The Dan Bongino Show - Interview with FBI Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin, Part. 1 (Ep 1857)

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

In this episode, I talk with the FBI Whistleblower, Special Agent Kyle Seraphin, in a bombshell interview about the inner workings and corruption of the FBI. Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of this critical interview. Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now, in-store, or online at BestBuy.ca. Exclusions apply. Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Folks, today's probably one of the most important shows we've ever done.

If you've been a longtime listener or viewer here on Rumble or wherever you listen to the show, you know we've been focused on the role of the FBI and the DOJ in enforcing the new police and surveillance state. and the DOJ in enforcing the new police and surveillance state. We came across an interesting break on the Spygate case when a source contacted me years ago. We've come across a really interesting break here as well. We're interested in getting you the truth. We were contacted by a whistleblower from the FBI. It's someone who was very recent experience with the Bureau and was interested in a comprehensive look at all the scandals going into the FBI.

His name is Kyle Serafin. He is going to be interviewed on today's show. This is a two part show. We tape this just just before, just very recently, just within the last day or so of this. And we're going to break it into two parts. The reason I chose to break it into two parts is because there was so much information here on so many different topics between corruption at the FBI, the vaccine mandate, pressure to classify people as domestic terrorists that we didn't feel we'd do it justice in one episode. Folks, today's show brought to you by ExpressVPN. Protect your online privacy today from big tech. Go to expressvpn.com slash Bongino.

We appreciate that. Now, folks, as you know, sponsors pay to be here. We really appreciate it. We're going to dig into this interview. It's one of the most important ones we have ever done. You are going to be held in rapt attention on this. I promise you. It's worth every second of your time.

If you wouldn't mind, we appreciate the sponsors. They help support the show. I appreciate your patience. We're going to read two ads here. We typically don't do it that way, but we really appreciate, again, your patience. Going online without ExpressVPN, it's like losing your smartphone without a protective case. Most of the time, you'll probably be fine, but all it takes is one accidental drop to make you wish you protected yourself. It's why I recommend and use ExpressVPN. Use it every time you go online. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network, your online data is not secured. Any hacker on that same network can steal your personal data. It doesn't even take a lot of technical knowledge to hack someone. A

smart 12-year-old could do it. Your data is valuable. Hackers can make up to $1,000 per person selling personal information, yours, on the dark web. ExpressVPN creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet so your sensitive data can't be stolen. Thank you. at expressvpn.com slash Bongino. That's expressvpn.com slash Bongino, and you can get an extra three months free. Expressvpn.com slash Bongino. Thanks, folks. We got one more spot, and we're going to take one break in the middle of the show. So again, we really appreciate your time and your patience.

Thank you. Folks, you know, if the farmers, they're right out there. What if food shortages are just around the corner? Are you ready? Do you have enough emergency food stockpiled? Just in case, I do. If not, go to preparewithdan.com. Preparewithdan.com. You'll save 20% on a three-month emergency food kit from MyPatriotSupply. This amazing kit gives you breakfast, lunches, dinners, drinks, and snacks, providing over 2,000 calories a day for three solid months. It's specially packaged to stay fresh up to 25 years from now. So if the

day should ever come that you need this food, it'll be there for you. Prepare today. While everyone else is standing in government food lines, you and your family will be eating well. Act now, get a 20% discount per kit or to one kit for every person in your care. You'll always need more food than you think. Go to preparewithdan.com and save 20%. Your kits will ship fast and free in unmarked boxes for your privacy. Go to preparewithdan.com and save big on the emergency food you're going to need. That's preparewithdan.com, preparewithdan.com. If you're in the market for a rifle, shotgun, or revolver, you want to go with the best in the business.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's Henry Repeating Arms. You'll be amazed by their quality craftsmanship and buttery smooth action that makes them a pleasure to shoot. Mine were accurate right out of the box and they've been reliable ever since. The best way to learn about Henry Repeating Arms 200 models is to go to henryusa.com and order their free catalog. The catalog is a great guide to showcasing their Made in America firearms. Plus you'll get free decals, a list of dealers in your area and a great newsletter. Henry's are backed with a lifetime warranty for 100% satisfaction. They're made in America or they won't be made at all.

And if you have questions, you can call the reward winning customer service department to speak with an expert who can help you make sure you go to Henry USA.com to order their free catalog and decals. That's Henry USA.com that order a free catalog and decals. And to learn more about this great American company. Now for our interview with FBI agent, Kyle Serafin. All right, I'm really looking forward to this interview.

Kyle Serafin, FBI agent. We contacted each other. We've spoken. A patriot from what I could tell. A guy very interested in cleaning up the problems at the FBI. My audience has been focused on this story for a long time. I really appreciate you coming in. First of all, why don't you tell the audience how you came to the FBI, how long you were there, where you work to provide some background for everyone, establish bona fides. Sure. In 2009, I enlisted in the Air Force. I did three and a half

years, kind of a long story involved with that, but not really relevant to what our purposes are tonight. Got out, was a civilian paramedic for a little bit. So kind of like your street cop days, I got to run around and pick people off the street a little bit. And I spent some time working in a hospital. And during that time, I applied for the FBI, kind of fired it off like you do with so many different federal employment options. And it just kind of disappears in the ether. And I got to reach back out in about 2015. Our hiring process is famously long, like so many other federal agencies. So I got sent to Quantico in 2016 in the summer, in June, and was immediately assigned to the Washington field office. I did two years working in the counterintelligence division

at Washington field. And then another three years, right about to the three-year mark, working in what they call Special Operations Group, which sounds pretty prestigious. It's the surveillance group. When we got there, it was kind of a broken toy haven. And then when we moved forward with it, it ended up being a place that was really a neat place to work, where we got to do a lot of interesting casework. And because of that, I saw probably 20-plus national terrorism cases of all different varieties. But that was pretty much what we got sent around the world to do or around the country in this case.

To provide that special expertise to field officers. Yeah. So it's a real special... So you get kind of a flavor of what's going on. You get briefed up on it. You get to see the subject up close, sometimes more than any of the case agents even saw. You know, you're closer to them. You're following them.

You're patterning their life. You find out when them. You're following them. You're pattering their life. You find out when they're coming and going, when they're waking, when they're sleeping, how they drive, how they look around when they move, what stores they're going into, what kind of people they're talking to, that kind of stuff. So a lot of photography, a lot of video work, stuff like that. And then a lot of just handwritten notes and our recollections as we kind of... So without getting into any, obviously anything that's going to put you in a bind or national security secrets, how generally does a counterterrorism investigation work? Is it run out of the field? Let's say, I'll give you an example, maybe a story would be better. Something happens out of a

smaller field office, say a Nashville type field office or something like that. And they've got a big high priority counterterror investigation. They've got a possible cell. They have to run that then through headquarters first, and then experts like yourself in a specific area get sent down. How does that work? So the way it would get briefed up, and I listened to your show the other day, you're talking about the briefers, the admin type agent. The minute they get a hold of something like this, it gets briefed up to some supervisory level. They make the mistake of telling it to somebody over at headquarters who's a program manager or above. Once the division that actually owns that type of investigation,

in this case, it's going to be counterterrorism division. So CTD gets their hooks into it. The field agent is kind of being run like an order taker. And it's kind of the end of their ability to run that case. So then they're not the one making that call anymore. And so, yes, they'll bring in resources that they want. If it's going to be a plane, if it's going to be a surveillance team that's going to help do a longer term surveillance, they bring in kind of the folks they want to have it. And in no way was our team considered really a lead or specialized other than we were physical bodies who had a pulse and we were able to sit in cars for a long time. And that gets you a lot of really useful information because if you can see somebody

at night when the agents are going home, because as you know, feds like to punch the clock between, you know, nine and five and two hours lunch if they could get away with it, you know, most of them can't. But at that point, they're going to, you know, they're going to be doing whatever the things happen in the daylight and, and whatever sort of briefings have to happen and what sort of investigative work and looking at paper. And then you leave guys like me out there kind of just kind of holding the bag to see what's going to happen. Sometimes it's really valuable.

A lot of times it's not, sometimes it's just containment as much as anything else. It's like fill in the blank guys might doing something. You hit the panic button, calling a team to watch him. and they're just babysitting to make sure this guy doesn't do the thing that they think he might do. Well, you know, I wanted to focus this two-part series we did with you on really genuinely trying to fix the issues.

I really do care. I worked with great agents at the FBI. It's certainly not systemic, but unfortunately, the group of people in power who are screwing the place up have a lot of power to screw it up. And you'd mentioned something before, and I'd heard from other sources in the bureau that this is an issue, like you'd elaborate on. The idea that you, the field guys, who actually understand the nuts and bolts, the boots on the ground, you know who the sources are. You can shake the trees. You've got people in, you've worked bank robbery cases. You know who you can trust and who you can't. The fact that your word on the ground

means almost nothing, and a lot of these high- these high profile cases where you'd be most valuable are being run out of headquarters by people who are briefers who may talk a good game but haven't actually done anything. That's a real problem. what it is in actuality. And we kind of touched on a little bit ago, but everyone looks at this group and they think this is a, you know, self-proclaimed, I would say, premier law enforcement organization in America. But the FBI views itself more as an intelligence agency. And when you deal with an intelligence agency, you get intelligence analysts and you get intelligence people. And intelligence people have a totally different mindset than a criminal investigative group. And so, you know, my experience and part of the reason why I ended up on a surveillance team was because I couldn't grasp the idea of grabbing knowledge for the sake of knowledge that was non-operational. We had no instinct or ability to pursue it. In fact, the squad that I worked on, if we found a case that got to a level where there was some criminality involved,

it probably got moved over to another squad that did that exclusively. So all of our job was background. And so in some ways, I had sort of an external seat because my ability to get my hands onto a lot of the things that I joined the Bureau to do, it never materialized. But I got to see it from the outside as a support agent. We really have two kind of cast. Well, we have three kind of cast of agents. You've got your administrative agents that are interested in supervisory roles and moving up. And some of them I have no beef with and some of them are terrible. A lot of them are probably terrible. And then you've got your case agents and these people are your hound dogs. They just run down stories. They want to know what the interest is. They're getting paper and

they're building cases. And then you have people that kind of do all the other, whether that's surveillance or SWAT or medical support for the arrest warrants and things like that, or evidence recovery teams and kind of all the peripheral pieces that make that agency work. That's another kind of group. But your pool of case agents is pretty narrow. And I feel like it's narrowing in a lot of ways because some of these things are not about, it's not about getting the case done anymore. That's pretty shocking what you just said. I mean, I want everybody to listen to that and make sure that you all digested that, kind of got your arms around it.

That the FBI, you know, we all grew up with the G-Man movies, you know, Silence of the Lambs, Chasing the Serial Killer, whatever it may be. I mean, I was under the perception that the FBI was a law enforcement entity first at that, you know, bank robberies, financial crimes, crimes across state borders. You're telling me they're moving away from that to an intelligence gathering, almost exclusively enterprise right now? Am I reading that right? I just think that's the focus. I think that's the primary thought process. And if you look at who gets elevated into leadership, it's very often people that come out of that background. And so many of them have never touched a criminal case. And it also leads to weird issues when you try to move them into a

realm where they don't have any background in a criminal case. It's not familiar to them. It's not territory they know. What they know is FISA and NSLs, a national security letter, which is like a secret subpoena. They have access to doing different tools and they feel entitled to that information because half the time that information is just to clear people. And it's like, we're going to vet you because we heard something. We're going to just find out about it, but then we'll just leave you in a case

for a long, long time, years maybe, because I can still gather information. So this could be happening to people who don't know it? It is happening to people who don't know it. That's definitely the case. Wow. And so as a great example, so I joined counterintelligence 2016. I get there at the end of the year. My first real the case. Wow. And so, as a great example, so I joined counterintelligence

2016. I get there at the end of the year, my first real full year is 2017. And I get a half dozen cases and they're all dogs with fleas kind of deal, the internal old school agents talking about it. And so you go, here's your dogs, and you read them and they've been open for six, seven, eight years. And in no way am I going to talk about any of the specifics of them, but they were all cases that after I read hundreds of pages, you know, and somebody would, the key was, is they seemed like they were placeholders. And it's like, you have to look busy. So let's have eight cases assigned to you. Okay. It's an administrative process. And so every one of those cases better get a piece of paper. I better write something about it. I either reviewed some kind of deal or I asked somebody about it, or I went

to go talk to a source about it, whatever it may be. Put that in every 90 days. Every 90 days, there's new paper in your file. It's called papering the file. As long as you're papering the file, you're good to go. So these cases just exist to meet an administrative burden. But I read them over and I don't have any instinct for that. Like I used to have patients in an ER. If you got patients, I want no patients. I need to have beds open so that when people come in, right? Yeah. So operational kind of necessity. So you read through it and you go, I don't see anything else to do here. Like we've exhausted literally everything I could think to do. We've done all of the administrative process we could do in the

background. We have all of the information that we would want to know about this guy. And also, it doesn't appear that anybody here did anything. Why don't we just go talk to him? You know, I know what everything I know. I can keep that in my back pocket. We'd go do a ruse interview. It's pretty common. You get knocked on by the door and someone from the FBI comes to talk to you.

They're probably not talking to you about what they're talking to you about. That's pretty standard. So I'll go and conduct an, you know, just an informational interview. It's like, hey, here's what I'm about. I'm going to get close enough to the topic that we can have a reasonable conversation about it. You're forthright and honest with me. I'm telling you what I can tell you without disclosing why I'm there. Yeah.

And that was it. And then I closed the case. It's like, there's nothing here. There's nothing here. And there never was anything here for years. And it was always obvious for the first person to read. Like you open, you read the opening case and you just go, I can't believe that anyone opened this. Why did this happen? Give me an example. Like what would open a case? I mean, say I go on to a, but let's say for

example, I'm a movie producer and I go on my phone there and I put in my search engine, because I'm doing a scene in a movie on a bomb, how to make a pipe bomb. Is that the kind of thing where I could pop on some list somewhere and find myself in this perpetual case that never gets closed because someone wants a paper or file? Probably not, unless somebody were to see it and report it. So it would have to probably come from an outside entity. But even that, how to make a bomb, that's touching on sort of what we would call the allegation or information that there may be a crime happening.

It's more subtle than that. If you're a Hollywood filmmaker, if that's what you want to be for our hypothetical, that there may be a crime happening. It's more subtle than that. If you're a Hollywood filmmaker, if that's what you want to be, you know, for our hypothetical, you went to grad school with a guy who is now making films, propaganda films in Russia. Right.

Okay. And he's working on behalf of the state, some state agency. And somebody is tied into an intelligence agency, whether he's working for them full time or whether he's co-opted to do some messaging or do some introductions. Right. You can schmooze some people in Hollywood, whatever. But you knew him back then and you guys went to grad school.

Let's say the FBI outs him, figures out who he is and they throw him out. PNG'd. This guy is no longer allowed to come back to America. You're out. OK, well, we know that you knew him. You're in a circle of contacts, and we're working our way through the big circle in the spiral. There you are. You're hit here on the third ring. Okay, so we know that Bongino knew this guy at some point.

Great. So we got to come find out, like, what did you know about him? And were you doing Russian propaganda? And are you co-opted by the Russians? Like, are you involved in this? Just because you knew. Yeah, you knew him. Of course you, so you guys probably had breakfast once or twice and maybe, you know, shared

notes or you wrote a term paper together or whatever. You published something. It doesn't matter. You did grad school. So you're friends, obviously. You're on Facebook together. You're connected through Facebook or LinkedIn. Take your pick.

Like, it doesn't matter. Some sort of social media connection. Well, there's two points of contact. That's good enough. Let's find out what you're about. So we'll dig into you. We look in, are you receiving money? You know, are there transfers coming in from some offshore account or something like that? Well, of course they're not, right? We're looking to see, are there any surreptitious sort of communications? Are you passing? Oh, they're not there. All the normal channels get dry. So eventually I might just

come talk to you. But you're entirely unaware to be clear that this is happening. This is not in any way adversarial where your attorney gets some notification. All of this stuff is being accumulated in a data file. This is an intelligence investigation. It has nothing to do with crime. There's no allegation that there was crime. You could be the victim of being exploited. You could be a positive contact that you're a springboard for something else. So none of these things have to touch criminality at all. And that's the misconception. Criminality is what law enforcement is looking for. We're looking for information in this case, right? So it has nothing to do with whether or not you did anything wrong or if there's even an allegation that you did anything wrong.

You see how that would make a lot of Americans uncomfortable? It's the most uncomfortable thing to know about once you realize where it is. It's one of the reasons why I asked to get out of there, because I didn't want to be involved in that. And here's the fun thing about the way that it works as a Fed. And you know, there's a lot of guys out there, they're making a paycheck, they're making a promotion every year, they're building their families, they're doing whatever it is, they're establishing roots and footholds in the place they're in. And there's only two ways you can go with that.

You either move to the point where you go, this is absolutely disgusting and I'm not going to be part of it. And you bail. And there's a lot of really good people that have left the FBI in a very, you know, short window, pre-10 years, I would say, probably even before that. And then there's the guys that make it 10 years and they look around and they go, I'm on the backside of the hill, the 20. I can retire in 20 years. It's about a pension. A pension's 50, 60 grand a year, plus some additional top-off benefits from social security. Plus you've got the medical. I got kids. I got a mortgage. I got things going on. We called it the golden handcuff.

That's it. It's hard to get away. It's everybody's got the same term in this case. Yeah. And, and then you're in, and then it's like, I just got it, you know, the number of guys and we can get into kind of a little more specific about how, how my kind of falling out happens. But, um, you know, the number of guys that said, I don't agree with what's going on here, but I got three years to retire. It's heartbreaking. It also kind of tells me that it's a, it's, it's a universal problem. It's probably a universal problem in federal employment, but it's specifically dangerous in the FBI because of the power that he has.

You understand, this is about you, not about me, and I certainly want to talk about why you and I are here, but I think you and I are simpatico in this. I mean, you decided to take a principled decision, which is going to cause you some short-term pain. Yep. But do you understand why a guy like me who walked away after 12 years,

I mean, I'm halfway done. And now you're on the back end. Yeah, I just finished the presidential protection of it. By far the hardest part of your career. I'm in the Baltimore field office living the life. I got a nice commute home, a parking spot. That's why I just, I don't accept the argument that you're certainly not making, but others do that. Hey, it's about a job and a pension. I get it. People have kids. I'm not stupid. But sooner or later, I mean, it really has to be about the country. I mean, this is the most powerful law enforcement entity on the globe. I'm just stunned more people are like yourself, aren't standing up saying, I'm not going to be a part of that.

So that's true. And I agree. I think there are more people than you think. So I'm here to kind of represent some of that. And I have contact with a lot of them. I'll kind of give you the story of how I am. So officially speaking, I'm Schrodinger's agent right now. Okay. Like the cat that shot in the box. I'm alive and I'm dead at the same time. I work for the FBI and I don't at the same time. So what does that mean? I was indefinitely suspended on June 1st. There was a conclusive filing that said we agreed with our own decision to suspend you. And so we reaffirm our proposition to remove you from our payroll. And that happened on June 1st. So how did I get to that point?

At that point, I was just shy of six years. In October of last year, I got an email that wasn't designed for me. It wasn't meant for me. It didn't really matter one way or another, but I hear two guys talking in the hallway and they say, hey, did you see this email? I said, I don't think so because I don't know what you're talking about. It gets forwarded along to me. That email turns out to be the email that went to Jim Jordan's office and it said the EDU threat text. Congressman from Ohio. Correct. And so, you know, I've got this email. I'm reading it. And I follow the news like a freak because I used to live in D.C.

And now I live in New Mexico. So I'm reading this. And I know what the attorney general has said. And I know that he says he's not going to use, they use the words Patriot Act tools. This is about the parents and the school board. Correct. The EDU threat tag we're talking about. Exactly. And so he had used the term, he said, I'm not going to use, you know, they asked

the question. I think he did. He was responding in a negative. But would you use the, you know, Patriot Act tools, which I took to mean counterterrorism resources? They're interchangeable if you don't know what you're talking about kind of thing. Most people wouldn't distinguish that, right? So he says, would you use those tools against, you know, do you see using those parents who are protesting? It's like, absolutely not. And we get this email. And the FBI has actually argued to themselves, to the DOJ, that what I did is not a whistleblower activity. Their attorneys have stated it. They said nobody would, one, call it a memo when it was clearly an email, which is a really strange sort of minute detail. And then they kind of get into this

granularity of it. It doesn't call for any investigations. And if you read the text of it, plainly, it doesn't. But it's delivered. What is the memo said? If you're not investigating parents speaking out of school boards under the EDU threat tag, what were they asking the FBI to do? Go, you know, roast marshmallows with them? I mean, sure. Yeah. It's a fundamental disconnect between people who are support in the Bureau and that ground level case agent. And if you spend any time as a case agent, even if it's only for a couple of weeks, you know that when directors and information has come down, it comes down from headquarters. And this is the policy. This is how we're going to do it.

And this is what this tool is. You're going to tag. What are you going to tag with EDU Threat? Investigations. That's the only thing you can tag. That's what goes on there. It's either going to be an assessment. it's going to be a preliminary or a full investigation, but you're going to be tagging the work that you are doing, which is investigative. So there's no other way around that. That's not an option. And so they can dance with the words about it, but essentially they're asking to tag these inbound threats. And we don't have time for that kind of threats. I mean, we really don't.

In the real FBI, there's not time for threats from some guy who's yelling at a school board. I mean, we barely can take on what's called interstate threat cases. Right. And, you know, it has to touch an interstate metric. Mostly, this is a state and local issue. And they bring it up. It has to have a federal nexus. And it's like, why are we putting any resources towards it?

You'd have to really, really convince me. And, you know, nobody has to convince me because I'm just, you know, a GS-13 at the bottom of the ladder. But it's very difficult to convince me, I would say, that this is a real problem that exists all over the country. Right. Worthy of FBI resources. But then you get back to where this, you know, this National Organization of School Boards puts out their piece there, and I'm going to miss the acronym. But, you know, there was political pressure involved, and then they went to do it. And that's when you start doing political hatchet jobs. And I didn't sign up for that. And nobody I know signed up for

that either. That's not what people want to get involved in. Yeah. So that EDU threat tag was, in fact, real. That really happened, and you were really being asked. We're going to get to that in a second. Let me just take a quick break. We'll be right back with you folks in just a second. Stay tuned. Folks, thanks for your patience. We're just going to take one break for this show. We're going to read both spots. We again, appreciate your patience. The sponsors help keep the show free. So we appreciate it for you. If you want to know what the left's real plan is for your kid, just look at the reaction to the work Patriot Mobile did in multiple school districts in Texas. The left is losing their minds. Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative

mobile phone provider and a force for conservative values. It's because they take a portion of your bill and fund conservative causes and candidates who believe in the sanctity of life, freedom of speech, the second amendment, and they're winning. Patriot Mobile has affordable plans for you, your family, even your business. They offer the same nationwide coverage as the major carriers because they use major, multiple major networks, plus you're supporting conservative values with every call. Go to patriotmobile.com slash Dan or call 972-PATRIOT. Get free activation with the offer code Dan.

Special discounts are also available for veterans and first responders because you deserve it. Join our movement. Make the switch today and make a difference tomorrow. Patriotmobile.com slash Dan. Patriotmobile.com slash Dan. Patriotmobile.com slash Dan or call 972-PATRIOT. Folks, Magic Spoons. Well, we love Magic Spoon.

Who doesn't love cereal? I know I do. Magic Spoon is my go-to. Why? Because of the crunch, the taste, the sweetness. You grew up with cereal. And all the adult cereals, you know, they're boring and they, frankly, they taste terrible.

Not Magic Spoon. It's a sweet, crunchy, delicious texture you're going to love, but it's healthy. Magic Spoon is zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, and only four to five net grams of carbs in each serving. It is delicious. People tear the boxes open in my house,

my daughters and my wife, me too. I'll exclude myself from that. It's low carb, keto friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, grain-free, soy-free, and only 140 calories a serving. With Magic Spoon, you can build your own delicious custom bundle of cereal with flavors like cocoa, fruity, frosted, peanut butter, blueberry muffin,

maple waffle. I talk about maple waffle all the time. Honey nut, cookies and cream, and cinnamon roll. Go to magicspoon.com slash Bongino, B-O-N-G-I-N-O, and grab a custom bundle of this delicious cereal today. Be sure to use our promo code Bongino at checkout to save $5 off your order. Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it's back with a 100% happiness guarantee.

You don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Get your next delicious bowl of guilt-free cereal at magicspoon.com slash Bongino and use code Bongino to save $5 off. Thanks, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s,

and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready? Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS.

Now back to our interview with FBI whistleblower, Kyle Serif. Welcome back with Kyle. So we were talking before the break there. This EDU threat tag for these parents was very real. The FBI had an issue with you, I guess, speaking out about this, that you weren't going to take part in this. But it's clear, I'm guessing from what you're saying, that somebody wanted the FBI to investigate this. It's the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They weren't intel cases, correct? They weren't CT-based cases. They are.

Oh, wow. So if you look at the bottom of the email, it's signed by two people. It's signed by the assistant director of the criminal division and the assistant director of the counterterrorism division. Wow. Parents from school boards. So when you get a CT case to the point where there's a crime to, then they prosecute it, right? That's, it's one of the few, there's not a lot of espionage cases running around, not for lack of work on it. I think that people are digging into it as well they can. But those are pretty rare. I mean, they're pretty rare apples that people are out there trying to pick. And I think that's, that's good. We want those people out there hunting that you don't want espionage happening against this country. Counterterrorism cases oftentimes are interested in the threat and the potential that

someone will develop into an operational asset of some kind that will engage in some political ideology and violence. But, you know, those are fairly fluid. And that's why those two are involved together. But the idea that you're going to look at some dad, you know, who owns guns. And so, of course, it gets more than that because the group that I've kind of helped coordinate who have looked into these problems, they've gone out there and they've said, hey, we pulled some of these tags and we've looked at these investigations and they've made it to the House Judiciary Committee. So they have the receipts on this. Like there are investigations that were opened, whether they were preliminary or they were assessments or they were done on- This happened. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's not a fairy tale.

Right. So the guardian system is the one, the e-guardian is sort of the thing. We call them guardian leads. They come into your office and somebody somewhere has identified that this person, person A, has gotten involved in something that tipped the meter for somebody. And so they called it into either the national hotline or to a local police department and they elevated it up. One way or another, it ends up on your desk as an agent doing that. And then it's like, okay, you got to either go out and interview the guy, you got to surveil him, you got to decide how legit it is. You got to send it up to headquarters and open a full investigation. Speaking out of school board.

Not necessarily, right? So hopefully what they're doing is they're throwing these things away. They're doing a little bit of background research. They're determining this is not a federal case and they're throwing it out. But that person never knew that maybe he had all of his financials pulled. Maybe he's got, you know, there are resources. Like you mentioned before. Every time you open up one of these tools. All of that stuff. Yeah. You open up certain toolboxes as you progress through that investigative process. So certain tools are available to you on a national security side under counterterrorism tools. And there's other ones that are criminal.

As you know, when you're doing criminal work, there's very specific rules on there. You have to show probable cause and so on. Yeah, of course. It's a very different animal when you're doing, you know, the bar is different because it's not meant for public consumption. It's not meant for court. And then they probably have to retrace their steps once they actually find something that is criminal to be able to build it. Because otherwise you disclose the sources and methods. This is the whole purpose of the intelligence group. But you can't unwind that watch. For instance, you just said you'd

probably have to rebuild the case because you didn't go through the proper criminal procedures and it's essentially different, sometimes parallel pathways. But in order to go rebuild the case, you've already got the building blocks already there. You already know the content. You can't just forget it. Sure. Yeah, yeah. They know what it is. So if you have a file open on the CT side, a counter-terrorist side, for showing up at

a school board meeting and saying something, may have been, you know, may not have been an appropriate thing to say, but it certainly isn't a terroristic threat. Right. You could have this big body of information available for you and something else creeps up later. They already have the leads to make a criminal prosecution for you easier is where I'm going with that. The building blocks are already there. I say this on my show a lot. The difference between our country and say a communist socialist country and these totalitarian regimes is there's a personal and a public self. The idea that the

personal self, when you go into your house and you close the door, is yours. I mean, we do things in our house we don't want people to see. We have gone on dates with our wives. We're in their bathrooms, whatever. Sure. The idea that you could have this file on you about what you're surfing online and not criminal, maybe untoward, maybe nasty, but the fact that this may happen because you showed up at a meeting and said something is really horrifying. It's scary. Yeah. I mean, it's how the agency views itself. That's when you... And the other thing is this. I think a lot of people try to go in there. I hope they do. They're trying to shut it down when something comes up like that. It's like, hey, this thing come across.

These leads don't come in and nobody gets excited about them. Nobody's thrilled about catching one of these things. You get a guardian case. It's some wacko in the middle of nowhere. It's a 17-year-old kid who said, if you don't do this thing, I'm going to do fill in the blank threat in another state. And he doesn't get on a car. And all he's got is the internet to just pop off. He's a keyboard warrior that's angry. And he's full of hormones or whatever. We know, we all have 17 year old rage. Yeah, you want to shut that down as soon as possible. But some of them have been charged, you know, like not in this EDU threat that I'm aware of. But there are people that pop up on these guardian leads that are just garbage.

And then we're out there because, I don't know, maybe an AUSA needs an easy win and it's an easy interstate threat. The Assistant United States Attorney. Correct. Yeah. So the U.S. Attorney's Office Functional Unit is the AUSA, the Assistant U.S. Attorney. That's your line prosecutors. Contact, right. So sure. I mean, it's funny because our systems are very, it's opaque to a lot of people looking from the outside. The FBI does the investigation. Somebody else is prosecuting it. Everybody has their own agenda. The FBI has got their thing they're trying to do. They're trying to build their cases. They're trying to get their statistics, their statistical accomplishments or

stats, which is kind of your gold star, your atta boys. And then I assume that the attorney's office have the same issues. They've got to get X number of reputations. They've got to get wins. They've got to get pleas. No one wants to lose a case. Nobody wants to lose it. But here's the thing, and this is what I used to- Because they're trying to get high profile law firm jobs after that. No one wants a case prosecution rate of 20%. Correct. So they're looking to pad their stats. Yeah.

I mean, there's probably three different types. There's people who had no other options and they fell into the job and they love it and they do a great job. Fantastic. There's some people that just fall into the job. They become typical government employees and they just kind of plot along and get promoted. And then there's the ones you're talking about. And those are the ones you want to work with, honestly, because they're aggressive and they just kind of plot along and get promoted. And then there's the ones you're talking about. And those are the ones you want to work with, honestly,

because they're aggressive and they do the right thing and they get out there and they get after it and they want to be out there. And they want to go make some money as either a defense attorney or working some kind of civil litigation or whatever and cash a bigger check. I got no problem with that.

Like get your experience where you can get it. And that's what we got to do. So yeah, so we get this threat tag. And from what I understand, it's worth noting, there were two people that disclosed that email. Where are you working when this happens, when you get the threat tag? I'm in New Mexico. You're in New Mexico. Okay.

And so there are two people that disclosed it. I went to my congresswoman, which is what we're told we can do. I literally had just finished the FBI's whistleblower training. We get online virtual training like every other company. And it just bogs down on you. So this is the one where it's like, it's like, well, that was useful. That was two weeks ago. And now I know. So I got this email in my hands and I go in there and I say, I'd like to make a protected disclosure. Well, she's a freshman Congresswoman and they have never heard of anything like this. And so her staff in this

particular office is just looking around like, who is this guy? What is he doing? They bring in their law enforcement contact who turns out to be like a friend of mine now. He's like a lifelong buddy because he's just a really good person. And I'll mention him by first name. Gene looks at me and he just goes, what are you doing here? We don't understand what you're trying to do. And I said, well, I have a right to petition Congress under 5 U.S.C. 7211. And he's like, I don't know what that is. Yeah, I got this email here for you. And I want you guys to have it. I'm trying to disclose this as a problem. And so I'm in good faith alleging that a rule has been broken, that a policy or a violation of law has happened under

our whistleblower statutes. And so I'm just bringing this to your attention. And I don't know what you're going to do with it. I just know it looks really wrong to me. And we shouldn't be doing that with FBI resources. That feels like what I swore not to do. Right. Targeting these parents. Correct. I mean, that could be me. I've got kids. I'm a parent. I could get hot at a school board meeting. I imagine if people started saying some wild stuff and started getting onto things that they have no business telling small children about. Yeah, that could get me going. I could see that. So I can see myself in that for sure. And I think all of us probably can empathize with that situation, right? So yeah, so I bring it to

them and we have a long conversation. They write down a lot of notes. They're really trying to figure out the whole process because it's all new to them. And God love them. They did a great job in getting it where it needed to go. I guess there were two copies of it and they got a second copy of it. And the one that was published was not mine, which that's fine. It makes no difference to me. But the word got out shortly thereafter, right? I think it was in mid-November. Yeah. So we started seeing it on TV. A couple of congressmen had done some appearances. So that's part one. The second thing that's happening during that time is in September, we get this notification there's going to be a COVID vaccine mandate. And what you're going to find, I think, is a lot of the stuff that you talk about on your

show come together. Wait, so before you get to that, but they find out that you're going to be a whistleblower? How did they get wind of this? How does this affect your career? It's unclear how they knew about that. And this is why it gets real muddy, because there's no real straight answer. And that's what they argued. What they've done in the two different, I'm in three different venues right now where I'm administratively seeking, you know, the correction. And the letters I have say, you cannot represent yourself as an FBI agent, but you can't go get another job without asking us either. You got to get permission or resign, or you can resign and just give up the game.

So that's the position. That's the Schrodinger's agent situation, right? You're both, you can either, you're not going to get paid and you have no rights and responsibilities under the job. But at the same time, like if you want to go do something else, you got to either give up and resign and let us off the hook essentially. And I taught, you know, my attorney is a federal employment lawyer. He said, I don't know what that means. I don't know what any of that means. I don't know what responsibilities are on you. I have no idea

what your exposure is to that. It's just bizarre. And it's an only federal government situation. So we turn this piece in. Well, at some point, my boss comes to me and he goes, you're a whistleblower, right? Like in a positive. And if you know, the one thing that's drilled in, I don't know if they do it at FLETC, but they definitely do it at the FBI Academy. The fastest way to lose your job is lack of candor. Now, I've read the whistleblower thing, and I don't think anybody can ask me whether I'm a whistleblower or not.

I don't think. But someone did. And I'm not going to lie to the guy. And he's an honest human being from everything I can tell. He seems like a good guy. So I just said, yeah, I am. Well, in the meantime, we know from different cases that have hit the media that if somebody prints something off on the file service, I mean, when I hit print, it goes to a centralized file server that the entire FBI division can monitor. They can see the name of the email. Everything you print. Yeah, sure. So when you printed this education memo about targeting parents, they knew. 100% chance they could look it up. Whether they

did or not, I can't confirm, which is part of their cover story. It's like, well, we didn't look it up. It's like, well, we don't know. And also to look up and find out whether or not they had those records was too burdensome and it was too expensive for the FBI to do per their filing in court. So I don't know, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But somebody came to me with a question that I wasn't prepared for. I answered it in the affirmative. And then, you know, our lead counsel out of the division office called up the headquarters and asked somebody, what do I do with this guy who's both not getting the COVID shot? So I have a religious exemption that I've claimed and I'm not going to

get it. I still haven't gotten it. I refuse. And for reasons that we can kind of flesh out even more. The second piece of it was is like, and then he's also a whistleblower. What do we do with him? And it goes to a guy who's been in the Bureau for over 25 years. The question does. And he sends it to me. Well, because nobody has any idea that during the time that this mandate went out for the COVID shots, I immediately saw that we needed the ability to share information, the people that were in that situation. And I asked

the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association called FLIOA. I sent a notification in there, and that's 50,000 strong federal agents, 1811s of all varieties, whether it's OIG or IRS or everything, right? So secret services in there. And so, and I asked them and I got no reply to it, but I said, you know, we need to pull the membership and find out how many people are not going to get this vaccine under any circumstances or under what circumstances they would. So you have a position to represent us because if it's 10%, if it's 5,000 federal agents, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of training. Right. That's a hundred thousand dollars of just clearances. They claim it's 5,000 federal agents, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of training. Right? That's $100,000 of just clearances.

They claim it's $100,000 for a top secret clearance. So that's, you know, times what, 5,000? That's an incredible amount of money. And it's months and months, if not years of time to make up. That's a big deal. That's a strong part for us to push back with in a unified voice saying, this is not right. Let's wait until the courts figure it out because that's what was eventually going to happen. And there are ongoing court cases.

So, you know, I reach out there and I start gathering. I got nothing. I got nowhere to start. I just start word of mouth with people that I knew in Washington, people that I know in other offices that I traveled around with. I get these people. I ended up rounding up 300 FBI employees. They're not all agents. They're support. They're everyone from, I end up rounding up 300 FBI employees. They're not all agents, they're support. They're everyone from, you know, evidence technicians to nurses, to, you know, secretaries, and then agents as well, and some supervisors as well. We had some GS-15s in there, some GS-14s. And we get this group. And then we get word that the FBI has basically got about 3,000 people that are not going to do the COVID shots. So I've got 10% of those people in a pool.

It's a big chunk. And we're talking all the time, right? Encrypted apps, sharing information. Hey, this is what's happening in this field office. It's different than in this field office. Hey, this person just said this, that's in leadership. Well, they're implementing it differently down here. So Miami is different than Chicago. Chicago is different than New York. New York's doing something totally different than what's going on in Albuquerque. So everybody's doing their own thing. Everyone's reading the rules. They're testing. They're not testing. They're jamming you up for a testing, whether or not what your status was or whether you put

in a religious thing. They're getting people out the door. They pushed out some probationary agents. I spoke to a couple of them recently, and I'm going to respect their privacy and not bring them back into the fray. But, you know, they left the bureau in their first year or two because they were told in no uncertain terms, we can fire you for no reason. You will be fired over this, even though there's an injunction. And we don't need a reason to get rid of you and we will. So just do what you're told and take the shot. What the heck is a shot? You have to get shots when you travel. It's like, well, I'm not traveling. I'm going to work.

Those shots are tested. This was a new vaccine. Correct. I mean, it's really apples and oranges. I know you get that. Sure. For them to say, I mean, yeah, when I went overseas, we took yellow fever. You had the yellow card. You've seen the yellow card a thousand times. I mean, I've got it all filled out. And even though I wasn't excited about it, these things at least had a long profile and you can read ups and downs.

Right. This thing had never been tested. Correct. And more importantly, we're not in the military. This is a civilian service. So you sign away certain privileges when you join the military. Like it's like you don't really have, you can maybe object. Maybe there's some principles.

Most people at 17, 18, 19 years old, they don't know. They put their arm up to get what's in there. And that's when they move on with their life. And generally speaking, that's fine. But this is a new animal, as we said. And so, and for me, you know, COVID was over in October of 2020. I got it. You know, my spouse was pregnant, had two little babies. They were all fine. We didn't know. Nobody knew what the story was going to be at that point in time. There was no other option. Came out the other side of, you know, a couple of days of feeling lousy and kind of was

out of breath for a little bit. And that was the end of it. And that's probably because we have a fitness standard and we're relatively healthy and we're in the working age. All the things that made it that we know now, you know, my diet's not terrible and my fitness levels are okay. Yeah. So that was the end of it for me.

It's like, well, I don't want to take this. And my wife and I attended the pro-life march. We heard President Trump speak. It's been a real big thing in our house of late, particularly after having children. You just get involved in that sort of thing. And it's like, this changes the game for me. So the FBI started changing the story

on what they wanted people to do for their even religious accommodations. They said, how long have you had this belief? You know, how do we know that it's real? And there was six questions that kind of, they changed it. I think somebody told me it changed eight times in 60 days. the types of questions, the format. There was one thing for a religious exemption if you wanted to get out of the flu shot. All right. But there was a different

one for the COVID shots and it was much longer form, which is bizarre. It doesn't make any sense to us. And so we're all sharing this information, right? And so that's the real piece of it. So the folks that come out of a lot of what you're seeing, these whistleblowers coming forward, and the numbers are, they are what Representative Jordan says they are, I'm sure, and they're probably higher. Yeah, his number was around 40. You think it's higher than an FBI whistleblower? That's probably right, but it's being sourced by other people, right? Because we don't all know all the things at all the times. And that's where it gets really wild. So who am I? I'm a guy with five, six years in the Bureau.

I've been in two field offices and I've traveled around and touched a little bit of 20 of them. But I talk to 300 plus people, almost 400 people now daily. Or I go through intermediaries because I'm trying to protect their identities as well. Like I assume that somebody will come after me for this. I don't know what's going to involve. Are you worried about that? I had two chiefs of staff from different Congress people call me up and tell me to reconsider doing this.

And they said, you should assume that people will come after you, whether it's social media or they'll come after your family as far as like in a political way, right? Not physical violence per se. But, you know, I've had my friends call up and, you know, federal agents, they're kind of an irrespective group or they will say the thing that he's doing. So I had buddies call me up and they said, hey, man, are you sleeping with your weapon? You know, you got to watch out for the Clinton death squads. So there's that silliness to it where you just go like, are you going to get ark and sided over this sort of thing? Well, I bring it up for a reason, though.

When I resigned my position and I told him I was going to go run for a Senate as a Republican, I mean, people just thought I was crazy. I just remember they, you want to talk to the ombudsman before you go? I mean, they thought it was nuts. You know, you give them two weeks notice. And no one even thought to, like, say, leave the office early. It just wasn't. It was a different political time.

It was back in 2011. Sounds like eons ago, right? But the reason I respect what you're doing is you're doing this at a totally different time. We've had FBI raids at Mar-a-Lago, unprecedented things happening, investigations of Flynn, Donald Trump, all the deputies on his detail. This stuff is real, stuff that would have sounded like wacko, Star Trek conspiracy theories 10 years ago. I do worry about it. I was talking to my wife about you last night. I said, I'm genuinely worried that this guy's got a lot of guts doing this.

I have that kind of feeling. I'd like to be a meathead more, but I'm not. I have a lot of goofy, nerdy things. Somebody showed me a nerdy joke one time. I'm like, that's really nerdy. He's like, but you get it. So I know it's there. So I have this kind of sense that it's the Obi-Wan scene where it's like, you strike me down. All you're going to do is you're going to prove exactly what I'm saying. That's true. Right? So anyone who wants, if they want to come after me, and there's a possibility that happens. I mean, the people, I don't feel like there's a lot of scrupulous human beings that are

operating, but I don't think it's also a cabal of, you know, cigar smoking human beings, like sitting in a dark room, like I saw in the X-Files, which would have been really cool, but it's not that, right? It's a bunch of people that have this petty idea that they're going to add a few thousand dollars to their pension by getting the next step up in the SES grade or in the GS pool. They're going to top out as a 1510 or whatever it may be. That's the real motivation. I had colleagues, I have a really, really close colleague who was one of the greatest people in the FBI.

I think if you shut down the FBI and you left him working, it'd be good. He's like, I would just fund him out of my pocket if I could. I just think the work he does is so important. And he's done Source Network, you know, and he built up basically the entire FBI reporting structure for Afghanistan. And he used to work for Peter Strzok. That was his direct supervisor. And above him was Andy McCabe. So the names that are out there in the world, you know, they're still, they were on my cases.

Like they were the ones that were the supervisors that signed on the openings of some of these weird cases that I got. What were their reputations like in the Bureau? Were they the briefers? I talk about on my show guys who are really good at briefing headquarters, but really poor, putting boots on the ground, actually doing criminal work. So I didn't meet them. I didn't know them. You know, this is secondhand information. but the information I got was exactly that. It's like, we call them blue flamers in the FBI. Blue flamer is the afterburner, right? It's the, and they're going, they shoot up. So the trajectory of someone like that is like,

they show up at a field office, they're there for two and a half years. That gives them three full years in the FBI. And this has changed since, but during that era, they could do stuff like that, I think. And they definitely did, like some of my supervisors have been that. Three years of casework. So they probably just figured out what was going on in their squad, their operational unit. Off the headquarters, six, seven years,

program management, unit chief, section chief, running things from the far away away, not touching the case, thinking that whatever they're doing is very important, I'm sure. And then they come back. Now they're a supervisor, they're a desk supervisor. They've never done the work, but they're going to tell people how to do it. But luckily, the people who do the work are pretty good at doing the work, and they just rubber stamp it. And that goes on. They're there for two years. They've got to spend two years on the desk. Now you get that GS-15, that ASAC job, or they're going to go to a section chief somewhere. So they're going to go bump up. And then, you know, once you're in that sort of

sphere, once you're at a 15, you're either going to make it or you're not going to make it to the senior executive level. That's your special agents in charge and your assistant directors. So you heard this about Stroke and McCabe, because my source, you know, that initial Spygate stuff, which I hope we can get to, but said the same thing. That's where I got the term briefer. He said, you got to understand in the FBI, it's different. You know, in the secret service, you had to work between eight and 10 years in a field office if you wanted to go to the president's detail. By then, I mean, even a mediocre agents worked a minimum, probably five to 10 reasonably good sized cases. I mean, even in a big field office, far more.

What the hell do you learn in two to three years to be managing cases like yours out in the field? Well, and the question is this, are these people that are unbelievable intellects that just grasp the process and they're savants? Exactly. Right? Or are they people that understand that you've got to check the box and then you can move on and you can get the next pay grade? So I can't speak for all of them. I wouldn't do that. That's not right. But I know that I've met plenty of them that were not unbelievable agents because they didn't even understand my cases. It's like, why is this open?

Like, I don't even know how to read your case from what I could tell. They had never even gone through the details of it. And it didn't make sense that they would close it because that's, well, that's your, you got to pay for your file. That's why it's open. So you mentioned something before. I want to get to the domestic violent extremist issue that creeped up today, ironically. But while we're on that topic of Stroke and McCabe, you had said before it was probably

someone trying to check a box. You know, I've made this claim before as well that don't always attribute to malice what you can attribute to kind of pure stupidity in the government. There are a lot of great people there, but a lot of people are just dumb. I tell the story of when I did a trip to Afghanistan, they told me, don't say anything. No one's supposed to know it's deep six. Obama's going there. I'm not in the car five minutes. A guy calls me, yeah, I heard you're going to Afghanistan. Bro, we weren't supposed to say anything. So with Stroke and McCabe, I have no doubt their political inclinations were to the left, but this may have been more of a,

let me get my name out there and look like I cracked this big case wide open thing. Yeah. I can't say, I mean, I can't say specifically. It sounds right. It's like none of these guys, when I asked, I said, were these guys, you know, political activists? And the answer was more like, no, they were more opportunists. That was, you know, for people that work from them. Right. You know, that's what I got from them. And it's like, okay, the funny thing is the institutional knowledge of the FBI, especially for stuff in the last five or six years, it's all still there. You know, and I worked with a lot of guys that were on the edge of retirement.

I worked a guy, one of the guys I worked with, he was on the Hanson investigation. He was one of the, you know, he was the first young guy. He was the kind of the vetting team because he didn't know anybody and he didn't know anything else. And that was one of his first big things. And we would just laugh about him sitting in the room and he would tell us the crazy stories. Those are cool war stories. Yeah, that was a big case.

Big deal, right? And then I've heard guys that were on the bug sweep teams that were running the operations against the other, the possible other penetrations that were not Robert Hanson, but they thought it might've been

because they didn't know, obviously, who it was. They just knew there was a penetration and they didn't know exactly where it was. So, you know, I've met tons of people in that little office that just have been there for a long time. The institutional knowledge,

it's in the hallways, it's in the skiffs, it's all over the place. And when people sit and have lunch, what do they do? The first thing you do, if you sit down with any other two people in the Bureau, any other two agents, they bitch about the management. You know, they complain about the structure and they complain about how it's not like it used to be. This is not what we signed up with. You said something interesting about opportunists.

And I would guess some of the listeners are probably going to say, ah, I'm calling, you know, BS on this. You this. They clearly had a political war going on on Trump. But from what I get from you, that's not what you're saying. You're not saying there wasn't a political war going on here. You're saying the political war may have been waged by others and they may have been, in effect, useful idiots. They saw an opportunity to, yeah, I'll dive in this political war. What the hell if I can get some kind of career advancement too? There's so many cases that get run, I think, just because people have decided it's a good case.

When someone tells you it's a good case, you got to run that case. That's the job. It's like, hey, that's a really good case. You're thinking like, I don't think it is that kind of a case. It actually seems like there may not be anything on it. But if it briefs well, as my buddy likes to always say, if it briefs well, you might as well. And there's a real strong concept. It's like, how do we end up doing this thing that makes no sense? How do we end up sitting here at two in the morning in Northern

Virginia watching this guy who's been on his feet for the last 12 hours? He's going to go to sleep. He's not a meth head. He's going to sleep. Right. Why am I sitting here in the dark babysitting a car where nobody's at? Well, it briefs well, right? And so, well, we got our guys on it. He's contained. He can't move. You know, if he moves, we'll know about it. You know, we're ready.

It briefs well. That's it. What do you do? Do you think, to close out part one here, but do you think that had the opportunist angle, that you have people in positions of power running the most powerful law enforcement entity anywhere in the world, the guns and the badges at the top, that that opportunist attitude may have had a lot to do with this push we've seen with this new whistleblower came out, I saw his report today, to categorize cases as domestic violent extremism, that someone at the top who could have shut this down and said, listen, this is clearly a political request. Okay, the data and the facts on the ground will guide themselves. If we see white supremacists who are terrorists, it's in our interest too to stop it. We're the FBI.

Sure. But you pushing it from the top creates a perverse set of incentives where you tell me this is the priority, it almost creates a de facto quota. Biden and Garland say we need white supremacist domestic violent extremists. You know, we learned in the Salem witch trials, you're looking for a witch. You're going to find one, even if there's no witch. Do you think that the opportunists just didn't have the guts to stand up and say something? That's what could have led to this?

I think this country broke on January 6th in so many different ways. It's a turning point. The FBI has bought in 100% to the hype of January 6th. They have said it's the biggest investigation they've ever done, bigger than 9 days afterwards. I was actually on leave on the day of, and I had friends that were going to go down there. Current agents, active duty, you know, guys that were carrying the badge and the gun, they were going to go down to the rallies and for just logistical reasons, didn't make it. They were able to retire safely,

probably just because of that mishap. Because otherwise they would have been under investigation as far as I could tell. And I know that there are friends in my group- Even though they were exercising their first amendment right. I know two guys that have been suspended without pay. Their security clearance revoked for showing up to listen to the President of the United States speak. No criminal activity whatsoever. None. And the allegations absurd that they were engaging in some sort of

obstruction of the federal proceeding or that they had stopped the police officer in the performance of his duties. They didn't even see any police officers. You saw Secret Service guys at the obelisks or at the ellipse rather, when they went through the magnetometers. That was it. And these are people I trust. I mean, I've looked them in the eye. I've sized them up. We talked about it. I said, are you sure you didn't get in anything else? They said the minute the tear gas started coming up and we saw vans of Antifa guys coming out and guys in black clothes, I went like, this is not what we're part of here. We're going to go home. We've seen the circus. It's definitely weird, but they were on the edge of it, like eating a sandwich when things, when the doors were

breached, supposedly, and they were out. And so these are good people. These are good human beings that, you know, signed up. Um, and they've been, they've been named and to the director, you know, uh, they've been redacted in public when, um, representative Jordan put his pieces out, but you know, they're, the FBI is aware who these people are and they know what they did to them. And they did the same thing to me and a number of others. January 6th broke a lot of people, I think. I think a lot of people inside the federal government after January 6th, things were completely different. That's right. Let's take a break. We're going to pick this up again in part two. I want to start with this here. So we'll pick this up again. Stay tuned, folks.

You'll see part two tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.