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The Megyn Kelly Show
Bill Clinton's TRUE Epstein Ties, and New Guthrie Case Videos Revealed, with Mike Benz, Fitz and O'Connell | Ep. 1262
02:21:23
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- [00:00]
Megyn Kelly
With Venmo stash. A taco in one hand and ordering
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Mike Benz
a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back.
- [00:07]
Megyn Kelly
Nice.
- [00:08]
Mike Benz
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- [00:30]
Megyn Kelly
So good, so good, so good. New spring arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60% off rag and bone, Marc Jacobs free people and more. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Cause there's always something new. Join the Norty club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you wreck. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show and Happy Friday. We have new video in the case of Nancy Guthrie. We will break down whether it is providing any promising leads in the investigation with Fitz and Maureen just a bit. And a legend in the legal community discovered to be Kit carrying on a double life convicted on the charges against. I'm. I'm sorry but my legal world has been rocked by the conviction of this guy, Tom Goldstein. He is truly one of the most respected lawyers in America. One of the elite members of the Supreme Court bar which is not easy to get into. The founder of SCOTUS blog where all lawyers go whenever there is a big Supreme Court case and he's been convicted, this guy is almost certainly heading to prison for a long time. He turned down a plea deal of five years because he was like I'm not serving time. He was leading a whole double life. I mean a total double life. He was cheating on his wife. He was using women off of some website for like sugar daddies. He is like about 5 foot 7, bald as dweeby legal looking as you get. You know just like your quintessential like what you picture when you picture like geeky Supreme Court lawyer so well respected there guarantee all the nine justices know him and have probably socialized with him and the whole while in the past seven, eight years he's Been flying all over the world. He's been winning and losing fortunes at every turn. He was convicted of lying about it all on his tax returns, understating his income on the winning year so he didn't have to pay taxes on it. Not disclosing his debts when he applied for mortgages, which is a serious problem. You're $15 million in debt and you want to get a $3 million loan for a home, you better disclo. That's relevant. It's crazy to me. It's just crazy to me that this, like, this can happen, right? It's like, who, who else out there is leading this, like, respectable life? And then you find out it's all a facade. It's a facade. They, they're smart. A lot of these guys, they're clever. This guy has no adrenaline. None. There's no adrenaline flow in him. He kind of talked about it at these high stake poker games where he was winning 10 or 20 million dollars. And then the next day he'd be in front of the Supreme Court arguing some massive case for, like, Google. They're built differently. Maybe they're sociopaths, I don't know. But I'm very interested in this. And it's not totally unrelated to the story we're gonna kick off the show with, which is Epstein. Not that Goldstein was linked to Epstein. He wasn't. But I'm just talking about, like, the facade that these prominent people put on. And it can be women. Ghislaine Maxwell is one who comes to mind, possibly Hillary Clinton, though she denies even knowing Epstein. But Ghislaine Maxwell, certainly. And she was friends with Hillary. Mostly men, though, out there making gazillions of dollars. You know, the paragon of virtue, the principled person, the picture of responsibility. And, and behind the scenes, you know, what's with the weird grape soda and pizza emails over and over between Epstein and his accountant? And what's with President Bill Clinton? As soon as he's out of office and we're not talking like, you know, 20 years passed and he was like, no one's paying attention to me anymore. I'm going to go see this pervert, Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, right after I showed you the picture yesterday, I. Of my friends with Bill Clinton in 1999, by the way, that's literally the picture on the front of the New York Post's homepage right now. And like, it's Abby Rittman and Meg Florence, and they're together in 1999 in this restaurant right outside or right in D.C. and they were, you know, 20 at the time. Now they're closer to my age. But look at him. This dog is still president, and he's staring down the blouse of my one friend, and his hand is dangerously close to my friend's side boob. Okay? This is. He's still in office. His wife and daughter are across the restaurant. And my friends gave me this photo, like, a while back. They were like, look at this. We had a good laugh over it. I'm like, you know, I'm gonna put that on the air. And today seemed like a good day yesterday because the Clintons are testifying on Epstein. But my point is, like, brazen. Brazen, right. Like hiding in plain sight. So Bill Clinton goes from that right after Lewinsky to palling around with Jeffrey Epstein and 2000 through 2000, like, four or five around there in that man's hot tub with all these women. It's incredible. It's incredible what happens and I'm sure is still happening with people other than Epstein right now. He's sitting right now in the same seat his wife was in yesterday up in Chappaqua, New York. I've been up there. They have this beautiful home. It's, like, picturesque on this rolling hill type property. They're living large, the Clintons, lots of staff. They got their loser daughter out there, the ultimate Nepo baby, trying to pretend we care what she has to say about Maha. We don't. We don't care what you have to say about anything. We feel about you the way the Today show did. They hated you even more than they hated me. And one of us had talent, was just, you know, you know who the one was who. Who didn't belong there because she had absolutely no journalism chops and got the job because her last name was Clinton. So Bill Clinton is up there now under oath. And unlike his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he had lots of connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Lots. I mean, he was on the guy's plane dozens of times. He had multiple social outings with the guy. I mean, raise your hand if you've been in a hot tub with Jeffrey Epstein and some women. Not an experience most of us have had. Bill, though we know from these files had many interactions with him for years. For years he did with Jeffrey Epstein. And so now he's on the hot seat, and he's gonna have to answer for all that today in front of the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating him. Yesterday it was Hillary, as I said, and she came out and said no, and I didn't know anything. I swear I knew nothing. Here she is to the press after the deposition in Sat ii. Well, I have just finished testifying. I answered every one of their questions as fully as I could based on what I knew. And what I knew is what I said in my statement this morning. I never met Jeffrey Epstein. Never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance. But whatever they asked me, I did my very best to respond. I don't know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his homes. I never went to his offices. So it's on the record. Numerous times. So contemptible about that woman. And now Bill Clinton's in the hot seat and it's gonna go differently for him today. I mean, I believe her that she didn't know Jeffrey Epstein, but she knew Ghislaine. That's what's interesting about her. She knew her husband, knew Epstein very well all the time she was married to him. What did. Has she asked any questions? Did she then? Did she. Once Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor, which is not a thing. Here's Bill Clinton, who just offered an opening statement before his testimony. Would you listen to this? As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, okay? Not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing, I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals. Sure. Jane, the reason I'm here is that the girls and women whose lives Jeffrey Epstein destroyed deserve not only justice, but healing. Okay? You and your crazy ass wife used George Stephanopoulos and James Carville to create whole war rooms to destroy the young women who are accusing you of far less than Jeffrey Epstein was ever accused of. You destroyed them. You organized massive PR campaigns to undermine their credibility. Woman after woman after woman who we now know we're telling the truth and who I certainly believe were telling the truth about you. Kathleen Willey is one. Juanita Broderick is another. Paula Jones is another. Jennifer Flowers is another. So just fucking spare me. Spare me that you now really have a lot of concern about the women and girls allegedly called up caught up in the Epstein web. The reason I'm here is the girls and women whose lives Epstein destroyed deserve justice and healing. Oh, my God, you're such a fucking liar. This guy just wrote in his stupid letter trying to get out of this deposition along with his Wife co. Signed literally by his wife. There comes a time in every person's life where they have to decide if they're going to roll over for this fascistic government or whether they're prepared to fight. That time for us is now. They were ready. They wanted to be martyr. We, we are going to fight this administration. Yeah. We have no information on Epstein. This is just a complete bully job. And then they were told in no uncertain terms they were going to get the Steve Bannon treatment. You don't show up to comply with a subpoena. You go to prison. And they folded like a cheap tent. They collapsed like a deck of cards. Like that. Oh, maybe that time is not now. It's like, maybe somebody else is going to have to say this is the time. Maybe we'll say this is the time. But like six or 12 months down the line, oh, wait, we have to give testimony before then. So they did. They're such a couple of posers. Everything about them, everything is about their image. If you read, you should Google that, that letter. In fact, let's post that letter in our. Let's include a link to that in our MK American News Minute. We send it out. We send you once a week, we send you an email with all the news of the week. You can sign up@megankelly.com and I'm gonna include a link to their letter that they wrote. It is the most absurd, self aggrandizing thing you've ever read. It goes, it waxes poetic about all the reasons that this is so unjust that they were calling them in there to testify and how terrible this government is. And they will fight. They will be the ones. They have the wherewithal. They have the means. They rolled over like Rover just as soon as James Comer was like, well, I will send you to prison. And I have a Department of justice ready to pursue those charges. I mean immediately. So that's how they got here. Under protest. But now Bill Clinton says, the reason I am here is that the girls and women whose lives Epstein destroyed deserve not only justice but healing. You didn't want to show up. You said there comes a time in every man's life where he has to decide whether he's going to fight. And that time is now. You only went in once Colmer threatened you with prison. They started off lying. It's like unbelievable. Here's the third paragraph. Though my brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and though I never witnessed during our limited interactions any indication of what was Truly going on. I'm here to offer what little I know so that it might prevent anything like this from ever happening again. You made Hillary come in. She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing. No matter how many photos you show me, I have two things that the end of the day, matter more than your interpretation of those 20 year old photos. I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn't see. I know what I did. More importantly, what I didn't do. I saw nothing and I did nothing wrong. You'll often hear me say that I don't recall always setting the table before he says anything that might be unsatisfying. But I'm not going to say something I'm not sure of.
- [13:25]
Maureen O'Connell
I.
- [13:26]
Megyn Kelly
That was all a long time ago. It ends with that, Mr. Chairman. Fire away. This is a man who's already lied under oath. Depends on what the definition of is is. That's what he was impeached for because he lied under oath, threatened with disbarment because he's a lawyer. And so that's what we're getting under oath today. Not exactly a proven truth teller. And already he sets the table with, you're going to hear me say I don't recall. That's his favorite, among other dishonest people's favorite trick for getting out of telling hard truths. Yes, some honest people also don't recall. But over and over and over, which to the point where you need to set it up before you even begin testifying. This stinks to high heaven. No one believes we're gonna get the straight skinny from him at all. But I'm glad they're putting him through the exercise. Let's get him on the record. Let's try. Why should he be treated differently than Les Wexner, who stinks to high heaven, too. It's gross. These guys are disgusting. Let me just go back to my friend's picture for a second. There's no crime in what he's doing there. But just think of what a disgusting pig. Ladies think if you saw your husband like this, sitting President of the United States, okay? And you're in the restaurant with him. Your child is in the restaurant with him. Chelsea and Hillary were there. According to my friends. My two friends were there with a table full of guys and some other friends and. And he came over to them. He wanted his picture with them. And think of this, where your husband, after he'd been impeached, after the Monica Lewinsky story had broken, after the story with the, you know, sexual acts with a cigar had broken. You'd been nationally humiliated. Yes, through Jennifer Flowers, that came out when he was running. And through Monica Lewinsky now who's giving him blowjobs in the Oval Office. And then you see your husband pose for a photo where he's literally trying to get it. Look at some strange, beautiful woman's tits while he's appearing to slide his hand toward the breast of the other one. These are young girls. They're 20 at the time. He's a disgusting pervert. Truly, most of us, our husbands would never do this in a million years. They wouldn't behave like this, Never mind as sitting president. Never mind. In the wake of the Lewinsky and Flowers and other scandals, all those names I ticked off that they created the war room for, that happened all before this. That's who's testifying today, worried about the young women and the girls. That's what brought him here on the thing he totally objected to doing until he was threatened with jail. Like, I can't, I can't with these two. There's a lot to go over on them, on Epstein in general and where we think the disclosures thus far have led us. And we didn't think there was a better person to talk to about that than Mike Benz, who's never been on the program, but who I've admired on his testimonials elsewhere. He's a former State department official and executive director of foundation for Freedom Online. Let's talk about what's really happening right now. New data shows financial stress can be at an all time high. Many Americans are at a breaking point. Debt maxed out. No extra dough, no room to breathe. And some people are running out of options. Listen, if debt has been weighing on you, you are not alone. And when it comes to debt, waiting usually makes it worse. Interest piles up. Minimum payments keep you stuck. You stress out day by day, worse and worse. But you don't need another loan or bankruptcy. That'll only stress you out more. You need a strategy. This is why I want to tell you about Done with debt. They built a smart personalized plan and they build it around you. They are experienced at knowing what it takes to get you the biggest reductions possible. Whether you owe $10,000 or much, much more. Done with debt has one clear goal. To lower what you owe so you keep more of your paycheck every month. Start with a free consultation. They know you're in debt, so they make it free. It takes just minutes. Share your situation and find out what's possible. What do you have to lose. You don't have to stay stuck and stressed. Go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com Mike, welcome to the show. Your thoughts on all that.
- [17:29]
Mike Benz
Thanks Megan. Thanks for having me. The well, the It' two two P's in a pod. Clinton and Epstein. When you just went through your description of Clinton with, you know, your friend and, and that restaurant scene, you can certainly understand how Clinton and Epstein were, you know, like attracts like, I suppose. But what comes to mind when I think about the, the Clinton Epstein story is there's, there's this quote you may remember that Hillary Clinton came forward with in 2014. She said we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. As I recall, we were something like $12 million in debt. And that sticks out to me when I think about the Epstein Clinton affair. The it's been reported by the New York Post that Jeffrey Epstein is on the White House visitors logs in the 1990s at least 17 times. We know that the Bill Clinton State Department rented out a five story mansion to Jeffrey Epstein directly after it seized it from the government of Iran. And then we know that Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers testified in court that Epstein helped set up the Clinton foundation in the early 2000s. 2001, 2002 is when Epstein began flying Bill Clinton around on his Africa tour as they were setting up the Clinton Foundation. We know from the Epstein files that Epstein's, you know, one of the ways that he seems to capture people in network is by getting politicians towards the end of their government service as they're transitioning into the private sector, hooked up with lucrative private sector deals that leverage their government connections. This was something that Epstein did with the hood Barack, the Prime Minister of Israel who was then the Defense Minister when he was poached by Epstein, did this with Bill Burns who was the Deputy Secretary of State when he went on to the Carnegie foundation before he became CIA director, did this with Kathy Rummler who was the White House counsel who then went on to represent the Rothschild bank and then Goldman Sachs and appeared to have done this in some respect with President Clinton. It was, he's in and out of the White House 17 times. He's directly leasing from the, from the Clinton State Department and Then is immediately 2001 is when you know, basically the Clinton's fresh out of office starts. The Clinton foundation is being flown around by Epstein. And I would not be surprised if Epstein's donor network were early contributors to the Clinton Foundation. I think this Is one of the questions that, one of the lines of questioning that the world is eagerly awaiting in terms of the depositions that just took place with respect to President Clinton. The Clinton foundation has been a font of corruption and to get the Epstein side of that story would be fascinating.
- [20:41]
Megyn Kelly
Do we think we're going to, I mean, what would be most helpful, the way you normally take a deposition is you get interrogatories and you get document requests on the party before you sit down with them. And then you pour over all that information, the written admissions and then the documents that relate to any issue you want to ask him about so that you can shove the document in his face and say, what is this? What's this loan? What's, what was this job that was provided? I don't know if they have all of that with Bill and Hillary and thus the cross examination, which is what a deposition really is, may be less effective.
- [21:16]
Mike Benz
That's very possible. I would say that even if you had those, I do suspect, as you pointed out, this is a president who couldn't remember if he got a blowjob five minutes ago from an intern while he was president, United States. This is someone who will haggle with you over what the definition of is is and who preset up his testimony by reminding, reminding the room that his memory is not what it used to be. I just can't recall. So you know, even if yet he's
- [21:49]
Megyn Kelly
going for a well meaning man with a, with a poor memory, he's, he's going for the Joe Biden defense that stopped him from getting criminally charged.
- [21:56]
Mike Benz
Right? That's exactly right. The Robert her, you know, well, these are crimes but unfortunately, you know, he's a senile old man and we don't think that a jury would convict. So here's a get out of jail free card.
- [22:08]
Megyn Kelly
But the fact, meanwhile, he's not being looked at for criminal charges, but he's being looked at for information to try to put together a more complete picture of Jeffrey Epstein and what we've known about Jeffrey Epstein and didn't know and by the way, why nothing has been done about Jeffrey Epstein, including during Biden's four years as president.
- [22:27]
Mike Benz
Well, what's frustrating to me is the, there's this whole, we have these Justice Department files, we appear to have about half of the, of the total. You know, it's, it's very voluminous. But there does appear to be huge portions missing. For example, it's, it's been reported that apparently about three years worth between 1999 and 2001, the Justice Department files basically cut off. This is a very strange gap. It's the tail end of the Clinton presidency and there are basically no Epstein files in this DOJ drop from mid-1999 to 2000. Well, this is a very difficult thing to explain. Well, no one has really offered a good explanation of this. There's a lot of very strange. I don't want to sidebar this with, you know, the, some of the strange kind of 911 issues around Jeffrey Epstein, but it is, it is a very serious missing chunk of the Epstein piece, especially given that Epstein was asked to be on the 911 shadow commission and you know, was in some of these very strange networks around both the military statecraft intelligence apparatus, both pre and post 9 11. But that those are critical missing years. Those are also the years that Epstein himself FOIAed the CIA for any open and acknowledged agency links between the CIA and himself. That was in 1999 while Bill Clinton was President at that time in 1999 is when Jeffrey Epstein resolved his dispute with the Bill Clinton State Department over the five story mansion that had been seized from the government of Iran. This is American taxpayer property and it was rented out solely and exclusively to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein then violated the terms of the lease, not only by not paying it, so the taxpayer was eating the bill, but sublette subletting it out to the criminal defense lawyer for the French Connection and Pizza Connection drug ring cases, which are both drug ring cases and involving alleged CIA protection of drug rings in France and Italy.
- [24:58]
Megyn Kelly
I'm lost. But let's just pause for a second. Quick question. Is this, is this the mansion that Jeffrey would ultimately purchase that was the largest mansion in New York?
- [25:07]
Mike Benz
Or this, this was prior to that. This was a, this was the.
- [25:10]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so you're saying when Bill Clinton was president, his State Department seized this town home from the Iranians and then he leased it or the State Department, I guess, allowed Jeffrey Epstein to lease it and it resulted in subsequent legal disputes with respect to Jeffrey Epstein's. What? Non payment or who. What.
- [25:29]
Mike Benz
Yes, so. So Epstein stopped making payments. I was $15,000 a month in the 1990s. And this was, you know, this giant property overlooking Central park, five stories, Upper east side. And then he violated the, the lease terms by subletting it out to this lawyer connected to these very high profile cases involving some pretty seedy elements of the intelligence overworld and criminal underworld. What I'm getting at here is if, if this Justice Department and our legislative oversight bodies want to show their Seriousness in terms of pursuing the Clinton leads here, I. I'm calling for full declassification of all State Department and CIA files because all we have are a fraction of the Justice Department and by extension FBI files. But the fact is is the State Department would have had to have diligence Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s. We know that Epstein himself appeared to think that he was CIA adjacent enough to FOIA the CIA itself for any open and acknowledged agency links in 1999.
- [26:51]
Megyn Kelly
Why would he do that?
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Mike Benz
Well, Jeffrey Epstein had by that point for 20 years been doing kind of CIA adjacent banking work or I mean banking is putting it charitably. But Bear Stearns, who where he started his career.
- [27:08]
Megyn Kelly
Wait, wait, we'll go back. I do want to talk about the Bear Stearns thing, but just before you get to just like I'm looking for just the broad answer on why he would FOIA the CIA about what context they had with himself. I mean something he would presumably know. Well, but I guess he's looking for what contacts that or work they've done on him that he didn't know about.
- [27:27]
Mike Benz
Epstein did it through the, through a lawyer using the Privacy act, which is a way of basically pre foying what other people could see about you. So, so okay, so this is before he became a public figure. He wasn't really publicly known until 2001, 2002. That was when he first became the public took an interest who's flying President Clinton around Africa. That was really when his public star began to rise. And before that, you know, he was seeing what the public would see about him if they were to FOIA the CIA for any open.
- [28:05]
Megyn Kelly
Got it.
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Mike Benz
Open links.
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Megyn Kelly
All right, let's go back, let's go back on the Bear Stearns thing because this is just getting ready for today and reading what you've said about that before is the first I understood.
- [28:15]
Mike Benz
Yes.
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Megyn Kelly
What the Bear Stern. Because I've heard that thrown around the Bear Stearns connection that Jeffrey Epstein started. He had a stint there, this massive New York bank at the time. And you, you posit that his stint there and the man he worked for and the work he did was critical to everything that would happen in Jeffrey Epstein's life thereafter. Most especially these nefarious ties with the guys he was subletting the $15 million or whatever townhouse from Iran to. And his intel connections, you know, call him an asset, call him whatever you want, but his connections which were ubiquitous in intel with some very shady people and entities and you posit that it all Started when he was a very young man hired to work at Bear Stearns. Okay, go there.
- [29:06]
Mike Benz
So in 1975 and 1976 there were these. The CIA was brought to heel for the first time in its history. This gave rise to the Jimmy Carter years. Between 1976 and 1980, 19 there were reforms put on the CIA that prevented it from doing its usual type of operations. And so CIA exiles created this network basically in the Middle east and in Africa and Central Asia that was called the Safari Club which was set up to basically have an offshore CIA that was unrestricted by the new handcuffs put on the CIA. And through that a bank called BCCI was. It was. It had been created in 1972 but it became operationalized in 1976 as a way of running money to the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen would. Was the is kind of Islamo fascist group that would become Al Qaeda and isis. This was when the CIA was funding Osama Bin Laden when he was a freedom fighter against the Russians during the Cold War. And those the Mujahideen were financed by drug money on the Golden Crescent. That was, that was laundered through the BCCI bank. And the guns that were shipped to the Mujahideen, the money was laundered through the BCCI bank. Bear Stearns was one of the top.
- [30:33]
Megyn Kelly
So just to, just to. Just to recap, we're talking about the Mujahideen, the Osama Bin Laden linked group that we would wind up dealing with after 9 11. But they were on the opposite side of the Soviets in the 80s and so were we. So we were. So we did have this weird post CIA group called the Safari Club that was using this BCCI bank to launder its money and send out payments to bad guys who we thought could do some good for us like against the Soviets. And well, we're going to get to the Epstein connection. But that you're just setting it up. This is like former exiled CIA guys in the Safari Club using this BCCI bank to funnel money to groups like the Mujahideen because they were anti Soviet as were we keep going.
- [31:15]
Mike Benz
Exactly. And so you need a broker to be able to clear and, and put together these, these trades for the money laundering. The, the Safari Club was run by a guy, it gets his name from the Mount Kenya Safari Club in Kenya which is where they, they stationed this group that was run by a guy named Adnan Khashoggi who at the time was rumored to be the wealthiest guy in the world. Time magazine floated that rumor Itself he was the world's most prolific arms dealer. He was a Saudi based in Saudi Arabia. And he would come to be the CIA's key middleman during the Iran Contra affair in the 1980s that consumed the Reagan administration. If you remember Epstein under Bill Clinton was leased a building directly seized from Iran. Adnan Khashoggi was the Saudi billionaire middleman between the US and Israel during the covert operation to run guns to the Iranians to fight off Saddam Hussein's Iraq and to run skin profits from that to run guns to the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinistas.
- [32:30]
Megyn Kelly
All right, but we're in two different lanes here. Iran Contra. So how do they connect?
- [32:35]
Mike Benz
They connect because Bear Stearns was moved about $13 billion worth of transactions for BCCI that was used to launder the cash for this CIA work that was running the guns to the Mujahideen and then later the entire Iran Iraq war. And so you, you see all throughout the Epstein files that Epstein is involved with the US military, that he's involved on DARPA projects, that he's working with military contractors, that he's getting intel about the impact of military activities on prospective deals. How he can get potentially seize millions from the government of Libya after NATO's involvement with this. And what I'm trying to impress upon people is that there is a banking and military nexus that goes back decades. And in Epstein's career He had a 31 year continuous relationship with Bear Stearns even though he formally stopped being employed there in 1981. He claimed to have a 31 year continuous relationship until the day that the bank collapsed. And the New York Times even reported that late in the 1980s he was picking up the phone at home answering it as Bear Stearns, even though he was on his own. And I, and I want to make something also clear that I don't think has been widely reported in the Epstein files. There is an incredible document that appears to be around 2018. It's a six page legal memo that it does not have the name of the author. I don't know if it was Justice Department or FBI originated, but it's in the files and it gives a list of all the counts that could be brought against Epstein prior to his indictment in 2019 after the Miami Herald break. And it has us it's a very thorough document, basically a dossier on all the crimes and legal theories that could be pursued. And at the very end there is a note on background information and it states that Jeffrey Epstein used to be used to do work for the US Government. It's a, it's a direct quote from the, from in this legal memo and it's the first time I've seen what purports to be a government document claiming that Jeffrey Epstein worked at some point directly for the United States government. Now what I'm, what I'm trying to say here is bcci, the bank that was used by the CIA to do all manner of money laundering, covert ops activity. This was something that was literally used to run illegal guns, illegal drugs. It was covered up by Bob Mueller back when he was a young man and by Bill Barr who personally wrote the pardons for six of the BCCI officials back when Bill Barr was the head of the Justice Department. The first time this which involved. It was Doug Lease who was Jeffrey Epstein was flying back and forth to meet with in London who used the BCCI bank to run the guns. It was Adnan Khashoggi who was moving billions of dollars through that who would become a personal client of Jeffrey Epstein. It was Stanley Pottinger was using it. He was living with Jeffrey Epstein in the early 1980s. Every one of the key clients and figures for the first 15 years of Epstein's career was involved in the BCCI scandal. While Bear Stearns Epstein's firm was serving as the prime broker for the BCCI banking affair. What I'm getting at is you're basically talking about a CIA banking class. Everything the CIA does has to be laundered illegally effectively in order to conceal the, the source of the funds. You need this banking infrastructure. This was all of these type of banking concealment sealant arrangements require bankers. And what you're seeing here is this kind of class of folks in that finance world and they appear to have get out of jail free cards for their other crimes because of the utility that they play in keeping the lights on at Langley. And so I bring this up because I think it's difficult to, to really penetrate the, the Clinton side of the 1990s if you don't have for example the State Department vet of Jeffrey Epstein. What was. Why did when they seized and I brought up the Iran Contra in this Safari Club thing because it's a little strange that the State Department sees that five story mansion from the government of Iran, the very government that kicked off the entire CIA geopolitical whirlwind in 1979 when the whole BCCI bank network was used specifically to respond to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and then begin running guns. What I'm saying is was Epstein Leased that property by the State Department because he was fulfilling some sort of intelligence function, meeting with dignitaries, stakeholders, oligarchs when they came to New York City for the UN General Assembly. Was he working in some respect with intelligence or statecraft when and was given a five story residence that could serve as a kind of diplomatic back channel. We know that he was on the White House visitors logs at least 17 times in that time period. You don't go to the White House 17 times unless you're consulting with the White House in some fashion. Was. But we don't have this side of the story. Not only is there a gap in the files themselves during these critical years, but there has not been that. This, the bill that was passed by, by Congress only hit the DOJ originated side of this story. No. Has coerced the State Department and CIA side of this, which the Democrats did by the way, to get JFK transparency. In 1992 they got, they passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection act which forced the State Department CIA to begin reviewing and declassifying JFK assassination files. That's how we learned about some of the most shocking documents that have ever been declassified in American history. Operation Northwoods and the like. That only became public because of that. I, if the same bill were to be put forward today, I don't think anyone would vote against it. This one passed 427 to 1 and 99 to 0.
- [39:39]
Megyn Kelly
Why. Why would they have omitted State and CIA in the Epstein bill and focus just on DOJ?
- [39:48]
Mike Benz
I can see a reason for doing it separately because if you remember, there was this very strange moment when the bill passed and Mike Johnson came forward and did not appear particularly enthusiastic about this new obligation to do this. And Yep. And he said something which I think
- [40:05]
Megyn Kelly
surprised he kept like stalling the resumption of Congress to try to like push it off so they wouldn't have to have a vote on it. Eventually the pressure just got too great and they did vote on it and they, and they passed it and Trump signed it. The thing that he had been saying he didn't want, he had a huge fight with some of his favorite congresswomen over it and ultimately he signed it trying to look like he wanted it.
- [40:27]
Mike Benz
Well, it was veto.
- [40:28]
Megyn Kelly
Whether he in fact wanted it.
- [40:29]
Mike Benz
It was veto. I mean, yeah, it's.
- [40:31]
Megyn Kelly
It was veto for Exactly.
- [40:32]
Mike Benz
It was 427 to 1 in 99 to 0. Nobody wanted to put their, you know, their name on the dotted line of, of a doc, you know, of a bill, a vote count that would live in eternity. And you look like you're protecting Epstein by not. Not doing this. So everyone was afraid to bring it, but once the bill was brought, everyone was afraid of the base to be on the other side of it. Now, I think one of the reasons that this was limited to the DOJ side is for. For one is it does. If you had. If you. Perhaps if you had lumped them together, it would have given a carte blanche to delay the, you know, the DOJ side of it, because the declassification side is sticky wicket. But the other is the national security side of this. Mike Johnson made this statement, which a lot of people I think were shocked by at the time. It didn't surprise me in the slightest because I've been. I've been almost campaigning on these. This intelligence connection side of it. But if you remember, he said, we need to make sure the documents are. Have. Are. Are redacted, not just to protect minors and victims, but to protect sensitive national security information. And everyone went, what.
- [41:42]
Jim Fitzgerald
What is.
- [41:43]
Mike Benz
What do you mean? To protect sensitive national security secrets? How? The only way that's possible is if this is effectively classified, if Epstein was involved in classified networks or this classified material about him. And if that's the case, that means that Epstein appeared to have been protected, but he's in, you know, the whole. Alex Acosta.
- [42:12]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. Wait, I want to. I want to get there. So. So in Vicki Ward's lengthy piece on EPSTEIN Back in 2003 for Vanity Fair, and she came on this program over the summer and we talked all about this, it was a great exchange. She was very interesting. And she wrote all about Jeffrey Epstein back then. In 2003, she wrote the following. Because now she's looking at Alex Acosta later on, whether Alex Acosta could be Trump's labor secretary, given the fact that he'd been the U.S. attorney who had given Epstein the sweetheart deal in 2008. And it was like, how is Trump going to make this guy in 2016 his labor secretary when by this point, the guy's pleaded guilty to a couple of, you know, in connection with Alex Acosta's plea deal? Bad counts, not as bad as they could have been, but not great. And that it was already clear that there was, like, a whiff of impropriety at least around Epstein in 16, and that Acosta had helped kind of whitewash the thing away from him. This is before the big piece by the Miami Herald in 2018. And so Vicki writes the following. Acosta had been asked, is the Epstein case going to Cause a problem for your confirmation hearings. Acosta had explained breezily, apparently that back in the day he had had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He had cut the non prosecution deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had, quote, been told to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. Quote, I was told Epstein, quote, belonged to intelligence, end quote, and to leave it alone. Final. End quote. He told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer, and went ahead and hired Acosta. And then before he was eventually forced to resign, after the Miami Herald piece hit and he was one of its stars and not in a good way, before he eventually was forced to resign on July 12, he held a press conference on July 10, 2019. Okay, this is right after Julie K. Brown in Miami Herald regarding outrage over his nomination. And he changed his tune from Vicki Ward's reporting. And by the way, Vicky Ward stands by every word she wrote that he, that Acosta was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone. But here was Acosta on July 10, 2019.
- [44:33]
Jim Fitzgerald
Mr. Secretary, were you ever made aware at any point your handling of this
- [44:38]
Mike Benz
case if Mr. Epstein was an intelligence
- [44:40]
Jim Fitzgerald
asset of some sort?
- [44:42]
Megyn Kelly
So, so, so, so there has, there
- [44:45]
Jim Fitzgerald
has been reporting to that effect. And let me say there's been reporting to a lot of effects in this case, not just now, but over the years. And again, I would, you know, I
- [44:59]
Megyn Kelly
would hesitate to take this reporting as fact.
- [45:05]
Jim Fitzgerald
This was a case that was brought by our office.
- [45:07]
Megyn Kelly
It was brought based on the facts.
- [45:10]
Jim Fitzgerald
And I look at that reporting and
- [45:12]
Megyn Kelly
others, I can't address it directly because
- [45:14]
Jim Fitzgerald
of our guidelines, but I can tell you that a lot of reporting is just going down rabbit holes.
- [45:24]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. And then the Office of Responsibility, Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice started investigating what did happen with the Epstein thing, like what happened there. And in November 2020, they released a 350 page report and they claimed that they interviewed Acosta. And in their interview he was more direct and said that no, Jeffrey Epstein wasn't intel. That's what they claimed at opr. So this guy. So we have Vicki Ward saying he did say he was told to back off because he's Intel. Then we have him there equivocating on camera, sounding kind of mealy mouthed about it, but intimating. Don't believe that. I don't. You know, he's suggesting clearly in that sound bite he's not Intel. Then you have the Department of Justice interviewing him behind closed, saying he said to us, no, Epstein wasn't intel, and that's where it stands today. I don't believe word out of Alexander Acosta's mouth at this point, but I know you've taken a close look at all of this. What say you?
- [46:24]
Mike Benz
Well, I was calling for the, for the transcripts of the opr, the Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility transcripts to be released, and they actually have been in the intervening time. And Acosta does appear to make a blanket denial under oath that he had any knowledge that Epstein was, quote, an intelligence asset. So that's, that's probably as far as the thread could be pulled on that given the, given the limited line of questioning that was, that was asked about it. But the fact is, is you don't need to. You know, there's a lot of ways to interpret that, that question that allow you wiggle room and I'm, I'm not comfortable with, with the risk. I know that there is a, I think given now that Acosta has made the denial, there's the, the question of forcing a kind of under oath response is, has now been probably gone as far as it could. But the fact is I'm not. There's lots of ways that you can intimate that someone, quote, belongs to intelligence, to a prosecutor without, you know, showing someone the two, oh, you know, 201 human intelligence file or making it, you know, making it so explicit. One of the things that the JFK
- [47:48]
Megyn Kelly
file, Mike, I mean, you're right, but there's also a way that somebody at CIA or a related organization could get to you and say, you will answer that question the following way. And I don't really give a shit what is true. This is how you're answering it. It happens all the time.
- [48:05]
Mike Benz
Well, this is something that's just so important, I think, for the American people to not just understand, but really begin to add to their knowledge set of how our country works and the kind of reforms that are needed. There is a relationship between the CIA and the Justice Department that I think most American people have no vision into the extent to which DOJ and CIA are interconnected. Just remind the audience that Bill Barr himself, who was the Attorney General not just during the BCCI affair in the 1990s under George Bush, but also the Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department. When Epstein died in prison, he started his career in the CIA for the first time, I believe, seven years of his career. He worked directly at CIA and then went to law school at night to only become a lawyer while he was, while he was working for the CIA during the day and his first, you know, jobs there involved basically blocking any transparency into the very Iran Contra scandal that Jeffrey Epstein himself was intimately involved with, both through his client network, his banking network, and what appears to have been his operational role.
- [49:19]
Megyn Kelly
But he's the one who would ultimately tell us that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and that there was no way anybody could have gotten to him. This is very interesting. I actually didn't understand that full history early on when I interviewed Bill Barr, it was kind of a passing reference. When his book came out, we kind of covered it. I'm like, okay, I believe him. It's a lot more complex.
- [49:39]
Mike Benz
Back then, the Democrats were attacking Bill Barr as the mop up man for the CIA scandals in the 1980s and 1990s. They were, they were attacking him in the press in the 1980s for blocking Congress, Democrat congressional investigations into the CIA during the Iran controversy. And then they were attacking him as Attorney General for basically blocking, pardoning the BCCI officials and blocking lines of inquiry. But what's, what's important is that last year these files, the JFK files, dropped, showing that the CIA was interfering extremely actively on, on criminal cases to get the Justice Department to back off of people who had committed open and flagrant crimes to protect their operational network. There's this, this case of the.
- [50:30]
Megyn Kelly
Yep.
- [50:31]
Mike Benz
And for example.
- [50:32]
Megyn Kelly
Wait, wait, wait. I only have a minute left and I. Sorry, I don't want to. Can I just ask you, can you take that time? You have 90 seconds left. Give us the bottom line on this. What, what have we just learned with you over the past hour? For let's. What's a takeaway? For the viewers listening at home, the
- [50:46]
Mike Benz
takeaway is we need the CIA and State Department side of this equation. We also need the missing years in the Justice Department side of this. But these two things are connected. You heard Alan Dershowitz say on Piers Morgan the other day that if, if Epstein was connected to the CIA or Mossad, he could have, he could have gotten him off. And everyone went, wow, that means it's a get out of jail free card. Well, Epstein, guess what, he did get off basically in 2006 with the 2008 plea deal, serving basically less than a year in prison, being able to work from there, and then house arrest while you had 50, some felony charges that were basically swept up and then a blanket non, you know, non prosecution for, for all co conspirators known and unknown. So as far as I'm concerned that that is what happened and we need that transparency now as well as this. This is a moment of reform. The. The fact is the national security predicate for blocking disclosures has allowed the Deep state to get out of jail free in part because of its work with the Justice Department. We.
- [51:57]
Megyn Kelly
We need time and time again. That's a good point. I gotta leave it at that. But Mike, Fascinating. We'll have a longer talk later. I love it. Thanks for your deep research and sharing it with us. Maybe you've seen those red light panels that are all the rage now. Well, this is totally different. Let me tell you about the glow infrared therapy light from SaunaSpace. They say it helps with screen fatigue your skin, your mood and your energy. It's incandescent light, not led, which makes all the difference. In the morning it's like natural sunlight and at night it helps you relax and get ready for seriously deep sleep. They say you can even use it for pain relief on sore muscles or cramps. And the real game changer is their firelight sauna. The future of saunas. It's portable, it's gorgeous, and it's powerful. You get red light therapy and an infrared sauna all in one, all made in the US with pure organic materials and zero EMFs. SaunaSpace spent over a decade perfecting their firelight spectrum and thousands of studies support the benefits. Elevate your at home wellness with SaunaSpace's Firelight infrared technology. Visit Sauna Space Megan and use Code Megan to get 10% off your entire order. Don't forget that's Sauna Space Megyn. Don't forget that Code Megan when you check out for 10% off your order. What's poppin listeners? I'm Laci Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess. The show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em? What about a career con man? We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins. Oh, you know they are represented. Cause matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o' Brien and more. Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess. Wherever you get your podcasts, this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Ready to refresh your wardrobe. Nordstrom has all the latest styles for spring. From elevated dresses and denim to standout tops and accessories. Discover the trends and essentials you'll reach for again and again. We've got brands you love like waif, princess Polly, mango, Adidas and favorite daughter. Plus free shipping, free returns and quick order pickup. Make updating your closet effortless. Shop in stores@nordstrom.com or download our app. Turning now to the latest in the Nancy Guthrie case. Newly released video from a neighbor's ring camera. This is a person about, I mean, not exactly a neighbor, they said. About 2.5 miles away, obtained by Fox News shows 12 cars passing through the area between midnight and 6am on the morning of Nancy's suspected abduction. But one vehicle in particular is drawing attention. It's a car scene driving by at 2:36am the home where the footage was captured is just about a seven minute drive from Nancy's house. And that timing would appear to align with when her pacemaker disconnected from her phone at 2:28. TMZ reports, however, this morning that its sources within the FBI are calling the video a quote, dead end, saying, reports TMZ that they looked at the video and the area where the cars are driving as well as the ingress and egress has led the agency to the conclusion the cars have no association with the kidnapping. Now, we're not sure that's true and we're not sure that TMZ has that right. We're gonna discuss it in a second with our panel. Meanwhile, Savannah Guthrie is speaking out again on Instagram just now sharing a Today show segment about the reward on her Instagram along with the caption, please be the one that breaks her home. Tips can be anonymous. Reward can be paid in cash, as explained here. Watch.
- [56:09]
Mike Benz
How does the FBI go about guaranteeing that people who do reach out that they actually remain anonymous?
- [56:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. So, Craig, experts say that let's say you submit a tip, it qualifies for the reward. You want to remain anonymous. You can then pick up that reward at a neutral location that's decided often a place like a post office. That reward will likely be given to you in cash. And all you have to do is show that unique pin number that's associated with your tip. You do not need to show your id. Experts say it is really not traceable and no questions asked. Not traceable. No questions asked. So Savannah's reposting that, that clip we just showed you on her Instagram, emphasizing that the tips can be anonymous. She's obviously desperate for tips and she wants to reassure someone who might have one that they can give the tip anonymously without it being traced back to them and get the reward, which is now up to a million dollars for either the return of Nancy or information leading to the abductor. So you know you can get it just if you know where Nancy is and it's, it's been made clear they mean dead or alive. Savannah then reposting a follow up shorter clip from her latest video announcing that reward of up to $1 million. Here to react is Maureen O', Connell, former FBI special agent and co host of Best Case, Worst Case, a podcast and Jim Fitzgerald, former FBI supervisory special agent and co host of the Cold Red podcast. Maureen Fitz, welcome back. Let's start with the latest breaking news just now. And that's the Savannah repost that short clip on the Today show emphasizing you can stay anonymous and there's a way to retrieve the reward that would keep you untraceable. Fitz, your thoughts on that?
- [58:06]
Jim Fitzgerald
Sure. And this is a very smart move to make. And we talked early on, Megan, what was it three weeks ago now put some level of humanity onto Nancy Guthrie. Now the humanity part is being put on, on Savannah and her family. They, they want their mother back. And they're basically saying in any, in any condition here, here's the million dollars. I know. Yeah. By the way, no strings attached. We, you know, you can get it without any, I'm not sure if you have to pay taxes on it or not if it, if the government takes something out up front, but who cares about that? But it's going to be a substantial amount, close to a million dollars, perhaps in cash. And that is going to be a strong incentive. So where the early on stage was humanizing the mom, now it's humanizing us. We realize things may have gone bad in so many words they're intimating. But at least give us our mom back and let the family have closure on this. There'd be nothing worse. Of course. I've interviewed parents of little kids who have gone missing and have never returned. That's probably the worst. But even having any loved one such as a parent that you can't somehow have closure, put them in a their resting spot and have the final rights, etc, that has to be tough too. So it's a million dollars is probably easy for them to put up and they mean it with all their heart. They really want their mother back. And I'm hoping someone out there, one or two people involved in this can look at this and have some element of their heart just say, you know what, we can do this in a tricky sort of way. Let's just make this phone call, go pick this money up and then go from there. And I hope that person is listening. And if there's any little bit of a heart they have, they. They follow through.
- [59:43]
Megyn Kelly
Maureen, here's the clip that Savannah reposted just now. So what she thinks is the most salient part of her nearly two minute video she dropped the other day. But we need to know where she is. We need her to come home. For that reason, we are offering a family reward of up to $1 million for any information that leads us to her recovery. All of the information about this reward and the details is in the caption below. You can call the 1-800-TIP-RINEL. You can be anonymous if you want. Someone out there knows something that can bring her home. Somebody knows. We are begging you to please come forward now. She captioned it. Please bring her home. You can be anonymous. So if memory serves, what was omitted there from the first video that this was clipped from are discussions of the agony the family's been in and references to their understanding that she may no longer be with us. She may be with Savannah's dad, with Nancy's parents in heaven. So sort of all that humanizing stuff, like about Nancy and about the family taken out and boiling it down to bring her home. You can be anonymous. And here's a million dollars.
- [61:17]
Maureen O'Connell
It's haunting, really. And it. It worked on me, I can tell you that. I mean, I just. I could feel her broken heart through that message. And to Fitz's point, I think it's. I think it's the right thing to do right now. And if they can get them that money anonymously, good for them. They're gonna have to produce Nancy some way somehow before that. And, you know, my advice is take the money and run. If this is who you are and this is what you did, get that money, take that money, and just good luck to you.
- [61:50]
Megyn Kelly
Can I ask you this, Savannah, in all these videos you've sort of seen her, we talked about the fact that the one day she decided to put her makeup on, you know, like the first couple of videos, she clearly didn't have any makeup on. Her eyes are so puffy from all the crying. This is right after Nancy was taken. And that obviously was a choice. And then, and then I thought it was a good sign she did one with her makeup on. Like she was kind of coming back to life, putting on her armor, you know, which can be. Makeup can be. For a woman, especially a woman who's on camera every day, that's how you're used to seeing yourself. And here too, she's got a little makeup on. Her eyes are bloodshot. I mean, clearly this woman has been doing nonstop crying. And I wonder if that kind of thing fits. Is coordinated with the FBI. Like your look, you know, I. If Savannah wanted to go full glam and put in the Visine and get rid of the red and like, not be super up close to the camera, I mean, she knows full well that, like, this super up close shot is not the most flattering thing ever on any of us. She's doing all this, I think, for a reason. There's no way. None of this is like, this is just happenstance. I believe it's all calculated. And what do you think the discussion sounds like behind the scenes on that?
- [63:01]
Jim Fitzgerald
Yeah, I've been in these multiple times in my profiling career advising people how to go before a camera or put out some kind of a message in some way. I obviously didn't get into, you know, the makeup category with if it's a woman doing that, but certainly more importantly, the words to choose and the overall demeanor or Persona you're going to present on camera or in some kind of a public speaking situation where you're looking for someone or someone to come back into the fold for whatever reason, or someone to give themselves up if they've done a crime. So, yeah, this is well coordinated. And there have been. I'm certainly assuming there are profilers, behavioralists on the scene, certainly in touch with the family. They're talking to them. They're helping them put the words together. They don't want to offend the person. They don't want to challenge the person. There's no names calling that, you know, you're a low life, you're this. None of that stuff. And I'm not saying that either. But just appeal to their human. Their basic human nature. And Maureen put it well, it got to her. It got to me too. I mean, it doesn't get more sincere. Megan, you're on camera all the time, and I do my share and. And I always, you know, I'm always meaning what I say, but I never had a put. Put something together like Savannah just did, and so much from my heart and sort of begging people to listen to what I'm saying. And that's a whole different part of your personality and your brain and. And your. And your psychological makeup that has to come in front of a camera. Have you been crying all the time, as she said. As you said, Megan. But the bottom line is this was coordinated. They didn't give her the words to say, but I have no doubt that someone Came in. Hey, let's have your, you know, light looks a little bit. Nothing heavy duty, but just enough that you're appealing, looking and you're talking. You're important. The people watching this, you're important enough. They're important enough to you that you should look your best whilst talking to them. And that's part of the reason why she may have glammed up using air quotes here just a little bit for this, basically this plea to whoever has her mother.
- [65:00]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, I do think I said this the other day, but I think it's somewhat of a sign of resilience that she managed to get any makeup on at all and her jacket on and started to look a little closer to the professional Savannah we've seen. I just think as a woman in the exact same industry that she is, who came up with Savannah? I mean, I literally came up in the business right next to her. We were at the Supreme Court covering the high court together. Chief for NBC, me for Fox News when we were both like cub reporters. She went to NBC, I went to Fox. We covered a lot of the same stories. I wound up at NBC for a short stint with her. I got to know her very well during that 18 months that I was there. Savannah and her husband, I had known her for all those years prior, but, like, we got to be personal friends. And then the relationship ended when I left NBC for all sorts of reasons. But my point is simply I know that she's going to feel more together and defended with the makeup on. I just know it. That's just how it is in this industry. So I think it's a good sign. I do think the puffy red eyes are an intentional choice because I'm sure they were authentic and they could have been resolved had she really wanted to do that for a camera. But she, she probably made the choice to show people the pain she's in because of the reasons you're saying. You know, there's no downside. It's real, it's what's. It's what's real. And there's no downside to telegraphing to the public and to the perpetrator. I'm deeply wounded, and you could. You could help me, Maureen. You know, you could help me, is what she's saying.
- [66:27]
Maureen O'Connell
She's also saying, you got me. You wanted to hurt me, you hurt me. You got everything you wanted. I am broken. My family is broken. Can we end this now? I'm willing to pay you my hard earned money to end this now.
- [66:46]
Megyn Kelly
I surrender.
- [66:47]
Jim Fitzgerald
Yes, you Won.
- [66:51]
Maureen O'Connell
Yes.
- [66:52]
Megyn Kelly
Oh. Oh. It's stomach turning when you think about it like that. That's because the perpetrator will watch this. You know, you. You. You point that out all the time. Fitz, you know that. That the guy's out there watching all this coverage, and there's no question he's watching Savannah's latest messaging. And so he's going to see it. Like, it's so creepy for her to know that whatever she chooses to put out there, he will be watching and assessing and will have a new decision to make right now, this morning, as we speak, he has a new decision to make. Fitz.
- [67:22]
Jim Fitzgerald
Yeah. And this all goes back to from again, day one. What is the motivation behind this? If it's strictly money, this is strictly a transactional crime that was committed on the part of this one, if not two or more people. I haven't logged in on that at this point. All right, so now this is kind of an offer you can't refuse. I mean, you're probably. You got away. You pulled an abduction very successfully. And I've said this before, you can talk about the flowers at the camera and all that kind of stuff. Weird holster. They got away with this thing. He slash. They got away with this thing. If there was ever about money, which I'm not convinced that's the case. But if it ever. Even if it wasn't about money, you've got a golden opportunity here. And Savannah is doing her best. And her inner makeup and her outer makeup is so expressive of what she's saying right now. She's not acting. I don't know her at all, of course, but I'd be very much surprised if there was any acting in here at all. So this person now goes back to motivation. Why was Mrs. Guthrie taken from her home at, you know, after 2:00am or, you know, around that time, that Sunday morning that we don't know if it was about money. Maybe this is a chance to then. Then capitalize on it. If it was for some other reason deeply personal to one or more family members, they said not. This hasn't gone far enough. You've done this to me. Again, real or perceived, you've done this to me in the past, you know, a week before or two decades before, you're going to keep paying. And if they don't react to this million dollar reward with almost. With virtually no strings attached, that would lean me towards the fact that this is a highly personal crime done for highly personal reasons and money was never a factor.
- [69:12]
Megyn Kelly
Oh. Or. Or can it just be the Person scared. Like, they're like, holy. The 400 cops. I don't believe. It's not traceable. I'm not, you know, I got away with it, and I'm not going to jail now. So nice try, but I'm peacing. It was high risk, shaking your head,
- [69:26]
Jim Fitzgerald
high risk to begin with, this crime. They knew who this woman was and to whom she was related. I don't think that would scare them off now. And they think they could pull this. They pulled it off perfectly so far, quite frankly. They've had other people try to come in and take money from them. I'm convinced multiple people, probably from overseas, wherever, with the whole bitcoin thing, tmz, all that. So it's like, all right, well, now this is my turn. I made my cause. I made my. I sent my message. Maybe now I'll take the money. But again, if the money isn't the issue here, then perhaps this is for a whole reason that's highly personal. I use the word revenge early on to describe this side of the abduction as opposed to for profit on the other side. And that is so deeply entrenched in this person. Look at the Brown shooter went back 30 years to Portugal, you know, and is angered with this. This then fellow student, and he goes up to, you know, MIT outside of Boston and kills him there after shooting up the university itself. So these types of issues, you know, can go back that far, but maybe something more closely connected to more recent times. But this is really. This is. This is the proverbial fork in the road for this person. And, you know, and to me, to
- [70:40]
Megyn Kelly
Savannah, messaging is like the. To steal a term, the closing argument. Savannah also went to law school. I. She. She then went and did, like, shoe leather reporting in small markets. I went and practiced law for 10 years. But she. She is a lawyer. At least she's been trained. And I think this is her closing argument because the reporters are gone. That annoying Democrat congresswoman, the local lawmaker, got her way. The press is gone. They left. The story has been drying up, and that's when the influencers leave. And I think it's sad. It's sad for Nancy that they're leaving. The law enforcement is leaving, too. The FBI had a Tucson field office that they were kind of a makeshift one. They're pulling up stops on that and going back to Phoenix. They're claiming that they're not going to reduce the man count. You know, man and woman count on officers, but there's no way they're going to keep 400 officers on this case. Right. There's just. They're not. They are not. They have other cases to solve. They have missing children, they have new crimes. They have murders. Like they've got to move on, sadly, because other crimes come and Savannah's leaving. There's a report today saying she's going back to New York. It was just a matter of time. It's been a month. This Sunday is the 1st of March, so we're at an actual month. And she's got two young children who are in school. They're being taken care of by a friend right now. I know the person and you know, they need their mother and she knows that. And I'm sure she needs normalcy too, in her life and her routine. So even she's leaving. And I think this is the closing argument, like reward not traceable. Anonymous. Goodbye. And, you know, we'll see whether it shakes anything loose. Maureen, I want to talk to you about the video. It's very interesting to me that this gets dropped by Fox News last night, which has been doing very good reporting on this. Fox has and they find it. I want to read you the way they describe it. I know you're familiar with the audience. It's a resident of the Catalina Foothills neighborhood, that's Nancy's, who has a street facing ring cam that caught 12 cars passing by in the morning. Nancy disappeared. They took the recording goes from midnight to 6am on February 1st. That's the relevant timeframe. And the activity occurred near the 2:30am mark. That's the relevant time. The homeowners Elias and Danielle Stratagulius told Fox Digital that the police had not canvassed their neighborhood at all in all the time since Nancy went missing. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department have been alerted to the video, writes Fox Digital. Not immediately clear whether the video is of any use to the investigation. This is last night. The Stratagulius house is on a back road, Fox writes, north Camino Real that leads out of Guthrie's neighborhood, avoiding major intersections. Leads out of Guthrie's neighborhood, avoiding major intersections. And they live about 2.5 miles away from the crime scene, which is outside the 2 mile radius of neighbors who received a ring alert asking for video taken from January 1, February 2. So the concentric circle drawn by law enforcement did not include this house. But this couple nonetheless checked their ring camera and found something they think may be of relevance. Their house, writes Fox, is roughly a seven minute drive from Guthrie's address. As I mentioned in the intro, one of their Videos was recorded around 2:36am which is roughly eight minutes after Guthrie's pacemaker last synced with her iPhone. So the timing would work. Danielle said the number of cars passing that night was not unusual, but she and a friend found it odd that no one from law enforcement had visited the neighborhood. The route itself had been flagged to Fox News Digital by another neighbor, who said she also saw a suspicious man walking in the area on February 2, which would have been Monday, around the corner from what appeared to be an abandoned car. And then finally, she says she described that man as 5 foot 9 inches tall, Hispanic, with a close trim beard and wearing a silver bracelet, smoking a cigarette. Uh, and then this is actually the final point. Another unidentified man was spotted in mid January, according to a different neighbor. Who did not have your typical walking gear on. He had his hat pulled really far down over his eyes. He was just walking in the neighborhood near an intersection leading to Guthrie's home. Leading to Guthrie's home. And hadn't encountered him before or after. Kind of younger. Just didn't look like he was going out for a walk. She thought he was suspicious. Now we get the TMZ report today saying our FBI source has looked at the video and says it's a dead end. The area where the cars are driving, as well as the ingress and egress has led the agency to the conclusion the cars have no association with the kidnapping. And yet Fox had reported that this house, the Strategolius house, is on a back road that leads out of Guthrie's neighborhood, avoiding major intersections and talking about how this is her neighborhood. That's the neighbors themselves say this is her neighborhood. And I feel like the neighbors of all people would know very well if there was an ingress and egress out by their home from Nancy's neighborhood. I don't know. This is. I'm not sure about tmz. And you tell me whether we should be discounting the Strata Gulius new lead so quickly.
- [76:14]
Maureen O'Connell
Well, there's a lot there. But first of all, if in fact the FBI is discounting this vehicle or these vehicles that drove down that Camino Real, then it's definitely for just a number of a couple of reasons. Number one, they threw up a geofence on that area for that night, and all the cars there were telegraphing different information via cell phone or just their vehicle, and they were able to get with those people and, you know, find out where they were coming from or going to.
- [76:51]
Megyn Kelly
Wait, it can't be that, because the Stratageliuses say no one came to see them since Nancy disappeared. So the FBI certainly hadn't ruled them out. They hadn't seen this and ruled it out prior to this because no one had come to see them.
- [77:05]
Maureen O'Connell
Right.
- [77:05]
Megyn Kelly
And also there was a report after this by Fox that the FBI was seen going to visit the Strataguliuses after the Fox News report. But I mean.
- [77:20]
Maureen O'Connell
Right.
- [77:21]
Megyn Kelly
I, so I guess overnight, you know, they may have ruled it out between like the time the Fox News digital report hit yesterday evening and the time the TMZ report hit this morning, but they, they definitely hadn't ruled this out prior to yesterday evening.
- [77:33]
Maureen O'Connell
Right. Here's what I'm saying. Well, I think it came out yesterday mid afternoon, if I'm not mistaken. The Fox, it came out on that and everybody, a lot of people were getting alerted. What I'm saying is right then you've got the, the, the cast team with the FBI and they're already doing all kinds of work and they're up to their eyeballs in it. And now they're like, okay, let's throw a geofence. You don't have to go there, you don't have to visit anyone. I mean, initially. And you put a geofence up on that area at that time frame to see who's going past. Now what we would expect if these were the offenders is we would expect no activity coming from the car. Maybe a little from the telematics, but definitely not from cell phone data because we've already found out that there was no cell phone data pinging or anything around that house. They probably used little handheld radios or something. So they looked at that, they found out who those people were. They could have dispatched agents to those houses last night at midnight for all we know. And they could have followed their phones wherever they went, all the way to an investigative end, so to speak. So they could have done a lot of work last night and it wouldn't be the first time a police officer or an FBI agent showed up at your door in the middle of the night because they probably wanted to really hammer this down. We don't know that that happened. We don't know that that would have. All I can say is I would expect one or two of those vehicles to have no telematics pinging or nothing from phones pinging. If these were, if this was our offender or maybe two, you know, two vehicles.
- [79:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. The follow up reporting fits from Fox was per Michael Ruiz, Pima county detectives arrived at the home of the Strataguliuses yesterday. On Camido Real, where the new Ring video was taken. So it does appear that in response to the Fox News digital report, they went there and they spoke with this couple. And then by this morning, not the Pima County Sheriff's detectives, but the FBI, which has been somehow. Harvey's source in this whole thing is saying it's a dead end. He puts it as. Yeah, quote, it is a dead end. The area where the cars are driving, as well as the ingress egress has led the agency to the conclusion that the cars have no association with the kidnapping.
- [80:01]
Jim Fitzgerald
Well, Maureen did an eloquent job of explaining the, you know, the cell tower markers and what's coming out of the car and all those type of things. But I think all of us rely on what's worked for us in the past and investigations and the technology, of course, maybe DNA, if we're lucky, will ultimately perhaps help solve this case. But I also, earlier cases, I worked my police career as well as even FBI in New York and later as a profiler. Reaching out to the public is always an interesting way to sort of narrow the suspect board. And it's certainly in a situation like this, and I would like to see perhaps on the part of the sheriff's department, the FBI, to put something out there like, all right, everybody, we all know about this crime that occurred, when it occurred. Where. Can we ask for anybody who was driving in that area? If you're in the range of the Internet, which of course, everyone is, so it's going to be posted and you were out there driving, could you contact us and let us know? And. And just maybe you saw something. You're not a suspect. Maybe you saw something. A car went by, somebody pulled over doing something strange. And. And then these videos that. There may be more videos coming in. There may be some we don't know about also. And do your best to slow everything down. Blow them up. There's. There's technology now. They can make it, probably read the tags. And then if a person in one of these cars is not. Does not contact the FBI or the sheriff's department, it doesn't mean they're guilty of anything, but it's something. I think we'd want to talk to them. They could have an affair and they shouldn't be out, you know, doing what they're doing at 3am Whatever. But let's. Let's try to get people to come forward and say, yeah, I was driving right in that neighborhood. Or, you know, a mile away or two miles away, if you're on back when you're in some of these back roads that you've described. Megan, I don't know the area well, but I'm looking at the map. This is not a wrong turn you made. You're there for a reason. You know where you're going most likely.
- [81:48]
Megyn Kelly
And clearly the person who took Nancy knew where he was.
- [81:51]
Jim Fitzgerald
Absolutely. I just put out there, hey, everyone who, anyone who's driving, you know, between 1am and 3, they can make it any time they want. Can you just contact us and let us know? And if they do identify some cars, tags, ownership, etc. And that person didn't call, that doesn't mean they're guilty. But at least move them up a few notches on the suspect list and let's do some more follow up with them. That's how I would go about this. They may have already. Well, they haven't done the posting as far as I know. If you were driving around, let us know.
- [82:19]
Megyn Kelly
But, but okay, let's, let's keep going because the only other like truly interesting thing I've seen in the case over the past couple of days is the following headline from Brianna Whitney, reporter for Arizona Family. And it as follows, on Wednesday evening at 7:21pm she posted. Multiple people have asked me what the status is on Annie Guthrie's car after it was taken for processing in the case and that was taken for processing the first week that Nancy was had disappeared. I asked Pima County Sheriff's Department today and just received this response, quote, all we can say at this time, the vehicle is still part of the investigation. Wtf, Maureen?
- [83:01]
Maureen O'Connell
I've been banging this drum since the beginning because we've taken cars into custody and we processed them. I've processed hundreds and hundreds of cars in my career. We only keep the ones that are involved in some way, shape or form or have some sort of evidentiary value. You're not keeping a car from a member of the victim's family. I mean, first of all, it's my understanding that may be the only car that Annie and Tommaso have. Why are you keeping the car? And is it a common practice to keep the car if there isn't evidentiary value? The answer to that is an absolute no. Ask anybody. Call 25 PIOs from police departments, municipal police departments all over the country. They're all going to say the exact same thing. You don't keep a vehicle unless you have the authority to do so. And you only need it if you're going to need it for trial.
- [83:58]
Megyn Kelly
It's been three weeks. They've had that car in their possession, Fitz.
- [84:01]
Jim Fitzgerald
Yeah. And there are protocols within all these departments about how long you keep an impounded vehicle because it's, you know, it just gets in the way of their everyday functions too. But what I find even more interesting, Megan, is that the house was released after two days, then it was unreleased. That's the actual crime scene. We know the crime occurred there at Nancy's house. So it's. I think two days. Was held, then unheld, then pizza delivery people are coming up. I think it, you know, locked down again. And now I believe it was officially released. But not the car of Annie and Tommaso. That is odd. And I. It must have some evidentiary value to someone for some reason that it hasn't been released. But it does raise some interesting red flags. Yet the same time, what was it, a week, a week and a half ago? The family is fully absolved. They weren't involved. They're not suspects. But we're keeping their car. Then out of what habit he came
- [84:59]
Megyn Kelly
off of that the next day. They haven't been identified as suspects is what he fell back on after everybody was like, what are you saying? How can you rule them out when you don't know who did it?
- [85:08]
Maureen O'Connell
Yeah, it's so bad. And with regards to releasing the house back to the family now, my hope was yesterday, Megan, when I heard that they were kicking all the press off the street and everything, I was like, please Lord, let FBIERT descend upon that location and do a thorough stem to stern soup to nuts DNA search of that whole house to try to find DNA that will match the commingled DNA that they have for their touch DNA, but in a cleaner way, so that they could say this is in fact who it was. We can now move forward with forensic genetic genealogy to find out who this offender was.
- [85:59]
Megyn Kelly
Can I ask the following? Is there any chance this sheriff who. It's easy to villainize the guy because he's all over the board on his messaging and we've come to not really trust him too much is, you know, too, too smart by half and that this guy maybe does know what he's doing. And what if he has zeroed in on a family member and from the get go he was like, this is a homicide. Which is why he called in the homicide cops day one and called off the search and rescue day two? And why ever after we haven't had the hand in hand grid search by either law enforcement or volunteers. That's the thing. That's Been missing in this case from the beginning. The urgency. When there's a missing person, you not only see law enforcement doing what you just said, Maureen, you see volunteers, you see the family members, you see everybody go out there arm in arm. When there's a missing person, a child, a college student, an elderly person, and they all hold hands and they do the grid search together and they make sure that every inch of their entire community has been traversed by well meaning civilians and law enforcement to try to find any sign of them. And they find things. Yes, they often find bodies or they find, you know, the civilians. We haven't seen one. Not one of the Guthrie family. They're hauled up in their multimillion dollar house coming out via video only. They never come out for a search. They haven't encouraged civilians to help in a search. They haven't invited. In fact, I'm. I'm told they rejected the offer of. I think it was Equifax, which Equisearch. That always like offers to. Yeah. That offers to go in and search whenever somebody's missing. They didn't want it. So like, is there any chance this sheriff is like, this is a homicide. I've got my eyes on the prize. I am going to intentionally confuse people on my messaging because I don't want any heat coming down on the people that I'm looking at. I would like to keep them trusting me. And if I have to lie to the press and everybody else about where my beliefs lie, fine by me. As long as I keep these people talking to me, it's possible.
- [88:03]
Maureen O'Connell
But if, you know, you're. You're essentially calling him Columbo on steroids. And if that's the case, he should get his own series because he's very believable.
- [88:13]
Megyn Kelly
He's good.
- [88:14]
Maureen O'Connell
Yeah. So yeah, there's a chance. And if so he's playing it, you know, perfectly and whoever.
- [88:22]
Megyn Kelly
And very close to the vest. Yes.
- [88:24]
Maureen O'Connell
But he's talking too much. But you know, I guess that could be part of his shtick. And the bureau on the other hand, is just being totally tight lipped. If I were the bureau, I'd be trying to figure out who that TMZ leaker is because that's a bit of a nightmare for the bureau. We don't. We don't.
- [88:40]
Megyn Kelly
I'll give you a hint. It's who, it's whomever you put on the case of looking into the Ransom notes. It's 100% that guy or girl. Cuz that's the only person I guarantee you that Harvey Levin knows at the FBI and that person is continuing to leak to him. So yes, I agree with you. You might want to shut that down since not sure TMZ is your most credible way of disputing leads or news items. I mean, I think frankly you'd be a lot better off going to Fox News, which does have credibility and also FBI sources. But what do you like, what do you think about my theory, Fitz? Because let's not forget the other thing is he's. He shut off all the press conferences he only gave. He decided to seize the messaging. You shut down the press conferences, the FBI no longer gets to answer questions. Just me, the sheriff and then this week. Week sent out a note saying we're not going to be doing any more daily updates to the press. Like all the messaging is shutting down. Which I guess we shouldn't confuse with the conclusion that the investigation is going nowhere. We actually don't know that and that's by design.
- [89:44]
Jim Fitzgerald
And yeah, I guess our question would be to the sheriff or about the sheriff. What does he know and when did he know it, to borrow that catchphrase. And I mean if, if the car's being kept of, you know, the sister and the brother in law of Savannah. I think last I heard they were all living together in a gated community in a rented house or something. But yet here's the million dollar reward being put out. Most I know I heard Savannah, it was interesting. She said up to a million dollars interesting that was put in there and also that it's a family reward. Family. But I, without knowing all the dynamics of the family, I have a feeling it's her million dollars and that's fine. That part is their business. But what are the dynamics if the car is being kept? I mean if I was completely innocent, I'd hire a lawyer by now and say I want my car back. Especially if it's only car that I have. And who knows Savannah has a rental car, brought another one in, whatever for the time she's there. But what are the dynamics going on in that household that we're still getting videos made as, as you presented early on in our, in our. Our hit here by Savannah. And, and we're talking about male makeup, how she's saying what she's saying. But boy, out of the corner of her eye does she have some suspicion. But she's still going to put a million dollars up. Maybe she doesn't want to believe some things. Is she. I'm not saying she's involved at all, but it Just gets so. It's so. So internecine in involvement here within the family that I. And, and, and I don't want to give the sheriff. I don't want to take away from him or give him more credit than maybe he deserves. Here. It'll all come out to be a master, you know, Shakespearean play that's unfolded here. If all along he knew what was
- [91:25]
Megyn Kelly
going on, time was going to tell,
- [91:27]
Jim Fitzgerald
and that comes out. Well, we knew all along he was focused. We knew the neighborhood wasn't, you know, the neighbor, the Tucson wasn't in danger of another abduction. And this is the whole thing and how it played out.
- [91:35]
Megyn Kelly
Right.
- [91:36]
Jim Fitzgerald
But it hasn't happened.
- [91:36]
Megyn Kelly
Here's another piece.
- [91:37]
Maureen O'Connell
Yeah. Isolated incident.
- [91:40]
Megyn Kelly
Right. Which is just like Idaho. How the hell can you say that when you don't know who did it or why they did it? You know, and then we see the video of the masked man. It's like, oh, I don't. I'm not sure. The Tucson residents do feel so safe. That guy's not in custody and we don't know his motive in taking Nancy. No, I wouldn't either. Especially if I were 84 years old and living alone.
- [91:58]
Maureen O'Connell
Oh, my God. I would buy an arsenal instantly.
- [92:02]
Megyn Kelly
Well, it's tough for an 84 year old, Maureen. You know your way around a firearm.
- [92:06]
Jim Fitzgerald
A widow Maureen hits 84, you'll be having arsenal.
- [92:09]
Maureen O'Connell
Oh, yeah, I'll totally have.
- [92:11]
Megyn Kelly
Do not mess with.
- [92:12]
Maureen O'Connell
I already have an arsenal.
- [92:13]
Megyn Kelly
I learned yesterday that your husband was 37 years on the 4th, so yeah, nobody should break into Maureen's house. It's a bad idea.
- [92:19]
Maureen O'Connell
No, definitely not.
- [92:21]
Megyn Kelly
Or give it a shot. I hope the sheriff proves everybody wrong. I really do. I hope we see an arrest by the end of the weekend and we're all like, you know what? He was very clever. He was. Colombo. Hope that's our update next time we all get together. Guys, thank you.
- [92:35]
Jim Fitzgerald
Thank you.
- [92:36]
Megyn Kelly
Have a great weekend. We've got more news ahead. You know Pure Talk's favorite holiday? It's President's Day. Because they believe wireless service should only cost you a couple presidents. Just a little Jackson and Lincoln, to be exact. For just 25 bucks a month, Pure Talk gives you unlimited talk text and plenty of data. Now compare that to Big Wireless. They'd rather celebrate the Benjamins. Mr. Franklin, to be exact. And his day. So they can charge your family hundreds every month. That's not right. You deserve better. PureTalk is an American wireless company who supports our veterans and invests in a US Only customer Service team. So when you call, you're talking to someone right here at home. PureTalk uses the same towers as the big carriers, so enjoy superior 5G coverage without the inflated price. Just 25 bucks a month for talk text and plenty of data. No contract, no cancellation fee. What are you waiting for? Just dial pound 250 and say keyword Megyn Kelly and you will get 50% off your first month. Again, dial pound 250 and then say Megyn Kelly to make the switch to Pure Talk. The Cuban government is talking with us.
- [93:51]
Mike Benz
They're in a big deal of trouble, as you know.
- [93:53]
Megyn Kelly
They have no money, they have no anything right now, but they're talking with us. And maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.
- [94:04]
Mike Benz
We could very well end up having
- [94:06]
Megyn Kelly
a friendly takeover of Cuba. You don't say. We could have a friendly takeover of Cuba. Okay, okay. I guess they have to get behind Canada and Venezuela. They could be like our 53rd state. Not sure what the President means there, but you know, Cuba was very dependent on Venezuela and very intermixed with Venezuela. They said the half the guards guarding Maduro were Cuban. So maybe that's what he means now that we're kind of running Venezuela. I don't know. He didn't really expand on it, but his comments about Cuba come as we are evacuating personnel or strongly encouraging personnel to leave our US Embassy in Israel, per my Huckabee right now. And we've got. We talked about yesterday with Tucker, all the aircraft carriers and other military assets that we've moved to the region. And we do appear to get to be getting ready to bomb or start some sort of a war with Iran. So you can take that into the weekend and sleep well at night. I'm sorry, like why? Again, why? To take out their nuclear facilities. We did that in July. Okay, we just did that, I mean, six months ago. So I'm sorry, but the administration needs to make a clear and cogent case for putting American lives at risk with such an extraordinary mission. If that's what we're about to do. Like, what are we doing? He barely even mentioned it in the State of the Union. Are we invading Iran? Like, why? Let's hear it. Let's, let's, let's at least do. Can we at least have the respect of having it laid out for us? Normally you go to Congress before you start a war, but if we're going to do it by commander in chief, you know, action, then shouldn't he at least make the case to the American people. It was like, we're going to save the protesters. They're killing 10,000 tens of thousands. The protests are. Have died down. Okay, so it's not. That's not the rationale. Regime change. Well, how are we going to do that? Because it's not just the Ayatollah. All right? It's like the entire regime is filled with Ayatollah loyalists. So how many people are we taking out and how. It's not as simple as getting Maduro. That's why, reportedly Dan Raisin Cain, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is having some hesitation about a longer mission here or the mission at all, suggesting we could be. This could turn into a quagmire, which President Trump denied for the record. In a true social saying. That's not true. He'll do whatever he's commanded to do, and he'll do it perfectly, and all he knows how to do is win. But I don't know. I mean, like, a lot of us have real concerns about what we're about to do in Iran. I mean, it seems like we're getting closer and closer. Could also be a head fake where the president is just making them think we're getting closer and closer so they give us what we want in these negotiations, which apparently aren't going that well. We're asking them for no enrichment forever. I don't know about you. I don't like where it's going. And I at least want to hear my president explain it to me in terms that I could get behind. That's. I think that's the bare minimum we are owed. Okay, so that's international relations. Now onto the very exciting subject of Megan Rapinoe, who, as you know, decided to pull the ladder up behind her after she made millions playing soccer. And now would love for your daughter and mine to have to play against biological boys who could physically hurt them at any turn. She has absolutely no care about that. She has a podcast with her wife or girlfriend, Subird. And they ripped on the men's hockey team for having the nerve to have Keshe Patel on site and taking the President's phone call. Here's a taste of that in Stop five. What I like to call a classic ripping defeat from the jaws of victory. The United States men's hockey team in their utter moment of glory. Childhood dreams come true. Once in a lifetime accomplishment sensational. Ruined it for themselves because they allowed themselves to be totally co. Opted. Co opted? Yep. By a clown. And now you're a clown. You look like a clown. Cash Patel is in the locker room. He's partying, he's chugging beers. I'm not like decorum over everything. That's not what I need out of my FBI director. Like, what are we doing? The nerve of this extremely homely woman to call these guys clowns and say they look like clowns. The nerve. So what should they have done? Should they have said, no, we don't, we don't want to take a congratulatory call from the president. We refuse to. We, we, we are. Hashtag resistance. The absurdity of that. And let me show you more of what she said and tell you how hypocritical it is. Here's the next thought. Number seven. Watch. They get on the phone with Trump. I have questions whether it was even a secure line. That's beside the point. Who makes the comments? Nuclear codes about the women's team. And then the men's hockey team erupts and giggles and har har, har, har, hars. You just accomplished this amazing thing and then you just gave this whole moment over to this person who you know is just only going to use it for him. Going to totally co opt it. Hey, first of all, the joke isn't even funny. Like from a technical joke standpoint. Like what? I don't understand the funny part of the joke. If I always say this, like, I can't believe how much how people have such a, like a lack of self preservation. But if you don't think you're in threat, then you're not gonna preserve. For me, the choice point is like, I would have never as a captain or a leader on my team. I think you can say the same. I think that would've been clear to our staffs and to the larger organization and like support staff. Those people would never be allowed in our locker room. Never. She wouldn't have taken the call and she wouldn't have allowed them in the locker room. And yet Clay Travis reporting that President Obama called the women's team after they won the World cup in 2015 and Vice President Joe Biden was on the field for the title game and joined the team in person for their title celebration that day. So Megan Rapinoe is lying. She was completely fine with a Democrat president calling in to congratulate the team with a Democrat VP celebrating on the field with them. She did not find that in any way controversial. It's only controversial when it's President Trump, you see, which transforms you into a clown from a national hero. She's jealous. She's full of hatred for anyone who's a white male. She's like a rabid, angry lesbian and and she is jealous that they are in the spotlight and she's not. In fact, she's loathed by more than half the country, unlike these guys who are beloved by everyone except a tiny segment of rabid part rabid partisans. And she can't see straight. She wants it taken away from them and she feels powerless to do it because she is. Enjoy your bitter, bitter life. We'll be right back. International disputes, Inflation, Rising national debt, Digital currency There's a never ending list of reasons gold has risen over 700% in the last 20 years and a never ending list of reasons smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals with Birch Gold Group. Gold can thrive during uncertainty, which is why it's a crucial part of a balanced financial strategy. It gives you peace of mind given all the events that could impact the US Economy. See if holding gold in a tax sheltered retirement account is right for you. Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. Just text MK to the number 989-898 to receive your free info kit on Gold. There's no obligation, just useful information with an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers. Consider letting Birch Gold help you diversify with Gold so you too can have peace of mind regardless of the uncertainty. Text MK to the number 989898 hey there, it's Katie Nolan, host of Casuals, the sports podcast where we don't care how much you know about sports. We're just happy that you're here. Every week I hang out with some of my good friends to discuss the biggest stories across sports and entertainment, but in a way that's like fun and not boring. Want to know Sue Bird's favorite Diana Taurasi story? Or how heavy the Larry o' Brien trophy is? Or even what baseball team is right for you based on your moon sign we got you. Listen to Casuals every Tuesday and Thursday on the SiriusXM app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [103:04]
Jim Fitzgerald
Bye.
- [103:05]
Megyn Kelly
If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, IXL covers math, language arts, science and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from Pre K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com 20 Visit ixl.com 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on media social, Sirius xm. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily jasinsky, Jesse Kelly, RealClearPolitics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. A couple more items for you before we go. Mayor Mamdani continues to downplay what happened to the NYPD officers who were pelted by a mob with snow, ice and rocks after this big snowstorm that we had on Sunday into Monday. And his complicit DA Alvin Bragg, who would love to throw 34 felony charges at Donald Trump for a bookkeeping error, does not really want to bring charges against these people at all. Just like his mayor. The mayor said it was a bunch of kids and he really didn't want to see charges brought. Well, the cops insisted on it and they arrested, they're starting to arrest the perpetrators, including this one guy who we've reported to you about yesterday, Guzman Kolubali, 27, one of the so called kids. Nothing of the kind, by the way. The guy's had other legal troubles that he's already been dealing with. And he was arrested two weeks ago for trying to rob a confused subway rider in what he claimed was a social media prank. He also had another issue. Gosh, I'm trying to remember what it was. I can't find it in front of me. But there was a separate issue as well involving this guy and now he's been charged, but the DA already downgraded the charges. He was initially arrested and charged with assault on a police officer, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct. They've dropped the assault on a police officer charge. They are only pursuing the obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct, which are much lesser and non, non serious crimes that they're going after this guy now. You may just think, oh, what do you mean he just threw a snowball. Why should it be assault on a police officer? A, because it is. It is. B, because there are reports, as we mentioned to you the other day, that, well, the president of the police union said that the Suspects knowingly packed the snow with ice and rocks before launching their so called snowballs at cops. And clearly one officer he said has an obvious injury below his eye. His name is Pio Johnson. They said he suffered redness, tenderness and pain to the left side of his face near his eye. And we were told earlier by the union that at least one, if not more were had to go to the hospital for treatment of the injuries. Which will happen when you're hit in the face with ice or a rock or even a very hard packed snowball if it hits you with enough force. So the first one charged gets charged over the objections of the mayor. And then as soon as he gets in the hands of Alvin Bragg, they dismiss the most serious charge. And now it's just a disorderly conduct case, basically, which is a nothing. That's a hand on a slap on the wrist. It's not even a misdemeanor. The other one is a misdemeanor. But this is a nothing. This will go away and this person will have no punishment because they don't believe in punishing crime in New York anymore now that the communist regime is regime has taken over. And Alvin Bragg, as you know, is a George Soros funded prosecutor who doesn't believe in funding in pursuing crime at all. Unless your name is Donald Trump, that's the state of the state in New York City. These poor cops are on their own. And these two, this pair, Mamdani and Bragg, they're not going to be happy until every single New York City cop resigns. You remember Mamdani, all of his tweets, I want to abolish the police. And then when he got closer to the vote, he started to backtrack on that stuff. He only did that to win. That was obvious. This guy hates the cops. He hates cops. He does want to abolish them. Remember he already, he's been saying he wants to send non cops to domestic violence calls. So a woman gets the shit kicked out of her by her husband and he wants to send some 70 year old overweight female social worker with her little bifocal glasses to go intermediate the dispute. Good luck with that. She, what we would call that lady normally is his next victim. You need a cop with a firearm going to intervene there. It's just, it's absurd. And each one of these, the Mamdani calling this a snowball fight. Oh, I'm not gonna get involved in kids. As if those of us who wanted to see some justice here just saw little like toddlers throwing snowballs at one another and wanted somebody charged. It's so absurd. It's a lie. He's not gonna be happy until they all leave. I mean, it was. The writing was on the wall. He hates cops. He never stopped hating cops. He does want to defund the police, and this is another way of doing it. Don't defund, just don't defend. Let them twist in the wind, Hang them out to dry. Let him get hurt. Don't do anything about it. Lie to the public's face about what actually happened. And then when the cops charge him anyway, because they do have some authority here, you bounce. Pass it over to the DA who's complicit and says, nah, don't worry, don't worry. I ultimately have the authority. And he's right about that. It is ultimately his call, and I'll get rid of it. And this will probably be pled out to a nothing burger, too. So. Query whether they'll even bother arresting another person. Right? Why spin your wheels? Why waste your time? So it's working. Their little plan is working just perfectly. And Mayor Mamdani is a disgusting piece of. You know what? I have absolutely no use for this guy. Cannot believe what he's doing right before our very eyes. Okay, wait, there was something else. Yeah, no, that. It wasn't that. But in any event, I do want to get to this. Okay? The real reason I had to hold over is because I've got to tell you the story. We touched on it in AM Update, but it's an unbelievable story. And you can talk about this over the dinner table or at your cocktail party over the weekend with your friends, because it's that good. There's a guy named Tom Goldstein about whom you care nothing. And you don't need to care anything. But it's an interesting story for the reasons I stated at the top of the show. This elite guy in the most elite circles you can run in, I mean, Supreme Court bar, hanging out with Supreme Court justices. I mean, how many of us can say that every single Supreme Court justice knows our name if we're not on TV every day or, like in the news? You know, this guy wasn't. He's a lawyer, and he earned their respect. Unlike virtually everybody who gets admitted into the Supreme Court bar. Tom Goldstein did not have some super elite education. He went to, I think, American law school. He went to University of North Carolina undergrad. He did not clerk for a Supreme Court justice, which is sort of the path you go if you want to wind up being a star in The Supreme Court bar. He was not Solicitor General of the United States. That's another way you can do it. Paul Clementine, who was Solicitor General under Bush, is now, you know, killing it in private practice in front of the Supreme Court bar. Everybody wants to hire him if they have a Supreme Court case. Tom Goldstein to his credit, did it with, you know, good old fashioned hard work and he was a go getter. He actually worked at my old law firm for a stint, Jones Day, among other places. And he in his Supreme Court practice did something most people weren't doing, which is he started calling people who had lost at the circuit courts of appeal and making a case that he would be clever about getting the Supreme Court to take the case, that he had a pretty good track record of getting cert granted certiorari. And that was looked down on when he first started doing it. But he increased the firm's practice like threefold Supreme Court practice. And then the cases at Jones Day reportedly kept getting taken away from him because he wasn't that experienced. And eventually he left the firm and opened up his own shop with his wife Amy Howe, and they built an incredible Supreme Court practice. He had I think 40, he's had 40 arguments before SCOTUS and he like, he became the go to shop like I think only two others have more experience arguing in front of the Supreme Court than Tom Goldstein. So I mean self made to his credit, great story, very well respected. And then in 2002, I think that was a year he started SCOTUS blog. You know, SCOTUS is Supreme Court of the United States. SCOTUS blog, which became a go to destination for all of us who had a foothold in the law at all. Whether you were on television or not or just in the legal profession. That's where you go as soon as the Supreme Court issues an opinion, you go there. And they did great write ups in advance of the cases. I used them heavily when I was a Supreme Court correspondent. Very, very efficient write ups of the cases before the cases would go up with links to the briefs if you wanted them. And then immediately upon the decision coming down, they would be ready with a quick, a quick summary because they were steeped in knowledge about every case going up before the High court. Great stuff. Takes a lot of work and takes a good legal brain to process quickly. I mentioned when we covered this story on AM Update, they got the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare correct. When everybody was getting it wrong, it was all over the news. It was a like, remember when everybody got Bush v. Gore Wrong. They thought the high court had ruled in favor of Gore because they didn't read through the opinion because in fact, they had ruled in favor of Bush. Same thing happened on Obamacare when that went up. And the whole question was whether Congress had the power under the Commerce Clause to pass this sweeping law that changed one seventh of the U.S. economy. And that was the big question. Are they going to uphold Congress's power under the Commerce Clause or not? And the top of the decision said, no, Congress does not have this power under the Commerce Clause. And those of us who went to SCOTUS blog, including yours truly, did not get embarrassed because SCOTUS blog understood, as did yours truly, because I'd been following the case closely that there was another argument on behalf of President Obama and those defending Obamacare saying it was like a catch all, it was like a throwaway, it was barely discussed, saying we also have the power under the tax clause, the individual mandate is a tax. And sure enough, the Supreme Court, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld that law under the tax clause of the U.S. constitution. And so Obamacare stood. It's. That's the reason we still have it to this day. And I went to Scooter's blog, Scooter's blog. I was on the air live. Fox News was calling it wrong too. And I was on the air and I said, hold on. And the only reason Fox did not embarrass itself like CNN and the others did is because I knew about Skoda's blog and we saved ourselves from a lot of embarrassment thanks to Tom Goldstein and his quick reporting over there. So I had nothing but respect for him. I had him on my show. Later that day. He came on, I think it was that day or within a day or two. We pulled a clip from, you know, it seems like 200 years ago, but here it is. I owe you my thanks because I was on your blog this morning as this ruling came down and we were getting conflicting reports. And you, as expected and as always, had it right. The highest. The high court upheld the individual mandate, but not on the grounds most of
- [114:56]
Maureen O'Connell
us expected, not on the grounds that
- [114:58]
Jim Fitzgerald
most of us expected, not on the principle argument based that the Obama administration had offered.
- [115:04]
Megyn Kelly
The Affordable Care act was saved by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts applying
- [115:09]
Jim Fitzgerald
maybe not a conservative result, but a
- [115:11]
Megyn Kelly
conservative judicial philosophy, saying, it's my job.
- [115:14]
Jim Fitzgerald
If I can find a way to, to uphold what the people across the
- [115:17]
Megyn Kelly
street have decided to do as the elected representatives, that's what I'm gonna do. There he is in front of the Supreme Court's facade, broadcasting live, save the day, universally well respected, revered. He's going to prison now. It's unbelievable to me. He was leading a whole double life, you guys. Not just professionally, but personally too, for listening audience. Like with respect. The guy's, you know, he's kind of dweeby. He's a kind of like a dweeby Supreme Court lawyer. He looks kind of short, very bald, nothing to, you know, not, not homely, but like, nothing, you know, whatever. Nothing to like write home about is fine, like a pleasant man. But I'm just saying he looks like your quintessential dweeby lawyer. And that guy had a life of Bentleys, Ferraris, prostitutes. I don't think they'd call themselves that. But if you sleep with a man for money, that's what you are. Multiple women in one house. Like he'd snap his fingers and they'd come and fall all over him and God knows what else they were doing to him. All while married. Stealing from his law firm to pay off debts, not declaring his actual income on his tax returns, understating his income to the IRS and understating his debt to the mortgage application lenders, to the banks because he didn't want his wife to know, reportedly that he had let, given, you know, any, any given week or month, some 12, $15 million that he owed thanks to these high stake poker games. I mean, it's unbelievable. And then he would fly in like the next day and argue a Supreme Court case flawlessly. I mean, frankly, it's all part of the same skill set, right? Like taking huge swings and if you nail the ball, great, it's a home run. You can also foul out, you can strike out. And the stakes, if you strike out in multimillion dollar poker are very, very high. So he was able, I guess, just thanks to his smarts and his familiarity with these cases, to do fine before the Supreme Court. He was a gifted oral advocate and he would write the briefs. Somebody else would do all the legwork because he was gallivanting the world. It got to the point where he left his practice in 2023 because this was overwhelming him. He was just all poker all the time. But prior to that he was still just doing the briefs reportedly and the oral arguments and he was crushing those. So he's maintaining kind of like the alcoholic who's like a functional alcoholic. And by the way, he denies being a gambling addict, though his close friends and clearly his soon to be ex wife clearly think he is. He says, I stopped and I'm actually fine stopping. That doesn't sound like a gambling addict to me. But the behavior certainly tracks. So we went back. So he's been convicted. He just had a trial. I don't. It's like it happened so fast. He just had a trial. And the jury found him guilty on 12 of 16 counts following a six week trial in Maryland. One count of tax evasion, one count each of willful failure to timely pay taxes for four tax years. Three counts of making a false statement on a loan application. That's your mortgage. Four out of eight counts found guilty on. Of aiding and assisting in preparation of a false tax return. Seven men, five women, heard 15 days of evidence over six weeks, including testimony from Goldstein in his own defense, and they found him guilty. His strategy going in there was interesting. He made clear that he was going to, through his lawyer, say to the jury, like, this is either a very good man who made some mistakes, or this is a very bad man who's nefarious. And he was going to argue the former. And the jury believed the latter entirely. The jury does not believe Tom Goldstein is a good man. And I have to be honest, neither do I. It's like a lot of people have affairs on their marriage and they get divorced and they find love again in a second marriage or a third marriage, whatever it is that's really between the two spouses. I don't know if that makes you a bad person. You violate a vow in any way, it's not great. I'm not sure you're, like, universally a bad person because of it. You know, it's not a good thing to do. But you cheat on your wife repeatedly with multiple women like you. You register on some sugar daddy website touting the fact that what you'll bring to the table is dough. And you know that these young women will sleep with you just because you're rich. Like, who would want to get on top of a woman knowing that's the way you did it? She's literally just there because she wants you to buy her something. That's so disgusting. How emasculating. How gross. Like, I can't even imagine a man could perform under those circumstances. And. And with no care whatsoever about whether she's attracted to you or enjoying it. None whatsoever. There's something hedonistic and selfish and disgusting, not to mention what he's doing to his wife about the whole thing. And then on top of that, you're stealing from your law partners, who's also your Wife. So you're cheating on your wife in two different ways. You're stealing from the government, which means you and me and all the taxpayers. I pay my taxes right on time. I mean, it's like. This is ridiculous. All of us would like to cheat on our taxes a little, so we get allied some sort of massive tax, but we don't. It's not to say you never make a mistake here or there, but like you, if you make it, you make it in good faith and then you rectify it. This guy. No, it was active fraud against the government, which means against us. What? I have to pay my taxes? Why doesn't Tom Goldstein have to pay his taxes? Because he won the winnings at a poker match. F that bullshit. I won mine. Hard work every day, in and out with the research, working for you guys. Same as you guys do. You go to your job, you. Sometimes you miss your lunch break. Sometimes you miss your vacay. Sometimes you stay late to the office till 11 or 12 at night. Sometimes you work the weekend. You work a vacation, you work a holiday. F. This guy who thinks just because he wanted a poker table, he doesn't have to declare it. And the rules are different for him. It's. It's crazy what he got away with.
- [121:40]
Maureen O'Connell
So.
- [121:40]
Megyn Kelly
Jeffrey Tubin. Yeah, that Jeffrey Tubin, who, notwithstanding his issues, when it comes to whipping out his dick. I'm sorry. And jerking off in front of a whole zoom full of colleagues. What is our legal profession coming to? Had been a very well respected lawyer and legal reporter at cnn. And he sat down with Tom Goldstein shortly after these charges broke. We did a long report about this when the charges broke. Cause I'm just obsessed with this story. And in December, late December, he sat down with Jeffrey Toobin. Tom Goldstein did. Which was dumb. Dumb. And his admission that the reason he didn't declare how much debt he was in when he applied for the mortgage was because he didn't want his wife to know because they were both co applicants. Came back to haunt him in the trial. Of course it did. It was an admission that he did it. No one cares what your reason was. The point is you did it. You lied. Did you lie? Do you think you know bank of America would care if you were like, oh, I didn't state my debt because I just felt so shamed about having it. They don't care. You're going to jail. You defrauded them. They gave you a $3 million home loan for your beautiful estate in the Washington, D.C. area. And you were a Very, very high risk. None of which was disclosed. We're all going to get charged for that kind of behavior. So this was a dumb thing to do to sit with Jeffrey Toobin, but hey, what the hell is it was. It was his risk to take. And as we've seen with Tom Goldstein, he is not risk averse. Okay, let's, let's go through some of the highlights because you're not gonna believe this. Okay. Toobin writes he'd been leading a secret life of ultra high stakes gambling and sugar daddy relationships with multiple young women. A life so sheltered from those around him that no one knew the full extent of it, least of all his wife. When it came to light, his life unraveled. His friends have largely abandoned him. His marriage of three decades is ending. He is nearly bankrupt. Most pressing of all, he's staring down a 22 count federal indictment on tax fraud charges in a trial scheduled to begin in January. Yeah, which it did. And now he's been found guilty. Outside the front door of his home, his $3 million home, are two Bentleys, writes Toobin, among other family vehicles. Or at least that's what was there. Now, writes Toobin, they're gone. Replaced by a Honda. Oh, the shame. Like the rest of us, I used to drive a Honda. No, a Toyota. Now I drive a Beamer. Highly recommend. But Goldstein is uncowed. I have never, ever believed I did anything wrong. He told me. And for defense trial, he's planning the same kind of bold, all in strategy that he used at the Supreme Court, this time, with his own freedom on the line, his fall has been as precipitous as his rise was meteoric. And he goes on to talk about some of that background, how he actually worked for David Boies and Lauren's Tribe, oh, on Bush v. Gore. And that he mastered Supreme Court practice, made a name for himself in the ways that I just described. And then talks about how he started. He started gambling because in the early 2000s, ESPN began broadcasting poker. He had never played it, but he loved watching. I think of it as a pretty intellectual thing, he says. But he quickly graduated from games around the kitchen table with jars of quarters to tables of high rollers in D.C. and New York. I would play in home games where you could win and lose a hundred thousand dollars. This is not that unusual. I have a friend whose doctor, whose brother is a doctor, like a well respected doctor, and he's amazing at poker. And he finds these games where he will win or lose a hundred or two. $200,000 in a night. Now he declares his winnings and losings and therefore it's legal. But imagine like making a hundred grand in a night with with hands of poker. Tom Goldstein took that to the next level. His style of play reflected his swaggering, risk friendly approach to litigation. Okay, let's see. He says, I'm a big believer. You have to figure out what your winning argument is. It's a poker thing. And that being willing and that is being willing to say, this is not working. And if I just sit here and hedge my bets and argue both, I'm not going to accomplish anything. So somebody who knew him said it the following. Tom is extremely wild and crazy, like a lunatic at the poker table. He's fearless, an over bluffing kind of player, what we call a chip bully. He tried to run people over at the table. You want controlled aggression. And he had unbridled aggression. For better or worse, in poker and elsewhere, Goldstein believed in going all in. Listen to this. The first major turning point, writes Toobin in Goldstein's poker career came in 2008. That was before that clip I just showed you of the two of us on the air in 2010 with Obamacare, when he put up the $10,000 fee to enter the World Series of Poker, a multi day extravaganza in Las Vegas. On the first night after the tournament had ended for the day, Goldstein sat down at a table at the Bellagio. I end up playing without looking at my cards. Goldstein said. Imagine it. That, to put it mildly, was an unconventional strategy. He bet wildly and recklessly, but his opponents were flummoxed by his blind aggression. Goldstein told me he ultimately played that way for 18 hours and won $400,000 at the Bellagio. So you can see what's happening to this guy, right? He's taking big risks in his career. They've paid off. He's come up with a Supreme Court strategy where, like you, if your argument is failing, you abandon it and you go for another one. And you, you kiss off the first argument, even if it was your primary in the breach, because that's what wins. You get to the poker table and you intimidate the hell out of everybody. But not even looking at your cards and it that's so wild and crazy and reckless, it was working. $400,000 in a night. That's when he met somebody named Dan Bilzeriar, an heir to a family fortune who became famous for his extravagant and and ridiculous lifestyle as a professional poker player in Vegas and later for being a social media influencer. Who often featured guns and women in bikinis. Bilzerian recalled Goldstein's antics that night. People were all watching the game and talking about what an effing maniac he was. The two got super tight, and suddenly Goldstein started wearing chunky silver jewelry. And like Blizzerian, sporting a thick, full beard, he wanted you to do all kinds of bets. The TV show that Goldstein decided might be a great idea around poker and crazy things never came to fruition. But they did make one famous non poker bet. Goldstein bought a Ferrari worth about 300 grand. Bilzerian had a 1965 Shelby Cobra, and he bet Goldstein that his Cobra could beat the Ferrari in a race. They agreed to a quarter mile showdown at a drag racing track in Vegas. The original wager was 100,000. They upped it to 300,000 bucks. The Ferrari went 121 miles an hour. The Cobra went 133. And Bilzerian won the Ferrari from Goldstein. This is like I might go to a movie or dinner with friends on the weekend. What is happening with this dweeby little man from SCOTUS blog? Good gracious. And then he just saunters into the Supreme Court and does arguments on behalf of blue chip Fortune 100 companies. Here's just a little color. During a photo shoot for Hustler magazine, Bill Zarian, his bff, threw a naked porn actress named Janice Griffith off a roof in Los Angeles into a swimming pool. She broke her foot. She wound up suing. Goldstein was the lawyer and wrote to the lawyer for the Woman in Defense of Bill Zarian. I like he wrote, like your client, the facts of this claim won't quite fly. I mean, it's a clever turn of phrase. You can see why he was in demand. Goldstein had law clients in the poker world, and that helped him explain to his wife his increasingly long absences from Washington. He had actively misled his wife and friends about how much he was gambling. Once he started playing in public tournaments like the World Series of Poker, the size of the stakes unnerved those who cared about him, including Nina Totenberg of npr. She's like this very uptight Supreme Court reporter over at npr. She thinks she's the goddess of the Supreme Court. She's quite insufferable. She was so nasty when I was there. I covered the high court for nearly three years. She never warmed up. She thought she was better than everybody. Meanwhile, she never even fucking practiced law. I had a decade of litigation under my belt, and she wanted to lecture me about the law. I was like, you know what, madam, why don't you get back to me when you've passed three bars like I have? Anyway, not a fan. But she and he appeared close. So much so that they named a kid after her. And I think she might have been a godmother or something like that. Okay, so she saw that he was huge into gambling. But she says he lied to us about it. In 2010, he promised Nina he wasn't going to gamble anymore, but he did. And, and so. And how. So the he said okay. He quickly, quickly, quickly realized that even with his successful law practice, he didn't have the cash to compete. The idea was to be able to play very, very, very deep and not be out of money. So he took out a $10 million line of credit. Credit from a guy named Stuart Resnick, a California billionaire. He owned the parent company of Palm Juice, who was a former client of Tom's. And that guy started backing him. In 2014, he met a Malaysian businessman who would be bring his poker career to the next level. That guy, Paul Fua, he's been called the world's biggest bookie. He owned one of the leading sports betting sites in Asia. And he was also an inveterate gambler. He traveled the world looking for high stakes poker games. The FBI raided Fua's villa at Caesar's palace in Las Vegas for and so on and so forth. But he had his own trouble. But these two became great friends. And Fua introduced Goldstein to the kind of poker that made his contests with Bilzerian look like penny ante by comparison. With Fua, Goldstein no longer flew commercial. They took Fu's jet to Hong Kong and Manila. Goldstein increasingly operated in hushed private suites or homes. Two types of poker predominated. The ring games, six to 10 players compete against each other. And the heads up games, one on one with just a dealer. Goldstein promptly lost 9 million playing ring games and realized they were not for him. They require patience, which he didn't have. He liked the heads up contests. One on one. He got billionaire after billionaire to back him in these heads up poker games, which he was doing well at, but he didn't always stick to. And he says in Manila the tube in writing. Goldstein played poker with a gambler known as Tango and won 13.4 million. He also won 9.96 million from a gambler known as Chairman. The Chairman from 2016-9 to 18, Goldstein was out of the country for almost a full year. He told his wife he was on business trips for Fua. At the end of 16, Goldstein played a California businessman named Alec Gores in Beverly hills and won $26 million. 26. Imagine this, the biggest score of his life. Earlier that year, he'd won $200,000 in a game that included the actor Kevin Hart. During this run, he won a total of about $50 million, even though he had sold roughly 70% of his stakes to investors. But he still personally cleared around 12 million. So he's not personally, like, completely loaded. 12 million is loaded, don't get me wrong. But he doesn't have hundreds of millions. He's got about 12 million. And the problem with 12 million is he promptly lost 14 million to a different billionaire named Bob Safari, a real estate magnet. And he didn't have it. He did not have it. He owed it all out of pocket. And this is why he had debts and he had to steal, according to the prosecutors, from his law firm to pay them and couldn't tell the mortgage company that he secretly owed millions of dollars to people like Safari or Safai. Bob Safai and his wife certainly didn't know any of that. So imagine the stress. But he has no stressable emotions. He has no adrenaline flow. He has no conscience. I mean, honestly, I think you could make a pretty strong case. We're talking about a sociopath here. Imagine going home to your wife after this. Imagine standing up before the Supreme Court and making an argument about ethics. By the way, all of these are massive violations of your ethical duties as a lawyer and 100%. Tom Goldstein's going to be disbarred. So he's gone from the vaunted top of the profession to going to be disbarred and a convicted felon going to prison. Nice. Well done. That's some gamble. I asked. Goldstein writes, too, but how he could stand the stress. He says, I have both the benefit and great disadvantage of not placing particular value on money. I'll take too many risks with too much money. It's a blessing and a curse. It doesn't cause my heart rate to go up like something wrong with you. Either you're the free solo guy or you're a sociopath. Goldstein began to adopt the kind of decadent lifestyle he saw in the jet set poker world, including contacting women on a website called Seeking Arrangement, which existed to foster sugar dating, to connect wealthy men to young women. You're gross. You're a john seeking a prostitute if you go there. According to the indictment, between 16 and 22, he was involved in or pursued intimate personal relationships with at least a Dozen women, transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to them from his financial accounts or joint bank accounts he set up with the women and paying for travel and other expenses for them. Goldstein's wife remained in the dark. She had no idea about any of this. Criminal Investigators from the IRS came to see him in November of 2020. They showed up unannounced in his office to serve grand jury subpoenas. There was a report that somebody he beat or crossed in a poker game called the IRS with a tip, but nothing came of it. He was neither charged nor cleared. And life just kind of went on until last year when they did show up and charged him. They say in addition, he became more estranged from his life in Washington and pursued relationships with the women he met online. At one point, he rented a house in California where three of the women lived together, and he carried on relationships with each of them. So he sets up what I mean, I would just call a whorehouse. It's a brothel. Sorry, ladies, but that's what you are if you're living there because you met him on, what's it called? Success, Wanted, whatever. Hold on. Going back, seeking arrangement, please. He's got these three ladies hauled up there and like, pops in like a. Like a pimp to have sex with them. However, whenever he wants. He was facing a big poker game at the Beverly Hills home of Alec Gores, which included, among others, Leonardo DiCaprio and a big gambler known as Big Al DiCarilos. Al Pacino came to watch, but did not play. So he's going to listen to his little dweeb, going to hang out with Leo and Pacino and Kevin Hart and this guy decarolis then invited Goldstein to a poker game in Costa Rica, where some guy this big Mark as Tom Goldstein saw him, called the Southerner, was going to be playing. He wanted to play the Southerner, who liked those heads up games, too, one on one. He had a reputation, the Southerner, as an inveterate womanizer. So Goldstein thought he would impress him by showing that he was a kindred spirit. And he brought four of his girlfriends with him to Costa Rica. He found this to be the most interesting thing in the world, Goldstein recalled. That was on purpose. They struck up a friendship as well as a poker rivalry. And Goldstein began flying to play against him, usually successfully traveling back and forth so often that he rented an apartment in the city where the man lived, which is undisclosed, to protect this guy's identity. And so he's going to get those three gals out of the house as well, as a fourth who lives someplace else to come around like a harem, hanging all over him, praising his every move, rubbing his bald head. I'm editorializing, but you get the point. And this guy was some sort of a mark and fell for a hook, line and sinker. I was beating him, Goldstein said. And that was just a way more interesting life than his Supreme Court practice. He won roughly $50 million from the Southerner, netting 15 million for himself after paying out his investors. And then, writes Toobin, he got the worst break of his life. The tax investigation, which had drifted inconclusively for years, but was taken over by an aggressive federal prosecutor named Stanley Okula. And Bob is your uncle. They hit him with 300 plus subpoenas. They interviewed dozens of people, and the former charges came down January of 2025, four days before the end of the Biden administration. So he can thank Joe Biden for that. Used funds from his law firm to pay several million bucks in personal expenses, including poker debts, reducing his taxable income, errors by his office management, and so on and so forth. I outlined for you what they accused him of. They alleged that he briefly hired four of the women that he met on his travels, but they did no work for his firm. Thus, according to the government, the payments to them were personal expenditures. But he put them on the company payroll. And they said, these are personal expenditures that you're trying to launder through your firm and make them tax free. That's illegal, as the government brief put it. He met woman one, then a recent college graduate, on a dating website for individuals seeking to receive or provide financial support as part of an intimate personal relationship. He paid her 500 bucks for their first meeting. They began an intimate personal relationship. And these four women are different from the three who shared the house in California, the ones who went on his company payroll, his law firm payroll. Poor Amy, the wife. He did establish that three of the four women did do some work for the firm. The fourth immediately went on medical leave. The payments were small, just a few thousand dollars, so the tax issues were almost trivial. Now they get close to trial, they offer him a plea. Nearly five years though in prison if he takes it. He said no, he said, I am not taking a plea that involves jail time. They say he's won upward of 88 million total in heads up contest, vast majority of which went to his investors. Most of his losses came in ring games where there are multiple people, where he financed himself. Bad move. Should have been the opposite, he told me, writes Toobin. That is overall he was a net loser with a deficit of between 10 million and 15 million, but denies he's addicted to gambling. As my brother Pete always says, you know, you know who's like calling the Gamblers Anonymous lines? You know who calls themselves the Gambler? A gambling addict. Losers. Losers. If you're up 15 million, you don't call Gamblers Anonymous and you don't wind up getting indicted, usually. Tom Goldstein, you are a loser. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you're a loser in gambling and in life. You did not have a net profit when all was said and done. You defrauded the federal government. You defrauded your friends who went into business with you. Law partners. The whole basis of a law partnership is trust. You defrauded, worst of all, your wife and your family. If you have a kid that you named after Nina, you defrauded your children. You cheated them, too, out of the example of an honorable father and the privilege of having a father to grow up with in one's home. And let me tell you, as somebody who lost her dad at age 15 to a heart attack, it hurts when your dad's not there. And teenagers and below need a father in the home. Screw you for throwing that to the wind because you wanted to spend time with the Southerner, because you wanted to have a harem of women waiting for you at your little townhouse as you defrauded the government and all of us of our money. This guy's disgusting. So now he will go to jail, and his strategy of, quote, my strategy is going to come down to am I a good guy or a bad guy? Did not work. The jury took one look at him, listened to him testify in the stand, and reached its own decision about the guy who bought the Bentleys and the Ferrari and the women and his silver jewelry and fooled us all for far too long. I credit whoever called the irs. That person's a hero. I credit the aggressive prosecutor at the DOJ under Joe Biden, who said, I'm going to do something about this, even though this guy is at the top of my profession and probably has connections to a Supreme Court that I don't. Good for you for going. I credit the jury for being able to see through this man's obvious gifted ability to deceive, whether at the poker table, in front of the high court, in front of his wife, or elsewhere. That's not easy. But, you know, you get laypeople, a jury of 12 sitting there, and more times than not, they will see through a liar. No matter how skilled and experienced he is. So good for them. And Tom Goldstein, I wait now to see what your sentence is. I only hope it's enough to actually send a message to you that you are a bad guy. You did something deeply immoral and wrong at every level. And I just think we are past the point as a, as a civilian group where we are willing to put up with it. You know, the Epstein files are part of it. Like we're just sick and tired of these so called elites getting away with this shit when we all know we'd go to jail if we did it. So just desserts for him. And I hope you guys enjoyed that story. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday. 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