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Speaker 1: On this episode of news World, when Gary Shapley, a

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Speaker 1: longtime IRS investigator, wanted to come forward with information that

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Speaker 1: the federal government had mishandled the tax investigation into Hunter Biden,

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Speaker 1: the President's son. The details he had to share were

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Speaker 1: so sensitive he couldn't even provide it to his own

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Speaker 1: lawyer without potentially committing a founty. So through his attorney,

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Speaker 1: he approached Empower Oversight, a group composed of lawyers with

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Speaker 1: deep experience in Capitol Hill investigations, who coached him on

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Speaker 1: a strategy for how to get the information to Congress lawfully.

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Speaker 1: Months later, Gary Shapley and a fellow IRS investigator, Joseph Ziegler,

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Speaker 1: were testifying in an open session before the House Oversight

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Speaker 1: and Accountability Committee, detailing their claims that the President's son

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Speaker 1: had received special Tales treatment. Here to discuss how they

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Speaker 1: help whistleblowers who come forward. I'm really pleased to welcome

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Speaker 1: my two guests, Kristin Lovett and Jason Foster, leaders of

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Speaker 1: Empower Oversight. Kristin and Jason, welcome and thank you for

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Speaker 1: joining me on newts World.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having us, Thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. What you're doing is fascinating,

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Speaker 1: But can you talk about the important role that whistleblowers

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Speaker 1: play in government oversight?

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Speaker 2: Sure so, yes, Christain and I both spent years working

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Speaker 2: for the patron saint of whistleblowers, Senator Chuck Rassley, and

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Speaker 2: you know, in our experience there, what we learned, especially

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Speaker 2: working on the Operation Fast and Furious gun running scandal there,

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Speaker 2: is that whistleblowers really supercharge any kind of oversight effort

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Speaker 2: because what they do is they give you the opportunity

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Speaker 2: to get information from the executive brand that the executive

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Speaker 2: branch would otherwise not want you to have. And it's

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Speaker 2: incredibly useful, especially when you're doing oversight a federal law

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Speaker 2: enforcement and the DOJ, because that is some of the

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Speaker 2: most challenging work when you're in a legislative branch oversight

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Speaker 2: role is to get information from them on particularly pending matters,

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Speaker 2: And with whistleblower laws, they specifically protect law enforcement officers

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Speaker 2: like the ATF agents who came forward in Fast and Furious,

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Speaker 2: like the IRS agents who have come forward here in

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Speaker 2: the Hunter Biden matter. The law specifically ensures that they

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Speaker 2: can come forward and bring law enforcement information about misconduct

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Speaker 2: to oversight authorities, both in the IG community and in Congress.

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Speaker 1: Probably the most famous person that you have helped so

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Speaker 1: far and the one which has certainly gotten the most

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Speaker 1: national coverage. He is an IRS senior agent, Gary Schappler.

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Speaker 1: He's a longtime investigator. He came out I think great courage,

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Speaker 1: took a real risk to tell the truth about how

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Speaker 1: the tax investigation and the President Biden's sun hunter was

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Speaker 1: being totally mishandled, and you ended up playing a key

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Speaker 1: role in his ability to speak up. Tell us a

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Speaker 1: little bit about Gary and what he's like.

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Speaker 2: Sure, so, Gary has been an IRS criminal investigator for

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Speaker 2: fourteen years. He's a supervisor. He supervises a unit of

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Speaker 2: twelve elite agents who focus on international tax and money

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Speaker 2: laundering cases. He's been extremely successful and is extremely well

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Speaker 2: regarded among multiple US Attorney's offices he's worked with around

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Speaker 2: the country. He's responsible for cases that have brought in

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Speaker 2: three point five billion dollars for the US taxpayer. He

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Speaker 2: worked on the credit sweee case. He is the real deal.

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Speaker 2: So it's not just some mid level bureaucrat risking a

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Speaker 2: cushy government job. This is somebody who's very well respected

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Speaker 2: within the IRS. Very well respected around the country with

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Speaker 2: federal law enforcement, and so for him to risk all

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Speaker 2: of that and come forward, and I'll tell you when

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Speaker 2: you hear him tell his story, he was very reluctant

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Speaker 2: to come to the conclusions that he did that the

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Speaker 2: Delaware US Attorney's office was giving Hunter Biden the kid

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Speaker 2: glove treatment. He's very familiar with the typical dynamic between

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Speaker 2: prosecutors and agents that agents always think they have the

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Speaker 2: case made and prosecutors always want more information. That's not

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Speaker 2: what this is about. He was giving them the benefit

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Speaker 2: of the doubt at every turn for years. And there

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Speaker 2: came a time when he heard the US Attorney, mister Weiss,

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Speaker 2: directly contradicting what the Attorney General, mister Garland, had said

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Speaker 2: in sworn testimony on Capitol Hill about whether he could

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Speaker 2: bring charges in DC and California without permission of those

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Speaker 2: Biden appointed US attorneys. Wise admitted privately to Gary that

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Speaker 2: he wasn't allowed to do that, and that's what Gary

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Speaker 2: calls his redline meeting. He cannot sit back and allow

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Speaker 2: that false impression in the public to stay uncorrected. And

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Speaker 2: so he felt he had a duty to come forward,

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Speaker 2: and he struggled many sleepless nights, as he said, about

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Speaker 2: the decision to come forward and risk what he was

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Speaker 2: risking because he knew that it would be in the

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Speaker 2: spin cycle of politics and he would be a political

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Speaker 2: football being kicked by both sides for their own purposes.

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Speaker 1: So what was the red line that made him feel

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Speaker 1: like he had to come forward?

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Speaker 3: So Gary had been assigned to the case in the

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Speaker 3: beginning of twenty twenty and for all of twenty twenty,

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Speaker 3: all of twenty twenty one, most of twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 3: They had been working on developing the case, on bringing

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Speaker 3: it forward, and so the IRS agents, with the recommendation

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Speaker 3: of David Weiss's office, sent those to Justice Department headquarters

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Speaker 3: in early twenty twenty two, and through the course of

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Speaker 3: that year, the IRS and FBI agents understood that the

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Speaker 3: charges which were recommended included three felonies for tax years

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Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen, and twenty nineteen, and then misdemeanors

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Speaker 3: for a twenty fifteen through twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 4: Each of those years. They understood that those needed to

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Speaker 4: be presented.

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Speaker 3: In the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia,

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Speaker 3: which happened in March of twenty twenty two, and then

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Speaker 3: subsequently in the US Attorney's office for the Central District

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Speaker 3: of California. Tax charges have to be brought where the

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Speaker 3: taxpayer lived and should have filed the tax returns, and

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Speaker 3: that was DC during the bulk of the Obama administration,

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Speaker 3: and then Hunter Biden moved to LA and so that's

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Speaker 3: the Central District of California. And so the agents were

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Speaker 3: operating with this assumption that yes, they need to be

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Speaker 3: presented outside of the District of Delaware, where Weiss was

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Speaker 3: the US attorney, But the based on representations made publicly

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Speaker 3: by the Attorney General, including to the Senate, that use

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Speaker 3: Attorney Weiss would have the ability to do that, even

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Speaker 3: though that's not your typical authority. You have to have

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Speaker 3: the approval of the US attorneys from another district. And

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Speaker 3: so after presenting those charges in d C in March

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Speaker 3: of twenty twenty two and then again in California, this

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Speaker 3: October seventh Redline meeting is when Weiss told the two

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Speaker 3: senior officials in the IRS's d C Field Office and

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Speaker 3: then in the FBI's Baltimore Field Office, which has the

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Speaker 3: jurisdiction over Delaware told them that he wasn't the deciding

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Speaker 3: official on whether these charges were brought, and that in fact,

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Speaker 3: DC's US Attorney Matt Graves, who was appointed by President

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Speaker 3: Biden and has an obvious conflict of interest, that Graves

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Speaker 3: had rejected the charges initially when the case was presented

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Speaker 3: in DC. The first assistant US Attorney, which is the

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Speaker 3: number two official, was very positive about the case, thought

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Speaker 3: it was a slam dunk case. When it was presented

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Speaker 3: to US Attorney Graves, he rejected it, and this was

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Speaker 3: news to the agents on October seventh, and US Attorney

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Speaker 3: Wis further told this group that he had requested special

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Speaker 3: charging authority from the Justice Department after that rejection from Graves,

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Speaker 3: but that it was denied by the Department of Justice,

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Speaker 3: which told him just to work through the process. And

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Speaker 3: so for Gary realizing that despite what Attorney General Garland

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Speaker 3: was saying publicly and in Congress, that there were these

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Speaker 3: unmitigated conflicts of interests where Biden appointees were rejecting solid

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Speaker 3: charges that should have gone against Hunter Biden, that were

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Speaker 3: endorsed by the US Attorney's office by the investigators, and

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Speaker 3: that not only would those twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen

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Speaker 3: charges be allowed to expire, the statute of plentations would

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Speaker 3: be let go and the government would never charge those years.

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Speaker 3: But if California, as this attorney, rejected the charges, they

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Speaker 3: could see the entire case go with no charges. And

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Speaker 3: this to Gary, after all the work and the years

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Speaker 3: they put in, and the fact that it just contradicted

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Speaker 3: what Mary Garland had said publicly to him, was a

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Speaker 3: time that he thought Congress needed to know about this

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Speaker 3: behind the ses information.

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Speaker 1: I have two questions about this whole whistleblower process. One

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Speaker 1: is what seems to be the automan motivation that leads

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Speaker 1: people to take these risks and go through it. And

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Speaker 1: the second is, as you look out at your vastionalledge

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Speaker 1: of the government, where are the kind of places you

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Speaker 1: hope we will find whistleblowers who will really help us

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Speaker 1: understand what's going on.

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Speaker 2: The primary motivation for people to come forward is usually

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Speaker 2: to try to correct some kind of wrong. It's insiders

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Speaker 2: seeing wrongdoing that they can't in good conscience just look

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Speaker 2: the other way. And we need whistleblower protections to enable

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Speaker 2: them to be able to come forward and bring that

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Speaker 2: information to management of the agency and to outside oversight

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Speaker 2: authorities who can actually do something about it. The reason

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Speaker 2: that people should blow the whistle if they see something

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Speaker 2: wrong is the opportunity to make a difference and to

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Speaker 2: make sure that if good people do nothing, then evil

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Speaker 2: will flourish. And so the primary motivation now is what

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Speaker 2: has always been. We all need to work hard to

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Speaker 2: make sure that we honor that commitment as a country

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Speaker 2: to people who come forward and speak up about wrongdoing

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Speaker 2: that we're not going to allow them to be retaliated

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Speaker 2: against and targeted and silenced because they're speaking up doing

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Speaker 2: the right thing. And in terms of what areas where

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Speaker 2: it needs to occur the most, I think now it

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Speaker 2: needs to occur the most in the politicized Justice Department.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we need other FBI agents, folks in the

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Speaker 2: Justice Department who see politicizing and weaponizing of our justice

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Speaker 2: system for political purposes and other improper purposes. The country

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Speaker 2: can't survive that kind of trend, and so it's vital

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Speaker 2: that people like that seek advice from an organization, either

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Speaker 2: us or someone like us, so that you can do

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Speaker 2: it in a way where you're protected and take that

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Speaker 2: risk to come forward it's a very personal decision. I

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Speaker 2: would never really urge someone to blow the whistle if

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Speaker 2: they're not comfortable doing it, because there are real risks

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Speaker 2: and it's a very sober decision to make. But if

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Speaker 2: you see something that's wrong that you can't in good conscience,

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Speaker 2: let go find an organization like ours and find someone

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Speaker 2: to help you get it legal advice, do it properly,

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Speaker 2: do it legally, but blow the whistle to the oversight

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Speaker 2: authorities who can do something to fix it.

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Speaker 3: The American people have a piece in all of this

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Speaker 3: as well, I would add, which is that it's important

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Speaker 3: to recognize that protecting whistleblowers is good policy no matter

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Speaker 3: who's in power, and that I think was another big

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Speaker 3: motivation for creating Empower is to be able to promote

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Speaker 3: the protection of whistle blowers. And I think the point

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Speaker 3: that we all need to understand is it doesn't really

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Speaker 3: matter where they come from. If they're within government and

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Speaker 3: their problems in government, we should all want to hear

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Speaker 3: about those. When I left Capitol Hill, I went to

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Speaker 3: an agency called the Office of Special Council, which is

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Speaker 3: different from the Molar Special Council, but it's the agency

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Speaker 3: charge with protecting whistle blowers. And then from there I

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Speaker 3: was confirmed to a board called the Merritor System's Protection Board,

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Speaker 3: and again in those I saw hundreds and hundreds of

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Speaker 3: whistle blowers. You just see that it's so often the

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Speaker 3: case that people when they hear about someone's disclosures, they

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Speaker 3: automatically decide, oh, I.

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Speaker 4: Like that whistle blower. Oh I don't like that whistle blower.

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Speaker 3: Maybe there's some in the middle right where they say, well,

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Speaker 3: I don't know anything about that. But the importance of

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Speaker 3: just recognizing that protecting whistle blowers isn't across the board thing.

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Speaker 3: It protects all of us by protecting the principle of

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Speaker 3: people coming forward to find the problems in government, because

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Speaker 3: when you get away from that, you'll end up with

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Speaker 3: problems festering, like we have in the Justice Department, because

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Speaker 3: too often people pick their teams in their side and

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Speaker 3: don't recognize the universal principle that the Constitution was really

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Speaker 3: centered around, which is power corrupts. That's a central view

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Speaker 3: of the founders, and so we have checks and balances

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Speaker 3: throughout government. But again, for Congress to do its constitutional

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Speaker 3: oversight duties, it has to have whistle blowers and they're

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Speaker 3: not going to come forward if it's a coin toss

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Speaker 3: whether or not their disclosures are going to be well

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Speaker 3: received or not.

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Speaker 4: So I just think it's really important.

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Speaker 3: That again we as a country applaud whistleblowers, We encourage

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Speaker 3: them for what they do, and even when it turns

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Speaker 3: out that the facts on the ground don't look like

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Speaker 3: what we thought they did or what we hope they would.

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Speaker 1: HI. This is newt In my new book, March the Majority,

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Speaker 1: outlines the sixteen year campaign to write the Contract with America.

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Speaker 1: Explains how we elected the first Republican House majority in

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Speaker 1: forty years in how we worked with President Bill Clinton

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Speaker 1: to pass major reforms, including four consecutive balanced budgets. March

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Speaker 1: today at gingishtree sixty dot com slash book. You all

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Speaker 1: organized as the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus back in twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 1: Is it still up and running?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 1: What is its role?

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Speaker 3: After the whistle Blower Protection Enhancement Act, which was a

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Speaker 3: law passed in twenty twelve, it was the latest update

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Speaker 3: to the whistle blower protection laws just around that time,

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Speaker 3: and since then, there's really been a loss of knowledge.

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Speaker 3: There had been a loss of knowledge about those that

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Speaker 3: really understood the importance of whistlebler protections, not to mention

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Speaker 3: their mechanics, and so the idea of the Whistleblower Protection

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Speaker 3: Caucus was to help basically train members and help them

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Speaker 3: to learn to educate them on the importance of protecting

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Speaker 3: whistle blowers.

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Speaker 4: And so that was why.

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Speaker 3: I had proposed it within the office I left at

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Speaker 3: the end of twenty fourteen. So we announced it in

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Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. Ron Wyden signed up to be the first member.

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Speaker 3: We wanted to be bipartisan, and had been announced that

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Speaker 3: it would sign up members to twenty fourteen and launch

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Speaker 3: it in twenty fifteen, by which point I was gone.

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Speaker 3: But I think it's been very very useful over these

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Speaker 3: years in having a group of individuals who might not

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Speaker 3: agree with each other on each individual whistleblower that comes forward,

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Speaker 3: or even on the whistleblower policy in the minute details

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Speaker 3: of that, but understanding that on both sides of the aisle,

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Speaker 3: it's so important to protect those with the knowledge to

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Speaker 3: shine a light on waste, broaden abuse. If you want

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Speaker 3: to drain the swamp, those are the people you need

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Speaker 3: to talk to. And because of that, I think the

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Speaker 3: Whistleblower Protection Caucus has been immensely useful over the years.

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Speaker 1: Now as I understand, this led you guys to draft

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Speaker 1: the FBI Whistleblower Protection Act of twenty sixteen, which comes

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Speaker 1: even after the earlier act. Why was it specifically FBI?

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Speaker 3: When I was working at Senator Grassley's office, I handled

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Speaker 3: his whistleblower policy specifically, And one of the things that

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Speaker 3: Senator Grassley had focused on for many years was oversight

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Speaker 3: of the FBI. And to go way back in time,

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight, actually Postwater date is when the original

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Speaker 3: kind of what became the base of the Whistlebler Protection

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Speaker 3: Act was passed.

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Speaker 4: It's called the Civil Service.

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Speaker 3: Reform Act, and in that law, the FBI was excluded

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Speaker 3: when all other civil servant whistleblower protections were created. So

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Speaker 3: the FBI was lumped in with the intelligence community well

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Speaker 3: before nine to eleven, well before it was actually any

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Speaker 3: part of the intelligence community. And essentially that was just

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Speaker 3: because of the remaining legacy of j Edgar Hoover, who

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Speaker 3: had not been dead for very long, and so there

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Speaker 3: was just a lot of fear of the FBI and

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Speaker 3: there was a prestige law enforcement organization, so it was excluded.

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Speaker 3: And over the years it showed again and again what

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Speaker 3: an impact that had. So when Senator Grassley began focusing

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Speaker 3: on the FBI crime labs scandals, when a whistleblower named

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Speaker 3: Frederick Whitehurst came to him at the end of the

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighties and through the nineteen ninety center Grassley focused

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Speaker 3: on trying to help fred Whitehurst draw attention to those

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Speaker 3: problems with FBI crime lab and it became clear that

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Speaker 3: the FBI is virtually non existent whistle blurer protections. They

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Speaker 3: just got an afterthought in the law. Here's one section

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Speaker 3: of the law for all of the typical civil servants,

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Speaker 3: for all typical whistleblowers, and then the next section just says, well, FBI,

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Speaker 3: here's the general ideal, and you implement it harve you like,

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Speaker 3: and they hadn't even implemented regulations for a long time.

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Speaker 3: So by the twenty tens, we were doing a lot

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Speaker 3: of oversight to highlight the fact that there needed to

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Speaker 3: be legislative changes, and that was really the impetus for

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Speaker 3: the FBI was the Blower Protection Act of twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 3: which really the goal as a larger bill was to

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Speaker 3: help get them at least something more comparable to typical protections.

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Speaker 3: It ultimately ended up being stripped down, and Jason maybe

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Speaker 3: can share a little bit about that, But the version

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Speaker 3: of the bill that Centator Grassley introduced would have made

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Speaker 3: large scale changes, and only a portion of that we

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Speaker 3: were able to get negotiated through again because others just

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Speaker 3: objected to them being on the same footing, right.

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Speaker 2: The bottom line, most people don't understand this are are

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Speaker 2: surprised when they learn of it, even sophisticated insiders in DC.

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Speaker 2: But the bottom line is that FBI agents do not

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Speaker 2: have the same level of whistleblower protections and the same

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Speaker 2: process to access and remedy whistle blower retaliation that every

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Speaker 2: other law enforcement officer has. If you're at the DEA

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Speaker 2: or the ATF or irs, criminal investigators like Gary Shapley,

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Speaker 2: those folks, they have a big leg up on other

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Speaker 2: folks in the FBI because they have the full process

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Speaker 2: protections of being able to go to the office as

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Speaker 2: special counsel, being able to appeal to the Merit Systems

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Speaker 2: Protection Board, and the FBI just simply has this carve

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Speaker 2: out and this exception and special treatment that they don't

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Speaker 2: have to honor the same whustle blower protections. The management

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Speaker 2: at the FBI doesn't have to honor the same muscle

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Speaker 2: bloer protections that management at other law enforcement does. And

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Speaker 2: the main difference now in the modern era versus back

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy eight is we have these multiple other

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Speaker 2: federal la enforcement agencies that are not as big as

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Speaker 2: the FBI, but all put together, they are comparable to

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Speaker 2: the FBI. And the world does not spin off its

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Speaker 2: axis just because they have to obey whistle blower protection statutes.

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Speaker 2: And so those statutes in my view, should apply one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent equally to the FBI, but sort of because

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Speaker 2: of the history of the development of the law, that's

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Speaker 2: not the case even today, even with some of the

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Speaker 2: corrections we've made.

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Speaker 1: So having participated both on the investigation and legislative side

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Speaker 1: of the Congress. You guys create empower oversight, the empower

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Speaker 1: oversight whistle blowers and research which becomes empower. Why did

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Speaker 1: you do that and what was your goal in creating empower?

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Speaker 2: Well, I had left Capitol Hill in twenty eighteen after

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Speaker 2: serving for about eight years with Senator Grassley as his

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Speaker 2: chief investigator on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Worked in the

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Speaker 2: private sector for a couple of years, and I was

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Speaker 2: looking for a way to get back into serving the

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Speaker 2: mission that I had served for most of my career.

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Speaker 2: When I had worked for Senator Grassley for fourteen years.

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Speaker 2: And there are lots of other whistleblower groups out there,

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Speaker 2: most of them are left of center. We have met

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Speaker 2: them over the years, We have good relationships with them.

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Speaker 2: We applaud what they do. But the fact is a

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Speaker 2: lot of times, if a whistleblower's disclosures let's say, you know,

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Speaker 2: implicate or difficult for people on the left or for

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Speaker 2: a Democrat administration, those organizations might not be the best

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Speaker 2: play for someone to go so, And in fact, we

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Speaker 2: saw that during Operation Fast and Furious John Dodson, we

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Speaker 2: tried to get him help from some of the existing organizations.

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Speaker 2: And to be candid again, I have friends who work

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Speaker 2: with those organizations. I'm not criticizing them, but it's just

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Speaker 2: political reality, right. They just weren't willing to take up

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Speaker 2: something intake on the Obama administration, and there weren't really

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Speaker 2: equivalent organizations that were right of center or who were

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Speaker 2: staffed by people who are right of center, and so

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Speaker 2: we saw there's basically a need to fill that gap.

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Speaker 2: Another reason I launched it is because I wanted to

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Speaker 2: have an organization that would not just focus on whistleblower

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Speaker 2: policy and just focus on representing people in their fights

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Speaker 2: against retaliation, although that's obviously part of what we do

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Speaker 2: and very necessary, but I also wanted an organization that

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Speaker 2: would help hold the oversight authorities in the IG community

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Speaker 2: and on Capitol Hill accountable for actually doing something about

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Speaker 2: the underlying problems that whistleblowers were raising concerns about. Because

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Speaker 2: the number one reason that whistleblowers don't come forward most

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Speaker 2: people think it's fear of retaliation. It's not. Most whistleblowers

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Speaker 2: who don't come forward say nothing because they don't think

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Speaker 2: the risk is worth the reward. They don't think that

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Speaker 2: anybody will do anything to fix the problems, So why

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Speaker 2: risk your career to raise your hand and speak out.

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Speaker 2: So part of what we do with our relationships deep

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Speaker 2: relationships on Capitol Hill and in the IG community, is

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Speaker 2: we can help make sure that when someone comes to

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Speaker 2: us and we help them craft their disclosure, we help

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Speaker 2: them do it in the right way, to make sure

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Speaker 2: that it's legal, that it's proper, that it's done, and

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Speaker 2: the best way to protect them. But we can also

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Speaker 2: help make sure that the people they're blowing the whistle

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Speaker 2: to actually follow through and put pressure on those folks

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Speaker 2: to follow through and do something about it and fix

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Speaker 2: the problem. You must have a pretty good bit of

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Speaker 2: business more than we can handle.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Since January sixth, the FBI has pushed out a number

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Speaker 1: of FBI employees who were not president at the Capitol

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Speaker 1: in January sixth, but hold differing views than FBI leadership.

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Speaker 1: One of the keys was Steve Friend and Marcus Allen.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk about their role as whistleblowers?

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Speaker 3: So, Steve Friend and Marcus Allen are among a number

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Speaker 3: of FBI whistleblowers who have come to us, and a

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Speaker 3: big part of what they have disclosed is really just that,

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Speaker 3: especially after January sixth of twenty twenty, and these are

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Speaker 3: all FBI agents. These are not individuals who were present

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Speaker 3: at the Capitol outside of the capital, much less inside

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Speaker 3: of it. These are just FBI agents who have a

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Speaker 3: different view of the world in some ways, and particularly

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Speaker 3: of how aggressively the FBI was going after people who

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Speaker 3: also weren't necessarily at the Capitol, and so the disclosures

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Speaker 3: that they made about, for instance, Bank of America coming

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Speaker 3: forward with the credit card information everybody who used a

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Speaker 3: Bank of America product in Washington, d C. On January fifth,

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Speaker 3: or sixth, or seventh, handing that over to the FBI.

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Speaker 3: These are the types of things that concerned a lot

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Speaker 3: of people within the FBI.

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Speaker 4: And what we see is that.

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Speaker 3: The Deputy FBI Director, Paul Abate really just early on said,

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Speaker 3: if you have a problem with how we're approaching these,

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Speaker 3: maybe this isn't the organization for you. In a large

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Speaker 3: scale way, a lot of people have been pushed out

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Speaker 3: of the FBI, including those who were hesitant about receiving

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Speaker 3: the vaccine, which.

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Speaker 4: Was mandated within the FBI.

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Speaker 3: And so that's a big part of how Steve Friend,

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Speaker 3: Marcus Allen, and others like them came forward and again,

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Speaker 3: the whole point of empower is to help bring those

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Speaker 3: messages to those who need to know about it. And

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Speaker 3: the Weaponization Subcommittee on Capitol Hill was formed precisely to

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Speaker 3: look at things like this, and that's somewhere that I

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Speaker 3: testified back in May alongside Steve Friend, Marcus Allen, and

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Speaker 3: another list Blurn named Garrett Oil, and they all highlight

438
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 3: it again how the FBI has just really changed how

439
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,360
Speaker 3: it's culture and how it approaches issues. Out of its workforce,

440
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 3: it's inevitable that half of them are going to have

441
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 3: maybe different political views than the other half. That's just

442
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 3: the country that we live in. But the FBI is

443
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 3: still working on taxpayer dollars and it can't just push

444
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 3: out everybody that doesn't have the same worldview that those

445
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 3: at the top have.

446
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 2: So Marcus Allen and Steve Friend, one of the key

447
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 2: themes in both of their cases, and one of the

448
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 2: reasons that we've been pushing them and going to the

449
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 2: committees to raise their concerns is they really illustrate a

450
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,440
Speaker 2: new tactic that the FBI has been using very aggressively

451
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 2: in order to retaliate against whistleblowers, and that is the

452
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 2: abuse of the security clearance process. Because of a Supreme

453
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 2: Court case called Navy versus Egan, they have a belief

454
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 2: that they can essentially suspend someone's security clearance, take them

455
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 2: off the payroll for an indefinite period of time while

456
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 2: they quote investigate whether or not they're suitable for a clearance.

457
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 2: That there can never be judicial review of that, and

458
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 2: they have begun using that as a way to retaliate

459
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 2: against people for either unpopular political opinions about January sixth

460
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: and other things, the vaccine mandate, things like that. They

461
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 2: use it as a real bureaucratic weapon to be able

462
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 2: to remove someone from the payroll where they're not allowed

463
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: to work. And then during that period where they're off

464
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 2: the payroll, they're not getting a pay check and they're

465
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 2: not allowed to take outside work without permission of the bureau,

466
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 2: which of course they deny. Basically, it's a financial squeeze

467
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 2: to get people to quit without actually going through any

468
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,640
Speaker 2: of the internal appeals procedures and due process to try

469
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 2: to vindicate and challenge the suspension of their security clearance.

470
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 2: So that's the commonality between Marcus Allen and Steve Friend's case.

471
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: Another case which has really gotten a lot of national

472
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: intention is Gary Shapley, who is the longtime IRS investigator

473
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: who really believed that the government had mishandled the tax

474
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 1: investigation into President Biden's son Hunter. But he had information

475
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: so sensitive he couldn't even give it to his own

476
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: lawyer without potentially committing a felony. So through his attorney,

477
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: he approached you guys that empower oversight, and they managed

478
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 1: to coach him into how to do this, and you

479
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: guys played a major role in helping us. Can you

480
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: walk us through how that's evolved.

481
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:20,199
Speaker 2: There's a real problem that we had to try to

482
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 2: solve there because there is a statute that allows someone

483
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 2: in the IRS or anybody who appropriately has access to

484
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 2: tax return information is normally a felony to disclose that

485
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 2: information without authorization, but there's an exception in the statute

486
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 2: for blowing the whistle, and specifically blowing the whistle to

487
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 2: the proper places on Capitol Hill, which has to be

488
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 2: the chair of the Ways and Means Committee or the

489
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 2: chair of the Finance Committee, the two committees that write

490
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 2: the tax laws. If someone had gone to the Judiciary Committee,

491
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 2: for example, and disclosed tax turn information because they thought

492
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 2: they had a right to blow the whistle. That way,

493
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 2: they would be in trouble. They'd be in serious trouble

494
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 2: because the statue doesn't allow that. So there were some

495
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 2: really fine, touchy waters that he needed ton gate here.

496
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 2: So the statute, while it allows you to disclose tax

497
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 2: turn information to the oversight committees, the tax committees on

498
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 2: Capitol Hill, it doesn't have any explicit exception for sharing

499
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 2: the same sorts of information with your own attorneys. So

500
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 2: what we had to do was before he could even

501
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 2: give any details to his own attorneys, we had to

502
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,439
Speaker 2: figure out how to solve that problem. And Mark lydel

503
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 2: our co council with Nixon. Peabody ended up writing a

504
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 2: letter on April nineteenth of twenty twenty three to all

505
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 2: the committees, all the relevant committees Judiciary and the tax

506
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 2: writing committees, and basically outlined this problem and said, I

507
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 2: have a client he'd like to make the following disclosures.

508
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 2: We generically described those disclosures had to do with protecting

509
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 2: a politically connected individual preferential treatment for that person, not

510
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 2: mitigating conflicts of interest. He could only describe to us,

511
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: and we could only describe to the committees what those

512
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 2: allegations were in broad strokes. So we did that, and

513
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 2: we identified this issue of if he's going to come

514
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 2: in and testify to you, we're not going to send

515
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 2: him in there without a lawyer beside him to look

516
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 2: out for his interests. So the committee needs to figure

517
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 2: out a way to solve this. And in fact, we

518
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,239
Speaker 2: got letters designating two of the three councils on our

519
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 2: team under sixty one or three as agents of the

520
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: committee and authorizing them which the chairs have the power

521
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 2: to do under the statute, authorizing them to receive the

522
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 2: tax return information get all the details from Gary so

523
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 2: that they could then advise him and sit with him

524
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 2: in the interview and help prepare his disclosure for the committees.

525
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 2: We did that in a bipartisan way. We did it

526
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 2: on both the House and the Senate side. We got

527
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 2: buy in and letters of designation authorizing him to share

528
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 2: information with his attorneys from both Senator Widen, the co

529
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: chair of the Whistler Protection Caucus in the Senate, the

530
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 2: Democrat chair of the Finance Committee, as well as Jason Smith,

531
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 2: the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee,

532
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 2: and so that was really what sort of cleared the

533
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 2: decks for Gary to share with his own attorneys all

534
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: the details about the deviations from normal criminal procedure that

535
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 2: he had seen throughout his time working on the Hunter

536
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,239
Speaker 2: Biden investigation. And that allowed him to come forward and

537
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 2: testify behind closed doors to both the Democrats and the

538
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 2: Republicans on the Houseways and Means Committee, which eventually the

539
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 2: committee decided on its own, which it also has authority

540
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 2: under to do under the statute, to vote to release

541
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 2: that information, which they did, and then that's been the

542
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 2: subject of a lot of public discussion since do.

543
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: You know was that vote by partisan or was it

544
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: partisan to release it?

545
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 2: The vote ended up being a one hundred percent partisan vote.

546
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: There wasn't a single Democrat who voted to release the information.

547
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate. But after that, Hunter Biden's lawyers really went

548
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: after Shapley, didn't they.

549
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have come after him, and this has been

550
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 3: a problem that really manifested itself even last year.

551
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 4: You look at Gary Shapley's.

552
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,959
Speaker 3: Testimony and he talks about how he learned in August

553
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 3: a year ago, at Hunter Biden's lawyer, Chris Clark had

554
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 3: told prosecutors, if you charge my client, it will be

555
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 3: a career killer for you, and this has been their

556
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 3: mo throughout. And so about a month or so ago,

557
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 3: we learned for the first time from press reports that.

558
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 4: Hunter Biden's attorneys had.

559
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: Argued to DOJ that they should go after our client,

560
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 3: Garry Shapley because they alleged they'd broken federal laws about

561
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 3: grand jury material, which is patently untrue. We were extremely

562
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 3: careful throughout again both in terms of the taxpayer privacy laws,

563
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 3: and steered entirely clear of any grand jury material. So

564
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 3: this was just a frivolous allegation, but it was made

565
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 3: to the same DOJ that we know would subsequently be

566
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 3: helping to craft the Sweetheart pleadale for Hunter Biden, and

567
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 3: so it was an alarming thing for us to see

568
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 3: in the news reports. Even then, as we got closer

569
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 3: to the plea hearing for Hunter Biden, Chairman Smith took

570
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 3: those transcripts from the behind the scenes whistleblower interviews that

571
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 3: we sat in on and put those into an amicus brief,

572
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 3: a friend of the court brief that tried to inform

573
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 3: Judge Norieka that there were a lot of significant problems

574
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 3: here that she ought to be aware of. And when

575
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 3: he submitted that to the court just a few days

576
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 3: before the plea deal hearing, Hunter Biden's attorneys immediately wrote

577
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 3: to Chairman Smith's attorneys and claimed that there was information

578
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 3: in there that had been illegally disseminated. That's when you

579
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 3: had the whole embrolio over someone on Hunter's legal team

580
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 3: calling the court a clerk for the court and either

581
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 3: implying or in a case of mistaken identity being mistaken

582
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 3: for someone on Chairman Smith's legal team asking to take

583
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 3: documents down, which they initially did, in which Judge Norieco

584
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 3: was very unhappy about an issue to show cause order

585
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 3: that evening as to why she shouldn't issue sanctions against

586
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden's legal team. But then the next day, after

587
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 3: the plea deal was rejected, the very next place the

588
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 3: Hunter's attorneys went was after our clients submitting an additional

589
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 3: filing to the court that specifically said that those exhibits

590
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 3: before it had just been a broad allegation that there

591
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 3: was information in there that shouldn't have been including social

592
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 3: Security numbers, taxpayer private information. Again, after the ple deal

593
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 3: fell through, they specifically alleged that the whistleblower transcripts included

594
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 3: grand jury material, again taxpayer private material. And this was

595
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 3: a definite shot across the bow of our client, across

596
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 3: the bow of Joseph Siegler, the case agent, and is

597
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 3: very concerning because again these attorneys have made clear that

598
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 3: they have no qualms about making this frivolous allegations and

599
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 3: then going to great lengths to pursue those.

600
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: If you're a whistleblower, in addition to needing protection from

601
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 1: your employer, you may well be faced with legal fees

602
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: and problems as the person that you're blowing the whistle

603
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: on Fire's attorneys. Now you have a legal fund that

604
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: defend whistleblowers dot com. How does that help people like

605
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: Special Agent Shapley.

606
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 2: Well, so we set up this special fund for law

607
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 2: enforcement whistleblowers separate from our general fun so that if

608
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 2: there are people who want to help put together sort

609
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 2: of a war chest to be able to defend either

610
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 2: Shaply or others like him who might want to come forward,

611
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: that we will be able to hopefully have the resources

612
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 2: to do that. And so we're asking people to donate

613
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 2: there if they have a particular concern about law enforcement

614
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 2: whistle blowers.

615
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: It's really sort of hand to hand combat, isn't it.

616
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: A person wants to do the right thing, they may

617
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: face penalties inside their own operation. They may face a

618
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: hostile lawyer for the person that's being accused. We need

619
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 1: to be able to help whistle blowers know that they

620
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: will have serious protection if they come out to help us.

621
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: In that sense, what you guys are doing seems to

622
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: me is very very important.

623
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 2: Absolutely, don't forget the human element of this too. I mean,

624
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 2: Gary talks a lot about how many sleepless nights he

625
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 2: lost between last fall when he first started seeing things

626
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 2: that he could not look the other way on. Think

627
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 2: about all the stress if it's you and your job

628
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: on the line, and the future of your four daughters

629
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 2: and their college, your ability to make a living, and

630
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 2: you know that there's unlimited resources. On the other side,

631
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: there's the US attorneys who are trying to defend their reputations.

632
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,439
Speaker 2: There's the very well funded lawyers for the president's son

633
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 2: who are going to be out there looking for any

634
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: way they can to tear you apart. It's one thing

635
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 2: I try to impress upon people on Capitol Hill and

636
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 2: people in the IG world. These are real human beings

637
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 2: and they're going through real struggles. And this isn't just

638
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 2: about headlines and fundraising or whatever if you're in Congress.

639
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 2: I mean, this is about real people with real wrongdoing

640
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 2: that they're trying to report that needs to be remedied.

641
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: Well, listen, interesting and Jason, I want to thank you

642
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: for joining me. I also want to thank you for

643
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: the patriotic work you're doing. I think the work you

644
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: and the team and Empower Oversite are doing is essential

645
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: to holding our government accountable and supporting whistleblowers is a

646
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: key piece of that. And I want to let our

647
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: listeners know if they'd like to find out more about

648
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: Empower Oversight, they can go to your website that empowered

649
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: dot us. That's empowr dot us. And I'm really grateful

650
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: the two of you and I thank you for spending

651
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:10,399
Speaker 1: this time with us.

652
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, we appreciate

653
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 2: the invite. Thank you very much.

654
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest Tristan Levitt and Jason Foster.

655
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Empower Oversight on our show

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Speaker 1: page newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Gagrid three

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Speaker 1: sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Slump and

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Speaker 1: our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show

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Speaker 1: Who's created by Steve Penley special thanks to the team

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Speaker 1: at Gingrid three sixty. If you've been enjoying newts World,

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Speaker 1: others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners

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Speaker 1: of Newtsworld consign up for my three free weekly columns

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Speaker 1: new Gingrich. This is new chalk.

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Speaker 3: Mmmmmmmm