With floated plans to nationalize elections, calls for armed federal forces at the polls, and the FBI raid of the Fulton County, Georgia election hub, and the SAVE Act, there's a lot to discuss before this year's midterm elections. David Becker, prominent election security expert, lawyer, and the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research (https://electioninnovation.org/) joins Grounded to dissect the ongoing (and disproven) claims of mass voter fraud, the relitigation of the 2020 election results and what the persistent conspiracy theories are actually costing the American people. Plus, the conspiracy theory that drives him the most crazy and why he advocates for early in-person voting.

Ellie Leonard’s interest in the Jeffrey Epstein story started last year on a trip to Montana (where she has deep roots), and she wanted to better understand the story’s connection to Donald Trump. Fast forward to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Leonard has been downloading and meticulously sifting through the DOJ releases page by page.

Leonard joins Grounded's first episode of Season 2 to describe how she first started piecing things together, ways she uncovers redacted information in the DOJ document dumps, and the now massive community that has coalesced around (and adds to) her work. Come for the Epstein discussion, stay for the nerdy chatter about north central Montana.

Jon Tester set a new record for the number of phone calls that interrupted our live stream today—but that’s part of the deal when you work with a farmer who still has a landline. Alas, no calls from sitting senators today.

We wanted to hop on for a quick(ish) chat about a few of the headlines from this week in politics. We start with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s performance on Capitol Hill. How would Jon Tester have reacted if he were on the receiving end of her “burn book” insults? We also go over the House’s passage of the SAVE Act, the announced end of ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and conditions in ICE detention facilities. Plus, two big legal wins this week for Democratic lawmakers who made a video that urged military members to refuse illegal orders.