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The Daily Beans
Refried Beans | Carb Onesie (feat. Andy McCabe) | 1/31/2023
00:53:21
Tuesday, January 31st, 2023 In the Hot Notes: the Manhattan DA has impaneled a special grand jury to return indictments on Donald Trump himself; a Mark Meadows ally is set to plead guilty to campaign finance charges; House Republicans are rebuffed again by the DoJ this time in the Biden documents investigation; a bi-partisan House panel has voted unanimously to intervene in the DoJ’s efforts to get access to Rep. Scott Perry’s phone; plus AG and Dana deliver your Good News.
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A
History is messy. It's weird, wild, and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you stop and ask, wait, is this real life? From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising, heartwarming tales, we explore.
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B
The moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully.
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A
We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos, and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole. MSW Media. MSW Media. Hey, everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week and either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
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B
Refried beans.
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A
I like refried beans.
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B
That's why I want to try fried.
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A
Beans, because maybe they're just as good.
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C
And we're wasting time.
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A
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Tuesday, January 31, 2023. Today, the Manhattan DA has impaneled a special grand jury to return indictments on Donald Trump himself. A Mark Meadows ally is set to plead guilty to campaign finance charges. House Republicans are rebuffed again by the Department of Justice, this time in the Biden documents investigation. And a bipartisan House panel has voted unanimously to intervene in the DOJ's efforts to to get access to Rep. Scott Perry's phone. I'm Allison Gill.
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B
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
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A
Dana, January's over. 1 12th of the year is done.
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B
I don't even want to talk about that. When you said it like that, I got a little mad. I got a little mad. That happened very quickly. I know.
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A
Like when I run for 12 minutes on the treadmill, after a minute, I'm like, All right, only 11 more to go. But not. Not with months and years. Please don't.
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B
No, that's actually how I do that, too. When I get three minutes into my Peloton ride, I'm like, okay, 30 minute ride. I'm 10% done. Let's go. I'm the same way. That's so pathetic.
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A
Too, like, all right, 1 12th. Done. Oh, my God, that's so funny that.
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B
We both do that. I wonder if it's an athlete thing.
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A
Oh, my God, it must be right, because in three minutes I'm like, dude, 25% done. Let's do it. Let's do it. Also, a quick reminder, we will be off the week of March 6th. Okay, no beans. The week of March 6th, we're doing the vacation thing again because, you know, we realized we tried this, you know, like a couple years ago, and we're like, yeah, we're gonna do it. We're gonna take a week off every eight weeks and do some self care. And it just never happened.
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B
Nope.
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A
And now I am, like, adamant about sticking to it because we all need that time off. So we're gonna do that the week of March 6th. I love you all. Please don't be mad. We need that time. And it's not just us, right? It's the whole beans crew. You know, everybody needs a vacation.
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B
They do. So. So.
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A
Also today, Andy McCabe will join me to talk about the arrest of FBI Special Agent in Charge of Counterintelligence Charles McGonagall for cavorting with Russian spies. Which is weird. And Andy knows this guy, so it's going to be a really insightful interview. And aside from that, there's so much news to get to today. A lot of big bombshells kind of flying under the radar. So let's do this thing. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, Dana, it's time to dust off the Pecker jokes. Yes. From Rashburn. Protest in Bromwich at the Times. The Manhattan District Attorney's office on Monday began presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald John Trump's role in paying hush money to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former fella in the coming months. According to people with knowledge of the matter, probably Trump's lawyers. The grand jury was recently empaneled, and the beginning of witness testimony represents a clear and signal that the District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Trump. On Monday, one of the witnesses was seen with his lawyer entering the building in lower Manhattan where the grand jury is sitting. The witness, David Pecker, is the former publisher of the National Enquirer, the tabloid that helped broker the deal with the porn star Stormy Daniels. As prosecutors prepare to reconstruct the events surrounding the payment for grand jurors, which shouldn't take long because we all know the fucking story by now. It's been five years. They have sought to interview several witnesses, including the tabloid's former editor, Dylan Howard, and two employees at Trump's company. According to people, Mr. Howard and the Trump Organization employees, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, have not yet testified before the grand jury. Now, Dana, Dylan Howard and David Pecker were on my Fantasy indictment team forever. But now it doesn't look like it looks like they're cooperating here. I'm gonna, you know, talk a little bit about that.
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B
Is that gonna be a Pecker flip? I'm sure there's something there. There's a pecker flip.
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A
The hang down pecker flip is on its way. I don't know. And I also don't know whether or not he's being squeezed for because he had an immunity deal with the feds. When the feds were investigating this, of course, Barr ended up dropping that case.
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B
I can't stop giggling now.
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A
Against individual one, there's going to be a lot of Pecker Jacks.
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B
I mean, is someone squeezing Pecker to get him to flip? I mean, I really.
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A
Yes, they could be squeezing Pecker to flip it.
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B
Okay, keep going. I'll be quiet, I swear.
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A
Flip that cock. So that was a TV show idea I had one time where I date guys and fix them up and then release them to their forever homes.
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B
That's very funny.
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A
It was called Flip this Cock or this Old Cock. I hadn't decided yet, but anyhow, I digress. So he had an immunity deal, but then. And here's the thing, with their immunity deal, you aren't allowed to do crimes. Why you have an immunity deal, nor.
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B
Do you plead the fit.
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A
Right, right. And so what happened with Pecker, was that an ami, which is the. You know, the parent company of the National Enquirer is he blackmailed Jeff Bezos by threatening to release photographs of him and his mistress at the time. Do you remember this story?
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B
Right, I do, I do.
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A
Bezos came out, wrote a whole medium article about it, saying, I'm gonna tell you everything so they can't blackmail me. And I was like, wow, you can't. That's illegal to do that. Does that blow up his immunity deal? We never heard about it because, of course, Barr shut the whole fucking thing down. So, yeah, I'm wondering if Manhattan DA is able to squeeze Becker with this crime against Jeff Bezos. We don't know a lot of the details yet, but the prosecutors have begun contacting officials from Trump's campaign. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode. A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election. He wanted to hide that right. And that's a low level felony charge that would be based largely on untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer, who made the payment and who himself pled guilty to federal charges. Still, the developments compound Trump's legal woes. In the early days of the third presidential campaign, a district attorney in Georgia, as we know, Fani Willis, could seek to indict him for his efforts to overturn 2020. He faced a special counsel investigation into his removal of sensitive documents, as well as his actions during the attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it and beyond it. Now, Alvin Bragg's decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money payments, supercharging the longest running criminal investigation into Donald Trump. And that represents a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end. Under Bragg's Predecessor, Cy Vance Jr. The District Attorney's office begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a case focused not just on the hush money, but on Trump's broader business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate to secure favorable loans and other financial benefits. Yet in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and decided to abandon the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of two senior prosecutors leading the investigation, Dun and Pomerantz, and that one of them, Pomeranz, was critical of Bragg's decision. In a book that's scheduled to be published next week, the People v. Donald Trump, detailing his account of the inquiry, Bragg's office recently wrote to Pomeranz's publisher, Simon and Schuster, saying, hey, could you not do that because the book could disclose grand jury information or interfere with the investigation. For his part, Trump has denied all wrongdoing, chalked it up to the, you know, partisan witch hunt against him.
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B
Of course.
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A
Here's the thing, though. If he were ultimately convicted, Trump would only face a max sentence of four years, and prison time would not even be mandatory. He would probably get probation. This feels like a bullshit cover your ass thing for not indicting him for tax fraud in New York.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
Now, the district attorney's office is also continuing to scrutinize the way that the former president valued his assets. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he does anything with those crimes, especially after the sweetheart deal he gave Weisselberg trading a max 15 year prison sentence for a mere $1.6 million fine in the conviction of the Trump, I think that was a bullshit deal. So we'll see what happens.
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B
All right, thank you so much, Ag. And this is from Cheney and Gerstein at Politico. A family friend of Mark Meadows has agreed to plead guilty to accepting an illegal campaign contribution during an ill fated 2020 run to succeed the former Trump White House chief of staff in Congress. This is according to newly released court papers. Linda Bennett, who lost a 2020 Republican primary campaign to Madison Cawthorn, of all people, accepted a contribution from family member exceeding $25,000. And this is according to charging paperwork filed by prosecutors. Well, that contribution was given in the name of another person, according to the papers signed by U.S. attorney Matthew Graves and Corey Amundsen, in chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. Well, details about the allegation were sparse. There weren't a lot of them. But prosecutors asked the U.S. district Judge Christopher Cooper on Monday to set a hearing for Bennett to formally enter the plea agreement in federal court in Washington, D.C. but they indicated she had signed the paperwork. Well, Bennett did not respond to messages seeking comment, but her attorney said in a statement that the case, quote, involves a technical violation of campaign finance regulations based on a loan from a family member.
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A
It's just tech. It's just a technical crime.
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B
Yeah. Violation, just technicality. And then the attorney, Kearns Davis, who's Bennett's attorney, said Linda looks forward to putting it behind her. Now, an attorney for Mark Meadows also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Well, Bennett's campaign finance records don't immediately make clear which contributions prosecutors believe to have been unlawful. Bennett's report indicates that she loaned herself $80,000 at the end of 2019 and paid a portion of it back. Her report terminating her political committee did not list any outstanding balance. I don't understand the whole. She lent herself $80,000, by the way.
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A
This is what George Santos did.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know.
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B
Oh, except is what, $720,000?
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A
Well, you know, whatevs, whatevs.
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B
Penny here, a penny there. Campaigns finance laws, they limited individual campaign contributions for the 2020 election cycle to $2,800 in the primary and 2,800 in the general for an aggregate total of $5,600 in that campaign cycle. However, candidates can make unlimited donations or loans to their own campaigns. So if they have a lot of fucking money, I'm just going to loan it to myself and then we're going to pay it back. I don't know how that happens, but that's fine. Now, Meadows backed Bennett okay. To replace him in Congress after he resigned his seat to join the Trump White House until she lost the primary to Callthorn. Then President Trump also endorsed Bennett in the primary. And the Republican in North Carolina worried that Meadows aggressive effort to steer his seat to an ally might backfire. Well, Meadows's wife, Debbie, wasn't active. She was active in support of Bennett on the campaign trail. And Meadows pointed to his wife's closeness with Bennett to underscore her support for Trump. Well, Mark Meadows is facing intense legal scrutiny, as we know, for his role in Donald Trump's effort to subvert the 2020 election. And prosecutors in Washington and Georgia are investigating the effort as well as the role that some of Trump's close allies played. So, and it continues the web, we.
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A
Found some election fraud. Once again, it's a Republican.
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B
Republican.
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A
All right, I'm going to write this next story because I don't like the way the media is bending it.
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B
What the media, we all know.
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A
Way back last spring, Department of Justice investigators asked the Department of Justice taint team, the taint team that had seized the emails of.
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B
Why don't we have more jokes about the taint team?
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A
I know, I know. Pecker and Taint is our episode title. Anyway, that taint team had seized the emails of Klukowski, Clark, and Eastman pursuant to search warrants. But anyway, the DOJ investigators asked that taint team to first review emails with Republican House member Scott Perry. And they did and turned over those emails. And shortly after that, Department of Justice investigators, I think, at the Inspector General's office got a warrant for Scott Perry's phone. And much like other phones they've seized, they did what I call the search warrant two step. First, they get a warrant to grab the phone and image everything on it. But they don't look like, don't look, nobody look. Then they get a second search warrant to look at the contents of the phone. Now, both warrants require probable cause that the phone contains evidence of a crime. So after the second warrant, actually, I think right after the phone was seized, Scott Perry sued to block the Department of Justice from getting access to his phone and the content. We just learned that Chief Judge Beryl Howell in the D.C. district Court sided with the DOJ on that one. She said, yeah, you should have all this information. She did that in a sealed ruling on December 28th. Just a month ago, she said DOJ should have access to this stuff. We also just learned that Scott Perry appealed that, apparently. And the appellate panel in that D.C. circuit has put a temporary and totally normal. Hold on that ruling until they can hear arguments Feb. 23. Now, some journalists have framed this as appeals court blocks DOJ from getting Perry's phone stuff. But that is sensationalist. And that's why I wanted to tell you about this myself. It is very, very normal, and we've seen it a million times, for the appeals court to temporarily stay, administratively stay in order so that the defendant has a chance to file their case and prove their case. Because if they don't do that, you take away that defendant's right to appeal. Because you moot it. Because they have the evidence, you can't claw it back. Right. So they're trying to make it sound like the headline is the court is blocking the DOJ from getting the evidence when the actual headline here is that the House, the House of Representatives, has voted to intervene in this case and file a briefing on behalf of themselves. They don't want the DOJ to be able to seize Representatives phones.
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B
Right.
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A
At first you'd think fucking Republicans trying to block this investigation. But as it turns out, it's a bipartisan panel that voted on this. This bipartisan panel includes McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries, along with an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. And this panel voted unanimously to intervene on behalf of Scott Perry. Now, this is based on information from one anonymous source, but it would be pretty stupid to lie about because Hakeem Jeffries can confirm or deny this. Right?
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B
Right.
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A
If you're looking for my beans, I think the appellate court panel of three judges, which has two Trump appointees and one GW Bush appointee, they actually may side with Congress on this under the speech or debate clause. But DOJ can and will appeal en banc or to SCOTUS. I'm about 80% sure that the en banc full DC Circuit Court of Appeals will side with Beryl Howe and the DOJ. And I'm about 90% sure SCOTUS will too. But we'll see. They might have some weird separation of powers thing or some broad interpretation of the speech or debate clause. That hearing with the three judge court appellate court panel is set for February 23rd. Dana.
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B
All right, thank you, A.G. and this is from our friend over at the Guardian, Hugo Lowell. Well, the U.S. justice Department told top House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Monday that it would decline to produce confidential information about special counsel investigations into the recent discovery of classified marks documents at Joe Biden's personal home and office. I think this is going to be the beginning of a lot of this committee going. Give us the documents and the DJ going, yeah, no, you're not getting these documents, like over and over and over. I just want to see the letter.
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A
Just be like, suck it.
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B
Signed, bite me. Bite me. Love, Merrick Garland. The department said in a letter to the committee reviewed by the Guardian that it will not provide details about the president's documents case or any other inquiry because it could reveal the roadmap of the investigation. The risk appearance of police political conflict. And this is a quote, disclosures to Congress about active investigations risk jeopardizing those investigations and creating the appearance that Congress may be exerting improper political pressure or attempting to influence department decisions. And that was from Assistant Attorney General Carlos Erarty Yuriarty. We're going to go with Yuriardi.
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C
Sure.
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B
All right.
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A
Yep.
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B
The department also noted that because the Attorney General, Merrick Garland. I know how to say that one had appointed a special counsel to oversee the Biden documents case, it was bound by the Special Counsel Council. Garland, Marie Garland. Yes. That he was bound by the special counsel regulations that allow for certain communications at the start and at the end of investigations. And this is another quote, these regulations govern the department's conduct and all special counsel investigations and will continue to govern our disclosures in this matter. Again, that was youriardi. And he's also a former top advisor to the Deputy Attorney General who currently leads the division, which has been in touch with Congress directly. The clery refusal from the Justice Department to open its files to the Judiciary Committee sets up the prospect of a very bitter fight with the new House Republican majority, which has made a political investigations into the Biden administration a top priority, along with Hunter Biden's laptop for the next two years. Now, the Justice Department has come under increasing pressure from top lawmakers in both the House and the Senate to brief them on detail about Biden's case, as well as the parallel criminal investigation into Trump's retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice. Notice that Trump's case comes with an obstruction of justice very specifically and Biden's does not. There's a difference there. Garland appointed top former prosecutor Robert her as special counsel to oversee the Biden case on 12 January, months after naming another top former prosecutor, as we know, Jack Smith, as special counsel to take charge of the January 6th Capitol attack and Mar A Lago documents investigating into Trump. Well, the Justice Department has long refused to provide to Congress confidential information that could compromise investigations or grand jury secrecy rules, as well as deliberative communications like prosecution memos because of the risk of political interference and charging decisions. This has been very specific. Now, as the department explained in 2000, near 2000 in a letter to then House Rules Committee chair John Linder, its position has been upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon from 1974 that recognized making such materials public could have an improper, quote, chilling effect. Now, Uriarty's response to the Judiciary Committee comes a day after he told top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee that the department would similarly decline to provide information about classified mark documents in the Biden case as well as the Trump case. So it's not like they're like, here's all the on Trump, you can't have Biden's. What's fair is fair.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And the Senate Democrats are like, we want to see it all. And they're like, no, sorry, bro. And here's the thing. They all know this.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This has been a thing for a very, very long time. But they still, both sides still do it because then they can say, I tried, you know, Right. So. And the DOJ is like, well, cry harder. All right. We've got the good news coming up. But first, I'm going to discuss the McGonagall arrest with Andy McCabe right after this break.
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B
Stay with us after these messages.
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A
We'll be right back.
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D
You can always count on Sunday to be the best day of the week. You can sleep in, go off your diet, spend the day in your pajamas and go on, have that second croissant. You know what else you can count on every Sunday? The Martin Sheen Podcast. Join me, your host, Martin Sheen, for beautifully crafted 20 minute programs filled with never before heard stories of my life, along with personal reflections and poetry that inspires. And season two begins Sunday, February 1st. The Martin Podcast is the perfect Sunday relaxing companion, a chance to put your feet up, take a deep breath and enjoy some stress free listening time from the comfort of your favorite easy chair and that second croissant that stays between us. There's no judgment here. So make my podcast your weekly moment of calm as we explore faith, hope, love and what it means to be human. And rest assured, this journey is ever unfolding as I invite you to see what's next with me, Martin Sheen. So let's keep Sunday the best day of the week together and thank you for listening.
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A
Hey everybody, welcome back. Today I am joined by the host of the smash hit podcast Jack about special counsel Jack Smith and the author of the book the Threat, former acting director of the FBI, Andy McCabe.
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C
Hi Andy, how are you Good day, Allison. Hello, Beans listeners. Great to be here.
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A
Yes, it's good to talk to you because we didn't get a chance to talk about something on the last episode of Jack, which is out right now, which is a great episode. Everybody should check it out and subscribe where you get your podcasts. But I wanted to talk to you about this guy McGonagall, who was arrested recently. And I wanted to know. I mean, let me just give you a little bit of background. I'll give everybody a little bit of background here. McGonagall was called this SAC, which is the Special Agent in Charge of counterintelligence, right? He was out of the New York field office. And while he was the SAC, Shestakoff, who was a co conspirator here, introduced McGonagall to Agent 1, who's somebody who worked at one of Deripaska's corporations. And he helped that person. He did a favor for Agent One, for Deripaska, got that person's daughter a job with the nypd. And that's usually an in, right? To recruit people is to ask them to do you a favor like that. He also used a New Jersey corporation that he was part of while he was serving in the FBI, but he used that later after he got out to conceal payments from Deripaska without telling the owner of that New Jersey corporation, and had Shestakov forge that guy's signature. And then after he left, the FBI, Agent 1, who he did a favor for back in the day while he was with the FBI, asked him to help Oleg Deripaska investigate another oligarch known as Oligarch 2, that I guess was trying to muscle in on some Rusol action, which is, you know, Deripaska's aluminum company. And he also accepted payments from a law firm, which I think is Ferrari and Associates. And those payments actually came from Oleg Deripaska. And he hired that law firm to help him sue the treasury to get him off the OFEC sanctions list. So I wanted to ask you, Andrew, if you know who McGonagall is and what your thoughts are on this arrest.
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C
Yeah, sure. So I do know Charlie. I knew him for many years in the FBI. He and I, I guess we probably came into the FBI around the same time. We both started off as first office agents in New York. I didn't really know him when I was in New York. I was on the criminal side doing Russian organized crime. And he spent his early years on the kind of what we call the other side of the House doing foreign counterintelligence work. So I knew him a little bit better years later when we were both serving at headquarters. Charlie had an incredibly strong reputation in the Bureau, and particularly as a counterintelligence expert. He spent most of his career doing that work. So I learned about all of this last week when the rest of the public did as well, when the details of the indictment for his interactions allegedly with Oleg Deripaska, which is the stuff that you just talked about, came out. That's the indictment out of the Southern District in New York. He, on the same day, was indicted in the D.C. district for activities that he was allegedly involved in during the last, I don't know, year or so of his time while he was still employed. It is alleged that he traveled with a former foreign intelligence agent, and he traveled and met with representatives of a foreign government on numerous occasions, and then did some things for those folks while he was still an agent, and then he concealed. The allegation is basically that he concealed, sealed all that activity and money that he received for that activity from the Bureau. Very, very serious stuff.
- [26:21]
A
I mean, I was, frankly surprised, but also kind of not because of all of the reports that we were hearing about what kind of goes on at the New York Field office. And I remember Jim Comey having said something about potential leaks coming out about Hillary from that office. I know that Inspector General Horowitz did a. A DOJ IG investigation into the New York Field Office and said he found nothing. Were you surprised? I mean, given his history and that he was. I mean, he was appointed sac, I think, by Jim Comey. I don't see any untoward sinister activity here on behalf of Comey by appointing him, but I honestly don't know. What can you tell us about the implications here?
- [27:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, to say that I was surprised is, like, way, way underselling it. I was completely floored, totally shocked. And I have talked to former friends of mine who are also former colleagues who knew Charlie in the way that I did, and we're all just utterly speechless by the allegations and these indictments. And let's, you know, to be fair, they are, at this point, still allegations. And at some point, Charlie will have his own statements about those things in his own defense. But, yeah, as I said, he had an incredibly strong reputation. He had a history of serving in very sensitive roles in different times across his career, taking on special projects to look into particular counterintelligence issues, having been assigned to those very sensitive roles by First Director Mueller and later by Jim Comey and myself. So, Charlie, becoming the Special Agent in charge of counterintelligence in New York was not a surprise. It was where kind of you would expect someone with his reputation and his experience to end up. So for that person, for it to be even alleged that that person was involved in this kind of activity, this is like the most blatant kind of stuff that you would never, ever, ever even contemplate getting involved in as an FBI agent, and particularly as an FBI agent who knows, you know, understands foreign intelligence work. This is just. It's incredibly concerning. And I would bet that the. That the FBI is spending a lot of time right now reevaluating all the work in the context that he had while he was on board.
- [28:47]
A
And let me ask you about. We were all sort of wondering what happened to the counterintelligence but, you know, side of the Mueller investigation. We know that there was supposed to be. And reports went out from the Mueller team to FBI counterintelligence. I'm not sure if McGonagall was part of receiving those reports, but we also know that Bill Barr had mischaracterized the Mueller findings. He had over redacted the Mueller report to sort of hide the depth and breadth of Russian interference. He. He shut down a lot of investigations. And Barr investigated Senator Burr, who was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and had him removed from that committee right before their report was supposed to come out so that Rubio could come in and kind of write his one page, no collusion, mischaracterization, the way Barr did with the Mueller findings. So I'm wondering. This seems like part of a larger sort of. I don't know if conspiracy is the right word, but maybe it is to sort of COVID up, like I said, the depth and breadth of Russian interference in 2016, which is what you initially were in charge of investigating.
- [30:01]
C
Yeah, I don't. I mean, I know there's been a lot of speculation about that. I think that some of it has. Is misplaced, but there's a lot packed into your question there. So I do think that there are very good questions about what happened to the overall counterintelligence concerns that we had when we opened Crossfire Hurricane and when we pushed for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate it. I did not know when I was still there, and I was really only there for the beginning of that, that Rod Rosenstein had drastically limited the Director Mueller's, you know, the scope of his inquiry to the kind of all things criminal, basically. And I don't Know if you know as that. As the Mueller investigation proceeded, I don't know. I mean, I think there's good question. But as that team came across counterintelligence concerns issues, if they did, were those adequately handed off back to the FBI Counterintelligence Division and were they followed up on? You know, the answers to those questions are probably classified if there are in fact positive answers. So those are going to be hard to get. However, there has been a lot of Talk online about McGonagall's potential involvement in Crossfire Hurricane and the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, things like that. He was, if I have the history, his history correct, I think he was in the Cyber Division before he went, before he left headquarters and went to New York as the SAC for counter intelligence in 2016, in the fall of 2016. So in the Cyber Division, he would have been privy to some of the information that was what keyed us in to be interested in the Russians early on. Right. So that was the Russian maligned cyber activity that was going on in end of 2014, all through 2015, kind of leading up to 2016. That was what really put us onto this idea of what are the Russians up to and are they thinking about an influence operation here. But then he leaves and goes to New York. As SAC in New York, he would have had supervisory authority over the agents working the Carter Page counterintelligence case, which pre existed Crossfire Hurricane. That was a case in New York. And again, I can talk about these things because they're all revealed or discussed in the IG report. This is publicly available information. So he would have had some supervisory authority over those agents. However, once Crossfire Hurricane got opened, it was a headquarters special, which means the oversight and direction of that case and the four individual cases, one of which is Carter Page, that was all being driven by the Counterintelligence Division at headquarters. I was involved in probably every major decision in that case until it was handed over to Special Counsel Mueller. And I don't remember ever dealing with Charlie McGonagall. He was not present, to my recollection, I could be wrong about this, but he was not present at the conversations, the meetings, certainly the ones we had with Director Comey over the really impactful decisions in that case. So I don't really think that he played a role in the way that people are speculating about in the media. And then once, of course, it's handed over to Mueller. I mean, Charlie wasn't on the Mueller team. The folks who were assigned to the Mueller team were not reporting back to their field offices. At least they weren't supposed to be. So I wouldn't have any knowledge of his involvement with that, but I wouldn't think he would have had much. But there you go.
- [33:32]
A
So the SAC at the New York field office would not have been involved in receiving counterintelligence updates from the Mueller team, is that what you're saying? It would have gone to Main Justice?
- [33:44]
C
Not as a. We had that team set up so that they weren't reporting back. Regular updates, case updates, things like that, to their field offices or to headquarters writ large. They were supposed to. They were being supervised by the attorneys on that team. They were to take investigative direction from those attorneys and report up only internally to the special counsel. That's it. Now, you know, if people were speaking out of turn and Charlie was finding out things from, you know, people that he knew on that team, I would have no way of knowing that.
- [34:14]
A
I see.
- [34:15]
C
Now, it is possible, though, if counterintelligence issues were being spun off out of that investigative effort of the Special Counsel and handed off to appropriate field offices for further action, I guess it's possible he would have. He maybe would have seen or had some involvement in that. But again, I'm not aware of anything in particular.
- [34:34]
A
And do you have any idea or concept of two things, Agent one and Oligarch two. Agent one is the person who worked for Deripaska, one of his corporations that approached McGonagall to get a job for his daughter at the NYPD. Do you have any idea who Agent 1 is or who that person's daughter could be? And then the second part of that is Oligarch two. And I'll ask my question after, after this answer.
- [35:05]
C
So those are all very good and understandable questions, but they call for FBI non public information. And I can't discuss FBI non public information. So I can neither confirm nor deny whether I have any knowledge of those people. Because to do otherwise would be not the right thing.
- [35:27]
A
Glomar. Same with Oligarch too.
- [35:30]
C
Same.
- [35:31]
A
Well, thanks, Andy. I thought we were friends.
- [35:33]
C
No, no, that's not the answer you would prefer. But really, I mean, basically what I know about this situation it's been that came out last week is the same that you know from reading the indictments, which I'm sure you have. I will say this, though. If that Charlie and anyone who held the positions that Charlie had, it would be impossible to imagine that anyone who held those jobs wouldn't know and appreciate the seriousness and the sensitivity of interacting with anyone who's a specially designated individual, a sanctioned individual, or agents of a sanctioned individual. So it's just inconceivable to me that, you know, I will see. We'll see what, Charlie, what comes up in the course of this litigation. But I can't even imagine anything along the lines of like, oh, I didn't know, or I thought it was okay, or that just doesn't seem even remotely possible here.
- [36:35]
A
Yeah. And I mean, I guess it sort of throws up all sorts of other.
- [36:40]
B
Flags about.
- [36:42]
A
Who else in New York field officer or Main justice or in the FBI could have been compromised by the Kremlin.
- [36:55]
C
It's a good question. I mean. Right. And I would expect that the FBI is taking a very, very hard look at everything Charlie did and everyone Charlie interacted with. And more broadly, the program in New York, and more broadly than that, you know, the Russia program writ large. And the people who might potentially even by chance, come into this scope. That's just the business of counterintelligence. And that happens anytime you uncover someone in the IC who has that kind of knowledge. Anytime you then have a reason to suspect they might have engaged in this sort of behavior. You have no choice but to do a really thorough damage assessment to try to figure out if you have other problems.
- [37:41]
A
And one final question. Is there such a thing as an inspector General not releasing a report because of sensitive classified information or because it's counterintelligence in nature or. I mean, how did Inspector General Horowitz look at the FBI field office and find nothing?
- [37:59]
C
Well, the inspector. I'm not familiar with that. I mean, I'm not an expert on the Inspector General, even though you might think I should be at this point, but I'm not. My experience, typically what they do is they release some sort of public release at the conclusion of their work, whether that's just a simple statement or it's a full blown report. And if there are classified findings, findings of fact or conclusions or recommendations, whatever about classified stuff, it's usually a classified appendix to that report. And that would not get released, obviously to the public. So it is strange to me. I've often had questions about. We made a lot of recommendations and referrals and.
- [38:41]
A
I'm sorry to interrupt, but maybe Horowitz did find something and made the referral and that's why we have this indictment. I don't even know who knows.
- [38:48]
C
It's not clear from the indictments how any of this activity came to light. There's been other reporting, open source reporting about different people who may have been witnesses to this. And there's been one in particular. A woman who claims to have made a. Sent a message to the then head of the New York office, a guy named William Sweeney, and raised some concerns about. Charlie. I don't know how this thing got started. Like I said, it's not clear in the indictment, but there were trying to be careful here. We made a lot of referrals to the FBI Inspection Division, which is the FBI's internal investigators. And I know that they handed off many of these referrals to the IG and specifically about people who were, we thought potentially having unauthorized contact with the media. And really nothing has come of any of that. I know very, very few people who were actually the subjects of. Of those referrals who then had reports that were issued or action, you know, that, you know, publicly that action was taken regarding them. Very few. And there were a lot of names on those lists. So I think it raises good questions about Michael Horowitz's office and what exactly they do with those referrals and how our concerns. I say our. I mean, Jim Comey and my concerns were or were not addressed after we raised them with Horowitz office.
- [40:20]
A
Yeah. And how much did Horowitz rely on information from McGonagall when he put together his Crossfire Hurricane report? I mean, there's really no way we can know.
- [40:33]
C
Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember. It's been a long time since I read that thing, but. But I don't remember McGonagall coming up in that report at all. His review of our decisions in Crossfire. So, yeah, I don't know really good questions, ones that they should answer. But I wouldn't hold your breath because we really hear very little from the IAG ever. They have basically no oversight. Michael Horowitz has incredible authority to basically do whatever he wants, however he wants, and that's how it goes. So there you go.
- [41:07]
A
I would like the Senate Intelligence Committee to raise some of these questions with Director Wray. I think that that would be appropriate. That's just my two cents. And perhaps the Inspector General himself.
- [41:20]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, it's very easy for Director Wray to point the finger at Michael Horowitz anytime Horowitz is doing something. Seems that Chris Wray pretty quickly says, oh, he can't say anything about that because the IG is involved, which is an appropriate answer in some circumstances. But, yeah, Horowitz goes up there. He spends a lot of time on the Hill, much More time than you see him actually testifying. So it would be interesting to hear him answer some questions about this stuff.
- [41:45]
A
Yeah, agreed. Well, thank you so much for your time, sir. Everybody pick up the book the Threat, if you haven't read it yet. It's fascinating. And also listen to Jack, which is full disclosure, co hosted by myself. I appreciate your time today, friend. Thank you so much.
- [42:03]
C
Oh, you're very welcome. Have a great day, everybody.
- [42:06]
A
Stick around. We'll be right back with the good.
- [42:07]
B
News after these messages.
- [42:10]
A
We'll be right back.
- [42:14]
C
I'm Brian Caram, and I've spent decades covering politics.
- [42:18]
B
Now I'm taking you behind the scenes.
- [42:21]
C
One interview at a time.
- [42:22]
A
Join us as each week Brian confronts the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth.
- [42:31]
C
We're not here for sound bites.
- [42:33]
B
We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram, every week as we cut through the noise and get straight to it.
- [42:40]
A
This is Just Ask the Question where.
- [42:43]
B
Curiosity will lead us to the facts. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform.
- [42:49]
A
And remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news? Everyone? Then good news, everyone. Good news. And if you have any good news, confessions, corrections, you want to give a shout out to somebody you love or a small business in your area, you want to send us your wooby or blankie or binky stories, stuffies, stuffed animals, anything you want to send to us. Frog orgies, of course. Baby pictures for Dana. We could play what the mutt.
- [43:34]
B
Yes, please.
- [43:35]
A
We are now champions. We got five out of seven that one time. And I feel I'm ready. Like, I feel like we can conquer them all now. So you can send it to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. All right, let's see here. We have a submission from Mari. Rhymes with sorry. Good morning, my supreme beans. I love that. Supreme beans.
- [43:56]
B
Good morning to you.
- [43:57]
A
Mari started listening to you a couple months ago, quickly became obsessed. You have now been bumped to number one above the New York Times.
- [44:04]
D
What?
- [44:05]
A
Every day and Wednesdays, I get two, so hump day is just that much better. And now, Jack, on Sundays, I'm in podcast. Pleasure. My husband, however, is not pleased. I listen through earbuds. So now every time he tries to talk to me, I quickly hold one finger up. Not that one. Mine's out of the gutter, ladies. To shush him until I push the earbud to pause You. The look on his face is priceless. Like, how could there be anything more important than what I have to say? We've been together for 33 years, and as we tell each other, neither one wants to train another one, so we're good. Really nice, though. We met in our 30s and neither had been married before. Too busy sowing wild oats. Rad. So the timing was perfect. It definitely was fate, since we grew up in towns next to each other and he had been friends with my friend's husband for years and never met until it was our time. Now, the actual reason I'm sending this. Last week, when you were talking about the person who calls himself George Santos or Anthony Devolder, you were talking about the odd $199 charges he accrued. Well, all I could think of was Denny's ad. Me too. 199? Are you out of your mind? Denny's ad from the 90s when they were advertising their grand slam. I finally found the commercial which I'm attaching here. Hopefully it'll work. If not, Google 1994 Denny's Grand Slam commercial. Hopefully it'll give you some laughs. $1.99.
- [45:26]
B
Are you out of your mind?
- [45:28]
A
We have the YouTube link for you. I don't even have to listen. I know it. I know it by heart. I worked at Denny's in the 90s.
- [45:34]
B
Look at that.
- [45:36]
A
Here are my two kids. The Sheltie is Emily. The domestic long hair is Dustin. Excellent name. They're both pretty kooky. They give us lots of laughs. They're each each other's best friends. And God forbid Emily goes to get gr. Dustin lets us know all day that he's very unhappy. And once she's home, he follows her around sniffing to make sure she really was at the groomers. Thanks for all you do. Look it.
- [45:58]
B
Oh, my goodness. Look at the kitty with the bows.
- [46:02]
A
Ribbons.
- [46:02]
B
Oh, my God. The next picture.
- [46:04]
A
Oh, that is a happy doggo.
- [46:08]
B
Oh, my God. So sweet.
- [46:10]
A
They're beautiful. Thank you for sending your photos, Mari.
- [46:12]
B
Thank you for that. Yes. All right. This is for Mooney Pronoun. She and her. Hello, Mujeres de gallo pinto. I just returned from Costa Rica. I just returned from Costa Rica. I love my breakfast. Beans and rice and gallo pinto. And my morning treat is having you both in my ears. I'm writing in to bring both a frog orgy and a baby post. Kinda. We took our clients to find cool tree frogs and found these sleeping red eye tree frogs sleeping next to her eggs. So post orgy Pre babies. Aren't they so cute? We went back the next night to see the frogs when they're awake. So my next photo is an awake red eyed tree frog and a closer view of babies for Dana. Lastly, I'm so thankful for my Patreon angel. I work in tourism and the last three years have been really hard. Things are very, very slowly picking up and money is very tight. So thank you to all those who gift subscriptions.
- [47:09]
A
Okay, the sleeping frog is adorable. That's a wide awake frog right there. Yes it is.
- [47:15]
B
Oh my God. And beautiful. Look at the colors on this thing.
- [47:19]
A
That's amazing.
- [47:20]
B
Tree frogs are amazingly pretty and when.
- [47:24]
A
Sleeping they hide it all so you can't so they camouflage.
- [47:27]
B
I do the same thing.
- [47:29]
A
Yeah, me too.
- [47:30]
B
Yep.
- [47:30]
A
You know, super pretty during the day.
- [47:33]
B
And then when I fall asleep I just hide it all so no one can see anything.
- [47:37]
A
Yeah. Yep, yep. I wonder how long it takes the frog to get ready in the morning though. Probably a lot shorter than it takes me to get ready.
- [47:43]
C
Probably.
- [47:45]
A
But yes. Thank you so much to our angels, our patron angels who gift one year subscriptions to people who can't swing it. It's 36 bucks for the whole year and you can give to someone specifically at Supercast or you can give to someone anonymously@dailybeanspod.com. just scroll down on the front page to patrons helping patrons and it'll show you how to do it. Thank you so much and I'm so glad that you got one of those gifted subscriptions. There's a the close up on the egg babies. Hello.
- [48:09]
B
Yep, good stuff.
- [48:11]
A
Next up from Grandfather Mojito. My hippie daughter picked it out. Lol.
- [48:16]
B
Very nice.
- [48:17]
A
Hey guys. This is a pic of my granddaughter and her new best friend. Annie started her life as a tiny kitten on a Texan farm whose life was in constant danger from a local tomcat turned serial killer killing every kitten he came across.
- [48:29]
B
Oh my God.
- [48:31]
A
Herod the cat. Like none shall survive, she was rescued by my daughter and son in law and promptly showed her appreciation by terrorizing their lives with her unpredictable antics. Face Palm. However, all that changed with the arrival of Celine Elfie, my granddaughter and arguably the cutest child of her generation. Now the reformed Annie lives to snuggle with baby Celine and loves to get baby pats from her new sister. As an aside, before my daughter was showing, Annie knew she was pregnant and would often rest her paws on my daughter's stomach. She knew she had a sister coming.
- [49:05]
B
Look at this child and the eyelashes and the Perfect lips. And the perfect lips. And that kitty on the chest with the palm in her hand. They are holding hands.
- [49:17]
A
The eyelashes are the first thing that.
- [49:19]
B
Oh, yeah, they're beautiful.
- [49:22]
A
Oh, that looks like a soft kitty, too.
- [49:24]
B
Oh, thank you for this.
- [49:27]
A
Is that like a hamburger on her onesie? Can I get some hamburger jammies? What is that?
- [49:32]
B
Oh, my God. Let me picture bigger. I don't think it's hamburger biscuit. It does look like a bread. A bread item of some sort.
- [49:43]
A
I'm like, I want carb onesies.
- [49:49]
B
Oh, my God. Thank you so much for that. All right, this next one comes from Dee Dee. No pronouns, and DD the initials. I'd like to give a shout out to my tube neighbor, Jamie.
- [50:00]
A
What's up, Jamie? Hey, Jamie. For Jamie.
- [50:04]
B
She's a longtime listener and patron who lovingly roped me into becoming a new listener in true beans fashion. I'm very glad she did. Thanks for being my liberal in shining armor among the sea of former guy supporters at work. Jamie. This is all for Jamie. As a tribute, here's a picture montage of my son making sure mommy won't go to jail. My little classified kid is being thorough. Okay, that's adorable. He's just looking for classified documents. And he's upside down in his little toy cubes.
- [50:36]
A
Toy cubes in the wall, too. Look at how cute.
- [50:40]
B
Look at those shorts.
- [50:42]
A
Oh, my gosh. What an adorable child. I want to eat the feets. I always. I love feet.
- [50:47]
B
Thank you for these submissions.
- [50:50]
A
So good. Jamie. What's up, Cubemane? Good job. I know when you find that one person you can talk to about stuff in the office because everyone else is whatever, that's fantastic.
- [51:03]
C
So good.
- [51:03]
A
All right, thank you for sending everything in. Again, if you want to support a patron or donate a one year subscription for just 36 bucks for the whole year, DailyBeansPod.com, click on Contact. That's also where you go. By the way, if you want to send us any of your good news submissions, you just click on contact from that web address. Dana, do you have any final thoughts for us today?
- [51:23]
B
I. I do not.
- [51:25]
A
I just wanna. For my final thought, I WANNA Thank Andrew McCabe. I am so honored to have him as a friend and to be able to talk to him about this, you know, all these things that we're facing right now. He had a front row seat to, you know, what was going on with Crossfire, Hurricane and the FBI and became a target of many right wing political nut jobs, so including Donald Trump himself and he still is. And the amount of trolling he gets. Until I did a podcast with him, I thought, I got a lot of trolls. The amount of trolling that he gets is absolutely off the charts. So I just want to shout out to my friend Andy, thank you for doing the Jack podcast with me. Thanks for being on the beans today, and thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being a friend.
- [52:12]
B
Travel down the road and back again thought is true you're a pal and.
- [52:19]
A
A confidant If I threw a pocket.
- [52:25]
B
Invited everyone you knew how you would.
- [52:31]
A
See the baby's gift.
- [52:37]
B
Thank you for being a friend. We miss you, Betty. You're with your others now, but we miss you.
- [52:45]
A
I'm shaking my shimmy for Betty right now.
- [52:47]
B
All right, all right.
- [52:48]
A
Anyway, that's my final thought, and we'll be back tomorrow. I still haven't gotten a lot of sleep.
- [52:54]
B
I'm not sure if they will. I'm not sure if any of the listeners will. But we'll be back after that.
- [53:00]
A
I still haven't gotten a lot of sleep. I'm still a little not right in the head because it was Wilford Brimley's first night here at my home. And if that is a weird sentence, it must sound like it is, but there's a stray that I'm fostering. I might might be a foster fail. I might end up adopting him. But it was his first night in a strange home, so he walked around meowing, but he snuggled a lot. I finally got him to purr, everybody. That's my good news for today. I got him to purr. I got the purr out of the baby.
- [53:28]
B
Oh, my God. Here's a really quick, funny story. So a friend of mine went hiking. They found a cat that was following them, rubbing up against, and they were like, oh, no, there's no collar, nothing. It's a stray. We're gonna take it back in, and then we're gonna feed it. And the stray was super sweet, super nice, and they posted all over the neighborhood. And they got a call, and they were like, oh, my God, you found our cat. Thank you. They came to pick up the cat, and the cat didn't really appear like he wanted to go with them, but it really wanted to stay where it was. But of course, you know, you got to let them go. And he was well fed and well loved. They got a call about 10 minutes later, and they were like, oh, sorry, this isn't our cat. Our cat just showed up at the back door.
- [54:04]
A
Oh, no. How do you not know.
- [54:08]
B
Which is I know. How do you not know? And two also explains why the cat was like, I'm not fucking going with these people. Who the fuck are these?
- [54:17]
A
Why are these guys.
- [54:18]
B
What are you doing? This is a kidnapping. What is happening right now?
- [54:21]
A
Who the fuck are these guys? Catnaps.
- [54:24]
B
Yeah. So they found the.
- [54:25]
A
Then.
- [54:25]
B
Then they got the real owner called and the cat was very happy in his. His young owner's arms. But I just thought that was really funny that the cat was like, okay, but I'm not sure about this.
- [54:37]
A
Amazing. And if you're in the north park area in San Diego and you see a tuxedo cat.
- [54:43]
B
Yes.
- [54:43]
A
Send me a. Send me an email. Hello. At Mueller, she wrote, Bruce Willis is still missing. It's been over a month, but I'm not giving up hope. He's probably just out there being a defiant little booger and I expect him to come strutting in through his cat door right into the studio any day now. So just keep the positive thoughts coming. If you're not in the north park area, please send out good vibes, light a candle, have some crystals, draw down the moon, do some witchery, whatever you need to do, prayers, whatever you're into, send them my way, please, because I'm.
- [55:14]
B
Yes. And if anyone has checked with Demi Moore to see if Bruce Willis went there and I hear they're still close and it's a possibility.
- [55:21]
A
That would be funny. That would be really cool.
- [55:23]
B
Wouldn't it be funny? Could you imagine if you got a call from Demi Moore? We found a tuxedo cat. Oh, his name is Bruce Willis. Can we have him back?
- [55:31]
A
It says Bruce Willis on his collar. That must be why he's drawn to me. Yeah. But I am still missing my boy.
- [55:37]
B
I hope you get your boy back, honey. I do hope you get your boy back.
- [55:41]
A
Me too. Me too. So anyway, that's it. Now we can end the show. So I've given my five. I love it.
- [55:47]
B
It was actually a 30 minute episode, but now it's 38 because we can't stop talking.
- [55:53]
A
I need sleep. All right, everybody, we'll be back tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health.
- [56:00]
B
Vote blue over Q and take someone with you.
- [56:02]
A
I've been AG and I have been dg. And them's the beans.
- [56:06]
B
Refried beans.
- [56:07]
A
I like refried beans.