The President's Daily Brief - August 9th, 2022. Breaking: Former President Donald Trump is Raided by the FBI.

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

It’s August 9th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ Today is a Special Edition of the PDB. And that’s because of what happened yesterday in Florida. The home of former president Donald Trump was raided by the FBI.  So today we’re going to talk about that — what we know, what we don’t — but most especially I’m going to discuss the central question that you, me and other Americans are now going to have to wrestle with. Do you trust the FBI?  Because if the answer is yes, then this development yesterday in Florida doesn’t bother you much. It’s standard procedure for an FBI that is professional, and just doing their jobs as the rules and law allow. But is that true? Is there anything in the recent past that might give a reasonable person pause about the FBI? Because if so, that might suggest that this raid, this investigation in Florida is anything but proper or legal. So that’s what we’re going to wrestle with this morning as this major story develops.  And as always, I’ll offer up one more thing before I let you go, a note from Lindsey in Oregon. And it’s a good question about hope. Which perhaps is something we could all use. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's August 9th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. Today is a special edition of the PDB, and that's because what happened yesterday in Florida. The home of former President Donald Trump was raided by the FBI. So today we are going to talk about that, what we know and what we don't. But most especially, I'm going to discuss the central question that you and to me and all other Americans are now going to have to wrestle with. Do you trust the FBI? Because if the answer is yes, then this development in Florida yesterday doesn't bother you much.

It's standard procedure for an FBI that is professional, just doing their jobs as the rules and the law allow. But is that true? Is there anything in the recent past that might give a reasonable person pause about the FBI? and if so, that might suggest that this raid and this investigation is anything but proper or legal. So that is what we're going to wrestle with this morning as this major story develops. And as always, I will offer up one more thing before I let you go, a note today from Lindsay in Oregon. And it's a question that I really love. It's about hope, which perhaps is something that we could all use this morning.

But first, let's get started with today's main brief. There are many more questions than answers this morning, but here's what we know. President Trump's home in Mara Lago, Florida, was raided by a large team of FBI agents late yesterday. The raid was allegedly over the former president having classified information in the basement of his home. Now, this case goes back to last January when the National Archives took 15 boxes of documents. and other items from that home in Florida because they said all that stuff should have been left at the White House or turned over to them a long time ago. And that has fueled allegations that Trump had violated the Presidential Records Act. Now, that act requires the preservation

of a variety of things related to a president's official duties. Now, it also raised questions about whether Trump had classified information outside of a secure setting. So, does Does any of this have merit? Well, in the coming days and weeks and months, I'm sure, we will all be looking very closely at this case, asking lots of questions. For instance, since Trump had the power of declassification, in fact, any president can declassify whatever they want for whatever reason,

well, why is that not applicable here if in fact there was classified on his person, or that is to say, in the basement of his home? Meanwhile, how is whatever Trump took any debt? different than any of his predecessors, like Obama or Clinton. And speaking of, Hillary Clinton had lots of classified information on her private servers in her home, you all may remember that story, but she wasn't rated. No charges were ever filed. So why the double standard if in fact that fits here? Anyway, lots of questions to ask and answer here. And ultimately, you all will have to decide if the facts show a violation of the law or whether yesterday's raid was appropriate.

But making that assessment really depends on whether or not that you believe and indeed can trust the facts that the FBI shares in their statements, in their affidavits and so forth. So let's talk about the behavior of the FBI in the recent past to help guide that choice about whether or not you trust the nation's highest law enforcement officials. First, let's go back in time to 2016, because that is really the foundational piece to everything that we need to talk about this morning. In that year, we learned something very important about FBI leadership and the 36,000 employees that work there. Now, most of us remember the name James Comey. He served as the director of the FBI during a good portion of President Trump's time in office.

Now, in the days just before Trump became president, James Comey briefed both Trump and then-president Barack Obama on Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Now, Comey briefed material to Trump and Obama that included a summary of what we now refer to as the steel dossier. Now, that dossier was a collection of stories provided to the FBI that put forth a grand conspiracy, that Donald Trump had these tawdry relations. with Russian escorts, and he was blackmailed into a secret relationship with Moscow. He was, in other words, a Russian spy. Now, even at the time, James Comey knew, the FBI knew that the allegations in the steel dossier or garbage, they had actually investigated them and found them without credibility. The CIA assisted in that investigation, too, and they found nothing.

Meanwhile, the FBI came to discover that the dossier's author, a man named Christopher Steele, who's a British spy, well, he was lying to them, and his sources were unreliable. He became totally discredited, and so too were his allegations of Trump treason. In fact, we now know that the entire affair of Mr. Steele and his dossier, well, that was all cooked up by the Clinton campaign to damage then-candidate Donald Trump. But still, Comey briefed this steel dossier knowing it was garbage. The question is why? Well, Comey knew that the dossier was out there circulating in D.C.

to include with journalists. And none of them are running any stories on it, because they believed that either it was incredible or too outlandish to prove. But that changed once Comey briefed the dossier to both Obama and Trump. That gave the media justification to start running stories. In other words, that the FBI and the CIA both thought that the dossier was important enough to brief it. Now, that probably doesn't sound right to you.

And you would be correct. It's illogical and nonsensical to brief and share something that wasn't true. So why did Comey do it? Well, he has said that he just wanted Trump and Obama to be aware of these allegations that they were out there and that they might go public. But I can tell you, though, that this is absolutely. not standard protocol at all. You do not, as an FBI or CIA officer, brief false rumors from a discredited source to the president or president-elect. You just don't do it. But brief it, he did.

In fact, he briefed it so widely to so many that at the time, even the Washington Post, which of course is a leftist or Democrat newspaper, asked this question. Why did Comey brief the dossier to so many, virtually assuring that it would leak. Yes, that's it. The answer is actually in the question. You brief it in order to leak it, and then your briefing becomes the story. And what a story it became.

It launched a national hysteria of Russian collusion. But James Comey wasn't done. What we now know from the Inspector General report in Tomey's actions is that the FBI director, Mr. Comey went on to leak again. This time, sensitive internal notes that he took as FBI director in his conversations with Trump at the White House. And he leaked those notes to the New York Times. And he did that again, leaked for a second time, because as the inspector general said,

he wanted to, quote, create public pressure for official action, end quote. In other words, he wanted to force Congress to appoint Robert. Mueller to keep up the Trump-Russia investigation, despite there being no evidence for it. But it worked. Comey's second leak to the New York Times got the Mueller investigation. Now, I want you to listen closely to what the Inspector General said of Comey's actions. He put this in his report, and I implore you to listen to these words, once again, from the Inspector General.

Comey set a dangerous example for the over 36,000 current FBI employees and the many thousands more of former FBI employees who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information and may use that for their own partisan goals. In other words, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice warned that James Comey may have weaponized the FBI into a place where 36,000 very powerful people, could use their power to do whatever they'd like, irrespective of rules and laws. And worse yet, James Comey was never charged with his crime. He got off scoffrey. In fact, he's gone on to write books. He engages in public speaking tours. And folks, he even teaches a class on ethics. He profited from his dangerous example. And that takes us to the very important, question of whether or not you should trust the FBI. I want you to ask yourself this morning, how many of those 36,000 FBI employees have embraced Comey's dangerous example and gone rogue?

Do we have one? Do we have 10? How about a thousand different cases of that? Folks, do we now have an FBI that is so corrupt that it is targeting Trump again? And rendering the Bureau is not a tool for law and order, but for political and personal revenge. We're going to talk about the evidence that such a thing is actually happening, these rogue agents, all when we come back right after this. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help

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Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Welcome back, folks, to the PDB. This morning we are talking about the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's home in Florida. Though we still have much to learn about the particulars of the raid, there's one thing that reasonable people are wrestling with this morning.

Can we trust that the FBI will do the right thing here, follow the rules and the laws, or do we have reason to doubt? Well, let's explore a couple of examples, one that starts with our current president, in fact, and connects all the way back to James Comey himself. As I speak with you this morning, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware are conducting an investigation into Hunter Biden, who, of course, is the son of Joe Biden. Now, that investigation has three components. A tax investigation, a money laundering investigation, and a foreign lobbying investigation.

Now, that inquiry started because of suspicious bank transfers, probably back in 2018, and then really got going when Hunter Biden forgot his laptop in a repair shop. And that laptop from hell, as some people describe it, has all kinds of alarming things on it, to include that his father Joe Biden was getting a 10% cut of Hunter's foreign business dealings. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has claimed that the laptop is either fake or that he's never even talked to his son about his business dealings. Now, we know that both of those statements are lies. Even the Democrat newspapers New York Times and Washington Post have acknowledged that the laptop is real and that Joe Biden has in fact spoken with his son about his business dealings.

So where that investigation of Hunter Biden goes, I don't know, but we do know this. Whistleblowers have told Congress that at least one of the FBI agents involved in that investigation of Hunter Biden is a deeply political man. Special Agent Timothy Timbalt has posted or liked a lot of different social media accounts and articles that promoted or liked Barack Obama and Joe Biden while criticizing Donald Trump and other Republicans. According to whistleblowers who took their concerns to Congress, that same FBI officer ordered closed a part of the investigation into Hunter Biden, even though all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants. Now, he closed part of that investigation without providing a valid reason for doing so, even though that is a requirement by FBI rules.

And then he tried to improperly mark the matter inside of FBI computer systems so that it could never be opened again. Now, Mr. Thibault is now himself under investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for these various actions. Meanwhile, we also have the curious case of one of Mr. Thibault's colleagues, an FBI official named Brian Otten. And he's also involved in the Hunter Biden investigation. In fact, he opened a part of the investigation back in 2020. Now, of the many things that we know about Mr. Otten, one of them is this. He was a deeply involved in the Trump-Russia investigation and has claimed that the Steele dossier that I mentioned earlier, the one that they knew was absolute garbage. Well, he said that the dossier and its

allegations gave him, quote, no pains or heartburn, end quote. And yet, he interviewed at least one of the dossier's actual sources, who said that the former British spy Christopher Steele fabricated or misstated what he said. Plus, this same Mr. Otten helped write the brief that James Comey gave to Trump and Obama about the steel dossier. Again, despite knowing that the dossier's information was verified junk. In other words, this suggests that Mr. Otten is either dumb as a box of rocks or he is playing political games just like Mr. Comey. Finally, consider another FBI official and colleague of the two men that I just mentioned. This fellow's name is Kevin Kleinsmith. He is a former FBI attorney who worked.

working with Mr. Auden and others, lied to a judge in order to continue surveillance on a former Trump official who was absolutely innocent. Now, Mr. Client Smith has since been fired from the FBI, and he pled guilty to criminal charges. Look, folks, there are a number of other cases that I could raise for you showing probable or confirmed political bias by FBI officials. So James Comey, for instance, as I've mentioned, now frequently writes for the Washington Post a leftist newspaper. Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe was fired for leaking information to the press and then lying about it to the FBI, but he went on to be a contributor at CNN. So I could talk to you endlessly about cases. Now, we could also put aside the issue of political bias and instead just

focus on abuse of authority. Like in Michigan recently, where FBI agents incited a group of men who were drunk and stoned most of the time to talk about kidnapping the governor. And then they charged them for it during their drunken stupors, charged them with terrorism. Well, a judge first tossed out some of those charges, and then a jury found two of them not guilty, and the other two, they declared a mistrial. And that case, by the way, involves all sorts of FBI lawbreaking and debauchery. If you want to look into it sometime, you really should. It's absolutely jaw-dropping at what the FBI has become. But look, at some point, your head just starts spinning with all of these examples, and it takes us back to the main questions. Do you trust

the FBI? And have they given you reason to doubt them? In other words, do you share the inspector general's concerns that some of the 36,000 FBI employees have followed the dangerous example set by James Comey and weaponized their jobs to do as they please? And could that culture of partisan witch hunts have affected or even led to the raid? on President Trump's home in Florida yesterday, these are now the questions that you have to wrestle with and that America has to wrestle with because the stakes are enormous.

We've got a major election coming up in 90 days, and we have a country to govern. And that's why if I were briefing you in the White House this morning, my counsel would be this. It is time to break up the FBI. That's not to say that the mission of the Bureau isn't important. It is. the FBI opens up a counterintelligence case against China or a Chinese-related concern every 12 hours.

There are terrorists still in this country. We have drug cartel activity, human trafficking, and of course, official corruption. But it's that last bit, official corruption, that, in my opinion, has led to its undoing. Because we now have case after case of FBI officials putting their thumbs on the scale of justice in favor of one politician or one political party over another. And, you know, folks, I don't even care if one person likes Trump or not because this issue is so much bigger than him. This is about whether the American people have faith

that the FBI can carry out its mission without favor, without bias. And it can't. Not consistently, that's what the record shows. From Comey to Kleinsmith, from Otten to Thimbalt, we have a steady stream of examples of FBI officials, involved in the most sensitive of cases, either taking inappropriate or unlawful action or doing nothing at all. In other words, folks, you'd absolutely now have reason to believe that the inspector general was right. There are 36,000 FBI employees who saw the dangerous example of James Comey breaking rules and laws and not just getting away with it, but profiting from it.

And some of them are now doing the same. Folks, you don't salvage. a culture like that. You get rid of it. And then you start over with one very important goal. Reestablish trust. Because if you can do that, and then if you need to have a raid on a former president's home, well, people know that you're doing the right thing. Not for you or your party, but for the country. And with that, one more thing before I'd let you go. Lindsay from Oregon wrote in, She asked about hope, which, as I read it, seemed like a pretty good way to end today's brief. We'll be right back. You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band teas, but on Deepop, people are searching for exactly what you've got.

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All right, ladies and gentlemen, one more thing before I let you go. Lindsay from Oregon wrote in asking about hope. So here's what she said. Brian, love the podcast. I always learned something interesting. But there are times when I feel a little bit overwhelmed, like the world has so many problems and it's just impossible to fix it all. So how do you stay hopeful?

Or are you hopeful? Well, this is a very well-timed question, and I am really, really grateful to have gotten it, Lindsay. So, yes, I am hopeful. Am I frustrated, angry, worried? Yes, all of those things, especially right now. But still, I'm hopeful. Now, let me tell you a story why.

When I was posted abroad, I was in a country that had an astronomical rate of HIV. Some towns were 80% positive. 80% HIV positive. And the drugs to manage this disease were really hard to come by. Very expensive. And testing was tough too. There was a lot of social shame and stigma. Well, every single day I heard funeral processions passed by my office,

people who obviously had died of HIV complications, AIDS. There were multiple processions every hour of every day, of every month that I was there. One night I had supper with a Catholic priest and I was talking to him about what was happening in the country. And he'd been there for many years. And I'd said to him, Father, this country is a wreck. Corruption is endemic.

There's no rule of law. It's tribal. The economy. It's complete tatters. Poverty endemic. People are dying from a disease that many people don't even want to talk about it, even acknowledge. So it seems hopeless.

So how do you reach people? How do you preach to people? These souls, knowing, all the awfulness around you. And here's what he said, and I will never forget it. First, he said, you have to organize a plan for the problems. You have to come up with solutions, then organize around them, and just keep pushing. There are good days, and there are bad days.

Probably more bad than good, but you have to keep pushing. And yes, there are days when you probably feel like it's a lost cause, but on those days, you remind yourself of hope. you keep hopeful because without hope what's left what's the alternative that's why i choose to hope now he went on to describe his faith in god as a central part of that hope you know it's the good news and for those of us who are christian i think we get that pretty clearly but i confess that his answer it made me feel pretty ashamed and pretty embarrassed because of course he was right we have to be engaged and involved and without hope that's really an absence of god in many ways

so i don't pretend to be a pastor or a priest so maybe my theology is off here but what i know is that his response humbled me and it empowered me i've got to be a part of the solution work with friends and neighbors to solve stuff even when it's hard especially when it's hard and during those hard days I can't lose hope. I'm not going to lose God, as he would say. Because without that hope, what else is there? And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show, reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world.

It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day. All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly

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