‘Real Journalism’: How Courage Fueled The Federalist’s Award-Winning Russia Collusion Hoax Reporting

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “Real Journalism”: How Courage Fueled The Federalist’s Award-Winning Russia Collusion Hoax Reporting

Federalist Radio Hour | December 16, 2025
Host: Matt Kittle
Guests: Sean Davis (Federalist Co-Founder & CEO), Margo Cleveland (Senior Legal Correspondent)

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Federalist Radio Hour celebrates The Federalist’s receipt of the 2025 Dow Grand Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism, awarded for its dogged reporting on the “Russia collusion hoax.” Host Matt Kittle converses with key Federalist figures Sean Davis and Margo Cleveland, examining the arduous, years-long effort to expose the truth, the attacks they endured, and the state of journalism in America today. The conversation is candid, combative, and unapologetic about the podcast’s perspective.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Courage at the Heart of Investigative Journalism

• Courage in Journalism: Sean Davis defines “real journalism” as requiring courage and a willingness to pursue and publish truth, irrespective of risks or whom it offends.

  • “Real journalism requires real courage. It requires the courage to follow the facts wherever they lead. It requires courage to say the true thing, no matter who it offends.” (Sean Davis, 04:13)

• Pressures and Dangers: Davis notes the personal and professional risks journalists face, from attacks by powerful people to threats or blacklisting.

2. The Origin and Unfolding of the Russia Collusion Hoax Coverage

• Early Reporting: The Federalist began investigating Russia-collusion claims in early 2017, noticing significant gaps between allegations and factual evidence.

  • The publication of the Steele dossier by BuzzFeed became a turning point, revealing “it was all a total hoax” and driving the team to dig deeper (Sean Davis, 06:03).

• Media and Government Hysteria: Davis recounts the fevered climate in Washington post-2016 election and the small number of outlets questioning the prevailing narrative.

3. Challenges and Key Breakthroughs in Documentary Research

• Obtaining Classified Materials: Margo Cleveland details the struggle to access documents, many of which were classified or released only years later. The FISA warrant applications, even in redacted form, were crucial in tracking flaws and omissions in government actions.

  • “You could tell what new information was added and what wasn’t… even though the FBI now knew that some of this information was false, they never updated the FISA court.” (Margo Cleveland, 10:10)

• Role of Public Documents: Both guests emphasize the importance of analyzing government records over reliance on anonymous sources.

4. Key Players and Government Deception

• James Comey’s Role: Davis provides an extended critique of James Comey, describing him as a serial manipulator and linking his conduct in past DOJ controversies to his handling of Trump and the dossier.

  • “To me, it’s just such a perfect story about Jim Comey… he does it to leak to CNN… after Trump fired him… he cooks up these memos… all done to get revenge on Trump.” (Sean Davis, 15:10)

• Deep State and Media Collusion: Cleveland expresses shock at the extent of government and media coordination to promote the hoax, noting that belief in the nonpartisan integrity of institutions was shattered.

  • “It really pulled the curtain back that the government is not acting in the best interest of the public. In fact, it thinks it’s its duty to protect the public from Trump, who the public elected.” (Margo Cleveland, 17:41)

5. Institutional Resistance and Attacks on The Federalist

• Pushback from Powerful Interests: Davis describes attempts by officials and senators to “moral blackmail” the Federalist into dropping the story (21:09), as well as coordinated online attacks and efforts to censor or blacklist the publication.

  • “The entire power structure in government, in Western government, was deployed to try and destroy us, to bankrupt us and try to discredit us. And it wasn’t because what we were saying was false. They were trying to destroy us because they knew what we were reporting was true.” (Sean Davis, 23:18)

• Media Complicity: Cleveland and Davis highlight how legacy outlets not only promoted the Russia narrative but won major awards for now-discredited reportage, refusing to relinquish their honors even after the truth emerged.

  • “They now are ignoring Arctic Frost and all of the news that is coming out there. Anything that they think they can create a scandal, they’re doing.” (Margo Cleveland, 25:46)

6. On Accountability and Justice

• Will There Be Consequences? Davis is pessimistic about legal accountability (“Will all these people end up in prison? Probably not”, 34:17), pointing to political bias in the judiciary and the protection of establishment figures.

  • “James Comey wants to be seen as the savior of democracy, but his legacy is cooked…” (Sean Davis, 34:42)

• Broader Forms of Accountability: They argue reputational damage and public exposure provide some justice, which can deter future abuses and empower whistleblowers.

7. The Future of Journalism

• Decline of Legacy Media, Rise of Citizen Investigators: Davis argues the internet has democratized journalism, allowing independent and citizen journalists to make critical contributions even as traditional media falters in its responsibilities.

  • “You don’t have to have press credentials, you don’t have to be a W-2 employee. You don’t have to be on a masthead. All you need is a desire to tell the truth, to find the facts, and then the courage to do it.” (Sean Davis, 42:08)

• A Market for Truth: Cleveland echoes optimism, noting that audiences quickly recognize and value truthful investigative work.

  • “Journalism is moving forward in a great spot not because of the legacy media, but instead in spite of them.” (Margo Cleveland, 44:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sean Davis on courage in journalism:

  “It requires doing all this with the knowledge that one day you might even get gunned down for it.” [04:21]

• Margo Cleveland on government and media collusion:

  “This could not have happened if it was not from high level to low level. …It really pulled the curtain back that the government is not acting in the best interest of the public.” [17:31]

• Sean Davis on official and social media pressure:

  “I’m just really concerned you might be getting out over your skis a little bit… just such a patronizing, know-it-all tone.” [21:14]

• On legacy media’s performance:

  “It’s not shocking, but it is very disturbing, destructive. Because if you do not have a functioning media, the government is able to get away with a lot of things that it shouldn’t.” (Margo Cleveland, 26:30)

• On accountability:

  “As journalists and investigators, we don’t get to decide what happens to people after the facts are out. That’s not our job and not our role. All we can do is get the facts out there and the truth out there and let the chips fall where they may.” (Sean Davis, 35:35)

• On the future of journalism:

  “I’m super optimistic… There’s so much great independent journalism. …All you need is a desire to tell the truth, to find the facts, and then the courage to do it.” (Sean Davis, 42:08)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:13] – Sean Davis on “real journalism” and courage
• [06:03] – The Federalist’s early doubts about Russia collusion allegations
• [09:51] – Margo Cleveland on challenges getting unredacted source documents
• [12:48] – James Comey’s role as a red flag
• [17:29] – Margo Cleveland on the shock of discovering institutional corruption
• [21:09] – Sean Davis describing efforts to silence and discredit The Federalist
• [25:19] – Margo Cleveland on legacy media’s refusal to admit error
• [34:13] – Discussion: will there be any real accountability?
• [41:53] – The state and future of journalism
• [44:31] – Closing thoughts from the panel

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Conclusion

This episode serves as both a retrospective on the Federalist’s multi-year, award-winning reporting on the Russia collusion narrative and a broader meditation on the state of American journalism. Guests are blunt about what they see as implicit corruption and media collusion, and they’re unapologetic in their insistence that courage is the defining trait of real reporting—traits they claim are found outside today’s legacy mainstream press.

Listeners gain a behind-the-scenes understanding of the risks, persistence, and sense of mission underpinning this sort of investigative journalism, as well as the optimism the Federalist’s team feels about the emergent, democratized future of the field.

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Transcript

[Sean Davis]

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[Matt Kittle]

It's your amiable host and experienced Sherpa, Matt Kittle. You know, I have the good fortune of talking to some of the most interesting people, thought leaders in politics and culture today. They're shining light on some very dark places in our government and fighting for the foundational values of this republic, this last, best hope for liberty. And that's what we do every day at the Federalist. We can't do that without you. The Federalist foundation is a nonprofit and we depend entirely on our listeners and readers, not corporations. If you value fearless independent journalism, please consider a tax deductible gift today@the federalist.com backslash donate. That's the federalist.com donate. Your support keeps us going. Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year from your friends at the Federalist. Foreign. We are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior Elections Correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio@the federalist.com follow us on x@fdrlst. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guests today are the Federalist owned Senior legal correspondent Margo Cleveland and Federalist co founder and CEO Sean Davis. Lovers of freedom and award winning journalist. Last month the Federalist received the coveted 2025 Dow Grand Prize for Excellence Investigative Journalism. Aw. Thanks in large part to the tireless work of Margo, Sean, and the Federalist Editor in chief, Molly Hemingway. I know you've. You've heard of Molly Hemingway, that's for sure. The Dow Prize is awarded by the National Journalism Center, a project of Young America's foundation, and the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation. And it really is the replacement and the much needed replacement of the Pulitzer. As it was said at the awards ceremony last month, Pulitzers are awarded to lies. The Dow Award is awarded to the truth. Margot Shawn, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.

[Margo Cleveland]

Thank you.

[Sean Davis]

Well, thank you for having us.

[Matt Kittle]

You bet. And thanks for your courage, as you mentioned. Sean, I'll start with you. In accepting the award last month you.

[Sean Davis]

Said this is, I think many people here know real journalism is more than investigating or writing or editing or publishing. Real journalism requires real courage. It requires the courage to follow the facts wherever they lead. It requires courage to say the true thing, no matter who it offends. It requires doing all this with the knowledge that one day you might even get gunned down for it.

[Matt Kittle]

That is exactly the commodity that is in short supply in American journalism today. Courage. And courage, I believe, is what fueled the Federalist critical investigation into the Russia collusion hoax. What say you, sir?

[Sean Davis]

Yeah, obviously I agree. This was a project of ours that was almost 10 years in the making. We started reporting on the Russian collusion nonsense in very early of 2017. So I guess we're at eight plus years here and it's difficult to kind of go back in time and understand the hysteria that gripped Washington over this. After Trump won, that's when the operation really got kicked into high gear with the aim of maybe preventing his inauguration. And it was just a fevered hysteria in Washington, people thinking maybe he wouldn't even become president because this information was so bad. Republicans were losing their minds, the media were losing their mind. Losing their minds. Obviously that's a short trip. Everyone was going insane. And, you know, you could count on one hand the number of people who weren't. And several of them worked here at the Federalist. And kind of what got us going on it was that the, all the claims, they just didn't add up. There was a lot of innuendo and a lot of allegations. But when you asked for actual Proof. Okay, show me this proof. It wasn't there until the key moment when BuzzFeed unintentionally became a big hero in the story by publishing the Steele dossier. That's not what they intended. They were hoping to fan the flames of the hysteria. But when we actually got to see this document that so much of the nonsense was based on, it was clear at that point, well, this is all a total hoax. And now we gotta go about unwinding it and destroying it. And because there were so few outlets and so few people working on. Took a while. Even though we knew we had the truth, we knew we had the facts. It took a while. And it took years and years and years before I think we had full vindication. But it was worth all of it.

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[Margo Cleveland]

And I wanted to give just a, just a couple special thank yous. First of all, to Jake Tapper, who accidentally, who accidentally revealed to me in January 2017 that not only was the hoax, a hoax, the Russia collusion hoax, but that CNN were active participants in it. Without him accidentally revealing that to me.

[Matt Kittle]

I don't know if we would have.

[Margo Cleveland]

Had the courage to do what we needed to do over the next couple of years.

[Matt Kittle]

And you know, it seems so clear now lo these eight years later. But it wasn't, as you mentioned, Sean, it wasn't, it wasn't clear to a lot of Americans because the psyop was in full swing. Margo, how difficult was it to to round up the documents, to chase down the sources that that this exposed story now required?

[Margo Cleveland]

So it took a lot of time because many of the source documents were ones that remained classified. So for me, what first kind of got my eyebrows lifted were when then Representative Devin Nunes released his memo. And as a lawyer who had worked on hundreds of criminal cases where there were issues about whether warrants were supported by cause, it just struck me as outrageous that the FISA court would issue a surveillance warrant based on what Devin Nunes had summarized there. So from that point on, there were little bits and pieces that came out. And, and then after at least this administration, we're starting to get a lot more of it. But it took some time during Trump one for documents to be made public, for documents to be released so that we could put some of the details together. One of the documents or a collection of documents that was extremely helpful were when the FISA warrants were or applications were released. Even though those were in redacted form. One of the things that I did is I went and compared them and you could tell what new information was added and what wasn't. And that to me was extremely informative because it showed even though the FBI now knew that some of this information was false, they never updated the FISA court on it. So as Sean mentioned, this is a long process, almost a decade long, to get this all. I think we actually are not even finished with all of the dirty games that we're playing. In a sense, the Russia collusion hoax just kept pivoting a Little bit to another hoax. So the entire Arctic frost was just the latest way that they were trying to take Trump out.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, we've, we've obviously learned so much thanks to that reporting, principally from the federalists. But Sean, you said that fairly early on, things didn't add up. There was a stink to this whole hysteria that was pushed out there by the hysterical pushers. When did you get a sense that, that this was as huge a story involving the deep state players, involving the Obama administration, involving all of these parts and principles?

[Sean Davis]

That's a really good question. I think I knew it almost immediately, to be honest. Hopefully I'm not looking back in time through rose colored glasses. I had spent a fair time doing following James Comey, looking at his career, reading his books, reading books about him. And he always struck me as an extremely dirty character. So the fact that he was one of these key figures who was doing this fake briefing of Trump that he could then leak to CNN so they could use it as an excuse to talk about the Steele dossier, which no one else wanted to talk about, because they knew it was nonsense, so they needed a pretext to talk about it. And why not use the FBI director briefing Trump on the most salacious aspects of it as the pretext? But it was Comey's involvement from the beginning and his centrality to it. I just knew it was dirty because that man had just such a long career of this type of nonsense. A lot of people probably won't remember. He was at DOJ in the very early 2000s during the first Bush administration, during his first term. And this was post 9 11. They had just started doing this kind of warrantless wiretapping stuff. And these new authorities, I think, which came in either in the Patriot act or right on the heels of it, were about to expire. And at the time, John Ashcroft was having some health issues and was in the hospital. And Comey took it upon himself, I believe he was DAG at the time, the Deputy Attorney General or the number to at DOJ took it upon himself to declare that Ashcroft was not able to discharge the duties of his office, effectively made himself temporary AG by fiat, and then himself reauthorized this new massive warrantless spy program. And it was interesting that when you go and read James Comey's book about it, he's got this tick. He has to let everyone know how smart he is and how in command of the situation he is. And so he's including all these little details about things that was happening in the hospital room as he was briefing Ashcroft and shortly before he decided he needed to be AG for these powers. And he talks about how, oh, yeah, Ashcroft, he had total command of the situation and he knew these facts, and he clearly thought we needed to do this thing. Well, James, if that was the case, he sounds like someone who is mentally in charge to me and not at all not in control of his faculties or unable to discharge the duties of his office. So to me, it's just such a perfect story about Jim Comey, who goes and takes charge of the Hillary Clinton investigation just so he can exonerate her. Then he makes sure he's the one who goes and briefs Trump on something he knew was nonsensical and he knew was false that he knew was paid for by the DNC and the Hillary campaign. And then he does it to leak to cnn. And then after all this happens and things aren't going his way, he cooks up these memos, he leaks about them, several of which had classified information. And this was all done to get revenge on Trump after Trump fired him, when Trump understood he was a rat. So to me, the fact that he was involved from the beginning was the red flag I needed. Knowing this entire thing was crooked. Now, I didn't know at the time how far reaching and broad it had been throughout the government, but from the beginning, because of James Comey, I smelled a rat.

[Matt Kittle]

James Comey, the Al Haig. Al Haig of the doj, Right. Standing up. I'm in charge here. Let me ask you this as a follow up, Sean, how close do you think that pillow in that hospital got to John Ashcroft's face that James Comey was handling?

[Sean Davis]

Yeah. Who. Who knows? He did not mention a pillow in his discussion of it, as I recall.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, he said, I'll just, I'll just take it over anyway, the constitutional authority be damned. And that's really what this story is all about. Constitutional authority, the Constitution be damned. Margo, what did it feel like to all of a sudden peel back the layers of this onion and see, for instance, that, oh, yeah, all of this, the spying stuff, this intelligence that is supposedly coming from, you know, these, these deep state experts really was all about opposition research for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party?

[Margo Cleveland]

It hit me at a different level because, and I've said this to many people, I'm not a libertarian. I'm actually a conservative. And when I saw this, it basically left me hanging on by my fingernails with the libertarians kind of pulling my legs, you know, trying to get me away from that because it was explosive to me to think that our government could be so corrupt. And when I say our government, I mean throughout the government. This could not have happened if it was not from high level to low level. And also it couldn't have happened without the media going along for it. So from my perspective, what was most shocking was it really pulled the curtain back that the government is not acting in the in the best interest of the public. And in fact, it thinks it's its duty to protect the public from Trump, who the public elected.

[Sean Davis]

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[Matt Kittle]

Dan Morgan from Morgan & Morgan, America's large injury law firm. Thanks for coming coming by the show. Thanks for having me. Visit forthepeople.com for an office near you. John, as you noted, the Federalist and its staff attacked repeatedly during this, particularly early on. And then it was part of the call from the establishment, if you will, to try to Silence the Federalist. You talked about being attacked by the most powerful people on earth. You were threatened constantly with lawsuits, blacklisted by advertisers. You talked about moral blackmail by senators. Called you in your office and said, oh, listen, now, you, you, you. I think you think you have something here, but you're embarrassing yourself. Is that how the conversation went? And how did you deal with all of.

[Sean Davis]

That? Yeah, that little operation was more of a. Well, obviously, you know how much we like you all and you do such great work, but I'm just really concerned you might be getting out over your skis a little bit. And, you know, just, I just, you know, you know, I love you and we love the work you do, but we're really concerned about your reputation. I mean, so you should really think of. It's that type of tone, just such a patronizing, know it all tone. And it's, it's, you know, it's not fun when you're going through it or friends are going through it, or a company's going through it at the moment, but in hindsight, it's kind of hilarious going back and thinking about how little these people actually knew and yet how arrogant they were in telling you to stop doing it. I recall we reported, I can't remember if it was 2018 or 2019 on. On a former Dianne Feinstein staffer. So Dianne Feinstein was the ranking member on Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. She might have even been chairman. I think she was ranker. And it was Judiciary that was overseeing so much of the FBI and DOJ stuff. And we revealed that it was a staffer of hers who is kind of arranging all of this stuff happening in the background, hired Fusion gps, the firm that, that commissioned the Steele dossier in the first place, that they, they brought them on after the election to do more, you know, Steele dossier justifying and Russia collusion hoaxing. And I believe the day after we published that piece, kind of just opening the guts up for everyone to see about this shadowy group and former Democrat staffer who was behind it all, out of nowhere, there popped up this magical little Twitter op against us where people just out of nowhere started demanding, who funds the Federalist? Who funds the Federalist? Trying to insinuate that it was Russia or some foreign entity that was leading us to look at these facts and declare that the whole Russian collusion thing was a hoax. It was so obviously coordinated and it was run by thousands and thousands of bots. That was the beginning. It culminated with our own State Department The United States State Department spending our own money to censor us, to try to get us blacklisted. It culminated in foreign governments across the pond trying to use their power to come censor us. The entire power structure in government, in Western government was deployed to try and destroy us, to try to bankrupt us and try to discredit us. And it wasn't because what we were saying was false. They were trying to destroy us because they knew what we were reporting was.

[Matt Kittle]

True. Our guests today are the Federalist owns senior legal correspondent Margo Cleveland and Federalist co founder and CEO Sean Davis. We're talking about the Russia collusion hoax and the excellent reporting. I've only been at the Federalist for a couple of years, but I religiously read the Federalist for years, you know, following this coverage, because I couldn't get it anywhere else. That is why the Federalist is the 2025 winner of the Dow Prize awarded by the National Journalism center on that topic. Margo, there were news outlets that, as we talked about before, basically carried water for the left and their narrative, their lies. New York Times, Washington Post winning Pulitzer Prizes for this stuff. And long after we find out that everything they were reporting was a lie, they're still holding on to their Pulitzers. What do you think about all of that after all the work that you and your colleagues have done over the.

[Margo Cleveland]

Years? Well, it doesn't surprise me, given that we're seeing the legacy media continue with the same MO that they did during the Russia collusion hoax. They now are ignoring Arctic Frost and all of the news that is coming out there. Anything that they think that they can create a scandal, they're doing. For instance, when they went after the Department of War secretary for the supposed double tap, claiming that they were trying to kill the survivors, as opposed to that they were targeting the still functioning boat. You're seeing the media do the exact same thing that they did under the Russia collusion hoax. They, I would say, haven't learned their lesson. But it's not a lesson because they're in on it. They're purposefully cooperating with a political side in order to either attack the other political side or thwart their ability to pass laws, govern the country. It's not shocking, but it is very disturbing, destructive. Because if you do not have a functioning media, the government is able to get away with a lot of things that it shouldn't. And unfortunately, we still have probably 40% of the public that depends on the legacy media to know what's going on in the.

[Matt Kittle]

World. Do you think, Margo, that the folks at the New York Times, Washington Post, cnn, are now, you know, thanking whatever pagan idol they worship that the Maryland man wasn't on that boat along with the shipwrecked.

[Margo Cleveland]

Sailors? Well, I, I think that the media wants to have a target to attack Trump on, and it really doesn't matter if it's the Maryland man or some drug traffickers. So I, I think that they'll just look for the next person to support. No matter who that person is or what they did, they'll try to spin.

[Matt Kittle]

It. John, there were a lot of people, good people, who were ground under the wheels of this unconstitutional witch hunt, the Star Chamber, and, And you, you know, a lot of them. Let's talk about some of the key players, the whistleblowers, the key sources that we can talk about. Now, there are other sources we can't, because our currency in journalism is trust. And so we, We. We preserve that to, you know, to the fullest extent, whatever that means going to prison, whatever. But that said, there are folks like Devin Nunes and others who were just. Their lives were torn.

[Sean Davis]

Apart. Right? You know, they try to get Devin Nunes thrown off the Intel Committee and for a time had him out of the way of running that investigation through just a whole bunch of innuendos and lies. I will say, for me, personally, I've never been a guy who relies all that much on sources. They can be really, really helpful. I mean, so don't get me wrong, they can be invaluable. I've always been a document guy. When I was chief investigator for Tom Coburn, I generally wanted to have all the documents. I would try to see what story they were trying to tell me, and then from there, I would go talk to people who might have had a hand in creating them or were familiar with them or the system. And then they could kind of give me an overlay of how they look at them. And at times that would tell me, oh, my understanding here based on these documents was wrong. Or sometimes it would say, oh, they were directly right, but I always started with documents. And so it was kind of the same thing here. Once we saw the Steele dossier, which was really the root document of all of it, you see that, and you're like, well, this is total nonsense. And then you start looking for the various documents which might impeach it. And that's what Devin Nunes did so well, and why the regime freaked out the way it did when he actually went and got the FISA application and referenced it. In his report. It's why they freaked out, freaked out at Chuck Grassley and tried to hide documents from him because his investigators were going and getting the root documents. And so for me, it's the documents that always tell the story. And it's why one side was always desperately trying to hide them, hiding behind claims of national security risk and this and that. We can't have that information out. Well, yeah, we know why you didn't want that information out, because it proved you to be an utter liar. For example, we had Adam Schiff, who's just one of the most deceitful, disgusting people in politics, out there claiming after Nunes put his famous memo out, no, they didn't use the Steele dossier at all in the FISA warrant against Carter Page. That's a total lie. They didn't use the Steele dossier. Well, Schiff had seen it. He knew that they used the Steele dossier. He knew that there wouldn't have been a warrant without it. He knew that it was a primary foundational document in that FISA warrant. But because he presumed that that document would never actually get out, he was happy to go out there and lie about it. So I guess my message to people who might be listening to this and thinking about a career in journalism or they're getting started, is that sources are extremely important. You are never going to know everything about a story or a circumstance because it's just impossible. And you're going to have to rely on people who are closer to the events you're investigating to better understand exactly what unfolded. But my advice would be get really, really good at finding and sifting through and analyzing documents. Because if you can do that, you're at a much lower risk of being led around by sources who might have a different motive than you, which always happens. Everyone has different motives and different interests and equities, and you have to consider that when you're dealing with sources. But the more documentation and paperwork and records you have, the better position you'll find yourself in to figure out what the truth actually is. I've got Dan Morgan here on the.

[Matt Kittle]

Pod. Say hi, Dan. Hey. How's it going.

[Sean Davis]

Today? It's going good.

[Matt Kittle]

Man. Tell us who you are and what you do. I'm Dan Morgan. I'm an attorney and a managing partner at Morgan and Morgan, which is America's largest injury law firm. That's pretty.

[Sean Davis]

Awesome. Why do you guys think you win so many.

[Matt Kittle]

Cases? The insurance companies and other companies that we go against know that we're.

[Sean Davis]

Going to take it to the end.

[Matt Kittle]

That we believe in the case. So we fight for every dollar and we're not afraid to go extra mile for our.

[Sean Davis]

Clients. Are insurance companies like actually afraid of you.

[Matt Kittle]

Guys? We don't bluff. We take it to trial. And we are not strangers of getting very, very, very large verdicts. Awesome. So how does someone get in.

[Sean Davis]

Contact with Morgan and.

[Matt Kittle]

Morgan? What would I do if I got into an accident? Probably the easiest way is dialing pound law. That's £529 from your cell phone. Our call center is always waiting to take your call. 24, 7.

[Sean Davis]

365.

[Matt Kittle]

Wow. Dan Morgan from Morgan & Morgan, America's large injury law firm. Thanks for coming by the show. Thanks for having me. Visit forthepeople.com for an office.

[Margo Cleveland]

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[Matt Kittle]

A year. Well, here's the billion dollar question. And Sean, I'll start with you on this. Will anybody ever be held accountable? I mean we look at the judicial coup that is going on that's certainly playing a huge part in, in keeping accountability at bay. James Comey so far is walking away scott free. Nonak, James Clapper and Nonak, John Brennan and Weasel James Clapper. All of these folks. I mean there are a lot of Americans who have rightly, understandably lost all kinds of trust, all trust in their government because of the Russia collusion hoax and, and the things that happened. Beyond that, will anybody be, ever be.

[Sean Davis]

Held accountable? Well, it depends on what you mean by held accountable. Will all these people end up in prison? Probably not. And it's probably because of how kind of cooked our judiciary and jury system is on high profile political cases. For example, you know, if you, if you try anything in the D.C. circuit against a Democrat, forget it, that that jury pool will not convict a high profile anti Trump Democrat. Then, then we'll go and indict Comey in the Eastern District of Virginia. You might say, well then there's going to be a corrupt judge There who says, oh no, no, I'm not going to let him indict, get indicted because I don't like the attorney who did it. So will these people ever see the inside of a jail cell? Probably not, but I'm not going to be conclusive on that. We don't really know what will happen. But there's other forms of accountability. There is reputational accountability, which is what so many of these people are desperate for. James Comey wants to be seen as the savior of democracy, but his legacy is cooked. He will forever be the guy who exonerated Hillary and then tried to run a hoax against Trump. And look, I get that 40% or 45% of the country, these Democrats who believe the election was stolen, they'll believe that till the day they die. But the majority of people now understand that man's nature. They know that James Clapper is a liar. They know that John Brennan is a liar. These people's reputations are kind of sealed. So you might say, well, that's a bit of a cope, but I really don't think it is. As journalists and investigators, we don't get to decide what happens to people after the facts are out. That's not our job and not our role. All we can do is get the facts out there and the truth out there and let the chips fall where they may. So it can be really easy to black pill and be like, oh well, nothing's ever going to happen to them and where does that lead? So we shouldn't find facts anymore, we shouldn't investigate anymore, we shouldn't report anymore. I don't believe that. And I'm not going to let the failures of politicians somehow cow me into not doing my job. Because our job is to just get the facts out there and report it and what happens happens. And that's what.

[Matt Kittle]

We did. You're absolutely right. There's nothing that we reporters can do about that. We get the facts out there, we shine light in some dark places and the chips fall where they may. But I have to tell you, I've been in this business longer than I want to admit or acknowledge and it gets frustrating. And Margo, I, I want to ask you that as, as a reporter who did so much to expose this hoax, are you frustrated that there isn't more accountability for people you know, absolutely trash.

[Margo Cleveland]

The Constitution. So that's a tough one because Absolutely would like to have these people held accountable and not necessarily even with a jail sentence, but their public reputation, which I agree with, Shawn, they will go down in history that way. What's frustrating to me, though, is that you still have 40% of the population who maybe doesn't see it. But what I actually find, I guess, more hopeful is as this is coming out and more and more of the conspiracy, because it really was a conspiracy between government employees as well as the elected officials to pull this hoax. As this is coming out, it is causing other whistleblowers to come forward, and hopefully it's preventing this from ever happening again, because it is now clear that whistleblowers will be protected, that you will have people in government who will make sure that the truth gets out. So sort of the Mutually Assured destruction that was in the 80s, I think we're seeing now, and I see that as a hopeful consequence, I guess, of all of the work that we did, even if it doesn't seem as concrete as we.

[Matt Kittle]

Might want. There are so many tentacles to this. The Russia collusion hoax. Think about all that has sprung out of that, all that has been revealed, thankfully, to the good reporting at the Federalist and the select few other news organizations out there that are really doing the heavy lifting and good work in this field. But I, I think about what happened in 2020, another area that I think the Federalists did amazing reporting on. Molly Hemingway wrote the book on it, the rigged election of 2020. Margo, how much do you think that rigged election under the COVID of COVID played, or was necessitated, if you will, by this Russia collusion hoax and what the Federalist was exposing? That is to say, how desperate do you think there was A desperation in part caused by people who faced the real threat of being exposed and ultimately, perhaps.

[Margo Cleveland]

Held accountable. I think that we would have seen much of the same reaction if it was merely from a political standpoint. Absolutely. There were people afraid of being exposed, and they possibly would have been exposed faster, where justice could have been served. But the Democrats always want to win the White House. They always want to be able to have control of Congress. So I think Covid would have been the excuse to. To change these rules in order to rig the election. Whether or not you had this in the background, they saw that Trump could win and they wanted to make it virtually impossible for him to do it again by flooding the system with all the votes that they could get, whether they were legit or not. So I think that they would have done everything that they did anyway. But absolutely, I'm sure there were some deep sighs of relief after Biden was.

[Matt Kittle]

Declared president. Yeah, they were protected. And obviously, as we know from his Auto pen, Many of them were pardoned in perpetuity. So that at least the argument is they can never truly be pardoned, held accountable because of that pardon. I'll finish with this because we are ultimately talking about this prestigious award for excellence in journalism. And that raises the question of where does journalism in America go from here? What is journalism? What has it become? What is left of the idea that you talked about, Sean, that journalism is about courage. It's about exposing the truth. It's about making sure that the people, not the, the powerful in Washington are ultimately responsible for the.

[Sean Davis]

This republic. Well, I'm super optimistic about state of journalism. And I don't say that because I'm optimistic about the New York Times or the Washington Post or CNN cleaning up their behavior, because they're not going to. I'm optimistic because they are a smaller piece of the whole journalistic world now than they ever have been. The Internet democratized everything. It's why they've been trying so hard to shut down people on Twitter, to shut down outlets like the Federalists, because of our journalism. But I think about so many of the. We called them the anons on Twitter, the anonymous people who would go through and read every document and they would be able to tell, oh, there's this many characters behind this particular, particular redaction. These are all the people in that office at that time. And therefore we think this person fits this particular redaction. Those guys were amazing. They did so much more work than the most overpaid, overhyped people in the New York Times newsroom. And, and that's kind of what journalism is now. There's so much great independent journalism. You don't have to have press credentials, you don't have to be a W2 employee. You don't have to be on a masthead. All you need is a desire to tell the truth, to find the facts, and then the courage to do it. So I'm super optimistic just because of how many people now kind of understand what the playing field looks like and how many people just want the truth and want the facts out there. So I'm optimistic, I'm excited. I'm not a doomer. I'm not sitting around bemoaning the state because that just leads to doing nothing. If you look at the situation and you think, oh well, this is terrible, then you have an obligation to get up and do something about it, which is what we've been trying to do for almost 13.

[Matt Kittle]

Years now. Citizen journalism, no doubt, has been absolutely essential in holding individuals in government accountable. Margo, I'll, I'll close with you. What, what do you think about the state of.

[Margo Cleveland]

Journalism today? I would just echo everything that Sean has said. I think that we are going to still have the legacy media doing what they've done and will always do. But between outlets like the Federalist and the anonymous folks who what they do is they get out the truth and the market answers to that, you see their followers jump up very quickly because people value that truth. So I would absolutely concur with Sean that journalism is moving forward in a great spot not because of the legacy media, but instead spite.

[Matt Kittle]

Of them. Well, I have worked for a lot of news organizations over the years, many of them no longer in existence. It's been quite a change in my, what, nearly 40 years in this business. That said, it is, it is emboldening to know that there are reporters who still care about the story. They still care about what the story is about and why it impacts the average American. And they do it because they still have a great passion to get at the truth. Because, as Sean said, they have courage. The Federalist staff has that in spades. Thanks to our guest today. The Federalist owns senior legal correspondent Margo Cleveland and Federalist co founder and CEO Sean Davis. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for.

[Margo Cleveland]

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[Sean Davis]

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[Matt Kittle]

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[Sean Davis]

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[Margo Cleveland]

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