The Young Turks - Gary Cohn, Stormy Daniels, and Geek Squad

Episode Date: March 9, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from March 8, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk. Trump said his departing chief economic adviser Gary Cohn could someday return to his administration after making several hundred more million dollars. "He may be a globalist, but I still like him," Trump said of Cohn, who was sitting in the room and announced earlier this week he is resigning as director of the National Economic Council. "He is seriously a globalist, there is no question. But in his own way he's a nationalist because he loves our country." Sarah Huckabee Sanders reportedly made President Trump “upset” by revealing a bit too much during Wednesday’s press briefing.  When answering questions about Trump’s alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels and the $130,000 payout she reportedly received, Sanders commented, “This case has already been won in arbitration.” Cenk prediction: Tillerson leaving administration   Hour 2:  Cenk & Ana. The FBI paid Best Buy Geek Squad employees as informants, rewarding them for flagging indecent material when people brought their computers in for repair. Mark Cuban is denying a 2011 allegation of sexual assault after a weekly alternative newspaper in Oregon published details of a case that prosecutors didn't pursue, saying they didn't believe there was evidence to support the claim. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you for watching or listening to this free podcast of the Young Turks. We want to make sure that you get some portion of the show every day. But if you want the full show, which is actually five segments, come become a member and support independent media as well. TYT network.com slash join.

Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. Welcome to the Young Turks. Awesome show ahead for you guys. We got a lot of great shows, in fact, that I want to tell you about coming up. March 9th, we're going to do another Bernie Sanders town hall event online. Young Turks are a number of other partners, and it is going to be about income inequality. Senator Elizabeth Warren joining Bernie Sanders in that town hall. That's great.

Michael Moore, economist Derek Hamilton. So we'll bring that to you. So tune in at the regular time, and then we'll go to the town hall when that begins. That's on March 19th. That's a Monday. March 20th is a Tuesday, and we have election night coverage to Illinois primary. Lots of really important races in Illinois. Every primary night, check out the Young Turks election coverage right here on t-y-tnetwork.com slash live.

That's also where you can get the Bernie Sanders Town Hall. Okay, on today's show, awkward moments with Donald Trump. So, I got one coming up for you in the first story. I got one coming up for you in the next segment. I've got a fun prediction for you guys today. And an absolutely critical meeting that Mueller is now digging into. It's a meaning that I told you about almost a year ago now. And I said it would be of great import, and it looks like it now is.

So all of that on the program today, let's get started. Okay, Gary Cohen's top economic advisor to President Trump, he's leaving. The ostensible reason is he disagrees about the steel and aluminum tariffs. Now, as I explained to you when that news first broke, nobody's nose got broken, by the way. When the news first broke, it's not about that. That's what everybody's reporting. No, there's two reasons why Gary Cohen's leaving. One is they already got the tax cuts.

That's trillions of dollars in tax cuts for corporate. of the rich. That was his number one objective. Steel and aluminum tariffs are tiny in comparison. And number two, he's getting out before the indictments. It's in White House and complete another chaos. And who the hell wants to stay in that building any longer than they have to? And Cohen thinks, we're not going to get anything else done. And so I got the tax cuts and I'm out of E5,000. So this is going to be his last cabinet meeting. So he's sitting on the side because he's not in the cabinet, he's an advisor, but Trump decides that he's going to say goodbye to him. Oh, no, don't. Just be quiet. Just let it go. No, instead this.

This is Gary Cohn's last meeting in the cabinet and of the cabinet, and he's been terrific. He may be at globalist, but I still like him. Seriously, at globalism, no question. You know what, in his own way, he's a nationalist because he loves the country. He's going to go out. and make another couple of hundred million and then he's going to maybe come back. We might come back, right? We'll be here.

Another seven years, hopefully, and it's a long time, but I have a feeling you'll be back. I don't know if I can put him in that same position now. It's not quite as strong of those tariffs as we want to do that time. What is that? That's maniacal. Okay. In case you don't know the other meaning of globalists,

let's go to Talking Points Memo. While the term globalist can refer to a person who advocates for economic and foreign policy in relation to developments throughout the rest of the world, the term is more widely considered an anti-Semitic dog whistle. By the way, Gary Cohen is Jewish. Oops. Look, even if you meant the other version of globalists, since the version that is more widely known is widely known, I wouldn't have talked about it in reference to a Jewish person. who's leaving your administration. Anyway, look, that's one part of it. The second part of it is, what are you doing?

Just let him go and say thank you for your service. Instead, makes it horribly awkward. He's not as strong on terrorists, but he'll probably go and come back. He'll come back. He'll come back. In other words, damn it, I didn't want him to leave. And I bet he comes back. I bet he does.

And he'll make a couple hundred million dollars and come back. By the way, that's the problem. He was the president of Goldman Sachs. There's the revolving door. That's why they call them government sacks. They go in, they get trillions of dollars and breaks for Goldman Sachs and their friends, which is exactly what Gary Cohen did, and then go back out, make a couple hundred million dollars more, and then come back in and rig the rules again.

If you're looking for who rig the rules, it's guys like Gary Cohn. So I got no love for Gary Cohn, but even I wouldn't have sent him out like that. That's just uncalled for it. Okay. So now, let's go to, that's just a quick story, fun for everybody. Let's go to Huckabee Sanders. Okay. Sarah Huckabee Sanders stepped in it for understandable reasons on the issue of Stormy Daniels.

Now, Stormy Daniels is an adult actress who had an affair with Donald Trump. She explained it in gory detail back in 2011. Donald Trump apparently got his lawyer of Michael Cohen. do an NDA. Now, Michael Cohen says, look, I happen to do the NDA and I happen to pay the $130,000 on my own, Donald Trump, I don't know. Well, Michael Cohn did just leave with her. Donald Trump slept with her. So obviously that's who it was for. Now, Stormy Daniels has come out and said, the NDA is not valid. Donald Trump never signed it. Michael Cohn signed it. That doesn't make it valid. It was not to hush up about anything related to Michael

It was to a hush contract about the affair that she had with Donald Trump. Okay, so now, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has to answer questions about that. She's got to say that it's resolved and that it's not an issue. Well, she's in an impossible situation because Donald Trump has asked her to lie in 13 different ways. And so she accidentally screws up and admits something that's true. Now, her overall statement, don't get me wrong, she's a press secretary for Donald Trump. Her overall statement is not true. But a part of it is.

So that's really important. Let me show it to you, and then I'll explain. Made very well clear that none of these allegations are true. This case has already been one in arbitration, and anything beyond that, I would refer you to the president's outside counsel. And again, this case has already been one in arbitration. Anything beyond that, I would refer you to outside counsel. You said that there's arbitration that's already been won by whom and when? By the president's personal attorneys, and for details on that, I would refer you to them. So what can more can you share with us? I can share that that the arbitration was one in the president's favor.

Yeah, I've had conversations with the president about this. And as I outlined earlier, that this case had already been won in arbitration. Oops. So the reporter had a puzzled look on his face and rightfully so. Did you say there was arbitration? When I saw the headline, I thought the same thing. What arbitration? It turns out there was arbitration in the case, which Sarah Huckabee Sanders should not have

admitted because that admits that Donald Trump is involved. It was hushed money for covering of Donald Trump's affair. She should not have admitted that. Now, is it true? Absolutely true. No question about it. So, but what's the untrue part of her statement that he won the arbitration? So they went to an arbitration hearing without Stormy Daniels. Michael Cole, Cohen, Trump's lawyer, called for a secret arbitration meeting. That's not how it works. You've got to let the other side know. So that arbitration meeting was nonsense. Anyway, second of all, they didn't win it. They got a temporary restraining order saying, hey, stormy denos, don't talk about this in public until we actually have the proceedings and conclude them. That is not winning

an arbitration proceeding. She didn't even show up. She didn't even know what was happening. And number three, he didn't sign the contract. Trump didn't sign the contract. So you can't have an arbitration proceeding about a contract that doesn't exist. So about the substance of winning it, she's absolutely wrong. The fact that it happened is absolutely correct. Oops. So that then makes Trump apparently angry. CNN's Jim Acosta mainly doing the reporting here.

I will have a summary here for you from the Hill. CNN's Jim Acosta reported that Trump is, quote, very unhappy with his press secretary. After she acknowledged that a press briefing on Wednesday that Trump has been involved in a legal dispute with Daniel stemming from her allegations. So today, of course, the Trump white. House is denying mainly through Fox News. Sources tell Fox News, no, no, no, no, he's fine with it. No, no, no problem at all. So Sarah Huggabee Sanders came out for a press conference today.

Oh, no, right. She didn't. She canceled the press conference basically in hiding in a bunker. So if Trump is not upset with her and there's no issues about what she said, they have a curious way of showing it. Let me give you one more of CNN reporting here. Abby Phillips again, Abby Phillips again, Abby Phillips referring, Abby Phillips referring to Acosta. the source, saying according to this source, Sarah Sanders' comments were essentially putting the

Stormy Daniels storyline on steroids yesterday. And in case you're wondering why Trump cares so much, he's had dozens of affairs, he's had dozens of women accuse him of sexual harassment and assault, which is far worse than any affair. Well, Stormy Daniels in her latest court violence said that she has texts and pictures. That's why he was trying to. cover it up. And that's why he's upset at Sarah Huckabee Sanders for scoring up and admitting that it's real and that it is his contract, even though he didn't sign it. One last thing. People are getting all over Sarah Huckabee Sanders here, and I'm going to do an ironic defense.

That job is impossible. Trump asked you to lie in both directions. It's not doable. Trump is not at all involved, but he won the case. You can't do both. And then Trump tells you to do one thing as he apparently told her. And then when she does it and it backfires and blows up in his face, he doesn't want to admit that he's wrong because he's a child. So he says, no, you did it wrong. Gary Cohn left. Are you kidding me? Who can stand this guy? Of course he left. Everybody's going to leave. I'm surprised Sarah Huckabee Sanders is hung in there for that long. It's a miserable, miserable job to have. Okay.

Now, let me go to my fun prediction. Okay. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-N-F-E-N-F-TR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies. debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of

Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary,

and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school.

For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today, and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. And Rex Tillerson is our Secretary of State. He was the former CEO of Exxon Mobile. And I've been telling you for a long time that he was put in to that position because of a deal. that the Russian government cared a lot about. It was a deal between Ross Neft, which is the huge oil and gas company in Russia, and ExileMobil.

They were going to explore a portion of Russian, mainly the seas you'll see in a second, above Russia. And it was a half a trillion dollar deal on paper. The proceeds were supposed to net out the revenue overall from the oil that they would get there. $9 trillion. Absorb that number. That is not $9 million. That is not $9 billion. So that's a lot of money at stake and why Russia cares so much about this.

So that's why Donald Trump, out of nowhere, picked the CEO of ExxonMobil to be our secretary of state, which makes no sense at all. So they wanted to lift a sanction so ExxonMobil could go forward with that deal with a ROSNap. Now, it didn't work out because Congress said, hell no. Senate, for example, voted 98 to 2 to maintain those sanctions and even add more sanctions on top. Now, Trump has not put the new sanctions into place, but he can't lift the old sanctions. So those are still in place. But then the second thing happened, oil prices dropped, making that really expensive exploration not as worth it economically as it used to be.

So today the news is ExxonMobil has canceled that deal. Which is going to lead to my prediction in the second, but first let me give you the full context here. Go to the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Tillerson touted the agreement as a breakthrough, giving Exxon access to one of the world's greatest unexplored oil and gas basins. This was back when they made the deal. The company reportedly spent about $700 million to drill the first well, likely making it the most expensive ever struck oil, according to Rosneft. But further exploration was halted because of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Obama. administration following Russia's intervention in Ukraine in 2014.

In case you were wondering why Russia supports Donald Trump and the Republican Party and not the Democrats, both Obama and Hillary Clinton were in favor of those sanctions, and the Russians had nine trillion reasons why they didn't want the Democrats in charge in America. So now, why does Exxon care so much? Well, for similar reasons, the joint venture between Exxon and Rosneft included exploration in the Kara Sea, as well as... other collaborative efforts in Russia, and the U.S. Exxon funded, and the U.S. Exxon funded the exploration work entirely earning a 33.3 stake in any discoveries. So if they were going to have

$9 trillion in revenue, I can do the quick math for you on that. That's $3 trillion on the line. So everybody that was involved in that deal desperately wanted that deal to go through. hence a lot of the drama that we have seen about Trump and the Russian collusion, I believe. So, but now I'm saying we're done. We can't reverse a 98 to 2 vote from the Senate, besides which at these oil prices is not worth it. So the company said it would formally begin to withdraw from the Rosnev joint ventures this year, taking a $200 million loss after taxes. So look, $200 million is significant. That's painful and that's why they didn't want to let it go. But given that amount of money they could have made, it's a drop in the bucket.

So they just cut their losses at this point. But they could come back to it. And in fact, the Russians in the Wall Street Journal article kept saying, no, no, no, you never know. You never know. We're open to doing it again. And, you know, I wondered and so you might have wondered, why didn't the Russians just do the deal with someone else? Why do they want to bother going into so much trouble and making sure there's a recent story that just came out a couple of days ago about how the Russia's apparently back channeled to Trump. This is what Mueller is investigating at least, that they did not want Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. He had had some tough rhetoric against Russia. They wanted their friend, and that is literal. Rex Thurlson is a friend

of Vladimir Putin has gotten a medal from him, is a very good friend of the guy who runs Rosnev. They go, they used to go biking together, picturing him on bicycles, going up at hill motorcycles. Anyway, and so they wanted their friend in that position to lift the sanctions. Again, that didn't work out. But why Exxon? Well, Exprosate is unlikely that Rochneft will be able to find another company able to step into Exxon's role, either due to European sanctions or a lack of technical capabilities to drill offshore wells. So one more piece of context on that. Russia's federal budget relies on oil and gas sales for around one-third of its revenues, without technology from partners such as Exxon, Russia will struggle to access those resources.

So if you're wondering why Russia went through all that effort, I told you $9 trillion, but look, it's a third of their federal budget. It is gigantic. What wouldn't you do for a third of your federal budget? And that is why I believe, and I have maintained from day one, that that is what all of this collusion is about. It's not about trifling Twitter impressions and 21 Tumblr accounts. this was the deal they were concerned about. So now, as usual, I have a fun prediction for you guys, and I will say it ahead of time, and you'll get to see if I'm right or wrong.

I believe Rex Tillerson will leave the administration very soon. So TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. Now that the Exxon Mobil deal is not going to happen with Ross Neft, he has no reason to stay. The whole point of him going there was to lift the sanctions and do this deal. Now, they're going to start handing out indictments soon at the Trump White House. Anyone with two bits of senses running for the hills, Hope Hicks is gone, McMaster's leaving. Obviously, Gary Cohen just left. Everybody had a different agenda.

Gary Cohen's agenda was past trillions of dollars in tax goes for the rich and for huge corporations like Goldman Sachs where he worked. Rex Tillerson wanted huge deals for Exxomobile where he worked. Now that he's not going to get that, he's going to leave. And at the time, they will say, oh, no, he doesn't want to spend more time with his family. and he disagreed with Trump on some trifling issue that's not really the issue at hand, but he is gone. He's gone because Exxon is not doing the deal anymore.

This is how corruption works. Okay, now, we're going to take a break. When we come back, you're going to talk about corruption. So Mueller finally, apparently has some evidence and is working on that secret meeting that Eric Prince had with the Russians and Seychelles Island. I told you about that almost a year ago. Now you're going to begin to see how important that is as this whole case comes together. And that's why you're seeing all these people pull the shoot from the Trump administration.

If you don't think it's real, well, Gary Cohen does. And about a dozen or so people who left Trump's White House recently do. So we'll come back and I'll tell you all the details. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now.

All right, we've got a lot of tweets for you guys. We've got breaking news for you guys. And I forgot to tell you that after the Young Turks today, Rebel headquarters has Dennis Kucinich. He'll be on the program. And James Thompson, the guy who almost won in a special election in Kansas. And since he came so close to winning in a really Republican district, the Democrats, Democratic Party has decided they're not going to support him. Okay. Anyway, see a pattern here.

Okay, Sean Phoenix says about the tape we just watched. He was screaming for help from the police. He was getting punched in the head while screaming for help. I'm surprised he didn't get shot while running away. The cops escalated the situation hard. Michael Graham says, I live in Nashville and everybody jaywalks. I have never heard of anyone getting a ticket, much less arrested for that. Yeah, because they go to pick on people.

And gee, I wonder who they're going to pick on. The powerless, of course, right? Danger, Carlos, Danger says, I was illegally searched, arrested, and robbed by a cop. And all I can think about that now is that if I were black, I'd have been shot because I had a pocket knife. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to expressvpn.com slash t-y-t, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Jeez, yeah. You know what?

That's deep, man, and it's true. Like, I don't know if that, of course, I don't know for a fact that that would have happened to you, none of us do. but they do interpret different situations differently based on on some factors, including, of course, race. So anyway, glad you're with us. All right, what's the breaking news, Anna? All right.

The breaking news is Kim Jong-un has offered Donald Trump in an invitation to meet. And in that invitation, he also indicated that he will halt all nuclear missile testing. Now, this is an interesting development. We do know that South Korea and North Korea have been engaged in diplomatic talks, and that happened prior to the Olympics, and I guess those talks have continued. But this is a good sign. However, I feel skeptical about all of this. We'll see how this all turns out.

Apparently, Trump made the announcement, and his staff was caught off guard, which is typical Trump fashion. Exactly, like they're probably, no, wait, wait, hold on, we should think about what our responsibility. There he goes. Okay, now should Trump Polar Rodman and go to North Korea? Then he's not going to go to North Korea. But should they actually meet? I don't know.

Look, I don't, there's two different sides here. One is, I don't trust anything in the North Koreans say they're Trumpian. They say one thing the next day, they say the next, and it's all a bunch of stupid games, and it's really annoying. and they're not remotely trustworthy, the North Green government, obviously. On the other hand, I believe in talking to your enemies. So the preposterous idea of, and neocons always said this,

and they still say it about Iran, we shouldn't talk to our enemies. Well, okay, but we could talk to our friends all day long. That's not going to help resolve any conflict. That's right. In order to resolve a conflict, you've got to talk to your enemy. So, yeah, I guess I would say do it, but with a lot of reservations and safeguards in place.

Well, the thing that concerns me is that we're talking about Trump, and he's not, he's the type of person who admittedly is not interested in national security briefings or briefings in general. And so he doesn't strike me as someone who is knowledgeable on the nuances of this very important foreign policy issue. But with that said, I do think that this is a considerable step up from what he was doing before, which was tweeting juvenile tweets and making fun of Kim Jong-un's weight. Yeah, I wonder if you'll call him Rocket Man to his face. But, you know, actually, Anna, I hadn't thought about it that way, and that is a counterpointed to meeting. Because if the North Koreans are savvy, all they'd have to do is, oh, Mr. Trump, we did not

realize how stunningly handsome you are in person. That's exactly what I mean. I feel like Trump softens toward people who say nice things to him, who compliment him, who boost his ego. And Kim Jong-un is a terrible person, but he strikes me as a little smarter than Trump is. But that's a really low bar. It is a low bar. Okay, super low bar.

And so if they come in and go, Mr. President, your hands are awfully large. He might go. You know what? Continue with that nuclear testing. I like, it's a big, beautiful nuclear test. He might literally come out and go, look, on the nuclear testing, he denied it. He strongly denied it, right? And so I think there's some good people, there's some bad people there,

but there's some good people in the North Korean government. I mean, they've got some bad concentration camps, and they've got some good concentration camps. So, you know what, actually, a lot of the rest of the world might be missing an opportunity here. It is actually incredibly easy to rook Donald Trump. Right. And so. Even with the issue of Israel, for instance, and building the settlement. So one day, he's 100% pro-Israel.

I'm going to name Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, boom, it's done. And then the next day, he'll criticize Netanyahu over the settlements. Yeah. And so it really depends on who he's communicating with on any given day or in any given hour. Or any mood that he has. And he could, if he was smart, he could use that as negotiation strategy. He has no strategy. So Israel, their government, led by Netanyahu, who apparently is very corrupt.

unsurprising. He's terribly right wing. Got no interest in him. But he is a savvy guy. Nobody thinks he's stupid. And so he does the smart thing, which unfortunately a lot of countries could do if they had bad intent in negotiating with us. Whenever Trump says something the Netanyahu likes, oh, you want to move the embassy? Deal, done. Thank you. All right. And he says something they don't like.

You should get rid of the settlements. Just wait him out. Wait till tomorrow. And he'll forget about it. And then whenever he says something you like, I'll take it. Okay, so I hope the North Koreans don't do that to them, but at a bare minimum, at least we're talking, and it's an interesting offer. Right. Moving on to other news, a new report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that the FBI

was working with members of the geek squad at Best Buy in order to catch individuals who had child pornography on their computers. So the idea here was that if someone had computer issues and the geek squad was working on that computer issue, the FBI would pay members of the geek squad to turn in that person if they had pornographic child pornography on that computer. So this is a little bit of an issue because, of course, the FBI, any law enforcement should have a warrant before going through anyone's computer. and in this case, the Geek Squad essentially worked as an arm of the FBI because they were informants.

The FBI paid best by Geek Squad employees as informants rewarding them for flagging indecent material when people brought their computers in for repair. So how did this case even come about? Well, of course, it involved one specific individual who fought back. His name is Mark Rettenmayer. He's from Orange County, California, a physician and surgeon. He took his computer in for repair when it wouldn't boot up. Now, he faced child pornography charges after a geek squad employee flagged his computer to the FBI.

So he had child pornography on his computer, that's obviously an issue. But here's the thing, if you obtain evidence in an unlawful way, that evidence gets thrown out in court, and that's exactly what happened here. A federal judge threw out almost all the evidence because of false and misleading statements an FBI agent made in an affidavit to get a search warrant for the defendant's house. So, again, it doesn't even lead to the results that the FBI would want because they're obtaining this evidence in an unlawful fashion. So a couple of issues here.

Look, everybody wants the guys looking at child porn and get caught. But you can't let that cloud your judgment on how we run justice in this country. We've got to abide by the United States Constitution. And this is actually a pretty good case showing you why, if you don't, the trouble that it can create. So they catch a couple of people on child porn. Great, okay. But the FBI is asking them the flag indecent material.

All right, where is your line on indecent material? And then the question is, are they, if the, does it just pop up on the computer? And they're like, oh, well, I saw it. There's nothing, I can't unsee it. I'm going to report it. Or are they going fishing? And in the case that Anna was telling you about, they went to a different part of this computer that had nothing to do with fixing it.

to go find that stuff. Why, the FBI is paying him 500 bucks a pop. So now you've incentivized every person that you're working with at the geek squad to go fishing, look at all parts of the computer to see if you could find anything on this person who asked you for help. Okay, and this is supposed to be a private corporation whose job it is to help you with your computer. Instead, they're looking to entrap you. And so totally unacceptable, not even close. And then after they give them that evidence, the FBI then goes and gets a warrant and then tears your place apart.

That's right. Exactly. So the way in which they obtain that warrant is not valid because they can't do that. They can't tell Geek Squad employees will give you money if you fish around and you find indecent material. So Best Buy has responded to this. And Best Buy has said, look, if in the process of fixing the computer, our employees come across, child pornography, they have not only a moral obligation, but in 20 states in the U.S., they have a legal or, yeah, legal obligation to come forward. But understand that, you know, this case is different because the employees implicated in this case or in these cases essentially went through the consumer's computers in order to find the indecent material. And Best Buy said three out of the four employees don't work there anymore. And the fourth

employee was reprimanded and reassigned because they took money. So if you're taking money to try to find incriminating stuff on people's computers who trusted you to fix it, that's obviously a problem for Best Buy. All of this is a huge problem for Best Buy because at this point, you know, how many other informants does the FBI have inside the Geek Squad and do you trust your computer to be handed over to them? So Best Buy has got to be in a bit of a panic here in terms of what it does to its country. customers. And look, one last thing, they find the child porn, we got to follow the right

procedure, but nobody's broken up about the defendants in those cases. Right. Right. But with the government, the slope always slips, right? We just did a story about how the cops used tasers. They were supposed to use them initially in place of shooting someone. Now they just using willy-nilly whenever the guy is not listening to him, right? Right. So it starts with child porn, which everybody's like, yeah, go get the sons of bitches, right? And then all of a sudden, it's indecent material, and all of a sudden they're fishing all of your computer to find any kind of dirt on you.

So you're, I usually don't like slippery slope arguments, but I think in this case, you're absolutely right. I mean, we see it with the NSA, for instance, and what Edward Snowden leaked to the public. I mean, they were just indiscriminately spying on all of us, every single one of us with, no probable cause and collecting metadata on us. So government overreach in that regard is already, you know, there's precedent for that. Now, with that said, though, what I find interesting is every job has rules, right? Every job requires you to conduct your work ethically and to follow certain rules.

So, for instance, in our case, we could make up super scandalous, salacious stories and probably increase our views. but we're making up stories. You can't do that, right? That is a fireable offense. Why is it that with law enforcement, in this case the FBI, they do something unlawful. You need a warrant to search people, but they got caught. Let's focus on the Best Buy employees and whether or not there were consequences for them. But for the FBI, did they get punished for this at all?

And the guy who had the child porn goes off. Exactly. He gets off. I'm not sure I'm happy about that. But the guys who started the problem in the first place, the FBI, of course, They're the people in power, so no ramifications. Until Trump hears this story, then he'll probably use it like, oh, the FBI, he knew it. I bet you that Andrew McCabe slash Hillary Clinton made them do it.

Okay. But, you know, guys, I actually do have one last point about this, because I think it's important. For all the people they didn't find child porn on, that didn't mean, that doesn't mean they didn't go through your computer and look at all your porn anyway. Right. Or look at all the other your finances, your, I don't know if you've got medical information, on your computer. I don't know what kind of info you have. Basically, the FBI told these guys go rummage through their whole computer, and so they know all that embarrassing stuff about you

because the FBI was paying them in case they could find something illegal in your computer. That's a terrible idea and an horrible invasion of privacy. Mark Cuban, he might be in a bit of trouble. Let's talk about it. A security guard or former security guard from a bar in Portland, Oregon, has come forward to corroborate allegations that Mark Cuban had sexually assaulted a woman at that bar back in 2011. Now, back in 2011, the woman did go to police and did file a police report, and cops did investigate the allegations, but they decided not to, the prosecutor decided not to pursue the case because there was a lack of evidence. However, now Christopher White, who was a security guard working at that bar at that time, said he saw the NFL, I'm sorry, NBA basketball team owner in the barrel room with his entourage and witness Cuban putting his arm around a woman for a photo.

Now, here is the relevant part of what Christopher White had to say. She jumped away like she was not happy with him. That's when the energy in the room kind of exploded. So the allegation by the woman was that he put his hand down her. her jeans, the back of her jeans, and penetrated her with his fingers. Now, Christopher White said, I didn't have a camera on his hand, but it sure looked like it was too low to be just on her back. And he also said that Cuban appeared to be heavily intoxicated. He was slinking around all over the place. I believe we told him, we couldn't serve him

any alcohol. Also, White says that Cuban would point his finger at women. with whom he wanted to be photographed and beckoned them. The way Cuban touched some of the women struck White as inappropriate because his hands moved well below the middle of their backs, he said. White also said that he was never interviewed by police, but later told a friend what he had witnessed. The friend confirmed to Oregonian Oregon Live that White had told him the same account. So they made sure to corroborate what White had said to his friends.

So look, these are interesting allegations and I'm curious to see how it plays out. Apparently the NBA has decided to launch an investigation against Mark Cuban and we'll see what the results of that investigation will be. But it is important to point out that the cops did interview several other employees at the bar and none of them said that they noticed anything strange. That's pretty important. So I have mixed feelings about this story and not because sometimes I get confused from Mark Cuban. So, look, on the one hand, why would she make it up?

And he remembers it from the time the security guard does and told a friend and that friend said, yes, he told me at the time. She remember, obviously, remembers it and filed with the police immediately and told her boyfriend and her boyfriend was really mad. Obviously, he remembers it from the time. So they're not making it up later. On the other hand, there are four witnesses who say they didn't see it. They can't say definitively that it didn't happen, but the cops talked to four people, the manager at the barrel room, two security workers and a bartender, all four said they saw no misconduct from Cuban.

Now, again, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It means they didn't see it, right? And then what he describes, the security guard who now says, Christopher White, who says that he thinks it might have happened. He didn't say that he saw him doing it. He said he saw his hand going lower than the waist. She jumped and then the energy in the room exploded. Other people say, and I question the other four witnesses a little bit because they

say, no, nobody noticed anything and it was no big deal. Well, she went filed with the police, so it seems more credible that the energy in the room would have changed, et cetera. But on the other end, Christopher White didn't actually see it, right? So, and it's from seven years ago, so. And there's no surveillance, because this all took place in a tent area where Mark Cuban was taking pictures with patrons from the bar. And apparently that tent did not have a camera.

Yeah. So it's, look, I think it's going to be a very difficult case to prove because, you know, it goes beyond just alleging something. You have to prove the case. There has to be some evidence. And I don't know if there is evidence outside of this one witness. who says that he noticed something strange, but again, didn't say definitively that he saw what the woman is alleging.

Yeah, and it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. And it doesn't mean that if it did happen, it's terrible. The allegation is that he put his hand inside or closed and then penetrated or with his finger. That's really, really bad. But we do have a court of law, and we do have a justice system, and you do have to prove it because what if it didn't happen? And so that's why we have a process. And so it's going to be really, really hard to prove whether it happened or it didn't happen.

And I don't know why it's coming back up seven years. It's not a politician. I know that he's a well-known guy and he has a TV show and he has a basketball team. And then there's the allegations that he was too drunk and he was gropey. You're allowed to be too drunk. So he's denying that he was that drunk, but so what? I don't get it. And Gropey, I don't know what that means. Did you see him assault someone? If you did, that means a lot. If you didn't see him, calling him Gropey doesn't mean anything. Right. And also, what might appear to be inappropriate conduct for you, I mean, it's really dependent on the women in the case, right? If any other woman was uncomfortable, you know, hopefully she'd go forward to the police. But anyway, we'll see how this all plays out. Yeah, so just one last time.

It's not to diminish the charges if they can be proven they are significant. But it's incredibly hard to prove, and there's witnesses in both directions. So take it for what it's worth. We got to take a break. Let's do that. And when we come back, an interesting law just passed in Minnesota. I want to tell you about it. So just come back.

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t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only, bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcast at apple. slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon