# S2 Ep159: Trump Built a System That Pays People to Break the Law (w/ Ben Wittes)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731/s2-ep159-trump-built-a-system-that-pays-people-to-break-the-law-w-ben-wittes
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731/s2-ep159-trump-built-a-system-that-pays-people-to-break-the-law-w-ben-wittes.md
Podcast: [The Illegal News with Sarah Longwell](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731)
Published: 2026-05-17T00:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://audioboom.com/posts/8904501
Audio file: https://prfx.byspotify.com/e/clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/arttrk.com/p/ABMA5/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/audioboom.com/posts/8904501.mp3?modified=1778966238&sid=5124335&source=rss
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731/episodes/s2-ep159-trump-built-a-system-that-pays-people-to-break-the-law-w-ben-wittes
Duration seconds: 3185

## Resource

Sarah Longwell and Ben Wittes discuss the Supreme Court mifepristone fight and why it could reshape abortion politics for years to come, then dig into Trump’s proposed $1.7 billion “weaponization” fund for Jan. 6 allies, the DOJ’s effort to protect Jeffrey Clark, and Kash Patel’s increasingly bizarre behavior as FBI director. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code ILLEGALNEWS at https://www.oneskin.co/ILLEGALNEWS #oneskinpod

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731/episodes/s2-ep159-trump-built-a-system-that-pays-people-to-break-the-law-w-ben-wittes/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-illegal-news-with-sarah-longwell-6767731/s2-ep159-trump-built-a-system-that-pays-people-to-break-the-law-w-ben-wittes.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.