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The David Pakman Show
BONUS SHOW: Patel and Bongino upset MAGA, Dem Congresswoman arrested
00:16:05
-- On the : Patel & Bongino face MAGA wrath by dismissing Epstein conspiracies, NJ Rep charged with assaulting ICE agents, Trump admin to pay $5 million to family of Jan 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, much more... -- Become a Member:...
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- [00:00]
David Pakman
Hey everybody. David Here. What you're about to hear is an episode of the bonus show. We do a bonus show every day for our members and for a limited time, we will release one of the week's bonus shows on Saturdays exclusively for our audio podcast listeners. If you'd like to get access to all of the bonus shows, simply sign up@join pacman.com here is that bonus show episode foreign welcome to the bonus show. I kind of love this story, Pat. I have to admit I've been following the meltdown that's taking place in MAGA because two conspiracy theorists really are saying there is no conspiracy around the death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. So let me kind of explain what's going on here. For a while now, we've had, I don't know that it's exclusively the purview of Kuhnen or exclusively the purview of Pizzagate or whatever. Alex Jones there's been this idea that Jeffrey Epstein did not really take his own life while sitting in a jail cell. It's too suspicious that the camera footage failed at just that moment and or the corrections officers fell asleep or different iterations of stories that were told clearly. He was killed. He was killed by someone who wanted to shut him up so he wouldn't expose that he was in cahoots with them in terms of the child sex trafficking and all the stuff he was accused of. Director of the FBI Cash Patel and Deputy Director Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who has become a familiar name. Certainly there is an interview that they did wherein, wherein they both said Epstein took his own life. Epstein died by suicide. And this has now sort of created an incredible cognitive dissonance wherein a lot of the people who loved Cash Patel and Dan Bongino and believed Epstein was killed are now going, wait a second. Are, did, did Patel and Bongino now become part of the very deep state we thought they opposed? Are they lying or what do we believe? We don't know. It's absolutely fascinating.
- [02:29]
Pat Ford
It absolutely is fascinating. I'm someone who's followed the Jeffrey Epstein story, but not too closely. I came away from it thinking that it was certainly suspicious maybe he did kill himself. But I certainly. And willing to hear out the theory that he was murdered. Of course, this all took place a few years ago. It's been mostly the right wing that's been following this story and trying to get to the bottom of it. Now they finally had an opportunity to get to the bottom of it because two of the people that represent them so well, Dan Bongino and Cash Patel are in positions of authority now. And what do they say? It turns out Jeffrey Epstein did just die by suicide and there's nothing else fishy going on here. So there are a few possibilities. One is that he really did die by suicide. And Patel and Bongino looked into the case, they looked into the file, and maybe they saw some more conclusive evidence pointing to him just dying by suicide, which of course was the official story. There are other possibilities though, like maybe Trump is implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and so and Patel are protecting Trump and trying to quash this story. Or maybe it's not having to do anything with Trump specifically, but there are some other government insiders, the so called deep State, who are trying to protect their own reputations. They don't want more details to come out. And so Cash Patel and Don Dan Bongino are just following orders and saying that there's nothing to see here.
- [03:56]
David Pakman
Well, one of the things that we've talked about before with Fox News, for example, with Trump and the vaccine stuff is they have lost control of the monster that they created. And to me, this is a story about how it's dangerous to weaponize conspiracy theories because once they're unleashed, they're not easy to control. Patel and Bongino are interesting because they built their influence partially by validating a lot of these fringe narratives. They may not have been overtly pushing every single conspiracy theory, but they would certainly validate narratives and give lip service to and play coy with them. And now they're sort of drawing the line at Epstein's death. It could be for any of the reasons Pat's pointing out or for some other reason, but they're saying now there's nothing more here. Trust me. Trust us, bro. Epstein genuinely took his own life. But now the monster that they helped foment for all this time with MAGA has gotten too big. And so now that monster is saying, magic. Maybe these guys who helped create me in Frankenstein's lab, maybe they are actually part of the problem to begin with. So that's what this story really is about to me.
- [05:07]
Pat Ford
Right? And it gets to a point with these conspiracy theories where you're not trying to get to the truth, you're just trying to validate the positions that you already held. So with Bongino and Patel being put in there in the FBI, those are really like the top choices of some of these MAGA conspiracy theorist types, the types of people that they wanted to see in power are the Patels and the Bonginos So they should be very much happy with them getting put in these positions of power. And they should trust whatever Bongino and Patel say because all along they viewed them as trustworthy sources. Now all of a sudden they're saying something contradictory to their pre held beliefs. So now they have to try to recalibrate somehow because they just can't accept that, that it turns out maybe the official story was actually true. They have to come up with some other reasoning to continue pushing their conspiracy theory along. And if it means that you have to throw Patel and Bongino under the bus and say that they're compromised or now they're working for the Deep State, then they're totally willing to do that because, well, a couple of people, after all, they can find replacements for them.
- [06:10]
David Pakman
It creates a conflict between total loyalty to the conspiracy theory and total loyalty to Cash Patel and Dan Bongino because they have been flagged as being part of the good guys, the inner circle, the ones who will tell you the truth. And now there's a conflict there. People are going to have to decide. But it's been delightful to see the chaos. New Jersey representative Lamana McIver has been charged by federal prosecutors for allegedly assaulting federal officers during this clash that took place on May 9 at Delaney hall, which is an ICE detention facility in in Newark. McIver and other Dem lawmakers were trying to do congressional oversight as a visit. The clash occurred. It resulted in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ross Baraka. A lot of the chaos was caught on video. And it is U.S. attorney Elena Haba who says McIver violated the law by interfering with officers and said her office tried to avoid charging her, but she declined resolution. Haba has now dropped charges against the mayor, Ross Baraka, inviting him to return under her supervision. And meanwhile, Kristi Noem and others are saying, we need these charges. These charges are necessary to enforce the law. Of course, McIver and others say this is political retaliation. They were lawfully conducting oversight duties as far as they're concerned. Supporters, other the governor of New Jersey and others said this is an abusive fascist overreach. They said the Trump administration is just hostile towards political dissent. That's all that this is. So listen, you know, Pat, there are some who are saying this is, this has all the makings of a political flashpoint. You've got a black congresswoman, a federal detention center, Trump's immigration policy colliding, all in dramatic fashion. And at the heart of this is can members of Congress exercise oversight of federal facilities without it being criminalized? The charges certainly don't feel legally necessary to me. They feel more like a warning shot, using it as a weapon and saying, listen, we dropped the charges against the mayor, Ross Baraka. We are not ready at this point to drop them against you. We are charging you. And they're really pushing into a legal gray area where the executive branch is refusing congressional access for all sorts of oversight that I think there's a reasonable argument that Congress has that oversight ability, and they're making it a legal battle. And at a time when sometimes courts say things and the administration goes, we don't care. We're doing what we wanted to do anyway.
- [08:42]
Pat Ford
What do you think about Alina Haba saying publicly that she tried to resolve the dispute without pressing charges, but the congresswoman declines to bring about a resolution on their terms, and so that's why they have to go forward with pressing the charges. That, to me, seems a little suspect, because what exactly were they asking of the congresswoman? Were they asking for an apology? Were they asking for accepting guilt for what took place and promising that she would never do that again? I'd like to hear from her about what exactly took place there before the charges were filed.
- [09:14]
David Pakman
Absolutely. And, you know, bigger picture, there's been. How can I say this? Sometimes when members of Congress stage a trip somewhere to, quote, do oversight, it feels merely performative. And as I've said before, with a lot of things that elected officials do, things can be performative, but not merely performative. And to a degree, because there is so much attention being paid to these facilities, I think that there's inevitably a performative esque aspect to it. But that doesn't mean it's not real oversight. And the fact that they're being blocked from doing that is a real red flag to me.
- [09:57]
Pat Ford
Yeah. Especially if this is something that's happening within your own jurisdiction. If this is happening in your own backyard and affecting people that you're supposed to represent, of course there's an important place for congressional oversight. Also, taking a look at whether or not MacGyver did actually commit an assault here. I took a look at the video, and I'm just seeing a bunch of pushing and shoving from all of the people involved. That includes the officers, that includes members of Congress, and that includes, you know, other politicians, whoever else may, in fact, be there at that moment. One of those things. One of the things is when you have a video of people pushing and shoving, you don't exactly know what's going on fully, because people could be shoving other people because someone shoved them. And so they're just trying to regain their balance. When there's a whole bunch of people in the frame, too, it's really hard to tell what's what. So there are some people showing off the video and saying, clearly, she committed an assault here. But certainly from the video alone, I don't know if we can. We can tell no.
- [10:57]
David Pakman
And I don't know if there is a legal standard for when these scuffles start where everyone kind of ends up shoving. Because you could say, well, it's the first person to do physical touch is always the assaulter. Well, you know, sometimes people are shoved into others, and it's a little more complicated that others can say. Actually, when you. If you go right up to someone and scream really loud and spit, bubbles start flying out of your mouth, that's actually the instigating. I don't know what the law says about it, and I'm sure that we have lawyers in the audience who will tell me. And maybe it varies state by state, but there's also sort of a colloquial understanding of who the instigator is, which may be different from that, of course.
- [11:41]
Pat Ford
And it's not like members of Congress or politicians in general are above the law. If they really are committing assaults, well, then of course they should be prosecuted for it. But when you take a look at a case like this and so many other cases like it under the Trump administration, the second Trump administration, it seems much more like they are trying to bring about political prosecutions. And these little things that would have been nothing in previous administration, certainly wouldn't lead to any criminal charges. All of a sudden, they can try to use that and weaponize it and say, oh, you committed a crime here. We're going to prosecute you. Really, they're just trying to shut up the opposition, but they'll make it seem like, oh, no, we're just following the law here. She committed an assault, and so we have to go after her.
- [12:23]
David Pakman
That's exactly right. All right, let's move on and talk about a few other things here. The Trump administration has agreed to pay almost $5 million to the family of Ashley Babbitt. Ashley Babbitt was fatally shot by Capitol police during the January 6, 2021 Trump riots. This $5 million payment is to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch on behalf of Babbitt's estate. They wanted 30 million. They're getting five. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said he disagrees strongly with the decision. The settlement has further divided officers about what took place that day. The civil suit says Ashley Babbitt had no weapons on her. She posed no threat when she was fired upon by Lieutenant Michael Byrd. Previous internal reviews say Byrd acted appropriately to protect members of Congress. They were being evacuated. His presence there was to protect them. And, of course, there is a hugely political layer to this, which is that Babbitt has become essentially a martyr for the far right. Her mom is leading protests and vigils and different things. Cash Patel has talked about her death, Trump has talked about her death as if this was some innocent victim that was there and did absolutely nothing wrong. So I do think this is a big deal, Pat, because it is a reversal of legal precedent and also of moral clarity. We always were told that an investigation should be done, and it was. And the very people who say we support and defend the police said, well, we don't like the outcome. We think the investigation was biased. She did nothing wrong. She was part of a violent, violent mob attempting to overturn an election. And now the government is paying millions of dollars to her family. Something about it seems off.
- [14:14]
Pat Ford
Yeah, absolutely. Especially because they investigated what took place. The officer was not charged with anything. They argued that he fulfilled his duties, he was protecting members of Congress, and essentially that his decision to shoot Babbitt was justified. Now there's this wrongful death lawsuit resulting in a settlement that will give the family $5 million. It seems like it doesn't match up. Now, sometime you could have a situation where there's a criminal case and the defendant is found not guilty, but then there's a civil case after it, and they're found liable, they have to pay a wrongful death suit. That's what happened with O.J. simpson, for example. So I suppose, in a sense, this is kind of like a situation similar to that. However, we're also dealing with two different governments, in a sense. The Biden administration, which initially was in charge when they were deciding whether or not to charge the officer, and they were investigating the shooting in the first place. And now, of course, the Trump administration is the one that's bringing around this settlement to very different types of administrations with different ideologies having to do with the events of January 6th. So when you look at it through that lens, it's not all that surprising that on the one hand, they would find the officer not liable and not subject to any criminal prosecution, but on the other hand, now they have to pay off this wrongful death suit.
- [15:36]
David Pakman
I want to hear from people in our audience. I mean, do you have a strong feeling about the death of Ashley Babbitt, the allegations that have been hurled this way and that way, and ultimately this five million dollar verdict. I want to hear from folks. But that is where the, that, that is where the civil suit has landed at this point in time. We have a great show and bonus show planned for you tomorrow and I look forward to seeing you then.