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00:00:40.000I mean, the fact is if the stock market takes a hit, usually the stock market moves in tandem or actually in inverse to the prices of precious metals because people see precious metals as a way of hedging against the possibility of economic downturns.
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00:01:50.000And they were very confident about announcing those impeachment charges.
00:01:55.000Nothing says you're going to fight corruption like standing at a podium being flanked by Maxine Waters, probably the most corrupt member of Congress in modern American history.
00:02:03.000Nothing says that you take the law seriously like putting next to you anti-Maxine.
00:02:07.000who has suggested from the very beginning that Donald Trump should be impeached literally the day of.
00:02:12.000Jerry Nadler of New York announced the impeachment charges today.
00:02:16.000He was flanked, as I say, by Maxine Waters and by Nancy Pelosi looking very serious and grimacing at the camera.
00:02:22.000This demonstrates how serious they are.
00:02:25.000They're just doing this because they love the Constitution.
00:02:28.000So here is Jerry Nadler announcing the charges.
00:02:31.000In service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
00:02:50.000The first article is for abuse of power.
00:02:54.000It is an impeachable offense for the President to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest.
00:03:08.000This gives rise to the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress.
00:03:13.000Here, too, we see a familiar pattern in President Trump's misconduct.
00:03:18.000A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people, and above Congress's power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our democratic institutions, is a president who sees himself as above the law. is a president who sees himself as above the law.
00:03:37.000Okay, this is an absurdity on its face.
00:04:05.000Legally speaking, you don't actually have to convict somebody of a crime in order to impeach them.
00:04:09.000If you just don't like the president, you could theoretically impeach them, but the reason that the founders wrote high crimes and misdemeanors into the Constitution of the United States is specifically because they were suggesting that you might actually have to fulfill some elements of criminality.
00:04:21.000So, The Democrats had originally, their narrative was that Donald Trump had traded military aid to Ukraine in return for getting Joe Biden.
00:04:31.000Then they brought in that out to say he traded military aid and a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in return for getting Joe Biden.
00:04:38.000Then they brought that out to say, no, it was just Donald Trump trying to do something, not necessarily about Joe Biden, just something that we don't like in return for military aid from Ukraine.
00:04:49.000And at that point, at the point when it shifted, Then the crime element sort of went away.
00:04:54.000Because the fact is, the evidence did not support their original charges.
00:04:57.000The original charge was that Donald Trump tried to militarize military aid to Ukraine in order to push the Ukrainians to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in anticipation of the 2020 election.
00:05:06.000And Trump's best defense, always and forever, was that he did not have the requisite intent for that.
00:05:13.000The defense would have been, and remains, that President Trump was simply looking back at 2016, he was angry about 2016, he saw Ukraine as corrupt, he didn't like giving aid to Ukraine anyway because he tends to be isolationist when it comes to giving foreign aid.
00:05:26.000And, when he looks at Ukraine's interference in the 2016 election, which, yes, was it at the same level as the Russians?
00:05:33.000Well, according to Politico and the New York Times, it did happen, and Trump knew that.
00:05:37.000And so, he sent Rudy Giuliani over there to dig up dirt on the Ukraine, right?
00:05:41.000On 2016, and all of the nefarious connections between the Obama administration and Ukraine, and to dig up dirt on corruption inside Ukraine, and all of the rest of this stuff.
00:05:51.000He did all of that with an eye toward 2016, not an eye toward 2020.
00:05:54.000Some of that is in the national interest.
00:05:56.000Some of that is not in the national interest.
00:05:58.000The only thing that would certainly not have been in the national interest, and here is where the Democrats run into trouble, the only thing that certainly would not have been in the national interest is Trump attempting to dig up corruption on Joe Biden for purposes of 2020, not for purposes of 2016, right?
00:06:14.000That would have been Trump just seeking specific political benefit for himself in anticipation of an upcoming election by using a corrupt foreign government as his tool, as his cutout.
00:06:25.000That was the original accusation that Democrats were making.
00:06:28.000Remember, they haven't been making that accusation anymore.
00:06:30.000And the fact that they did not put bribery on the list of impeachable charges demonstrates they don't have anything remotely approaching actual convictable criminal conduct.
00:06:40.000Remember, a few weeks ago, the Democrats were suggesting that Trump could actually be prosecuted for this.
00:06:44.000Not just that he'd be impeached, but he could be prosecuted for violation of federal bribery statutes.
00:06:48.000They moved, remember, linguistically, from quid pro quo to bribery.
00:06:52.000Originally, they said it was quid pro quo.
00:06:54.000And then they said, well, the American people don't understand quid pro quo.
00:06:59.000Mick Mulvaney, the OMB, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, he said that did happen.
00:07:03.000The question was, was it an improper quid pro quo, which amounts to bribery, or was it just kind of a yucky quid pro quo that wasn't criminal, but also was not great, which is the reality.
00:07:14.000But the Democrats are not charging bribery today.
00:07:17.000Because again, you have to fulfill certain elements and the Democrats don't have it.
00:07:19.000What are the elements of federal bribery?
00:07:21.000The elements of federal bribery under 18 U.S.C.
00:07:24.000201, it describes several ways to violate its provisions.
00:07:29.000Criminalizing and bribing a public official provides whoever directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official to influence any official act, to influence such public official, to commit fraud, to induce such public official, shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than 15 years or both.
00:07:47.000So, if you want to bribe a public official, and it would work both ways, you need a public official, the defendant's corrupt intent, the intent matters, in other words, it's corrupt intent, specific corrupt intent, Something of value offered and information generally has not been deemed to be a thing of value.
00:08:06.000This came up earlier on in the campaign when there were earlier on in the in Trump's presidency when there was talk about whether if Trump had received information from foreign sources in the 2016 election whether that would have amounted to a campaign finance violation because the idea was that you're not allowed to get Donations from foreign sources for campaigns.
00:08:25.000Is it a donation if you find out from a foreign source information about your political opponent?
00:08:55.000In the end, the impeachable offenses the Democrats are putting forth today are almost entirely empty.
00:09:01.000The only reason I say almost as opposed to entirely empty is because, again, I don't buy the Trumpian notion that he did nothing wrong, it was a perfect phone call, everything was hunky-dory, it was all on the up-and-up.
00:09:10.000The Ukraine was the country that was actually interfering in the 2016 election.
00:09:15.000Like, I don't buy a lot of that stuff, but that's the only reason I'm saying almost.
00:09:20.000The fact is, Trump could have done a lot of stuff that you don't like, that I don't like, that I think is yucky, and it doesn't rise anywhere near the level of impeachable because it's not even a crime.
00:09:28.000You couldn't charge the guy in court for this kind of stuff.
00:09:38.000So Jerry Nadler announcing these charges said, it is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the power of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest.
00:09:50.000Okay, that last phrase is so vague as to be completely non-colorable.
00:09:56.000I mean, there's just no way to interpret that phrase with any limiting principle whatsoever.
00:10:01.000So Jerry Nadler says, it's an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the power of his public office to obtain improper personal benefit.
00:10:08.000So that's number one, improper personal benefit.
00:10:10.000So what's the improper personal benefit here?
00:10:12.000Presumably, it would have been Trump receiving some sort of announcement that Biden was going to be investigated.
00:10:20.000Well, it depends, again, because it goes back to the intent question.
00:10:23.000The only reason that would be improper is because Trump knew, presumably, maybe, that Biden is innocent and he wants Ukraine to announce an investigation into an innocent guy to damage him politically.
00:10:31.000But what if Trump actually believes that Biden's kind of guilty of stuff back in 2016?
00:10:36.000What if he believes that that requires more investigation?
00:10:39.000What if he believes, in other words, the bill of goods that Rudy Giuliani has been selling him and that he's been reading in John Solomon at the Hill?
00:10:45.000Is that now him receiving an improper personal benefit?
00:10:48.000Or is that Trump acting in the public interest?
00:10:51.000And that is why the key to the Democrat charge here is the broadening out of the notion of intent.
00:10:57.000The broadening out of the notion of intent.
00:10:59.000Remember, bribery requires intent for me to get something from you for a corrupt purpose.
00:11:06.000I mean, bribery is not you and I make an exchange of goods, right?
00:11:10.000Every market transaction is a quid pro quo.
00:11:12.000It literally means this for that, right?
00:11:15.000So that last phrase, while ignoring or injuring the national interest is extraordinarily different from specific intent to commit a bribery offense.
00:11:23.000Because ignoring the national interest, I can charge Barack Obama with ignoring the national interest for like eight years.
00:11:28.000I think every single thing that Barack Obama did for pretty much eight years was ignoring or injuring the national interest.
00:12:11.000One is that I didn't know you were behind me, I didn't care that you were behind me, maybe, that would be reckless, but in one case, I would have specific intent to harm you, right?
00:12:20.000I'd turn around and I'd just punch you.
00:12:22.000The other would be, quote, ignoring or injuring you.
00:13:08.000Imagine a prosecutor who doesn't like me, and so instead of the crime being me assaulting you, right, me performing a battery upon you, turning around and punching you in the face, the crime becomes, well, just for Shapiro, if he leaps back and accidentally hits you, that's ignoring or injuring you, so we're gonna charge him pretty much the same way we would as if he had turned around and just plopped you in the face.
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00:15:09.000In fact, as I say, it looks like they have now tailored the crime to fit the activity.
00:15:14.000When they launched this thing, they thought they were gonna come up with an actual overt bribe.
00:15:18.000Instead, they couldn't come up with anything remotely approaching it because again, they weren't, and they don't think they will either.
00:15:23.000Let's point that out because this shades into crime number two that they're talking about.
00:15:28.000They believed that they were going to get Trump on the bribery offense.
00:15:31.000The bribery offense did not materialize.
00:15:33.000There's only one witness that they even talked to in the House Intelligence Committee who had ever had a conversation, ever, with Donald Trump.
00:15:42.000Not a single other person they had ever talked with had a conversation with Donald Trump.
00:15:47.000I believe at all, but certainly about Ukraine.
00:15:49.000And Gordon Sondland did not give them the intent.
00:15:52.000So, if you're the Democrats, you have two choices at that point.
00:15:54.000One is, you move forward with the bribery charge, but you wait to actually move forward with that until you talk to the people who have talked to Trump.
00:16:15.000And then you wait for the courts to adjudicate the subpoenas and then you talk to them and maybe they give you the goods and maybe they don't and then you move forward from there.
00:16:22.000That would be the honest way to do this.
00:16:47.000But when Jerry Nadler defines the crime, when he says it's an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the power of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest, that is not an impeachable offense.
00:18:19.000And when Barack Obama was sending, deploying his campaign resources, I mean literally taking his chiefs of campaign and sending them to Israel in order to go after Benjamin Netanyahu and oust him from office.
00:18:32.000He actually had his campaign people go to Israel to try and defeat Netanyahu in an election in Israel.
00:18:39.000Was that Barack Obama attempting to obtain him proper personal benefit?
00:19:47.000That means that every time she wants me to do something, it has to be done in the next 15 seconds or I am ignoring or injuring her interest.
00:20:02.000And by the way, injuring the national interest is a matter of perspective.
00:20:06.000Because I may even agree that Trump's perspective on Ukraine is wrong and bad and he should have given the military aid.
00:20:13.000But that's an opinion about foreign policy and that is subject to our elections.
00:20:16.000Elections are supposed to decide whether you agree with the candidates, or in this case the incumbent president, on whether he is indeed forwarding the national interest or injuring the national interest, ignoring the national interest, or pressing forward the national interest.
00:21:03.000Okay, then there is the obstruction of Congress charge.
00:21:08.000Okay, so this one is just absurdity on its face.
00:21:11.000So, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who, by the way, it's so funny, Republicans keep saying, let's get Schiff to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee.
00:21:20.000Let's get the guy who started this whole thing with the whistleblower, wrote the 300-page report, and let's have this guy testify.
00:21:33.000So, are the way that we are supposed to believe that obstruction works is that if people want you to testify and you say no, this constitutes a crime?
00:21:42.000According to Schiff, he said, But they do have accountability.
00:21:44.000Every bit as strong that President Trump obstructed Congress fully and without precedent and without basis in law.
00:21:49.000If allowed to stand, it would decimate Congress's ability to conduct oversight of this president or any other in the future, leaving this president or those who follow free to be as corrupt and malfeasant and incompetent as they would like with no accountability.
00:22:04.000A president can be as incompetent as incompetence is not an impeachable offense.
00:22:10.000Incompetence is not an impeachable offense.
00:22:13.000And again, when it comes to corruption, you got to prove the corruption or the American people can vote on whether they think somebody is corrupt.
00:25:38.000The Washington Post admits there is no precedent.
00:25:41.000In history or law, for the idea that you can impeach solely based on quote-unquote obstruction of Congress, doesn't exist.
00:25:46.000Because again, obstruction of Congress, put another way, is just called the executive branch is unitary.
00:25:53.000And the executive branch is not subject to all of the whims of Congress, unless the judiciary agrees that the executive branch's privileges are overruled by the ability of Congress to seek information.
00:26:05.000These sorts of battles happen every single day between the legislature and the executive.
00:26:11.000Any more than it was obstruction of Congress for Barack Obama to declare privilege over documents regarding Eric Holder and Fast and Furious.
00:26:19.000That was just called how this stuff works.
00:26:22.000And when it comes to the first charge, the abuse of power charge, again, weak T. You have now redefined the nature of bribery to avoid the troublesome pitfalls of having to fulfill the criminal elements.
00:26:35.000They took bribery, the crime of bribery, they stripped it of the corrupt intent, and they stripped it of the requirement that there be a thing of value given in exchange.
00:26:43.000So they stripped the content of the law, they called it abusive power, and they said he's guilty of that.
00:28:59.000Because again, I can promise you a half dozen things off the top of my head that Barack Obama did that fulfill the Democrats' definition of abuse of power.
00:29:09.000He received an improper personal benefit And ignored or injured American interest?
00:29:15.000How about his IRS going after his direct political opponents in 2012?
00:29:42.000Basically, we'll create a bill of attainder for Donald Trump, and then we'll craft the crime to meet the fact that we want Trump impeached.
00:29:49.000That's what we're talking about right here.
00:29:50.000Okay, we'll get into more of this in just one second.
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00:32:37.000It's dangerous for the country to push forward an impeachment on the basis of we don't like the guy, and we're not even going to attempt to mimic criminal charges in the impeachment.
00:33:32.000The Democrats in 2015-2016, they kept saying, if Donald Trump doesn't accept the results of this election, well, that would be bad for the country.
00:33:48.000If there is a legal basis to challenge an election, then wait for the legal basis to challenge an election.
00:33:52.000But we cannot, a republic cannot survive the idea that every time your opponent loses, every time your opponent wins, it's because the system has been gamed.
00:34:02.000Otherwise, why live in a republic at all?
00:34:03.000I mean, seriously, if you don't trust the system of voting to work, then you ought to pick up a gun, because I thought that that was pretty much the basis for the revolution.
00:34:11.000The basis for the revolution was no taxation without representation, that the colonies were not being properly represented in British Parliament, and so the American people said, no, we're not up for this, we want our representation.
00:34:21.000Well, if you believe that the system is designed to exclude you electorally, and that no matter what Trump does, if he wins, that means that he has cheated, I mean, isn't that the impetus for chaos and violence moving forward?
00:34:38.000And so that's providing the impetus for Democrats' impeachment efforts.
00:34:42.000Yeah, we don't have him on a crime, but we need to get him out because if we don't get him out, he's going to cheat again.
00:34:46.000Here's Jerry Nadler saying that over the weekend.
00:34:48.000We also are faced with a very direct threat that this president put himself repeatedly above the interest of the country and poses a threat to the integrity of the next election.
00:34:58.000That's not something we were talking about 20 years ago.
00:35:01.000He poses a threat to the integrity of the next election if he's allowed to continue to do what he's doing.
00:35:07.000Okay, so we don't have the grounds for impeachment, but we have to impeach him because if we don't impeach him, then the next election will be illegitimate.
00:35:12.000What do you think, by the way, that the other half of the American people who voted for Trump think about that?
00:35:17.000You know, 63 million Americans did vote for Trump.
00:35:21.000He was duly elected via the electoral college.
00:35:24.000What do you think they think about the legitimacy of a system where you are misusing and abusing the power of your authority to get rid of a guy because you are preemptively suggesting he's going to cheat?
00:35:34.000Do you think that the people on the other side are going to trust the system?
00:35:37.000So we've now built a system where nobody trusts the system.
00:35:40.000Because now, if Trump is impeached in the House, which he will be, and Trump loses, what do you think Trump's going to say?
00:35:45.000Do you think Trump's going to sit there and he's going to be like, no, you know what?
00:36:24.000And again, go back and listen to my podcast in 2016.
00:36:26.000I said it was dangerous, but Democrats since 2016 have done nothing but suggest that every election is illegitimate.
00:36:31.000Stacey Abrams is the legit governor of Georgia, despite losing to Brian Kemp by 55,000 votes.
00:36:36.000Donald Trump is not the legitimate president of the United... Jerry Nadler, the guy who is sitting there saying that 2020 will be illegitimate, he said that President Trump was legally elected, but he said in January of 2017, That Donald Trump was not a legitimate president of the United States.
00:36:54.000You can't have a republic when everybody believes that the system doesn't actually even go with what the people say.
00:37:01.000That every election is an act of theft.
00:37:06.000We are getting into seriously dangerous territory right here.
00:37:09.000And Democrats are embracing it, embracing it.
00:37:11.000And Nancy Pelosi, for her part, she says, She says she has not counted the votes in the House.
00:37:34.000President Trump, for his part, went on Twitter and he said to impeach a president who has proven through results, including producing perhaps the strongest economy in our country's history.
00:37:41.000To have one of the most successful presidents he's ever and most importantly, who has done nothing wrong is sheer political madness.
00:38:31.000But instead, you've decided to move forward with a process that typically requires at least some criminal conduct.
00:38:37.000Dan Goldman, the Director of Investigations at the House Intelligence Committee, said President Trump's persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security.
00:38:48.000Again, this is Goldman appealing to Democrats' perception of 2016 and the idea by Democrats that Trump stole the 2016 election to suggest that he will steal the 2020 election so we don't need grounds to impeach him.
00:38:58.000That alone is enough grounds to impeach him.
00:39:32.000I'm really, when I say I'm amazed, I'm really amazed that the Democrats did not at least attempt to push forward with a more audacious charge, even if they couldn't back it.
00:39:40.000I am shocked that they went with the weakness of these charges that, again, do not rise to the level of criminal activity.
00:39:45.000Okay, meanwhile, the other big story of the day yesterday is that the Inspector General Michael Horowitz of the Department of Justice released his report on the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
00:39:54.000And the media's take on the report is just completely wrong.
00:40:00.000So, Team Trump was saying this demonstrated there was systemic problems inside the FBI.
00:40:07.000Here is what the report actually found.
00:40:08.000OK, so the media played this as Trump needs to apologize to the FBI because Trump had suggested the FBI was corrupt top to bottom and that Trump had ripped the intelligence community.
00:40:18.000Here is is the panel on CNN led by Chris Cuomo saying Trump needs to apologize to the FBI for all of his mean words about the FBI.
00:40:26.000Wait until you hear what the IG actually found about what the FBI did here.
00:40:29.000The only arguable deep state activity today was by this President's Attorney General attacking the findings of his own agency and having a hand-picked prosecutor to justify his feelings about spying, doing his own probe.
00:40:46.000And his prosecutor, Paul Dicomi, broke protocol, bad-mouthed the Inspector General's findings while talking about his own ongoing investigation.
00:40:55.000So, will those accused of treason, and worse, get an apology?
00:41:01.000Okay, so no, they won't get an apology.
00:41:03.000And also it turns out that what the standard used by the IG in this report is a very low bar.
00:41:09.000Okay, so all the IG was finding, he says this in the report, all he was assessing is whether people violated the law.
00:41:16.000He was not assessing whether they made good decisions or whether those decisions were justified by evidence on any real level.
00:41:21.000He was simply asking whether they met the baseline, very bare legal standard to not break the law.
00:41:28.000So in other words, the IG was using the proper standard when it comes to prosecution.
00:41:33.000The standard Democrats actually should be using when it comes to impeachment.
00:41:37.000But, he said, I'm not really assessing whether the decision making here was good.
00:41:40.000And when he says evidence of bias, he's not saying that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page weren't biased.
00:41:45.000He's saying that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were unable to cram through all of their priorities in this investigation because there were other people, thank God, who were part of the process.
00:41:55.000Aside from people who have been, you know, wildly overestimating, I don't know many conservatives who are suggesting that the entire FBI was corrupt.
00:42:02.000Now, I was saying, yeah, there are some bad apples inside the FBI who obviously didn't like Trump and were pushing against him, but the idea that the entire FBI was top-to-bottom corrupt, I mean, I know FBI agents, it's just nonsense.
00:42:12.000So, here is what the IG actually found.
00:42:14.000So the standard used, quote, Our role in this review was not to second-guess discretionary judgments by department personnel about whether to open an investigation or specific judgment calls made during the course of an investigation where those decisions complied with or were authorized by department rules, policies, or procedures.
00:42:31.000We do not criticize particular decisions merely because we might have recommended a different investigative strategy or tactic based on the facts learned during our investigation.
00:42:38.000So he's saying this should not be read to be an assessment of whether the right decisions were made.
00:42:43.000The only question is whether they broke the law.
00:42:45.000He said the question we considered Was not whether a particular investigative decision was ideal or could have been handled more effectively, but rather whether the department and the FBI complied with applicable legal requirements, policies, and procedures in taking the actions we reviewed.
00:42:59.000More alternatively, whether the circumstances surrounding the decision indicated it was based on inaccurate or incomplete information or considerations other than the merits of the investigation.
00:43:08.000If the explanations we were given for a particular decision were consistent with legal requirements, policies, procedures, and not unreasonable, we didn't conclude that the decision was based on improper considerations.
00:43:17.000So in other words, if you could give any excuse at all that avoided violating the law, they would buy it.
00:43:25.000They found that the investigation was not initiated in bad faith.
00:43:29.000By the way, I tend to agree with that.
00:43:31.000Now, what you're seeing is that there are statements put out by Bill Barr and also John Durham, both of other members of the DOJ, right?
00:43:37.000Bill Barr is the Attorney General, John Durham...
00:43:40.000He's a US attorney who's doing his own investigation into the origins of Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
00:43:45.000Both of them came out and they said, well, we disagree with this assessment by the IG.
00:43:48.000Now remember the IG was only examining the FBI, was not examining the CIA, was not examining the other members of the intelligence community, not foreign countries, just the FBI.
00:43:59.000So according to this IG report, Crossfire Hurricane was opened as a full investigation.
00:44:04.000All of the senior FBI officials who participated in discussions about whether to open a case told us the information warranted opening it.
00:44:11.000So we concluded that under the AG guidelines and the Domestic Investigations Operation Guide, the FBI had an authorized purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain information about or protect against a national security threat or federal crime even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity.
00:44:28.000Additionally, given the low threshold for predication in the AG guidelines and the DIOG, we concluded that the friendly foreign government information provided by a government the U.S.
00:44:38.000intelligence community deems trustworthy, and describing a first-hand account from a foreign government of a conversation with George Papadopoulos, low-level Trump staffer, was sufficient to predicate the investigation.
00:44:48.000In other words, it's a very low standard for opening an investigation.
00:44:51.000There was a conversation that happened between George Papadopoulos, low-level Trump foreign policy aide, Who had a conversation with a member of the Australian government in which he bragged about having had a conversation with a guy named Joseph Mifsud, who was seen by the intelligence community as a Russian cutout, who had said that he had information that the Russians had access to Hillary Clinton's emails and would give them to the Trump campaign.
00:45:14.000And that was the predication for the opening of this investigation.
00:45:17.000Now, you combine that with Paul Manafort joining the campaign, and with the intelligence community being suspicious of Carter Page, and with Donald Trump's warm words toward Vladimir Putin, and this was apparently enough to open the investigation.
00:45:31.000So that sounds like there might be some different grounds for opening it.
00:45:34.000information from other persons and entities both in the U.S. and outside the U.S. based on the evidence collected to date and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was open.
00:45:47.000So that sounds like there might be some different grounds for opening it.
00:45:51.000Attorney General William Barr said the same thing.
00:45:53.000He says the inspector general's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S.
00:45:58.000presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.
00:46:04.000It is also clear that from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.
00:46:10.000Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump's administration.
00:46:17.000So people on the left are like, why are you ripping the IG?
00:46:19.000Well, maybe they have more information than the IG.
00:46:22.000We're gonna have to wait to see what Barr has.
00:46:24.000And people are saying Barr's a political hack, Durham's now a political hack.
00:46:27.000Okay, why don't we wait for the information they will present, and then we will determine where the political hackery occurred.
00:46:32.000Was it inside the IG's report, or was it here?
00:46:34.000Or is it possible that it's not political hackery on any side?
00:46:38.000That maybe the IG is just looking at the stuff inside the FBI and making the conclusion based on the bare legal requirement, and Barr and Durham have other information.
00:46:54.000The FBI blew it with regard to, for example, the Carter Page FISA warrant.
00:47:00.000The FBI was acting right at the margins of its authority in using confidential human sources to ferret out information from the Trump campaign.
00:47:08.000The report says, we found it concerning that department and FBI policy did not require the FBI to consult with any department official in advance of conducting confidential human source operations involving advisors to a major party's presidential campaign.
00:47:21.000We found no evidence the FBI consulted with any DOJ officials before conducting these operations.
00:47:26.000As we described, consultation at a minimum is required by Department and FBI policies.
00:47:30.000We include a recommendation to address the issue.
00:47:32.000So, even this report says, um, you guys were operating right at the boundaries of your authority, and in some cases beyond.
00:47:38.000There were some 17 inaccuracies and omissions in the Carter Page FISA warrant.
00:47:42.000According to the report, FBI personnel quote, fell far short of the requirements regarding the FISA warrant.
00:47:49.000The FBI, one lawyer, altered evidence that falsely cast Carter Page as a Russian spy.
00:47:56.000He says, listen, there are basically scrups at every single level here.
00:47:58.000So while the media are proclaiming that the FBI is exonerated, everybody's good, no evidence of bias, there are scrups at every level and all of the scrups cut in one direction.
00:48:06.000Here is NBC's Pete Williams acknowledging as much.
00:48:08.000Nonetheless, it says it found no political bias in seeking the FISA warrant on Page.
00:48:13.000What it says is the FBI basically repeatedly screwed up at every level Failing to pay enough attention to potential problems with steel.
00:48:22.000Failing to tell the Justice Department.
00:48:24.000And it says at one point that the FBI decided to seek this FISA warrant, even at the risk of being criticized for doing it later, because the report says FBI officials said they had to get to the bottom of a potentially serious threat to national security.
00:48:41.000Okay, so, again, this report, it ain't good for the FBI and anybody in the media telling you that it is.
00:48:46.000That's just because Trump may have, you know, over-pitched what he thought would happen here, but we still have to wait for Barr and Durham.
00:48:52.000There may be more information forthcoming.
00:48:54.000Okay, time for a quick thing I like and a quick thing that I hate.
00:48:58.000There is this bizarre notion in in anti-religious communities, that religious people never think about their religion at all, and that religious people spend all day walking around in sort of a blind stupor, thinking, oh, well, everything that happens is good, because God did it, and I don't suffer, and there is no suffering.
00:49:14.000And one of the examples they use is, oh, look at all those athletes who, every time they score a touchdown, they point to the sky, or they thank God after a game.
00:49:21.000Do they really think that God is making them win the game?
00:49:47.000He was asked about a bad game and he preaches a basic religious message with regard to the impact of God in everyday events.
00:49:59.000I've been able still to get to know people, get to know these guys through an injury.
00:50:02.000Though I might not be playing, that is difficult from a fleshly perspective.
00:50:06.000But from the spiritual perspective, from my heart, I've been able to grow as a human being to where I feel like I'm at a better situation here as a person than I was before because of the trial I just went under.
00:50:16.000And I know that's a sermon in itself, but that's how I go through life.
00:50:19.000And the good Lord's been there to, you know, it's not always about prosperity.
00:50:22.000I don't believe in the prosperity gospel.
00:50:24.000I believe if you read the word of God and you understand it, There's trials along the way, but they equip your heart to be who you are.
00:50:32.000The religious perspective is that not that everything you do is going to earn you wealth and happiness, and that if you're religious, that all good things come to you.
00:50:57.000But we do believe that if you overcome those trials, if you engage in those trials, if you engage in that struggle with justice in the universe and God, that it makes you stronger, equipped, better equipped to handle those trials.
00:51:08.000Good for Nick Foles, good for Nick Foles, being a good messenger for a godly message.
00:51:11.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:52:26.000It is a movie about obnoxious people being obnoxious, not giving a crap about their child, being obnoxious to each other without caring about the kid, and predicating a divorce on essentially the basis that they want to have different career paths.
00:52:40.000I mean, you want to know why, like, the fact that people are finding this emotionally affecting, I think, is quite a problem for people's perception of morality.
00:53:50.000If either of them took 15 seconds to consider the fact that they have a child whose life will be devastated by the fact that they are getting divorced...
00:53:57.000Then maybe they might think about the fact that actually they share a lot in common, and if they could make themselves better, then they'd stay together for the kid.
00:54:04.000It's very angering because I think that it is a generalized perception on marriage, that marriage is just there for the good of the two people, as opposed to being about the creation and raising of the child.
00:54:13.000And it does demonstrate the stupidity of our divorce system, which is really quite garbage-y.
00:54:17.000But aside from that, the people in this movie are so obnoxious that I legitimately could not tell Whether the director is attempting to mock them.
00:54:27.000When you watch the trailer it's pretty obvious that it's meant to be sincere, but I... I watched the movie and I kept thinking to myself, is he making fun of the shallowness of these people?
00:54:34.000Because if he's not and he's being sincere about why we're supposed to care about these people, that doesn't say a lot of great things about the writer and director.
00:54:40.000And doesn't say a lot of great things about the people who find this movie supremely emotionally affecting.
00:54:46.000Like, why don't any of these people ever, like, sit and have a think about the kind of life they want to create for their child, as opposed to themselves?
00:55:48.000Hey everybody, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:55:51.000You know, some people are depressed because the American Republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moon has turned to blood.
00:55:57.000But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.