From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - It's Not The Hunter Biden Investigation, It's The Biden Investigation

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

On this episode Sean and Rachel sit down with Senior Fellow at the National Review Institute, Contributing Editor at National Review, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for The Southern District of New York, Andrew McCarthy, to discuss why the Hunter Biden investigation is not just about Hunter's exploits, but why then Vice President Joe Biden sold off his foreign policy influence for monetary benefit.   Andy explains the legal details of where the investigation could go and weighs in on why the Durham probe is having trouble picking up steam due to D.C. area courts. Then, Sean, Rachel and Andy discuss how different Congress could look under a potential Speaker Kevin McCarthy.   Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everybody, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my

wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Thank you, Sean. It's so great to be back at our kitchen table. And today we are joined by fox news contributor senior fellow at the national review institute and contributing editor of the national review boy he's got a lot of titles and former assistant u.s attorney for the southern district of new york andrew mccarthy and you were so glad to have you first of all welcome to the kitchen table everyone knows at fox News that I'm obsessed with Hunter Biden and no one knows more about Hunter Biden, the corruption, the trials than you.

So we're just really honored that you would join us at the kitchen table. Well, thank you so much, Rachel and Sean. I'm delighted to be here. And today my title should be like neighbor. I think we're neighbors. So, yes, exactly. So so so do you go ahead? You go ahead, Sean. So so, Andy, I want to first I want to talk about, you know, this this letter that came out from Senator Chuck Grassley to the FBI in regard to the Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, James Biden investigation. and Joe Biden, James Biden investigation. And after that, I want to talk about the Danchenko trial, the Durham, the second trial that Durham has taken to a jury, the second loss for him. But I want to talk first about the Grassley letter. And in essence, Chuck Grassley is saying

to the FBI, listen, we have reports that have come to us that would tell us that you have voluminous information in regard to criminal activity, not just for Hunter Biden, but also James Biden and Joe Biden. I just want to kind of get your take on what's what kind of give us the state of play. What's happening here in regard to the FBI maybe having, you know, very good information about criminal activity of the now sitting president, but not really moving on it. Yeah, well, you know, very good information about criminal activity of the now sitting president, but not really moving on it. Yeah. Well, you know, my biggest complaint, Sean, from the beginning has been I think we make a big mistake calling this the Hunter Biden. Amen. Investigation. Amen. It's the Biden investigation.

And, you know, he's he's very gingerly referred to it as his tax matter. You know, we've gotten some information about, you know, four years old. Four years ago, he made a false statement in connection with a the acquisition of a gun, which he then lost. That's that's notable in terms of public interest, only because if one of the three of us, if that had happened to three of us, we would have been prosecuted four years ago. But in terms of the national interest, what matters in the Biden investigation is this very simple question. particularly when Barack Obama was president, that whenever Joe Biden was made the point guy on foreign policy with respect to, you know, what regime you can name Russia, Ukraine, China, that people who were connected to those regimes suddenly thought it was expedient to pay his ne'er-do-well son, who had no relevant experience to whatever the task was, millions and millions of dollars. That's the question. And, you know, my point, and anybody who's had to fill out paperwork to get a national security clearance will identify with this. question is could the president of the united states fill out the form sf-86 that every single person who wants to get a security clearance

in america has to fill out and then expect to get a security clearance given the amount of money that was coming in to the biden family by people who were connected to anti-American regimes. I'm so glad that you said that because that's exactly how I feel. You know, I think we're all so distracted by the porn and the, you know, all the crazy stories and the drugs and, you know, all of it. It's so salacious. It's so easy to get, you know, caught up in that part. But this really is about Joe Biden. It kind of reminds me, Andrew, of how, you know, the Clintons managed to get the Clinton scandal called the Lewinsky scandal. It really was about Bill Clinton. And somehow it

ended up being the Lewinsky scandal. This is the Joe Biden scandal. And it's so dangerous. It's a potential national security issue. I believe he's compromised. I believe he's the big guy that's talked about there. I want to play what Tony Bobulinski, who was a business associate of Hunter Biden, said about the fact that he had all this information. He told the FBI. They said they were going to follow up. And then here's what happened. Listen, they were supposed to be working a follow up interview. And Tim Tebow, in his last discussion with my legal counsel was, listen, we know Tony's

cooperating. We appreciate all the information he's provided. We will follow up with you. We're definitely going to have him come in for a follow up interview or spend some more time on this. And I haven't heard from them since. At all? No. Nor have my lawyers. No communication whatsoever? No. Since before the 2020 election? Correct. So that's Tony Bobulinski speaking to Tucker Carlson saying no one followed up. So between what Sean said, this grassy letter that

says, hey, we've got voluminous evidence, we've got whistleblowers in the FBI saying they know that this is connected to Joe Biden. And then the fact that they wouldn't follow up with Tony Bobulinski. I mean, is this now an FBI scandal? I think it's been an FBI scandal for a while. And if you think about it, you know, we got a lot of information on the infamous laptop that came out in the weeks before the election. But for about a year before then, Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson in the Senate had been conducting an investigation of foreign money going into the Biden family coffers. And most of that evidence came from suspicious activity reports that were filed by financial institutions with the Treasury Department. It wasn't Russian disinformation. It didn't come off the laptop. That's what it was. And to have called the Biden stuff Russian disinformation, which the FBI helped them do in the run up to the election under circumstances where this was not simply about the laptop. this other financial information, but you had a corroborating witness in Bobulinski who said he

had had two face-to-face meetings with Joe Biden himself about the CEFC transaction. To have dismissed all that as Russian disinformation is unbelievable. And if I could just say a word about the CEFC transaction, which is only a slice of this thing but cefc which was a international conglomerate a huge uh corporation was run by a guy named ye xin mang who was a uh a protege of president xi cefc was nothing but an arm of the chinese regime and the Communist Party. And they paid six million dollars to the Biden family in a year between 2017 and 2018. Now, one million of that was when Ye paid Biden, Hunter Biden, a million dollars as a lawyer to poke around and find out what the government had on a guy named Patrick Ho, who was another CFC executive. It turned out that the government, the Justice Department, was not only investigating Ho for foreign corrupt practices. It turned out that they had FISA surveillance. This is National Security

Counterintelligence Surveillance on CEFC, Ho, and other people. It wouldn't be surprising if they picked up the Bidens on the National Security Surveillance. But here's the important thing. Ho gets arrested and prosecuted by the Justice Department. In the course of that prosecution, the Justice Department has to disclose that Ho and CEFC are under or have been under FISA surveillance. Within a few days of that disclosure in court, Ye, who is Hunter Biden's, the Biden family's main partner in this whole thing within a few days after the notice that these guys were under national security surveillance Ye is arrested in China and he has never been seen again wow and ever since that and they let the CEFC go bully up it was a multi-billion dollar uh conglomerate they They just let it go bankrupt.

And the Biden family got, can you imagine if the Trumps got $6 million from an outfit like this? I mean, it'd be the only thing that we talked about ever. The fact that you're, so I've been following this story. I'm sorry, Sean, I just got to jump really quick. We've been following this story a lot. I'm obsessed with it. You know, this six million dollar number should be like melded in all of our minds. I mean, it's sort of like it's just things are just it's unequal justice. It's it's a it's a cover up in so many ways. But yet it's not a cover up because the information is all right there. Let me ask you a question around that, because it's it might be unseemly to make money from this conglomerate in China.

It is. But we talk about, is it illegal? And so if Hunter Biden makes money, he pays his taxes and he discloses it. There's nothing illegal about Americans doing business with foreign companies. Isn't so? I don't think. companies. So I don't think. Isn't the real problem here that is if Joe Biden is using his position as the vice president to allow his son, selling influence in the vice presidency, allowing his son to sell it to foreign entities, and then Joe Biden gets a kickback off the cash

that Joe Biden makes of selling the vice presidency to foreign entities. Isn't that the real crime here? Or am I missing something? No, Sean. And here you get back to what you asked me about at the beginning, which I never got around to, which is the Grassley letter. The thing about the Grassley letter that we just saw in the last few days that changes what we have known about the trajectory of the story to this point is that what Grassley alleges is that the six million dollars, which was really paid to the Bidens in 2017, that it was payment for services rendered while Joee biden was vice president now here's the thing i i wrote a piece about that because i thought that that's an important fact that changes the story immensely

the problem is that grassley hasn't laid out what his facts are for saying that he says he's gotten whistleblower information from the fbi and the reason I think it's very important is our understanding up until now is exactly the way Sean just described this a couple of minutes ago, which is that in 2017, the Bidens got together with this Chinese outfit under the auspices of CEFC, that that happened around February of 2017 when Joe Biden was no longer in office, and they went from there. And a lot of this is icky. And it may not, it's probably, some of it may not be criminal. Although, you know, again,

I'll go back to the point about national security clearance. If you wanted to get a security clearance, you would have to tell the government about all of the foreign contacts you had and all the foreign monies that you had coming in. So this would be a big national security problem, even if it weren't a criminal problem. But if they actually did pay for some for stuff that Biden did for them while he was vice president, that would be an enormous change in the story. And all I can say is it's out there now. But Senator Grassley hasn't told us what the hard evidence of it is. But isn't some of it out there already in the sense that there were text messages where Hunter Biden talked about paying for his, you know, different different projects

at his father's home. There was an email that he sent his daughter about how much he money he he paid to his father, had to pay to his father. I mean, Sean's always telling me this, you know, when we cover these Hunter stories, like, it's not hard. These are white collar forensic investigations. I mean, and now we have emails and text messages where he talks about it. How hard is it to find out? Did Hunter's money, I mean, even if it wasn't like a cut 10%,

here's your 10% check, Mr. Big Guy Dad. Even if it's not that, it's like, I just paid for, you know, your lawn service, or I just paid your mortgage or whatever. I mean, there are references in text messages that Hunter did do that. Yeah, Rachel, I was, you're right about that. And And when I what I said before was I wanted to just address a portion of this, which was the CEFC piece. So the CEFC piece is what we're talking about when I say like suddenly we have the possibility that this predates 2017, which would make it a very different situation. I got it. But to your point, like if we look overall at all of the foreign dealings, you know, it not only defies common sense, Biden's been saying forever that like he never even talked to Hunter about this. Right. Right. In the meantime, the CFC may be actually the smaller of the China transactions we need to worry about, because there was a whole different one that they locked because Hunter was hitched a ride with Joe on Air Force Two over to China

and struck that deal where they ended up actually getting backing of $3 billion from Chinese government-created interest or connected interest and ended up doing transactions that were against American national security. Like the Chinese were able to acquire a cobalt mine in Africa. Cobalt is essential to the manufacture of car batteries that Biden is trying to get everybody to electric cars that he's trying to get us in. They also got dual use technology in the sense that it can be used for military purposes that fills gaps that, you know, China has enormous gaps because the one place we're still ahead of them is on most technology stuff. This helped them fill some of those gaps.

So that happened while Biden was president. A lot of what you're talking about happened while Biden was president. A lot of what you're talking about happened while Biden was president. And it looks to me just as like, you know, someone who used to do this for a living, that my theory in this would be like there's this big Biden family kitty and all of the money goes into that. And then they, you know, they shuffle it around as needed. Right. So, you know, as you just pointed out, Hunter pays a bunch of Joe's bills. And Joe and Jill had a key to Joe Biden and Jill Biden had a key to Hunter's office that he shared with some like Chinese businessman

who had ties to the communist government. I mean, I guess it's just so obvious to me. I can't understand why this isn't a big deal outside of Fox. So in this part, Andy, I'm a I'm a I'm a simple guy. I got to break things down simply to make it work in my mind. But I had mentioned earlier that, you know, this Igor Deschenko was prosecuted by by the Durham probe. The decision just came out. Igor Deschenko was found not guilty in a Northern Virginia court. Not surprising.

And just so our listeners know, Igor Deschenko was the source that Michael Steele used to put together his dossier on Donald Trump that started the whole Russia collusion probe. So Deschenko is a key guy here. And what came out in that trial was that the FBI offered Igor DeShanko a million dollars if he could substantiate the allegations

that were made in the dossier on Donald Trump. A million dollars if they could confirm these allegations in the dossier. Okay, that's one set where it's Donald Trump is a potential defendant. We have potential sources that will hurt Donald Trump. Can you prove it? And we'll give you a million dollars. Now you fast forward here and we go, who in the FBI has offered anybody a million dollars to say, can you prove connections between Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and all these foreign entities. Tony Bobulinski not only wasn't offered a million dollars, he didn't get a follow-up interview by the FBI. And I think those two cases show that the FBI was hell-bent on trying to take down Donald Trump and prosecute Donald Trump. And with Joe Biden, they're doing everything they

can to look the other way to see a crime nowhere in sight yeah well i'm going to make it even worse for you sean because one of the fbi agents that came out in the trial who interviewed danchenko and learned that the dossier was completely bogus was a guy by the name of brian auten who was a senior intelligence analyst at the fbi and he ends up doing a report about what they learned from danchenko that completely undermined the uh steel dossier and yet uh the fbi did not share the auten memo with either the justice department unit that that handles applications for surveillance to the FISA court or to the FISA court itself. And I would just point out that, you know, you offer somebody a million dollars to corroborate something.

That means it's not verified. And the problem the FBI has is under federal law, they're supposed to verify the information before they go to the FISA court. And here what they did was even after they found out that it was bogus, they kept going. But the reason I mentioned Orton is that flash forward to 2020, even though he's under a disciplinary investigation by the FBI at that point over what happened in the Russiagate investigation. He gets brought in by the guy who's trying to vet at the request of congressional Democrats, the information that Grassley and Senator Johnson have pulled together on the Bidens. They bring in Orton to take a look at that. And he writes an analysis from which everybody then concludes, oh, it's Russian disinformation. So it's not just that we have a situation where you have these two completely these two different situations where one's Republican and one's Democrat and the quality of justice is completely the opposite. You have some of the same players who were involved in both.

Right. You know, it's unbelievable. And it goes to this point that, and I think you would say this too, there's a lot of really good men and women at the DOJ and the FBI that are, they're mission driven. They're there to do the work that they're justice minded. They're, they want to see equal justice under the law, but it seems like at these, at these higher levels, the top levels, Democrats or liberals have done a very good job of promoting ideologues who will use the law for political purposes. And to the very point you just made, the same players in whether it's Trump or Biden keep coming back in or Hillary Clinton, they keep coming back into play, exerting their influence over the outcomes of of these investigations. Yeah. You know, I think when the history of this is written,

and I tried to write a little of the history, I wrote a book called Ball of Collusion back in 2019. And we know a lot more than we knew then. But even then it was, you know, the handwriting was on the wall. But I think I decided that the biggest problem here is the way federal law enforcement and even national security investigations are set up. You want the investigations done in the field offices, not in Washington. You know, that gives them a kind of a insulation from the crazy politics of Washington. And I think what went wrong in the Russiagate investigation and in the Clinton emails investigation, and maybe we'll learn this about the Hunter investigation, which I shouldn't call the Hunter investigation. Right, Rachel? It's the big guy investigation.

Right. The big guy. But the big thing that went wrong is headquarters decided to get operational and took over the investigation. And what you need headquarters in federal law enforcement is to be headquarters. You need them to be the, you know, every investigator always gets very invested in his investigations and thinks they're very important. And you need that headquarters presence, like the adult supervision there to say, no, we don't bring uncorroborated information to the FISA

court. You know, even if you think that Trump's a bad guy, you have to, you know, do our usual steps. So you need headquarters there to play that role. And the problem is when headquarters takes over an investigation, there's no one there to tell them no. Right. And they have exactly the same motivation as any investigator to get very

invested in what they're doing um and you need somebody to tell you no but it turns out they broke every rule great point you know because i've seen this firsthand myself it becomes very emotional you get emotionally tied to these investigations and sometimes you can't you can't see clearly because you're so deep in. And you need someone who's not emotional, like to your point, Andy, at headquarters to go, listen, no, no, no, no. We're not going there or we have to corroborate or you have to do this, you know, these tasks before we go to the next step. But you're right. If it's happening at headquarters, there's no adult supervision to say, know we're we're out of line here but headquarters

headquarters is not like getting emotionally involved in trying to get to the truth i mean headquarters is the democrat party i mean this is just this crazy stuff i mean listen i'm worried you talked about headquarters taking over investigations that's exactly what happened with the fbi raided um these homes these homes of these pro-life activists. And here's my concern, Andrew, is that we're not, we're not, I guess I don't feel any confidence that anything's going to change. I don't feel like anyone's ever held accountable. We're losing our faith in probably one of the most important institutions that we have, which is federal law enforcement, which is supposed to be used to protect us from national security threats like Joe Biden or terrorists. And they're being used to go after American citizens who have wrong think or pro-life activists. I guess I love what you said because you actually give it an answer,

which is these things need to stay in these local offices. But what's the bigger solution? Because at this point, I think if you were to poll any conservative at this point, they would say the FBI has to go. The DOJ is totally corrupt. I mean, what do we do? Yeah, Rachel, when I go around the country, what people are most concerned about is the two tiers of justice.

Yes. You know, depending on what your political affiliation is, that's the quality of justice you get. So, you know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I think with the FBI in particular, you need to take the national security mission away. I would take the foreign counterintelligence mission away from them because being an intelligence agency is a different discipline from being a police organization. And I think the the the secrecy and the classified nature of the intelligence investigation has undermined the FBI as a police institution. So I would just I regret to say that because I used to think it was a good idea to have both missions under one roof, but it just it hasn't worked out that way. And then I think the other the other thing very simply is when people break the rules,

they have to be held accountable. Heads got a a role which doesn't happen often enough it's hard to prosecute law enforcement people because if you put in the minds of your police services I mean we see this with the defund the police and the and all the stuff that we see on our city streets where crime is surging if you put in the mind of the police that they're going to be prosecuted for judgment calls they make then you're not going to get good policing. So, yes, they're not going to be prosecuted most of the time. But when they abuse the rules, you have to fire them and you have to have like transparent discipline. And the other thing that has to happen is you need searching oversight from Congress. Congress does too much of delegating

all of its authority and then going on cable TV to complain about how bad everything is. That's really not the gig. But they have to do searching oversight of these organizations. And here, most important, if you want to talk a language that they understand, you have to slash their budget. If you complain about how bad they are and then you just say, well, you know, cost of living has gone up. So this year we're going to give you a 32 billion instead of just 30 billion. That's not, you're not going to get better behavior that way.

We'll wait right there. We'll have more of this conversation next. The faster money and data move, the further your business can go to a seamless digital future for Canadians. Let's go faster forward together. In life, interact. Andy, you talk about accountability and I couldn't agree more. And I think when I look at what's happened over the last couple of years, an accountability is only going to come when you have bad people or maybe even lawbreakers only fired because Durham, as we mentioned a couple of times, has prosecuted a total of three cases.

Klein Smith was the lawyer who changed the meaning of an email before it went to the FISA court. He pled guilty. He got probation. But the other two trials that actually went to trial was the most recent one this week where E. Gordon Shinko was found not guilty. And then Michael Sussman was also found not guilty. They had jury pools, one of Northern Virginia, one of Washington, D.C. So this is the this is the heart of the Russia collusion scandal on the American people. I mean, we were we were fed this story leaks from the FBI. The main players of this story are a couple of them are prosecuted and nothing happens. They're found not guilty. and i think a lot of people look at that and they lose heart yeah the justice system doesn't it doesn't feel like it works and again if if i can if i can prosecute a democrat in washington dc they're going to get off if i can prosecute donald trump for jaywalking in washington dc they're going to convict him

because it's donald trump and again something's happening that's breaking in our system that I think is really hard to repair when you have the outcomes of these investigations and the disparity and also in these trials and prosecutions. And again, I want everyone to have faith in law enforcement. I love law enforcement. I love prosecutors who do their job well. But when you get this rot, this cancer in these institutions um i think the whole country is worse off for it yeah i i not only think that's right sean i think that um you know it's a real calculated risk for durham to bring the sussman and danchenko cases because they weren't extremely strong cases but even more importantly to me they pale in comparison in importance to what his main mission was, which was to get to the bottom of the origins of the Trump-Russia

investigation and the collaboration between the Clinton campaign and the government's intelligence and law enforcement apparatus. That was really the main part of the mission. And what I'm afraid of is when Durham does his final report in the next few weeks, hopefully by the end of this year, even if it's very strong and even if his evidence about what the FBI did wrong and what other aspects of the government did wrong and what the collaboration was with the Clinton campaign, the left is going to use these two acquittals to dismiss his work. Yes. And he had to know that that was a possibility. And I just think why did he do that? Why did he take that risk and not go right for the right, go right for the big thing? Well, you know, the big thing thing rachel and this is a problem i think that we we see again and again which is that not everything uh that's in the nature of abuse of

power is criminal and a lot of it has to be addressed by political means and when i when i say political means in this in this uh in sense, I don't mean partisan politics. I mean, like the division of labor under the Constitution. Some things have to be handled by Congress, which has the political authority to oversee the executive branch and bring to bear real consequences where they abuse their power. abuse their power. And some of it has to be done, obviously, by the higher ups in the in the executive branch itself, which that seems to have broken down, as Sean just pointed out, no one ever gets held accountable for for anything. Right. But I just think, you know, it was if Durham thought that he was going to bring Michael Sussman, a DNC lawyer, into court in Washington, D.C., where, you know, I mean, all you have to do is say the word Trump and they go insane. And, you know, Durham is perceived in that context as being like the pro-Trump guy.

He's not really the pro-Trump guy, but he's he's holding to account the people who conducted that investigation. So obviously he's going to be seen as like under the guise of Trump. Right. What chance did he really have to win that case? So I just think it was a real calculated risk for him to bring these cases. I thought they were kind of weak cases. I was surprised that he brought them. I guess he felt that the people really did lie, so they should be prosecuted. But I just think in the greatest scheme of things, if you're a juror sitting there and you look at what they were accused of lying about,

which was basically their sources in their discussions with the FBI, and then you compare it to what the FBI did which is basically you know pulling off a fraud on the court if you're a juror sitting there even if you don't have a political bias one way or the other you're sort of scratching your head and saying you know it looks to me like the real bad guys are the guys who are with the government not the guys who were being questioned by the government so I just think it's a very tough case. Yeah. Yeah. It's also the line to the FBI, you know, uh, uh, general Flynn was accused of lying to the FBI when he was, and even, even the first investigators were like, he was telling us the truth.

He's charged and tried and convicted in DC and here, you know, a much more egregious case. Uh, the, the verdict, um, comes back very differently. I wonder, you know, Andy, I would be embarrassed if I worked at the FBI, if I was in leadership of the FBI or the DOJ, that this information comes out in these trials, and maybe this was a way for Durham to start to bring out what he knows about the whole Russia collusion hoax. But I would be embarrassed if I worked there. If I was in leadership and I was caught doing these things,

I would be shamed. And maybe there's a death of shame right now in the FBI, in the, in the, in the DOJ. And maybe instead of changing their ways, now what's happened is there's, they're just emboldened to go.

We can do whatever we want. We'll never be held accountable. We're above the law. You don't have to follow the law. We're above the law. You don't have to follow the law. We can go rogue now and no one is ever going to stop us. And that, I mean, so we might look back on this conversation three years from now and think, wow, those were the good old days. Those were the good old days. What is your hope? What is your hope, Andy? What is your hope? Like consider what Sean just said and like looking forward, I mean, you gave, you know, four great ideas of what could happen. Do you think that those reforms would happen? Do you think Joe Biden will ever be held accountable? Do you think that the Russia hoax will ever, you know, come fully come to light and be accepted as what I think is the greatest political scandal in American history? Fully come to light and be accepted as what I think is the greatest political scandal in American history.

What is your what is your look into the future for us in these two institutions and these cases? Yeah, Rachel, let me look into the into the past just briefly. the director of the FBI, what what he would say is that all of the people who were the major decision makers in connection with Russiagate are no longer with the FBI, that they've already, you know, either been fired or otherwise removed or encouraged to spend more time with their families or hired by MSNBC. But, you know, I just think that that doesn't feel and I don't like to talk about feelings. I'm not like a feelings kind of guy, but I mean, just doesn't feel like. Oh, you're a warm teddy bear, Andy. You are like a warm teddy bear. You don't feel satisfied. It's just not satisfactory. It's not. And, you know, even if they don't all get prosecuted, which, you know, it may not be that you can make a criminal case on them, a lot rides on this report, which is why I'm not thrilled that he took the kind of chances he took with these other prosecutions because I just think he's giving his detractors a lot of fodder to discredit his report. But to go to your question, Rachel, about meaningful reform, if you don't get

at least one chamber of Congress back where Republicans have subpoena authority, and then conduct really searching investigations of the FBI, not just Russiagate, because maybe that's too fraught with politics. And it's been investigated, you know, up, down and sideways by now, particularly by the inspector general of the Justice Department. But, you know, Congress really has to has to not only, you know, bring these guys in and investigate the bureau from top to bottom, including whether it's appropriate to have both the domestic security mission and the law enforcement mission in one agency. You know, the Brits don't the Brits don't do it that way.

For example, the Brits have MI5, which is a non-police agency, does their national security mission and Scotland Yard does police work, you know, and maybe maybe that's what we need to do. And Scotland Yard does police work, you know, and maybe maybe that's what we need to do. But I just you know, I come back again to this has to be done in a serious way. It can't be about recompense for, you know, you know, they they gored our ox. So we're now going to go their ox. We have to look at the FBI. It's very important to the country that we have a functioning fbi that people can trust and the only way that you're going to get that is if people become convinced again that adults are in charge that people are being held

accountable for breaking the rules that their budget is being slashed if they're an abusive agency you know if you're for example if the Justice Department is misusing its civil rights authority instead of looking for people whose civil rights have been violated, they decide that here's here's a great way to remake America's police and Barack Obama's image. You know, if that's what they think the civil rights authorities for their budget away, then they can't do it anymore. Yeah. But, you know

unless you're going to put real teeth into reform then you're quite right that we're going to be back here you know however many months or years it is from now and and just you know pulling our hair out I don't have much left to to pull out well I'll pull Sean's hair out but you know nothing nothing changes unless you get serious about reform so So, Andy, I want to drill into you said you can't you gored my or so I'm going to gore your ox analogy. So here's here's some slight pushback. And tell me tell me why I'm wrong on this. So I spent 10 years in Congress and you see the political divide. It's real. All of us see this on cable television every single day.

What I find troubling is that if Republicans say the FBI and the DOJ need to be reformed, Democrats are going to be like, listen, this is an agency and a tool that's very beneficial to us. We don't want to see them reformed. The only way you get bipartisanship is when both parties see the danger of the FBI and the DOJ. It's a risk to everybody in America, not just one party. And until Democrats feel that, they won't say it's time for us to change. Just to go back to Nancy Pelosi changed rules in Congress. And she said, you know what? I now, for the first time in the history of the Congress, I as a Democrat leader, am going to pick what Republicans can serve on what committees. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican

leader, doesn't have that choice. Me, the Speaker, Democrat, I have that decision-making ability. That's never happened before. Well, now, Kevin McCarthy, the good government stewardship would mean Kevin McCarthy would go, you know what? Congress shouldn't run like that. I'm not going to do to Nancy Pelosi what she did to Republicans in her tenure. The problem is, if Kevin McCarthy would go, you know what? Congress shouldn't run like that. I'm not going to do to Nancy Pelosi what she did to Republicans in her tenure. The problem is if Kevin McCarthy does that, the next time the next Democrat-controlled Congress comes into power, they're going to go right back to what Nancy Pelosi did. They'll take Republicans off committees. And so I think that Democrats have to feel what leadership looks like under the rules that they set for Republicans. That's the only way I think things change.

And then both parties have to come together and go, OK, listen, hold on. This doesn't work well for any of us. We have to change course and go back to the way it was before the Nancy Pelosi, pre-Donald Trump presidency, and all set certain rules where we can live by and work by. I think the same thing is true for the FBI and the DOJ. Democrats have to see that it's a risk to them as well. When justice isn't fair only for Republicans, they don't give a damn. But when it's unfair for all Americans, then they go, oh, hey, listen, maybe we should join the Republican Party. We should all work on legislation or on funding that gets this rogue organization back in line.

Am I wrong on that? Am I part of the problem? Is this the philosophy also warped? No. Look, I don't believe in abusing. I don't believe in anybody abusing government power, but I also don't believe in unilateral disarmament. And I think, you know, Nancy Pelosi is going to have to the Democrats, you know, for all their talk about Trump being the great norm breaker, Nancy Pelosi and the January 6th committee broke about every norm in the book. And I think they're

going to have to be made to live under that to understand that it's not the way that you want to do business. But Sean, what you just described is I couldn't help but think of this while you were saying it, but it's really what you just described is the history of the special of the independent counsel statute, which, you know, Justice Scalia wrote a great opinion in the early 1980s in a case called Morrison versus Forster about why the independent counsel statute was such a constitutional anomaly. And nobody cared. It was a minority. It was a dissenting opinion. But more importantly, politically, only Republicans had been bitten by the independent counsel statute to that point.

So they they thought it was peachy. And then all of a sudden the Clinton Lewinsky scandal comes and Ken Starr comes and they actually start to see that the independent counsel statute is a two way street. So what happens when 1998 rolls around? I think it was 98, maybe 99 when the statute was up to be, you know, it was going to lapse if they didn't renew it. They didn't renew it because then Democrats had been bit by it. So I don't, you know, you know, the political world a lot better than I do. And I think there's a lot to be said for the idea that if you're not made to feel the rules

that you want to impose on everyone else then there's never any that is the truth that is absolutely the truth and just like i i agree with you andy i'm not saying republicans should break the law break the law or abuse government power i'm not i and you made a good point on that i'm not saying they do that but no i i and i wasn't suggesting otherwise i i i you said it i'm like i better clarify that i agree good point on that. I'm not saying they do that. No, and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. You said it. I'm like, I better clarify that I agree with him on that. I'll tell you this, Andy.

I know you have to go. I'll just say this. And I hate ending on this negative note, but I do want to take this is a true story. My son wanted to be a law enforcement officer. You want to be a policeman for Halloween. And I went through the Amazon, you know, all the costumes online for police officers. And I didn't like all of them. The coolest looking one was the FBI one. And I looked at it and I said, because I've been so angry about what they've done with the pro with this and also with the with the pro lifers. And I just said, I don't want him to be an FBI agent this year.

And that actually kind of felt like that made me really sad that I'm not proud of the FBI, you know, and I don't want my son to be an FBI agent. So I bought him a police officer outfit. But do you know what I'm saying? Like that we are left with these feelings. That's why I think these reforms you talk about

are so important because I want to have faith in it again. I want to feel proud about my FBI again. Yeah. But look at it this way. If you would let him go like that, then maybe Merrick Garland would have arrested him for impersonating. They would have arrested me for being a domestic terrorist as a parent and him for impersonating.

And yeah, maybe that's maybe that's our silver lining. Andy, you are the best. No one knows more. I hope you have a follow up to Ball of Collusion. As you said, there's been so many so much more that's come out since you laid it out so beautifully in that book. And people still should get Ball of Collusion because there's so much in there. But you're right, We need a follow up.

Thanks for joining us. I really appreciate it so much. I enjoyed it. It was great. Andy McCarthy, you are the best. Thank you. Great, great legal mind and a fair legal mind. Thanks for joining us at the kitchen table.

All right. Take care. Bye bye. We'll be back with much more after this. The score bet up here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking.

I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? The score bet. Trusted sports content. Seamless sports betting. Download today.

19 plus. Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you please go to connexontario.ca listen rich i i think he is he's one of the smartest clear-minded um uh former prosecutors who speaks on this issue because he's been there. He's thought a lot about it. He knows the backstory of the Russia, the whole Russia collusion hoax. And to have him lay it out and talk about the new developments, I think is I'm grateful that he came on the show. Yeah. But a little bit disheartening just in that, like, I mean, I love that he laid out what has to happen because I was taking notes as he was saying it, because, you know, all of those things, you

know, that, you know, heads have to roll, you know, taking foreign intelligence away from the FBI, kind of separating it the way the Brits to have it separated. More congressional oversight. You and I talked about that a lot. But he came back to something you and I've been talking about, you know, for months now. And we talked about it with Kash Patel, which is you have to use the power of the purse. You have to slash their budgets if they don't agree to do, you know, to these reforms. And then also what he said about, you know, these things have to be have to happen at

the local level. And we can't let headquarters and all the D.C. politics take over. So I think he gave great insight into what needs to happen. The question is, will it ever happen? And more importantly, will Joe Biden be ever be held accountable? Because I think it's very clear he is the big guy. He is compromised and he is a national security threat. And, you know, just to make, I'm going to give you some foreshadowing. If Republicans say, listen, because, because here, because here's where you slash their budgets. If they don't comply with congressional oversight, if they don't provide the documents they request in regard to subpoenas, they don't present witnesses

to testify before Congress, then you don't slash their whole budget, but you start to take pieces of their budget out. And what's going to happen is if Republicans do that, the media, every single one of them are going to say, Republicans want to defund the FBI. Who cares? I'm so sick of worrying about what they say. Because they drive a lot of the public perception and narrative.

And so it's really important for Republicans then to be very clear what they're doing. Make sure that, that, that, that the FBI, the DOJ knows that if you don't comply this is what we're going to do and then do it you know this could lead to a government shutdown joe

biden so when you budget that that start the budget starts in the house but it goes to the senate and also the appropriation bills as well um i'm saying the appropriations bills so the the tools that you fund the government with House, Senate president. Well, if Joe Biden doesn't like that, Republicans in the House want to cut the budget of the FBI or the DOJ. He cannot sign the budget. You can have a government shutdown and then he can say, I'm doing this because you want to defund the FBI. Right. And those standoffs become very painful politically for everybody. And that's why it's really important, the clarity that Republicans have to have with everything that they're doing.

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. But I guess, again, I wanted Andy to make me feel more confident. But I kind of, if I'm honest, came away feeling like I don't know if these changes will happen. And I guess we'll see. I mean, you know, the elections in just a few weeks and, you know, your friend, Kevin McCarthy, will probably be leading the House.

And I believe that there will be a Republican majority in the Senate as well. And we'll see if these people that we've elected have the cojones to do the right thing and to take on these institutions. Because I think, you know, the Democrats talk so much, Sean, about, you know, democracy and all that. I mean, democracy is on the line. And they're the ones, as Andy said, who have been, you know, violating the norms of democracy. Yeah. And I think I know Kevin McCarthy well, a friend of mine. I think that Kevin is hell bent on doing the right things here to bring transparency to government. And by the way, if he doesn't or doesn't have a Congress that's willing to go with him, you are going to hear from the American people, the Republican voters, the independent voters that have come and given the majority to a Republican Congress, House, and maybe Senate, if they don't do it, there's going to be a lot of angry people out there and they'll probably lose power. So I think they're going to do it. I think they're going to be aggressive and push

to make sure that we have transparency, that we know how our government is operating and how they've used the tools and the power, real power that we've given them. Are they using it for they've used the tools and the power real power that we've given them are they using it for um you know blind justice or is this you know political tools used for the political advancement of democrat policies and democrat politicians i think we need to see that and i think when we get the transparency it's going to be quite clear that this these agencies have become a wing of the democrat party and just also foreshadowing rachel the conversation is going to heat up with these 87 000 new irs agents i guarantee you they're going to target republicans this is a way very silently under the radar to use the tax code to target republicans but didn't kevin mccarthy say sean that he can they can defund this through the house through the congress this is yes so the so the money

um in the bill that funded the 87 000 that's that funding bill has already passed that money though maybe not spent yet has already been appropriated it's going out the door so you got to then reclaim the money that'll be challenging right? You have to undo part of, you know, the, the what, I forget what bill they did this in. Was this the, I forget what, what, what massive bill that passed over the last year and a half, they put it the 87th. Yeah. I remember that was the, the so-called inflation reduction. Yeah. They're going to reduce, they're going to reduce the, the, they're going to reduce inflation by getting more tax dollars out of Republicans. Or if you can't take the money away, what you do is you say, OK, here's the deal.

We're not we're not we're not going to fund your budget this year. You have to use the money from that bill to fund the IRS. There's a number of different tactics and tools they can use. Well, he promised, Sean. I mean, I think he came on Fox and friends and said, we're, we're going to, uh, we're, we're, we're not going to stand for this and we're going to find a way to get rid of these agents. So we're going to hold them accountable. It's a lot harder. I listen, I love Kevin. Kevin also said, we're going to secure the border. It's hard. Republicans in the Congress are going to have a hard time securing the border because that they've, they've, they fund those projects,

but the executive is the one who actually implements the will of the Congress. And so it's hard, but I think they can do it. You're right. So I think this is a fascinating conversation, again, to your point, Rachel, that makes democracy function and function fairly. And there's a lot of work that has to be done

to make sure we get back to some smart balance in our government. The other point is I always come back to our families. Our kids are not being taught civics in school. So if you don't know civics, if you don't know how the government is supposed to work, when Democrats or the IRS or the FBI do things wrong, you don't know because you've never been taught how it's supposed to work. And that's why as parents, we should, and if we don't know ourselves, get a civics lesson yourself. Teach your kids.

Talk to your kids. School of rock, Sean. School of rock. Remember, we grew up on school of rock. I'm just a bill. I mean, listen, I still remember how it worked because of that. So, I mean, those things matter. By the way, there's now not school of rock.

There's a version of School of Rock, but it's been produced by the Obamas and it's on Netflix and it's being used in schools. We should actually do a podcast on that because that's kind of scary too because it's all about activism. But anyway, great conversation.

Last thought, Hunter Biden is the gift that keeps giving. So we're still talking about Hunter Biden because his stuff is still coming out. And maybe at some point it will we'll see some justice for for America and the Biden family and all the corruption. And my last thought is I don't care about Hunter Biden being a crack addict or a porn star. Well, I find it fascinating,. I don't care about Hunter Biden only because it relates to Joe Biden and his Joe Biden compromise.

And did Joe Biden sell the vice presidency to foreign entities to profit his family? That's what concerns me. Pushing electric cars so that we buy cobalt, which they are invested in. I mean, it's disgusting stuff. Anyway. The whole thing is disgusting.

Well, listen, I want to thank you all for joining us at the Kitchen Table. If you like our podcast, rate, review, subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We would appreciate that. Rachel and I love talking to you guys a couple of times a week

and having, I guess, like Annie McCarthy to sit down and have a more in-depth conversation on real issues that I think matter to American democracy and American justice. All right. Bye, everybody. Catch you later this week. and the party lines as I take on American life, politics, and entertainment. Subscribe now on foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts.