Speaker 1: This is the buck Sexton Show where the mission where
Speaker 1: mission is to decode what really matters with passionable intelligence,
Speaker 1: magnor mistake America, You're a great American. Again the buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show begins. Remember he's a great guy. No, welcome
Speaker 1: to the buck Sexton Show. This is Ben wein Garten
Speaker 1: in for Buck Sexton here on this Monday Martin Muth
Speaker 1: and Luther King Junior Day. Hope you all had a
Speaker 1: great weekend, maybe enjoyed some football, some time with the family.
Speaker 1: Nice relaxation, a break from the craziness in the world
Speaker 1: and probably in your own personal lives as well. As
Speaker 1: we head into this twenty twenty election cycle, of which
Speaker 1: the impeachment is inextricably interlinked. I want to start today.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about a few different things. I want to
Speaker 1: pick up on some threads that we talked about on
Speaker 1: Thursday and Friday. In particular, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the Afghanistan Papers, maybe the most overlooked critical story that
Speaker 1: has emerged about not only American national security and foreign policy,
Speaker 1: but also what kind of government we have and whether
Speaker 1: we're really represented ultimately when they're trillions of dollars in
Speaker 1: treasure and all this blood sacrificed and what have we
Speaker 1: gotten for it? And I talked about the link between
Speaker 1: General Michael Flynn and those Afghani standpapers last week. We'll
Speaker 1: pick up on that thread today as well with Julie
Speaker 1: Kelly just a little bit later in the hour. We're
Speaker 1: also gonna again look at China, but actually through the
Speaker 1: lens of Taiwan, a country we don't talk about a lot,
Speaker 1: but which is actually the front line in the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party's march first for regional hegemony and then for
Speaker 1: global dominance. And why should we as Americans care about that?
Speaker 1: And what should the US relationship with Taiwana look like.
Speaker 1: And there were recently presidential and broader elections there as well,
Speaker 1: which have not gotten a lot of press in the US,
Speaker 1: but are actually quite significant and a good news out
Speaker 1: of that part of the world. So we'll talk with
Speaker 1: Steve Yates about that a little bit later in the show,
Speaker 1: and then also talk with Margot Cleveland of The Federalist,
Speaker 1: a senior contributor there, colleague of mine, who is doing
Speaker 1: some exceptional work parsing going through page by page of
Speaker 1: the four hundred and seventy eight pages or whatever it
Speaker 1: is of the IG report on FISA abuse and also
Speaker 1: looking at potential corruption in the FISA court itself, huge
Speaker 1: vital matters that are not being addressed. People are not
Speaker 1: going in and doing the journalistic homework that they ought
Speaker 1: to do. And Margo has a very extensive legal background
Speaker 1: looks at this or the eyes of our eyes the
Speaker 1: way that we look at these issues and doing some
Speaker 1: vital work on this. We'll talk about that in our three,
Speaker 1: but I want to start with this being Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Junior Day. A little bit about the politics of this,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that national holidays should be politicized.
Speaker 1: I think that politics should be taken out of all
Speaker 1: of these major cultural benchmarks, these celebrations that we have.
Speaker 1: But the Left has injected politics into everything. So if
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the political aspect of a
Speaker 1: day like Martin Luther King Day, I would suggest that
Speaker 1: this should be an anti identity politics holiday, because that
Speaker 1: is actually what Martin Luther King Jr. Espoused, certainly in
Speaker 1: the most famous speech he ever delivered. He talked about colorblindness,
Speaker 1: content of character mattering more than color of skin, skin pigmentation.
Speaker 1: You and I have no control over that. What we
Speaker 1: do have control over is what we contribute society, to
Speaker 1: our families, to our communities, what we bring to the
Speaker 1: table based upon our individual merit, and that truly is
Speaker 1: the basis by which we should be judged, not things
Speaker 1: that are completely out of our control, arbitrary by nature.
Speaker 1: Thomas soul the great economist who grew up at Harlem Back,
Speaker 1: I believe in the thirties or forties, came up through
Speaker 1: the ranks of basically militant black nationalism leftism, had an
Speaker 1: epiphany and switched and became one of this nation's leading
Speaker 1: free market economists, written some of the finest books there
Speaker 1: are on these subjects. And he wrote something back in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen on the fiftieth anniversary of Kings, I have
Speaker 1: a dream speech. Then I think it is worth reading
Speaker 1: at some length, because it puts in context how distorted Americans,
Speaker 1: particularly on the left, have got in on issues of race,
Speaker 1: how far away they have traveled from Martin Luther King's
Speaker 1: ideal where color blindness used to be the highest ideal,
Speaker 1: the virtue that we sought, the principle that we sought.
Speaker 1: And now what is the most virtuous is the opposite.
Speaker 1: It is, let's judge everything explicitly on the basis of
Speaker 1: what the races of one person versus another person. That's
Speaker 1: really identity politics and multiculturalism. What, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, is it really about. Yes, they've come up
Speaker 1: with this academic veneer to try to rationalize the views
Speaker 1: that have pervaded our law schools and all of our
Speaker 1: schools and now all of our cultural institutions since the
Speaker 1: Civil rights era. It's actually about dividing us. It's about
Speaker 1: dividing us and then conquering us, rubbing the wounds, old wounds,
Speaker 1: historical wounds for political gain, playing one group and I
Speaker 1: hate the term group because we're individuals and we should
Speaker 1: be judged individually. Pitting groups against each other and that
Speaker 1: is totally antithetical to what King argued in that speech.
Speaker 1: I want to read a little what soul Is said
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, because it's just as relevant today,
Speaker 1: and it's going to remain just as relevant until in
Speaker 1: athless we thwart the identity politics obsessed multiculturalist focus march
Speaker 1: and get back to judging people by who they are
Speaker 1: caring most about. The smallest minority, the minority of one
Speaker 1: the individual under assault by this group ideology of identity politics,
Speaker 1: which of course is just a ruse a guys to
Speaker 1: cover their leftism. It's using the veneer of being virtuous
Speaker 1: because you're supporting the oppressed, as a means of justifying
Speaker 1: tyrannical collectivism, where the individual is destroyed, the smallest minority
Speaker 1: is destroyed. Here's a widow of what Soul wrote, Judging
Speaker 1: individuals by their individual character is that the opposite poll
Speaker 1: from judging how groups are statistically represented among employees, college students,
Speaker 1: or political figures. Yet many, if not most, of those
Speaker 1: who celebrate the I have a Dream speech today promote
Speaker 1: the directly opposite approach of group preferences, especially those based
Speaker 1: on skin color. He goes on, what was historic about
Speaker 1: King's speech was not only what was said, but how
Speaker 1: powerfully its message resonated among Americans of that time across
Speaker 1: the spectrum of race, ideology, and politics. A higher percentage
Speaker 1: of Republicans than Democrats voted in Congress for both the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four and the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. To say that was
Speaker 1: a hopeful time would be an understatement. To say that
Speaker 1: many of those hopes have since been disappointed. Would also
Speaker 1: be an understatement. There's been much documented racial progress since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, but there's also been much retroaggression, of
Speaker 1: which the disintegration of the black family has been central,
Speaker 1: especially among those at the bottom of the social pyramid.
Speaker 1: Many people, especially politicians and activists, want to take credit
Speaker 1: for the economic and other advancement of blacks, even though
Speaker 1: a larger proportion of Blacks rose out of poverty in
Speaker 1: the twenty years before nineteen sixty than the twenty years afterwards.
Speaker 1: We should add to that these trends have only gotten worse,
Speaker 1: and that the great society itself, when measure in terms
Speaker 1: of the racial progress, has really been a flop. But
Speaker 1: no one wants to take responsibility for the policies and
Speaker 1: ideologies that led to the breakup of the black family,
Speaker 1: which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of discrimination.
Speaker 1: And we cannot downplay enough by the way, the disintegration
Speaker 1: of the black family is a trend that has accelerated
Speaker 1: across Americans of all races, and the disintegration of family
Speaker 1: ultimately means the disintegration of communities, society, and a nation. Altogether,
Speaker 1: because absent that family structure, everything else collapses. He goes on,
Speaker 1: many hopes were disappointed because those were unrealistic hopes to
Speaker 1: begin with. Economic and other disparities between groups have been
Speaker 1: common for centuries and countries around the world, and many
Speaker 1: of those disparities have been and still are larger than
Speaker 1: the disparities between blacks and whites in America. Even when
Speaker 1: those who lagged behind have advanced, they have not always
Speaker 1: caught up, even after centuries, because others were advancing at
Speaker 1: the same time. But when blacks did not catch up
Speaker 1: with whites in America within a matter of decades, that
Speaker 1: was treated as strange or even a sinister sign of
Speaker 1: crafty and covert racism. Civil rights were necessary, but far
Speaker 1: from sufficient. Education and job skills are crucial, and the
Speaker 1: government cannot give you these things. All it can do
Speaker 1: is make them available. Race hustlers who blame all lags
Speaker 1: on the racism of others are among the obstacles to
Speaker 1: taking the fullest advantage of education and other opportunities. What
Speaker 1: does that say about the content of their character? Soul
Speaker 1: goes on a little bit to talk about the passage
Speaker 1: of the Civil Rights Act and how high hopes were
Speaker 1: following that act, He says, the bitter anti climax that
Speaker 1: did follow provoke no rethinking. Instead, it provoked all sorts
Speaker 1: of new demands. Judging everybody by the same standards came
Speaker 1: to be regarded in some quarters as racist because it
Speaker 1: precluded preferences and quotas. That is, we should judge everyone
Speaker 1: by different standards, and that's supposed to be anti racist.
Speaker 1: It's absurd on its face. Soul goes on. There are
Speaker 1: people today to talk justice when they really mean payback,
Speaker 1: including payback against people who were not even born when
Speaker 1: historic injustices were committed. By the way, this applies to
Speaker 1: a criminal justice system, for example, in New York, where
Speaker 1: I mentioned, we now have this no bail reform where
Speaker 1: criminals get protected under the guise of justice, but innocent
Speaker 1: victims walking the streets have to deal with these repeat
Speaker 1: offenders going out and committing all sorts of crimes through
Speaker 1: no fault of their own, and the criminal is treated
Speaker 1: as the aggrieved. So it pervades a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It's not just the racial relations in this country, Soul concludes.
Speaker 1: And this was talking back in twenty thirteen. Remember, so
Speaker 1: this was the Trayvon whole hullo below Trayvon Martin case transpiring.
Speaker 1: The nation has just been through a sensationalized murder trial
Speaker 1: and fard on which many people took fear positions before
Speaker 1: a speck of evidence was introduced based on nothing more
Speaker 1: than judging those involved by the color of their skin.
Speaker 1: President Obama did that himself, by the way, in the
Speaker 1: case of the Trayvon Martin Travails tragedy. We have a
Speaker 1: long way to go to catch up to what Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King said fifty years ago, and we are moving
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. And I think the record absolutely
Speaker 1: proves what Thomas soul was saying. Take for example, something
Speaker 1: we've talked about in the show before, the sixteen nineteen project.
Speaker 1: It is a project by the New York Times to
Speaker 1: reframe history as if American history really begins when slavery
Speaker 1: was introduced to the shores of at the time Virginia,
Speaker 1: and slavery actually had existed here decades, if not a
Speaker 1: century or more prior to that point. But that is
Speaker 1: the point at which The New York Times traces our history.
Speaker 1: So seventeen seventy six isn't the start of America sixteen
Speaker 1: nineteen is our original sin of slavery is that's where
Speaker 1: America and history should start. So it suggests from the
Speaker 1: very beginning that we were built on tyranny, not liberty,
Speaker 1: and that every evil aspect of America derives from its
Speaker 1: this original evil seed of slavery being introduced here, rather
Speaker 1: than the fact that America was an experiment in liberty
Speaker 1: where slavery was the great exception to it, where the
Speaker 1: founding fathers themselves said it was basically intolerable, completely incompatible
Speaker 1: with what our founding principles were, completely incompatible with the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence with a constitution not referenced in the
Speaker 1: Constitution by name, because they knew that it was a
Speaker 1: blight on our nation, and most of the founders, in
Speaker 1: particular the abolitionist founders all said basically they found this
Speaker 1: to be an abhorrent system, one that had to be
Speaker 1: tolerated or there would not be a union. And then
Speaker 1: they had language specifically in the Constitution to phase out
Speaker 1: the slave of trade within twenty five years. The document itself,
Speaker 1: of course, could not support slavery on its own merits
Speaker 1: on the words in it, But the Times instead wants
Speaker 1: to reframe our history and introduce a curriculum in to
Speaker 1: school is consistent with the sixteen nineteen Project, which explicitly
Speaker 1: says that America was basically a country founded on and
Speaker 1: built in tyranny, that capitalism and all of our other
Speaker 1: institutions spawn from it, that ultimately it is a deplorable experiment.
Speaker 1: And if it's a deplorable, evil experiment, then obviously the
Speaker 1: answer is you have to turn it on its head.
Speaker 1: You have to shred the Constitution, you have to repudiate
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence. These documents aren't viewed as the
Speaker 1: answers to discrimination and to a society that is flourishing
Speaker 1: and tolerant and truly pluralistic and judges people on their merits,
Speaker 1: like King asked for, and like Douglas identified centuries before,
Speaker 1: over a century before, they'd have us believe. It's the
Speaker 1: exact opposite, Totally inconsistent. I would argue the sixteen nineteen
Speaker 1: project with what King called for. Robert Woodson wrote a
Speaker 1: great editorial on this in the Wall Street Journal recently,
Speaker 1: and he talked about sixteen nineteen. He said that today
Speaker 1: the progressive left wants to ignore the achievements and pretend
Speaker 1: that Blacks are perpetual victims of white racism sixteen nineteen
Speaker 1: Project essay series. It's the latest salvo in this attack
Speaker 1: on America's founding, claiming anti black racism runs in the
Speaker 1: very dna of this country. This statement is an abomination
Speaker 1: of everything doctor King stood for. When come right back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about doctor King sixteen
Speaker 1: nineteen project and context of it and the importance of
Speaker 1: the content of character over the collar of his game.
Speaker 1: Right back, this Ben Wangarton in for Buck sex And
Speaker 1: on the Buck Sex And Show. Back in just a second.
Speaker 1: You're in the Freedom Hut. This is the Buck Sexton
Speaker 1: Show podcast. Welcome back to the Buck Sex And Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben Wangarten in for Buck Sexton. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about the ideals and principle as that Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King stood for and the left standing in contradiction to
Speaker 1: those principles today sadly, and I was talking about this
Speaker 1: Robert Woodson Wall Street Journal editorial and he quotes from
Speaker 1: King and juxtaposes it with a sixteen nineteen project says,
Speaker 1: in sharp contrast to the claims of sixteen nineteen which
Speaker 1: disparages the American Revolution and Declaration of independence and insists
Speaker 1: America's hopelessly racist king believed deeply in the need to
Speaker 1: remain true to the founder's vision, quoting him the Patriot
Speaker 1: Dream that sees beyond the years. To him that that
Speaker 1: was the only evidue toward fulfilling America's promise, As he
Speaker 1: wrote in his nineteen sixty three Letter from a Birmingham jail,
Speaker 1: one day the South will know that when these disinherited
Speaker 1: children of God sat down on lunch counters, they were
Speaker 1: in reality standing up for what was best in the
Speaker 1: American dream and for the most sacred values in our
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those
Speaker 1: great woes of democracy which were dug deep by the
Speaker 1: founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence. Okay, well, our leftists today who would
Speaker 1: claim to carry the banner of king say that the
Speaker 1: Constitution and the Declaration are inherently evil documents based upon
Speaker 1: the people that drafted them and what they derived from
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian heritage. They'd say, that's code word for white
Speaker 1: nationalism and ethnocentric Europeanism and these other assinine concepts that
Speaker 1: they've come up with to try to create an academic
Speaker 1: veneer that legitimizes they're just anti Western ideology. At its core,
Speaker 1: our sacred American values in the American dream, our understanding
Speaker 1: of the American dream as conservative Americans, as traditional Americans,
Speaker 1: is the American nightmare. In the left's reading of things,
Speaker 1: King added, we will reach the goal of freedom in
Speaker 1: Birmingham and all over the nation because the goal of
Speaker 1: America's freedom, abuse and scorn, though we may be, our
Speaker 1: destiny is tied up with America's destiny. And then whitson
Speaker 1: goes on. Doctor King, who saw full participation in America,
Speaker 1: would never have indulged today's grievance based on any politics
Speaker 1: whose social justice warriors use race as a battering ram
Speaker 1: against the country. In fact, in a letter from Birming M. Jail,
Speaker 1: King is explicitly warned against the type of group think
Speaker 1: that characterizes identity politics. Individuals may see the moral light
Speaker 1: and voluntarily give up their unjust posture, said King, But
Speaker 1: as Ronald niber has reminded us, groups tend to be
Speaker 1: more immoral than individuals. I would say to the left,
Speaker 1: how can you look at what King said and what
Speaker 1: he wrote, and then support an ideology that is inherently
Speaker 1: about color of skin, maybe to the total exclusion of
Speaker 1: content of character, certainly to some extent to the exclusion
Speaker 1: of content of character. But merit and the individual worth
Speaker 1: and dignity of a person should be all the matters
Speaker 1: at the end of the day in America. And we
Speaker 1: might not always achieve that ideal, but that should be
Speaker 1: the ideal, not the opposite, not the antithesis. We're gonna
Speaker 1: switch gears here and just after the break we're gonna
Speaker 1: have Julie Kelly on to talk about something I talked
Speaker 1: about last week, which does deal incidentally without our individual
Speaker 1: liberties and civil rights in context of General Michael Flynn certainly,
Speaker 1: and also in context of the government versus the people
Speaker 1: in the Afghanistan papers. This Ben Weegarden in for Buck
Speaker 1: Sex and on the Buck Sexton Show. Back just after this.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the bus Sex Show podcasts. Remember
Speaker 1: to subscribe on Apple podcast, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton, and as
Speaker 1: you recall, on Friday, we did a very deep dive
Speaker 1: into the plight of General Michael T. Flynn and in
Speaker 1: particular went into great depth on what I think is
Speaker 1: a document that in and of itself explains why Flynn
Speaker 1: had to be targeted as persona non grata the number
Speaker 1: one priority for the deep staters in the Trump administration
Speaker 1: based on this one interview alone, and that interview was
Speaker 1: a product of the Afghanistan Papers, one that was flagged
Speaker 1: for me by a great writer, one of the best
Speaker 1: trolls certain way on the conservative side, but also someone
Speaker 1: who writes just fantastic editorials and does some great journalistic work.
Speaker 1: And that's Julie Kelly, a senior contributor to American Greatness,
Speaker 1: and she joins us now, Julie, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the program. Thanks Ben, thanks for having me on. Well,
Speaker 1: it's my pleasure. And I want to start actually with
Speaker 1: a news story that I'm sure you saw, you know,
Speaker 1: one of these stories rolled out once or twice a week,
Speaker 1: This one about just these bombshew revelations about President Trump
Speaker 1: defying the generals and other senior officials in the administration,
Speaker 1: in particular leading national security and foreign policy officials. I
Speaker 1: wonder if you put that well, first of all, isn't
Speaker 1: that what he was elected to do? Right? He absolutely was,
Speaker 1: and you know he was right to question. I mean,
Speaker 1: we all support the military. We know what a hard
Speaker 1: job they've all had to past two decades, from Afghanistan
Speaker 1: through Iraq and other kind of like. But look, we
Speaker 1: now know, thanks to the expose that's been published in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, what did debacle the Afghanistan war has
Speaker 1: been from the beginning. And Trump promised his base and
Speaker 1: his voters that he would look to end these perpetual wars.
Speaker 1: And I think that that was the crux of his
Speaker 1: questioning of these military officials in twenty seventeen. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: that questioning, I think perfectly parallels what General Flynn asserted
Speaker 1: in his interview with the Aspects Special Inspector General for
Speaker 1: the Afghanistan reconstruction efforts, because basically what he was calling
Speaker 1: out is, look, we've spent now seven trillion dollars in
Speaker 1: treasure and all manner of blood, and you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, what did we get for it?
Speaker 1: It's or what is the return on the investment of
Speaker 1: our nation's resources. I wonder if you would summarize for
Speaker 1: us what you've found in parsing the Afghanistan papers thus far. Well,
Speaker 1: just so everyone can understand where these keepers came from.
Speaker 1: So this is, as you said, the Special Inspector General
Speaker 1: who was tasked in two thousand and eight really to
Speaker 1: look at all the reconstruction efforts, what was what's been
Speaker 1: going on in Afghanistan since really two thousand and two
Speaker 1: after the invasion. So this Special Inspector General has conducted
Speaker 1: hundreds of interviews not just with US officials but LA
Speaker 1: forces and Afghan government officials as well, looking into what
Speaker 1: worked and what didn't work. And unfortunately we found out
Speaker 1: that most of what we've been doing there has not worked.
Speaker 1: So these interviews give really some insight into what has
Speaker 1: been happening for almost two decades. And one of those
Speaker 1: interviews was Mike Flynn, who has been an intelligence officer
Speaker 1: for decades and served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and
Speaker 1: so he also worked in the Obama administration for James Clapper.
Speaker 1: So his interview was very interesting and we can get
Speaker 1: into some of the details, but it makes more sense
Speaker 1: of why the Obama White House targeted him in twenty fourteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing in some ways to my mind that he
Speaker 1: rose to be the head of DA the Defense Intelligence Agency,
Speaker 1: on the Obama administration. Given his outspoken views. The only
Speaker 1: thing to which I can attribute it is really that
Speaker 1: he was so competent that that competence overcame the political
Speaker 1: correctness that would normally pervade a decision like elevating him
Speaker 1: to that role. Do you see it that way as well?
Speaker 1: I think that that's true, and his experience really is unmatched.
Speaker 1: And so, but he was founding the alarm early on
Speaker 1: and how the intelligence was being manipulated and politicized coming
Speaker 1: out of Afghanistan, and how it was causing people to
Speaker 1: make really bad decisions. And he alerted not just the
Speaker 1: Obama White House, but also CIA officials. I believe it
Speaker 1: was probably John Brennan, because I mean they weren't exactly equals,
Speaker 1: but pretty close, and questioning why the intelligence was being
Speaker 1: manipulated and politicized, and as it got higher up the chain,
Speaker 1: meaning to the president, he was not getting the truth.
Speaker 1: Therefore he was not telling the American people the truth either,
Speaker 1: And thus far in reviewing those Afghanistan papers, what's been
Speaker 1: the most remarkable thing that you've been that you found?
Speaker 1: You know? But I have to say, these are a
Speaker 1: lot of the same people, and I'm going to have
Speaker 1: a piece on this later in the week as well.
Speaker 1: These are the very same people who have been criticizing
Speaker 1: Donald Trump since he first announced he was running for president.
Speaker 1: And I hate to make everything about Trump, but he
Speaker 1: is such a good clarifying figure. So a lot of
Speaker 1: these same former diplomats and national security officials, state Department
Speaker 1: officials who've been high critical of Donald Trump and his
Speaker 1: kind of ad hoc approach to foreign policy and diplomacy.
Speaker 1: These are the same people who have been misleading US,
Speaker 1: who now admit they really didn't know what was happening
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. They really didn't know how to fix the
Speaker 1: problems that they had helped perpetuate, and now we're still
Speaker 1: in this disastrous war. I mean, we had two US
Speaker 1: soldiers killed earlier this month. We had twenty three kills
Speaker 1: in the country last year, not that anyone in Washington
Speaker 1: is paying attention. And so you really see this permanent
Speaker 1: ruling class in Washington at every level just really doesn't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. Yeah, one of the things that
Speaker 1: struck me in reviewing in great detail the General Flynn interview,
Speaker 1: was he basically showed that there is rampant policization, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned of intelligence, there's out and out corruption in
Speaker 1: terms of the billions of dollars and ultimately trillions of
Speaker 1: dollars that were poured into Afghanistan and where it all went.
Speaker 1: And then there's the other aspect which is uncomfortable to discuss,
Speaker 1: which is the fact that the bureaucracies themselves, like any bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: has vested interest in growing bigger, in claiming issues where
Speaker 1: they may not be there necessarily, or in basically defining
Speaker 1: a mandate which demands then greater and greater funds, because
Speaker 1: every government agency and every bureaucracy period is subject to
Speaker 1: those kind of pressures, and bureaucracies don't shrink themselves, they
Speaker 1: only expand. What did you make of his interview generally,
Speaker 1: I mean, he was extremely candid in what he told
Speaker 1: the interviewers, and he addressed all the topics you just said,
Speaker 1: the corruption, the opiate industry that we've also poured billions
Speaker 1: into trying to help Afghanistan's production of olbiit and destroy
Speaker 1: their poppy fields. That's been a complete disaster. And so
Speaker 1: he really touched on the intelligence, the ongoing corruption, the
Speaker 1: failure to address all of the other rampant problems there,
Speaker 1: and the notion that he alerted top officials about this,
Speaker 1: and so, just to give people the timeline, so this
Speaker 1: would have been between twenty twelve and twenty fourteen when
Speaker 1: he was sounding the alarm. And he basically says in
Speaker 1: the interview in one passage, if we're if everything seems
Speaker 1: to be going so great, why does it feel like
Speaker 1: we're losing? And he was not just telling, and he
Speaker 1: also was testifying. I couldn't get a copy of it.
Speaker 1: I believe it was behind closed doors to the Homeland
Speaker 1: Security Committee in twenty fifteen about this issue too, and
Speaker 1: so he you know, so the Obama people were aware
Speaker 1: Mike Flynn was making this public to lawmakers on Capitol
Speaker 1: Hill and also to the press. So they viewed him
Speaker 1: as a problem. And as I wrote in my first piece,
Speaker 1: he really was essentially a whistleblower, and at a very
Speaker 1: precarious time. So this would have been, you know, around
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, the surge was over,
Speaker 1: they were bringing troops home, the situation was deteriorating. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and Barack Obama were trying to make this sound
Speaker 1: like a success, but it was not, and for many reasons.
Speaker 1: And so now we know it's, you know, in worse
Speaker 1: condition than when Obama and Biden left it, and another
Speaker 1: mess for Donald Trump to try to clean up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it bears emphasizing the point that you made about General
Speaker 1: Flynn being a true, true whistleblower, and you wrote a
Speaker 1: column about this, which is what drew my attention to
Speaker 1: Flynn's interview. I wasn't even aware that it was in
Speaker 1: those archives in the first place. He was a whistleblower,
Speaker 1: and he paid the real price for it, first in
Speaker 1: the Obama administration and then subsequently for a short lived
Speaker 1: time in the Trump administration. So he should be the
Speaker 1: one that's really held up as the blower, not the
Speaker 1: so called whistleblower that's at the core of a you know,
Speaker 1: a sham of an impeachment process who will probably never testify.
Speaker 1: It seems no, no, he won't. He's been protected and
Speaker 1: heralded as a hero and a martyr, and so we
Speaker 1: never have to hear from him. Meanwhile, Mike Flynn's life
Speaker 1: is destroyed. Obama's FBI under Jim Callmey, as we know
Speaker 1: know opened up an investigation into Mike Flynn. The targeting
Speaker 1: of Mike Flynn actually preceded any of that. It really
Speaker 1: started in twenty fourteen. So now you know, we see
Speaker 1: the unequal fates of two whistleblowers. Well, why aren't the
Speaker 1: Afghanistan papers in your view, given that it's living history,
Speaker 1: it remains relevant and there has never been a lessons learned,
Speaker 1: it seems, either in the executive branch or the legislative
Speaker 1: branch on this issue. Why aren't they getting more attention? Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's a few reasons. One, the Washington Poet
Speaker 1: published this series in the beginning of December, so it
Speaker 1: was buried amid the impeachment drama and also the Michael
Speaker 1: Horrowitz report advisor abuse. So I think that that was
Speaker 1: part of it. And obviously, you know, official Washington does
Speaker 1: not want to bring attention to the documents and interviews
Speaker 1: contained in that exposed a so they are willfully ignoring it.
Speaker 1: I think that that's part of this distraction. Now with
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump allegedly said to military officials in twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen about the war, and these were excerpts from a
Speaker 1: book that were published in The Washington Post, the same
Speaker 1: paper that's published the Afghanistan Papers. So this almost seems
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a cover up for what
Speaker 1: you know, these officials are now being exposed as having done.
Speaker 1: There's not one person to blame as far as the
Speaker 1: Afghanistan War. I mean, this runs over three administrations and
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of officials, so there's not one person
Speaker 1: to really target here. Although I do have a piece
Speaker 1: up tomorrow about Joe Biden. We can talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that. He's now trying to rewrite history. Big
Speaker 1: surprise about his role in Afghanistan from the very beginning
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, you know, up to the present date.
Speaker 1: And so it's unfortunate, and that's why we are trying
Speaker 1: to cover the papers a little bit more to bring
Speaker 1: more attention, because it really has been buried since you've
Speaker 1: given us that little tease about Joe Biden. We'll pick
Speaker 1: it up on the other side of a short break.
Speaker 1: This has Ben Weegarden in for Buck Sex and on
Speaker 1: The Buck Sexton Show more with Julia Kelly. Just after this,
Speaker 1: you're in the Freedom Hunt. This is the Buck Sexton
Speaker 1: Show podcast. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This
Speaker 1: is Ben Weegarden in for Buck Sexton, and we've been
Speaker 1: talking with Julie Kelly, a senior contributor to American Greatness
Speaker 1: about the Afghanistan papers. I think Julia just made an
Speaker 1: excellent point that bears repeating, which is that there is
Speaker 1: no one person to whom we should point a finger
Speaker 1: at with respect to the morass. And frankly, the failure
Speaker 1: called a success repeatedly for almost two decades of Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: The fact that it has transcended administrations, secretaries of defense,
Speaker 1: all manner of generals, folks at every level of government,
Speaker 1: and in the military as well, and that we've ended
Speaker 1: up in this situation. I think if anything speaks to
Speaker 1: a much more pervasive problem, it would be even better.
Speaker 1: It would be a much better situation if you could
Speaker 1: actually point fingers and there would be lessons learned that
Speaker 1: only implicated a few people, and we could make corrective
Speaker 1: action going forward. But the fact is that it transcends
Speaker 1: party year generation. That speaks to a serious failure that
Speaker 1: we have currently in our government and in our ability
Speaker 1: to execute wars to the extent we should be executing
Speaker 1: the wars that we're entering in the first place. But
Speaker 1: I want to bring back Julie specifically to talk about
Speaker 1: something that is coming in a fourth coming calm, I believe.
Speaker 1: And that is how Joe Biden is implicated in all
Speaker 1: things Afghanistan. So Julie, take it away. So Ben, You'd
Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find a politician in Washington who
Speaker 1: has his fingerprints more on the Afghanistan War than Joe Biden. Right. So,
Speaker 1: he has been a Senator since the nineteen seventies. He
Speaker 1: was chairman and then ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Speaker 1: He voted to approve the authorization for the war in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. In two thousand and two, he
Speaker 1: helped co author legislation that authorized this rebuilding effort that
Speaker 1: now has cost over one hundred and thirty billion dollars
Speaker 1: more than the Marshall Plan, if you can believe in
Speaker 1: current dollars. And interestingly, in two thousand and seven, when
Speaker 1: he was running against Barack Obama, Joe Biden wanted a
Speaker 1: new surge of troops, a new influx of troops. He
Speaker 1: called it a surge into Afghanistan, redirecting troops from Iraq
Speaker 1: into Afghanistan. Now he's on a campaign trail claiming that
Speaker 1: he opposed the surge, which there's some details about that
Speaker 1: that he's kind of right but mostly wrong, because he
Speaker 1: did he did support a search, just not to the
Speaker 1: degree that the generals wanted and that Obama eventually settled on.
Speaker 1: So again we're getting half truths from Joe Biden. And
Speaker 1: I detailed this in a column tomorrow from Joe Biden
Speaker 1: might qualify as successful. And when you consider his whole
Speaker 1: record and foreign policy and national security, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's almost safe to say that his only success
Speaker 1: when it come with any implications for foreign policy, is
Speaker 1: enriching his family members. Is that accurate? I think that
Speaker 1: that's probably true, and I think that that was his interest.
Speaker 1: And you know, it would be interesting for somebody to
Speaker 1: go back in detail how anyone profited off of his
Speaker 1: continued support of reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, because he was
Speaker 1: an early champion of this, and so I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there's I'm sure there's some Biden family members who have
Speaker 1: profited off of that too. But look now he's promising
Speaker 1: to end the warren Afghanistan. Think about this, then, if
Speaker 1: Joe Biden somehow miraculously takes the White House when he
Speaker 1: is sworn in if Donald Trump does not bring all
Speaker 1: of our troops home. If Joe Biden is sworn in,
Speaker 1: he will inherit a war that he helped start two
Speaker 1: decades ago that he has perpetuated, that he has approved.
Speaker 1: His fingerprints are on every aspect of the Afghanistan War
Speaker 1: since the beginning. But now he's allowed to, of course,
Speaker 1: rewrite history and back away from his involvement. And he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, especially in light of these reports that we have.
Speaker 1: You know, it would be great for someone to challenge
Speaker 1: Joe Biden on the Mike Flynn interview and what he
Speaker 1: knew about intelligence. I mean, he brags all the time
Speaker 1: how he is, you know, Barack Obama's foreign policy whisper. Well,
Speaker 1: what did he Oh? I'm sure that he would challenge
Speaker 1: the person asking that question to a push up contest
Speaker 1: and that would be the end of it. He'd say, Hey, look, Jack,
Speaker 1: you know that's not true. Jack, come on, man, talk
Speaker 1: about the facts. His favorite pivot. We've got about under
Speaker 1: a minute left. I did want to touch on one
Speaker 1: more piece that you wrote recently related to this, and
Speaker 1: that concerns ice IG corruption. That is, the Intelligence Community
Speaker 1: Inspector General who's implicated in the whistleblower that the quote
Speaker 1: unquote whistleblower that we talked about before and bringing his
Speaker 1: case forth tell us a little about that. So here's
Speaker 1: the guy at the center. This is the one transcript
Speaker 1: that Adam Schiff won't release, and this is the transcript
Speaker 1: closed or testimony of Michael Atkinson, who's the Intelligence Community
Speaker 1: inspector general who kind of helped launch this latest impeachment crusade.
Speaker 1: He handled the complaint the whistleblower I use scare quotes
Speaker 1: whistleblower complaint. He told Congress that it was a matter
Speaker 1: of urging concern, tried to go over his body, his
Speaker 1: head and bring attention to this. Michael Atkinson is closely
Speaker 1: tied to many of the key figures in the Russia
Speaker 1: Gate scandal. He worked directly for the head of the
Speaker 1: National Security Division, which was in charge of handling Carter
Speaker 1: Page's FAIZA. He was the chief counsel for Mary McCord,
Speaker 1: who was the head of that division, who also oversaw
Speaker 1: the Russian collusion bogus Russia collusion investigation, and he worked
Speaker 1: for her for months. He stayed in that agency until
Speaker 1: he was inexplicably approved by the Republican Senate to serve
Speaker 1: as the watchdog for an intelligence community that's been trying
Speaker 1: to destroy Donald Trump from the beginning. Anyway, my point,
Speaker 1: and it's in my piece, is that Senate Republicans are smart.
Speaker 1: That's a big if. Their very first witness, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: should be Michael Atkinson asked him about his role in
Speaker 1: Russia Gate from the beginning from July twenty sixteen, when
Speaker 1: all of this really started happening, until he left at
Speaker 1: the end of twenty seventeen. Here and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to leave it right there. Joy, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the program. This Ben one Garden in
Speaker 1: for Buck Sex and on the Buck Sexton Show back
Speaker 1: just after this. Thanks for listening to the bus Sex
Speaker 1: Show podcast. Remember to subscribe on Apple Podcast, the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben Weegarten in for Bucks Sexton.
Speaker 1: And although I hate talking about this topic impeachment, obviously
Speaker 1: we're rolling right into it. This week is where it
Speaker 1: really takes off in the Senate, and there was some
Speaker 1: substantial developments over the weekend with the Democrats putting out
Speaker 1: a brief explaining making their case for why Trump must
Speaker 1: be removed from office, even though they know they can't
Speaker 1: get the two thirds in the Senate. It's pretty funny actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at some of what they discuss in
Speaker 1: their brief. They say, they tell other senators follow the
Speaker 1: constitution and rise above partisan differences. As you hear the case,
Speaker 1: president Trump abused the power of his office to solicit
Speaker 1: foreign interference in our elections for his own personal political gain,
Speaker 1: thereby jeopardizing our national security, the integrity of our elections,
Speaker 1: and our democracy. The impeachment manager said in a statement, So,
Speaker 1: you want senators to rise above partisan differences and follow
Speaker 1: the constitution, but you are putting forth an entirely partisan
Speaker 1: impeachment process where you had Democrats in the House either
Speaker 1: of staying or switch parties altogether. But you want senators
Speaker 1: to rise above what does that mean? They want senators
Speaker 1: to turn their backs and stab stab their voters in
Speaker 1: the back, basically is what they're asking for senators to do. Really,
Speaker 1: of course, you know this is just a charade to
Speaker 1: try to throw as many things as against the wall
Speaker 1: as possible while taking those going against for example, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden off the campaign trail in the Senate as a
Speaker 1: means of trying to inflict maximum political punishment rolling into
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election. So then the White House put
Speaker 1: out a short concise, I think, pretty strong defense, and
Speaker 1: they say the articles of impeachment violate the Constitution. They
Speaker 1: are defective in their entirety. They're the product of invalid
Speaker 1: proceedings that flagrantly denied the president any due process rights.
Speaker 1: They rest on dangerous distortions of the Constitution that would
Speaker 1: do lasting damage to our structure of government. And then
Speaker 1: it goes on to say that in the first article
Speaker 1: of the House attempts to seize the president's power on
Speaker 1: Article two of the Constitution to determine foreign policy. This
Speaker 1: is the abuse of power quote article. In the second article,
Speaker 1: this is the obstruction of Congress. None of these are
Speaker 1: high crimes defined as high crimes and misdemeanors, or any
Speaker 1: of the other actual crimes stated in the impeachment quause
Speaker 1: of the Constitution. Of course, in the second article, the
Speaker 1: House attempts to control and penalize the assertion of the
Speaker 1: executive branches constitutional privileges while simultaneously seeking to destroy the
Speaker 1: Framers system of checks and balances. By approving the article,
Speaker 1: is the House violate our constitutional order, legally abused its
Speaker 1: power of impeachment and attempted to obstruct President Trump's ability
Speaker 1: to faithfully execute the duties of his office. They sell
Speaker 1: to undermine his authority under Article two of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: which vest the entirety of the executive power in a
Speaker 1: president of the United States of America, in order to
Speaker 1: presume and I think this is, by the way, the
Speaker 1: most important paragraph and the whole thing, in order to
Speaker 1: preserve our constitutional structure of government, to reject the poisonous
Speaker 1: partisanship that the Framers warned against, and by the way,
Speaker 1: many of the House Democrats who were there during the
Speaker 1: Quinton impeachment warned against. To ensure one party political impeachment
Speaker 1: vendettas did not become the new normal, and to vindicate
Speaker 1: the will of the American people, the Senate must reject
Speaker 1: both articles of impeachment. In the end, this entire process
Speaker 1: is nothing more than a dangerous attack on the American
Speaker 1: people themselves and their fundamental right to vote. And that's true.
Speaker 1: And again, what drives me nuts about this whole thing
Speaker 1: is that this even has to be written. There shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to be a brief because the whole process is illegitimate.
Speaker 1: The process is illegitimate, the substance is illegitimate. It's a joke.
Speaker 1: And it pains me that Republicans are being forced to
Speaker 1: play defense by Democrats rules when Democrats don't control the Presidency,
Speaker 1: and they don't control the Senate either, And that is why,
Speaker 1: as I said last week, it is so imperative that
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans step up and fight
Speaker 1: the Democrats just as hard as the Democrats are fighting them,
Speaker 1: whether they realize it's an attack on themselves or not.
Speaker 1: If for no other reason, then protect the institutions, whatever
Speaker 1: reason you have to find to muster the defense that
Speaker 1: the President deserves, the American people deserve, the Constitution deserves
Speaker 1: against an anti constitutional, poetical adversary. So there was news
Speaker 1: that Mitch McConnell has built in a kill switch in
Speaker 1: the rules governing the impeachment, and you always, the devil
Speaker 1: is always in the details in a process like this,
Speaker 1: And as I've said, McConnell knows all the different kind
Speaker 1: of parliamentary procedures, how you can phrase the language properly
Speaker 1: to fight the Democrats with the same fervor that they're
Speaker 1: fighting the President and the Republicans. So he supposedly inserted
Speaker 1: this kill switch. What does that mean? There's a measure.
Speaker 1: According to Senator Josh Holly, Republican from Missouri who has
Speaker 1: been very good on impeachment and many other issues for
Speaker 1: that matter, a freshman senator who emerged as a top
Speaker 1: eye of the president, had previously drafted a measure dismissing
Speaker 1: the charges if the House did not formally transmit them
Speaker 1: by changing Senate rules to do so. He said that
Speaker 1: the rules package for the impeachment trial includes a measure
Speaker 1: that allows for the president's legal team to quickly push
Speaker 1: for a summary judgment or dismissal at any time should
Speaker 1: things get wild. The way Hally describes it himself is
Speaker 1: my understandings that the resolution will give the president's team
Speaker 1: the option to either move to judgment or to move
Speaker 1: to dismiss at a meaningful time. And it's sad that
Speaker 1: it's come to this because we couldn't get enough Republicans
Speaker 1: to dismiss the thing general. Now instead we have to
Speaker 1: in some sense legitimize a charade, and that is what
Speaker 1: really sticks in My craw about this whole issue is
Speaker 1: that if it's illegitimate, the fact that we put all
Speaker 1: these constitutional niceties on it, these bells and whistles, and
Speaker 1: we're treating some we're treating an adversary who wants to
Speaker 1: kill us, as if they're operating in some form of
Speaker 1: good faith. And that's why it's not just about dismissing
Speaker 1: or acquitting. It should be about punishing Democrats for putting
Speaker 1: this thing forth in the first place. And again, sort
Speaker 1: of like with Hillary Clinton, how she was never actually
Speaker 1: brought to real justice. The only justice was her losing
Speaker 1: the American people putting Donald Trump in the Oval office.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing in twenty twenty. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that we're going to be the only ones that
Speaker 1: have a say in terms of whether Democrats really pay
Speaker 1: a price for this fraud that they've been foisting on
Speaker 1: the American people. Another illustration of the fraudulent, the whole
Speaker 1: fraudulent tenor of this quote unquote impeachment non impeachment, and
Speaker 1: this is from Jonathan Turley, again a civil libertarian on
Speaker 1: the left. He wrote a little post on Gerald Nadwer,
Speaker 1: House Judiciary Chair. Complete phony in this by the way.
Speaker 1: I wrote about this right after the mid term elections
Speaker 1: when he was on a train ride back from New
Speaker 1: York and Molly hamming Away, of my colleague at the Federalists,
Speaker 1: reported that she just happened to be sitting in the
Speaker 1: train car behind him where he announced basically that they
Speaker 1: were going to be doing impeachment, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: calls to supposedly private cause should have been private cause,
Speaker 1: no discretion, I guess from nadwer were he telegraphed that
Speaker 1: this is the way that we were going into impeachment.
Speaker 1: And I wrote after that about some video that if
Speaker 1: anyone go on c SPAN, take a look at the
Speaker 1: impeachment proceedings during Quentin nat were made the most rigorous
Speaker 1: defense you could ever have for President Donald Trump. Never
Speaker 1: have it. You should never have a partisan impeachment. It
Speaker 1: should never be one sided. It's a disaster for the
Speaker 1: American people, it's a disaster for the constitution, it's a
Speaker 1: disaster for liberty. Showing himself to be a complete hypocrite
Speaker 1: now and so Turley talks about the fact that Nader
Speaker 1: doesn't want Hunter Biden to be called as a witness.
Speaker 1: He says there will be no trades of witnesses. Well,
Speaker 1: here's what Turley says, if true, that nadver will not
Speaker 1: do this trade of witnesses if Hunter Biden is a
Speaker 1: part of the deal, witnesses to be called during the
Speaker 1: Senate trial. So if Democrats get to call John Bolton,
Speaker 1: Republicans get to call Hunter Biden. If true, is the
Speaker 1: House prepared to give up on proving its case to
Speaker 1: protect the Bidens from the ignoble moment of answering questions
Speaker 1: about the Ukraine contract. That is a considerable price to
Speaker 1: pay to protect Joe Biden. It's also another reason why
Speaker 1: the decision to rushed impeachment vote was such a historic
Speaker 1: blunder by Speaker Pelosi. They waited a couple of months,
Speaker 1: They could have called these witnesses and not handed over
Speaker 1: control of the Senate. Instead, they impeached by Christmas and
Speaker 1: then waited a month. So why would they do that?
Speaker 1: Was that a blunder a tactical blunder by Pelosi and
Speaker 1: her colleagues. Well, again, I think it points to a
Speaker 1: motive potentially for or pretext a justification for taking off
Speaker 1: the fields Joe Biden's competitors. If you looked at impeachment
Speaker 1: purely through a Biden prism, his competition has been taken
Speaker 1: off the playing field. If this trial goes for weeks
Speaker 1: and weeks number one and then number two, Biden unethical behavior,
Speaker 1: real quid pro quo, real bribery is at the heart
Speaker 1: of the whole impeachment sham. So is the impeachment sham,
Speaker 1: like the more Special Council, in effect, another cover up
Speaker 1: more special council tied up a bunch of loose ends
Speaker 1: with respect to misconduct on the government side in pursuing Trump.
Speaker 1: Is this again Democrat attempt to obstruct misconduct on their
Speaker 1: side with Biden because qui quid pro quo and bribery
Speaker 1: which Democrats would no longer apply to President Trump because
Speaker 1: they know that it's not there and they know that
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit their impeachment article. Is when they pull tests,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the words that work? Could it
Speaker 1: once again be that they engaged in the very behavior
Speaker 1: that they accused Trump and Republicans of? And could it
Speaker 1: be once again that they are trying to cover up
Speaker 1: that malfeasance by claiming malfeasance on the other side. Urge
Speaker 1: you to read by the way Peter Schweitzer's column on
Speaker 1: how five Biden family members have all profited handsomely during
Speaker 1: his time in office, sometimes directly and other times indirectly
Speaker 1: related to the positions senior level positions that he's held
Speaker 1: for decades and decades, and then I'll leave it with this.
Speaker 1: On the impeachment subject, Byron York also wrote a great
Speaker 1: column where he talks about two of the deceptions at
Speaker 1: the heart of the brief that the Democrats put forth
Speaker 1: explaining why it is imperative that we must remove the
Speaker 1: president today even though they have no case, and they
Speaker 1: say for protecting the integrity of the current presidential race
Speaker 1: since last time he got help from Russia and he
Speaker 1: accepted it. Read York's column, I urge you to read it.
Speaker 1: He talks about these two deceptions, one of them being
Speaker 1: that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate quote unquote a debunked
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that Russia did not interfere in the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen presidential election to aid President Trump, but instead of
Speaker 1: Ukraine interfered in that election to aid President Trumps opponent
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. Okay, I would question that assertion York gives
Speaker 1: them concedes the fact that effectively Russia was solely trying
Speaker 1: to aid President Trump. I mean it doesn't say solely
Speaker 1: in their quote, but trying to aid President Trump, when
Speaker 1: in reality, Russia was trying to sow discord. And if
Speaker 1: you look at it, they paid for ads for a
Speaker 1: bunch of candidates, not just President Trump, including Democrats. But
Speaker 1: weave that aside for the sake of argument. There's never
Speaker 1: been an argument that Ukraine interfered to help Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: and not know Russia involvement. That's a flat out lie.
Speaker 1: So that's York's first points, which was a very good point,
Speaker 1: and it's very clear that there's absolutely evidence out there
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian officials who did not want Trump to win
Speaker 1: and put out words to records to that effect, including
Speaker 1: I believe the New York Times reporting on this thrown
Speaker 1: under the rug now shoved under the rug. And then
Speaker 1: the other part is about asking Russia for help when obviously,
Speaker 1: as you know, Trump welcomed Russian election interference. Was not
Speaker 1: what Trump did, he said release the emails. It was
Speaker 1: obviously in jest in a context of a much broader narrative.
Speaker 1: So what York argues that it's totally misleading to say
Speaker 1: that that was genuinely asking for Russian help and Russian
Speaker 1: interference in the election. As he writes, Trump did in
Speaker 1: fact welcome Russia based weeks, but grossly out of context.
Speaker 1: The context is this Trump welcome Russia based weeks about
Speaker 1: the Quinton campaign because the media were enthusiastically embracing and
Speaker 1: repeating Russian based weeks about the Quintin campaign print, Internet TV.
Speaker 1: Everyone was accepting, repeating and amplifying the material release by
Speaker 1: wiki weeks from the Russian hack of top Quinton campaign
Speaker 1: official John Podesta, and then he runs through a bunch
Speaker 1: of articles talking about this as well. It's just representative
Speaker 1: the fact that these two assertions would be at the
Speaker 1: heart of the Democrats brief It's just so representative of
Speaker 1: the fact that this whole thing is a sham. It's
Speaker 1: a joke, and that's why it should be treated as such.
Speaker 1: It should be taken seriously from the perspective Democrats are
Speaker 1: going to fight tooth and nail and claw and do
Speaker 1: everything they possibly can to extract as much blood as
Speaker 1: they possibly can from this process. But it is a
Speaker 1: joke on the merits and it should be treated as
Speaker 1: such by us certain way. It's a serious attack on us,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, the president, representative of the forgotten man
Speaker 1: in this country. But the way that it's being handled
Speaker 1: exposes the nature of our opponent and they cannot be
Speaker 1: dealt with is if we're fighting on an even playing
Speaker 1: fielder here for them, it's always the ends justify the means.
Speaker 1: We need to take that deathly seriously. This has been
Speaker 1: one going in for Buck Sexon on the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: Back just after this, you're in. This is the Buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This has Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton. I want
Speaker 1: to turn from domestic developments to international developments, and on
Speaker 1: this show, I like to talk about China as the
Speaker 1: main focus on the national security and foreign policy side,
Speaker 1: because we should never lose track of it. Number one,
Speaker 1: number two. Much of the main news stories that the
Speaker 1: mainstream media is going to focus on are only seeing
Speaker 1: through the Trump focus prism. Number one and number two
Speaker 1: missed the context of just how substantial this reorientation in
Speaker 1: US national security and foreign policy is towards viewing China
Speaker 1: as the number one international threat to our liberty. That
Speaker 1: is the essential story. It shouldn't be lost in the
Speaker 1: fog of a disinformation war that the left has created
Speaker 1: and propagated through their communications arm in the media. And
Speaker 1: in just a couple of minutes we're going to bring
Speaker 1: on someone who is, in my view, one of the
Speaker 1: best China experts and very focused on Taiwan in particular.
Speaker 1: But I do think again it pays to level set
Speaker 1: always with what is the nature of this regime? And
Speaker 1: last week I talked about some of the brutal human
Speaker 1: rights abuses, the tyrannical totalitarian nature of the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party that controls every entity in China and then seeks
Speaker 1: to control dissenters abroad and suppress them as well. There's
Speaker 1: an article I really I urge you to read it
Speaker 1: in its entirety because it is chilling and it should
Speaker 1: underscore just how serious this threat is emerging and coming
Speaker 1: on fast. There's an article in The Diplomat titled Exporting
Speaker 1: China's Social Credit System to Central Asia and the subtitle
Speaker 1: is Beijing building a cross border social engineering system, one
Speaker 1: software solution at a time. Now, you know, this social
Speaker 1: credit system is basically where China collects intelligence, monitors, tracks
Speaker 1: all of their citizens and assigns them a score based
Speaker 1: upon effectively how closely do they adhere to the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party line and the aims of the states. And
Speaker 1: if you don't, you pay all sorts of penalties, including
Speaker 1: not being able to take flights outside the country. It
Speaker 1: could impact your actual credit score, your ability to get
Speaker 1: a mortgage. There every aspect of your life under a
Speaker 1: microscope of the Chinese Communist Party. So here are a
Speaker 1: couple of the anecdotes about that. By September twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: fourteen point six million untrustworthy Chinese nationalists were banned from
Speaker 1: buying plane tickets. By December twenty eighteen, three and a
Speaker 1: half million Chinese nationals have reversed their untrustworthy status through
Speaker 1: various forms of community service, so they came in line
Speaker 1: with the party. Many Chinese nationals have quickly adapted to
Speaker 1: this new way of discipline. It works, and now China's
Speaker 1: handing out a system to its neighbors, and that's the problem,
Speaker 1: by the way, for us and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So this article goes into all these other countries that
Speaker 1: have been consulting with China in its near and further
Speaker 1: abroad about implementing this sort of system. Theirself to judge
Speaker 1: their own citizens. And who runs those systems operates four
Speaker 1: of them. Where's the software coming from in the hardware, Oh,
Speaker 1: comes from China. Can you imagine what China can do
Speaker 1: with that information, that power, and that control. When they
Speaker 1: say you are the product and China's offering this free
Speaker 1: in many instances, you really are the product. Here take
Speaker 1: a short break. This has been one for Buck Sex
Speaker 1: on the Buck Sex and Show. More on China just
Speaker 1: after this. Thanks for listening to the bus Sex and
Speaker 1: Show podcasts. Remember to subscribe on Apple podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Buck Sex and Show. This is Ben Weingarten in for
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton, and before the break, I was talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about China's social credit system, one of the
Speaker 1: most Orwellian advents that we've seen in the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: and they're exporting of that system abroad. And it speaks
Speaker 1: to a more fundamental issue, which is at China does
Speaker 1: not and the Chinese Communist Party itself does not just
Speaker 1: desire to obviously dominate its own mainland, but it has expansionist,
Speaker 1: you could argue imperialist ambitions as well, and one of
Speaker 1: those imperialist ambitions concerns Taiwan. Here to join me to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about recent developments in Taiwan and
Speaker 1: this theme that I just mentioned is former Deputy National
Speaker 1: Security Advisor to the Vice President, Dick Cheney and CEO
Speaker 1: of consulting firm DC International Advisory, Steve. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the program. My pleasure. Happy to join. So, Steve,
Speaker 1: you were recently in Taiwan for their elections, which was
Speaker 1: resulted and I believe a resounding victory for the DPP
Speaker 1: Democratic Progressive Party. First of all, why should Americans care
Speaker 1: about what just went down in Taiwan. Well, Americans should
Speaker 1: care because, first and foremost, this is the only democracy
Speaker 1: on the planet that the establishment deep state folks in Washington,
Speaker 1: DC have convinced the US government to help isolate and ignore,
Speaker 1: so we don't give them diplomatic relations. We've sent former
Speaker 1: Secretaries and State when they were in office to negotiate
Speaker 1: with the likes of the Iranians. We've established diplomatic relations
Speaker 1: with Cuba, but somehow this self governing, free and democratic
Speaker 1: island we've been complicit in isolating. So first and foremost,
Speaker 1: I think as Americans, we should want to fix this mistake.
Speaker 1: But second, the Communist Party of China has taken on
Speaker 1: a very aggressive kind of all options on the table
Speaker 1: approach to influence operations, in other words, trying to shape
Speaker 1: politics and national security decision making in many parts around
Speaker 1: the world to their favor. Their right to try, but
Speaker 1: we have been slow in the free world to wake
Speaker 1: up to this challenge. Taiwan is by far per but
Speaker 1: of the most attacked territory on the planet by the
Speaker 1: Communist Party of China in these ways, and so watching
Speaker 1: the democracy of Taiwan and action is a good lesson
Speaker 1: for us to basically be smarter about what we do
Speaker 1: here in the United States and how to bolster our
Speaker 1: allies to keep the pressure on the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: in Asia so they can't place so much on our
Speaker 1: own turf. And I mentioned the Democratic Progressive Party their
Speaker 1: president remaining in power and it being really a resounding
Speaker 1: victory in contrast to the party that is viewed as
Speaker 1: more aligned with the Chinese Communist Party and open amenable
Speaker 1: to some form of a reunification. What were your takeaways
Speaker 1: from the recent election. Well, I think the Communist Party
Speaker 1: of China was on the ballot in this Taiwan election.
Speaker 1: I take nothing away from President taining One, who did
Speaker 1: indeed win a resounding reelection, but there are a couple
Speaker 1: of unusual well things that happened. In most developed democracies,
Speaker 1: we have polling that shows the youth vote going strongly
Speaker 1: one way or another when it comes to their candidate
Speaker 1: preference or party preference, but then they don't tend to
Speaker 1: turn out to vote as well. Well. The developments of
Speaker 1: Hong Kong changed that profoundly for the younger demographic in Taiwan.
Speaker 1: They saw the youth of Hong Kong being willing to
Speaker 1: risk everything and frankly continue to get arrested to stand
Speaker 1: up for their fundamental rights against the Communist Party's encroachment,
Speaker 1: and the youth of Taiwan felt even more committed to
Speaker 1: turning out. There were a lot of people from Hong
Speaker 1: Kong that were in Taiwan for the election. It was
Speaker 1: really moving commentary to hear them tell Taiwan audiences about
Speaker 1: why they need to protect the democracy that they have,
Speaker 1: don't let themselves become the next Hong Kong. So I
Speaker 1: think really Hijingping, the leader of the Communist Party, of
Speaker 1: China and the party itself the ballot and overwhelmingly lost
Speaker 1: in Taiwan, which represents the second popular massive rebuke of
Speaker 1: the Communist Party if you count the local elections in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. Not that long ago. You mentioned real genuine
Speaker 1: foreign interference in Taiwan's democratic election system and government. What
Speaker 1: are some of the lessons for Americans based upon Taiwan's
Speaker 1: experience dealing with in effect attacks, information warfare attacks, at
Speaker 1: the very least from the Chinese Communist Party there? Well.
Speaker 1: Number one, we have to stop playing sort of junior
Speaker 1: high school games about the twenty sixteen election and whatever
Speaker 1: was done by way of Facebook adds. What the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party is doing is much larger in scale in
Speaker 1: terms of geographical reach, but also in terms of money
Speaker 1: and assets involved. And they don't limit their information operations
Speaker 1: or influence operations to just some online postings of fake news.
Speaker 1: They have ways of trying to put pressure on our
Speaker 1: academic institutions, putting pressure on our media organizations. And this
Speaker 1: is what you learn when you watch things in Taiwan
Speaker 1: up close and personal. They have learned that they have
Speaker 1: to track what they call red capital money that comes
Speaker 1: from the mainland directly or indirectly to control or shape
Speaker 1: the information environment they operate in. And so they have
Speaker 1: the classical spy versus spy stuff where former military officers
Speaker 1: get induced to come to the mainland to sell out
Speaker 1: their country. We have to watch out for that. But
Speaker 1: they also have these modern techniques that are quite successful
Speaker 1: in some ways, where they throw money at universities, and
Speaker 1: the universities become less open to free speech and free thought,
Speaker 1: and they basically conform to what their donors do. And
Speaker 1: it's one thing if those donors are from free market,
Speaker 1: free world. It's another thing if they're basically taking their
Speaker 1: marching orders from the Communist Party of China. And that's
Speaker 1: happened in American universities. But the Taiwanese have more educated
Speaker 1: and engage population now taking it seriously. We can learn
Speaker 1: from what they're doing to resist. I think it's worth
Speaker 1: reiterating the point that's sort of implicit in all of this,
Speaker 1: which is that information warfare is really a fight to
Speaker 1: win a war of ideas, so that you can ultimately
Speaker 1: triumph in the way of getting other nations to bend
Speaker 1: to your will or even worse, without ever having to
Speaker 1: fire a shot at the core isn't really what China
Speaker 1: is attempting to do, to exert their power wherever they
Speaker 1: see fit, whenever they see fit. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I think it is. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: much more complicated than that, and they have every right
Speaker 1: to try. But we just need to remember that this
Speaker 1: is not just two average athletes taking the field. We
Speaker 1: have a force that is fundamental evil and taking free
Speaker 1: will away from the people that governs, and another force
Speaker 1: that sacrifices every single day preserve that freedom to choose.
Speaker 1: It's not just for ourselves but others around the world,
Speaker 1: and the Communist Party of China has been at this
Speaker 1: for a long time. We have chosen, I think unwisely
Speaker 1: to invest in ways that have made them more modern,
Speaker 1: more capable, and more powerful to our disadvantage. And I
Speaker 1: think we've sobered up a bit. But the challenge is
Speaker 1: very real and we're at the front end of figuring
Speaker 1: out how to meet it. And you're quite right to note,
Speaker 1: if we're smart about this, we have a lot of
Speaker 1: means at our disposal where this doesn't have to end
Speaker 1: up in a classical military clash. We can and should
Speaker 1: be doing more to make things more complicated for them
Speaker 1: at home. After all, they're failing their people too, not
Speaker 1: just challenging ours. Yea. And to that end, there were reports,
Speaker 1: for example, of a directive from the National Security Council
Speaker 1: that would have authorize the US engaging more an offensive
Speaker 1: cyber warfare, which clearly would implicate China. What would you
Speaker 1: advocate that the US government to do in terms of
Speaker 1: going on the offensive as opposed to being reactive or,
Speaker 1: as we've been in the past, wilfully ignorant or willfully
Speaker 1: blind to it. Well, sadly, you're right, you have been
Speaker 1: willfully ignorant and too passive. And I do support offensive
Speaker 1: cyber operations, after all, our enemies are going to do
Speaker 1: that to us. I just don't believe in the false
Speaker 1: distinction between offensive versus defensive capabilities. If I have a
Speaker 1: gun in my hand and the barrel is pounded outward,
Speaker 1: it's defensive to me and it's offensive to somebody else.
Speaker 1: And it's nearly no different with a lot of the
Speaker 1: tools that are in the cyber world. But fundamentally, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is trying to break down the great
Speaker 1: firewall of China that is keeping people in and under
Speaker 1: control and basically turn some of these tools that were
Speaker 1: men to promote freedom and empowerment and prosperity into really
Speaker 1: meeting those ends. In other words, within China, the internet
Speaker 1: and social media have really been used to create an
Speaker 1: Orwellian surveillance and control state. But we have been complicit
Speaker 1: and being passive about pushing information, choices and the truth
Speaker 1: in the China so that the leaders would have to
Speaker 1: be accountable to that truth. We're very behind that. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we've allowed our freedom in some ways
Speaker 1: to be our vulnerability. We want people to like us,
Speaker 1: we want them to have a taste of what we have.
Speaker 1: We think it will influence them, and that works some
Speaker 1: of the time. It just doesn't work as well when
Speaker 1: you have a determined, basically ideologically committed enemy that's operating
Speaker 1: against you. How one of the things, just to level
Speaker 1: set a bit on Taiwan specifically, that our listeners may
Speaker 1: not be aware of, is that China basically undertook a
Speaker 1: campaign to other nations to a test you're either with
Speaker 1: us or you're with Taiwan, and most people sided with
Speaker 1: the People's Republic of China so called not Taiwan, and
Speaker 1: thus Taiwan sort of is in diplomatic limbo in some ways,
Speaker 1: in terms of not being recognized by many nations that
Speaker 1: we see an official basis, including being in a sort
Speaker 1: of fluid position with respect to the US. How much
Speaker 1: of a propaganda coup would it be against the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party if nations started to recognize Taiwan one Domino
Speaker 1: foul and then several foul, Well, it would be a
Speaker 1: diplomatic cool of sorts. But I'm afraid it really would
Speaker 1: just be a reclamation of common sense and truth. And so,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not something that you would do out
Speaker 1: of any sense of malice towards China. It's something we
Speaker 1: should do out of self respect and sort of looking
Speaker 1: at this island nation of Taiwan as never having been
Speaker 1: under the sovereign control the People's Republic of China. The
Speaker 1: Communist Party of China declared revolution on the Chinese people
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen forties. They did, in fact when
Speaker 1: that civil war and took control of the mainland. They
Speaker 1: never took control of Taiwan. And I think it's been
Speaker 1: weak minds, an appeasement mindset that has granted them the
Speaker 1: latitude to control our language and our thought for the
Speaker 1: better part of the last fifty years in trying to
Speaker 1: say there is one China in the world and the
Speaker 1: Taiwan is a part of it. What all you have
Speaker 1: to do is look at a map and you'll see
Speaker 1: that the island is significantly offshore. And if you just
Speaker 1: read a little bit of history, you'll realize the Communist
Speaker 1: Party has never controlled it. If they want to unify
Speaker 1: with Taiwan, it's their business, but we should be there
Speaker 1: to help insist that it be peaceful and with the
Speaker 1: consent of the Taiwan people. I don't think that they'll
Speaker 1: win that consent, but really that is where we need
Speaker 1: to be. And I think the US government under the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has made a significant shift in the right direction,
Speaker 1: at least initially in pressuring Taiwan's remaining allies to stay
Speaker 1: firm and not get bought off by Chinese inducements. But
Speaker 1: we would do right by ourselves, not just as a
Speaker 1: favorite of Taiwan, to say we're going to increase levels
Speaker 1: of diplomatic recognition for Taiwan. And it's really only after
Speaker 1: the United States leads the way that others will have
Speaker 1: the courage and common sense to do so as well.
Speaker 1: I think it would be an investment in ultimately peace
Speaker 1: and prosperity and put the pressure on the mainland to
Speaker 1: improve itself if it really wants the acceptance of the
Speaker 1: Taiwan people and US. Lastly, looking just to our north, today,
Speaker 1: March the beginning of the extradition trial of Huawei's CFO,
Speaker 1: who is being held effectively under house arrest in Canada
Speaker 1: based upon US brought charges involving both bank fraud and
Speaker 1: then dealings with Iran that Huawei allegedly lied about. What
Speaker 1: do you make of this trial and what is its significance? Well,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things that play in it.
Speaker 1: Number One, we have the relatives of high ranking communist
Speaker 1: leaders that get posh exceedingly well paid jobs to go
Speaker 1: around the world pretending as if they're not affront for
Speaker 1: the Communist Party of China and their commercial enterprise. That's
Speaker 1: an important wake up call for people to look at.
Speaker 1: The second, this company, Huawei, was actively engaged in avoiding
Speaker 1: sanctions against the Iran. So we have the dublicity of
Speaker 1: the Chinese government at the United Nations occasionally going along
Speaker 1: with a broad based vote on sanctions related to counter
Speaker 1: proliferation or otherwise, but then commercially actively working to undermine
Speaker 1: those sanctions. And then the other thing I think is
Speaker 1: really really important not to forget this high ranking Huawei
Speaker 1: officer was, in fact looks pretty guilty of doing these
Speaker 1: things that undermine our national security. But the Chinese, in
Speaker 1: retaliation against the Canadian government took a couple of Canadian
Speaker 1: NGO workers who haven't been seen since. And so we
Speaker 1: have this dichotomy of Chinese commercial slash party person on
Speaker 1: trial in Canada but living in Martha Stewart luxury prison accommodations.
Speaker 1: And then we have these two poor NGO workers that
Speaker 1: have been put into what I'm sure is a much
Speaker 1: less humane environment in China and have been taken off
Speaker 1: the grid. So that's what that stake in that trial.
Speaker 1: Are we going to have rule of law and a
Speaker 1: China that honors obligations and put outward. Are these companies
Speaker 1: for real commercial or are they political and strategic? And
Speaker 1: then we have this whole issue of retaliation that really
Speaker 1: hasn't got the international attention to deserve. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to leave it right there. Steve, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the program. Always appreciate it my pleasure to
Speaker 1: take care of And this is Ben Wegarden in for
Speaker 1: Buck Sexon on the buck Sexton Show. Back just after
Speaker 1: this you're in the Freedom Hud. This is the buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to the buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben wein Garden in four Buck Sexton. I
Speaker 1: want to transition from Asia to the Middle East. And
Speaker 1: there was a story out of the Middle East that well,
Speaker 1: someone was brought to justice who should have been brought
Speaker 1: to justice. Let's put it that way. The headline on
Speaker 1: American Greatness was Islamic State heavyweight nabed in Iraq so
Speaker 1: fat he had to be loaded onto flatbed truck. The
Speaker 1: Iraqi military have bagged a biggin the five hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty pound Islamic state Mufti, known as Job of the
Speaker 1: Hut or Job of the Jihad. I believe is the
Speaker 1: way the New York Post wrote it up. It's so
Speaker 1: enormously fat. After he was captured, Iraqi forces had to
Speaker 1: load him on into a flatbed truck because he couldn't
Speaker 1: fit in a police car. The ices heavyweight at Abu Abdullabari,
Speaker 1: also known as Shifa Alima, put the fat in Fatua.
Speaker 1: According to The New York Post, he was napped Thursday
Speaker 1: by an AID swat team of the Ninevah Regiment in
Speaker 1: the city of Mosul. Stars and Stripes reported on Friday.
Speaker 1: Despite his more bid obesity, the Islamic state official was
Speaker 1: known to be a cruel monster who raped and murdered civilians.
Speaker 1: So I think this is a good representative of who
Speaker 1: these Islamic supremacists are because this guy could not move
Speaker 1: and he was a coward sending out people to commit
Speaker 1: the most heinous of acts in the name of his religion.
Speaker 1: This Islamic supremacist monster. We're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about some Islamic supremacist monsters right after this quick break.
Speaker 1: This has been wager in for Buck sexon on the
Speaker 1: Buck Second Show. Back just after this. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the bus Sex Show podcast. Remember to subscribe on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This
Speaker 1: is Ben Weingarten in four Bucks Sexton and before the
Speaker 1: break we were talking a little bit about this transition
Speaker 1: from Asia to the Middle East, and in particular in
Speaker 1: this case a little bit north to Iran, and there
Speaker 1: was a video making the rounds over the weekend, being propagated,
Speaker 1: of course, by the Islamic supremacist regime in Tehran's minions.
Speaker 1: Let's call them Solomani because them Solomani holding his grandson
Speaker 1: and cooing and coddling him. And so one commenter on
Speaker 1: this was noting, Iran carefully shaped his image in life
Speaker 1: and continues to do so in depth. And all I
Speaker 1: could think to myself looking at these images and there
Speaker 1: it's revolting to see them try to portray this man
Speaker 1: as some kind of humanitarian. Remember, Solomani had the blood
Speaker 1: of hundreds of Americans on his hand, Dad Americans from
Speaker 1: roadside bombs that he was responsible for perfecting, thousands of
Speaker 1: other Americans injured, maimed, not to mention thousands of other
Speaker 1: civilians around the world. It's hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: in Syria, all of the Europeans who have had to
Speaker 1: deal with the Syrian refugee crises themselves. This man has
Speaker 1: done incalculable damage as a human being, as the leader,
Speaker 1: the orchestrator of Iran's imperialist ambitions, growing them around the world.
Speaker 1: And they put out this picture and all I can
Speaker 1: think to myself is this man is a monster. And
Speaker 1: you should read the comments because the comments in this case,
Speaker 1: read the comments because those other people have hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head with respect to this sort of
Speaker 1: jihadas propaganda coming out of Iran. And you know, the
Speaker 1: sickening thing really when you think about it, is how
Speaker 1: much different is this image being portrayed of him holding
Speaker 1: his grandson. Well, first of all, again, how many people
Speaker 1: will never be able to hold their child or their
Speaker 1: grandchild because of what this man did in his life.
Speaker 1: This monster did in his life. That's my real takeaway.
Speaker 1: This man has destroyed an incalculable number of families and
Speaker 1: nations for that matter. But also this is sort of
Speaker 1: the way that our media portrayed him as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not an austere religious scholar per se, but whatever is
Speaker 1: analogous to that when it comes to being the architect,
Speaker 1: the mastermind of Iran's imperialist global ambitions exporting it's Islamist
Speaker 1: revolution around the world. There was other news out of
Speaker 1: Iran as well, though that was overshadowed by some of
Speaker 1: these other headlines, but is husually significant. So here's a
Speaker 1: headline from the Daily mail exclusive secret document that proves
Speaker 1: Iran was voting a nuclear weapon as far back as
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, even while they claimed the technology
Speaker 1: was only for peaceful purposes. Document was seized as part
Speaker 1: of a raid by Israeli intelligence agents on a compound
Speaker 1: in Tehran in twenty eighteen from an Iranian official. This
Speaker 1: document requesting the parameters of a warhead fitted on a
Speaker 1: missile in November two thousand and two, and scribbled in
Speaker 1: the top life corners a note from its nuclear chief
Speaker 1: who signs off on the plans. And this document is
Speaker 1: apparently the centerpiece of an as yet unreleased report highlighting
Speaker 1: Iran's quandestine nuclear activities. Once again, how could you have
Speaker 1: a deal with a regime that's lied about and concealed
Speaker 1: and obviouscated and deceived on every aspect of its nuclear
Speaker 1: effort going back a couple of decades. It's the same
Speaker 1: guys in power, and it is the supreme leader Kamane
Speaker 1: running the whole regime. Yeah, when the Obama aministration tried
Speaker 1: to create this moderates hardliners split within leadership, what they
Speaker 1: failed to address is the fact that the elected leaders
Speaker 1: quote unquote are only eligible to achieve those positions if
Speaker 1: the malocracy controlled by Commander and others around him approve
Speaker 1: of them. It's a rubber stamped regime. It's a puppet regime.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's a puppet regime.
Speaker 1: So how can you have a deal with them? What
Speaker 1: is the deal? The deal isn't worth the paper that
Speaker 1: it's printed on. The deal is Iran continues to advance
Speaker 1: his program more quandestine way, with one hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars more, and then gets it legitimated at the
Speaker 1: end because of the Sunset provisions that allow Iran to
Speaker 1: be treated as a legitimate nuclear power to continue its
Speaker 1: ballistic missile proliferation. And meanwhile, our media, of course headline
Speaker 1: from the Atlantic this is pretty good. And this is
Speaker 1: in context of the unraveling of the so called i
Speaker 1: Ran nuclear deal, as even our European partners start to
Speaker 1: suddenly realize, hey, maybe this isn't a regime that would
Speaker 1: actually honor the garbage JCPOA. This is a tweet from
Speaker 1: Mike Duran and the headline is from the Atlantic, which
Speaker 1: grudgingly admit that the killing of Solomoni was a masterstroke,
Speaker 1: but it can't bring itself to give Trump credit for
Speaker 1: knowing what he was doing. So here's the headline, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump stumbles into a foreign policy triumph that when you
Speaker 1: have to resort to that, you know we must have
Speaker 1: done something right. And the article is actually, I think
Speaker 1: pretty revealing. This is from a European correspondent for The Atlantic,
Speaker 1: and he writes, well, it's clearly too early to judge
Speaker 1: the long term ramifications of the president's decision to order
Speaker 1: the killing. The initial assessment among many in the foreign
Speaker 1: policy establishment here in London is not quite what you
Speaker 1: might expect. The attack, in the view of Anos and
Speaker 1: British officials I spoke with the letter of whom requested
Speaker 1: and inimitated discuss government discussions, has at a stroke reasserted
Speaker 1: American military dominance and revealed the constraints of Iranian power.
Speaker 1: Although Trump's foreign policy strategy, if one even accepts that
Speaker 1: there is such a thing, of course, they have to
Speaker 1: be snarky like this and question everything, legitimacy of everything,
Speaker 1: has many limits. His unpredictability, and most crucially is willingness
Speaker 1: to escavate a crisis. Okay, that's one way to portrait.
Speaker 1: Another way is diffuse a crisis by using overwhelming force
Speaker 1: such that Iran will think twice about doing anything hostile
Speaker 1: to the US willingness to escavate a crisis using the
Speaker 1: US military and economic strength have turned the table as
Speaker 1: on Iran in away few thought possible. What is more,
Speaker 1: the strike has exposed the gaping irrelevance of Europe's leading
Speaker 1: powers Britain, France and Germany in this whole crisis. The
Speaker 1: E three, which were the main parties to the deal,
Speaker 1: along with the United States and Iran, which have long
Speaker 1: sought to keep the Iranian nuclear deal alive by undermining
Speaker 1: the US policy of maximum pressure in Iran, have so
Speaker 1: far failed to do so. This week, they were finally
Speaker 1: forced to admit the apparently terminal collapse of the Obama
Speaker 1: era a nuclear deal, releasing a joint statement to announce
Speaker 1: that they were triggering its dispute resolution clause because of
Speaker 1: Tehran's failure to abide by the terms of the agreement.
Speaker 1: The reality of the situation is startling. Europe's attempts to
Speaker 1: keep the deal alive have achieved little in Tehran because
Speaker 1: of the continent's powerlessness. In European opposition to Trump's Iran
Speaker 1: policy has achieved even less in Washington. In an interview,
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson all but admitted defeat in keeping the nuclear
Speaker 1: deal alive, calling instead for a new Trump deal. In
Speaker 1: other words, Trump exposed reality there was no deal to
Speaker 1: be had. And as I've written in a couple of
Speaker 1: articles recently at the Federalists and I'll share them, they
Speaker 1: were cheating on the deal the whole time. We have
Speaker 1: documentary evidence of it. But beyond that, we couldn't even
Speaker 1: have visibility into any of the military sites where likely
Speaker 1: the nuclear weapon work took place. So okay, they could
Speaker 1: argue that they may be complied with some of the
Speaker 1: terms of a deal, but we only saw the places
Speaker 1: that they wanted us to see. Iran wouldn't let internationally
Speaker 1: recognized inspectors certified under the deal to verify and do
Speaker 1: actual checks at the sites where their malign activities actually
Speaker 1: took place likely take place. So my friend Omri Seran,
Speaker 1: who's the National security advisor for Senator Ted Cruz and
Speaker 1: must read it on all things I ran, tweets out
Speaker 1: news out of Iran. The regime is threatening to decrease
Speaker 1: cooperation on nuclear issues if the Europeans pressure them over
Speaker 1: their checks. Notes confirms yep. If the Europeans pressure them
Speaker 1: over their lack of cooperation on nuclear issues, and that
Speaker 1: was in response to an article I may review cooperation
Speaker 1: with IAEA. That's the inspector body. If EU pressure mounts
Speaker 1: so they didn't abide by the deal, they wouldn't let
Speaker 1: us check if they were abiding by the deal. And
Speaker 1: now now if we pressure them over lack of cooperation,
Speaker 1: they might really get angry. There's no deal to be
Speaker 1: had with Iran at the end of the day. The
Speaker 1: only deal ultimately is either this momocratic regime stays in
Speaker 1: power and advances towards nuclear weaponry, and ultimately we're probably
Speaker 1: forced to engage in a military response, massive military response,
Speaker 1: or and the Trump's policies, whether by design or as
Speaker 1: part of a way to get towards forcing a surrender
Speaker 1: of this regime, has destabilized this regime to an unprecedented degree.
Speaker 1: And while a destabilized regime may lash out, at the
Speaker 1: same time, Iran has been exposed to have major problems,
Speaker 1: and the incompetence was on foe display. Tragic incompetence was
Speaker 1: on fot display when they shot down a passenger plan
Speaker 1: and killed dozens of their own people. As well as
Speaker 1: people from all over the world, from Canada elsewhere. It's
Speaker 1: a big deal that even for the European countries, Iran
Speaker 1: has breached too many of the steps in the deal,
Speaker 1: too many of the constraints, the strictures and the deal
Speaker 1: at this point that even they can't stand by IDOI anymore.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this dispute resolution mechanism that was
Speaker 1: discussed in that Atlantic article I mentioned, ultimately it could
Speaker 1: get towards the UN reimposing sanctions on Iran, crippling sanctions
Speaker 1: which in a country that is already they lost Solamani,
Speaker 1: They're overstretched abroad, dealing with protesters in all of the
Speaker 1: different countries that they count as their proxies, Chaos in Iraq,
Speaker 1: streets of Lebanon, on their own streets, having to resort
Speaker 1: to murdering, persecuting thousands of their own people. Right now,
Speaker 1: their coffers going dry, shut out of the international oil markets,
Speaker 1: main source of revenue. They could be on the ropes
Speaker 1: and worth it pointing out one more thing while we're
Speaker 1: sticking on the Iran topic, this was a good piece,
Speaker 1: a good reminder. Urge you to check out this article
Speaker 1: on power Line Bernie's history with Iran. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the left historically in our last episode always stands with
Speaker 1: these horrible totalitarian regimes. This is in the Daily Beast
Speaker 1: on April nineteen seventy nine. This is Powerline, quoting that article.
Speaker 1: April nineteen seventy nine, the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran
Speaker 1: was proclaimed Aetola Rojola Commani, who had returned to Iran
Speaker 1: from exile to assume command of the revolt, became supreme
Speaker 1: leader in December of that year. His rise was accelerated
Speaker 1: by the seizure on November four of fifty two American
Speaker 1: diplomats and citizens and citizens of other countries at the
Speaker 1: usmbassy in Tehran. Then we have the hostage crisis. Virtually
Speaker 1: all American Democrats, Republicans and independence united and support of
Speaker 1: the hostages and the international call for their freedom. One
Speaker 1: prominent political figure on the twenty twenty stage, then almost
Speaker 1: completely unknown, stood apart by joining a Marxist Leninist party
Speaker 1: that not only pledged support for the Iranian theocracy but
Speaker 1: also justified the hostage taking by insisting the hostages were
Speaker 1: all likely CIA agents. Who was that person? It was
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders, member of a Trotsky eight party,
Speaker 1: stood with the Iranian moocracy. By the way, he's not
Speaker 1: alone in that romance of those sort of regimes, none
Speaker 1: other than Elizabeth Warren. And this this was unveiled previously,
Speaker 1: revealed previously, but brought up again recently in an article
Speaker 1: at front Page called on the Obama administration to clear
Speaker 1: Ethel Rosenberg's record. Who is Ethel Rosenberg. Well, you'll recall
Speaker 1: she was tried for treason essential in helping the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union develop nuclear capabilities the Adam bomb. Rather, as the
Speaker 1: article states, she could be the next commander in chief.
Speaker 1: Caught on the Obama administration to formally exonerate Soviet atomic spy.
Speaker 1: Ethel Rosenberg sent a letter data January ten, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: on behalf of one of her sons, constituent request that
Speaker 1: you provide a thorough review of their request that you
Speaker 1: issue a proclamation exonerating his mother. Ethel Rosenberg, executed by
Speaker 1: the US for conspiracy to commit espionage in nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: effectively a treason this act. She wasn't alone, by the way,
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party. But that goes to show you
Speaker 1: the nature of who we're dealing with on the other side.
Speaker 1: Right now, once again there has been one going in
Speaker 1: for buck Sex and on the buck Secon Show back
Speaker 1: just after this, you're in the Freedom Art. This is
Speaker 1: the buck Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to the buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show. This is Ben Weiningerten in four bucks Sexton
Speaker 1: and let's transition. We just talked about a little bit
Speaker 1: at the Middle East, Iran's malevolence, the left embrace of
Speaker 1: that those totalitarian regimes, be it Iran or elsewhere around
Speaker 1: the globe, and there's another similarity in terms of their ideology.
Speaker 1: And I'll get there by waye First of talking about
Speaker 1: the fact that this week President Trump is scheduled to
Speaker 1: be at Davos. What is the main topic at Davos
Speaker 1: this year? Naturally climate change? The head of the World
Speaker 1: Economic Forum, it's founder, Klass Schwab said, we do not
Speaker 1: want to reach the tipping point of irreversibility on climate change.
Speaker 1: We do not want the next generations to inherit a
Speaker 1: world which becomes evermore hostile and ever less habitable. Just
Speaker 1: think of the wildfires in Australia and we'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a second. An annual risk survey published by
Speaker 1: his organization, put climate and other environmental threats ahead of
Speaker 1: risks posed by geopolitical tensions and cyber attacks the first time.
Speaker 1: The survey found the top five long term risks were
Speaker 1: all environmental. Talk about groupthink, from extreme weather events to
Speaker 1: businesses and governments failing to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Speaker 1: Part of this is sustainability, the theme at this year's
Speaker 1: Davos meeting to deal with grapple with global warming becoming
Speaker 1: worse because of growing divisions among nations and businesses on
Speaker 1: how to tackle it. The meetings, which will see over
Speaker 1: fifty heads of state and government, including German Chance or
Speaker 1: Angolo Miracle and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, descend on
Speaker 1: the Alpine resort, seeking to give concrete meaning to stakeholder capitalism,
Speaker 1: a concept that businesses should serve the interests of all
Speaker 1: society rather than simply their shareholders. Remember I talked about
Speaker 1: woke chroning capitalism last week when it came to Blackrock.
Speaker 1: That's the agenda on the table for all of the leaders,
Speaker 1: the business heads, the politicians around the world meeting at Davos,
Speaker 1: and I cannot wait for Trump to smash them. Into
Speaker 1: smithereens during this meeting. Over this fifty three heads of
Speaker 1: stayed at Davos, seventeen hundred business leaders, including CEOs from
Speaker 1: eight of the ten most valuable companies in the world.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of the cars used by the World Economic
Speaker 1: Forum are electric or hybrid. Climate is the excuse for
Speaker 1: the totalitarian, anti capitalist system that they all they're all
Speaker 1: like minded, all the globalist leaders, they're are like minded
Speaker 1: on this. Why do they care about the environmental stuff
Speaker 1: because it means power and control. It's a way to
Speaker 1: use science to justify control over your life. And they
Speaker 1: will profit, of course from it, because they're the ones
Speaker 1: in charge of all of these green initiatives, invested in
Speaker 1: the green companies. It's a wealth redistribution scheme to them.
Speaker 1: In the process it impoverishes all of us. So I
Speaker 1: was happy to see on this topic the Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: and as well AOC Alexander Acazio Quartez came out and
Speaker 1: panned the USMCA that the Trump administration just was able
Speaker 1: to push through in the Senate. Here's Bernie, not a
Speaker 1: single damn mention of climate change in his tweets. Seems
Speaker 1: like a happy guy and the Sanders suggested on the
Speaker 1: campaign trail that fossil fuel executives are probably criminally liable
Speaker 1: for climate change, and he's expressed interests in potentially prosecuting them.
Speaker 1: That's totalitarianism. That's if you have wrong think, you should
Speaker 1: be shut up stifled. So urge you to read this
Speaker 1: article from Rupert Darwall in The Hill, and I've interviewed
Speaker 1: him separately as well. Look it up on YouTube and
Speaker 1: I can share it as well. Climate religion is fueling
Speaker 1: Australia's wildfires. Getting back to that, and what he shows
Speaker 1: is that the wildfires in Australia that have been husually
Speaker 1: destructive to their environment are largely the consequence of environmentalist policies.
Speaker 1: It's not because of climate change, quote unquote, it's because
Speaker 1: they haven't been able to control the brush that has
Speaker 1: led to these massive wildfires. They're not allowing people to
Speaker 1: burn the brush which would prevent them there for being
Speaker 1: these massive conflagrations. So environmentalism has real consequences. It is irrational,
Speaker 1: is what Darwa argues in this article. It is a religion,
Speaker 1: but it's a religion that the true believers truly believe
Speaker 1: in science is infallible and that the science is settled
Speaker 1: on this issue, which is not. But it's also a
Speaker 1: religion that totalitarians use for control over all of us.
Speaker 1: This Benegart in for Buck sex And on the Buck
Speaker 1: Sex and Show. Back just after this. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Bus Sex and Show podcasts. Remember to subscribe
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Welcome back to the Buck Sex and Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben weine Garden in for Buck Sexton, and
Speaker 1: we were just talking about totalitarianism of one kind, which
Speaker 1: is the use of infallible science in furtherance of an
Speaker 1: anti capitalist agenda that ultimately is about power and can
Speaker 1: troll over you and for the people loarding those policies
Speaker 1: over us and imposing them upon us to our great detriment,
Speaker 1: impoverishing us while they benefit. We'll shift to a different
Speaker 1: kind of creeping sort of totalitarianism, which is an assault
Speaker 1: on our individual civil liberties under the guise of national
Speaker 1: security while the bad guys actually remand get off scott
Speaker 1: free and there's no justice. And that concerns the recent
Speaker 1: Inspector General report on FIZO abuses, which comes of course
Speaker 1: in the broader sort of mosaic around Spygate and what
Speaker 1: we've been dealing with laboring under for the last three
Speaker 1: plus years, and I fear we're going to continue dealing
Speaker 1: with for many more years to come, unfortunately. So we're
Speaker 1: going to talk with senior contributor to the federalistic colleague
Speaker 1: of mine, Margot Cleveland, who spent nearly twenty five years
Speaker 1: as a permanent lawkwork for a Federal Appellet judge on
Speaker 1: the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and as a former
Speaker 1: full time faculty member and current adjunct instructor for the
Speaker 1: College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. Margo,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much, Ben.
Speaker 1: So let's start by level setting a little bit the
Speaker 1: IG report on FISA abuse with respect to carter Page.
Speaker 1: So it's seventeen significant and accuracies and omissions and the
Speaker 1: bureaus applications for warrants to surveil carter page under FISA,
Speaker 1: starting I believe back in twenty sixteen. What is the
Speaker 1: most underreported element of the IG report that you've discovered
Speaker 1: thus far in parsing it in great depth. So I
Speaker 1: would say there's actually a tie for two. One is
Speaker 1: that the IG completely missed that the DOJ FBI had
Speaker 1: told the FISA Court that Steele has this network of
Speaker 1: sources because he used to work as a spy for
Speaker 1: the British government. And the reason that is such a
Speaker 1: huge revelation is the five The court didn't really do
Speaker 1: much here. They did pretty much a rubber stamp except
Speaker 1: for the first goal round. And on the first goal
Speaker 1: round they presented what they present a copy to get
Speaker 1: some feedback, so they presented what they call a read
Speaker 1: copy to a liaison at the court. The recopy gives
Speaker 1: them a chance to go through and see if there
Speaker 1: are any issues. And one of the issues that was
Speaker 1: raised was how does your source, Christopher Steele have this
Speaker 1: network of sources that he was able to get this
Speaker 1: information from. And the response that was given is because
Speaker 1: he used to work and it's redactive, but everyone knows
Speaker 1: what it is. He used to work for m I
Speaker 1: six and the liaison, the lawyer working for the FISI
Speaker 1: court told of the government to change and put that
Speaker 1: detail in there. I'll swear though in the IG report
Speaker 1: is a finding that Steel was not using those sources,
Speaker 1: None of those sources that he used for his dossier
Speaker 1: had the connection of being from his former work with
Speaker 1: the UK British intelligence and significant because the court cared
Speaker 1: about that, they asked about it, and all the government
Speaker 1: said was, oh, yeah, he has this network of sources
Speaker 1: because he used to be an intelligence for our British colleagues.
Speaker 1: Think about that as a judge, You're looking at and saying, well,
Speaker 1: this subsource, this is going to be a legit because
Speaker 1: British intelligence relies on the same people. But the truth
Speaker 1: is no, they don't. They did not. Steel did not
Speaker 1: use the same sources. So I would say that is
Speaker 1: one underreported story that it should be huge. I think
Speaker 1: that he should have called that out as an eighteenth mistake.
Speaker 1: I think that was significant and maybe even more so
Speaker 1: than other ones because the five courts specifically asked for it.
Speaker 1: And then I would say the second mistake or second
Speaker 1: underreported comment here was that in the IG report there
Speaker 1: was this just little passage exchange where it said that
Speaker 1: or Bruce Orr, who was one of the DOJ deputy
Speaker 1: assistant Deputy Attorney generals, he was the one who was
Speaker 1: kind of feeding stuff from Steel to the FBI. It
Speaker 1: said that he had called a meeting an interagency meeting,
Speaker 1: And the only reason we know about this is after
Speaker 1: the meeting, one of his colleagues asked, Or, why would
Speaker 1: we work with this Russian oligarch? And it was Olga
Speaker 1: and I'm not even sure how to pronounce his name.
Speaker 1: Ar Yes, thank you. So the colleague asked after the meeting,
Speaker 1: why would the US work with him? And Or said
Speaker 1: that the reason why was because there was corruption in
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. The question was all the way to
Speaker 1: the president and he said yes. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things here that no one's really picked up on.
Speaker 1: Was he Or called this inter agency meeting? So who
Speaker 1: was at this meeting? What other agencies were involved? And
Speaker 1: it seems to tie back to Or's official role, which
Speaker 1: was in charge of this interagency group. But Or said, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to my bosses about Christopher Steele because
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with my real job. So
Speaker 1: that's one component of it. But two, it looks like
Speaker 1: Or was trying to push cutting a deal with the
Speaker 1: oliguard in order to get Trump, because he told his
Speaker 1: colleague that afterwards. The other part of the is the
Speaker 1: timing of this. This came after Or had met with
Speaker 1: a couple I think there were three other folks that
Speaker 1: were looking at the charges against Paul Maniford and it
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with them. Yet they were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get this pushed. And Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiseman was one of the individuals, And one of the
Speaker 1: things that the IG report said is they were trying
Speaker 1: to come up with strategies of how to move that
Speaker 1: case along. So one of the questions I have was
Speaker 1: this reach out to these other agencies part of the strategy.
Speaker 1: So I have two separate pieces over at the Federalists
Speaker 1: there a couple maybe a week or so old. There's
Speaker 1: been so much on the IG report that has gone unreported,
Speaker 1: but those two really should be blockbusters and people should
Speaker 1: be focusing on this, and I hope that bar and
Speaker 1: Gurham are because those are a huge missing components to it.
Speaker 1: How culpable is the fiz Accort itself? And I think
Speaker 1: you have identified them as being culpable in some of
Speaker 1: the abuses with respect to the case of Carter Page, which,
Speaker 1: of course that invites the question of how many other
Speaker 1: cases has the fiz Coort effectively botched or not held
Speaker 1: to the proper standard that such important cases should be
Speaker 1: held to how culpable is the court and what would
Speaker 1: be the proper way for their culpability to be remedied
Speaker 1: or for there to be justice for the FISI court
Speaker 1: individuals personnel involved with this themselves. Right, So on the
Speaker 1: latter point is, judges make mistakes. Lawyers who work for
Speaker 1: judges make mistakes. There really is no culpability other than
Speaker 1: that it's a black eye on them, and it should be.
Speaker 1: But it's unfortunate because it doesn't seem as if they're
Speaker 1: recognizing that they're pointing all the fingers at the DOJ
Speaker 1: and the FBI, and their fingers should be pointed there.
Speaker 1: The PHIZE Court trusted the lawyers, and they should have
Speaker 1: been able to trust the lawyers. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: someone should have caught that there was no established reliability
Speaker 1: for these subsources. That Steele was the only one who
Speaker 1: supposedly had reliability, and that's where it's the DOJ and
Speaker 1: FBI's fault for misrepresenting that. But he cannot build up
Speaker 1: the subsources and the sub subsources, and yet the phiz
Speaker 1: A Court allowed what the subsources said happened to be
Speaker 1: the basis for probable cause, even though the fires of
Speaker 1: warrant or fies that applications were clear that neither neither
Speaker 1: Steal nor his primary subsource had the direct knowledge of this,
Speaker 1: and that actually ties back to the point I just
Speaker 1: made about They likely thought that these subsources were ones
Speaker 1: that the British intelligence information and intelligence, and because of that,
Speaker 1: assumed that they were reliable and didn't go that next
Speaker 1: step and say where in the application doesn't see that,
Speaker 1: So there is culpability. I don't think it's nearly as
Speaker 1: great as the DOJ's and the FBI because they made
Speaker 1: so many mistakes, but they should learn from this and
Speaker 1: hopefully look at things more closely. The other part of
Speaker 1: it that I found in reading the IG report and
Speaker 1: some of the kind of the text messages that were
Speaker 1: going back and forth between the parties is it looks
Speaker 1: like there was a little bit too They were concerned
Speaker 1: about how one of the individuals involved in the process
Speaker 1: would kind of lead the talk to the liaison. So
Speaker 1: apparently someone from the group that handles the FISA applications
Speaker 1: talks to the laison and they were concerned. Peter Struck
Speaker 1: was concerned with how is he going to set it up?
Speaker 1: Is he going to make it iffy or is he
Speaker 1: going to make it sound like a done deal, which
Speaker 1: to me indicates that there's a little bit too much
Speaker 1: reliance on the DOJ's presentation and that they should be
Speaker 1: looking at it a little bit more objectively. So I
Speaker 1: think that again it's much more on the DOJ and FBI,
Speaker 1: but the FISA Court definitely has some culpability for it.
Speaker 1: Looking at the remedy is that the FBI proposed when
Speaker 1: the fifth pointed the finger, as you said, back at
Speaker 1: them and said what will you do basically to ensure
Speaker 1: that the court isn't missweat again in the future. It
Speaker 1: as a wayman, and your eyes can easily gaze over
Speaker 1: looking at the sort of language that's used to explain
Speaker 1: what the FBI is going to do down the road
Speaker 1: to reform themselves. Is that they were basically toothless reforms.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair assessment? You know? Then I'll have
Speaker 1: to be frank, I have not looked at what they
Speaker 1: suggested doing. I'm still so buried in what they did
Speaker 1: in the past. And I also kind of look at
Speaker 1: it as you're always going to say the nice stuff.
Speaker 1: That's when the rubber meets the road. That I really
Speaker 1: am going to care about it, and I think that
Speaker 1: there's the more significant change would be that the FISA
Speaker 1: court requires that you have and amycus someone who's arguing
Speaker 1: on behalf of the person who's going to be tapped.
Speaker 1: So I really have no idea if it's going to
Speaker 1: be toothless or not. But there's there's so much that
Speaker 1: went wrong, and until we know everything that went wrong,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say how do you reform it. One
Speaker 1: more point that I think is worth thinking is that
Speaker 1: before this FIZO abuse report came out, there was another
Speaker 1: IG report that didn't get nearly as much focus by
Speaker 1: the media, which was on confidential human sources i e.
Speaker 1: Informants i e. Spies. How significant is that report in
Speaker 1: context of the FIZO abuse report. It was so key
Speaker 1: And I guess now I'm going to have to say
Speaker 1: it's a three way tie. What's the most underreported stories.
Speaker 1: So the IG report that came out, I want to
Speaker 1: say two weeks before the Carter page one made clear
Speaker 1: that the FBI was not putting derogatory information in the
Speaker 1: confidential human source files because it was harming the prosecutors
Speaker 1: the US Attorney's ability to use them. Because they would
Speaker 1: have to turn it over in discovery to the defendants,
Speaker 1: and then it would make them not seem as credible.
Speaker 1: That should be huge. We're not talking about one guy
Speaker 1: who accidentally made a mistake or one guy who purposely
Speaker 1: deleted or changed an email. The IG report made it
Speaker 1: clear that this was a fairly prevalent approach, a very
Speaker 1: prevalent opinion that the FBI recognize that they don't want
Speaker 1: certain things put in these files, which means, how in
Speaker 1: the world can the FBI say that this individual is credible,
Speaker 1: that there is nothing derogatory when they don't put it
Speaker 1: in the file. And to me, you read those two
Speaker 1: things in conjunction, it makes the second report even more damning.
Speaker 1: But everyone was so focused on what the Page report
Speaker 1: was going to say and looking forward to that they
Speaker 1: missed what the IG admitted the FBI was doing. So
Speaker 1: there's so much that has gone unreported, and part of
Speaker 1: it's just amusing to me that for two years, every
Speaker 1: little thing that happened that maybe looked like Russia collusion
Speaker 1: was blown up and just read into so much and reported.
Speaker 1: The IG Report's been out from what two three weeks,
Speaker 1: and it's old news and there's so much buried in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've done it, just an exceptional job reporting on it.
Speaker 1: I urge all of our listeners and viewers to check
Speaker 1: out Margot's work at The Federalist. We're going to have
Speaker 1: to leave it right there, but Margot, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming around the program today. Thanks so much. Bennett
Speaker 1: was nice to talk with you. And this has been
Speaker 1: one in for Buck sex on on the Buck Sex
Speaker 1: and show back with some closing thoughts just after this.
Speaker 1: You're in the Freedom mund This is the Buck Sexton
Speaker 1: Show podcast. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This
Speaker 1: is Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton. And during the
Speaker 1: break it was just thinking about what is sort of
Speaker 1: the unifying theme that ties today together, and that is
Speaker 1: really one of liberty versus tyranny, the tyranny of an
Speaker 1: all powerful government that uses science as an excuse to
Speaker 1: stifle our rights and profit personally from it. Whether it's
Speaker 1: our adversaries, be they the Chinese Communist Party or the
Speaker 1: Iranian molocracy and their malign imperialist expansionist efforts, or whether
Speaker 1: it be our leftists at home not only in the
Speaker 1: realm of under climate change, turning us into an anti
Speaker 1: capitalist bastion, but as well seeking to divide us as
Speaker 1: a means of conquering us through poisonous identity politics. And again,
Speaker 1: what Martin Luther King Junior argued for was the antipthesis
Speaker 1: of that. It was about freedom, individual liberty, respecting the
Speaker 1: dignity of the smallest minority, the individual, consistent with what
Speaker 1: our founders advocated for in those founding documents. And one
Speaker 1: of these enemies of what unifying Americanism, which is the
Speaker 1: strongest bulwark against all of this, is ilhan Omar. And
Speaker 1: I tease this last week and I'll reveal the title
Speaker 1: of my book now forthcoming next month is American ingrit
Speaker 1: ilhan Omar and the Progressive Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: And I'll be talking more about the book in the
Speaker 1: coming days. But subscribe to my newswetter. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a heads up when it's available. It's bit dot ly
Speaker 1: slash bhw News. Urge you to subscribe there and you'll
Speaker 1: be abreast when the book comes out. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to listen or watch
Speaker 1: us over the last few days, as I've had the
Speaker 1: privilege to fill in for Buck. Want to thank Buck
Speaker 1: for giving me the opportunity to fill his big shoes.
Speaker 1: This has been ben wingaren in for Buck Sex and
Speaker 1: on the Buck Sex and Show. Give me a follow
Speaker 1: at BH Winegarden. Look forward to talking next time. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much