← Pod Force One
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the PodForceOne podcast. I'm Miranda Devine. Today we're joined by former federal prosecutor Bob Costello, a longtime New York attorney, as well as the attorney for Rudy Giuliani at the time that Rudy Giuliani was the attorney for President Donald Trump in his first term. Bob Costello, thank you so much for joining us on podforce One.
- [00:25]
B
You're quite welcome.
- [00:27]
A
Now, Bob, we first met back in October of 2020 when you called me out of the blue in your capacity as Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, who was at that point Donald Trump's lawyer, the president. And you said that you had a very interesting story for me and you texted me some screenshots from Hunter Biden's laptop. And that was the beginning of a great odyssey that we both have been on for the last five years. So let's go back to the beginning of the laptop Hunter Biden laptop saga and tell me how you got involved.
- [01:14]
B
I got involved because I gave Rudy Giuliani's personal secretary a call because I started to receive death threats and crazy calls on my office phone because a certain commentator on TV had exposed my email address and my cell phone number pretty bad. Yeah, it might have been a mistake by the crew. It might have been deliberate, I don't know. But in any event, the result was the same. And I started to get all these crazy calls and crazy emails and text messages. So I picked up the phone and I called Rudy's secretary and I said, you know, Joanne, If I've received 20 of these, Rudy must get a thousand, right? And she said, oh, yeah, they come in every day in the email. I said, well, what do you do with them? She said, they're almost all from nuts. So I take a quick look at them and I throw them in the garbage. So I said, so Rudy never sees these things? She said, never. I said, you know what? From now on, don't throw them in the garbage. Send them over to me. And I remember I quoted a line that my mother used to say, you never know when you're going to find a pearl in an oyster. And I let it go. Two days later, I'm looking through the emails and I come across one from John Paul McIsaac. And as I read it, it sounds like this guy is not crazy. So I immediately text him back or email him back, I can't remember which. And I introduced myself as Rudy Giuliani's attorney. I said, you're email has been brought to my attention. If you have what you claim to have and you have it legally and it hasn't been tampered with. We're very interested.
- [02:49]
A
And of course, John Paul Mac Isaac, just. Sorry to interrupt, but he was the owner of the Delaware MacBook repair shop that Hunter Biden had dropped off his waterlogged laptop, actually three of them damaged laptops, to get fixed, and then never reclaimed it. He abandoned it there and it became John Paul Mac Isaac's legal property after, I think, 30 days, as per the work order that Hunter Biden had signed. And John Paul Mac Isaac, who is a patriot, he had seen on that laptop when he was uploading it to his office server when he was trying to fix it. He had seen very disturbing things to do with national security, Ukraine, China. So after Hunter Biden never reclaimed the laptop, he then started watching television. He watched Fox News. He saw Rudy Giuliani up there talking about a Ukrainian energy company called Verisma. And that sparked a note of memory for John Paul Mac Isaac. He took the laptop off at the shelf, he opened it up, and there, sure enough, Burisma. All these documents about just millions of dollars that were flowing through to Hunter Biden from Ukraine from this corrupt energy company, Burisma. So he then did the right thing, told the FBI. The FBI behaved very strangely. I'll let you take up that story. He also tried very. A lot of different Republican lawmakers who ignored him. And really, Rudy was his last shot. And you happened to intercept his email, which, as you know, was very forensically written, intelligent and full of information. He did a very good deep dive on that laptop, which stands the test of time.
- [04:46]
B
What happened was when I responded to him and identified myself and said, if you have this thing legally and it hasn't been tampered with, we're very interested. He immediately responded by email, I believe, with a copy of a subpoena deuces taken from the District of Delaware. That's a subpoena that calls for documents or things as well as an FBI receipt of property signed by two FBI agents and John Paul McIsaac, because seven months before, the FBI had come to his shop to pick up the. Not the pick up the laptop and one copy of the hard drive. That was their big mistake. But to set that up so you understand, John Paul McGisa, who's next to legally blind and wears these giant glasses when he works on his computers, was watching tv and he heard all of these stories about Hunter Biden and Burisma.
- [05:46]
A
And the Ukraine because the impeachment was.
- [05:49]
B
Going on at that time, he decided to take a Look at the. What he had, which was. The only thing left was the laptop, because this is before the FBI shows up. And he looks at the hard drive, and he sees some things that he found very disturbing. Now, he didn't reveal what he saw that was disturbing to me when we first communicated, but he was so nervous about this that he said, I have to get this hard drive out of my shop because I don't want somebody coming in with a gun and seizing it. So he contacted his dad. His dad was a retired U.S. air Force colonel. And he sent his dad a copy of the hard drive and told him to take it to the FBI in. I think it was New Mexico or Arizona, wherever his dad was residing, because he said he didn't trust the FBI in Delaware. And later on, he explained that the Bidens run Delaware. And if anybody's doing anything against the Bidens, as he put it to me, at one point, he said, they would run me out of town on a rail. And literally, they did, at the very least. So his father takes the hard drive and goes to the FBI in New Mexico and presents it to them, and they blow him off. They said, we're not interested. Well, when the father tells John Paul MacIsaac that, he really becomes paranoid now. So that's when he starts reaching out. First, I think it was Lindsey Graham. He sends an email to Lindsey Graham's office. Now, he thinks because he's a regular civilian, that if you send an email to Lindsey Graham's office, Lindsey Graham is going to read it. He doesn't realize that Lindsey Graham gets tons of emails, and he has a staff that goes through them, and just like Rudy Giuliani's secretary throws them out, you know, without the principal ever seeing the email.
- [07:34]
A
Also, I just want to interject a little bit. Lindsey Graham is a friend, or was a friend of Joe Biden. So I'm not necessarily thinking he was the best person to send it to. And I also just. Are you going to talk about the. The bizarre way the FBI agents behave?
- [07:51]
B
I'm on my way there. You're getting there. So he. He sends it to Lindsey Graham. He waits about a month because he has no idea how things work in Washington. And when he doesn't get a response, I think he then sends an email to Jim Jordan's office. The same thing happens. He waits another month. Nothing happens. Then there's two other congressmen that he sends it to. I can't remember their names. I have it in my memo someplace, but. So basically, he's wasted about Four and a half, five months from the time that the FBI of obtained the laptop and one copy of the hard drive from him.
- [08:28]
A
Which was December 2019.
- [08:30]
B
Correct. So, and by that point in time, unbeknownst to us, the FBI had verified that the laptop was genuine and it had not been tampered with. So they knew that maybe in March or April of 2020. And I'm talking to John Paul MacIsaac on, I think it was August 28, 2020, when I first got in touch with him.
- [08:53]
A
Can I just interject just another part of the narrative, which is a piece of the jigsaw puzzle which came from the IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler. They were at that time investigating Hunter Biden, unbeknownst to anyone in the public, investigating his business practices. And they were going down investigative trails that were leading them to Joe Biden, but were being blocked at every stage. And they wanted to get a copy of that laptop after it had been forensically verified as fit to use in court by the FBI forensics laboratory. And again, they were blocked.
- [09:35]
B
Wow. They should have called me. So in any event, at this point in time, after he's really spooked by the fact that the FBI in New Mexico wouldn't accept it, two weeks later, he gets a knock on the door and it's two FBI agents from Delaware. That's exactly where he didn't want to go because he said he didn't trust those people. But they come and they have a subpoena and they have a receipt for property, and they provide this to John Paul McIsaac and they seize. They physically seize the actual laptop and one copy of the hard drive. I say one copy because, believe it or not, these agents did not say to him, is this the only copy that you made of Hunter Biden's laptop? So they thought that they had this secured. They brought it back to the office in Delaware and they sat on it. Except for verifying that it was legitimate. They did nothing. They did nothing all the way through the subsequent events, such as the 51 CIA people saying that the. The laptop was Russian disinformation and wasn't legitimate and it had been tampered with, et cetera, et cetera. The FBI sat there silently knowing that they had verified that that laptop was genuine and had not been tampered with. And that's disgraceful.
- [10:58]
A
And didn't one of those agents also say something that John Paul Mac Isaac interpreted as being a sinister and a threat as.
- [11:07]
B
As you left John Paul McIsaac expressed to them that, you know, he was nervous about this whole situation and one of the agents said to him, and I'm going to paraphrase because I don't remember the exact line, we've found in our experience that people who keep their mouths shut never get bothered. That's a hint to keep your mouth shut. Why? You'll have to ask them. But I think the rest of your reporting has shown why.
- [11:33]
A
It's interesting because when John Paul Mac Isaac first told me that, I thought it sounds a little paranoid. You could read that comment both ways. But as the years have gone by and we've seen the true extent of the FBI cover up on behalf of the Biden family, I think it's absolutely, I think his interpretation of it was accurate and of course, cleverly made saw so that he'd have plausible deniability if anyone accused him of threatening John Paul Mac Isaac. It's very sinister.
- [12:08]
B
What we didn't know and the we being me, I'm sitting at home, it's Covid time and I'm working from my home computer and I'm communicating with Rudy Giuliani. He's in Manhattan, I live on Long Island. What we didn't know and didn't find out until well after Rudy Giuliani's apartment, office and everything else had been searched that pursuant to the search warrant was that there was an earlier search warrant on his icloud account going back, I think to 2018 or 19. So when I'm communicating with Rudy Giuliani via text messages and emails back and forth, that's when the FBI goes, oh my goodness, Costello has the Hunter Biden hard drive and he's going to give it to Rudy Giuliani, who's going to give it to the press. And they also knew when I presume I informed Rudy, who I was talking to at the New York Post, that, you know, I had a communication today from Miranda Devine or I told her this or I told her that we were totally unaware of that. I was also under the naive impression that everybody in the Department of Justice and the FBI was on the up and up and would treat us fairly and squarely. That turned out not to be the.
- [13:25]
A
Case, Bob, that that covert surveillance warrant on Rudy Giuliani's icloud is really important. And I just want to emphasize the fact that the emails that you were getting from John Paul Mac Isaac, the SMS messages that I very sparse but that I had that with Rudy just saying, you know, we're going to Publish, hold off, don't give it to anyone else. And whatever communications that you had with him, all of those were available to the FBI using that warrant if they wanted to look, which I presume they were doing their job and were looking. And then that would explain why the FBI, then, before the election, having. Knowing that In October of 2020, the New York Post was about to publish this, they went to Twitter and Facebook and warned them to be on the lookout for a hack and leak operation, Russian disinformation that would likely happen in October, likely involving Hunter Biden. And that was the. The reason we know all this from the Twitter files and from various whistleblowers. That was the reason that on the day we published on October 14, 2020, the front page story, the first of many, from Hunter Biden's laptop showing that Joe Biden was involved in meeting Hunter Biden's Ukrainian business partner in Washington, D.C. when he was Vice President. That was a bombshell in the middle of the election campaign. We were immediately censored by Twitter and Facebook and the story and the New York Post Twitter account was locked for the next two weeks. So that's really crucial that you were being spied on, but you didn't know at the time.
- [15:28]
B
Well, I. Technically, Rudy Giuliani was being spied upon. But anyway, communicating with him right now, we never saw the basis for that search warrant. We don't know what the alleged probable cause was, because the only search warrant information that we ever saw was the second search warrant that was issued by the Southern District of New York for an investigation that ultimately went nowhere. And I can tell you that I don't ever remember any individual who had two search warrants executed upon him or her that didn't get indicted, except Rudy Giuliani, because he was innocent. He was innocent at the beginning, he was innocent at the end. We told them that right away, and we said, I even offered to bring Rudy in and waive the Fifth Amendment if they. I said, there's only one proviso. All you have to do is tell us what you're investigating him for, because this guy's involved in a thousand different things. So just focus on whatever it is you're investigating him on. You tell me that, I'll bring him in the next day and we will waive the Fifth Amendment. They refused to do so. That was bizarre. I said, I don't understand your reasoning. If I come in with Rudy Giuliani and he says something that's untrue, you have him for a violation of Title 18, Section 1001, which is a felony if, according to the newspapers, you're investigating him for a FARA violation, Foreign Agents Registration Act. I think at that point in time that it had only been eight prosecutions in the history of that legislation, seven of which wound up in dismissals. So it wasn't really a big threat. I said, if you're looking to really go after Rudy Giuliani, I'm giving you a great opportunity. And I'm only doing that because we're confident he's telling the truth. And he was telling the truth, as everything subsequent has borne out.
- [17:15]
A
Well, obviously, Rudy Giuliani was targeted. He was the original target, the patient zero, let's say, for all the lawfare that came afterwards, against you, against him, against Donald Trump, and eventually they did manage to bankrupt Rudy and. And get him disbarred everywhere and just try to ruin him. Let's just pivot from the laptop for a little while and talk about your relationship with Rudy and exactly what happened to him. Why did he end up being bankrupted, being targeted every which way, just like Donald Trump? Was it because the Donald Trump's opponents knew that Rudy Giuliani was a threat and knew too much?
- [18:14]
B
Oh, without a doubt. Rudy Giuliani and I guess myself, we were threats because we had the Hunter Biden laptop. We knew the truth about what was on the Hunter Biden laptop, and they wanted to shut that down. They shut it down by lying to Facebook and Twitter to get New York Post banned, and they were going after Rudy Giuliani. As I said, he was being investigated by the U.S. attorney's Office for the Southern District, where both Rudy and I were associated in the past. I was the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division at a different time than Rudy was U.S. attorney. So the fact that we tried to shut it down in one day, and they turned it down, which makes no sense at all, the truth came out that really what they wanted to do was stretch it out. One day. I said to Rudy, you understand what they're really doing here? There's no intent here to indict you for anything. All they have to do is, is say that you're under investigation and thereby tarnish your reputation and cost you a fortune in legal fees. At the end of the day, if they destroy your reputation and remove your bank account, you've been zeroed out, you've been canceled. And that's what they're trying to do.
- [19:22]
A
It worked because, of course, the raid on Rudy Giuliani's apartment and office in New York was leaked immediately to the New York Times. And that tarnished his reputation from that day forward?
- [19:34]
B
Absolutely. Well, there's an interesting point I want to raise with respect to that. That happened at about 6:20 in the morning. I'm at home on Long island, and the phone starts ringing. And of course, my wife says, who. Who the heck is calling at 6:20 in the morning? So I pick up the phone and it's Rudy on the phone with an FBI agent next to him. They're in his apartment and they're going through things. So he puts me on the phone with the lead FBI agent. And I explained to him, I said, listen, this is a legitimate question. I'm not trying to insult you. Do you know what a hard drive looks like? And he said, yes. I said, can you describe it to me so that I would know that he, in fact, knew what it looked like? And he described it accurately. And I said, okay, now go into Rudy's office and you'll see on his desk either two or three hard drives. So he's on the phone with me. He says, yes, I see those. I said, those are Hunter Biden hard drives. What? He said. I said, hunter Biden hard drives. Now, there's no way he could tell that I was telling him the truth if he. Without plugging it into a computer and bringing it up on a screen. He didn't do that. He said, oh, we're not going to touch those. Well, Rudy had already told me that he had been given a copy of the warrant. The warrant required them to seize every electronic device in his home. And I said to the FBI agent, well, that's. Those are electronic devices. Your warrant requires you to take those. He said, I'm not touching those at all. They're staying here. Now ask yourself this question. Why would they treat those hard drives as radioactive? Because they knew that they were legitimate. They knew that Rudy Giuliani had them. They knew that Rudy Giuliani was giving them to the New York Post, and they knew that their plot to keep all of this stuff secret was falling apart fast.
- [21:23]
A
And also the hard drive, Hunter Biden's laptop material, was radioactive. Because shortly after our story came out, just a few days, we had the 51 former intelligence officials, including John Brennan, five former CIA directors or acting directors, signed that bogus letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop and our story were Russian disinformation. And that really just killed the story stone dead and made everybody involved in it radioactive. This was the same play that they used against Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley with their investigation in 2019 into Hunter Biden's corruption and charisma. And they were ambushed by the FBI, given a bogus so called defensive briefing. And Johnson, Senator Johnson, knew immediately that this was a setup. And he said to the agents, if I see this briefing, which is useless, I don't need to know any of this. If I see this turn up in the Washington Post, I know that you have sabotaged me and set me up. And sure enough, it showed up in the Washington Post the next day. So Russian disinformation was enough to smear anybody involved with the Hunter Biden laptop and make everybody else afraid to touch it.
- [22:52]
B
Right. It also is the best proof of election interference in the 2020 campaign. And remember, in New York and Washington, D.C. they disbarred Rudy Giuliani for lying and claiming that the 2020 election showed signs or evidence of interference. Well, the Hunter Biden laptop by itself proves that what he was doing is telling the truth. Yet they disbarred him because that was part of the cancel culture. Take his reputation, take his money and take his law license. What's he going to do then? That's exactly what their plan was. And he wasn't alone. I mean, obviously they've gone after me, too. I'm sure you're probably going to cover this. But later on, when I was representing Steve Bannon, they did to me exactly what they have now done to those eight Republican senators and I think one Republican congressman. I mean, first of all, you think it's a coincidence that everybody that they grab the telephone records, every one of them is a Republican, not one Democrat.
- [23:57]
A
20% of the Republican conference was spied on or at least had their phone records seized by Jack Smith in his investigations of Donald Trump.
- [24:08]
B
Right. Well, before that, maybe a year. I could tell you the date, if it's necessary. I think it was in 2022, when I was representing Steve Bannon with respect to the contempt of Congress allegation. They subpoenaed without our knowledge, my telephone records for my office, my home and what else? And cell phone.
- [24:34]
A
That's unheard of, isn't it?
- [24:36]
B
It is absolutely unheard of to go after a lawyer. It never entered into my mind that this could have possibly occurred.
- [24:43]
A
Can I just interrupt for one second just to explain to people who might not be aware of this, but Steve Bannon was subpoenaed to appear at in Congress at the January 6th investigation that Nancy Pelosi had set up as a kind of star chamber to attack Donald Trump and his supporters. And blowing up the January 6th riot into, you know, an existential threat and a worse than Pearl harbor, worse than 911 and Liz Cheney, a couple of turncoat Republicans were on that committee. And it's really unheard of. I mean, I can't count how many times during the Hunter Biden investigations that James Comer at the Oversight Committee was holding that people were could be held in contempt of Congress. Ultimately, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were convicted of contempt of Congress and by both served time in jail. So this is almost unprecedented.
- [25:44]
B
Well, Bannon was held in contempt of Congress when, in response to the subpoena, we let that committee know that Donald Trump had exercised executive privilege. That's a privilege that belongs to Donald Trump. Steve Bannon was without the authority to waive that privilege. Now, it also wasn't Steve Bannon's first rodeo when it comes to testifying before Congress. Four previous times he had been subpoenaed, and he had said to the team that was investigating him, go to Donald Trump and see if he'll waive executive privilege. If he does, I will testify. On all four of those occasions, they did exactly that. Trump waived executive privilege and Bannon testified this time. I said to them, the president has invoked executive privilege. Steve Bannon is without the authority to waive that. So go to President Trump and see if he will waive executive privilege. If he does, we, of course, will testify. If he doesn't, you can go to the district court in the District of Columbia and get a ruling. If the judge rules that we must testify, he will testify. And they refuse to do either of those two things. And the reason they refused to do either of those two things was Steve Bannon was viewed as the leader of the opposition, so to speak. And if we can bring Steve Bannon to his knees, everybody else will follow and be begging us to cooperate. That's what they did.
- [27:13]
A
And weren't the prosecutors that you dealt with, didn't they then go on to work for Jack Smith?
- [27:20]
B
Another coincidence. The prosecutors that. First of all, when the judge heard about that in the Bannon case, he was upset. And he asked them, why would you do such a thing? And they said, well, we had to make sure that Costello gave the subpoena to Bannon. And I said, judge, that's absurd.
- [27:39]
A
So tell us about the prosecutors. And who then went on to Jack Smith.
- [27:44]
B
Yeah, the prosecutors that were dealing with us were JP Cony, who was the chief of the Public Integrity Unit in the Washington, D.C. u.S. Attorney's office, and Molly Gaston, who was his number two on that case, those were the people responsible for giving the directions to the FBI to get my telephone records. Those people, right after the Bannon case concluded, left the D.C. u.S. Attorney's office and went over to Jack Smith's team. And I think JP Cooney had at a pretty high position with Jack Smith's team. He might have even been his number two. I don't know where Ms. Gaston was in that, but she was up there, too. And isn't it a coincidence that with those people on Jack Smith's team, they now do the same thing to the Republican senators and one congressman that they did to me? They simply reach out under the Stored Communications act and issue a subpoena to.
- [28:40]
A
Get telephone records on a fishing export.
- [28:43]
B
Totally. Because you're supposed to. If you're part of the Department of Justice and even the Special Counsel, Jack Smith, who is part of the Department of Justice, you're supposed to investigate crimes, not people. The general public doesn't understand that because you don't go on a witch hunt and say, I want to find out what Miranda Devine is doing in her spare time and get all of her records. You have to first believe that Miranda Devine was involved in a criminal activity. But they did it the opposite way because this was not about gaining evidence, this was intimidation and finding out who's connected to who, who's contacting who, and when are they doing it. That's not the way America works.
- [29:22]
A
Well, it seems to be the way it's worked when it comes to Donald Trump and everyone associated with him. I wanted to take you to another case that you were involved in. This is one of the many lawfare cases against Donald Trump, and that was in New York in front of a judge called Juan Merchant. And you appeared there and had a pretty willing. Well, I mean, you were accused of giving side eye and staring down the judge. So tell us, how did you come to testify there? What was Merchand up to and why did he take offense?
- [29:57]
B
Okay, first of all, through a former partner of mine who knew Michael Cohen. When Michael Cohen's office and apartment was searched and he was in big trouble, certainly this former partner reached out to Cohen to commiserate and he told him, one of my partners used to be deputy chief of the Criminal division of the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District, the same people that were going after him. And Cohen immediately said, I want to talk to that guy.
- [30:26]
A
And sorry, just to interrupt a minute to set the stage. Michael Cohen was Donald Trump's former lawyer, correct? Turned against him, ended up going to jail, was a convicted perjurer and rather an odd bod, but he was seized upon by these lawfare people as a good weapon to use against Donald Trump.
- [30:46]
B
Yeah, because Michael Cohen will tell you whatever story you want to hear if it benefits him. And the only reason I'm allowed to say any of this stuff is because Michael Cohen, after he pled guilty to eight counts, including perjury, decided, maybe I can shorten my sentence by cooperating with the Southern District of New York. So he made up this ridiculous story that Rudy Giuliani and I conspired to obstruct justice by tampering with a witness, namely Michael Cohen. He claimed that we were trying to keep Michael Cohen from testifying, which was exactly the opposite, because I had so many emails and text messages with Michael Cohen going back and forth that I shared all the time with the partner that brought me into this mess. And when I saw Michael Cohen on TV saying that he was working with the Manhattan District Attorney's office and telling them A, B, C and D, and I'm sitting there saying, that's an absolute lie. That's not what he told us. He told us the opposite at a moment when he was suicidal and looking desperately for, as he called it, an escape route. And I explained to him that if you have truthful information on Donald Trump, I'll have you out of this problem within the week. Now, when you're desperate like that, thinking of suicide as your only way out, and somebody offers you this route out, if you have truthful information and you continuously say, I swear to God, Bob, I don't have anything on Donald Trump. Well, that's the information that we had while I'm watching Michael Cohen basically lie on TV and say, I have information on Donald Trump.
- [32:25]
A
And this was just to interrupt again on the Stormy Daniels hush money in which Michael Cohen paid this. I don't know what she was a stripper or whatever that had had alleged that she had an affair or an assignation with Donald Trump, and that to keep quiet, she was paid in installments by Michael Cohen hush money.
- [32:53]
B
Right. But to complete the thought that I started before, after Michael Cohen went to the U.S. attorney's office with this rather crazy story, the U.S. attorneys, the assistant U.S. attorney said, listen, Michael, in order for us to proceed here, you're going to have to waive the attorney client privilege. And he was represented by another attorney at the time. And he said, sure. So he waives in writing the attorney client privilege. And the next day, I Get a call with two assistant US Attorneys on the phone saying, bob, we'd like to talk to you about your representation of Michael Cohen. I laughed and I said, I can't believe. I said, are you sitting there with a waiver of the attorney client privilege? They said, you're right. And I laughed again. I said, I can't believe this guy is that stupid. In any event, I said, send me the waiver of the attorney client privilege and I'll be delighted to talk with you and show you all the records I have, which is what I did. And the U.S. attorney's office, to their credit, never dealt with Michael Cohen again. And I had warned him before that. I said, michael, if you're thinking of making up any story to try and gain yourself some points with these people in the Southern District, you're making a big mistake. These are the smartest people you'll ever meet in your life. They will find out that you're lying. You will burn bridges on both sides. It will be a disaster. Well, of course, he didn't take that advice, and he did exactly what I told him not to do. And I never expected him to claim that Rudy and I were conspiring to commit a crime. It's just absurd.
- [34:20]
A
What was he. He was convicted on a separate. It was perjury, but there was a embezzlement or something.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah, it was all stuff that had nothing to do with Donald Trump. In fact, it was stuff that. That Michael Cohen did before he ever met Donald Trump.
- [34:33]
A
Right.
- [34:34]
B
And this is the same Michael Cohen who, when he met with us, show you how delusional this guy was. He told us that when he got elected in 2020, he brought everybody from his inner circle in New York to Washington except for one person, Michael Cohen. And Cohen said he. That he expected. I swear to God, he said this with a straight face. He expected to be named Attorney General.
- [34:56]
A
Of the United States in Trump's first term. Yeah, Right.
- [35:00]
B
And I just laughed at him, really.
- [35:02]
A
Right. And he became just a rabid hater of Donald Trump, blamed him for all that had befallen him.
- [35:10]
B
Absolutely.
- [35:10]
A
He was bitter, and he was seized on as a useful idiot to use against Donald Trump. Trump again by road prosecutors, would you say?
- [35:20]
B
Yeah, I'm going to get to the judge in a second. But you have to compare the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York when, when presented with the same evidence and knowing that Michael Cohen was already a convicted perjurer, said, we're not going to touch this guy with a 10 foot pole.
- [35:35]
A
He's a bad witness.
- [35:36]
B
He's a bad witness. He didn't get any credit for cooperation. In fact, the judge was told that he lied to the U.S. attorney's office. And he lied, of course, under oath, which is why he was prosecuted for perjury. They did the right thing. Now, when I had all this information and he's appearing on TV, I sent a packet of about 300 emails and text messages to Trump's lawyers and to the Manhattan District Attorney's office. And I contacted the Manhattan District Attorney and I asked for a one on.
- [36:05]
A
One meeting with him, Alvin Bragg.
- [36:07]
B
Alvin Bragg looked me in the eye and see whether I was telling the truth or I had all this backup documentation. He refused to do that. But what he did was he said, you can speak to some of my assistants, so remember, it's Covid time. I had a zoom call much like this with there must have been eight or ten assistant district attorneys and myself. And this was on the Friday before I testified in the grand jury on the following Monday.
- [36:32]
A
And was Alvin Bragg there?
- [36:34]
B
No, he wasn't there. Just what ultimately became the trial team was there and it opened up with them saying, all right, assume we read everything you sent us. What do you want to say? And I said, gee, that's quite a greeting for someone who's trying to help you guys out. I said, you should follow what the Southern District did and remove yourself from this guy. He's an unreliable witness and I've given you plenty of reasons to know that. But they clearly had an agenda in mind. They wanted to use Michael Cohen to get Donald Trump and they didn't care what anybody said to them. They didn't care what anybody showed them. They were marching straight ahead. Well, now they start, they start the trial and I haven't heard from Trump's lawyers for a long time. And I kept on, I contacted their office a couple of times, said, am I going to be a witness or not? Because I got a plan the rest of my life. And the day before I actually testified, it was a Sunday afternoon, I got a call from Emile Beauvais, now a judge on the Third Circuit, saying, we've decided we're going to put you on tomorrow. And we had about a 45 minute discussion on the phone. And then the next day I testified. Well, testified is the wrong word because I've tried many, many cases in my lifetime. I know what a proper question is and a proper answer is. And after they introduced me about my background, where I work, et cetera, et cetera, and they got to the heart of the matter, the first nine questions. And I only know this because I looked at the transcript later, on the first nine questions, Emil Beauvais would pose a question, and one of the ADAs who never rose from her seat would say, objection. The judge, who was physically about 4ft behind me and 3ft above me, and I'm looking to my left, I'm looking at the jury box. All right? She would say, objection, Give no reason. And the judge said, sustained. Okay, next question. Objection sustained. Next question. Objection sustained. Objection sustained. Objection sustained.
- [38:39]
A
And what was Emile Beauvais doing, who is of course, at that time, Donald Trump's lawyer?
- [38:44]
B
He was making faces much like what he couldn't understand it either, although he was smart enough not to open his mouth because he had dealt with this judge for a long period of time. I never met or heard of this guy before. So I'm sitting there and on the 9th. Objection sustained. I have to confess that I said I thought under my breath, jeez, G, E, Z. No harm, no foul, with G's. Really. After nine objections sustained with not a reason given, at which point the judge announces, clear the courtroom. And he claims that I was rolling my eyes at him and giving him side eye. Unless. Unless he had X ray vision. First of all, I wasn't rolling my eyes. At least I'm not aware that I was doing it. I don't think that I did it. But in order to see it, he would have to have X ray vision because the only thing he could see was the back in the top of my head because I'm looking, looking at the. At the jurors.
- [39:45]
A
You must have had an insolent scalp or something.
- [39:48]
B
Well, he then addresses me. And what do you do when somebody addresses you, since he's over here? I turn and I look at him. And as soon as I do that, I don't utter a word. He accuses me of giving him some sort of a bad gland, evil eye, staring him down. You're trying to stay.
- [40:06]
A
Exact words.
- [40:06]
B
Well, this was an instantaneous reaction. He says to me, says something to me. I turn, I look at him, and he immediately makes that accusation. I mean, quite frankly, at that point in time, there was no doubt in my mind that this judge was totally unfair and that anything I would say to him would backfire. And so I said, he went crazy.
- [40:26]
A
I mean, he really was shouting. He was clearing the courtroom. Somebody I know who stayed in the courtroom, a reporter, didn't clear the court. Courtroom just said the guy was irate he was you. You had made him angry, but you hadn't done anything other than he knew that you were going to be a very useful witness for the defense.
- [40:47]
B
Right. As I found out later, before I testified, which was late in the day, they had had a conference, the judge, the prosecution team and Trump's lawyers, in which the judge ruled, ruled he was told what I was prepared to testify to and he ruled that I couldn't testify to A or B, but I could testify to C, D and E. And that was, I assume, on the basis of they had cross examined Michael Cohen about C, D and E, but not about A and B. That, that's what I'm gathering. So there were going to be some restrictions on my testimony.
- [41:25]
A
It's clear he, he just sabotaged you. But there's something else about that case that's peculiar. Isn't that the one that Michael Co Angelo, who had been number three at the Department of Justice, unusually was parachuted into a much lower job at the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Tell us about that.
- [41:47]
B
Without a doubt. I mean, you do not leave the position he was in at the Department of Justice to become an Assistant District Attorney, New York County. In fact, you don't leave that position to become an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, which is a much more prestigious office than the Manhattan DA's office. So it was a bizarre insertion done for a political purpose, clearly. And the whole case was about politics. It wasn't about law. They invented those crimes. These were misdemeanors at best, whose statute of limitations had passed years before. This is just absurd warfare designed to kill Donald Trump.
- [42:28]
A
Yeah, it really was. And it failed spectacularly. I mean, the American people made their decision and voted him in overwhelmingly with the popular vote as well as everything else. Rudy Giuliani, though, really suffered greatly. And he was after January 6th and he was trying to again, as the President's lawyer, trying to litigate in a very short time period any election fraud allegations he could find. And for that he ended up being bankrupted and disbarred. Tell us about the Georgia case. These two women who were election workers who said that, and I think it were found that Rudy Giuliani had defamed them and they got this whopping multi million dollar judgment against him. That case too had a curious legal aspect with you've you told me about this white shoe Washington D.C. law firm went and worked for them.
- [43:45]
B
Yeah. That firm was led by the partner in charge of that case was Michael Gottlieb. If I remember correctly. And it turns out when I said, who's representing these women? Whoopie Farengallagher? I said, wilkie, Foreign, Gallagher, they don't do defamation cases. They're a big white shoe firm that does mergers and acquisitions. The things that all of the top five or six New York law firms do. They certainly don't represent two former election workers. So I said, michael Gottlieb. I said, you know, Michael Gottlieb's name is ringing a bell with me. And so I did a little investigation and of course, I found Michael Gottlieb on the Hunter Biden hard drive, which revealed that at that point in time, Michael Gottlieb was a partner at a firm down in Washington, D.C. and so was Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden wasn't a partner. He was of counsel.
- [44:45]
A
Was a grace and favor job where he never showed up.
- [44:48]
B
Absolutely. He made 100,000 he would bring in business and get a percentage of the business that he brought in. And what he brought into that firm was Burisma, the oil and gas company of Ukraine. And who was the partner in charge of the Burisma account? Michael Gottlieb. Now, you think that's a coincidence that Michael Gottlieb, who was a partner at that firm and was in charge of the Burisma business, suddenly becomes the partner in charge of a defamation case on two election workers out of Georgia against.
- [45:23]
A
Rudy Giuliani, who was, of course, Hunter Biden's bet noir and the reason that his laptop was exposed. And the corruption of the Biden influence peddling. Biden family influence peddling schemes.
- [45:36]
B
Absolutely.
- [45:37]
A
From which they garnered millions, tens of millions of dollars from China, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan. So Michael Gottlieb was there and working pro bono for these two election workers. The best representation they could get in the world.
- [45:53]
B
Right. Well, there's another little vignette I'd like to tell you about that when Rudy and I went down, he was subpoenaed to testify by Fanny Willis's boyfriend. We didn't know it was Fanny Willis's boyfriend at the time, who also.
- [46:09]
A
Sorry, sorry, Sidebar. There's so many sidebars, but Fanny Willis's boyfriend, whose name escapes me, but he was frequently in the Biden White House, going there for hour long meetings during this time, presumably getting advice about how to get Donald Trump.
- [46:25]
B
Oh, without a doubt. Because this guy, I looked him up before we went down there, and he was with a three person firm in Fulton County, Georgia, that did nothing. But I think real estate Closings. So how does a person who does real estate closing qualify to be the head of an criminal investigation into some of the most prominent people in America at the time?
- [46:50]
A
Well, he was Fanny Willis's boyfriend.
- [46:52]
B
We didn't know that, but when we went down there, I had a conversation with the guy, and he said, let me explain. He said, let me explain to you how this grand jury panel works. I said, no, no, no, you don't have to explain it to me. I have plenty of experience. And I read up on your special grand jury panel. He said, no, no, I want to explain it to you. I said, didn't you just hear me? I don't need an explanation. I understand everything. So in any event, Rudy goes in and does his testifying most of the day. At the end of the day, he's finished. And the court officer comes out and supposedly, Fannie Willis had nothing to do with this. It was separate and apart from the DA's office. The court officer comes out and walks up to me and says, the district attorney would like to. To have a word with you. At that point, Rudy joins me, and he hears this. He said, can I come? I said, absolutely. So we had a local attorney from Fulton county with us, Rudy Giuliani and myself. We walk into the anteroom, and Fanny Willis comes in and goes, Mr. Giuliani, excuse me. I think she said, mayor Giuliani, I couldn't let you leave the courthouse without getting to meet America's greatest crime fighter. It is such an honor, sir, to meet you in person. And she had a cell phone in her left hand, and I was waiting for her to hand me the cell phone, as so many other people in Fulton county had done, and said, would you mind taking a picture of the mayor and myself? She didn't go that far, but she was so enthusiastic about her praise of Rudy Giuliani, I stupidly thought, there's no way Rudy's getting indicted down here after that show. But that's exactly what she did, because somebody told her to do that. And I'll leave it up to you to guess who that might be. But as it turned out, when we found out that this was girlfriend and boyfriend, that whole case fell apart. But again, it cost Rudy his reputation, cost him money, and you've seen the result. It's terribly unfair that he's in that situation.
- [48:50]
A
Terribly unfair. And. And luckily, a donor, I think, came in and paid those women their. Whatever it was, a couple of hundred million dollars. And.
- [48:59]
B
No, no, no, no, no, no. It was. The verdict was like 148 million, I understand, but don't know as a matter of fact that it was settled for less than three million.
- [49:13]
A
Oh really? Wow.
- [49:14]
B
From 148 to two and a half million.
- [49:18]
A
So. Well, no, well before that. So that was January 6th, but before that, this was while President Trump is still president in mid-2020. You and Rudy have gone, have been told I think by Bill Barr to go to Pittsburgh and you go there. Everyone loves seeing Rudy, takes, you know, selfies, all the FBI agents taking selfies with him and you unlock load a whole lot of damaging information about, about the Biden influence peddling scheme. And I'll, I'll cut to the chase a little bit and just say that in it, Scott Brady had a team that investigated Rudy's information and other information that was coming through about the Bidens. It had all been funneled through to Pittsburgh to sort of do a first pass before they handed it off over to the Delaware U.S. attorney, David Weiss, who had been secretly investigating Hunter Biden. Ended up for five years. And in that information they found through a search of the database of the FBI, they found that there had been an informant, a guy by the name of, we now know, Alexander Smirnoff, who had given information that job, that two Bidens had been paid $5 million each in a bribe. Actually he said something or other and then Scott Brady got the FBI agents to go back and re interview him. And that was the upshot. What happened to Alexander Smirnoff, who had been a long term confidential human source of the FBI, paid handsomely, trusted and had been involved in many successful prosecutions of criminals. What happened to Alexander Smirnoff in order.
- [51:10]
B
To protect the Bidens because of that accusation, about $10 million, 5 million to Hunter, 5 million to Joe Biden. They decided to throw Alexander Smirnoff, their highest paid confidential human source informant, we would call him, under the bus. And they went to Alexander Smirnoff and claimed that he lied when he made that claim that he had heard that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden got $5 million each from.
- [51:37]
A
Sorry, I'll just interrupt. He said he'd had a conversation with people involved with Burisma, this corrupt Ukrainian energy company. And the owner, a guy by the name of Nikolai Zlachevsky, was Hunter Biden's friend, paid him $1 million a year during Joe Biden's vice presidency, cut his payment in half when Joe Biden stopped being vice president. And he also, Smirnoff didn't say it was Joe And Hunter Biden, that was the surmising of the FBI and others. He said two Bidens, and we all assumed that was Hunter and Joe Devon. Archer, who was Hunter Biden's business partner and also on the board of Burisma with Hunter, thinks that the second Biden may have been him because he was regarded as part of the family, one of the Bidens. And he and Hunter did earn, or would have earned $5 million if, if Devon hadn't been, you know, got in trouble elsewhere.
- [52:39]
B
But Alexander Smirnoff was not the only source of that information, which the FBI now conveniently ignored. Lawyers. There were several witnesses who said the same thing. And I've spoken with Alexander Smirnoff's lawyers to tell them about these other sources that confirm what Smirnoff said. Now, when an informant is giving information, he's giving information that he believes is true. It doesn't mean that it's true, but that's what he believes and that's what he heard. And we have other witnesses whose names I'm not going to reveal, but I have revealed it to the correct people who say the same thing, that in fact there was a $10 million transaction to Hunter and Joe Biden And Alexander.
- [53:26]
A
Smirnoff, who again, I mean he is a long term. He like Gal Luft, who's another informant, the first informant to the FBI about Biden corruption also was jailed. Alexander Smirnoff is also an Israeli American and spoke fluent Ukrainian. And he was ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. I don't believe he lied. I believe that they deliberately misconstrued some dates or his, his handler misconstrued some dates. And so they've pinned him as lying when he, it was his handler who misconstrued it. But also they got him on tax fraud allegations. He pleaded guilty to that. And I'm told by a good source that he was also concerned that they were coming after his family members, which is why he pleaded guilty. He's in jail in California and he's been tortured in jail. He has a problem with his eyes. He has glaucoma. He needs special drops so that the pain he doesn't go blind. And the jail was refusing to give it to him. The judge was refusing to allow him to see his eye doctor. It's cruel and unusual punishment. And the only thing he really did was he passed on information to the FBI as he was being paid to do. That was damaging to Joe Biden.
- [55:05]
B
That's correct. And you must be talking to some of the same people that I'm talking to because I've heard the same stories, except they told Smirnoff that unless he pled guilty, which he didn't want to do because he said he was innocent, they were going to implicate. I don't know whether she's his wife or his common law wife. He was trying to protect his family, which is a natural instinct. I think he's innocent based upon other witnesses that I've spoken to, the same people I referred to before.
- [55:32]
A
Well, and also he's just passing on what he's heard, which is what he was told. He doesn't have to verify that the information is true. That's up to the FBI. He's just the informant. And the other curious thing is that the prosecutors who went after him were the prosecutors from Delaware, from the US Attorney David Weiss, who was in charge of that investigation that we know from the IRS whistleblowers was obstructed, blockaded, slow walked, you know, ended up. David Weiss was going to do a sweetheart plea deal with Hunter Biden. He did try. It was only that an eagle eyed judge in Delaware, one of the few that's I guess, not beholden to the Biden family, she spotted it and queried it and the thing fell apart in court. But those prosecutors who did the, the, that sweetheart plea deal were then thrown off the case. At the same time as the IRS whistleblowers were thrown off the case, new prosecutors were brought in. They did prosecute Hunter Biden on gun charges, but they also went after Smirnoff in the most vicious way, including gratuitously, I believe, and I'll ask your legal opinion, but exposing all his contacts with Russians that he had done on behalf of American America, Russian generals, very dangerous Russians that he was spying on, giving information to the FBI in the interests of America's national security. So those prosecutors in Delaware put a target on Smirnoff's back immediately.
- [57:20]
B
Well, you're absolutely right about all of that. But let me add a little addendum that you may or may not know. And that is you mentioned David Weiss as the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware. The District of Delaware U.S. attorney's office was aware and had a copy of the Hunter Biden hard drive seven or eight months before I did. And they knew that that hard drive was legitimate and hadn't been tampered with yet. This is the guy who sits on the sideline when the 51 CIA agents make their false statements, their defamatory Statements, I might add. And they sit by the sideline when Weiss goes out to California to prosecute Alexander Smirnoff. I mean, there's a lot of strange things that have happened here that don't happen in a normal course of business. And hopefully the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. jeanine Pirro, will get to the bottom of it because she's not going to be dissuaded.
- [58:20]
A
No, she's terrific. And she's very different. And of course, the U.S. attorney that she replaced declined to join with David Weiss in Prosecuting hunter in D.C. on tax fraud. And that was just one example of the many things that were done to protect Hunter Biden and Joe Biden by the very same people who were committing egregious lawfare against you, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani.
- [58:51]
B
Absolutely. There's a method to their madness, and that is attack anything and everything associated with Donald Trump, try to paint him in the light most unfavorable to him. And we don't care who we run over, what rules, regulations, laws or ethics, nothing stops these folks. And as bad as you think they are from somebody who's been on the inside, they're far worse than that. I can attest to that.
- [59:19]
A
And, Bob, you were, you know, in the Southern District of New York, the sovereign district of New York, probably the mightiest U.S. attorney's office in the country, extremely powerful, and you were the, you know, deputy chief of the Criminal division, you know, from the inside, what a tragedy it is that the law has been perverted in such a way.
- [59:46]
B
Absolutely. Here's another interesting tidbit I just picked up yesterday, and that is, who's representing James Comey down in Virginia? 1. Rebecca Donaleski. Rebecca Donaleski was the person in the Southern District of New York who was prosecuting. That's maybe the wrong word, investigating, hoping to prosecute Rudy Giuliani for three years. As I explained, when that matter should have been shut down the first day, I was astonished to see that she had left the U.S. attorney's office, joined a big law firm in Manhattan, and is now down in Virginia representing James Comey. That tells you a lot about who she was at the time we were dealing with her.
- [60:29]
A
And James Comey, of course, the, the FBI director who instigated all the Russiagate hoax against Donald Trump. Just last question, Bob. Do you think that any of these grand juries, any of these investigations into James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, etcetera, Do you think they'll go anywhere?
- [60:52]
B
Yes, because especially if Jeanine Pirro's office is behind any of them. Right now. It's the Eastern District of Virginia. They have it y venue was decided there. I guess Comey must have lived there at the time. And I don't know what Letitia James has to do with the Eastern District of Virginia, although maybe that home that she was talking about might be within the district.
- [61:18]
A
Yes, it is.
- [61:20]
B
But when Jeanine Pirro gets her hands on one of these cases, you can be guaranteed that it will go to its conclusion and justice will be served.
- [61:30]
A
Problem is, she's got these 94% democrat juries and a whole lot of Democrat prosecutors. It's a bit of a viper's nest.
- [61:39]
B
I think that's true. But even 97% Democrats, when presented with the evidence, hopefully will do the right thing and honor their oath of office and either convict or acquit people as the facts have shown.
- [61:54]
A
Thank you, Bob Costello, you're a hero and you've managed to endure a lot of slings and arrows and come out at the end. I'm glad to see stronger than ever. So thank you very much for all your hard work.
- [62:06]
B
Thank you, Miranda, and congratulations to you on the on the hard work that you're doing because it's paying off and I don't mean to you it's paying off to the American public. Public.
- [62:16]
A
Thanks so much, Bob. It never would have happened, I never would have gone on this journey if you hadn't made that fateful phone call on I think a Friday night in October. And it's been a pleasure to to get to know you and do business with you ever since.
- [62:30]
B
Thank you. You're very nice. Appreciate it.
- [62:33]
A
Thank you so much for watching. I'm Miranda Devine. We'll be back with more next week. Let us know what you thought of this episode by leaving a comment below. And make sure you hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes of Pod Force One.