
On this edition of The Federalist Radio Hour, General Counsel for the Oversight Project Kyle Brosnan joins Federalist Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to discuss the newly released Biden audio tapes and what they reveal about Biden's...
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Matt Kittle
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 XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Kyle Brosnan, General Counsel at the Oversight Project, a government watchdog organization with a mission to expose and root out corruption in government among elected officials and in our most influential organizations to ensure power resides with the American people. That would be refreshing, wouldn't it, from what we have come to know in self governance in America today in way too many circles. Today we discuss the Biden tapes with thanks to the Oversight Project for fighting for their release. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Kyle Brosnan
Matt, great to be with you. Thank you very much for having me on. Looking forward to our conversation.
Matt Kittle
You bet. And in fact, you and I spoke earlier this week upon the release of these tape. We have a story on that at the Federalist now. You can find it@the federalist.com I'll read the opening and we'll just go from there because I, I think this sets up the struggle that you guys have gone through to get these tapes and why it's so important. President Joe Biden was just a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. The story starts. At least that's how Special Counsel Robert her described the auto pen. President her concluded as much in his 2024 report and let Biden off the hook for mishandling classified documents because a liberal Washington, D.C. jury he thought would most likely not convict the senile old man. Now the long awaited release of the audio recordings of Biden's conversations with his memoir Ghostwriter paints a picture of a politician in the throes of cognitive decline before he became commander in chief, a former vice president who broke the law and got away with it. I think that that pretty much sums it up, but I think there are more details that we need to fill in. So take us back in this battle because earlier this week, like I said, we find out that after what, two plus years, these audio tapes and very, very telling, very damning audio tapes are released.
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah, that's right, Matt. So we filed this case in 2024 with the release of the her report and we filed a series of lawsuits actually about special counsel her's report. Because you know, the line that you quoted from the report, of course is the most significant one that he's a well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. But I thought the American people saw for their own eyes a president in decline well before the her report came out. And so, you know, we're, we're seeing a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, basically affirming what we've been observing for a daily basis on a couple of years. So we filed a series of lawsuits to sort of kind of peel back the layers of the onion about her, the her report, the her investigation and to conduct oversight of that because, you know, we, we believe and now have shown that he kind of took a knee there and, and left a lot of meat on the bones. So one of the cases we got the audio tapes of hers special counsel hers interview with President Biden released, our litigation spurred that release and it really showed a president in cognitive decline when he sat for those interviews in 2023. But the second case that we won last week was about records relied upon by special counsel her for certain passages in the report, including the one that you quoted at the start of this conversation about, you know, how did he come to say that Biden was a well meaning elderly man with a poor memory and declined to prosecute on those grounds. One of the records that he relied upon was Biden's interview with his ghostwriter Mark Zwanitzer to write the book Promise me Dad. So we fought this case for two years. We were part of the Heritage Foundation. They are the plaintiffs in this case. We continued taking it over when we became independent and got about two and a half hours of audio recordings, a transcript of those recordings released last week. Biden and Joan usher sat for 70 hours worth of interviews. But our case focused on the narrow topic of what Special counsel her focused on to make his decision not to prosecute former Vice President Biden for mishandling classified information.
Matt Kittle
That's very interesting because again, you, you got the meat from that bone. As you talked about that two and a half hours, do you have any concerns that there might be some more compelling information that, you know, we, we don't know about contained in, you know, the other 67 and a half hours or what have you.
Kyle Brosnan
Oh, yeah, we are very concerned about that. I mean, the, the book promised me. Dad sort of reinvigorated Joe Biden's fledgling political career. He used a memoir, as many presidents do, as a springboard to run for reelection in 2020. You know, and a lot of the defenses that he brought up when he intervened in the case, but also when it was the Biden led doj, is that it was private discussions about the loss of his son. That, of course, is tragic. He wrote, he wrote about it in the book, obviously, too. But, you know, there's, there's again, 70 total hours of information here. I wonder if he, you know, spoke to his ghostwriter about his son's business deal in Ukraine or the family's business dealings with individuals connected to the ccp, which, which has been well documented, you know, in his intervening years, as we call them, once he left the vice presidency and, you know, became president following the 2020 election. You know, we found out through our investigation and lawsuits that Joe Biden lamented that, you know, that Joe Biden was among the poorer, one of the poorest people in the Senate when he was there. You know, the Senate's classically filled with very, very rich individuals. And she always was a bit jealous about Biden. Joe Biden's, you know, that he was relatively poor compared to his colleagues there. And so, you know, we're putting the pieces of the puzzle together, but there is still a lot of information out there that Congress can, can go get. They'd have a stronger right to that information than us as a FOIA requester would be.
Matt Kittle
That's what I was going to ask you. And it's surprising to me that Dr. Jill Biden, the good doctor, would be jealous, would be covetous of the wealth that's there. You know, he, I think her husband, though, did, did pretty well for himself over the years, ultimately, as we take a look at some of those sweetheart deals that we saw in Ukraine and with China and certainly with some major lobbyists in, in Washington, D.C. but that's, I guess, what I'm thinking about. You noted we don't know what's contained in the rest of those series of interviews. 68 hours. Is there a move right now to capture that? Because I think maybe that would be very illuminating on those things like the Ukraine deals and those sorts of things, particularly because they've been fighting like, you know what, to keep those out of the public forum.
Kyle Brosnan
That's right. I mean, I think, I think Congress would be the best vehicle to obtain that information, you know, foia, even once you get to litigating these cases, you know, does have privacy protections for individuals that, whose records are, are, are captured. And you know, early on we made a very strategic decision from a legal perspective to give us the best chance of winning, particularly in front of Washington D.C. judges to only focus on, you know, the, the, the material that Special counsel her relied upon. Remember, the purpose of FOIA and there's a Supreme Court whole case on this is basically to figure out what the government is up to. So, so for the legal posturing of the case is we are conducting oversight of the HUR investigation to understand how he made decisions, whether or not to prosecute. There is of course massive political ramifications and, and you know, bombshell findings contained in these audio tapes that go well beyond Special counsel her. But that's sort of how we needed to present the legal argument in the case for controversy in front of the courts here in Washington. And so for balancing the privacy interests of a very traumatic time for President Biden speaking about the loss of his son Beau. That's more than likely or not going more likely than not would have been withheld under case law and things like that. So our legal case focused on the narrow issue of special counsel hers investigation. That said, the privacy exemptions that are imposed upon our organization as a FOIA requester or a news organization or whomever is, you know, litigating these FOIA cases does not apply to Congress. And so Congress is actually entitled to more information than the public would be that then they would get under foia. And so, you know, I worked on Capitol Hill for many years in oversight and investigatory activities. And we get information that is not released under FOIA all the time, particularly, you know, redactions would be lifted. You know, Congress, Ken, and does get classified information as well. And so the best vehicle to pursue the remaining 67 and a half hours that has not been released here is for Congress to go get it and they could have that fight out.
Matt Kittle
Now I know all too well the battle of foia and I can cite a quick case. I was a plaintiff with my last news organization. We were trying to get the manifesto from the Trans killer in Nashville, Tennessee, the one in 2023 who stormed into a Christian elementary school and shot three third graders dead and three other staff members fatally.
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Matt Kittle
And there was just an absolute lock on that. And that was not only from the Nashville police. That was what we, we learned in that case, was that it was an order from on high in the Garland Justice Department because they didn't want this information out there. And we fought for the better part of two plus years as well. And I believe the only reason that we got that information, those documents that should have been made public long before there was no ongoing investigation, the killer was dead. But the reason we got that is because Biden was no longer in power. We got that because we had an FBI that said, no, this information is indeed very valuable to the public, very important. And that is what the court in this case said to you folks about these two and a half hours. They said, no, you can't make an argument that this isn't in the public interest.
Kyle Brosnan
That's, that's completely correct. And so just to update your listener, so we filed this case in March of 2024. We had briefed it extensively against the Biden Justice Department. And the Biden Justice Department was, you know, basically standing in for and, and litigating on behalf of Joe Biden, asserting all these baseless privacy interests. You know, across these, her cases, as we call them. We, we filed five in total. You know, they actually, the government argued that the President of the United States has a privacy interest in the sound of his own voice. This is what the Garland Department is arguing. You know, the person with the biggest bully pulpit in the entire world has a privacy in just in the sound of his own voice. Yeah, it's, it's, it's absurd. It doesn't even pass the lab test. No. So, so with the change in administration, they, they had a reevaluation of their legal position and were set to give us the tapes. And then sort of at the 11th hour, Joe Biden, in his personal capacity, intervened in the case and, you know, tried to make these privacy arguments. And so at the trial court level, the judge took, took the tapes that we received in camera to review them, denied their motion to basically withhold them. They went up to the D.C. circuit, which is the intermediate appellate court, right before the Supreme Court. It's been called the second highest court in the land because you get a lot of judges that want to be Supreme Court justices on, on that court. Right. And we won 2 to 1 up there on a panel with a Trump Judge, a Biden judge and an Obama and an Obama judge. The chief judge, Sri Srinivasan joined us here. So we won 2 to 1 with Judge Srinivasan and Katzis agreeing with us that the public interest in these tapes was immense and sort of paved the way for their release. And then Joe Biden made the decision not to appeal any higher and sort of paved the way for the release that we were able to put out earlier this week.
Matt Kittle
That is nothing short of a miracle that you got an Obama judge. In this day and age with the rogue judges, particularly in the swamp, anything that seems to benefit, benefit Donald Trump is instantly rejected, it seems to me, and not just Donald Trump, it seems to benefit the American people. And we can talk about all kinds of different areas from, you know, the immigration battle to the DEI battles and what have you. But there, there is a reason why the Garland DOJ sought to have these tapes blocked from public listening. There is a reason that Joe Biden, his attorneys entered in at the 11th hour to keep this stuff out of the public arena. And we, we found that out this week. You, on your site not only have the, the six different audio breakdown of the audio tapes of the two and a half hours, but you also have the transcript. And I'm telling you this is very eye opening for those who are still holding on to any kind of strange that Joe Biden was, as Joe Scarborough said in, in 2024, this is the best version of Joe Biden. The cognitive slip occurred long before, you know, George Clooney was, was writing an op ed for the New York Times, correct?
Kyle Brosnan
That's right. What, what listening to these tapes show. And it's unfortunate that the transcripts does not pick up the ums, the US the, the pauses, you know, the size for not being able to remember. But basically what listening to these tapes shows is that the auto pen presidency was born before Joe Biden ever took a seat in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk. He forgot a lot of things. He was struggling to remember the names of people like, like Jim Clyburn when, when, you know, he was discussing something he did with the Congressional Black Caucus when, when he was vice president, forgets who Jim Clyburn is, just refers to him as that congressman from South Carolina. And that's, that's significant because Jim Clyburn's endorsement saved his candidacy primary exactly three, three years later. But, but you see things of him, you know, saying he doesn't remember throughout and you see the real clear signs of cognitive decline well before you know, the public knew about it and well before he, he took office. That's issue number one. So the birth of the auto pen presidency came during the drafting of Promise me dad in 2016 and 2017. And then the second really significant bombshell out of these tapes releases is the scale and scope of what classified information Biden shared with his ghostwriter. The transcripts will have numbers and letters next to the redaction, sort of justifying them. And so if, if you go and look at them, they will have, you know, B6 and B7, which are privacy redactions. But the, the significant ones here are B1, which exempts classified information, and then B3, which is basically a federal statute, bars public release of those information. And there are B1 redactions that the Department of the Defense implemented our Department of War. Now, excuse me, but There are also B3 exemptions from under the CIA act or the National Security Act. And so there is information that our highest intelligence agencies to this day, you know, these interviews occurred nine years ago, in some instances, cannot release to the public. And this is also significant because they're not only redacting lines of dialogue from President Biden, they're also redacting lines of dialogue from the ghostwriter. So the Ghost Rider is repeating things back to Joe Biden that the, that the intelligence agencies in the Department of War are saying cannot be released publicly because they're classified.
Matt Kittle
Wow. And so you have this guy with these new audio tapes. I mean, we, we had a sense of that, obviously with, with her's report. He decided not to go there prosecution wise. And, you know, you have to give him some level of grace in that matter. He probably wasn't going to get a conviction in a D.C. court where you have 98% of the jury pool, Democrats and leftists. So I get that there still has to be some accountability here, though, but I mean, he really does put national security at risk. We don't know to what extent, because that information is redacted. That is not in, in the audio.
Kyle Brosnan
Right.
Matt Kittle
You know, listen to the tapes and you hear Biden and then sometimes you think, well, he's just trailing off again because that's Biden, you know, just getting kind of quiet. But no, I mean, they remove some very sensitive information from, from this audio.
Kyle Brosnan
That's right, yeah. Listening to it, you'll, you'll see sort of what, what us in the radio biz called dead air, where it's basically just, just silence there.
Matt Kittle
And that's, by the way, for us radio guys that is our recurring nightmare. I have that dead air dream over and over again. And that's, you know, basically that's a good way of describing it because it is as you go through the two and a half hours, you know, I go, okay, wait a minute, what is he saying there? Because I think that's important. That was, that was taken out, that stretch was taken out because we're not supposed to be privy to that. And neither by the way, is a ghostwriter.
Kyle Brosnan
That's correct. In another case we filed about the, her investigation, you know, we got transcripts of the ghostwriters interview with special counsel Hurst team and where he basically told them that I did not have a security clearance. I was not authorized to hear this information. And the important thing with classified information too is yes, you need a clearance to receive it. That's the first step. But you also need to have to have what's called the need to know. And so just because you have a security clearance to see the most classified secrets in the federal government doesn't give you carte blanche authority to hear it. You also need to have a need to know and want to possess neither of those things. And, and you see it in the tape sometimes where you know, Joe Biden will be reviewing notes that, that he, that he took from his time as the vice president or, or you know, he, he, he kept copious amounts of notes and binders and sort of journals, you know, kind of recounting his meetings. And he goes, you know, oh my gosh, this is classified and we need to be careful with this or I don't know, I'm not supposed to have this, or you know, I'm getting the classified stuff from downstairs. So it shows that his ghost Rider on the record with, with the recording going that he, he knew he wasn't supposed to possess that material and nonetheless he still kept talking with him.
Matt Kittle
Didn't Mitt Romney have some binders too that got him into trouble several years ago?
Kyle Brosnan
I, I believe so, yes.
Matt Kittle
That was the, the binder full of, of, of women or something. That was, I remember that was a huge talking point during the 2012 campaign. Also, I think he, there was something about a dog and how he, he transported that dog on, on the roof of his, his station wagon. Our guest today is Kyle Brosnan, general counsel at the Oversight Project, Government watchdog organization with a mission to expose and root out corruption in government. Man, oh man, Kyle and his organization have their work cut out for them. They've had a great deal of success thus far and maybe one of their biggest victories. What we're talking about today, the Biden audio tapes of Joe Biden talking to his ghostwriter for his memoir. And what we clearly know now was confidential classified information that should not have been held, first of all by Joe Biden and it should not have been provided to the, the ghost writer in this case. That. And neither, this is an important point, Kyle. Neither the Ghost Rider or Joe Biden had clearance for this because this is what I kind of want to get into in this portion. You know, at the same time that Joe Biden is putting his, these classified documents next to his Corvette in his garage in Delaware, you have FBI agents storming Mar a Lago going through the, the former President Donald Trump at that, all of his possessions, his wife's undergarments. My God, this was just awful. And it was made to be as public as possible, which I think is very interesting. And you had a special counsel unconstitutionally appointed in Jack Smith who was running a prosecution against the former president. There is a stark difference here though, in terms of who can possess classified information. And I think that dividing line is very important. Can, can you walk us through that?
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah, it's very important to remember that throughout the whole Jack Smith saga is that President Trump was a former president of the United States. He holds the power to declassify information, whereas Joe Biden was the Vice president did not. And so it is indicative of the two tiered system of justice here in that, you know, just even, even the, even with how the case was prosecuted. I mean, special counsel, her office was a black hole. But we did get some funding information from both offices while they were both stood up. And I think, I think he, I think special counsel, hers spent about a fifth of what Jack Smith was spending. And you know, the money speaks for itself. I mean, Jack Smith had a team of dozens of weaponized lawyers and FBI agents on, on their team. I mean, some of them, one of them ran for Congress this most recent term and hers team was still relatively small in comparison. And I think sort of the level of effort that got where that went into, you know, comparing the two is very indicative of sort of how weaponized the Justice Department was even, even by the deep state in the first Trump administration, but certainly by the Biden administration.
Matt Kittle
Extremely weaponized. Never forget that this wasn't the only case against Donald Trump, a Trump case in and of itself, along with these just absolutely weaponized abusive DOJ cases and others, of course, in the lawfare world. You know, I remember when this whole story broke about Trump and the classified documents, I remember, and this is not to pick on him, but I was listening to Clay and Buck and Clay Travis is an attorney and he was trying to walk his audience through this in all four cases against Donald Trump at that time. And he, and I remember him saying, I think of the, of the four cases, this classified document thing, that one might be the most difficult for Trump to beat. And I'm thinking to myself, and I didn't have, you know, we didn't have all the information that we have right now, but I'm thinking to myself at the time, why is this the most difficult one? I would think this one is the easiest to beat back, legally speaking, for all the things that you just mentioned. What, what did you think when this story broke?
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah, I think hindsight's always 2020 now. Right. So sitting here in 20 20.
Matt Kittle
Oh, absolutely.
Kyle Brosnan
And so I want to caveat that a little bit as well, but I think, you know, how you store these records is also very important. And I mean, when I had a clearance as a Senate staffer, I was not allowed to even take, you know, my, I had a, a Fitbit watch, you know, a little fitness watch that couldn't even go in the room with me. And so, you know, on a staff level, you know, they made sure that anything you took in and out of the, out of the skiff there was, was incredibly well maintained, secure. And you know, nothing really went in or out. And so they take great efforts, especially in the Senate side to secure that, that information. And so, you know, there could have been, you know, how, how, how this, the information was stored. But in both cases, writing President Biden was keeping classified information next to his Corvette in his garage. That's certainly not secure either. And so there are a lot of nuances in how these statutes are written. But, but I think, I think the real, so from a pure legal perspective, if you're interpreting the statutes, sort of, you know, just how, just how they're written, I can understand where Clay was coming from there. But I think what comes next in the analysis is sort of the veracity and the aggressiveness of how they are prosecuted. Right. You know, Hillary Clinton, it comes to mind as well, entirely home cooked, home brewed email server in the bathroom of her mansion that is completely run where they, you know, discuss classified information on there showing a clear intent to not have public government records, you know, that are subject to things like FOIA but also lack the secure systems to, you know, exchange classified information. You know, they have all, they have whole wholly Classified email systems within the intelligence community. You know, it's called like a high side which is, you know, classified email and then a low side which is, you know, unclassified. And so the federal government takes great steps to secure that information. And you know, for staffers or even for members of Congress and senators that, you know, want to view classified information that there, there are a lot of steps to be taken in sort of in how that saved, how that information is safeguarded. And so I think you see with, with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton is just a callous disregard for, for those steps to secure that information. And then you have law enforcement and prosecutors that completely take, take a knee and, and, and fail to prosecute them for their crimes. You know, with the veracity that we saw Jack Smith go after Donald Trump. So it is a poster child of
Matt Kittle
the two tiered system of justice, no doubt. And, and can I tell you something here? The Clinton case, that was the only time, and I can say this with absolute truth and certainty, that is the only time I was ever interested in what was happening in Hillary Clinton's bathroom.
Kyle Brosnan
You and me both, Matt.
Matt Kittle
Okay, fair enough. And I, I, I would have guessed that view too. I don't want to know what's going on Hillary Clinton's bathroom, but she did have that homemade server back there. And I guess in all seriousness, this is why I bring this up. If James Comey could not bring charges against Hillary Clinton in that case, will Joe Biden ever be held accountable for what he did?
Kyle Brosnan
Well, no, because they, they both give excuses that, that are not present in the text of the statute. I recall, you know, FBI Director Comey testifying and basically he had said that, yes, you know, I agree that the statute says this, yes. But we have never prosecuted this before. And so it's sort of a novel, novel, novel application of the statute. And we didn't want to bring that case for the first time.
Matt Kittle
That's that. But that's, that's interesting to me though, Kyle, because there were all kinds of novel interpretations of the stat for all four cases against Donald Trump.
Kyle Brosnan
Exactly, exactly. I mean, Jack Smith brought the Ku Klux Klan act case against Trump in D.C. for voting. It was a statute written to stop that, stop the Ku Klux Klan in, during Reconstruction from lynching African Americans and preventing them from voting.
Matt Kittle
Amazing.
Kyle Brosnan
And he compared that to J to January6. It is absurd. And just comparing it to special counsel her, one of the reasons that he cited too is that Joe Biden cooperated with him. I mean, but you still broke the law. I mean, we're seeing it, we're seeing it right now. And so, you know, you. Can you compare that to, to just the novel legal theories that Jack Smith applied to Trump with this, you know, the Ku Klux Klan act in D.C. and then going through, you know, the, the rating, raiding Trump's home to make sure that the, the media is outside and all the leaks and, you know, things like that. It's, it just, it's. The incongruencies are alarming in how they, you know, comparing the, the three cases now between Trump and then Biden and Clinton.
Matt Kittle
You know, I'm told that Ted Bundy cooperated with law enforcement officials, too, that, that didn't make him, you know, able to escape his ultimate punishment. Well, it is curious to me as we take a look at these documents, and it really is. I mean, if, if you are interested at all in this, you, you've got to go to the Oversight Project's website, and there they are. The, all the audio is right there. And, and as Kyle said before, you can read through the transcripts and you can get some good information there, but you really don't get a picture, particularly of the cognitive decline that Biden is already going through in 2016 17, until you listen to these tapes and then you can hear him over and over again saying, oh, we shouldn't be talking about that. I guess that's confidential. That's. That's classified information. Very, very damning. Speaking of damning, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to get your take on the Fauci files. Now we have Fauci writing, dear Diary, I had no idea this existed. And we had that very intense hearing where Anthony Fauci spent hours saying a, a paragraph over and over again at the advice of his counsel. It will go down in history as one of the more remarkable moments in, in Senate oversight. So that said, I'm curious what you think about Fauci being held accountable for what we know now because he claims he has a Fifth amendment right here, but it seems to me there are a lot of holes in his defense, even though he has this massive, sweeping pardon that was written by the auto pen, not by Joe Biden. What do you think will happen in this case? Because they're talking about criminal charges against this guy.
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah, that's right. Congress can, and I believe they are, but they also should draw up contempt proceedings against, against Dr. Fauci. His conduct at the hearing, you know, repeatedly asserting the Fifth Amendment. I think he did it over 100 times during, during the hearing yesterday. Remarkable by my read is, is an acknowledgment at a minimum that his auto pen pardon is illegitimate. Senator Hawley brought this up and we put a press release outside of this as well. There's, there's a Supreme court case from 1896 and I want to quote it for you, Matt. It says if the witness has already received a pardon, he can no longer set off his privilege since he stands with respect to such offense as if it had never been committed. That's Brown versus Walker from 1896. So what does that mean in sort of layman's terms? It's that if you have a pardon for conduct, you cannot plead the fifth when speaking about that conduct in the future. And so what makes Fauci's pardon unique is a couple of regards is that he was never charged with the crime. He was never to my knowledge even under investigation for a crime. And so it is unclear to this day what he has been pardoned for. Also his pardon covers, it's a blanket pardon for I want to say 10 years of time going back to the Obama administration. And so he gets basically a blanket pardon from dating back the early Obama administration through the end of the Obama admin, through the first Trump admin, through all of Biden administration and we don't know what he's been pardoned for. And on top of that it's signed with the autopen and James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, his investigation showed that we have no idea whether Joe Biden authorized the pardons that were signed with auto pen, particularly those in the last days of his administration, which includes Dr. Fouch. And so there's a lot of things that we're working on coming to head at once here. But, but, but Fauci sort of leading the fifth, you know, fearing prosecution for things that, that the, the pardon ostensibly covers, at least to me on the surface, is a, an acknowledgement that, that, that he himself believes his pardon may not be legitimate.
Matt Kittle
Do you think his very high priced legal team gave him some bad advice here?
Kyle Brosnan
I think Fauci was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Right. I mean the things coming out of the diary are, are, are really bad and, and, and he, he is responsible for a lot of really bad things that happened in the government's response to Covet. And so I think at a minimum he is looking at a contempt vote here. And I expect the committee and, and the full Senate to, to, to take that. What happens after that is anyone's guess, because guess where the. Guess where the contempt trial would be tried to. In the U.S. senate, Washington, D.C. oh, sure, yeah. Yeah.
Matt Kittle
Well, that. No, that's important because I want to make sure that I have this right. Does the contempt charge, like an impeachment, does that have to be tried in the U. S. Senate, or is that in a, A district court in Washington,
Kyle Brosnan
D.C. so there are three types of contempt that, that, that, that Congress has.
Matt Kittle
It's.
Kyle Brosnan
It's criminal contempt, it's civil contempt, and what's called inherent contempt, which I don't think has been used in hundreds of years. Basically, they used to have an old jail cell in the bottom of the Capitol where the sergeant and arsenal arrest people.
Matt Kittle
And did Aaron Burr sit there for a while? Is that he might have.
Kyle Brosnan
I, I haven't read the history in a while. I think it was big in the antebellum period. I know that. But you've seen criminal contempt come in the news lately. Namely, you know, President Trump's former advisor, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were both held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the sham January six committee. And the Biden DOJ charged them and secured convictions here in Washington.
Matt Kittle
So they serve jail time, which I think is. Should always be front and center in this argument, because if Fauci is indeed guilty of that, he needs to serve jail time. But I'm sorry, you were explaining about these two different.
Kyle Brosnan
Well, we were actually joking about that in the office today, Matt. Wouldn't it be poetic justice for Fauci to be confined to home confinement, house arrest? Because he made us all. He put us all under house arrest for two years.
Matt Kittle
Fauci is locked down. That's, that's rich. Yes.
Kyle Brosnan
For 15 days. To slow the spread. Yeah.
Matt Kittle
No, no, we'll release you when the spread is slowed. When we can. When we can. What was the curve? You remember, we've flattened the curve. Right. Fauci, you can leave when the, when the curve is flattened, and we'll decide when that is. Because that's what you did. You decided when we could all go out, you and Gavin Newsome and, and Como and the rest of them.
Kyle Brosnan
Right, right. So I would assume that the committee will be marking up a criminal contempt proceeding and, and following those, those procedures. Procedures there. But, I mean, one of the biggest parts of the hearing yesterday was of, you know, Fauci's lawyer was sitting next to him on the chair and trying to interject, and Rand Paul kicked him out of the hearing.
Matt Kittle
That was good. Rand, listen. Rand Paul has had quite enough of Dr. Fauci and his team's antics, and that was on full display yesterday. That was a moment that I will remember as long as I have memory. But real quick, I wanted to. So does that go through Congress? Is it. The Senate has that trial. I don't think that's.
Kyle Brosnan
So there's no trial. It would be criminal referral.
Matt Kittle
Okay.
Kyle Brosnan
There's a code that sort of governs criminal contempt proceedings. There are a couple of procedural bounds they can take. At a minimum, there'd be a committee vote and potentially a full vote of the Senate. It depends on how all the legal n. Nitty gritty is worked out. And I don't believe that information's been made public yet. So.
Matt Kittle
Depends.
Kyle Brosnan
It depends on what. Depends on what procedure they're going to follow.
Matt Kittle
That's interesting to me because if it goes to this committee, I would imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the. The committee on Homeland Security and Governmental affairs where we just saw this hearing, they would be responsible for that. I can definitely see a conviction there if it goes to the full Senate. Here's the trouble, Kyle, and I think you know where I'm going with this. You have a Senate that can't even pass a bill that 80 to 90% of Americans want in place, an election integrity bill called the Save America Act. How on earth with a Lisa Murkowski and a John Cornyn and the rest of these rhinos, would we. Would we see a conviction of this man?
Kyle Brosnan
Well, it would be a vote to refer the matter to the Justice Department. So the mat. And so the matter would be run by the US Attorney's office here in Washington under Jeanine Pirro. You know, they would. They would get the referral and then, you know, decide whether to pursue an indictment and go through the court system there.
Matt Kittle
That's.
Kyle Brosnan
And so there would not be a. This is not an impeachment trial.
Matt Kittle
Right.
Kyle Brosnan
To where. So the only. The vote would be to basically agree whether or not to make. To make the referral.
Matt Kittle
Yeah, that's what I was curious about because. Because they. But. But at the end of the day, you still have to get. Is this a majority vote or is there cloture invoked?
Kyle Brosnan
And so I believe it's a majority vote. Again, it comes down to which procedures that they are. That. That the committee and the chairman decide to. To go through. But I believe it could be a majority. There may also be a vehicle on which it's not a full Senate vote. I don't have that information available to me as to what the committee's doing right now. I'm assuming they're sort of putting their heads together and figuring out the best path forward here. But look, it may very well be a bipartisan vote at the committee. I mean, Senator Fetterman did not have good things about Dr. Fauci following his performance yesterday. And, you know, out of anybody on. On the Democratic side of the aisle, I think, you know, kudos to Senator Fetterman to actually being able to, you know, say what day it is in America. He. He's able to call a spade a spade on some things, which, you know, a lot of his colleagues on his side of the aisle are, you know, just live in fantasy land. And so I could see the vote being at least bipartisan out of his gak. And who knows what's going on in the Senate now. They've got. They've got a lot of problems in the Senate in terms of doing much of anything. So that. That remains to be seen. But I think there is a lot of momentum in terms of the accountability movement for Fauci. I think, I think particularly those on the conservative side of the ledger are still very angry about what he did. And there is a desire for true accountability here for what he did to people. I mean, over a million lives lost in Covid and people watching their loved ones pass away over FaceTime. How many weddings were canceled? How many, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were canceled? How many graduations, graduations, churches? Right. You know, Fauci especially, you know, had no problem closing, you know, advocating for the closing of churches, but had nothing to say when radical leftists were burning the country down in the names of racial justice during the BLM riots, 2020. And so he hurt a lot of people. And, and there's a. There's a huge desire for accountability be. To be brought here.
Matt Kittle
But he's not the only one. I mean, he's the point man. He's the focus. But there were. There were a lot of scientists, and we were supposed to blindly follow their science, which was politically driven. And it had. It had the stain of politics all over at. At the very least. You know, there's another case that's going on right now that you folks over at the Oversight Project are very much aware of, and that is the case of the Fauci associate who was trying to, as we were talking about before your. Your drive to get these audio tapes, Joe Biden, all under foia. This guy is. Is charged in a Florida court with doing the same kind of thing, I should say with, with trying to make it extremely difficult, hide information, hide the means to go after these very important Covid related documents is do you final question for you. Do you see this house of cards falling? And, and where are the cards going to fall?
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah. The person you talk about, his name is Dr. David Morens. He was a senior aide to Fauci. And Congress actually found these records years ago. Brad Wenstrup, the chairman of the COVID select subcommittee found them and, and Morin would tell people, you know, hey, you know, hit send me this message on Gmail. You know, there, there's emails that, from his Gmail account, and I'm quoting here, I learned the tricks last year from an old friend who, who heads our FOIA office and hates FOIA to make records disappear. You know, please, please, you know, there's no worry about FOIAs. This is an email from David Mormons to Peter Dadzick, the head of EcoHealth alliance that received grants from NIH to do work in the Wuhan Institution of Virology that potentially and likely caused the whole pandemic. I could send stuff to Tony on his private Gmail or hand it to him at work or his house. I mean he put these things in email saying he wanted to skirt government record keeping obligations and you know, withhold those, those things from the public. Public. I mean it's, it's, and he's been charged and indicted and so there's a lot of smoking guns here that have been out in the public for a while. But, but the problem is that 95 of the country or 99 of the country doesn't know David Morens is right. Everyone knows who Anthony Fauci is. And so I don't think that will quench the thirst for accountability that a large segment of the population are seeing. But it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Matt Kittle
Let me tell you this, with all that you just said, the diarrhea Fauci, all of these communications that we have, the scientists, the so called experts that we were supposed to revere and genuflect at the altar of, they're kind of stupid, aren't they? And I mean this because, you know, you have what Morenz is, you know, sending these emails saying, oh, this is the way we get around foia, but he's sending them on emails that are certainly open to foia. And then you have Anthony Fauci writing all of this stuff, detailed stuff in his diary. But there is one final point to all of this. And when it comes to open records, I keep hearing from Democrats and Fauci supporters, this is a privacy violation by the Senate. How dare they go after Anthony Fauci's private diary. This is not his private diary, as I understand it.
Kyle Brosnan
It. That's correct. I. My understanding is that he kept this diary on a government computer.
Matt Kittle
Yes.
Kyle Brosnan
And so it is not a private diary because of growing up before computers, a private diary was a notebook in your. Your nightstand next to you.
Matt Kittle
That's right.
Kyle Brosnan
It's. It's not a, it's not a. A word document on your government issue computer. You know, it just.
Matt Kittle
It's amazing. You know, what it reminds me of is when my kids were little, my daughter would from time to time yell out, mom, Aiden was looking in my diary. That is a violation of privacy. But what Anthony Fauci was doing was recording science. You know, all we learned from my daughter's. The opening of my daughter's diary was that she had a crush on Tyler. That's a lot different than the, you know, the COVID czar who is telling government leaders to shut everything down.
Kyle Brosnan
Yeah.
Matt Kittle
And.
Kyle Brosnan
And he's. He's sort of taking a victory lap mid pandemic about how famous he's become. Yes.
Progressive Insurance Announcer
And.
Kyle Brosnan
And so he, He's. He's just, you know, basking in the glory of. Of his newfound fame. And, and it's really sad because I remember during. During the pandemic, Fauci basically said, I'm paraphrasing here, but, you know, to question me is to question science.
Matt Kittle
Yes, that's right.
Kyle Brosnan
It's like, it's like the, the quote from the Bhagavad Vida. You know, I. I am become science, you know, the giver, the. You know, and it's just the ego on this guy. I mean, Bernie Moreno had very. Senator Moreno had very colorful language. And I, I agree with the senator from Ohio. I do wholeheartedly about what he had to say, because who. Who.
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Who the.
Kyle Brosnan
Who the bleep does he think he is? That's right.
Matt Kittle
Maybe it was in artful, but I think he. He summed up what a lot of Americans were thinking.
Kyle Brosnan
Oh, yeah, and just the ego, you know, to question me is to question science. Well, you were wrong. And, and people were questioning you during the pandemic. But, you know, the. What I call the COVID censorship industrial complex was put in full swing to. To take people's rights away, to silence them, to ruin their careers, rip families apart. And at the end of the day, those people were right.
Matt Kittle
They were right. And that's something we can never forget, how those very right voices were silenced. And that was more than Fauci. That was the auto pen presidency. The this president who was apparently elected by more votes than Donald Trump in 2020, at least that's what they're saying. A guy who really was, we're learning more and more, was an absentee landlord. And really the president was a group of leftist elitist that were running the show. And that's unconstitutional. And that is not what the American people voted for, certainly. And that is exactly what the Oversight Project is looking into. And it's thanks to their good work that we're talking about these things now, six years later and and the public has a much better understanding. No matter what happens, you've got that record. And that is so critical thanks to my guest today, Kyle Brosnan, general counsel at the Oversight Project, a government watchdog organization with a mission to expose and root out corruption in government among elected officials and in our influential organizations to ensure power resides with the American people, not Anthony Fauci. We'll be back soon with more on the Federalist Radio Hour. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Check.
Matt Kittle
Got no kids and I love the lord. Check.
Episode: Two-Tiered Justice For Biden And Fauci
Date: July 31, 2026
Host: Matt Kittle
Guest: Kyle Brosnan, General Counsel at the Oversight Project
This episode explores recent revelations from the release of audio tapes tied to President Joe Biden's classified document investigation and examines the apparent double standard in legal and media treatment of powerful political figures. Guest Kyle Brosnan discusses the Oversight Project’s legal fight to secure these tapes, the content and significance of the recordings, and draws parallels to the disparate justice meted out in the Trump and Biden classified documents cases. The latter half of the discussion addresses Anthony Fauci's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the controversy over his pardon, and his recent Senate testimony amid growing calls for accountability.
The Lawsuit and Its Purpose
Scope of the Release
"We are very concerned about that... I wonder if he, you know, spoke to his ghostwriter about his son's business deal in Ukraine or the family's business dealings with individuals connected to the CCP..." (05:56)
What the Tapes Reveal
"...the autopilot presidency was born before Joe Biden ever took a seat in the Oval Office." (15:47)
Secrecy and Public Interest
"The public interest in these tapes was immense and sort of paved the way for their release." (12:20)
Scope of Classified Breaches
"...there is information that our highest intelligence agencies… cannot release to the public. ... they're not only redacting lines of dialogue from President Biden, they're also redacting lines of dialogue from the ghostwriter." (15:47)
Contrasting Prosecutions and Legal Standards
"I think the real—so from a pure legal perspective... what comes next in the analysis is sort of the veracity and the aggressiveness of how they are prosecuted… for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, it's just a callous disregard for… to secure that information." (27:36)
On Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal
"James Comey could not bring charges against Hillary Clinton in that case, will Joe Biden ever be held accountable for what he did? Well, no, because they both give excuses that are not present in the text of the statute." (29:30)
Novel Legal Theories Used Against Trump
Fauci's Pardon and Senate Testimony
"If you have a pardon for conduct, you cannot plead the fifth when speaking about that conduct in the future... his pardon may not be legitimate." (33:15)
Congressional Response
The Role of Watchdogs and Oversight
Systemic Transparency Failures
False Privacy Claims
"He kept this diary on a government computer... It is not a private diary... It's not a Word document on your government issue computer." (46:03)
The Dangers of Unassailable 'Experts'
On Biden’s cognitive decline:
"What listening to these tapes show... the auto pen presidency was born before Joe Biden ever took a seat in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk." — Kyle Brosnan (15:47)
On classified breaches:
"The Ghost Rider is repeating things back to Joe Biden that... the intelligence agencies... are saying cannot be released publicly because they're classified." — Kyle Brosnan (17:18)
On the two-tiered justice system:
"It is a poster child of the two-tiered system of justice, no doubt." — Matt Kittle (28:41)
On Fauci’s pardon claims:
"If you have a pardon for conduct, you cannot plead the fifth when speaking about that conduct in the future... his pardon may not be legitimate." — Kyle Brosnan (33:15)
On ignoring open record laws:
"[Morens] would tell people... I learned the tricks last year from an old friend who... hates FOIA to make records disappear." — Kyle Brosnan (43:34)
On Fauci’s self-image as “science”:
"During the pandemic, Fauci basically said, I'm paraphrasing here, but, you know, to question me is to question science." — Kyle Brosnan (47:27)
On public accountability:
"At the end of the day, those people [who questioned the pandemic response] were right." — Matt Kittle (48:20)
This episode provides a robust, insider perspective on the fight for transparency in government at the highest levels. It illustrates ongoing battles over classified information, recordings, and public records, and highlights what many see as a two-tiered justice system. The conversation closes on the need for persistent watchdog work to expose abuses and secure accountability, regardless of which party is in power.