The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 626 What the Heck Happened Yesterday

Episode Date: January 4, 2018

This stunning story lays bare the failure to properly investigate Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. unloads on Steve Bannon.  If you are white, “informed,” and “civil” then you are a new target for liberals. More great news about the Trump economic renaissance. Video of my debate last night with Austan Goolsbee on the Hannity show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Dan Bongino Show. Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show. Producer Joe, how are you today? I'm a snow shoveling son of a gun today. I know, man. Yeah. What the heck is going on up there? You guys, I can live in the Arctic. It's incredible. You know, Florida today was cold, though. It was the coldest I've ever seen in Florida.

It was down to 34, which, you know, for you guys is probably a thaw. Yeah. Well, it is. It is a thaw, actually. But down here, that's pretty cold. I mean, I have never seen it below the 50s. So it's pretty chilly, even in Florida, folks. But, you know, nothing like you all are going through up in the Northeast. So get through that.

I hope you enjoy the podcast today. I hope you're home listening. We can put a smile on your face. Yesterday was just an incredible news day. And, you know, I'll be candid with you folks. I saw this Steve Bannon story erupt. And I'll give you the background of the story. Don't worry.

But I just thought to myself, gosh, I just... If there was ever a lose, lose, lose, lose story, this is... I don't know who comes out of this the winner. Here's what happened. Steve Bannon, who was back at running Breitbart, who was an advisor to the president during the campaign and joined the White House after the president was elected in an advisory role. Bannon allegedly gave quotes to an author by the name of Michael Wolff for a book coming out called Fire and Fury about the Trump White House.

And the quotes are. I don't know. I don't get it. Now, I don't know President Trump. I mean, I know who he is, obviously. I have never met him other than being brushed up against at CPAC one time years ago. I don't know him. I do know Steve pretty well. We run in some of the same activist circles. We're't know him. I do know Steve pretty well. We run in some of the same activist circles.

We're not best friends. We don't have coffee together, but we know each other. Some of the Bannon quotes, specifically the one about the Don Trump Jr. meeting with the Russian lawyer being, quote, treasonous, are outrageous.

Now, he, Bannon, Steve Bannon, because some of you may say, well, this guy, Michael Wolff, the one who wrote the quotes, this guy has a questionable past. That's come up in some writings I've seen today. But Bannon has not, he's not taking the quotes back, Joe. So in other words, you know, if I were to, if I were to tell the audience, man, you're never going to believe this. I spoke to Joe Armacost yesterday after the show

and Joe Armacost told me he really can't stand burgers from Joe's Burger Factory. And in Joe's Burger Factory complains and Joe does nothing to say, hey, I didn't say that. I think it's generally assumed you said it, right? Yeah, I'd say so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if I came on the show today nothing to say, hey, I didn't say that. I think it's generally assumed you said it, right?

Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I came on the show today, I said, Joe, Joe's Burgers Factory is complaining about your comments. And you were like. Meaning silence, nothing. We can assume you probably said it.

Bannon has not said he hasn't said these things. There were also some other, you know, statements about the Trump White House that were not necessarily flattering. And I have two takeaways from this. Number one, if he did say these things, and believe me, I'm telling you folks, this is a painful show to do. Can I give you a little inside baseball? Why am I asking? It's my show. You're not going to answer back, but I'm going to do it

anyway. As this broke yesterday and specifically last night, I always stew over what to talk about on the show. I acknowledged privately to myself that this was a lose, lose, lose. There's nothing good that can come out of this conversation. I like Breitbart. I'm not giving him a pat on the back to sound like I'm virtue signaling here. I like them. I like a lot of the writers over there. I like a lot of the people. I've been on their radio station. I like their website. I'll use their stuff. But I just don't understand what Bannon gets out of this. gets out of this. Now, the two takeaways, to get back to this. If he did say this to the... Let me just complete that thought. I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound scatterbrained. I'm just, as you can probably tell, I'm having a real difficult time with this topic because I like the guys at Breitbart a lot, and I know Steve. I also support the president strongly, and I feel like this is a topic that is guaranteed to alienate just about everybody listening.

But I owe you, as a host of this show, an opinion on this matter. You're owed it, no matter what. I can't avoid it because it's not convenient. You see where I'm going with this show? And that's why last night I was like, all right, you got to just take the plunge on this, okay? Number one, the takeaway from this is where was the loyalty if these comments were made? I'm sorry, but if, you know, he took you, the president trusted you and took you into his campaign and his White House, the most powerful position in the history of mankind,

the presidency of the United States. He took you as a senior advisor, as a high-level advisor into his White House. Where was the loyalty? What did you get out of this? Now, if I can be self-critical for a minute, Joe, and you may be thinking this as well, you may say fairly enough, well, Dan, you wrote a couple books about your experiences in the White House. You're absolutely correct. And I challenge you in those books to find any personal attacks or personal conversations that I was witness to and heard that Barack Obama, by the way, my political opponent in every measure, I challenge you to pick out any personal conversations I disclose in a violation of my oath. Any.

The answer is you won't because they're not there. So that, because I want to be, I want to give both sides of this. To be fair, even again, for people listening who may say, yeah, well, he wrote. I did. I wrote books about my experiences in the Secret Service. There's no classified information given out. It was basically a hoorah tale of my time. And the last book I wrote was about problems in the Secret Service that I feel need to be addressed to keep the president alive, regardless of his politics. patting myself on the back. I'm just trying to establish a set of bona fides here as to why you don't do this.

You were trusted as a political appointee in the White House. You were trusted in the innermost sanctum of the campaign. This is your alleged political ally. And you go out and bash

this guy in a book? I didn't even do this for my political opponent when I know there's stuff that would be damaging. I don't understand. I mean it. I sincerely mean it. I genuinely don't understand what he was thinking. You know, I get it. I may be subjecting myself to the ire of Steve,

and I understand. That's fair. but this is an opinion show you're obligated to hear an opinion from i mean i i can't avoid it why would you do that i'm why don't i don't i really genuinely do not understand what he was thinking there why you would go and do that now jo again, to be clear on this loyalty part, if Bannon had witnessed some kind of illegality or corruption, that's a fair game.

And henceforth, why I spoke out against Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign. Because there were things there that are, were ugly. And Joe knows what they are because I've told Joe there were ugly things there. That's a different ballgame. But what, what he spoke out of doubt about where,

where maybe bad calls, Joe, maybe some misinformed decisions, some poor decision-making, but it wasn't corruption. It wasn't even close to corruption. It definitely wasn't illegal. I don't, wasn't illegal. I just don't get it. Secondly, you know, the president's just coming off, President Trump is coming off a resoundingly successful tax cut bill at the end of the year. bill at the end of the year. Approval ratings are starting to pop. He's above 40 now. I saw one poll him up at 46, which is exactly where Obama was. We have a really pressing international crisis in

Iran and North Korea right now. And all of a sudden, it's about you and not the president? I mean, you basically stole the president's message coming into the new year when he was finally on the upswing from some policy successes and some pressing geopolitical issues that need to be handled urgently like right now. And you steal the message away? I don't understand. What do you get from this? You know, I get it.

I'm not as big of a player um you know over there and i'm certainly not here to take pot shots but i i am not going to equivocate on this i was a little offended i saw this morning some people on cable news who are supposed to be supporters of the president that were equivocating and i think that's because they were afraid oh i don't want to get on this bad is bad Listen, sometimes you got to say what's the right thing to say. You see, you copying me, Joe? You don't equivocate on this. Glad you're doing what you're doing.

Yeah, man, this was wrong. I'm sorry. This was just wrong. I've been wrong a lot. We've had to correct things on the show. It's part of being human. When you're an opinion show sometimes you're going to base an opinion opinion on a series of facts that later on change and you go back and

you got to change it this was wrong all right i'm sorry but i i and i'm really stewed over this last night folks i i mean it i was like all night i'm talking to myself i'm talking to my wife i'm like damn it what the why the hell did this have to happen yeah you know i'm glad you did it though dan and i'm sure the listeners are glad they were counting on you having an opinion on this that's why people listen to the show dan you know yeah i appreciate that yeah no i appreciate it hey some good news by the way um my daughter got her first stripe on her white belt last night in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Gracie Martial Arts out here in Florida. So big applause to my daughter. Give her a shout out, my daughter, Isabel.

I put some pictures up on Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that. So feel free to check those out. So pretty cool stuff. All right. Today's show brought to you by our buddies at Filter By. The holidays might be over, folks, but the winter's just begun, unfortunately. And according to studies, the air indoors contains up to, get a load of this, Joe, 100 times more pollution than the air outside.

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Go check these guys out. They're terrific. All right. Another story that's been confusing a lot of people. I've gotten a number. I've received a... Talk like a human of people. I've gotten a number. I've received a talk like a human being here. I've received a number of emails on this. People are confused.

Trump disbanding this voter fraud commission. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. I'm just going to, if I may, I'm going to explain to you what I'm hearing from the conservative activist circle, people who are in the know. There was a voter fraud commission established by Donald Trump. The members appointed by Donald Trump, Chris Kobach was on that commission. A couple of friends of mine were on the commission. I've heard from a couple of people behind the scenes here that it was disbanded because it was an upcoming deadline. They were getting a lot of negative feedback from the states. The states did not want to disclose some of the voter information to the federal government.

There were also some people in DHS where it's going to go now that are considering in some ways federalizing the election process, which is a really bad idea, folks. So bottom line, process, which is a really bad idea, folks. So bottom line, the inside baseball on it, the deadline was coming up for a deliverable. They couldn't produce a deliverable because they weren't getting a lot of information from the states who were saying, we're not giving you that stuff. And then there were some other people who were confused as to the purpose of it. Some people had some different ideas about what should happen to it. That's what I'm getting. So a lot of you've emailed me. That's not my opinion.

That's just what I'm hearing from inside baseball folks. That that's what happened with the, with the voters commission. So just a quickly, let me put that out there. All right. Oh, I saw a story at the wall street journal yesterday that you want to talk

about. Here's a sound job. That's Dan Bongino scratching his head. We're still trying to get a good head scratching. And even our friend Ron P, we're having a time, because they're always so low. But I read it and I thought to myself,

if it wasn't in the Wall Street Journal, surely this would be a story at the onion, a fake story designed to elicit an emotional response, maybe laughter from people. But the story is real. So the critical theory far left identity politics crowd, Joe, has a new enemy, and that enemy is white-informed civility.

White-informed civility. Oh, yeah? Okay. I guess we can abbreviate that as a wick um what wick is a problem apparently white and what is white informed civility let me just give you some background before i get to what it is so you understand the setup because some of you may be new listeners on what critical theory is and how white informed civility became the new problem du jour, okay? Yeah. Critical theory is this scam, this joke of a theory that has permeated academia.

And the gist of critical theory from the academics and the media folks who've learned it, whether they know it or not, they've learned it, is facts aren't really facts. That things that conservatives use and people who aren't woke, you know, read into the process, the critical theory process. Facts aren't really facts. They're only interpretable through a subjective lens. Nothing's objective.

Therefore, it's all done to reinforce a white patriarchal power structure and nothing's real unless basically the critical theorists say it's all done to reinforce a white patriarchal power structure and nothing's real unless basically the critical theorists say it's real. That's the gist of it. That if I tell you Ronald Reagan's tax cuts doubled tax revenue to the government

you can dispute those facts based on the fact that I happen to be a white man and I am doing this to reinforce the white patriarchal power structure and those facts are interpretable according to any number of me that that's the gist of critical theory which is if you're listening scratching your head going so that means facts aren't facts like two plus two can equal seven the answer is yes that's why critical theory makes no sense so the the end

game of critical theory is anyone who's fighting to reinforce this white patriarchal power structure, basically Joe in short, anyone who disagrees with you is the enemy and must be fought under any circumstances because facts can't be facts unless the critical theorists say they're facts which defies common sense

I assure you Joe, do you have Jay's abacus handy? We haven't busted that out Yes I do Dan Okay, I want you to do you have Jay's abacus handy we haven't busted that out yes I do Dan okay I want you to do me a favor there we go alright I want you to add these two numbers for me and I want you to tell me

if critical theory recreates a different result later so I want you to add five one five one two three four five and I want you to add four to that one two three four now do you get the number

nine yes I do Dan you get the number nine? Yes, I do, Dan. I get the number nine. Okay. Now, let's try the critical theory approach, Joe. Critical theory says that facts aren't, in fact, facts. That five plus four equals something different. Now, you are white.

Yes, I am, Dan. Now, according to the left, because you're a conservative, you are part of the patriarchal power structure. I am a problem, Dan. Can you please? A big time problem. In more ways than they even know. I want you to add five plus four again and please tell me the outcome on Jay Zabacus. Five.

And this is with critical theory. With critical theory. Five and four. I get 11, Dan. You get 11. Yes. Good job. Well done, Joe. All right. You were picking up where i was going with that very good you get 11 of course you do on jay even on jay's abacus by

the way which is never wrong critical theory five plus four equals 11 now how does this build into this latest the fight on what they call white informed civilian this story is hysterical apparently joe in the debate culture i mean the the the formal debate i you know when people get up on the stage and are at a podium and they have debate teams that kind of thing i'm not talking about debate like yeah you and i are engaging in uh with a caller on the radio whatever it may be or something like that i mean the formal debate college debate scene there are minority debate teams, apparently, that have been told that the rules of the debate are, in fact, designed to enforce the white patriarchal

power structure. And therefore, you should ignore the rules and be declared winners of the debate You should ignore the rules and be declared winners of the debate by ignoring the rules of the debate and don't fall into this trap where white informed civility is determining the outcome of the debate. In other words, don't be civil during the debate because white informed. So in other words, if you're white, you know something and you're civil. Folks, I'm not making this crap up. Google it yourself. I'm not making this up.

This is real. If you're a white dude, you're a debater, you know something, and God forbid you're civil, you are definitely the problem. So what happened? Well, on some end, the Wall Street Journal lays out some examples of what happened. I'll put this article up at the show notes, by the way, at Bongino.com. Please subscribe to my email list if you haven't yet. It really helps me get the articles to you. What are some of the examples? Apparently, during a debate, a college debate format, there was one debater who apparently was not going to fall prey, Joe, to the evil wick, white-informed civility. And one of the debate moderators said, okay, your time is up.

Pretty common, right, Joe? Time, right? Time means be quiet. The other guy gets a shot. And apparently the debater respond with, it's a family-friendly show, F the time. Now, F doesn't stand for Frank.

In this case, you can figure out what's in there. F the time. And everybody was like, yeah, baby! This is it! Fight back against the wickers of the world. The white, informed, civilizovia-phobias the phobes.

Folks, there are other examples, and one apparently was asked a question about whatever the topic was, taxes or healthcare, and apparently broke out into some kind of a routine. And everybody was like, they're the winners. Thank God. Folks, do you understand how the,

this is an intentional act by Looney Tunes leftists to disconnect us from any objective truth whatsoever. When you're, and when I say that, I know sometimes I may confuse some folks, but the idea of an objective truth, that there is a God and a set of values, Joe, that are immutable.

You know, we don't spit on people. We don't insult people. We don't, you know, we don't kill people if you're not these kind of things. In other words like the basic tenets of the Ten Commandments a set of immutable truths why would the left have

those are objective meaning it doesn't matter who the subject is Joe you just don't spit on someone else okay? You don't go slapping another person in the face for no reason those are immutable meaning they apply to Joe and they apply to me. Why would the left and the critical theorists, and by the way, when I say objective truths, let's expand the definition to this story as well.

What are objective truths in this debate scenario, Joe? The rules. Right, the rules. In other words, the rules of the debate are clear. You don't walk over to the other side of the debate stage and deck the guy. You have to obey time limits. By the way, they're objective rules, Joe. Joe gets 10 minutes, Dan gets 10 minutes. Not Joe if he's Hispanic or black gets two minutes and Dan gets 10 minutes because he's white. The rules are objective. This is a constant war on objective truth at every level because if you have an objective truth and a north star to guide your behavior joe then what the hell is the purpose of the government

it's pretty hard to advocate for an all-powerful discretionary government when i say discretionary government i mean a government that has power over your discretionary government, when I say discretionary government, I mean a government that has power over your discretionary decisions using its discretion. It gets to spend your money, it gets to control your healthcare, it gets to choose where your kids go to school. It is almost impossible for you to advocate a cause like that. We need this powerful government, i.e. socialism, Marxism, communism, these kinds of things, when the objective values are obvious. You only need a government, Joe, at that point to protect individuals from an overarching government. You don't need the government for anything else. Everybody understands what the objective values are. You just need a government to reinforce

what you already know is true. But if you have that, there can be no subjective truth, and that's what they want. Any kind of objective truth has to be thrown away. Family values, God-given values, your values will be dictated to you by the government, and the values will change, by the way, depending on what their tactical needs of the moment are. In other words, things we assumed were values in the past, like privacy. Privacy, meaning a man being able to go to the bathroom without a woman walking in, or a woman being able to go to the bathroom without a man walking in. This was entirely uncontroversial up until about four years ago. This was an objective truth. Yes, men don't want

to be seen, or women don't want to be seen by members of the opposite sex in a bathroom, you know, engaging in bathroom behaviors. They just don't. Yes. Yes. Thank you, couples retreat yoga guy. Always, always seems to have this guy. He's the best. I love that guy.

Yes. And this was objective. That had to be taken out, too. So then we were told by discretionary people in the government using their discretion that no this is now okay and we were supposed to be like wait wait that was our north star like those that's been the case throughout human civilization like we did no no that north star doesn't matter the government's got a new set of values for you is that making sense joe yeah Yeah, and I dislike it, yes. You should dislike it, and everyone else listening should too, and this white informed civility nonsense is just another effort to devalue

objective truth and replace it with government-imposed values. You don't have to, I mean, debate rules. Debate rules? Oh, what are you, crazy? Who needs debate rules? Folks, this stuff is nuts. It's just, it's really upsetting. Read the article. You'll get more upset as you read it. It gets worse as the article goes on. You're like, this can't possibly be true, but it is. All right. Today's show brought to you by our buddies at iTarget with the iTarget Pro system. That's the letter I in iTarget Pro. Now, what is iTarget? It is simply the best system to train with your firearm I've ever seen. I am very proud to have them as a sponsor. We welcome them on board.

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reset it nice, go give it a shot. You will love this product. The reviews are tremendous. iTargetPro.com, promo code Dan. All right, I was on Fox last night debating Austin Goolsby, who is a leftist, but I will say is a very nice guy. I mean that. He is not a bad guy personally. He's always been very respectful to me. And I debated him about this scandalous Hillary Clinton investigation on email. not old news. John Solomon of The Hill, and I'll put this in the show notes today as well, put out a damning report about some information that is just coming to light about the Hillary email investigation. I want to give you three takeaways to argue with your liberal friends,

because when I was on Hannity last night debating Austin Goolsbee, I posed to him three scenarios that were unique to the Hillary investigation that scream of corruption. And I... Joe, do you have Jay's abacus handy? Yes, I do. Okay. So, Joe, I want you to move

three of those abacus balls to the side. One, two, and three. One, two, three. One, two, three. You got them? Yep, yep, yep. How many are there? Three.

There's not six? No. Are you sure? One, two, three. Okay, great. Thank you very much, Joe. Jay Zabacus comes in handy again. We haven't used Jay in a long time.

Wow. Jay Zabacus in a long time. So Joe's even confused by this. So last night I lay out these three reasons. So Joe's even confused by this. So last night I lay out these three reasons. What's fascinating is Austin Goolsbee comes at me with reason six. You may say, well, I thought you said there were three.

Exactly, that's my point. I made a joke about it on the show. I'm like, Austin, it's fascinating. I laid out three reasons this Hillary email investigation was corrupted and you defended reason six. And even he looked puzzled for a minute. Folks, here are the three things that happened

in this investigation. And I'm speaking as a former federal agent i've actually done these investigations so i'm not speaking with forked tongue here okay first this is an obvious one but new information's come out they drafted an exoneration letter of hillary clinton on the email investigation before they interviewed the prime suspect in the case, which was Hillary Clinton. Wait, come again? Joe, if I had accused you of a bank robbery, right, is it a good idea for me as the investigator on the case

to draft up a letter exonerating you of the bank robbery before I've actually interviewed you about robbing the bank? That's probably a bad idea, Dan. Probably a bad idea. It was not a trick question. Sometimes poor Joe is like, this question's so dumb, it's clearly a trick. That is an actual question.

Now, the breaking news on this, because we've known about that for a while, but in the Solomon report, we find out, Joe, that not only was Hillary not interviewed yet before she was, air quotes, exonerated, which, by the way, the FBI director has no power to do. The DOJ makes prosecutorial decisions. The FBI director makes investigative decisions. Don't ever forget that. Forget that. What broke yesterday was that up to 17 other key witnesses in the case, 17 others hadn't been interviewed yet either.

What? What? And thank God for Andrew Garfield and Spider-Man. What? Yeah, what is right? If you're scratching your head, head scratching self, if you're going, what? That doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't.

So when I hit Austin Goolsby up about that, I said, because Sean kept him right on target. Sean's like, Austin, answer the question point by point. What about the exoneration before the interview? He's like, yeah, that sounds a little strange. Are you crazy? Even worse, Joe. Now it turns out,

wait, before I set up this even worse, Joe, I know you're clear on this, but the audience, the Mike Flynn case, who was the national security advisor for a limited amount of time with president Trump before he was terminated from the job.

He was just pled guilty to false statements to the FBI. Everybody knows that, right? He was, he was interviewed by the job. He was just pled guilty to false statements to the FBI. Everybody knows that, right? He was interviewed by the FBI. Some statements didn't marry up with a transcript they had. That's a whole other scam. And I'm bringing this up for a reason. I'm not trying to like, this isn't a look squirrel moment, but just Mike Flynn was prosecuted for making false statements to the FBI and pled guilty to it. I said to you on shows in the past, that's a charge rarely used on anyone unless you're trying to really hurt someone.

But I'm not saying you should lie to the FBI. I'm saying everybody does it and it's rarely charged. That it was charged to Mike Flynn says something to me and it says something that they wanted Mike Flynn. Why is that important to what I just told you in the exoneration letter?

Because Solomon breaks yesterday and his hill piece yesterday as well. Just taking a note on this. That one of the people who was involved with the server, who was interviewed, and they don't give a name, but I think we know who it is. I just don't want to say it on the show. I don't want to slander anybody, obviously,

but I'm pretty sure I know who it is, who was involved with the Clinton email server, gave an interview to the FBI, Joe. And what's fascinating about the interview is the FBI asked him in the interview, hey, Daddy-O. Bringing up Daddy-O because that's what Joe texted me this morning.

Hey, Daddy-O. Hey, Daddy-O, you delete some emails on that server? Nah, man, I don't know. Nah, I don't know anything about it. Nah. Hmm. Okay. Statement to the FBI, Joe. Nah, man. I don't know

anything about it. Not his exact statement. I'm being funny, but the statement was basically no. Okay. Couple months later, same subject, same guy, same guy. FBI comes back to him. He claims to have, quote, an an oh moment you can figure it out

rhymes with the word hit he claims to have that oh moment right yeah says oh joe look at i now i remember yeah crazy how that happens right now? Now I remember deleting these emails. Oh, by the way, probably because a forensic footprint showed he did it. And the FBI comes back. Now, if justice was fair and justice wasn't blind, Joe, Mike Flynn was prosecuted for lying to the FBI, right? So now Joe Armacost is saying clearly, because Joe hasn't had the opportunity to read this report. I know what you're thinking, Joe. You're thinking, we live in the United States.

Justice is blind. This is a great system. You know, this management of the FBI is clearly on par. They're doing the right thing. This is moral and ethical leadership. Remember, there's never a knock on the men and women of the FBI. If you're getting that from this, you're listening to the wrong show. They're great.

But if justice was blind, Joe, the guy's in jail right now, right? For lying to the FBI. You bet, man. Yeah, you bet he's in jail. He's not. Yeah, no, he's not in jail. See, I made the mistake of asking Joe a question to think like a normal human being, which he is. And I should have told him to go resort to caveman Joe.

Because if you resort to caveman Joe, this makes sense. Because cavemen believe in retribution and revenge and not fair justice. He is not in jail. Matter of fact, Joe, what did he get for his lies to the FBI? Not a federal charge. He got an immunity deal. Yeah. Well, that works out great.

This is all on the level, folks. Don't you worry about it. This is all on the level, folks. Don't you worry about it. This is all on the up and up. That's just point number one on the exoneration part. The dude gets an immunity deal for lying to the FBI while a decorated, decorated military officer who's given his life for the country, Mike Flynn. What happens? He has to plead guilty and is bankrupted. What a scam. What a scam.

I had an oh moment. Oh, you did? How come Mike Flynn didn't get to have an oh moment? No, no, serious question. How come he doesn't get that? By the way, when they walk in there with a transcript, they don't even tell him it's a criminal interview. He doesn't even have a lawyer present. Of course something's going to be wrong.

I can't even remember what Joe texted me this morning outside of Daddy-O. And you expect Mike Flynn to recount exactly what happened according to this transcript? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Point number two, Hillary email anomalies, as I have this label. Cheryl Mills, who is a Clinton confidant, staffer, sometimes functions in a legal capacity. staffer, sometimes functions in a legal capacity.

Cheryl Mills is interviewed because she's so close to Clinton about the server. Obviously, Joe, if I had an illegal server, how many people do I email and text every day? Maybe five. Joe's one of them. If I had an email server that was illegal because I was whatever, the Secretary of State, the President, you would want information from Joe because I email Joe a lot about the show and things like that. Cheryl Mills was interviewed because she has a lot of emails from Hillary and is very close to her. Nothing complicated about this.

Cheryl Mills was granted, by the way, an attorney-client privilege stipulation despite the fact that Cheryl Mills is a potential co-conspirator in the scam only because she's a lawyer. Now, folks, you may be saying, well, she's a lawyer. Of course, it's attorney-client privilege. No, it's not. When you're part of the scheme, you're not granted privilege.

Think about Joe. No, I'm serious. People are confused about this. I don't know. Maybe they haven't been a former agent. I'm surprised people, I think it's liberals. It's not conservatives because they want to be confused. Like Joe Pesci says, maybe we should get you unconfused. You know, if Joe was my attorney for the podcast and Joe and I go rob a bank,

Joe does not get to say, hey, I'm not talking about anything. It's attorney-client privilege. He doesn't get to do that. He's part of the scheme. Remember the female lawyer lady who was prosecuted for delivering messages to the terrorists, the world trade bombing terrorists?

She was prosecuted. You don't get to be part of a scheme and go, I'm a lawyer, it's all good. Attorney-client privilege is meant to protect deliberations about your criminal defense in a trial so that you can prepare a defense. In other words, Joe,

attorney-client privilege, I get to have conversations with you if you are not involved in the bank robbing scheme and you're my lawyer, that are privileged, that they can't demand access to because we're allowed to prepare a legal defense. If Joe actually robbed a bank with me, that doesn't apply. But it was extended to Cheryl Mills. Nothing to see there, folks, either. mills nothing to see there folks either third point the computers in the case that were turned over to the fbi for analysis were then given back before the case was even concluded wait wait come again so let me get this straight armacost is out in europe and ar, right? No, I'm in Pasadena now. Pasadena.

Joe's up in Pasadena, Maryland. Joe walks into the Atlanta Bread, which is now defunct. They still love that place. They had the best chicken sandwich. That's tomato bread. Joe's walking out of the Atlanta Bread. He's upset. And Joe knifes a dude.

Why? Because he's in a bad mood. I'm just going to knife this guy. It's okay. Joe knifes him, right? Drops the knife on the floor. Cops show up. Joe gets arrested. Knife gets submitted into evidence.

Let's say Joe gets out on bail. A million dollars. This is not even funny. This case is so dumb. The abnormalities that how liberals defend it speaks to the intellectual vacuum they reside in every day. It's like a black hole of stupid.

Do you walk up to Joe as he walks out of the central booking, whatever, bail, whatever it may be, and go, oh, by the way, Joe, the bloody knife you had? Here, we know you may need that for work, so here you go. Here's the knife. You're like, wait, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's what happened. They gave the computers back to them. dumbest thing i've ever heard that's what happened they gave the computers back to them folks i yeah how you're defending this thing as a liberal is is seriously puzzling i i'm not and i say this a lot i get it some of you are very entrenched in your beliefs i am in mind i respect

that i think you're wrong i think liberalism is a cancer. I think it's a curse. But this is the United States of America. I absolutely vociferously defend the First Amendment. You're right to believe what you want, even if it is, you know, a threat to my way of life. You're free to believe it, as long as you don't threaten me personally. It's dumb. And I'm seriously not telling you who to vote for. But you can have some principles.

You can say to yourself, okay, this was wrong. This Hillary investigation was wrong because it created a bifurcated system of justice, one for the elites and the connected and one for us. And we should call this out. Defend your Democrat principles. Go vote for your liberals. Do whatever you want to do.

But you should stand up and say this was wrong you should stand up like republicans did in the watergate era and say this was wrong you know i know that the governor of maryland's dad was i think the first republican to come out and say no no this isn't right larry hogan senior god rest his soul who was a congressman at the time. Folks, what happened there was wrong. It's been sensationalized by a lot of people, but it was wrong. And it's setting a dangerous precedent. Now, if you're connected, you're absolved of any legal responsibility to abide by the law whatsoever, and you get special investigative treatment. This is crazy. All right.

I'm sorry. Just remember those three things. Again, the exoneration before the interview, attorney-client privilege to a potential co-conspirator, and the returning of evidence before the investigation's even concluded. Absolutely insane. Okay, I saw an interesting piece yesterday. Let's see, about... Sorry, believe it or not, I'm still unbelievably recovering from this cold. Again, I feel fine, but it is the worst.

Sorry for all the sniffles. I know it's annoying, but I appreciate you all bearing with me. So thank you. I saw an interesting report yesterday about the SALT issue. The SALT issue, again, is the state and local tax issue. And I don't want to keep bringing it up, but I just find the issue to be quite comical because it exposes so many different levels of hypocrisy by the far left.

What is the SALT problem? It's an acronym for state and local taxes. The Trump tax cut plan that was just signed stops people from claiming a tax deduction on anything more than $10,000 in paid state and local taxes. It used to be almost unlimited with conditions, right? So now again, if you're paying a million dollars because you're very wealthy to the state of New York in taxes, you can't write that off your federal tax bill anymore.

You can only write off $10,000. So I saw an interesting proposal yesterday. And the reason I think it's hypocritical, by the way, is because liberals are whining about it, live in blue states, and they're whining about it, never seeing the hypocrisy of the position, Joe, which is the reason you're paying a high tax bill and not getting a deduction is because you live in a liberal state with high taxes uh i are you how are you not putting two and two together there and your complaint is about what because the federal government won't let you deduct your high tax bill from liberal states that tax the snot out of you? Oh, man. Well, here's the proposal. I'm sorry. I was just reading something on Fox. The proposal is that if states were really sincere about holding on to the state and local tax deduction, then what they can do, Joe, is they can lower their tax rates.

And in order to keep people from going into, and this is the liberal approach, I don't think this is going to happen, but to keep people from being destitute, because the liberal approach, Joe, would be New York. I can tell you right now what liberals in New York are saying. Well, if we lower our taxes, we're not going to be able to take care of people. Well, the government doesn't take care of people to begin with, but even saying they do, for a second, the approach, and this is genius. Forgive me, I forget who exactly wrote it.

It wasn't like a formal article. It was just a suggestion. I may have seen it on Twitter. I thought this was great, though. They said, well, what if the government lowered their taxes, correspondingly, these liberal governments show, and just started promoting people to give to local charities instead? Now, why would that work? Because the charitable deduction is still there.

So you want to get a deduction? Here's what we're going to do, Joe. You were deducting $500,000 in New York State taxes you pay. You have to be really wealthy, by the way, to pay that amount to New York. So let's say you're very, very wealthy. You're paying 500K because the New York tax rate is double digits on your income. New York could say, all right, we're going to cut that in half. And here's what we recommend.

Take that. So now you're only going to pay 250 in taxes. Okay, Joe? All right. What we recommend you do, because we don't want, you know, government helps people and we don't want to fail to help people so joe what we recommend you do is take that 250 in savings and i want you to give it to whatever the united way or the red cross or whatever whatever uh you know saint jude's children hospital not recommending i'm just throwing names out there you see commercials

about all the i'd like you to give it to those people and then you can claim that deduction again. Joe, problem solved, right? There you go. People are helped, number one. Poor people are helped. Rich people who live in liberal states who vote for liberals now get their tax deduction back. Taxes get cut at the local level, which incentivizes a lot of middle class people to stay. This is a triple win, unlike the story I opened up with, which was a triple lose.

This is a triple win. Everybody wins, but they will never do it. And the answer and the question, excuse me, I have for you is why? Why would liberals never, ever agree to that?

Joe, I'm going to set you up here. Okay. Alrighty. There's a common theme throughout this show, using a C word. No, you dirty, filthy people out there. The different C word. There's a different C word.

Don't do that. All right. There's a C word we use on this show a lot. Now, this is going to be a tough question, Joe, but what would be the difference if I gave money to the government first and they had over the money? They had some C word thingy over the money rather than me just giving the money directly to a charity that can help people directly without cutting in government bureaucrats. What does the government have over the money in the first case? This word that they don't have in the second case.

I believe that word is control, Dan. Yes, Joe. Yes, you are right again. The kid is on fire for the last five shows in a row. Control. I've only said that to you for the last, what are we on? Episode 626? For the last 626 episodes in three years.

Liberalism is about control. It's not about help. It's not about money. It's about power. The use of government power to plan and rule over people's lives. That's why they'll never do this. It's a simple, elegant, easy solution. Cut your taxes.

Incentivize people to give the money to charities. They still get the deduction everybody wins they will never do it because the money doesn't flow through government coffers first and when it doesn't they lose control when they lose control they can't buy off votes when they can't buy off votes they can't retain power and when they can't retain power they can't plan out your lives your health healthcare, your education, where your money goes, where your investments are going to go. That is the very essence of progressivism is control.

They will never, ever give that up. I love that story. I saw that and I'm like, this is it. I don't even know where I saw it. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be coy about it. I really don't know. I think it was a tweet or something.

I usually credit people, obviously, but I couldn't find it. But it's a great story nonetheless. All right, folks, please go to Bongino.com and subscribe to my email list. I will send you the stories I discussed today, including that story by John Solomon at the Hill, which is just a fantastic eye-opening story about the corruption involved in the Clinton email investigation. Bongino.com. Go check it out, and I'll see you all tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereino.com. Go check it out, and I'll see you all tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.

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