Alex Blumberg and Walter B. Birian discuss the current state of the American people and how they are being used as political props by the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury. We are at a crossroads. We either go into total subjugation or we go into Total Independence.
00:00:00.000Yeah, these empires are militarizing, building prisons, county cities, the feds here in Austin, the states, they just built a $93 million justice center.
00:00:14.000There's one elevator, lines of people, cops with submachine guns, black uniforms, combat boots, barbed wire, prisons everywhere, armored personnel carriers, cameras, microphones hanging out of the trees.
00:00:28.000They're militarizing against us, and why are they doing that?
00:00:59.000And currently, right now, I hear people screaming all over the country they're being raped financially, losing their houses, their jobs, everything else, and being threatened with being put in jail if they don't pay the extortion tariff.
00:01:15.000Yeah, I know people in South Austin who are retired, who have like maybe $30,000 in the bank they saved, they have nothing, they have one old car that barely works, and the IRS is...
00:03:01.000Everybody's got to tighten their belt.
00:03:03.000Well, here is a former Treasury agent, Joe Bannister.
00:03:07.000In the last two years, Mr. Bannister has gone public on national television, in the newspapers, you name it, about how the IRS is a collection agency for the private run-for-profit Federal Reserve that's, well, running this whole comprehensive annual financial report scam that we've just exposed.
00:03:26.000Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, more and more Americans are fighting this and coming out against the developments.
00:04:07.000Radio interviews with people that are interested in the truth of what's really happening.
00:04:12.000He also has a website that contains the letter that he wrote to the IRS commissioner, Charles Rossetti.
00:04:20.000And again, his name is Joe Bannister, and he was a special treasury agent assigned to the IRS to investigate people that were filing fraudulent tax returns or simply hiding assets.
00:04:34.000And thanks a lot for spending some time with us, Mr. Bannister.
00:04:39.000Basically, just start out and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you stumbled upon the truth.
00:04:47.000Well, I started out as a CPA. I worked in public accounting, and I decided that I wanted a little more excitement, and I decided to become a law enforcement officer in the federal government.
00:05:03.000His job is to collect income taxes and some excise taxes.
00:05:08.000And the Criminal Investigation Division, which I was a part, investigates criminal violations of those tax laws.
00:05:20.000What made you first want to investigate the Internal Revenue Code yourself and not just take the manuals and the codes that you used when investigating?
00:05:33.000Well, in December of 1996, I was listening to the radio here in the Bay Area, and I heard a lady named DV Kidd come on the radio, and she started saying some very unbelievable things, like the income tax was voluntary, that the 16th Amendment was never ratified, and that federal income taxes don't go towards providing revenue for the U.S. government.
00:06:01.000Claims were awfully outrageous, but she was talking about it on a radio show hosted by a man who I trusted, and that made me want to dig deeper and see what it was she was saying and what evidence she had to back it up.
00:06:28.000Basically, my investigation ended right about the time I was forced to resign.
00:06:33.000Can you tell us that story and also get into some of the things that you uncovered that are historical?
00:06:40.000Well, I'd say after a good year, year and a half, I basically in my mind came to the realization that all her claims were correct, that in fact the income tax was voluntary.
00:06:53.000Although it sounds kind of strange to be saying that because we all know that people go to prison, they lose their homes, they have their wages garnished.
00:07:02.000But the reason that the IRS constantly refers to the income tax as being voluntary is because of our U.S. Constitution and the severe limitations that are placed on the federal government's ability to tax us.
00:07:21.000There are only certain forms of constitutional taxation.
00:07:25.000Our income taxes do not, you know, provide revenue as I always believed they did.
00:07:30.000It's more like a cash advance type system where the federal government borrows fiat money from the Federal Reserve and then our income taxes are used as a vehicle to pay interest on that debt.
00:07:45.000Well, the printing of the money, another thing that I found out which totally surprised me.
00:07:52.000was that they print the money and there's no value to it and they, in a sense, print it out of nothing.
00:08:00.000They make it out of nothing simply because they have the power to force us to use the currency.
00:08:08.000And it's kind of like a rat in a maze.
00:08:10.000And we never question the maze itself, never think outside the box.
00:08:14.000Well, more and more people are in government standing up because it's becoming more and more clear, but it's still rare in the IRS, Mr. Bannister, for somebody to actually pull back and see this.
00:08:23.000What was it like, let's say, a year into your studies?
00:08:26.000Because you say you studied for about two years before you finally made your decision with the evidence.
00:08:30.000What was it like about a year into it?
00:08:32.000It was very difficult because I took the job thinking that I could use my financial skills to fight crime, go after the bad guys, and I did.
00:08:41.000Money launderers, drug smugglers, one particular case was even featured on America's Most Wanted, so I was really enjoying myself.
00:08:51.000So it really shook my belief system to its very foundations and it was really very difficult for me to continue.
00:09:00.000Doing the job and excelling at it because my mental state was...
00:09:07.000It was difficult to go to work every day, even though I wasn't daily arresting tax evaders or people that didn't file tax returns.
00:09:17.000I wasn't personally doing that, but I still just felt really...
00:09:22.000It was very difficult to just go through the day-to-day process of the job knowing what I was finding out.
00:09:28.000Because you found out that you were putting people in jail for something that the very system itself was doing.
00:09:33.000At least the agency as a whole was doing that, and I felt that sooner or later I needed to start speaking out publicly because I felt clearly a tax can only be voluntary or mandatory, and if it is voluntary, then it is wrong and illegal to...
00:09:51.000Prosecute, harass, seize money from people who don't volunteer.
00:09:57.000They throw this fiat money out there, we take the money up, and correct me if I'm wrong, we put labor into it, we work to attain it, and thus they steal our labor.
00:10:10.000I mean, for quite some time, I'd hear DV Kidd talking about...
00:10:16.000You know, the Federal Reserve and how we're slaves.
00:10:19.000And I didn't really understand what she meant.
00:10:21.000But when you really spend a little time and educate yourself on the way the process works, it's really very simple economics.
00:10:29.000And I don't have an economics degree or anything like that.
00:10:32.000But you can eventually see that when the source of the money supply is a bank and the destination of the money supply is a bank, And the controller of the money supply is a bank and the interest rates.
00:10:54.000You can't get out of the constantly increasing supply of money, which is another thing I noticed and never really thought about, is that although they constantly will tell you that we're trying to keep inflation under control, we're trying to minimize it, minimize the effects of it.
00:11:10.000If you look at it over a period of decades, it's always going up.
00:11:35.000Well, again, it's economic slavery, and it's something that...
00:11:40.000It took me until the age of 35 to go out and do my own personal investigation to understand how it works.
00:11:47.000I never learned it at the university, didn't learn it on the CPA exam, didn't learn it in the Big 8 accounting firm, and certainly didn't learn it at the IRS. That's right.
00:11:57.000You went to one of the biggest and best accounting schools.
00:12:00.000Well, I worked three years at KPMG Pete Marlick, but I never...
00:12:07.000I had to go out and learn it on my own.
00:12:09.000And luckily, DV Kidd was on a radio station that I gave some credibility to.
00:12:14.000If I had heard her just on a street corner or at a meeting somewhere, I probably would have just kept on walking.
00:12:21.000I mean, just basically, is there anything you want to say to the people in Austin, Texas, Central Texas, people that tape this show and send it out to friends and family as well?
00:12:28.000I guess the only thing I would say is I've seen evidence of an orchestrated campaign of painting a broad brush over people like Alex who really are telling you the truth.
00:12:43.000And I was one of those people that thought these were all kooky ideas, but I've come to realize that they are very true and very serious.
00:12:55.000And I'm very afraid for my own family, our own Americans' ability to make a living, to have a country that has a manufacturing base, to have a future.
00:13:10.000Our country is close to being destroyed economically through the banking and monetary system.
00:13:17.000And it's about time that people realize that they're being lied to.
00:13:21.000And they should start listening to people like Alex, because he is telling you the truth.
00:13:29.000And then what happened when you tried to show this to your superiors?
00:13:32.000Well, there came a point when I realized that what I had to do was consolidate all of my evidence and facts into a central location, so I decided to write a report.
00:13:48.000And it's very similar to what I do in the Treasury Department, which was I'd investigate an allegation, I'd go out and interview witnesses, gather evidence, gather documents, follow the paper trail, and then summarize all that evidence and present a report to my superiors, which would either recommend that the person be prosecuted.
00:14:11.000Or recommend that the investigation be discontinued because there was not enough evidence to sustain a prosecution.
00:14:18.000So I put that evidence together, and I submitted it to my immediate superior, and I asked that it be submitted right up the chain to Commissioner Rosati.
00:14:30.000I realized that what I was doing was going to rock the boat quite a bit, but I also knew that I had checked every one of these facts out.
00:14:40.000And was over 100% certain of my findings.
00:14:45.000On February 8th of 1999 is actually the day that I submitted my report.
00:14:51.000And I asked that the commissioner or his designee commit in writing within 30 days to review my report.
00:15:01.000And I was only asking for a commitment.
00:15:03.000I didn't say, I want all the answers in 30 days.
00:15:22.000February 11th, it went to my boss's boss, and from February 11th to February 17th, it went all the way to 1111 Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. And that's Rosati's office?
00:15:33.000That's where Rosati, his office is, as well as the Assistant Commissioner for Criminal Investigation.
00:15:39.000And I was told that my report not only went to Constitution Avenue, but at a minimum, the Assistant Commissioner for Criminal Investigation was aware of my report and the basics for what I was presenting.
00:15:51.000Believe me, your report went right to Alan Greenspan.
00:16:01.000Well, see, that's the one thing they guard at the upper levels is the great evil.
00:16:05.000And the one thing they cannot deal with...
00:16:08.000They cannot stop credible people from within their system coming out against them.
00:16:11.000And now you're doing magazine interviews and radio interviews, and you've got the evidence, you've got your website up.
00:16:16.000Listen, what would you say, before we finish the story, what would you say to the other IRS agents and the other law enforcement out there about this?
00:16:23.000I mean, you've taken a real risk here in what you've done.
00:16:27.000I'm taking an incredible risk, but I believe that the risk of doing nothing is even worse.
00:16:34.000What federal law enforcement officers need to realize, as well as every state and local officer, is that the laws that the IRS agents are enforcing, they shouldn't be enforcing.
00:16:48.000And I don't believe that they should be cooperated with.
00:16:51.000If somebody is being prosecuted for failing to file a tax return...
00:16:56.000And they have done the research and found that there is no requirement to file a tax return, then I feel it's morally and legally wrong, you know, for that person to be pursued, investigated, and prosecuted.
00:17:09.000You're saying it's color of law is what's being used?
00:17:12.000The whole thing's run out of ignorance.
00:17:25.000Thinking those things, but it was out of ignorance.
00:17:28.000And now that I've researched and found that a lot of those claims are actually true, my hope is that law enforcement people will start trusting the citizens more than they have.
00:17:41.000And the citizens, hopefully when they see more law enforcement officers being honorable about these issues, will start to trust law enforcement again.
00:17:50.000And we can get back to a country where...
00:17:52.000There's a lot of trust between the government and the governed because it's only with the consent of the governed that the government exists.
00:18:02.000I'm trying to hope that you guys can tune out from the sports and the bedlam and the diversions for just five minutes and realize what we're trying to tell you here.
00:18:54.000Literally, as you work, you keep hoping for the day that that debt is paid off and you are free, but it'll never come with the system as it stands.
00:19:46.000That I expected to find that it was all baloney.
00:19:50.000That they referred to court cases that didn't exist or they took court cases out of context.
00:19:56.000And I found that every court case that she referred to Or any of the people that she had in her book list referred to were correct, and they were right in the law library.
00:20:08.000And what type, I mean, how did that make you feel?
00:20:12.000Yeah, because I had been taught, or at least led to believe, that I would immediately find the error of the evidence, that it wouldn't be there.
00:20:23.000So they actually told you these guys are nothing but liars, you can't trust them.
00:20:28.000There's no sense in even looking into it because it's a bunch of useless, out-of-context arguments that have been strung together and they don't make any sense.
00:20:39.000Mr. Bannister, have you got any calls since you've gone public and been doing all these radio and magazine interviews?
00:20:43.000Have you got any calls back from the IRS? No, but I have...
00:20:48.000I do have a lot of support within the IRS. Like I said, there's a lot of good people in there, and they are supportive of me.
00:20:55.000Of course, there's some that don't understand, but I haven't read any of the evidence either.
00:21:03.000Again, I mean, if you realize what you've done here, it's so good.
00:21:07.000If we can convince the people in the mechanisms of enforcement that they're enforcing something that's criminal, we can try to get back to that constitutional form of taxation and have a strong country.
00:21:17.000Well, I don't know if you're probably familiar with a gentleman named Jack McLam.
00:21:20.000Yes, police against the New World Order.
00:21:22.000I understand that he's not well-liked by government officials, and I've met him a number of times, and I find him to be a very gentle man and somebody that just wants the Constitution to be followed.
00:21:38.000He's a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, the most highly.
00:21:42.000Decorated police officer in Phoenix, Arizona history, and he was at the top.
00:21:46.000I mean, they loved him in the community.
00:21:47.000They were talking about him going for chief, all the rest of this stuff, and finally he found out about drug running and things and corruption and tried to speak about it, and he got fired.
00:21:56.000The thing about Jack is he's got a little saying that tyranny will come to your door in a uniform, and I can't think of a more true statement, and especially...
00:22:11.000Coming from me, who kicked down a lot of doors and did a lot of search warrants and searched through a lot of drawers and files and under beds, that's exactly how tyranny will come to your home, is in a uniform or with a bulletproof vest on or with a 6-hour 9-millimeter, as I carried.
00:22:31.000And again, it's up to you guys out there in America, the police, the SWAT team commanders.
00:22:40.000You ought to ask yourselves, is it the crack dealer on the corner, or is it the white-collar criminal that you're worried about, the guy that's selling old lady's junk bonds?
00:22:48.000Or is it just the family that can't put the kids through school because of the federal income tax that goes right to the Federal Reserve?
00:22:55.000Again, that's true, private, run for profit.
00:22:58.000You know, we've aired the actual training videos the IRS has, or pieces of it, where they admit that it goes right to the Federal Reserve.
00:23:05.000In fact, more and more, they're just admitting the truth, aren't they?
00:23:07.000They're just flagrantly out there flapping in their faces.
00:23:10.000Well, a lot of what I found is, actually all of what I found, is publicly available.
00:23:16.000And it, I mean, the number of times that you see the word voluntary in the IRS manuals and in their pamphlets and booklets and instructions, I found it to be incredible.
00:24:07.000Jack McClam, and many, many others are fine people, and they really have seen some very ugly, the very ugly underside of certain portions of our government.