D (14:32)

Poor little Democrats. Are you guys okay today that I came in to check on you? Every time Trump does something good, you guys spazz out. Would you guys shut up and let him work?

C (14:56)

I always like to see where this music goes. Usually nowhere good. I'm Mary Walter in for Rob Carson. I'd love to give him a hard time about his music. Rob is back with you on Monday. I'm with you tomorrow. Tomorrow and Friday here. Coming up, Sarah Bedford will be joining us shortly. Just want to get a couple of more news stories in. For instance, this one that's getting zero play in the media, but you should really know about it. In the spring of 2016, way back in the day when Hillary Clinton was running for president, FBI field officers advised colleagues at HQ at the old headquarters to press her, talk to her on the foreign donations that were going into the Clinton foundation while she was in charge of American foreign policy and whether she had used the charity as a campaign piggy bank. But the headquarters, the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. did nothing and let the trail go cold. FBI New York assistant Director in charge Diego Rodriguez advised agents in Washington to ask Clinton several questions about the foundation which are reproduced in full in documents that were released to the Senate Judiciary committee by the FBI. And they were published December 15th. And nobody said a word about about them. Nothing, nada. And I saw this and I'm like, we should know about this. People should know about this. The questions reveal the concerns about foreign bribery that the Clinton foundation case, which they called Cracked foundation, had uncovered. Among the evidence available to investigators, according to their questions, a recorded conversation between Clinton and Indian hotel magnet Sant Singh Chatwell in which Clinton discussed donations to the foundation and her remaining 08 campaign debt. The new documents confirmed the FBI had at one time been intercepting individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation. But when Clinton arrived to the FBI two months later in July of 2016 to answer questions about her use of her private email server, you know that in her in the bathroom that she destroyed, she wiped clean with a cloth. D.C. agents asked nothing about the allegations of pay to play with foreign governments or use of the global charity as a slush fund. Chatwell is a longtime family friend and donor, served as a trustee to the Clinton Foundation, a chair of the exploratory committee that preceded her OA presidential run and of course was at Chelsea's wedding. Forbes estimated his properties to be worth $750 million. And this was in 06 he pled guilty to laundering straw donations to Clinton's 08 campaign committee. In 2014, he forfeited a million dollars in a deal with the doj. And Chatwell told an FBI informant in the case that's the only way to buy to the own. That's the only way buy them get to get into into the system. The FBI have recorded him discussing straw donations in 2010 and sought to investigate expand that investigation into the Clinton Foundation. But FBI headquarters would not allow it. Agents on the case wanted Clinton to be asked about Chatwell's role in an OH8 Indo US nuclear agreement, the Non Proliferation Act 1978. It weakened that deal that she made, weakened that. And under the deal, India for the first time received American exports of dual use technology, yet did not have to become a party to the treaty. And after Congress gave final approval to the deal, Chatwell made his first call to the Indian prime minister to celebrate. He was the first one to call. He knew more before anybody else. And in 2010 he Chatwell received one of the country's most prestigious civilian awards for his lobbying efforts. Chatwell told in India media, even my close friend Hillary Clinton was not in favor of the deal in 2006. But when I put the whole package together she also came on board. They also wanted to ask Clinton about Chatwell's money and how it affected the deal. Quote, Mr. Chatwell pled guilty to using straw donors to raise campaign funds for your first presidential campaign, along with using large amounts of cash to your husband. To your knowledge to Mr. Chatwell also provide large cash payments to Indian officials in an effort to secure a nuclear deal between India and the US they never asked these questions. They had evidence that the Clinton foundation continued to accept foreign funds while Clinton was secretary of state, even though she pledged that she wouldn't. All of this when would was stopped somewhere along the line my hunches Barack Obama so that Hillary Clinton and the Clinton foundation were never investigated. Coming up, Sarah Bedford, Washington examiner will be joining us. We have a lot to talk to her about. You don't want to go anywhere. And of course, you coming up on the ROB CARSON show. Welcome back to THE ROB Carson show. I am Mary Walter sitting in for Rob. Rob is back with you on Monday. Let's go to the Newsmax hotline. Sarah Bedford's there. She's an investigative editor with the Washington Examiner. Lots to talk to her about today. You can follow her on exitsarac. Bedford. Sarah, great to talk to you. Welcome to the ROB Carson show. Thanks for joining me.

D (20:47)

Thanks for having me.

C (20:48)

So, you know, this is a story that kind of flew under the radar and I'm sure you've heard of it, but we just found out this was published December 15th, December 15th, and I just found it a couple days ago. And we find out now that in the spring of 2016, FBI field officers were so concerned with the shenanigans going on in the money being funneled to the Clinton foundation that they had recommended and sent questions to the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. about what to ask Hillary Clinton when she was there to talk about her email server, you know, like with a cloth and to ask her these questions about her relationship with an Indian hotel magnet and the money that was going there and why she was still collecting money from foreign entities while she was secretary of state when she said vowed that she wouldn't do that. And it was all stonewalled by FBI HQ in Washington, D.C. why are we just hearing about this now, number one? And number two, why does no one seem to care like no one's talking about it?

D (21:54)

I know it's hard to believe that it's been almost a decade since the events that you just described. And it did take Donald Trump coming back into office and actually having institutional control of his Justice Department this time for the public to learn about this. But this was long suspected, right? At the time, there were really credible allegations that donors to the Clinton foundation received favorable treatment from the State Department when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, and the FBI didn't seem interested in them. I mean, that was sort of observable as a, as a private citizen, you know. And now to see the contrast between how the FBI was able to find a way to ignore those allegations and yet how aggressively they pursued far thinner, far weaker evidence against Donald Trump at the exact same time in the summer of 2016, it really is a startling contrast.

C (22:58)

You know, you said that now that Donald Trump has control of his, his DOJ, etc. Does he? Where is Pam Bondi? What is she doing?

D (23:07)

You know, actually, I think if you, if you sort of take the DOJ's actions and the FBI's separately, while Pam Bondi obviously made a strategic error with the handling of the Epstein issue, this Justice Department has been pretty aggressive in, in some other areas. And so. But the important thing is, though, that it's not actively working against Trump this time. Right. The first time it was filled with Obama administration holdovers. And because of the Russia investigation, Trump wasn't really allowed to put any of his own political appointees in positions of consequence. That's not the case now. And so while the COJ might not be as aggressive as some of his supporters and allies would want, at least for him, this time it's not actively pursuing him.

C (24:00)

So we're supposed to take solace in the fact that it will. At least she's not targeting Trump.

D (24:05)

Like it's a big improvement first term.

C (24:09)

I mean, the bar is that low. The bar is that low. I could be the ag, you know, if the bar is that low. Yeah.

D (24:15)

I think that there's two ways in which this FBI in particular, and also the DOJ has been disappointing. One is the lack of transparency. I mean, there are a lot of stories that deserve to be told about how decisions were made pursuing Donald Trump in the classified documents case in the 2020 election, electors case, both of those under Jack Smith in the Russia investigation, surveilling, you know, school board moms and Catholics and all sorts of things that deserve transparency. And then the other sort of way that the DOJ has been disappointing, it hasn't been as aggressive as I think the Trump administration sort of promised it would be, that there would be accountability for all of these things that we saw over the past 10 years. There would be a greater effort to purge bad Actors within the FBI and within the DOJ who participated in a lot of that politicization. And that also hasn't really happened.

C (25:17)

I'm to the point now she just arrest one person. One person. Just one person. I can name several. She screwed the pooch with the James Comey case and with Letitia James. How the hell that happened is beyond me. They. They actually got an indictment. They actually got an indictment and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It didn't even get to a trial. Now they got to do the whole thing all over again and hope that they get a jury that is going to actually indict again, which I think that was sheer luck in that they don't venue shop the way Democrats do. So she thinks that we're going to get an impartial jury in Virginia. Good luck, sweetheart. That's not going to happen. They're both going to walk. There's going to be zero accountability there. The statute of limitations is running out for federal charges for January, six offenders. So people like, hey, Nancy Pelosi, what really happened? You know, the people that were in the crowd, the feds that were in the crowd that we know were in the crowd, no charges for them, even though they were doing things that were illegal. We're going to let all of this go by the wayside. Why?

D (26:23)

I think there's a lot of frustration with the way the DOJ has handled this so far. Because if they were going to go on a sort of depending on where you stand, an accountability spree or a retribution spree, however you want to look at it, those first few cases out of the gate really needed to be airtight, to have as much public buy in as possible. Right. But that's not what happened. They actually put forward two what seem to be pretty weak cases that, like you mentioned, fell apart pretty quickly. They should know that they have the sort of institutions working against them, like the deck is not stacked in their favor. If you're talking about indictments in Washington, D.C. and so it's sort of a little surprising that the DOJ didn't choose to sort of keep its powder dry until they really had somebody dead to rights to start. What would look to critics like a campaign of retribution?

C (27:16)

Well, I have to say, let's. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of Judge Judy and the case against Letitia James seemed pretty cut and dry. She put her father down as her, as her, as her husband. Right. Like, we know that that's not what's happening. It wasn't for rent, yet her niece was living in it for, you know, like, they had her. If I did what she did, I would be cool on my heels somewhere. Right. Like, I would have been prosecuted. That seemed pretty cut and dry, but they put up a lawyer who didn't have legal standing. That, to me, is beyond unacceptable. That, that's what drives me crazy anyway.

D (27:51)

Well, I mean, the doj, though, could have, They've, they've, they've had problems, some of which are outside of their control and some of which are inside their control. Right. They could have chosen potentially less controversial prosecutors for those positions. But then they're also fighting against headwinds like the blue slip policy on the Senate Judiciary Committee where they can't get prosecutors. Senate confirmed. And there is a reason Democrats are continuing with that obstruction. It's been really effective in blocking Trump's agenda. These two criminal cases are exhibit A and B of that.

C (28:32)

Yeah. And here's the thing. Do you ever think that we're going to see the Republicans start to grow a pair? You know, Donald Trump begged the Indiana Republicans to please redistrict the way, the way Democrats do these redistricts, that we could get some more seats in 2026, help shore it up. And they're like, yeah, no, I don't think so. For whatever reason, they just thought, yeah, I'm not feeling it today, dude. So they didn't do it. It's not just, you know, the DOJ's fault, but I think it's a Republican fault that they're so. I think they're very complacent and super comfortable with the status quo, even though it always leaves them the short end of the stick.

D (29:09)

I mean, there are some ways that Definitely, I mean, J.D. vance has been talking about this that, that Democrats have over the past. He said, the past 40 years. I mean, you can make an argument how long this has lasted, but that institutionally, Democrats have in a lot of ways managed to stack the deck in their favor. Whether that's really aggressively gerrymandering their most populous states when Republicans aren't really doing that. Whether that's using Section 2 of the Voting Rights act as a weapon in litigation to prevent Republican legislatures from drawing maps that reflects the political realities of the states they control. I mean, there were some, you know, really fortuitous mistakes on the 2020 census tabulation that ended up giving Democrats many as six House seats that should have gone to Republicans because they accidentally undercounted the red states and overcounted blue states. I mean, there's a lot of ways in which right now the landscape is a little bit unfairly tilted towards Democrats. And over the national next few years, you might see some of those dynamics change. And Democrats will, of course, paint that as like assault on democracy or whatever. But in a lot of ways, there is some rebalancing that needs to happen.

C (30:22)

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. We're going to get off of this because I we're going to talk a little bit about Minnesota and some things that are going on there coming up that I unfortunately, it's on a state level and the feds really have no, no control over it. But we'll we'll rail about it anyway. Sarah. More coming up. Sarah Bedford here on the Rob Corson Show. And we're back with Sarah Bedford on the Newsmax hotline. She's with the Washington Examinator as an investigative editor. You can find her on exit. Sarah C. Bedford. Sarah, let's move over to the midterms. And I just want to bring this in here because Minnesota has a driver's license for all act, of course, which, you know, many states do, excuse me, but what they have there is if you want to vote and you're not registered to vote on election day, you can go to the polls with someone who has an ID even though their driver's licenses carry no marking indicating citizenship. So it looks just like everybody else's. And you can vouch for up to eight voters and say, no, no, no, they're legal residents and they can sign up for same voter day, same day voter registration without even an id. How are Americans supposed to expect their vote to count?

D (31:47)

You know, I think it's so fascinating. The blast radius of this Somali daycare fraud story has because that's not something that people had been paying attention to. And I'm not sure that it's a something that would have really come to light or got the national attention it would have had there not been so much focus on this fraud story, which really has all the elements of a blockbuster. Right. But now that attention is turning to Minnesota and the large immigrant communities there and the way that the rules in that state have been relaxed, whether you're talking about voting or education funding or Covid funding, I mean, the rules have been loosened over and over again to accommodate the state's growing immigration population. And all of a sudden there's such a microscope on all of it. And without this youtuber Nick Shirley performing this public service, I'm not sure any of it, including the Same day voter registration law you just cited would be part of the discussion.

C (32:56)

Yeah. And James woods tweeted out 45 minutes ago, he said, if we have control of every branch of the government, you can't pass a law protecting citizen voting rights. We have the wrong people in power. And I think in the midterms, Republicans really are probably going to lose because that's what they do best, is lose. When they should win, they lose. But, you know, Democrats are motivated by everything's too expensive. We need affordability. It's affordability. It's affordability. It's Donald Trump's fault. And so they're going to be voting for change, which they do a lot. They vote for change. Change. Whereas Republicans, they're like, well, we have no accountability. I want accountability. There's no accountability. I've got people voting very easily who probably aren't registered to vote. What motivates Republicans to get to the polls?

D (33:41)

Well, we've seen that the right set of circumstances can motivate them. Obviously in 2024, there was fear that you see sort of some of the same dynamics repeat that Republicans on 2020. Right. Which is that concerned about mail in ballots or the integrity of the vote kept some Republicans home because they just didn't believe their vote would count. That's how you ended up with two Democratic senators representing the Republican state of Georgia. Right. And so the right circumstances and the right message can overcome that. But you're completely right that there's a huge enthusiasm gap, that Democrats have a lot of intensity on their side, much of it driven by anger and rage at the fact that Donald Trump is back in the White House. That proved powerful for them during the first midterms that Trump faced in 2018. Historically, the out party does well in the midterms unless there's some sort of gravity defying event like 911 happen. Helped George W. Bush overcome that during his first midterms in 2002. So it's probably inevitable that Republicans will see losses. It's just. Can they keep that to a minimum by staying on message and not getting distracted?

C (35:00)

Yeah. I do think that Democrats have their message. We have to beat the drum about affordability. And I think Republicans, I think, are a little bit down right now because of the lack of accountability that you and I were speaking about earlier. So they're going to have to find a message. And I know Trump is really out there banging the drum about the economy. And hopefully the big beautiful bill that kicks in in a couple of days will help to maybe let people see changes in, in their wallets and in their homes and maybe give Trump credit for that. And we'll have to see what happens. But there's so much going on. Sarah, you're the best. Thank you so much for joining me. It was a great conversation and have a wonderful, blessed new year.

D (35:43)

Thanks for having me.

C (35:45)

More coming up. If you want to jump in here on The Rob Carson Show, 800-922-6680 is the number 922-6680. Or reach out to me at Mary Walter radio on X. Don't go anywhere. We're not done yet. There we go. See that? I can get behind. Rob can never do a morning show because his choice in music would just make that absolutely impossible. Oh, here, let's, let's go out of this hour with this, shall we? So Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, they have a little problem retaining help. Their publicist, Meredith Mains has resigned. They had this whole blow up with the Kardashians over pictures. There was this whole brouhaha with the Kardashians. Now, I don't follow the Kardashians. I am, I will admit that I follow the Real Housewives of New Jersey, which, by the way, they don't even know if there's going to be a 15th season. There is a staff shake up, a cast shake up with only four of the originals coming back. Barb, Barbara, I'm sorry, Dolores, Margaret, Teresa and her, her sister in law, whose name I'm totally forgetting. But I know when I really, Melissa, really like her. I'm not a big fan of Teresa, but you know, she's the, she's the one that, when they want, you know, she's the one who we want. You want because you're a train wreck. The other three are pretty reasonable. They got rid of all the other ones. I didn't like, I didn't like Aiden, Jennifer, Aiden, she's gone. I thought she was a disaster. She was a mess. And the other two they got rid of, I didn't care about them either. So, so kind of happy about that. But. So I don't watch a lot, but I'm not big on the Kardashians. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's publicist, Meredith Means has resigned after this whole thing with the Kardashians. She was their 11th publicist, 11th publicist. Maybe the problem's not them. Maybe the problems you. A source told Page Six that Means resigned before Christmas, but she's going to stay with the company through the new year to help with the transition. So a couple weeks before she quit, they made headlines because they attended Kris Jenner's 70th birthday party on November 8th. They arrived at the bash, was held to Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Beverly Hills mansion. And they talked with, you know, Kim Kardashian and Jay Z and Beyonce, blah, blah, blah, blah. And after the party, Kim and her mom shared a whole bunch of photos of including one which Meghan and Harry. However, this is when the drama starts. Kardashian and Jenner, you know, Kim Kardashian and. And her mom, Jenner. Kris Jenner. Sorry, I had Kylie Jenner stuck in my head. They deleted the photos that they took with the Sussexes. They got rid of all of them. Now, a source told Page Six that people close to the royal family thought Harry and Meghan's appearance was so, so tacky. So now we don't know did the who requested those pictures to be deleted? Which side? So the publicist said, that's it. I'm out. I think. I think, you know, Megan's the problem. I really do. But I love it. It's delicious. More coming up. We got one more hour left on the Rob Carson show.

A (39:20)

Guys.

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Santa. Santa, did you get my leg?

B (39:27)

He's talking to you, Bridges. I'm not.

E (39:30)

Of course he did.

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