← The Dan Bongino Show
The Dan Bongino Show
SPECIAL: "Obamagate" DEEP-DIVE with Gen. Mike Flynn, Mike Benz and Paul Sperry
00:43:09
VINCE returns with LIVE programming tomorrow, August 1st! In this special episode, Vince is joined by three great guests to discuss the fallout from what is being called "Obamagate"
Loading summary
Transcript67 lines
- [00:00]
Vince
What if you could delay your next two mortgage payments? That's right. Imagine putting those two payments in your pocket and finally getting a little bit of breathing room. It's possible when you call American Financing today. Yes indeed, if you're feeling stretched by everyday expenses, groceries, gas, bills piling up, you're not alone. Most Americans are putting those expenses on a credit card and there doesn't seem to be a way out. American Financing can show you how to use your home's equity to pay off that debt. You need to call American Financing today before you get to a point where you can't make those payments. Their salary based mortgage consultants are helping homeowners just like you restructure their loans and consolidate debt, all without upfront fees. And their customers are saving an average of $800 a month. That's like $10,000 in a raise. It's fast, it's simple, and it really could save your budget this summer. Call now before it's too late. 888-879-6460 that's 888-879646American financing.net Vince NMLS number 182334 nmlsconsumeraccess.org hey everybody. Yes, I'm traveling this week but we have a great best of episode for you today which includes a ton of great guests on Obamagate, digging into all of the ways the Obama administration truly was tyrannical and out of control. That's coming up. Also, just so you know, tomorrow there is gonna be a live edition of Vince the Great Hali Caranilla is gonna be guest hosting. Please tune in to watch Hallie do her thing. She's so good. She'll be on with you live tomorrow. And then I'm back live next week all week long from Silverlock Studios in Florida. Don't miss a moment. Great as always to be working with you, the best damn audience and media. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is addressing the nation right now from the White House. She just declared that a Presidential daily brief that was supposed to be assembled on December 9 of 2016 was aborted because it had concluded that, no, the Russians hadn't stolen the election at all. And guess which two presidents were about to be briefed on that subject before it was aborted. Here's Tulsi Gabbard a Moment ago on.
- [02:20]
Tulsi Gabbard
December 5th of 2016, the FBI and ODNI gave the House Intelligence Committee its first post election class classified briefing in which there was no mention of Putin aspiring to elect Trump by either agency. The Presidential Daily brief drafted on December 8th of 2016 stated that no Russian or criminal actors impacted vote counts. This document was pulled just hours before it was to be published due to quote, unquote, new guidance. If it had been published, it would have been briefed to both President Obama.
- [02:54]
Vince
And President Elect Donald Trump, but it wasn't. In other words, President Trump would have known that. The Obama administration did know that Russia didn't steal the election for Trump. For more on this, a man who got to see it all firsthand joins us now. General Mike Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Trump, joins us on the phone. Sir, good to have you with us today.
- [03:15]
General Mike Flynn
Thanks, Vince. Thanks for having me. I appreciate all the coverage that you have given this story. This is, it's, it's monumental, Vince. The state of play for where the United States, and I don't think any listener would ever believe that our country would be in a place like this, but this is where we are. And now, now it's so disheartening. And I, you know, I've known it, I've known it for a long, long time. I, you know, was at the fulcrum of it. I actually, after, after Trump appointed me as the National Security advisor before, you know, at the, actually before these dates, as you just mentioned for your audience, I was reading once I was appointed, you know, my clearances were already very high anyway because I led the dia, Defense Intelligence Agency. And so I was started reading the PDBS on a daily basis. Never once did I ever see any of this information. Not once. Not until we were briefed in January up at Trump Tower on 6 January. And one of the things that Tulsi, you know, courageous Tulsi Gabbard has revealed, and this was revealed on Friday was this now known, the 8th of December meeting, which is a couple of days after this House Intel Committee briefing that they pulled, they pulled this information from. So a couple of days later, from the 5th of December 2016. Now in the 8th of December 2016, I think it was in the Oval Office, if I read the right report correctly, this is really when Barack Obama, with Brennan and Comey and Clapper Susan Rice was there, I believe they basically then intentionally took what they knew to be a lie and they worked it into a conspiracy to then undermine a duly elected president of the United States. You know, if this was Mike Flynn, let me just finish it because this is so important. If this was Mike Flynn as the DNI of the United States of America now, you know, saying all these things, you know, the Democrats in the left, they would lose their minds. And they go, well, Flynn's just, you know, he's being vindictive. This is Tulsi Gabbard, you know, and I think she's probably still registered Democrat, you know, and I'm a big fan of known Tulsi since she first came into. Into Congress years ago. And so I think that this is a real. This is a masterful stroke by Trump and allowing this to. To be done the way it's being done. But I think that this is. It's. I mean, you use the word disheartening. I'm not, you know, it's. It's worse than that for me because it really destroyed my family and my life and, frankly, hurt the country because it did not allow the country to have, you know, and I'll speak for myself for a second. Did not allow the country to have my skill set, which is significant, to be able to perform the duties as a National Security advisor for the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump during his first term.
- [06:19]
Vince
Well, General Flynn, as I understand your career, you can tell us, I mean, you were the head of the dia. You were very concerned about the problems you had detected in the intel community. Your plan was to come in and to help reform and fix that intel community. And they had it out to get you because of that. Is that right?
- [06:36]
General Mike Flynn
Yeah, that's. That's 100% right. You know, my. My career going back before all this, you know, I was down at US Central Command, which ran the war in the Middle east and Afghanistan, and I was down there, and that's. And then I rose up to the Pentagon, where I was working as the.
- [06:54]
Mike Benz
The.
- [06:54]
General Mike Flynn
Basically the senior intelligence officer inside the Pentagon for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And then eventually I went over to the dia, and when I went to the dia, I did some. I actually did some extensive reforms over there. And those reforms that I. That I created back in 2012, they still are in place because I worked on not only lines and boxes, but also the human resource components of it to be able to get people promoted fairly. It was kind of my thing. And also to make sure that intelligence was actually being created and not weaponized by the. By the real experts, by the pros. As we are learning from Tulsi, the more she's saying that. What she's saying is that the pros in the intelligence community, the analysts really were saying this was a bunch of garbage. And so I was doing that at dia, and I had been doing it pretty much the second half of my career. And that was kind of what I was known for, Vince, when all of a sudden I become, I get designated as a national security advisor, now I'm going to, you know, now I'm over the top, really, of all this intelligence and national security apparatus with the year of the president, and I could do far more reform. So, you know, that's. You're right.
- [08:08]
Vince
So, so now with the benefit of hindsight, all of this declassification we're getting from Tulsi Gabbard, we know a bunch of really important things, including obviously that the Trump campaign, President Trump, never colluded with the Russians on anything, that the Russians didn't actually have any sort of credible preference for President Trump to win the election. They weren't attempting to make that happen. There's no evidence to support that. That's, that's crystal clear in all of the intelligence that's being released. In fact, what we found out today is that the Russians had derogatory information about Hillary that they didn't release. They could have if they wanted to use it against her, but they didn't. It was about her health and how, at what bad shape she was in. And so with all of that in mind, I keep thinking about you in particular, General Flynn, because they concocted, meaning the left, the intel community, the Obama administration, they concocted a theory that you were involved in a collusion conspiracy, that you were guilty of one, and then they used the justice system to wreck your life. It kind of seems to me that all of the evidence of how corrupt they are, much of it can be found in the case against you.
- [09:12]
General Mike Flynn
Absolutely. I mean, 100%. And another important meeting that occurred, and it occurred in the Oval Office. Barack Obama led it. So they, so now what we know that Tulsi has exposed, then there was another meeting on the 5th of January. During that meeting, Vince, and to your audience during that meeting is the very famous, you know, first we have to get Flynn, because, remember, Obama told Trump, don't hire Flynn, and he did so that in that five January meeting, which was the same group of people, Comey Clapper, Brandon Rice, Sally Yates was in there, you know, that same group during that meeting, they said essentially we must first get rid of Flynn and then we can get rid of Trump. That we know that from evidence that we were able to pull out from my case, which was eventually dismissed, which most people, most people don't realize, but.
- [10:06]
Vince
Right.
- [10:07]
General Mike Flynn
So, yeah, I mean, that's why there was a You know, like, why Mike Flynn? Why, why did they go after Flynn so hard? Well, they went after Mike Flynn so hard because there was no way in the world that any of this would have, would have come to light because it's total bs, as we now know. And you're right about the Hillary Clinton part. I mean, I can direct you to page 17 of the latest files that Tulsi released. It's incredible the amount of information that they had on, that the Russians had on Hillary Clinton's health. I mean, and that's, that's normal. They normally study those types of things. But this is now, this is now a, essentially a conspiracy to overthrow a duly elected President of the United States by a former president, by his, by his predecessor. Right. I mean, it is just an incredible, you know, I'm almost at a loss for words, which is a rare thing for me.
- [11:04]
Vince
So seeing all of this, General Flynn, over the past few days, all of these revelations, you've always had a cold demeanor, even in the midst of all of the persecution you've endured. But have you found yourself enraged by anything you've read, any of these discoveries? You look at it, you must be losing your mind over some of it.
- [11:23]
General Mike Flynn
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it's upsetting, but, but I'm a forward looking guy, Vince, because I, and I learned that, you know, as a kid growing up, but also in my military experiences, you know, bad things are going to happen. And it's not what you, it's not that the bad thing happened, it's what do you do about it. And what I have tried to do about it over the years is I've tried to stay above it and just, you know, continue to pray, but also continue to fight in my own way for the truth to be exposed. I mean, I worked my tail off to get, you know, as one, one component of trying to get Trump reelected. Thank God that he saved humanity. But, but I think we have to be now forward looking. I don't want to sit there and go, you know, pat myself in the back that I was right or vindictive or hateful or squaw. I can't live like that. None of us should. We have to be forward looking and we have to be strong now because something is going to have to be done. There is going to have to be accountability. And that's up to the, our justice system to figure that out.
- [12:23]
Vince
Okay, I want to ask you about that, but I just want to point out one last thing, which is like, I marvel at the amount of self control you have because not only did they upend your life very meaningfully, they tried to destroy your son's life, too. They threatened to hurt him if you didn't play by their rules. And I'm glad you're here still fighting it out. On behalf of your country and your family, let me ask you about accountability. Accountability clearly matters. I do sense in Tulsi Gabbard that she means it. She keeps saying she wants prosecutions. They're talking today about criminal referrals to the Justice Department. I sense in Cash Patel and Dan Bongino that they mean it. They've obsessed over this issue for years. There's no way that they're taking this lightly. Do you think Pam Bondi means it? Do you think that the Justice Department means it right now?
- [13:09]
General Mike Flynn
Well, I think that Pam is going to have to respond to the American people because Donald Trump, President Donald J. Trump, is clearly responding to the American people, not just on this issue, but other issues. So I think that Pam doesn't have a choice. I think she's got good people around her that are good advisors within the Department of Justice. You just mentioned Cash and Dan, and she's got her meet over there. And I know Mack Warner's another one, Ed Martin's another one. These are people that Trump brought into that team. What people need to realize, though, is that there's still an awful lot of people over there that are made in the image of Comey or made in the image of Mueller or made in the image of Garrett Holder or Loretta Lynch. So there's still a lot of people in the Department of Justice here in Washington, D.C. because I'm here today, that are still in their likeness. And I know that they understand that. So Trump is going to have to be very smart, very shrewd, which he is both, and he's going to have to work very closely with the intelligence community. And we now know, the American people now know that we're being led, the US Intelligence community is being led by a tough, smart woman here. And that's a good thing. And so, you know, to cut to the chase, there is going to have to be a formation of some type of task force that is going to have to consist of people that are not wedded to the, to the, those inside of the doj. And I don't know whether that's somebody that has to come in from the outside that's given the authority and the resources to do, to do all these things. The other thing, and I'll shut up, Vince, that The American people aren't going to wait, we're not going to wait for years of investigations. There is so much evidence that we already know from IG reports, from, from FOIA requests that have come out. My own case, from the Durham report, what Tulsi just gave us, the evidence is all there. I will say, I will say that because I know this for a fact. There are people, there are whistleblowers that have gone forward to the DNI and to others in the doj. And these are not like some young analysts that witnessed something from a distance. These are people that were directly involved and some of them are very senior people. So that's a positive thing. And we're going to have to figure out, and Trump's going to have to do this in a very smart way. We're going to have to figure out how to move the country forward from this, from this absolute disaster, big time. And so, you know, that's, you know, if there's anything out there for people to do, it's pray for this, pray for this president.
- [15:52]
Vince
Well, I'm doing it. I'm praying. General Flynn, I'm praying for you, too. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time today.
- [15:56]
General Mike Flynn
Yep. God bless Vince.
- [15:57]
Vince
Thank you, General Mike Flynn. More ahead on the Vince show.
- [16:00]
General Mike Flynn
The Vince Show.
- [16:03]
Vince
Also thanks to Birch Gold. Really appreciate Birch Gold for being a great sponsor of the program. It's difficult for this administration to take all of our personal finances into account when they're trying to do what's right for the country. You've got to do that for yourself and for your family. And this is why tens of thousands of Americans are buying gold right now. From Birch Gold, here are the facts for you, very straightforward. In the past 12 months, the value of gold has actually gone up by as much as 40%. Many central banks, well, they're continuing to bolster demand for that gold by buying it in record quantities. And global instability and tension, well, it could be the highest it's been in decades. But you can find peace of mind in gold. Birch Gold makes it extremely easy to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold or just buy some to store at home. Just text my name, Vince to 989898 and Birchgold is going to send you a free info kit on gold. There's no obligation, only useful information with an A plus rating. With the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers, it's time for you to take control of your savings. Today, just text the word Vince to 989-898 data and message rates apply. Our thanks to Birch Gold, as always. It's a show where we cover so much breaking news and we anticipate a lot more to come. The President of the United States today in the Oval Office office just moments ago saying that Tulsi Gabbard is set to release thousands of pages of new documents getting to the bottom of not just Russiagate, but the broader conspiracy to subvert the will of the American people. One of the few reporters who has really dug into this question and produced a lot of interesting information now joins us on the program. That's Paul Sperry from Real Clear Investigations, who I've been reading for years. Paul, it's great to have you on the show today, sir.
- [17:50]
Paul Sperry
Glad to be with you, Vince.
- [17:52]
Vince
Okay. It was your coverage of not this past weekend, but the prior weekend. On Sunday, there was a big meeting at the Trump White House ahead of the release of all of this information. What happened at that meeting, Paul?
- [18:08]
Paul Sperry
Well, the meeting was actually at ODNI in Tysons and, but they did brief the president, or at least his chief of staff. They briefed the White House about what they were doing. But this is something that I was told by Tulsi Gabber's office that has been in the works a long time. And she actually has a team that she's assembled that's using AI programs to go through unclassified classified networks of all the 18 intelligence agencies that she oversees. She has authority. People don't understand that she has authority over all of the intelligence agencies. And you go through there and declassify unilaterally all of their emails, chat room discussions, all sorts of messaging and their documents. So this is a huge project and she's got a set up an entire team to do this, and they're actually using artificial intelligence to help aggregate and collect all this stuff.
- [19:19]
Vince
Okay, so that's a fascinating component of this. AI at its current form hasn't existed for very long. So that, that gives us some perspective on why this is different than when John Ratcliffe was the head of the. Of National Intelligence. Right.
- [19:33]
Paul Sperry
Yeah. That could, could be why we're seeing some results here. Finally, the, all this stuff has been bottled up, you know, by past eight years, not by just by the media, but of course, administrations. And the dam is starting to break. Tables are finally starting to turn on the bad guys who conspired to do this, to kneecap Trump and frame him and try to cripple his presidency and his agenda.
- [20:12]
Vince
Yes. So the left is claiming that what Tulsi Gabbard has released is old news. There's nothing to see here. It doesn't implicate Obama or John Brennan and anything at all. How do you view it?
- [20:26]
Paul Sperry
Well, not at all. They're ignoring the key piece. That's two things, actually. Three things. One, we found out that they put the dossier in the main body of the intelligence community assessment that Obama ordered after Trump surprise victory over Hillary. They were all shocked and needed to do something to derail him. And so they came up with this intelligence, cooked it up, and laundered Hillary's political dirt in the form of this dossier and incorporated it into the actual analysis in the main body of the text of the, of the classified version of the ica. And you know, they didn't even disclose that they had included an annex, a summary of the dossier that came out in 2020. Right, but now we knew that. But now we, now we know that. No, there was actually a bullet point supporting the most controversial conclusion that they had in the ica, which was that Putin had aspired to, you know, intervened into in the election directly, personally to help Trump beat, beat Hillary. Okay? So that, that was the most radioactive conclusion they had. And it obviously wasn't supported enough with what they had in terms of other intelligence. So they added the dossier to back it up in one of the four bullet points that they had in the, in the text. And they're all ignoring this when they go on tv. Now I noticed that Michael Isakoff was on last night and he was debating Matt Taibbi and he, he says no, you know, all he did was they put this in an annex. The dossier bs. Either he didn't read the documents that have been declassified, or he's just being intellectually dishonest. He knows that now we know that it was actually as a supporting bullet point in the main text. And that's just hugely scandalous new information. The other thing we found out is that they changed the, the level of confidence they had, reverse it from low confidence in that conclusion to high confidence before and after the election, after Trump won, which is very convenient. And then the other thing is they've got whistleblowers now that worked on this project who are coming out of the woodwork, as DNI Gabbard said. And they had one, one that's showing up in the document dump that you put out 114 pages who was saying that he was pressured by his superiors to stay quiet because he had worked on the pre election Intelligence and said, no, we don't have any confidence that Putin did this. And he was pressured to change that conclusion. And then when he protested, he dissented. Then they took him off the thing and they kept telling him, listen, we have intelligence. But they wouldn't let him see it. And they said, just trust us.
- [23:44]
Vince
So here's another piece about confidence. You mentioned low and high confidence. How confident was the intelligence community that the Russians had actually hacked Hillary Clinton's email?
- [23:56]
Paul Sperry
They weren't confident, as it turns out, from these declassified documents, at a high level at all. It started out they had a low confidence that Putin ordered any hacking and leak operation. And then that suddenly changed to, you know, they had high confidence, strong confidence in that after the election and what they said in the declassified documents, that they didn't have the technical evidence to link Putin to the. The hack and leak. The alleged hack and leak. And so that is now coming out. And that's something else that everybody is ignoring that's in there. Because, of course, no one really reads this stuff. They don't get right any of the time or the inclination or they're just corrupt and they won't go into the, into the document and really find this stuff. But, you know, that's something that, that the, the DNI should have.
- [25:00]
Vince
Yes.
- [25:01]
Paul Sperry
Highlighted. I mean, that's pretty explosive.
- [25:05]
Vince
Very.
- [25:06]
Paul Sperry
Because now, now, you know, the whole thing is being questioned. I mean, this ICA that Obama ordered, intelligence community assessment on Russia is looking more and more like a fraudulent document that they juiced and possibly falsified. You know, frame Trump is.
- [25:28]
Vince
Yes.
- [25:29]
Paul Sperry
This comp. You know, that he's too compromised a government as president, and you lay the foundation for endless investigations which they did cripple his agenda.
- [25:39]
Vince
So, Paul, there's been what Tulsi Gabbard released indicated that there was supposed to be a Presidential Daily Brief to be delivered to Obama in early December that would make the claim that no, Russia didn't have any meaningful impact on the election. In other words, President Trump won it fair and square. It had nothing to do with the Russians. That Presidential Daily Brief was blocked before it could get started. And a meeting was assembled at the White House where so much of this plot that you and I are talking about was schemed. I saw Mike Flynn say in the media just in the last few days that he believes that the reason the Presidential Daily Brief was stopped was because as the incoming National Security Adviser, he would have been able to see it, that the Presidential Daily Brief was stopped from happening in order to prevent The Trump team, from seeing that evidence, do you have any reporting or inclination to believe that that's what happened here?
- [26:33]
Paul Sperry
So that was that PDB was December 8th, as I recall. And then Obama convened the meeting in the situation room on December 9th to start manufacturing this ICA and they, they blocked it. So they, they removed it from circulation on the 8th and then they, they held the meeting on the 9th. Now that would have been during the transition.
- [27:02]
Vince
Yes.
- [27:02]
Paul Sperry
And yes, I think you have to share stuff like that with the transition team, the national security team, for sure.
- [27:10]
Vince
Yes.
- [27:10]
Paul Sperry
But they were trying, they were running it off against Flynn. They were, they were trying to, you know, sabotage him as National Security advisor. That's the first person they really needed to go after for sure because he, he has supervision over an entire intelligence apparatus, law enforcement, counterintelligence. He could have gone in there and seen, you know, what they were doing against Trump. And he was pretty aggressive. So, you know, they actually had a meeting, I think it was in January 5th. Obama was in that. Susan Rice and she actually wrote a memo to file to kind of cut cya.
- [27:52]
Vince
Right.
- [27:52]
Paul Sperry
What they did. And they, Biden was in there. They were talking about the Logan act, going after Flynn with the Logan act because he was talking to the ambassador of Russia. And then they leaked some of the White House leaked that transcript to David Ignatius at the Washington Post. We still don't know who actually leaked it. There's some prime suspects in the White House, but that's what they were doing. They were going after Flynn.
- [28:22]
Vince
Yes, they were. Let me finish on one point with you here, Paul Sperry, while we have you accountability, you've been telling us about the meetings that the Trump White House has been holding across the intelligence community to deal with all of this. How integrated is the Justice Department in all of these conversations?
- [28:40]
Paul Sperry
Well, Justice Department officials, now, this was at the senior staff level, like the principals, Cabinet principals weren't at that meeting on that Sunday. It was pretty urgent meeting. But, you know, Bondi was ag. Bondi was. Tulsi Gabardet wasn't actually there, as I understand from her deputy, but they had their senior staff organize this rollout, this first rollout. This is the first wave. They've got a lot more coming, as I understand. And DOJ was there. DOJ officials, people connected to the Weaponization Working Group were there. So, yeah, so this is important because especially with these whistleblowers. These whistleblowers do depositions and if they do affidavits, rather, and then, and then, you know, they do depositions with prosecutors and FBI investigators then turns into depositions. These are things that they can present before a grand jury if they're going to prosecute a broader conspiracy case.
- [29:46]
Vince
Yeah. Okay. Paul Sperry, thank you for all of your dogged reporting through the years. Appreciate you coming on today and I hope I get a chance to talk to you again soon, sir.
- [29:54]
Paul Sperry
Absolutely. My pleasure.
- [29:56]
Vince
Really nice to chat with you. There he is, Paul Sperry of Real Clear Investigations with honestly, I think one of the best overviews we've heard yet of everything that's transpiring here. More ahead on the Vince show.
- [30:07]
General Mike Flynn
The Vince show.
- [30:09]
Vince
Hey, do you think about aging? Do you think about it at all the effect it has on you and your body? I've noticed as I get older my energy goes down and I kind of feel all the aches and the pains. You know, as you get a little bit older, they really start to become more and more apparent. And what you want to do and what I've been trying to do is figure out ways to get my energy back. And I'm excited to share with you. C15 from Fatty 15 it's great. It's the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. Fatty 15 co founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the US Navy. And based on studies, we do know that when our cells don't have enough C15, they can actually age faster. Fatty 15 can help repair and protect age related damage to cells and help activate pathways in the body that repair mechanisms that support your overall wellness. Fatty 15 is science backed. Look it up. Seriously. It's award winning. It's vegan, is 100% pure C15 supplement and refills are shipped right to your door. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help support your long term health and wellness, especially as you age. You can get an additional 15% off their 90 day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com Vince use the code Vince at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the fda. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or Prevent any disease. Fatty15.com Vince thank you to Fatty15. I take it every day.
- [31:34]
General Mike Flynn
Love it.
- [31:35]
Vince
This the Monday after a massive, massive bout of declassification, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence releasing hundreds of pages of documents demonstrating a treasonous conspiracy, in her words, treasonous conspiracy by the Obama administration back in 2016 to salt the earth ahead of the arrival of President Trump to allege that it was the Russians who hand delivered the election to him, and that President Trump was a willing participant in that scheme. For more on what all of this tells us, I wanna bring in Mike Benz now. He's the Executive Director of the foundation for Freedom Online. Mike, good to have you with us, sir.
- [32:15]
Mike Benz
Hey, great. Desmond, great to talk to you.
- [32:17]
Vince
Okay. So, Tulsi Gabbard. You know, I don't usually hear a Director of National Intelligence refer to a treasonous conspiracy in the United States, but for her to say that, that seems like a big deal.
- [32:28]
Mike Benz
Yeah, no, I mean, it's certainly what I think everyone is feeling. And when you look at, you know, what was revealed in these documents, the CIA and FBI assessed that there was effectively no Russian interference of any material degree. And then it looked like there was a secret meeting with President Obama and everyone was retasked to find a way to include Russian interference. And that's what gave rise to the three year special prosecutor probe that ended up bankrupting or devastating a significant proportion of the White House and hamstringing the entire foreign policy apparatus of the Trump administration. I think that while treason is a big word, I would like to see it articulated as a way consistent with the crimes with whatever charges are going to be brought by the Justice Department.
- [33:30]
Vince
Yeah, no, that, that seems clear, as if you've committed a crime, you should be prosecuted for it. The fact that it's over 10 years old is why everybody's talking about a conspiracy, because that opens up the statute of limitations to look at the whole sweep of events that have happened over the last decade. Mike.
- [33:46]
Mike Benz
That's exactly right. You know, there are so many times where we have a conspiracy to cook intelligence in American history, whether that's the cooked intelligence that took us to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the cooked intelligence about Russian bounties on people's heads in Syria and beyond. But this was one of these cooked intelligence conspiracies that truly devastated the ability to administer US Foreign policy around Russia and Eurasia. Affairs that truly hamstrung the entirety of the Trump administration, and that cast a huge amount of doubt in the legitimacy of our election system. The same people who would later come back and effectively criminalize questioning the legitimacy of US Election infrastructure like mail in ballots and electronic voting machines. They were the original election deniers by effectively arguing that the Trump election wasn't legitimate. And at some point, this. This will continue as long as intelligence officials believe that there's no penalty for doing it. And this has to be the last straw. John Brennan and Jake Sullivan and, and, and, and Comey and this whole network that were involved in cooking this intelligence. If, if there is not a criminal penalty for, for that, then, then there's. There's going to be no reform. There needs to be an image that's seared into, into the intelligence world's minds that you can only push things so far because we give them power, and power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And when you think that you are untouchable. James Clapper openly lied to Congress about domestic bulk intelligence. And when a couple years later, within the statute of limitations, the Snowden leak showed that Clapper had lied to the American people's faces and he got away with perjury. Yes, that was, that was one of those incredible moments where it's where everyone thought, okay, well, if they can get away with that, they can get away with anything. And then they got away with Russiagate, and if they're allowed to get away with it, then there. We need an image that burns in people's minds that, that we can only push it so far or else we're going to end up like Person X, whoever that is, whether that's John Brennan or Barack Obama or whoever. There has to be justice.
- [36:14]
Vince
So what you're describing is the reason why so many people are pessimistic about the chances of any justice being had here, because we've been through it a million times and we've known so much and no one's held accountable. I wanted to find out from you, Mike, if you think that the cast that's working for President Trump now makes a difference, because Tulsi Gabbard is not holding any punches here. You do have Cash Patel and Dan Bongino at the top of the FBI. They've both written books on this subject. They're intimately familiar with, with the scandal that's involved here. Do you think it makes a difference that the President has a different and I think, better team with him this time?
- [36:50]
Mike Benz
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, Director Gabbard herself at ODNI said, you know, when she was going through these, she was shocked that Durham missed it, that, that Durham didn't publish any of these. I think she felt combination of confused and shocked that she was the, the one who discovered these documents, given that there was a special probe on it led by Durham, and none of these documents came out then while Trump was president the first time and actually under the gun of all this. But the fact is, when it comes to the criminal indictment side of this, you have the issue of if you bring an indictment and then a jury finds them innocent, you could see there being, you know, there being blowback about that because you've got, you got a fundamental problem of a D.C. jury in this case, which is that, you know, I think the defense that Obama and Brennan would make is that they believed at the time the credibility of the Steele dossier and that on the basis of the Steele dossier, they asked for a second draft of the rewrite of the intelligence community assessment to account for it. And that they would. Given that, I think that Democrats have a much, I won't say more favorable, but a much more acceptable or tolerant view of the legitimacy of the Steele dossier, that you could potentially have a D.C. jury where you have 95% Democrats ultimately acquit folks at the end of that process. And this was the argument made by Robert her, by the way, Robert her, when folks remember, this was the case of the Justice Department investigation of Biden having classified documents at his house at the same time that the Justice Department had brought criminal charges against Donald Trump for having classified documents at Mar A Lago. And so after the Justice Department indicted Donald Trump, it came out that Joe Biden had classified documents in his garage and at the Penn Biden center and the like. And so everyone was saying, well, there's a two tiered justice system. You've arrested one president for something that the current president is guilty of. So why isn't the Justice Department arrest the current president? And Robert heard what he, what he found in the published, which was incredible, is he said, actually, yes, it's true, Biden did knowingly mishandled classified documents, but we're not going to bring charges because we believe a D.C. jury would look at this senile old man who presents himself in a gentle way and simply not find him criminally liable. So basically you had the Justice Department say he's guilty of the same crime, but we're not going to bring the criminal case. And that to me, can no longer be the case. Of course, you can't determine whether or not to run someone through the gauntlet of the criminal justice system where they're paying millions of dollars of lawyers fees and they are run through the press because the Justice Department has publicly said they have enough evidence to pursue a criminal indictment and simply not indict someone because you think a D.C. jury is going to, you know, is going to be rigged in their favor.
- [40:17]
Vince
But you know, in the Justice Department that this has to be a practical consideration as they figure out a way to go Forward. This is why we've heard a lot in the last week, Mike, that if they stretch this out into what they keep referring to as a grand conspiracy, they may be able to empanel this grand jury in Florida, not in D.C. because in Florida is where Jack Smith raided Mar A Lago. And the grand theory here is that was in furtherance of the conspiracy. You think that could work?
- [40:45]
Mike Benz
Well, I defer. I defer to them. I certainly think that Florida would be a more equitable jurisdiction. You're talking about the. You know, for all the jury shopping that's been done by this same network in all of the malfeasance that they've effectuated from the January 6th prosecutions to the. To the Russiagate terror. I think that if they were to get a taste of their own medicine that way, in terms of having, you know, having a bit of venue shopping in that way, as long as it's legally practicable, I think that that would be something that it would be karmic.
- [41:27]
Vince
Justice to pursue, and it would give us a shot here at justice. Okay. Mike Benz. I know you're busy. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you, as always.
- [41:34]
Mike Benz
Thanks.
- [41:35]
Vince
Also, I should tell you about blackout coffee, which fills my cup and energizes me each and every day. Blackout coffee is awesome. Look, John, the owner at Blackout Coffee, I got to meet him. Speaking of Dan Mangino, when we did the big handoff down in Florida. Oh, and I'm heading back to Florida. I've got news to share with you on that. I'll get to that. We'll get to that. But. But I met John while I was down there, and ever since then, I've been in touch. He's a great guy, and he's. He's actually built blackout coffee from the ground up. He refuses to compromise on quality or values. This blackout coffee is America first coffee. It's roasted fresh right here in the United States. There's no WOKE nonsense, just bold, strong coffee for people who actually get stuff done. And you see, blackout coffee has been the official coffee of all of us here at Silverlock. This is a brand that not only stands for the right values, but energizes the people who like to talk about them. And they make a great cup of coffee. I drink my coffee black, so blackout coffee is for me because it's delicious. Here's the deal. John is hooking you up as well. Head over to blackout coffee.com, vince. Use the code, Vince. That's V I N C E. And you're going to get 20% off your first order. Whether you like whole bean ground or even instant coffee that doesn't suck, blackout coffee has you covered. Yes, they do. They really do. Blackout Coffee.com Vince. Use the code Vince and get 20% off your first order. That's Blackout Coffee dot com.
- [42:58]
Mike Benz
Vince.
- [42:59]
Vince
Vince. Thank you to Blackout for supporting the program. Appreciate you guys as always.