It Could Happen Here - Kash Patel: Trump's FBI Pick

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Garrison and Robert discuss Patel’s plans for the FBI and his storied career of grifting.  Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/us/politics/kash-patel.html https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/kash-patel-trump-national-security-council/679566/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/us/politics/kash-patel-bravado-baggage-fbi.html  https://apnews.com/article/fbi-trump-patel-fisa-russia-2d215ded96ad8a08689b6f7f0b2d49ec https://www.mediamatters.org/truth-social/how-devin-nunes-and-kash-patel-appealed-qanon-extremists-build-truth-socials-user-base https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/kash-patel-fbi-trump-maga-merchandise-b2657380.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist, and this is my journey deep into the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a player boy, my doll. He was like, I'll take you to the top, I'll make you a star. To expose an alleged predator and the rotten industry he works in. It's honestly so much worse than I had anticipated.

We're an army in comparison to him. From Novel, listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturne. Tales from the Shadow of the Sun. Join me, Danny Dre, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories

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Woo chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelicaasso and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid.

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Tune in and join the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline Podcast, and we're kicking off our second you get your podcast. brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Coolzone Media. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about Garrison Davis talking to me.

Also the world falling apart. How do you feel about that Gare? How you doing? I'm pretty used to it by now honestly. Yeah We've been doing this whole thing for quite a quite a while you sure have have you noticed that Some of these some of these cabinet picks are a little funny. They're a little bit odd Mm-hmm. Have you noticed that yet? I don't know I get kind of a funny feeling about some of these guys. Have you heard about this?

Are you hearing about this? Yeah. I don't love it either, Gare. They don't seem cool and good. No, I mean, not all of them are like sticking around, I guess. You know, Matt Gaetz is now out of the job. Tragic. Kind of like Icarus.

He flew. He flew too close to an elementary school. Yeah, we've already got our skirmishy. I was going to make a skirmishy joke, but your joke was much better. It was a really fast turnaround for Gates, too. Yeah. And now we're all watching Pete to see if he secures the top job at the Pentagon. But today we're talking about this other guy named Cash Patel. How do you feel about Cash Patel, Robert? Uh, not thrilled.

Kind of wary. Not thrilled. Matt Gates really seemed like the kind of guy you used to make your sketchy secret police and Cash Patel is, I guess, your backup to that guy. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Or at least like, I don't know, Cash is different in a few ways. Like he does a lot more kind of dirty work because he's not like important as a person. He just wants to like be

seen by Daddy Trump. And this episode, we're going to get into a little bit of Cash's backstory, what his plans are for the FBI as he is now nominated for the position of being director of the FBI, as well as kind of what Cash has been up to

in the four years since Trump's been out of office. So let's just start all the way back to the beginning for background on Mr. Patel here. Okay. So Cash Patel was born in New York, but after graduating law school in 2005, he worked as a public defender in Florida for nine years before becoming a federal prosecutor in the National Security Division of the DOJ.

He didn't really want to be a public defender. It's that he really couldn't get any other jobs because he wasn't like that skilled. So he ended up just working as a public defender, even though it wasn't really what he wanted to do out of law. But once he got to the DOJ, he worked as a terrorism prosecutor. According to a DOD profile, Patel, quote, led investigations spanning multiple theaters of conflict and oversaw the successful prosecution of criminals aligned with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terror groups, unquote. Patel also worked with, quote, counterterrorism units to conduct collaborative global targeting operations against high value terrorism targets."

Great. Okay. I'm sure he was good at that job. I'm sure he doesn't have any really embarrassing failures during that period of time. No, no. I say that just for kind of his like more like surveillance background, but we will certainly get to his ability to complete these jobs on a reliable basis. And like, although that info is directly from the DOD's website, Patel himself has exaggerated his career record,

claiming in a YouTube podcast to have been the quote-unquote lead prosecutor in the case against the 2012 Benghazi attackers. Patel actually was not even part of the trial team, only a junior staff member at the DOJ at the time, and was removed from this case for clashing with the US Attorney's Office. But this incident marks the start of a few unfortunate events in his career that really started to turn Patel against the justice system. According to the New York Times, in 2016, Patel was thrown out of a courtroom for wearing quote, rumbled khakis, boat shoes, and a too small borrowed jacket unquote. I hate that he's got a my cousin Vinny in his record because that movie is great and

it gets me on his side in a way I definitely shouldn't be. Did he did he come in next wearing like a funeral director's tuxedo or a fucking band leader's tuxedo or whatever? I don't know how to describe the tuxedo Vinnie wears in the scene after that. Anyway, no, he he was just kicked out of the courtroom with the judge saying, quote, if you want to be a lawyer dressed like a lawyer, unquote. Now, this judge was also like a racist asshole, not defending the judge saying, quote, If you want to be a lawyer, dress like a lawyer, unquote. Now, this judge was also like a racist asshole, not defending the judge here. And to be clear, Cash Patel was not dating Marisa Tomei.

He could never pull Marisa Tomei. He could never pull. I mean, honestly, Joe Keshe. Who can? But this incident is like an important part of his career trajectory. A profile in the Atlantic details Patel as growing increasingly frustrated and disillusioned by his failure to navigate and rise up in the justice system. Just collecting more and more personal grievances that fuel an animosity towards the bureaucracy of the legal system based on people's apparent unwillingness to help him excel in his own career.

But in 2018, Patel got his first big break, with Republican Representative Devin Nunes hiring Patel to be the House Intelligence Committee's lead investigator to disrupt the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump was impressed enough with Patel's work under Nunes that he gave Patel a job on the National Security Council, and later served as Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. Trump mused about having Patel as Deputy Director of the FBI or Director of the CIA in late 2020 after the election, but this led to harsh resistance from within his own administration,

with AG Bill Barr saying that Patel would only become FBI director, quote, over my dead body, unquote. So I don't know if we'll have any updates on that. Yeah, we'll see. But instead, back in 2020, Trump just put Patel on the Pentagon transition team. Trump basically tasked Patel with doing dirty work, and awarded him with promotions for following orders. Patel advised on the Ukraine impeachment, spread conspiracy theories that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election, created a list of intelligence agency officials to fire in February of 2020, and helped manage the now-dismissed classified documents case against Trump.

The former deputy national adviser to Trump, Charles Kupperman, said in an interview, quote, Trump wanted to make Cash a political executioner to root out and fire individuals on the White House staff who weren't being as loyal as he thought they should be." Unquote. So that's kind of a good look at him as a person and like what Cash's role is, like specifically for Trump.

And with the possibility of the justice system becoming just more and more of like a tool to target Trump's political rivals, Cash is the exact guy that you would pick, especially for a job that has like an investigative focus like the FBI. But cash isn't always good at his job necessarily. Well, who amongst us? We're going to talk about one specific incident here. That's one of like the wildest stories in like national security that I've ever read. In October of 2020, four days before the election, the Pentagon was planning an operation for

SEAL Team Six to rescue an American citizen, Philip Walton, who was kidnapped in Niger and being held in Nigeria. As the State Department was working to communicate with officials in Nigeria to clear airspace for the operation, Patel, who was not part of this operation, just called the Pentagon, saying that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had gotten approval from Nigeria and the airspace was de-conflicted. So as the SEALs were about to land in Nigeria, defense officials couldn't verify that the flight actually had clearance, leaving the aircraft to circle over the target for hours as they scramble to get approval from Nigeria. According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Patel was never in communication with

Mike Pompeo about this mission, and defense officials concluded that Patel, quote, made the approval story up, unquote. Cool guy. This is wild. You almost, you almost got SEAL Team Six, like, shot out of the air because you made up a story about having flight clearance. It's crazy! Yeah, I mean, this is exactly the guy you want running the FBI for sure. A Pentagon official yelled at Cash, quote, You could have gotten those guys killed. What the fuck were you thinking?

To which Cash replied, If nobody got hurt, who the fuck cares? Amazing stuff. Amazing stuff. Let him cook. Crazy stuff. Look, here's the thing, Garrison, if it had gone the worst possible way it could have gone, we'd have been saved at least four interminable books and at least three podcasts. So like people like interviewed in the Atlantic and I think the author of the profile on cash Kind of muses that like maybe

Cassius wanted this operation done before the election to give Trump like an extra win leading up to the polls I don't know. It's it's it's certainly odd But like cash has a very like inflated sense of personal worth. In an interview with Glenn Beck, he talked about how people should trust his expertise because, quote, I've read the entire JFK file. Well, I mean, geez, you and Oliver Stone. Right? So he makes comments like that. It's like, no, no, no, like, trust me, I know everything. I've read all the classified stuff that you're not allowed to.

I'm like the smartest guy in the room. I've read everything, right? Like, he uses this as like a way to inflate his own personal worth and like flex to weird right-wing online podcast grifters. People have made this point, but it's guys like this that have convinced me that there's no, at least no, like, perfectly known to Intelligent smoking gun about the Kennedy assassination that shit would have leaked so quickly

No, if not before Trump was in office then certainly by the time he was Yeah, because you have guys like cash fatale reading these files. There is nothing in there. There's no Or at least if there is it's the kind thing, there may be a smoking gun that someone who was deeply knowledgeable at the time period would be like, oh, the fact that this guy was here at this time really means that this other thing happened. And like, the cash Patel doesn't know shit. Yeah. He is not smart enough to put any pieces together.

Or maybe that was even still redacted and the versions that he's reading don't really have any like pertinent info. Right. People are just like, let's not give this guy the real ones. No, no. This guy who like a line about prosecuting the Benghazi attackers and almost got SEAL Team Six killed. No, no. Oh, man. And of all this out of all the SEAL teams to get killed, too,

that's the one that would be the biggest news day. Do you know who would never kill SEAL Team Six, Robert? I'm never going to say never about killing SEAL Team Six. Well, I mean, hopefully, allegedly, these products and services would never wish harm upon SEAL Team Six. Mm-hmm. We want to speak out. We want to raise awareness and we want this to stop. Wow. Very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn and I'm an investigative journalist.

When a group of models from the UK wanted my help, I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a Playboy model. Lingerie, topless. I said, yes, please. Because at the centre of this murky world is an alleged predator. You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior?

He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows,

presented by I Heart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shape-shifters... ...to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. No! Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturne, Tales from the Shadows, as part of my Kultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everyone, it's Jon, also known as Dr. Jon Paul. And I'm Jordan or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh, chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more.

Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Film Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson-Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast,

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and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists

to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. All right, we are back. I'd like to talk a little bit now about Patel's actual plans for the FBI. Now this job does require a Senate confirmation, so we will see, you know, if he gets past that process or if he's going to get pushed in through recess appointments, which we still don't really know if Trump will be able to pull off. But in terms of the FBI, we do have some idea about what Cash has in mind because he spent the past two years just talking about it nonstop in books and interviews. Yeah, because he, like all these guys, cannot shut up.

Can't stop talking. Yes. In an appearance on the Sean Ryan show this past September, Patel said, quote, I shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state unquote. Okay. Cool. Sure. I do feel like you're underestimating the expense of office space and overestimating the availability of it. But sure, why not? Yeah, I don't think they can make a whole museum turnaround in one day. But I also I also think you are really, really underappreciating docents.

It is not easy to get a docent up to speed. Like, for example, it's a much harder job than you currently have. No, like Patel does talk about like trying to like clear out like the bureaucracy and red tape of the FBI. And and though he has criticized the wide footprint of the FBI and its surveillance operations, though really only the ones targeted against Trump and his campaign, cash is ideal. FBI would not in fact have like a more limited

presence out in the world, saying that after closing the Hoover building, quote, then I'd take the 7000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You're cops. Go be cops. Unquote. So this is what you get like a seven year old the keys to the FBI. And this is this is this is the kind of stuff he's talking about. Yeah, it's like, I'm going to send all these administrative employees out into the world to chase down criminals. Now, you say that, Garrison, I absolutely would put a seven year old in charge of the FBI. You know why? That's a blockbuster movie.

Now, to be fair, that's a 1997 blockbuster. But, yeah, that's like 30 years ago. Can you imagine the young Mara Wilson running the FBI? Fuck FBI, yeah. Oh, perfect. You know, if we said it a little bit further, we could have like Will Wheaton as like the villain. Will Wheaton as the evil kid heading the CIA.

They also put Will Wheaton in charge of the CIA. Yes! Damn. All right, you know what, Garrison, this podcast is done. You and I are writing a screenplay tonight. With the power of AI, we can just generate this whole movie instantly. Perfect.

With a truly ghoulish guest appearance by Robin Williams. Just the worst taste imaginable. No. Sorry, President Williams. Goddamn. Oh dear. Oh fuck. Nightmare, Nightmare fuel.

Now, it's really unclear if like Cash's plans here are like rhetoric, right? Like, you know, more vibes than like actual plan, you know, like expressing some kind of sentiment rather than like an actual practical like plan. But last year, Patel published a book titled

Government Gangsters, the Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, where he also proposed relocating the FBI headquarters out of Washington, D.C. to quote, prevent institutional capture and curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship, unquote. Though the bulk of this book also details like why we must root out politicians, journalists, big tech and quote unquote members of the unelected bureaucracy that operate the deep state. So, you know, like the FBI engaging in a little bit of political

gamesmanship is OK. In the appendix of this book, it contains the names of 60 alleged members of the deep state, most of them either like former Trump cabinet people who like turned on Trump or just like current Biden admin people. It's all pretty silly, but it's not like he actually plans to take out political prosecutions away from like the FBI's operational structure. Like come on buddy, this is like your entire plan. In an interview with Steve Bannon last year, Patel reiterated the goal of targeted prosecutions against political enemies, saying, quote, We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in the government, but in the media.

Yes, we're going to come after people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you." So that's cool. Again, this is this is the basic stuff that Trump's been promising since, like, you know, the past four years going after journalists, going after politicians. This quote specifically also just like reminded me that, like, there's like a real possibility that like the head of the FBI legitimately thinks the 2020 election was stolen. And like, then I got to thinking like like, how many of the people operating the highest levels of government now genuinely believe the election was stolen in 2020,

which is kind of kind of threw me for a loop. I didn't really process that concept of how broken the reality structure will be with something so clear. Yeah, that's his FBI plans. Yeah, great. Well, uh, seems like it's gonna end well for everybody. I don't know. What do you think? Do you think he's gonna get confirmed? Cause he's one, I'm seeing people are focusing, now that Gates is out, people are focusing way more on Hegseth. Which is probably the priority because my god that man should not be leading the Department of Defense.

Cause he's gonna start a war, yeah. He's going to, he of Defense. Because he's going to start a war. He's going to drunkenly and accidentally start a war. I'm not even worried about him launching a conflict with China, right? We're going to wind up fighting an insurgency against the Portuguese because he gets fucking hammered and mixes up a couple letters. I mean, I'm also really concerned about Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard is top of my list because she has just never met a dictator she doesn't like. And yeah, that's a scary person having that job.

Patel is really bad and we're going to get into some more of his like kind of crank beliefs, but there is a level of base incompetence. The fact that Tulsi has been able to get into this position, despite very, very clearly having like deep sympathetic ties to Assad and Russia, is like super frightening. She's evil, but smart and incredibly power hungry. That's all that matters to her, is getting into power. And she has things that she believes. And what we know of the things that she believes is chilling. Like, yeah, but that's... We're talking about someone besides Tulsi today. Yeah, yes. Now, since 2020, Cash Patel has served on the board of directors

for the parent company of Truth Social called Trump Media Technology Group. So he's been part of the team operating, you know, Trump's version of Twitter. And back in 2022, Patel was openly talking about how like the truth social staff were trying to, quote unquote, incorporate to QAnon into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences. So this is this this is the section where we're going to really get into Patel's super, super heavy Q ties, which is kind of like a throwback, right? We don't really talk about QAnon as much anymore.

And I don't think Patel's interest in this is genuine. I think it is just to like grow both his own brand and help boost the stock of Truth Social. It's still like the closest that anyone in Trump's team has gotten to like openly endorsing QAnon and like repeatedly. True social staff operate an account at Q, forums to piggyback off of QAnon's popularity and draw in popular QAnon influencers. In February 2022, Patel posted a photo of a beer pint and the arm of someone wearing a flannel shirt with text saying he was, quote, having a beer with Q right now, unquote.

Patel continued to frequently interact with the Q account, make QAnon-related posts, and do reoccurring appearances on QAnon-linked podcasts, most notably The X22 Report, The Matrix XXX Grove Show, and Red Pill 78. It's been a while since I've listened to these types of shows, and it was like a huge throwback. Oh man, and they're like all chugging along, and now they're like chugging along better than ever, which is, you know, not ideal for me. On these shows, Cash has praised the QAnon fandom researchers, saying both he and the president have been impressed. It's all like very pandering, but it really works for these people. I've seen on social media, on truth social, how good these researchers are.

And I kind of wish I had some of them when I was doing Russia, getting some of these other things. You know, Devin and I talk regularly and then, you know, I talk with the president all the time as well. And we're just blown away at the amount of acumen some of these people have and how quick they are to to grab it and suss through it and sort of thin it down and make it presentable. Later in that interview, Patel openly said that he publishes government documents on his website, fightwithcash.com, specifically so that QAnon researchers will dig through them

to make QAnon content. He openly said that's like why he like posts these documents. Uh, see, again, I'm sympathetic. Everything I do is for content, Garrison. That's just that's just the way the world works now. The content must flow. You know, Patel also has books just like you, although he's been signing copies of his with the QAnon phrase,

where we go one, we go all. I mean, I do that too. And he has defended his use of the slogan on these QAnon podcasts, like in this clip from the MatrixXX Groove Show. Where we go on Where We Go All is, as you said, from a great movie that I watched a long time ago, and people took to it. And so what? You know, it doesn't mean everyone's a conspiracy theorist. And people keep asking me about all this Q stuff. I'm like, what does it matter? What I'm telling you is that there is truth in a lot of things that many people say. And what I'm putting out there is the truth.

And how about we have some fun along the way? There's so many people who subscribe to the where we go on, we go on all mantra. And it's a, it's what's wrong with it. I'm gonna quote now from an article in the media matters by Alex Kaplan, who's been reporting on Patel and his ties to QAnon since 2022. Quote, on yet another show in June of 2022, Patel went even further, saying of QAnon, quote, we try to incorporate it into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences because

whoever that person is, has certainly captured a widespread breadth of the mega and America first movement. And so what I try to do is what I try to do with anything, Q or otherwise, is you can't ignore that group of people that has such a strong dominant following." In that interview, Patel also said of QAnon, there's a lot of good to a lot of it. And he agreed with the co-host who said, Q has been so right on so many things, saying, quote, I agree with you. He should get credit for all the things he has accomplished because it's hard to establish a movement. Let's call it that because that's what it is. Unquote. Oh boy.

Do you know what's also hard to establish, Robert? Uh, an alibi? An alibi. And, and you know, some people's alibis could be reading ads like the one that we're about to do right now. That's right. That's always my alibi. That really is always your alibi. Yeah.

Yeah. We want to speak out. We want to raise awareness and we want this to stop. Wow. Very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn and I'm an investigative journalist. When a group of models from the UK wanted my help, I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry.

I really wanted to be a playboy model. Lingerie, topless. I said, yes, please. Because at the center of this murky world is an alleged predator. You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior? He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere.

It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows Presented by I Heart and Sonora An anthology of modern day horror stories Inspired by the legends of Latin America From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters To bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures

I know you Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Kultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the BlackFatFilm Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated.

Oh, chat. This year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angela Carrasso and more. Make sure you listen to the BlackFatFil on the iHeart Radio app, Alpha Podcast, or whatever you get your podcast, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson-Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged

look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. All right. we are we are back. Now, in these podcasts guest appearances, he would often plug his book and advocate that listeners just join Truth Social. And engagement with these more niche online streaming shows and podcasts fortifies the right wing online media ecosystem and draws people away from mainstream news.

Like, this is why he was going on those shows so much back in 2022. And Patel basically says as much on this episode of the X 22 report. They will never trust the fake news media again. And for us, that's always been the championing cause to get our people and mainstream America listening to your show rather than CNN and reading the New York Post, CNN and reading the New York Times and the Washington Post. And I think part of why he's doing this

and whether he was told to do it or whether he just did it on his own volition is that having someone who's seen as being close to Trump, especially with national security experience, it helps keep Trump supporters politically engaged by making them feel like they are getting special access to like exclusive information. It's all a part of keeping the mega movement alive when their side is not in power, while also building up a ground base of support in preparation for them to take power back.

And that's what he did like a lot in 2022. Most of those podcasts were leading up to the midterms as well. So it is part of this general political strategy to engage with these, like, much more niche kind of smaller QAnon shows, which not only does, like, you know, grow their audience over time as well, it does help their audience grow. It also just establishes like a completely siloed media ecosystem away from mainstream news. Like that is part of what they're doing.

All right. That's that's why Trump made Truth Social is to create more of these reality tunnels, more of these like information silos. Now, Patel kept busy in between 2020 and 2024 with a variety of kind of grifty ventures. I'm going to quote from the New York Times here, quote, Mr. Patel's company Trishul collects consulting fees, including one hundred and thirty thousand dollars last year from Mr. Trump's Truth Social site. He also made $325,000 over two years for strategy consulting for the pro-Trump

Save America pack and $145,000 in 2021 for fundraising consulting from Friends of Matt Gates, the campaign committee for the now former House Republican from Florida." Unquote. Now, last year, Patel's nonprofit charity, The Cash Foundation, received $1.3 million in revenue, mostly from donations, though its reported expenses totaled $674,000. Wow. Which is the majority of the money, and nearly half of that was spent on promotion and advertising. According to the New York Times, the charity spent more on ads than they actually gave

away. Which is fantastic charity work. Oh, fuck. Good work. Through this foundation, he also sells cash merchandise, which is spelled K, money sign H. Yeah, that guy's gonna really FBI well. Including six packs of wine for 240 bucks and $50 golf polo shirts. Part of these polo shirts have this, like, know, like pro-America branding. I want to read the description of one of them. Tired of seeing your money go

overseas? Support your fellow Americans by purchasing our t-shirt. Where do you think this t-shirt's made, Robert? China? Well, it's made in Haiti. Oh, Haiti. Oh, okay. The America of the ocean. And South America. So, you know, you're still supporting Americans. Just South Americans. Mm-hmm. Oh my god. Now, this foundation has also funded defamation lawsuits for a Stop the Steal activist and his friend and former boss at National Intelligence. But Patel's grifting does go beyond his foundation.

Just earlier this year, Patel was hawking anti vaccine supplement pills from the company Warrior Essentials. Wow. Specifically, the pills that claim to reverse the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine. I love that. What if these pills just give you COVID? They're just COVID pills? Yeah. Yeah. You just want to get COVID. Want to reverse the effects of the vaccine?

It's a it's a performance enhancer. You know, if we could convince. Well, let's see if we could convince Joe Rogan COVID is a performance enhancer. I think we could get Joe Rogan's fans to spread any more disease than they already do. Yeah, that's that's impossible. So this product that Patel was selling is called NoCovidome. And it's allegedly formulated to, quote, destroy the toxic spike, unquote, caused by the mRNA vaccine. Now, we should have called the COVID vaccines NoCovidom.

It's a good name. That was just leaving money on the table. Or Novid. Novid's good. Novid would have been a great name. Novid's good. Novid would have been a great name. Novid's good. Novid's good. Yeah.

According to journalist James Little, these nocovidam pills just contain basic supplement ingredients like turmeric extract, green tea extract, and vitamin D. Great. Yeah. A subscription for a 30-day supply is for $49.98. Jesus Christ. And a single order of pills is $59.98. They're really pushing the subscription

because you got to keep doing more pills every 30 days in order to really keep the Vax suppressed. In a post this past February on True Social, Patel truthed, spike the Vax, order this home run kit to rid your body of the harms of the Vax, unquote. My God. I just can't believe that a guy like this could be FBI director.

It's just, it makes me. It's, it's. I mean, it probably will wind up being much more dangerous, but there is a version of this where the FBI just pivots to selling supplements. Like, where you get your estrogen and testosterone from the FBI. Ooh.

Look, as long as it's marketed as, like, a performance enhancer. I would love to believe that a guy like this will lead to just general incompetence, but I just can't let myself believe that. Like, I think it's just gonna become more and more targeted against, like, people who are good. Yeah, they're going to start.

Yeah, with them. I mean, it looks like just based on his enemy list, they're going to start with Biden administration officials and people in the government. But like it won't end there. It's going to depend on what happens. Like it'll be a reactive, violent organization, which to a degree it always has been, but there's always been more of a sense of predictability

that will not be present. And specifically, Patel has also been a recurring Grey Zone guest and is pretty close with that whole crew. That's not great for certain people, but he really is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of like odd anecdotes, including his trilogy of books, which will be kind of the last thing I talk about here. So over the course of the past three years,

Patel has written and published a children's book trilogy titled The Plot Against the King, where Patel himself appears as a wizard to defend King Donald from enemy plots. Oh, God. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh the one thing we all used to be able to agree on is that we don't like kings here. No, but now we have the FBI director who fancies himself the wizard to protect the king. I am going to read the description to protect the king. I am gonna read the description from the first book here. Quote, a fantastical retelling of the terrible true story. Hillary

Queenton and her shifty knight had spread lies that King Donald had cheated to become king. They claimed he was working with the Russianians. But how could that be? Russianians? Russian-onians. It's it's bad. OK. R-U-S-S-I-O-N-I-A-N-S. This is the kind of thing the FBI should be cracking down on. That's all I'll say about that.

Cash, the distinguished discoverer, join him as he uncovers the plot against the king, and who was really behind all the lies." Now Patel referred to this as, quote, the first ever children's Russia Gate book. Great. Unquote. Which I gotta give him to him. That's probably true.

That's almost... Well, no, because, okay, you know what? I don't think it is, but it came from the opposite side. You remember when the the fucking Krasenstein brothers put out that children's book about Robert Mueller No, yeah, you're right. Yeah, this is another lie weave Bannon because his hair was a weasel I think yeah, this was another lie. This was another lie from cash the Krasensteins beat you to this. This is truly the tier of man we're operating with.

I'm going to start pulling every connection I have to somebody in Congress so that when he's being confirmed, I can get up and hit him on this. You claim to have written the first children's book about that I bring in the Krasenstein brothers? No. They're gonna sell MTG on crypto. It's gonna be amazing.

Unfortunately, there's two other books in the series. Part two, quote, tells the fantastical story of how two inquisitive minds, Dinesh and Debbie, search for the truth to uncover evidence of a terrible scheme. Dinesh, who has been forced by a court to announce in public that he did not uncover any scheme. Part two is titled 2000 Mules. It is no longer available on Amazon due to like all the lawsuits

around this just being fake because they broke a bunch of laws because it was criminal and lies. Yes. Search for the truth to uncover evidence of a terrible scheme to elect Sleep sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on a choosing day Unquote choosing day just called an election man. No cuz it's a game It's when they choose their king There are kings that are elected anyway

The back of the book reads come join Dinesh and Debbie as they try to answer some troubling questions. Why did the counting stop in the middle of the night? Why were there more votes than people in the kingdom? What is up with all the glowing poo? Unquote. That is what it actually says. Now why? I'm not...

What is the glowing poo supposed to be? I don't know because I can't scam Amazon to buy the book and return it because it's no longer available on Amazon. I don't know what the glowing poo is. Sorry. Listeners, if one of you has a copy of this book. Oh, my God. Then part three is titled Return of the King. OK. Quote, it continues the silly yet important journey of the Maga King

quote, it continues the silly yet important journey of the MAGA king as he returns to take down comma, la la la and reclaim his throne, unquote. Okay. So yeah, that's Kash Patel, possible new FBI director. Oh, who also produced a song titled Justice for All, which is a version of the national anthem, but sung by all J6 defendants in prison, with proceeds going to the Cash Foundation. So he also released a song, which was not on my rap this year, unfortunately.

That's a shame, and I'm just double-checking something. Yes, and he stole the name of his song from a Metallica album. One of the better Metallica albums! This is the one that has one on it. Oh my god. You son of a bitch. I mean, it's just so odd to have the FBI director making a song with imprisoned

J6 defendants. It really does just throw my head into a little bit of a spin. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see the current FBI agents react to that. But I guess we'll see. We're all going to learn a lot about the FBI. one way or the other Any any any closing thoughts here on on mr

Patel now that we've done a very brief overview of his life story ending with this children's book He seems like he's qualified to do Something that's what everyone's saying. That's what everyone's no like like every single person who's like announced You know you you get a wave of headlines from people who work in government being like, this is the most unqualified person ever nominated for this position. And like, it just keeps happening. That I like, I don't even feel obligated to like quote or say any of these things, because like we all know what's happening.

Like, yeah, I don't know why this is going on. Like, that doesn't matter. No, and I think that's one of the things I I have no desire in focusing on like what Trump is doing. That's like he's breaking the law. He's violating a norm. Like I want to hear, you know, what are you going to do to stop it? Right. What is actually being done to try to resist this?

Right. Like otherwise, it's at least when it comes to stuff from elected leaders, you know, I'm just not interested in like, oh, he broke another law. Yeah, that's what he does. What comes next? And he hires guys like Patel to clean up his messes and do all his dirty work. And if they do it, they can slowly rise to the ranks and become director of the FBI. Yeah. And that's the political strategy that that they are all working with and have run to

success yet again in 2024. Mm-hmm. Well, I guess stay tuned for more happenings here as they continue for the rest of this week and for the next four years. If What Happened Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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