The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 881 A Presidential Surprise

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

In this episode I address the surprise presidential trip to Iraq and the hysterical media response to it. I also discuss three troubling oddities in the Gen. Michael Flynn interview with the FBI. Finally, I address the national debt crisis and the government shutdown endgame. News Picks: President Trump makes a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq.   The Mueller probe is a scam designed to keep the heat on President Trump.   Three oddities in the FBI’s handling of the Gen. Michael Flynn interview.   Rudy Giuliani asks for an investigation of Bob Mueller.   Disturbing video of suspected drug cartel hit men ambushing local police officers.   Are we reaching a breaking point with our national debt?     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

get ready to hear the truth about america on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host dan bongino all right welcome to the dan bongino show producer joe how are you today i'm doing good how are you doing seamlessly moving between accents before the show i noticed that you thought you didn't think i caught that i did not think you caught it. Yes. Oh, man. What a news day yesterday. The media jumping all over President Trump, who had the, and I'm using air quotes here, temerity to go visit our troops overseas. Oh, my gosh. Oh, what?

Unbelievable. How dare he visit troops in a conflict zone? That son of a- And, of course, the media had to make a story, a negative story out of that. So, this is one of those rare circumstances. You know, I hate personal stories on the show because I don't waste your time, but this will not be a waste of your time because this is one of those rare stories where I have unique expertise and insight into this specific situation, presidential visits to war zones. And I am going to debunk and expose the absolute media heresy and stupidity

yesterday uh and just embarrass them because i i like doing that and they're actually good at doing it themselves we need some music for this piece we do we do dramatic music right right we do like from braveheart i have the soundtrack to Braveheart. It's awesome. You know what? If we could run that in the back, SoundCloud would kick us off. But I don't think, the good thing is my whistling is so bad,

it in no way resembles the actual Braveheart sound. So we have no worries on SoundCloud at this point. No one will mistake that for actual Braveheart music. Oh, man. Oh, dude. Yeah. Show's off the rails already. We're a minute and 50 seconds in.

That's great. All right. Today's show brought to you by Roofstock. Hey, what if there's a way that there was an investing platform out there that could allow you to collect passive income and generate average annualized returns of over 8% in markets across the US, not just the ones in your backyard. Sounds good, doesn't it? With roofstock.com, you can buy, sell, and own investment properties the way professional investors do and start earning

passive income right away. Stat! Everyone knows real estate is a great way to build personal wealth and to diversify your investment portfolio. But hey, let's be honest. It can be complicated. I'm getting into that now a little bit. With Roofstock, you can invest in single family homes across the country with as little as $20,000 down. Roofstock has made the whole process transparent and easy to engage. You can view inspection reports, take a 3D tour, see neighborhood ratings, and when you find a property you like, add it to your cart. It's as easy as buying a pair of shoes online. It is simple. Roofstock offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Can't beat that. And if your vacant rental property doesn't have a tenant after 45 days of closing, check this out. Roofstock will pay your projected rental income for up to a year. You can't beat that. This month only, they've got a special deal for our listeners. You will get a $500 credit towards your Roofstock Marketplace fee at roofstock.com slash Dan. That's roofstock.com slash Dan for a $500 credit, but it's this month only. So you got to jump on it.

Roofstock.com slash Dan. Go check it out. You won't regret it. Okay. Jumping right in. So yesterday, many of you saw President Trump in a really what I think was a terrific move. I think, Joe, you'd agree. Went over and gave a nice lift to our, you know, every time I talk about the troops, I always struggle for adjectives to define what they do for us because I really just, I mean it. Having spent some time in Afghanistan with President Obama. I don't want to be dramatic.

It was about a week and a half, two weeks by the time we were done. But seeing what they do live and on the ground, I've always been in awe of the sacrifices they make. I mean, I mean that with absolute sincerity and from the bottom of my heart. So it's really nice to have the commander in chief. I remember being there, you you know, you know, when it was president Obama and that trip, um, I remember being there and seeing just the looks on their faces. It matters to them. Um, and president Trump doing that was a very nice, excuse me, was a very nice gesture. And, uh, I, I think, uh, uh, perfectly timed right now,

right around the holidays where a lot of these troops are waking up on Christmas morning on Christmas morning and sadly have to Skype in with their kids because they can't be there with them. I always remember that when I get up in Christmas morning with my kids, because I missed a lot of holidays myself as a Secret Service agent. But the difference is, I was in the United States. I wasn't in a war zone. So that's a different level of sacrifice. On the scale of sacrifice, that's a whole lot higher what our troops do so he goes yesterday trump goes to iraq he shows up the pictures the story breaks around about 1 p.m eastern time two o'clock and the media stories come out right away now the media narrative yesterday because the media cannot possibly stop hitting president trump no matter

what he does it will always and it by the way, this is not helping the media. I'm actually, I hate to say this, but it actually somewhat puts a smile on my face a little bit, Joe, because the media for all of their efforts to try to paint themselves as independent arbiters of facts and journalism, uh, they are not, their activists are now exposing themselves on a daily basis as the Democrat activists they are and destroying any remaining credibility they have left. Now, I say that puts a bit of a smile on my face because the good journalists in the end, the cream is going to rise to the top and journalism, which we need in this country. We need a free press, period. No doubt about it. The good journalists are eventually going to rise to the top as they see this nonsense for what it is. But the good journalist, Joe, can't rise to the top until the morons in the group, the activists expose themselves and their credibility is so little that they only speak to an activist crowd and they become worthless in the value chain of journalism. So we need them to out themselves first and they're doing it every day. So the story yesterday, instead of just reporting straight facts that the president visited a war zone, he was there with the troops.

He got a just a rousing welcome, thunderous applause. I mean, you could just watch the video yourself. Don't take my word for you. Go to Dan Scavino's account, who is the social media and messaging guy from the White House. He has some videos of it that are just tremendous. messaging guy from the White House. He has some videos of it that are just tremendous. Instead of reporting that, the narrative is, well, Trump only went because the criticism of him not going during the Christmas season to visit the troops was withering. In other words, the media narrative now is, look, this is a media success, Joe, because we shamed him over Christmas into going to visit the troops. Wrong. Folks, the tweets that came out from the clown class, Alyssa Milano, you know, radical,

far left, anti-civil liberties advocate, NBC News. Yeah, another one. The clown show trying to shame the president. The tweets that came out came out right troops and stuff. That kind of thing was all over Twitter. So, folks, what's the problem with that media narrative? Just to be clear what they're suggesting, they're suggesting that their Christmas Eve, December 23rd and Christmas Day tweets shame the president to leaving the White House and going over to visit the troops because they shamed him being the first president, you know, quote, not to do it during a christmas time

folks the problem with that is an obvious one if you're a thinking sentient being keep in mind we're not talking to liberals now we're to our media people we're talking to i said thinking okay thinking people i was a secret service agent i did an advance in a war zone. I was the lead advance agent for Barack Obama's 2010 December. I remember it was my birthday. I was over there for my birthday. It was December 4th, December 5th. Right around there, I was doing the advance. I forget when he landed.

I did that advance. I found out about that trip weeks prior. And the advance office knew about that trip weeks prior to that. What does that say, folks? That tells you that this trip scheduled yesterday for December 26th was likely planned in probably November. Meaning way before the media said this, the December 24th, 25th, 23rd, 24th, 25th tweets, the president won't visit a war zone. He's the first president ever.

He had already said he was going to visit a war zone because they were already planning it. The media's narrative is he was just responding to criticism. How was he responding to criticism if he already planned the trip before the criticism? is he responding to criticism if he already planned the trip before the criticism? Folks, this isn't hard to understand for you, but it exposes these media imbeciles for the loony tunes they are. The media is suggesting we criticize Trump right around the holidays for not visiting troops. Then he went and visited the troops only because we shamed him. The problem is the trip was planned before the criticism. So people like Soledad O'Brien, who was absolutely humiliated, you know, far left activist, former CNN host. I don't know what she's doing now.

But Soledad O'Brien, who tweeted a similar type thing. unless Trump has invented some kind of time machine to respond to criticism by traveling back in the future and reverse engineering a trip that Soledad O'Brien was making herself look like a fool, which she did. She's very good at that on Twitter. Folks, these trips are planned weeks in advance. When I did Obama's trip to Afghanistan, I just returned, I think it was from to Afghanistan, I just returned. I think it was from Jakarta, maybe Prague. I don't know. I'm not sure.

Honestly, folks, they all blend in. I don't even remember. No, it was probably Prague for the START treaty. So I get back. I'm super exhausted. I'm tired. And I got a call from the presidential protection. Here's how these trips work.

The White House staff advance, especially these high-end trips. Very, very few people will know about a trip like this because of the security situation being an active war zone or a conflict zone. The security situation is very dangerous. Very few people are read in on these trips. Very few. I mean, a handful. Probably the operations guy in the White House, maybe the deputy chief of staff, the chief of staff, and a limited number of staffers. And on the Secret Service side,

it's probably the special agent in charge, the deputy special agent in charge, a GS-15, and the lead advance agent who know about the trip, and then some whammo people, White House military office at the high level. It's very, very limited.

I'd say realistically, probably less than 20 people who are read in on those trips. Right. Since. Yeah. Yeah. Tighten it up. Tighten it up. Keep it tight.

So the way it works is I get the call. And this was, again, weeks out from the actual trip to Afghanistan by Obama, just like it happened on this Iraq trip now. And I was tired because I was getting off a pretty heavy time change from Prague. And I had taken a couple of days off and I got a call from the Presidential Protection Division, the operations section. And they said, you need to come in and talk to the DSAC, the Deputy Special Agent in Charge of the President's Detail. It's a number two guy. So I go in and i thought i was in trouble for something i i thought like maybe something happened on my trip which i nothing you were great nothing happened i was like

did i did something i miss you know so i go in i sit down with the this guy's name was uh vick i won't say his last name but he was a nice guy and he says dan before i talk to you i need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement and i'm like like, damn, what did I do on this trip? Like the Prague and Jakarta trips had gone great. I got positive reviews. I thought that I screwed something up. So I signed it. He said, listen, here's the deal.

I mean, I can talk about it now. Obviously, the trip already happened years ago. So there's nothing classified about it. You could Google it online. He says, President Obama wants to take a trip to Afghanistan. And I was like, wow. And I knew right away. They're like, we want you to do it now at the time I had already done multiple foreign advances as a lead advance agent. That's pretty uncommon. I am not

trying to pat myself on the back or impress you, but if you're a lead advance agent on the detail, it's a very limited number of people to get one foreign advance is a big deal to do. You know, I think I had done two at that point. I did Prague in Indonesia to do a third is, is a lot, you know, it's, it's a lot to do. It's uncommon, but he said, I think you're the guy that can handle it. You know, where it's on a little bit of short notice with us telling you now, but can you go over and go to Andrews tomorrow and fly out to Afghanistan and do this? That was a couple of weeks before the trip.

Now, keep in mind, again, they knew it probably a week or two weeks before that. All I'm suggesting to you is these things take planning. I had to go to Afghanistan when I landed on the ground. I forget what they, the cover they had. I think I was a DOD. I was there to support a Department of Defense. They were telling the troops on the base that it was the Secretary of Defense or some higher up from the Pentagon was coming in.

And I think only the two-star general on the base actually knew it was President Obama. You get what I'm saying, Joe? They don't want to give up the trip. Yeah, you almost have to have every step wired, don't you? I mean, all the way through. Yes. But obviously, they know the troops on the base are bright. These are smart guys. They've been there forever. They know when something's going on. So they know there's going to be a rally. So they had to tell them a story. And I think it was General Campbell. I'm pretty sure he was the two-star on the base at the time he was a he was a big guy he was very professional good good guy but i would sit in the briefings with them and uh we would and everything was

under the guise of that it was some higher up in the pentagon coming in and only on game day when air force one landed where people like wow it's the president like the actual president showed up so just to debunk that story first that the president was responding to criticism. You can't respond to criticism on December 23rd and 24th if you plan the trip in November. You can't. But don't let that get in the way of another stupid media narrative. Secondly, another dumb story that needs debunking immediately. CNN, I tweeted this out yesterday. Just one of the dumbest, most ridiculous stories I have ever seen.

I tweeted out, this is what happens when you run out of negative anti-Trump stories to report this kind of stupidity. There's actually a story on CNN politics. I hate to even give them the clicks, but it's almost worth reading for the stupid. Did you see this, Joe? That the troops who brought their MAGA hats, Make America Great Again, the red hats to the rally for Trump to sign may have been guilty of hatch act violations. In other words, political activity went on duty. Oh, do you understand how stupid that is? Seriously? Do you understand how nitpicky you have to be now to be clear on this? So you don't think I'm speaking with forked tongues. I did the advance with Barack Obama in Afghanistan.

People brought everything. People were taking selfies. People were bringing bumpers, stickers, whatever the president could sign. Sign my arm. The troops, listen, he's the president of the United States. Okay, let's get away from the politics for a minute. In a war zone, the president united states okay let's get away from the politics for a minute a war zone the president shows up unlike the left i don't you know i thought it was a nice gesture by barack obama to support the troops i don't agree with the man's politics but he is the

commander-in-chief we are a constitutional republic and i refuse to be a petty uh you know petty imbecile like these people on the left folks Folks, everybody was getting his autograph. Anybody and anyone who could get it. Don't tell me this is a Hatch Act violation. Let me just ask you a simple question. Do you want to be the military investigator, Joe, showing up in a hangar

full of, you know, 500 to thousands of troops getting interviews and prosecuting troops for having the commander in chief sign their hat on a hatch via a hat shack violation which prohibits federal employees from getting involved in politics in very specific and defined ways is that i mean is that a stretch or what yeah the answer is it is for you and i for the liberal media no it's just par for the course it's just average everyday stupid ladies and and gentlemen, signing a political, a

MAGA hat is not some act of political activism by troops in a conflict zone and a combat zone. Give me a break. They stopped being so ridiculous. They violated the Boobie Hatch Act. The Boobie Hatch Act. That's what we should call it. I mean, it was so, the story

was so ridiculous. I had to tweet it out and I hate tweeting out CNN stuff because I don't even want to give them clicks, but it was so ridiculous. I had to tweet it out, and I hate tweeting out CNN stuff because I don't even want to give them clicks, but it was so dumb. It required my immediate attention. All right, getting a little hot. All right, I got a lot of other stories to get to. I spent a little bit more time on that than I intended, but given my experience in the arena, I thought it relevant

just to expose the media for what they are. Folks, the Democrats are going to have a serious shutdown problem coming soon um the shutdown uh partial government shutdown as i you know said to joe the other day you know listen uh the world is not in chaos folks our lives for as much as the federal government and politicians and bureaucrats and swamp rats want us to believe it our lives do not revolve around the comings and goings of the federal government. They want us to believe that. But that's just simply not the case. We don't do that. Our lives are revolve around our kids, our families and our jobs. We are what is it? They I don't know, six or seven on this. Here's the problem the Democrats are going to have. President Trump, thankfully, so is standing fast on his request that money be spent on this wall uh fence structure

uh barrier whatever you want to call it i don't really care i don't play the dc euphemisms game i want a barrier that will stop the illegal flow uh of illegal immigrants into the united states of america you're more than welcome to try the legal process the illegal process has to be off limits and we need this barrier and when you talk to security professionals in the space, law enforcement and the security, you know, and border folks, immigration folks, they will tell you absolutely that these border walls work. Now that goes without saying, how do we know they work? Because places where border walls have been installed, Joe, El Paso, near San Ysidro and other places, illegal immigration in those specific geographic points where there are walls has gone down dramatically. We would call that a

fact and a data point. Now, liberals have a hard time with that kind of stuff. I know, I get it. I'm just asking that you open your minds to a second, you know, the six inch impenetrable fact shield called your skull and digest that walls work because creating a wall. And then they'll say, well, you know, we can get a ladder. You're going to carry a ladder on a thousand mile journey. Is that how that works? Is there going to be a ladder salesman? You understand that? Yes, it creates an, it creates a deterrent. The wall creates a deterrent. It's a, you know, we don't install burglary systems in every home across America because we're going to stop burglary. We'd like to, but that's not going to happen.

You create a deterrent. People are still going to burglarize homes. They're going to find ways around it. Sure. But it's a deterrent. If the burglary rate is whatever, 5% of homes in a certain neighborhood, and you can get down to one, installing an anti-theft burglary alarm system, then great, it did its job.

That's what the wall's designed to do. Here's the problem I see coming up for the Democrats. The Democrats are about to take over control of the House of Representatives, where funding measures have to originate. Folks, I'm not sure the Democrats are prepared for what's coming. This guy, as I said yesterday, the president, President Trump, is very effective at bypassing the D.C. morass, the swamp rats, the media, the academics, the elites, the cultural influencers.

He has been very successful at bypassing their gaslighting narratives. You know, Trump shut down the government because he's an idiot and he doesn't know what he's doing and there's chaos in the White House. Trump has been very clear from day one. As I said to you this in the episode a few days ago, he is very clear

about making issues black and white, whereas politicians in the past who mistakenly use focus group tested terms always had this confused message about what things were about because the focus group couldn't decide what it was about. Trump has this unique way of putting his finger on the pulse of the American people and understands full well that this is a black and white scenario. I shut down the government because I want border security. That has been

the message he has cut through all of the nonsense and the fog. The American people understand that. He has cut through all of the nonsense and the fog. The American people understand that. What's the problem the Democrats are going to have now? They're blaming it on Republicans now, Joe. They're saying, well, you know, Republicans run the House. You run the Senate. You have the presidency.

You know, you guys should be able to get this together. They're not going to be able to say that soon. The Democrats are preparing to take over the House. They are going to have to take some ownership over this soon. And once they take ownership over this shutdown and, and number one, they take ownership, but they're going to have to, they are in charge of the House coming up very soon. And secondly, the message really starts to sink in and penetrate that this is about border security, security of the United States, states a border wall which trump has been very successful about painting in black and white terms the democrats are going to have a problem joe because they are now going to own the control of the house that can

pass these funding measures they're going to own it but secondly they're going to own it in light of the fact that trump has made this about border security, you really want to be the guy running in two years in 2020 in a district you won by one or two points as a first term Democrat over a Republican and a potentially Republican leaning district or a swing district. Do you really want to be the one to run as the guy or the woman who stood in the way of border security and shut down the government for it? I don't think so, folks.

This is a losing bargain, a losing bargain for the Democrats. I think President Trump is holding a winning hand, and I think he needs to hold fast on this. I said this from the start. It's a fight we cannot lose. This has been a key signature issue for him, and it's critical, critical, that he stick to his guns on this one and not fold.

I think he will. I'm getting some good vibes, but he needs to stick to his guns on this. This is a key critical issue. All right. I got a lot more to get to yesterday's show. I had three, four stories that I had to skip because we,

I was so into the story about the Trump and, and how we're in a real kind of different battlefield morality right now. You were rolling yesterday, dude. Yeah. Thank you for the feedback. I got a lot of emails on that show, so I really appreciate it. Okay.

Today's show also brought to you by our buddies at the farmer's dog. Hey, dog food companies claim to use natural ingredients, but what kind of beef or carrots can sit in a paper bag for a year? Come on now. We can't eat processed food every day for meals. Neither can your dogs. Introducing the farmer's dog. The company helping

dogs live long and healthy lives with nutritious, fresh, ready-to-serve dog meals delivered directly to your door. My mother-in-law's dogs love this stuff. Love it. You got to see their faces and the tails. I love the tails when the food comes out. Listen, clever marketing has convinced Americans to feed unhealthy kibble and canned mush but the farmer's dog is different you just go you complete a short online quiz about your dog and a vet developed plan is created just for your dog food arrives at your door in pre-portioned packs ready to open and pour it's easy and here's the deal it looks and smells like real food why because it is real food it is the real mccoy and food matters adding fresh food to your dog's diet can reduce some cancers by close to 90

start feeding your dog better today try a week free at the farmers dog.com slash dan plus get free shipping at the farmers dog.com slash dan that's the farmersdog.com slash dan go pick it up today hey great piece in the hill please read the show notes i've got a lot of really good articles in there uh one which i'll get to in a moment at uh what is it american thinker where people are finally coming around joe to the theory we've been putting out there for months that the muller probes sole purpose right now is to cover up the crimes of, in fact, the Democrats, the Obama administration, the swamp rats involved in the spying operation on Trump. So there's a really good piece of the American thinker about this that lays it out pretty good. I'll get to that in a second. But there's also another great

piece in the Hill by a former senior level manager in the FBI, a guy by the name of Kevin Brock, who points out a couple of things about the Mike Flynn interview, three oddities. I'm going to go into two of them. Three oddities about the Flynn interview, which folks, I got to tell you, I mean this, when I first saw the headline, maybe I shouldn't say this, I was kind of like, I've done a lot on General Flynn know, General Flynn. Maybe it's time to cover something else. But, you know, of course, headlines rarely dictate what's inside the story.

I read the story by this gentleman, Kevin Brock. And I was like, damn, this is a really, really good piece. Really good. And it covers it. I was not an FBI agent. I was a secret service agent so i'm not as familiar although i'm familiar with the the judicial process for getting people in the system because it's the same for everyone i'm not familiar with the fbi's paperwork specifically

they do investigative summaries called 302s and the secret service they were called mrs there's a different reporting procedure timelines and everything but this guy who was a a senior manager in the FBI pointed out these three oddities. And I'm going to go into two of them that are just fascinating. I want to put out there. Here's number one. He says, listen, the Mike Flynn interview at the White House by Peter Stroke and Joe Bianca of the FBI. Of course, it's just days after he, you know, the President Trump takes office and he is

the national security advisor at the time. We all know the interview where they go and interview him about the transcript of his call with the Russian ambassador when he was the incoming national security advisor. Many of you are familiar with the story at this point. This guy who was a manager in the FBI says, you know, there's a real kind of interesting part of this that, you know, people aren't considering here. And he says one of them is that there was a 302 generated immediately on it. Now, the 302 in the FBI is just an investigative summary. I interview Joe about a bank robbery. I go back and I fill out my summary of what Joe said. And in the FBI, those are called 302s.

Well, what's so weird about a 302 being generated immediately that doesn't sound odd well i didn't know this he says i thought it was a counterintelligence investigation though which it was remember that asha right right i'm sorry i don't mean to be rude i'm not being i can i can't pronounce her last name i don't want to be obnoxious about it because i'm not trying to be a jerk uh so i don't want to say her name wrong. But she's an analyst at CNN, former FBI agent. She keeps it.

This is one of her big things on Twitter. This was not a criminal investigation. I guess she forgets Mike Flynn was prosecuted criminally. I'm not really sure where she's going with any of that. But her big thing is this is a counterintelligence investigation.

So she may have an answer for this. And if she does, again, she was in the FBI. She's probably intimately familiar with their administrative procedures again i i was not in the i was a secret service guy we had different administrative procedures but i'd like her to explain this one away because she keeps saying yeah but he but they were there under the guise of a counterintelligence investigation the author of this piece joe says and why was it 302 generated because Because in counterintelligence investigations, Joe, he says they don't generate 302s because the information on counterintelligence, counterterror type investigations is usually classified and is typically transmitted via EC, electronic communication, and not via 302s. Now, again, there may be an answer for this.

That's fine. I'm willing to accept. Unlike the left, I may be an answer for this. That's fine. I'm willing to accept. Unlike the left, I'm open to hearing your explanation. I mean it. But this from a former senior level manager at the FBI putting this out there, who Joe is obviously by the very nature of his former employment,

intimately familiar with the paperwork and administrative requirements. Why would they generate a criminal reporting summary form in a 302 to be used in criminal trials if it was a counterintelligence investigation and not a criminal trial? I'll tell you why based on a source I have, why I think that is in a minute.

But he says that's not what they generate in those cases. They communicate on these electronic communications because the information is typically classified. He says another point about this oddly enough they generate a 302 in a what's supposed to be a ci investigation but they generate this 302 using criminal investigations but he says what's interesting is there are two different versions of it with different dates which you know if you listened last week there's apparently one in jan January and there's one generated in August. And he says the original one is strangely, and this is according to him. He said, this is not common when it comes to 302s.

It's Mark Joe deliberative material. What are you deliberating on? Deliberating on what he said? That's not common at all in 302s that this the 302 is written in a criminal trial why joe so when you go to trial you have an accurate recollection of what the bad guy said so that what you as the fbi agent or me as the fbi agent can testify to what joe said about the bank robbery proceed how am i going to testify accurately if i don't have any notes so the 302 is meant to be testimonial, not deliberative.

Deliberative? What does deliberative mean? I know what it means, but I mean in context of the 302. What are you deliberating on? Either Joe said something about the bank robbery or he didn't. There's no deliberating on it. So he says, why is the original 302 marked deliberative material? the original 302 marked deliberative material. It's also marked draft. Again, this is a senior manager at the FBI, right? I read this and I'm like, that's a terrific point. Now we've hit on some of this before, the 302, not all of this is new. But again, I defer to expertise when I see it. I think the best part of our book, the Sp gate book we put together is that when we don't know, we sought out experts. Denise,

one of my coauthors on the book did some great work on the, on the process. The FBI has for actually initiating CI investigations. Why? Cause me and her don't know that she wasn't an FBI agent. Neither was I, but we got the word from an insider on how it works. And I think when you read the book, you're going to be like, wow, something is not right here.

Why was a 302 generated on what was supposed to be a counterintelligence investigation? The answer, folks, I think is pretty clear on this. They needed an excuse to interview Mike Flynn. they had nothing ladies and gentlemen how do we know this because the washington post headline the day before they interviewed mike flynn on january 23rd i've read this headline to you probably 10 15 times already a senior invest some senior law enforcement official who leaked to the F, from the FBI or the intelligence community.

Some senior official leaked to the Washington Post the day before that the Bureau had reviewed Mike Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador and found nothing illicit. Ladies and gentlemen, the FBI can interview who it wants. You're under no obligation to talk to them.

Joe, they don't need to have anything on you. Now, administratively, they might have to cite some reason to go, but there's no legal prohibition on the FBI interviewing. You don't want to talk to them, you don't talk to them. The point is, though, as a matter of common decency and law enforcement morals and ethics, before you go and interview someone there should be some predicate crime that's not what they're saying this lady asha who is a former fbi

agent and works at cnn is claiming no no no they didn't really need a predicate reason on the criminal side because it was a ci investigation then why did you fill out the criminal paperwork? Why? If it was a CI investigation, why did you fill out the criminal paperwork? I'm open to the answer. Now, I suspect what the answer is going to be is, well, they filled out the criminal paperwork because during the interview, they caught Flynn in what they perceived to be a lie. Then why did they tell Jim Comey they didn't think he was lying? That's on the record. There's nowhere you can go. There is no exit ramp for you.

Oh, they filled it out, even though it wasn't a criminal investigation, because they sensed criminality in the interview by lying. No, no, no. Time out. Red flag on the field. Under the hood for review. That is not what they said. They told Jim Comey they didn't think he was being deceptive

and they didn't think he was lying. That's actually in the reports. So let me get this straight. Your reason for interviewing him, hint, hint, nod, nod, because you had nothing. Remember, the Washington post headline the day before the fbi found nothing to listen about flynn's phone calls they have nothing they are clearly targeting mike flynn to put him in jail for something but they don't have anything so

their reason is going to be well well we'll just go in there and say it's because of the collusion investigation and it's a counterintelligence investigation. But then they screw up, Joe, and fill out criminal paperwork on what they say is a CI investigation. The criminal paperwork on a crime they indicate their own paperwork wasn't committed. Lying to the FBI. Where they say he didn't lie.

Does this make any sense? No. I mean, this is a beautiful, beautiful piece in the hill. I'd really like you to read it. The piece is about three oddities. I'm only covering two because the first one is about Andy McCabe calling Flynn for the interview rather than other guys. It's just kind of an administrative thing, so I didn't find that one too overwhelming but here's the other one the 302 summary which they shouldn't have even filled out if it was a ci investigation this uh author writes is incredible because it's entirely disconnected from the actual collusion narrative hey do you understand the fbi's own 302 summary of what was said the questioning has nothing to do with collusion and everything to do with Flynn's phone call to Kislyak,

which according to leaks in the Washington Post, the FBI found nothing illicit about. Folks, if this isn't making sense, it's not supposed to because it doesn't make sense. How is it that the FBI had no predicate charge to interview Flynn, interviewed him anyway under the guise of a CI investigation, counterintelligence, collusion,

asked him nothing about actual collusion. They asked him about his phone call, came out of it with a criminal investigation for false statements that in the criminal paperwork they shouldn't have filled out because it was a CI investigation not requiring it. In the paperwork, they indicated he didn't lie. This is, it's an amazing piece because there is absolutely no off-ramp for them.

Yeah, I know, Joe. There's no, there is nowhere for them to go. Well, we interviewed him because it was a CI investigation. Then why'd you fill out criminal paperwork? Because we thought he committed a crime. Then how come you wrote in the paperwork he didn't commit a crime? Why did you even show up? We showed up because we found something illicit in his phone calls. That's not what you leaked to the Washington Post. It says nothing illicit in the phone calls. There is no off-ramp for them. Now you see why they have to have Flynn plea out. Because they don't have anything. They just don't have anything. Please read the piece, spread it around. Mike Flynn got just

completely hosed by the system. It's really, really shameful what happened. Shameful. Okay. Let's read and then we'll get to the smaller stuff because the smaller stuff is interesting too. The Zebra. It's been reported that Americans are overpaying on car insurance by over $21 billion, but searching for a better deal can take hours and results in a barrage of unwanted spam calls.

We don't like those. Until now. Thanks to thezebra.com. Thezebra.com is the nation's leading car insurance comparison site because it's the only place you can compare hundreds of policies from all the top carriers and choose the best one for you. How could you not want to save money on car insurance? It's the way to do it.

They don't sell your information, so don't worry about spam calls. Just answer a few questions on a simple, fast form, and they'll find you the best rates and coverage in your state. It's so simple. Tech Grunge said it best. The Zebra is kayak for auto insurance. It's quick. It's easy.

Just an honest way to compare car insurance quotes from all the top providers all at once. Go today and start saving at thezebra.com. Dan, thezebra.com. Dan, thezebra, Z-E-B-R-A, thezebra.com. Dan, go check it out. All right. Great piece in the American thinker today about what we've been. I'm just going to spend a little bit of time because we've been, I'm not going to beat

this to death because we've been talking about it for almost a year and a half now. And I think other folks are starting to catch on that the Mueller probe, the sole purpose to the Mueller probe is to hide indiscretions and potential criminality in the Obama White House and among the Democrats. Now, one of the things I haven't, I think, done a good job at at some points regarding explaining this is exactly the mechanics of how the Mueller probe can interfere with ongoing investigations into Democrats. So just remember the overarching bird's eye view thesis I've been operating on for a long time is that Rosenstein and the co-conspirators in the Spygate debacle and the

spying scandal on Donald Trump needed a way to cover up their misdeeds. They had planned the entire time some form of a special counsel. And Bob Mueller is the only guy that could sweep this under the rug because Mueller is deeply connected to all the players in spy game. John Carlin, a DOJ national security director, was his former chief of staff. You know, Mueller was the FBI director during the Uranium One case. Rosenstein was the United States attorney who prosecuted Uranium One. All of these debacles have unique ties to Rod Rosenstein, Andy Weissman, Mueller's pit pole and Mueller himself. So Mueller's the perfect guy.

Why, Joe? Because he has a vested interest in making this all go away. Right. Because his name creeps up in a lot of this. Now, this writer in this American Thinker piece I have in the show notes does a great job of explaining something. Again, I don't think I've done a great job at. He says, did you notice how every time we hear some word about huber john huber the united states

attorney appointed to look into democrat malfeasance the clinton foundation and others and every time we sense that michael harwitz the inspector general uh looking into doj fisa abuses and all this other stuff when we send some closing in some story comes out about rosenstein getting in the way joe and saying listen you can't do that right now or look into that or interview those people right now because you may interfere with an ongoing investigation what i have this underlined ongoing what's the ongoing investigation the muller probe so that that's why i said last night on the Tucker Carlson show with Tammy Bruce as the guest host. I was on at the end. They did two hits last night for them.

At the end, they said the purpose of the investigation is to just continue to investigate. It's not they're not investigating. The purpose of investing is a perpetual investigation. It's like I'm investigating Joe for jaywalking tomorrow. It's mattress tag ripping off. The next day it's false statements to the FBI about if he uses hair color or not or something. I mean, the whole purpose of...

You don't use hair color, do you? Is that your natural color? Yes, it is, Dan. Man, this guy's got the most jet black hair you've ever seen. Looks pretty good there, brother. Looks like the young Elvis there. But this is the point.

The whole purpose of the investigation is to keep it ongoing. The purpose of the investigation is to investigate. Now, you may say, Dan, that's tautological. Any purpose of an investigation is to investigate. No, no, no, it is not. The purpose of an investigation, Joseph, is to investigate a crime. Right. Not to investigate anyone for any reason. Listen, I used this analogy last night

on the show on Tucker. I'll use it again, but it is important you understand this. I don't expect everyone to know this. You know, you have jobs. You all work for a living. You know, some of you weren't police officers or federal agents.

You cannot walk into a federal agency, Secret Service, FBI, DEA. You can't. Well, you can, but you'll be laughed out. Walk in, knock on the door of the DEA New York field office and say, I want to investigate Joe Armacost. For what? I don't know. Something. Just investigate him and you'll find something.

You will be laughed out of the office if not investigated yourself. Does that make sense? What you have to do is walk in and make an allegation of a crime. If you have a suspect, great. Hey, I think Joe Armacost is guilty of felonious mopry. Oh, wow. This is serious. Joe,

we better get our crack investigators in. I think Joe may be guilty of felonious mopry all right you come in well what evidence do you have hey he's my neighbor i've seen felonious moping firsthand well we better look into it that's not what happened here they made an allegation of collusion where no collusion existed for the sole purpose of initiating an investigation whose purpose is just to investigate not to investigate collusion existed for the sole purpose of initiating an investigation whose purpose is just to investigate not to investigate collusion because there is none muller knows it understand the difference the purpose of an investigation is not to investigate is to investigate a crime

if you're going to suggest that the purpose of an investigation is to investigate endlessly, what you're suggesting is we should be a police state. That random federal agents with the power to take your life, your money, your freedom, put you in jail, should endlessly investigate you when there's been no allegation of a crime. Welcome to Russia. Exactly. This is not how it works. We investigate in a constitutional republic, not a third world republic. We investigate people because we perceive them to be a valuable witness or somehow connected to criminal behavior. There's no evidence of that with Trump. The purpose of this investigation is to keep it ongoing for the reason I just described to you, Joe. An ongoing investigation is going to be used as an excuse

to block any potential looksies, the old looksy-dipsy-do flip-a-rooski, into the Hillary Clinton malfeasance, the Clinton Foundation, and the Obama administration FISA us a fisagate debacle we can't look into that there's an ongoing investigation that is the purpose it's a really good piece uh it summarizes it i think better than i have when i listen when some people tell a story better it's worth putting out there and I think the writer of the piece does an excellent job. It's in the show notes today of pointing out exactly this. The purpose of this

investigation is only to investigate. All right. A couple other news stories that I wanted to get to yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, our debt situation is out of control. I have a CBS News article. It's rare that I'll put them up, but it's a good one. It's written in a nonpartisan manner, so it's worth reading. We are in a catastrophic debt situation. I have said to you over and over on the economics portions of the show, they've been a little sparse lately because there's so much going on with Spygate. But the Christmas show, I really, really would like you to listen to about the market and what's going on and why I don't think we need to panic right now. But one thing we definitely need to start getting very anxious about, maybe not panic, but get very anxious about is ladies and gentlemen, our debt is out of

control. We owe the entire amount, $20 trillion, the entire productive capacity of the United States economy in any given year we owe. We have never, as the article points out, held this kind of a debt load in a general period of non-global war. We haven't at any point in World War II and other times we ran up debt to pay for and finance a major international conflict. We have never held this kind of debt load while not being involved in an enormously deep footprint military, actually like World War II and World War I. We're in conflicts now. There's no doubt we're in war zones now.

No doubt about that. But not to the level extension-wise of our military where in World War II, World War I, relatively speaking. Folks, it is a catastrophic amount of debt. What's the problem with it? The problem with it is we're not growing fast enough at this point. If we can get to four and 5% of growth annually, which is a lofty goal, we may be able to get a lid on this. But if we don't, here's the problem. Interest payments on the debt. Folks, forget about paying the debt down. Interest payments alone, not principal, are projected by 2023.

We're talking about less than five years away. Interest payments annually are projected to be $600 billion. Billion, not million, billion. Folks, we're not even paying down the debt at that point. It is just interest payments alone. Put that in perspective. We are talking about almost the entire military budget altogether in interest, not principle. We are not taking this problem seriously, folks. We are, the people in this audience. The problem is lawmakers we elected to do something about it are not taking it seriously.

And the problem with this debt situation is at some point remember what milton friedman says all debts are paid either by the debtor or the creditor this is again these are tautological things but they escape the left and big swamp rat republicans all debts are paid we owe 20 trillion dollars It is going to be paid by the debtor or the creditor. Meaning the person who lent us the money is going to pay back that debt. How? By lending us money, they never got back. They paid it for us.

That's not a good thing, folks. Because why? Then they're never going to lend us money again without an outrageous interest rate payment back. All debts are paid. Either you pay back the debt or the person who lent you money pays it by never getting their money back. They already paid it. We will have catastrophically high,

you think 2.5% interest rates are a big deal now? How does 15, 20, 25% sound if the country goes bankrupt? Who's going to lend us money, Joe, if we don't pay back the people we owe money to now? We'll have a Greek Italy type situation. Say, oh, that can't happen to us. We're the world's reserve currency. Ladies and gentlemen, it can happen to us. Major world economies. Look at the collapse of Argentina's economy. They were one of the top five economies in the world. They had an entire complete collapse of their economy. Then what happens?

Then the United States will have to print money leading to hyperinflation. You'll be walking wheelbarrows full of money in the local publics to get a loaf of bread. We have to start taking this problem seriously. Now, not to be macabre and, you know, I don't want to depress anybody. There is a way out of this. If we just, because I understand the jellyfish up on Capitol Hill don't have the nerve to actually do what's necessary.

I get that. Sadly, I've had to accept that fact. I wish I hadn't. But there are very few good people up there. If we just put a lid on spending, we're going to hold the ceiling on our federal budget at the, what is it, 3.94 trillion roughly we're at now. If we're just not going to grow the budget anymore, if we can grow the economy and stop growing the budget and we can grow the economy through these tax cuts, deregulation and generally controlled government spending for a while, we can grow out of this and make that debt less impactful relative to our national income.

But we can't do that while we're spending money like a bunch of Looney Tunes. Just cap it for now. Just cap and do that. I mean, there were a bunch of Looney Tunes. Just cap it for now. Just cap it and do that. I mean, there were a number of ideas. Sean used to promote that penny plan. That wasn't a bad idea. Cut a penny of spending out of it. That's it.

Just put a penny out of it. How hard is that? They can't even do that. All right, two other quick stories because I wanted to get to them yesterday, and I didn't. Number one, there's Bill Barr, they can't even do that all right two other quick stories i wanted to get to him yesterday and i didn't um number one is bill barr who has been nominated for the attorney general spot under uh donald trump is being attacked for a memo he wrote which assailed the ridiculous notion that the president could be charged with obstruction of justice for administrative decisions like firing Jim Comey. Folks, the Barr, what you'll call the Barr memo.

Barr is a private citizen, Joe. He's now the nominee for attorney general. But just to be clear, as a private citizen, wrote a memo to DOJ, and he's clear in the memo, Joe. He has no inside knowledge of the Mueller probe or anything like he's writing it as a private citizen. Wrote this memo, and in the memo, he lays out a very well articulated case.

Andy McCarthy has done a great piece on national review about it, that the president cannot be charged for obstruction of justice for hiring and firing decisions within the executive branch. In other words, you can't charge a president for obstruction for firing Jim Comey. Doing his job, doing his job, of course,

which was a good, looks like an even better decision by the day by the way he is being assailed on this thing bill barr because the left is looking for any reason to bottle up anyone uh looking to get into the department of justice that doesn't commit fully to the impeachment of donald trump but that's what this is about but here's a quote from the wall street journal about the bar memo because you're going to hear about it. It says, Mr. Barr's closely reasoned argument addresses the federal statute that criminalizes witness tampering and destruction of evidence.

He focuses on the part of that law that imposes liability on one who corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record or other object or attempts to do so with the attempt to impair the object's use in an official proceeding or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding. Mr. Barr focuses in particular on the otherwise clause. In other words, why did I read that to you?

If you're going to obstruct justice, Joe, as the President of the United States, and you're going to dare charge him with that, it has a very specific meaning which he just laid out. None of those things were actually done by Donald Trump. There was no destruction, mutilation, concealment or altering or a record or object or attempt to do so. The investigation into into a Mike Flynn, which was why, you know, one of the allegations.

Well, you know, he possibly could have fired Comey to stop the Flynn investigation. That the Flynn investigation continued. He fired Comey for obvious malfeasance and misfeasance in office. There was no obstruction mutilation of records. So just to be clear on that, the obstruction charge has a very specific meaning. It doesn't mean whatever the Democrats think it means, and it certainly doesn't mean administrative decisions made by the President of the United States. Another story I wanted to focus on because it's important is the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos has been doing some really terrific things. They rescinded an Obama

discipline policy through a guidance letter that was causing havoc in a lot of inner city and and lower income schools and some you know not just lower income some middle income area schools as well the obama administration sent out a guidance letter to these schools joe this was really really nasty to our public school system out there, saying, listen, your discipline process for suspending students, disciplining students, no matter how even-handed and unbiased it is on paper, if it leads to elevated levels of suspensions amongst minority students, that we're going to measure it using disparate impact and we're going to consider racially biased.

And basically, these guidance letters said, you're going to get in a whole lot of trouble from us and you could open yourself up to lawsuits. So in other words, it doesn't matter if the procedure on its face shows no signs of bias. If there are numbers of black students or Hispanic students or others who are other minority students who are suspended at higher rates than white students, you be sued anyway so of course Joe what happened what happened after that is students who are school administrators who don't want to be sued of course and don't want the wrath of the Obama administration coming on them obviously will become more sensitive to the suspension of black or Hispanic students the problem ladies and gentlemen is this is like measuring incarceration rates amongst

minorities versus people who are white or other racial groups it is meaningless if you can prove to me an individual case of discrimination i am all ears discrimination is wrong and evil regardless of the circumstances if If someone is treated differently because of the color of their skin, culture, heritage, background, race, sex, sexual orientation, whatever it is, it's wrong, period. But if someone's in jail because they committed a crime,

it doesn't matter what the color of their skin is. What about the victim? Now, what happened, of course? Well, schools that happen to have elevated rates of suspensions amongst black students joe generally stopped suspending them even though there was still incidents amongst minority students where the no one's questioning the incident happened they're just questioning should we suspend them or not now because we'll suffer the wrath of the obama administration betsy devos and the Trump team are getting rid of this guidance letter now.

Here's the irony of this, Joe. After that decision by the Obama administration, a lot of these inner city schools suffered serious chaos problems as a result of a new procedure, which basically allowed other minority students there to learn to be bullied and preyed upon by students in the school with no suspension or anything. Jason Riley had a great piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about a father, a black father, he spoke to talking about how he pulled his son out of school. And Jason says, listen, there's not a lot of interviews that stick out to me over time. But this one did. Because he asked the father, why are you putting your son in his private school or charter school? And he's expecting him to say, you know, education, better results.

Not what he said. He said, because he's not safe there. This is what you want? Riley also points out in this piece. The highest proportion of students who report being bullied at school are black students 25 percent again do you ever think about the victims in this joe please understand the point i'm trying to make yeah just like reporting incarceration rates did the person in jail commit the crime yes or no yes they were convicted is anybody disputing a conviction no

no but but because they're hispanic they're in black, they're in jail at higher... It doesn't matter. Is the person a criminal or not? What's the difference? What about the victims? policies. What if a kid in school is getting his butt kicked every day? Now you can't suspend the kid doing it, however evil that is, because you don't want elevated suspension rates. What about the victims? Does anybody think of that? More liberal, quote, compassion here, folks, causing chaos in inner city schools that demand law and order. Those parents deserve justice for their kids too. And an education. All right, folks packed show today. A lot of information just yesterday show went a little long in a topic.

So we missed a couple of these things. Please read the show notes are really good. And if you don't mind subscribe to the show, it is free. It moves us up the charts. You can subscribe on iTunes by clicking the subscribe button. You can also click get and you can get all our episodes. you can subscribe on iTunes by clicking the subscribe button. You can also click get and you can get all our episodes.

You can subscribe on SoundCloud. You can follow us on iHeart. It's always free. But it helps us move up the charts. We really appreciate it. Thanks again for a great week of listenership, even during the Christmas holiday. We had some really staggeringly good numbers. So I'm glad we worked on Christmas and Christmas Eve. I'm glad we could produce some

content for you. All right, folks, I'll talk to you all tomorrow. Have a great day.