstein documents. We have an attorney for multiple survivors who's joining us after the break to discuss.

KEILAR: Plus, the clock is ticking to avert an extended government shutdown. Where the talks stand, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:22:46]

SANCHEZ: Back to our Breaking News. The Justice Department is in the process of releasing its remaining files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case. We're now hearing from some Epstein survivors, though, who say their names appear unredacted throughout the documents, despite assurances directly from DOJ that no personally identifiable information about victims would be released.

Joining us now, an attorney who represents 11 of Epstein's accusers, Arick Fudali. Arick, thank you so much for being with us. The documents that were released today include some three million pages, 2,000 videos, 180,000 images as well. Is that, to your knowledge, everything DOJ has in its possession?

ARICK FUDALI, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING 11 EPSTEIN ACCUSERS: Absolutely not. No, it's not everything. And even what has been produced still has redactions. There are some very alarming statements from the Department of Justice today discussing what they've withheld and what they've redacted.

And most alarming was they cited attorney-client privilege and ongoing investigations. The problem with that is there's no oversight. We just have to trust that everything they're withholding is, in fact, attorney-client privilege. And attorney-client privilege is very nuanced and very difficult, especially when you're dealing with prosecutors who technically don't really have clients other than the government.

So, again, it's very convoluted. Also, ongoing investigations. You could say anything is an ongoing investigation and then withhold. That's what's so frustrating and so alarming about this. And that's why the Congressmen have requested some of the federal judges in New York who have overseen the Epstein cases to appoint a special overseer to oversee this production and make sure that it's being done in compliance with the law.

We're actually filing some amicus briefs and letters to those judges on behalf of my clients as we speak because that's what needs to happen. There needs to be oversight.

SANCHEZ: When you hear that there are survivors out there saying that they have read their names even Jane Doe's, that they have read their names in these documents. I mean, what does that tell you about the process, the review process, to put these documents out there? FUDALI: It's really concerning and really what's so baffling about this is on one hand, it's a cover-up, but on the other hand, it's incompetence.

[14:25:00]

So you have this combination, this sort of perfect storm of trying to cover up what they don't want people to see, but then accidentally covering up what they shouldn't allow people to see, or accidentally showing people what they shouldn't see. I mean, this is just -- I don't know if I've ever seen, in the history of me of this Epstein case or really anything, such sheer incompetence in such an obvious and robust effort to cover things up and not -- withhold things from the public.

But the fact that after all these redactions, all this time, we're almost a month-and-a-half past the deadline for which all the documents were supposed to be produced, that they're still producing documents that are not fully redacted. I saw that there was, I heard there was a driver's license that showed a survivor's name. I mean, it's just -- it's incomprehensible how poor a job, how this has been handled.

SANCHEZ: I can predict what your response is going to be based on your description of this as a cover-up and your description of the entire process, but I do have to ask whether you believe Deputy Attorney General Blanche, when he says that the White House had no purview, no control, no influence whatsoever on this review.

FUDALI: I have difficulty believing that for a couple of reasons. First, it would seem like this administration has been the only people in the entire country who don't want the Epstein files revealed. I mean, this was a bipartisan issue in Congress, in the House, in the Senate. Republicans, Democrats countrywide all want the Epstein files released, so something has to be stopping it because remember, the Department of Justice didn't need a law to release them.

They could have just released them, so something was stopping them, and certainly it wasn't the will of the public, because the public wants these released. Certainly, it wasn't Congress or the Senate because they want this released. So there has to be another entity that wanted these files not released, and the logical conclusion is that this administration is the one who has been blocking the release and appears perhaps to continue to be blocking this release.

SANCHEZ: Arick Fudali, thanks so much for the time.

FUDALI: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: There are new questions now about Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and her presence at an FBI raid on a Georgia election office. We're going to break down what might be behind this, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)