
Loading summary
Podcast Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.
CarMax Advertiser
Guaranteed Human thinking about selling your car. Get a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Then take seven days to think it over. That's it. No haggling, no hassles, no pressure. Get all the details and a real offer today@carmax.com wanna drive CarMax?
Podcast Announcer
The best skaters, BMX riders and moto athletes in the world don't compete in leagues until now. The X Games League championship is live From New Orleans. July 24th 26th. Three elite action sports, plus performances from Metro Boomin, JID Subtronics and Bunt Watch on ABC, ESPN and ESPN 2. Stream on the ESPN app Roku Kick, Amazon and X Games YouTube. The inaugural champion gets crowned this July.
Glen Washington
I'm Glen Washington from Snap Judgment, the storytelling podcast from kqed. Imagine an iconic piece of paradise overrun by one of the most horrific fires in recent memory. Everyone flees. Everyone except one person who decides to fight the flames. All systems down. The moment when nature, institutions and technology fail at the exact same time. A new Snapchat miniseries from kqed. Wherever you get your podcasts,
Firestone Advertiser
real value shows up in reliability. You don't have to second guess. Like a set of Firestone All Season tires. They're designed to deliver confidence inspiring wet weather traction and a quieter ride no matter the road, season after season. Firestone All Season tires for durability you can count on, just like people count on you. Firestone always dependable since 1900.
Political Commentator
The Chinese CDC was saying this in January 2020. He knew it. He told Dear Diary. But to the public, he commissioned this paper called Proximal Origins. And in it they go on and on saying it's implausible, that it came from the lab and we're really convinced it came from these wild animals in the marketplace. But that level of dishonesty is really astounding.
Ben Ferguson
You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
Good Tuesday morning. It's nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. And we've got two big stories this morning. First up, the House Judiciary Committee has issued a criminal referral against Jack Smith over what they're describing as alleged perjury. And I'll break that down for you. But then, other breaking news. We now have learned that Jack Smith obtained text messages from at least 44 members of Congress spying on those members. It is a shocking story and we have the details. Also, in another shocking breaking news story, Anthony Fauci apparently was absolutely obsessed with with his newfound fame during the COVID pandemic. When he was supposed to be fighting to protect all of us. And his diary, well, it's now been put out there for the public to read. And what I have for you is going to blow your mind. It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.
Story number one.
Well, let's start with a story that almost no one thought they would ever hear. The the man who spent years trying to prosecute Donald Trump is now the subject of a criminal referral himself. That's right. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Jim Jordan has formally referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, alleging that Smith made false statements to Congress under oath during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Now, specifically, the referral we're being told, centers on whether Smith in fact misled lawmakers when discussing what investigative records his office obtained during that Trump witch hunt investigation. And that's where the second bombshell comes into the story we now are being told. Because of recently released documents from Senate investigators, they're now alleging that not only was Jack Smith spying on members of Congress, but but he was reading their text messages. The investigative team has now obtained text message communications they say involving 44 members of Congress. Now, during its investigation to President Trump, they decided to go fishing and they wanted to read the messages of sitting members of Congress. Now, those records were reportedly obtained through legal process directed at the National Archives RA rather than directly from the lawmakers phones, which is even more shocking. Now, think about what this actually means with this revelation. For years, Americans were told that these investigations were, quote, narrowly focused and carefully controlled and insulated completely from politics. But now Congress is looking at the story differently and asking a simple question, whether investigators quietly swept up these communications that were involving more than 44 sitting members of the legislative branch while also investigating the leading political opponent of their administration, which was Donald J. Trump. That is a shocking allegation, something that would normally happen in a communist country or a socialist country or a Marxist country. A dictator would do something like this. Instead. This was the weaponization of the United States government, the deep state at the highest levels and the FBI. Now, these are, yes, not only extraordinary allegations, but according to Chairman Jordan, the newly released documents appear inconsistent with Jack Smith's congressional testimony, which is why these two stories now come together. Smith's legal team strongly disputes that the characterization, arguing, quote, he answered questions truthfully about toll records and was not denying that other records obtained through separate legal authorities existed. In other words, they're saying, we're going to use the fine print Here. Now, Democrats on the committee have also argued that the referral quote, mischaracterizes Smith's testimony. The Justice Department is not required to act on a congressional criminal referral, to be clear. But regardless of where someone lands politically, the larger issue is this. If federal prosecutors can obtain communications involving not one, not two, not 10, not 20, but involving 44 members of Congress that we know of during an investigation of a presidential candidate who was, again, by the way, a former president of the United States of America, that Americans deserve transparency completely about how that even happened. And then the other question is, what legal authority was used? Were there any safeguards in place at all? And was Congress itself accurately informed about what happened afterwards, or were they lied to? Now, this really isn't just about Jack Smith anymore. It's actually about truth and the justice system as a whole. It's about whether investigators played by the same rules they expected everyone else to follow or go to jail if you didn't. And it's also about political accountability. If you weaponize the American government to go after your political opponent and then we find out about it, is there any recourse or consequence? Now, for years, we've been watching prosecutors pursue Donald Trump with unprecedented aggressiveness. Now, the same House committee that investigated those actions is asking whether the special counsel himself may have crossed multiple legal lines by allegedly giving misleading testimony to Congress to cover up their actions, which could actually be criminal. Now, there's two things here that you also need to take into consideration. Number one, politically, this is a remarkable reversal from where we were. And the second part of this is the media. The media is completely silent on what I'm telling you right now. Ask yourself the question why prosecutors, by the way, who once stood at the center of the biggest legal cases against Donald Trump, they're now having to face these allegations, face the music, face the fact that their own testimony deserves criminal scrutiny, and if Congress is correct, that investigators secretly obtained text messages involving 44 members of Congress while the public was told a very different story then this story is going to be about far more than just one man, and that man, obviously, being the man in charge, Jack Smith. It's also far bigger than the one story that involves Donald Trump. Which brings us to where we are now. This is a new story, and I think it's a story that's gonna be whether Americans can have any confidence at all that when Democrats are in charge that they're actually playing by the rules, they're playing by the rule of the law. Or is this now what Happens when Democrats get elected. They do whatever they wanna do. They throw out the legal standards and then they just lie to Congress while doing it. This is about American confidence that justice is actually administered fairly or transparently or equally, regardless of whose name is in the case or do we live in a country where Democrats and the socialist Marxists and communists hiding in our government can weaponize our government to put their political adversaries in prison. Now, this is exactly what actually happens in places like Russia. Vladimir Putin for decades has either offed or arrested or bankrupt or destroyed his political opponents. Many of them are just straight up killed. We see this happen in Latin America. We see this happen all over the world in our history books where new leadership comes in, they take ultimate power over the people, they control every aspect of the government, and the first thing they do is they go after their political opponents and throw them in jail so they're no longer a threat to them. That is what the Democrats did with Donald Trump. And apparently it wasn't just Democrats in Congress, it was also the deep state as well. Now, this is going to move, I have a feeling, pretty quickly we're gonna find out a lot more. But one thing is for sure. 44 different members of Congress were spied on by the special counsel, the FBI, and the administration that was in charge at the time, the Democratic Party. If you're a member of Congress right now and you now have just found out that you are One of the 44 who respied on, I have a feeling you've got a lot of questions that you want answered, and I expect you're going to see a lot of this exploding on Capitol Hill.
Next story number two.
They say that fame can be one hell of a drug. And no one loved that drug more, apparently, than Dr. Anthony Fauci. He was not a name that anyone knew before the COVID pandemic, but by the end of it, his name ID in this country and honestly, around the world, well, it was superstar status. We now know just how much Anthony Fauci was obsessed with his image. The newly released diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci suggest that the former White House Covid advisor became increasingly, quote, preoccupied with his growing celebrity status, even as the coronavirus pandemic claimed tens of thousands of American lives. The journals released this past weekend by Senator Rand Paul chronicle Fauci's private thoughts during the early months of the pandemic when he served as the nation's top infectious disease expert and a leading member of the White House's coronavirus task. Force. In an April 7, 2020 diary entry when more than 60,000Americans were already dead from COVID 19, Fauci wrote, quote, press still hot and heavy about me. Multiple stories per day, directly or indirectly involving me. Weeks later, on May 21, Fauci described his national and international fame as explosive and really unimaginable, quote, unquote. He also added that it was, quote, not hyperbole to characterize his level of global recognition. By that way, by then, nearly89,000Americans had died from the virus and he was excited about everybody knowing who he was. Now the diary also shows Fauci receiving invitations tied to his newfound celebrity. In late June 2020, as daily US COVID 19 cases climbed to a then record 40,000, he wrote that he had been invited to appear on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Fauci also documented growing tension with President Donald Trump's White House, writing that extensive media coverage was turning him into a star that outshines his words, a star that outshines the president. He recalled Secret Service officers at the White House security gates routinely recognizing his vehicle and waving him through without requesting identification. And that is what power drunk sounds like in a diary, my friends. Now, despite the attention, Fauci wrote that he had, quote, no desire to conflict with, embarrassed or showed up. Now, of course, despite the attention, Fauci wrote that he had, quote, no desire to conflict with, embarrass, or show up the potus, and later decided to stop participating in profile interviews. Now, Senator Paul releasing this is pretty interesting. He's a longtime Fauci critic. He's also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and he released the diary entries days before Fauci is scheduled to testify before the committee under a subpoena issued by the Kentucky Republican. Senator Paul argues that the journal depicts a senior public health official overly focused on his public image and media profile during one of the nation's worst public health crisis. Quote, Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people, Paul wrote in a June 28 post on X accusing federal health officials of prioritizing self promotion and media narratives during the early months of the pandemic over telling you what was actually happening. Now, the takeaway from all of this for me is actually pretty simple. It is clear that Anthony Fauci was obsessed with his fame. He was obsessed with being the center of attention. He was obsessed with doing interviews and being on the COVID of magazines and newspapers. He was obsessed with the countless stories that were coming out each and every day around him. He was a man that was drunk on his own Supply. And Dr. Now is going to have to answer these questions. Was he actually focused on saving American lives or was he more focused on, well, how big his star was getting in America and around the world? Only Anthony Fauci, by the way, can answer that question. And this time it's going to be under oath.
Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.
Podcast Announcer
The first ever X Games League championship is going down live and New Orleans has the call. Three days of elite action sports. A season's worth of competition coming down to one final weekend. Watch July 24th through 26th on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. Or stream on the ESPN app, X Games, YouTube, Kick Roku sports channel and Amazon. The championship starts July 24th. Don't miss the moment. It becomes history.
Firestone Advertiser
Real value shows up in reliability. You don't have to second guess. Like a set of Firestone all Season tires. They're designed to deliver confidence inspiring wet weather, traction and a quieter ride no matter the road. Season after season. Firestone All Season tires for durability you can count on, just like people count on you. Firestone always dependable since 1900.
Podcast Announcer
Dad Disney activities are on Lingokids.
Ben Ferguson
What?
Podcast Announcer
Moana and Elsa and Marvel's Spider Man. All of them on Lingokids? Yes, dad on Lingokids. That's pretty cool. I know.
CarMax Advertiser
You just lost them for the rest of the afternoon.
Podcast Announcer
Worth it. Full of fun activities inspired by Disney's Moana, Frozen Zootopia, Marvel's Spider man and more. Lingokids is where little ones discover more about favorite characters.
Glen Washington
Lingokids.
Podcast Announcer
Everything kids love. Download it for free.
Jack Armstrong
Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. Lotta news is boring and tedious and depressing and makes you angry. You don't wanna live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
Ben Ferguson
He's Joe Getty.
Jack Armstrong
We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy
Podcast Announcer
modern world about something about a comedic tone.
Jack Armstrong
We have a winner. Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Yeti on Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode: Explosive New Documents Put Jack Smith & Fauci Back in the Headlines
Date: July 28, 2026
Host: Ben Ferguson
On this episode of The 47 Morning Update, Ben Ferguson delves into two explosive new developments in U.S. politics. First, he unpacks a criminal referral issued against former special counsel Jack Smith, centered around allegations of perjury during Smith's investigation into Donald Trump. Second, Ferguson examines revelations from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s newly released diaries, highlighting Fauci’s apparent obsession with fame during the COVID-19 crisis. The episode’s tone is urgent, direct, and sharply critical, particularly of what Ferguson views as the politicization and weaponization of federal institutions.
Segment Start: [03:16]
Breaking News: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan formally refers Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, alleging false statements under oath during congressional testimony.
Alleged Spying on Congress: Newly released Senate documents claim Smith's investigative team obtained text messages from at least 44 members of Congress during the Trump investigation.
Records Acquisition: The messages were reportedly secured via legal processes through the National Archives rather than directly from lawmakers' phones, raising further concern.
Transparency & Legal Authority:
Smith's Defense & Political Reactions:
Broader Implications:
Capitol Fallout Expected:
Segment Start: [11:25]
Fame and Celebrity Preoccupation: Newly released diaries (by Senator Rand Paul) reveal Fauci’s deep concern with his own celebrity during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notable Anecdotes:
Tensions with the White House:
Rand Paul’s Angle:
Ferguson's Takeaway:
“If federal prosecutors can obtain communications involving not one, not two, not 10, not 20, but involving 44 members of Congress that we know of during an investigation of a presidential candidate ... Americans deserve transparency.”
—Ben Ferguson ([08:07])
“This is about American confidence that justice is actually administered fairly ... or do we live in a country where Democrats and the socialist Marxists and communists hiding in our government can weaponize our government to put their political adversaries in prison.”
—Ben Ferguson ([09:11])
On Fauci:
“He was a man that was drunk on his own Supply. And Dr. Now is going to have to answer these questions. Was he actually focused on saving American lives or was he more focused on, well, how big his star was getting in America and around the world?”
—Ben Ferguson ([15:13])
“Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people...”
—Sen. Rand Paul (quoted by Ben Ferguson, [14:57])
This episode of The 47 Morning Update delivers a hard-hitting breakdown of political accountability at the federal level, focusing on high-profile figures Jack Smith and Anthony Fauci. Ben Ferguson’s commentary questions the integrity and motivations of those at the pinnacle of government power, drawing strong parallels to global authoritarian abuses. The show closes with a challenge to listeners to consider the stakes for justice, transparency, and the American public’s trust in its leaders.