Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - December 01, 2023


Episode 136 LIVE: Santos Expelled – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz


Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

131.83427

Word count

5,570

Sentence count

366

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On a historic day, Rep. George Santos of New York s Third District was expelled from the United States Congress by a more than two-thirds vote. We break down the arguments, who voted, and what it means for the House of Representatives.

Transcript

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Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:04:46.000 You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
00:04:48.000 Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
00:04:53.000 We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight. 1.00
00:04:58.000 I want to thank you, Matt Gates, for holding the line.
00:05:02.000 Matt Gates is a courageous man.
00:05:05.000 If we had hundreds of Matt Gates in D.C., the country turns around.
00:05:09.000 It's that simple.
00:05:10.000 He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country.
00:05:14.000 Matt Gates.
00:05:16.000 It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
00:05:21.000 We will save America!
00:05:23.000 It's choose your fighter time!
00:05:25.000 and send in the Firebrands. - Welcome back to Firebrand.
00:05:35.000 We are broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. on a historic day when Congressman George Santos of New York's 3rd District was expelled from the United States Congress by a more than two-thirds vote.
00:05:50.000 We're going to break down the arguments, who voted each way, and what it means for the House of Representatives.
00:05:55.000 This effort was spearheaded by Anthony D'Esposito, someone who has not yet served his first full year in the United States Congress, but somehow felt the need to set new precedent by advancing this expulsion.
00:06:08.000 And you had really quite the debate, high emotions, and for all the time that the United States Congress has existed, there's been pretty clear benchmarks as to what it takes to muster an expulsion and And Congressman D'Esposito, again, not having served his first full year here, believed it was upon him to set a new standard, the D'Esposito standard for due process.
00:06:35.000 And here is that brazen admission.
00:06:37.000 Take a listen.
00:06:40.000 The American people expect us to do the right thing.
00:06:45.000 The American people are watching for us to do the right thing.
00:06:49.000 And if we have an opportunity in this great institution to start a new precedent, one, that means we hold members of the House of Representatives to a higher standard, Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pretty confident that the American people would applaud that.
00:07:08.000 I'm pretty confident that the American people expect that.
00:07:12.000 And I hope that tomorrow, in this great chamber, we set that precedent, Mr. Speaker.
00:07:19.000 We set a precedent that we, as members of America's oldest institution, are held to a higher standard.
00:07:30.000 I guess we are all so fortunate that we have Anthony D'Esposito to set the higher standard for all of us.
00:07:37.000 But is it a higher standard when you lower due process?
00:07:42.000 I had debate in response to Congressman D'Esposito that I offered on the floor.
00:07:46.000 Take a listen.
00:07:49.000 I'd like to yield as much time as he may consume, my colleague from Florida, Mr. Gates.
00:07:54.000 The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
00:07:56.000 I do not believe that the Long Island crew is acting in bad faith, just exceedingly bad judgment.
00:08:02.000 And here's why.
00:08:04.000 Since the beginning of this Congress, there's only two ways you get expelled.
00:08:09.000 You get convicted of a crime, or you participated in the Civil War.
00:08:14.000 Neither apply to George Santos.
00:08:17.000 And so I rise not to defend George Santos, whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter.
00:08:29.000 Now, let's speak to due process.
00:08:34.000 Mr. Santos hasn't been convicted of anything, but we haven't even moved to expel the people who have.
00:08:40.000 Mr. Bowman pled guilty to a misdemeanor for his little fire alarm stunt weeks ago.
00:08:47.000 So like, while the Ethics Committee is marching to throw George Santos out of Congress, they take no action as to someone who actually pled guilty to a crime?
00:08:56.000 What's that all about?
00:08:58.000 And then there's all this talk about, well, he could have come and testified to the Ethics Committee, and he didn't.
00:09:03.000 So he had his due process.
00:09:04.000 But that belies the fact that he faces a trial and had Mr. Santos testified before the Ethics Committee, an argument could have been made that he waived any of his rights that he would have had at trial that any American would enjoy.
00:09:17.000 So it was a procedural double bind that shouldn't be held against Mr. Santos as some sort of adverse inference.
00:09:26.000 Let's also talk about this precedent.
00:09:28.000 The fact pattern as to Mr. Santos is remarkably similar to the fact pattern of former Representative Duncan Hunter.
00:09:36.000 Duncan Hunter used campaign money on girlfriends and trips and home improvements and all sorts of personal lavishes.
00:09:44.000 He was indicted for those crimes and continued to serve in Congress.
00:09:48.000 He pled guilty To a number of those crimes and continued to serve in Congress.
00:09:54.000 He was in Congress for like an additional pay period after having pled guilty to the very same things that Mr. Santos has been indicted for.
00:10:04.000 And so I think it's persuasive to me that Mr. Higgins and Mr. Nell's two law enforcement officials with sterling reputations are here Not necessarily to defend Mr. Santos, but to defend this precedent and this due process that is being shattered.
00:10:19.000 And I was struck when the author of this resolution said the quiet part out loud.
00:10:24.000 He didn't try to shoehorn the expulsion of George Santos into some existing construct or precedent.
00:10:32.000 He said, yep, we're making a whole new precedent.
00:10:35.000 We're making whole new rules right now, but he defends that by saying that the new rules are better, that it's a higher standard.
00:10:43.000 So we should just throw away everything that's happened from the first Congress to the 118th because the new precedent is more robust.
00:10:50.000 The problem is it's a lower standard for due process without merit.
00:10:56.000 Mr. Speaker, whatever Mr. Santos did with Botox or OnlyFans is far less concerning to me than the indictment against Senator Menendez, who's holding gold bars inscribed with Arabic on them from Egypt while he is still getting classified briefings today.
00:11:18.000 But he's not getting thrown out of the Senate.
00:11:20.000 He's getting classified briefings under indictment for bribery.
00:11:24.000 But what?
00:11:25.000 Because Santos was buying Botox and OnlyFans, we gotta throw him out?
00:11:31.000 If George Santos is convicted, he ought to be expelled.
00:11:35.000 But until then, it is an incredibly dangerous thing for people in Washington, D.C. to substitute their judgment for the judgment of voters.
00:11:47.000 Winston Churchill said that, you know, in a democracy, people get the government that they deserve.
00:11:54.000 Well, the people of Mr. Santos' district elected him.
00:11:57.000 And like, this is not some district in rural Mississippi with like one newspaper.
00:12:02.000 This is New York City!
00:12:05.000 And George Santos rolls in there, wins, and you know what?
00:12:08.000 It's between him and his voters, him and the justice system, and the fact that the Ethics Committee has done this incredible violation of precedent will do grave damage to this institution for many years to come, because now there's no requirement Of any conviction, there is a departure from the precedent from the Duncan-Hunter matter and many others, and I fear what that may indicate lies ahead for the future of due process in the House of Representatives.
00:12:37.000 I yield back.
00:12:40.000 There is no standard anymore for expulsion.
00:12:43.000 If the standard was conviction of a criminal violation, then Jamal Bowman would have been subject to expulsion.
00:12:52.000 But Congressman Jamal Bowman, after his fire alarm stunt, didn't even have a single adverse action against him by the ethics committee.
00:13:02.000 That's right.
00:13:03.000 The matter of Jamal Bowman was referred to the ethics committee And the Ethics Committee said, nothing to see here.
00:13:10.000 We declined to take any action against someone who pled guilty to a crime.
00:13:17.000 So that's not the standard.
00:13:19.000 Is the standard lying?
00:13:21.000 George Santos told lies, so we've got to throw them out.
00:13:24.000 If we're throwing out every liar in Congress, we can get rid of a lot of the seats on the House floor.
00:13:29.000 And by the way, on the live stream, you seem to take particular note of the fact that if we're throwing out liars, why don't we start with Adam Schiff, not George Santos?
00:13:40.000 And what if it's just, we throw out people we don't like?
00:13:45.000 How about Rashida Tlaib? 0.97
00:13:46.000 You see, all of this is crazy.
00:13:48.000 There was a standard that held for hundreds of years.
00:13:53.000 But some New York freshmen who've been here for all of 11 months decide it's upon them to set a new precedent, a higher precedent. 0.99
00:14:02.000 How foolish. 0.99
00:14:04.000 How short-sighted. 0.99
00:14:07.000 It's important to note this is not on Mike Johnson.
00:14:10.000 So some of you have asked me, well, if this was something that we shouldn't have done, if it was something Speaker Mike Johnson was against, then why did Mike Johnson allow the vote to come to the floor?
00:14:21.000 And as we've discussed, kind of the intricacies of procedure on this program, when there are certain matters that By House rule that are privileged, which means they don't require the consent of either party's leadership or the floor managers or the leaders or the speaker to have a vote.
00:14:41.000 Any member can force a vote on something that is privileged.
00:14:47.000 And I gotta say, I don't disagree with that paradigm because I've used it quite frequently.
00:14:52.000 I use the privilege of one member to force votes on where we ought to have U.S. troops.
00:14:59.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene and I have used the privilege to try to advance impeachments that we think need to be voted on for people like Mayorkas. 0.99
00:15:09.000 And I think perhaps considerably more folks within the Biden administration, Joe Biden himself, You also have privilege to remove a speaker.
00:15:22.000 And so we don't disagree with the concept that any member should have privilege to bring certain things to the floor, but it's important when you're trying to assess who is accountable for this foolishness to not visit that on House Speaker Mike Johnson.
00:15:38.000 Santos has been expelled.
00:15:41.000 The governor of New York has been notified there'll be a special election.
00:15:48.000 So let me just break down the math for you practically and what this means.
00:15:53.000 Republicans had a four-seat majority.
00:15:57.000 Okay?
00:15:58.000 Expel Santos, that's a three-seat majority.
00:16:02.000 Congressman Bill Johnson of Ohio, he's taking a job to be president of Youngstown State.
00:16:07.000 No one can blame him for that.
00:16:09.000 Kind of a dream job.
00:16:11.000 Now it's a two-seat majority.
00:16:14.000 Every photograph of Kevin McCarthy's offices indicate that he's packing up, and I don't think it's just for the holiday break.
00:16:21.000 So if McCarthy departs, now you're down to a one-seat majority.
00:16:26.000 Do you know how many octogenarians we have in the Republican conference?
00:16:31.000 God forbid any of them were to take their last breath.
00:16:36.000 This action, unprecedentedly, Would be the reason Democrats could take control of the House of Representatives.
00:16:45.000 So the math is very, very important.
00:16:48.000 There was more stirring debate, more hypocrisy that I want to showcase for you.
00:16:54.000 This was an exchange between Ohio Congressman Max Miller and George Santos.
00:17:00.000 And just for background here...
00:17:02.000 Congressman Miller previously served in the Trump White House and had a romantic relationship with Stephanie Grisham.
00:17:10.000 Stephanie Grisham then wrote a book saying that Max Miller used to beat her. 1.00
00:17:17.000 I don't think Max Miller beat anyone.
00:17:19.000 I don't know.
00:17:20.000 But I don't jump to conclusions based on allegations.
00:17:24.000 I've lived too much life and gone through too much to pass judgment just on the face of allegations in the absence of evidence.
00:17:33.000 But Max Miller and George Santos had quite the testy exchange on the House floor to take a listen.
00:17:40.000 I myself have been a victim of George Santos and as well as other members of Congress in terms of defrauding through public donations.
00:17:46.000 I had received an ethics complaint from the FEC, which I had to spend tens of thousands to defend myself. 0.99
00:17:51.000 You, sir, are a crook. 0.97
00:17:52.000 I know I should direct my comments to the chair. 1.00
00:17:54.000 I yield back.
00:17:57.000 The gentleman's time has expired.
00:18:00.000 The gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, is recognized.
00:18:03.000 I'd like to move to have the gentleman from Ohio's words stricken from the record, please.
00:18:10.000 The gentleman's request is not timely, but I would remind members to direct their remarks to the chair.
00:18:22.000 The gentleman is recognized.
00:18:24.000 Mr. Speaker, hypocrisy, as I mentioned. 0.98
00:18:31.000 My colleague wants to come up here, call me a crook. 0.99
00:18:35.000 Same colleague who's accused of being a woman-beater.
00:18:40.000 Are we really going to ignore the facts that we all have passed and we all have the media coming out against us on a daily basis?
00:18:51.000 We're back live and a lot of you are asking about Senator Menendez.
00:18:56.000 You on the live stream are very very upset about the fact that Bob Menendez is caught with these gold bars from Egypt While he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's still in the Senate getting these classified briefings, and yet George Santos is expelled.
00:19:18.000 And here's something quite rich, a tweet that we get from Olivia Beavers of Politico, who notes that Senator Menendez's son, who serves in the House of Representatives, actually voted to expel George Santos.
00:19:35.000 So someone should ask, Representative Menendez if he believes that allegations alone justify removal.
00:19:45.000 And guess what?
00:19:46.000 It looks like he does.
00:19:47.000 That's what his voting card says.
00:19:49.000 Would he vote to remove his own father?
00:19:53.000 Maybe we ought to have a sense of Congress that Senator Menendez shouldn't be serving in the Senate.
00:19:58.000 Put that up and see how Representative Menendez votes on it.
00:20:03.000 Again, it goes back to the point I made at the top of this report.
00:20:07.000 There is no standard.
00:20:08.000 There is no bright line.
00:20:11.000 It's now a function of your popularity in Congress.
00:20:15.000 And that is so beneath the dignity of this institution.
00:20:21.000 So who did it?
00:20:23.000 What Republicans joined with Democrats to weaken our majority, to erode precedent and due process because they had to expel George Santos?
00:20:35.000 105 of them.
00:20:38.000 Let's put those up.
00:20:39.000 Let's put those names up.
00:20:40.000 I'm going to leave them up so that you have an opportunity to see the 105 Republicans who think it's better to set a new precedent and diminish the important due process that our nation is founded on.
00:20:55.000 And there are a few names here that are particularly interesting to me because four of the people who voted to expel George Santos from Congress stood in the way of impeachment of Mayorkas.
00:21:15.000 Those representatives would be Cliff Benz of Oregon, Virginia Fox of North Carolina, Mr. Duarte of California, and Mr. Buck of Colorado.
00:21:25.000 Those four members sought fit to expel Santos, but protect Mayorkas. 0.91
00:21:34.000 That is a tough, tough sell.
00:21:36.000 That's Benz, Buck, Duarte, and Fox.
00:21:40.000 No impeachment for Mayorkas, but expulsion for George Santos.
00:21:46.000 Unreal.
00:21:48.000 There was also activity in the Senate that was bizarre and weird this week that I want you to be able to see.
00:21:55.000 Now, the Senate, of course, has the advise and consent function in the Constitution for federal nominees to the bench, to Article III courts.
00:22:04.000 So the Judiciary Committee spends a lot of time in the Senate going over who the president is nominated to serve on one bench or another.
00:22:10.000 They debate, they discuss.
00:22:13.000 Sometimes I refer to the Senate as the House of Lords.
00:22:16.000 They have No real time constraint when they're on the floor.
00:22:22.000 They call themselves the most exclusive club in the world.
00:22:25.000 The most deliberative body in the world.
00:22:29.000 Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:22:35.000 And just remarkably, he started moving to votes in the absence of full, robust, and complete debate on the nominees.
00:22:48.000 Usually the Senate is viewed as the collegial body, right?
00:22:52.000 They're the saucer that cools the tea.
00:22:57.000 See if this looks deliberative to you.
00:22:59.000 Take a listen.
00:23:02.000 Mr. Chairman.
00:23:04.000 Mr. Chairman, don't we get the opportunity to speak?
00:23:07.000 We're in a roll call.
00:23:08.000 So you're telling us to shut up?
00:23:11.000 Even though multiple members have asked to speak?
00:23:12.000 You want us to shut up? 0.93
00:23:13.000 Is that what you're saying?
00:23:15.000 A lot of people didn't speak on the two nominees before.
00:23:18.000 Would you raise your hand if you did not speak?
00:23:22.000 I did not have a chance to speak.
00:23:25.000 Senator Blackburn had a chance to speak.
00:23:27.000 We've got several folks, Mr. Chairman, who didn't have a chance to speak.
00:23:30.000 We want to tell you again why these nominees are awful.
00:23:36.000 Or in Senator Corden's case, tell you for the first time.
00:23:40.000 You're just going to sit there and ignore us?
00:23:44.000 I'm waiting to be heard on the nominee.
00:23:46.000 I've requested several times to be heard on the nominee.
00:23:51.000 So now I guess Senator Durbin's not going to allow women to speak either.
00:23:54.000 I thought that was sacrosanct in your party.
00:23:56.000 Next is Judge Yumi Lee, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the...
00:24:00.000 Who has not been allowed to speak on that nominee?
00:24:04.000 Mr. Chairman, you just destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate.
00:24:12.000 And you've set a precedent which will be repeated every time one party or the other takes advantage and takes the low road.
00:24:21.000 It sets a precedent that will then become the norm.
00:24:26.000 Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:24:31.000 Up next is Judge Julie Lee, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
00:24:34.000 Who has not spoken on this nominee?
00:24:36.000 I don't know what drives this, Dick.
00:24:39.000 I really don't.
00:24:40.000 Mr. Chairman, is it you driving it, or is it your staff driving it, or is it the White House driving this?
00:24:47.000 This is completely inappropriate not to let us be heard on these nominations, and you know that.
00:24:56.000 Yeah, senators don't really like it when you cut them off and don't give them the opportunity to give remarks.
00:25:01.000 But it begs the question, what about the debate from Lindsey Graham or Senator Cornyn or Senator Blackburn was like so concerning to Dick Durbin that he didn't want to hear it?
00:25:14.000 I know one thing Dick Durbin didn't want to have happen.
00:25:18.000 Marsha Blackburn was pretty sharp on this point.
00:25:22.000 So you've got a real move in the Senate to try to discredit the Supreme Court right now.
00:25:27.000 They don't like the decisions that have come out of the Supreme Court with Trump having fundamentally remade the court and decisions starting to align with originalism through the work that they're doing and the decisions that are coming out.
00:25:41.000 So they want to discredit the court and they've really put a target on Clarence Thomas.
00:25:46.000 We've talked about that a lot on the program.
00:25:50.000 And so they're sending out all these subpoenas, all of these demands to try to just kind of rough up, smear, and imperil the court.
00:26:01.000 And so Senator Blackburn, Marsha Blackburn out of Tennessee, she's really one of my favorites over there. 0.92
00:26:06.000 She's a firecracker. 1.00
00:26:08.000 And she thought, well, if we're sending out subpoenas, how about we send some out for the Epstein flight logs?
00:26:16.000 How about get that information, Senator Durbin?
00:26:19.000 How about the Judiciary Committee be more worried about who was flying around with Epstein rather than who was flying around with Clarence Thomas?
00:26:27.000 Here's how that went.
00:26:28.000 Take a listen.
00:26:32.000 And since we're in the business of issuing subpoenas now, here are a few more that I've filed.
00:26:40.000 A subpoena to Jeffrey Epstein's estate to provide the flight logs for his private plane.
00:26:46.000 Given the numerous allegations of human trafficking and sexual abuse surrounding Mr. Epstein, I think it is very important that we identify everybody that was on that plane and how many trips they took on that plane and the destinations to which they arrived.
00:27:11.000 So Senator Blackburn made that request and Senator Durbin blocked it.
00:27:17.000 Blocked the request to send a subpoena for the Epstein flight logs.
00:27:22.000 You have to wonder why.
00:27:24.000 You see, the Democrats don't like when Republicans like Senator Blackburn punch back, and she did effectively. 0.96
00:27:31.000 And sometimes you really reveal more about how these folks are thinking by what they're willing to imperil rather than what they're willing to advance.
00:27:40.000 Incredibly revealing.
00:27:41.000 Now, I saw that on the Gateway Pundit, a website that I read.
00:27:47.000 They do breaking news.
00:27:49.000 They do investigative reporting.
00:27:51.000 They do opinion pieces.
00:27:52.000 They publish op-eds.
00:27:55.000 The Gateway Pundit is a great website.
00:27:57.000 It's a great source for analysis and information and opinion.
00:28:02.000 Well, we went back to harvest the clip to show you on this program from the Gateway Pundit, and I have breaking news for you.
00:28:11.000 The United States House of Representatives has blocked access for congressmen and congressional staff to the Gateway Pundit.
00:28:20.000 That's right.
00:28:20.000 If you try to go to the Gateway Pundit, the website is blocked according to House of Representatives policy.
00:28:28.000 So we're going to fix that.
00:28:29.000 I don't know who thought that was an appropriate action, but we're going to get to the bottom of it.
00:28:36.000 I'm going to be speaking with the House Administration Committee, Chairman Stile, Speaker of the House if necessary.
00:28:42.000 We're not going to have the House censoring our access to conservative news and to conservative analysis.
00:28:50.000 Speaking of blocking access to information, that is the story of what's going on with unidentified aerial phenomenon right now.
00:28:59.000 We've had Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee on the program before to talk about UAPs, UFOs, And right now we're in the process of negotiating the National Defense Authorization Act and we are trying to get provisions into that bill that require the DOD and the CIA and the FAA and the NSA and the FBI and state and local authorities to get this information available for review by members of Congress and ultimately the
00:29:29.000 American people.
00:29:30.000 The government has been holding secrets for too long on UAPs.
00:29:34.000 And I'm not here to tell you that they're little green men.
00:29:39.000 Witnesses have told us that.
00:29:41.000 Witnesses have talked about biologics that are non-human, that are not of Earth origin.
00:29:48.000 Whistleblowers have come forward from the CIA to talk about aircraft that have been recovered.
00:29:54.000 But I'm about the facts and the evidence.
00:29:58.000 I'm a lawyer by trade.
00:30:01.000 So, just as in the Santos matter, allegations alone are insufficient.
00:30:05.000 But when we see the allegations, and then we try to do the investigation to find out, okay, is this some debris?
00:30:13.000 Is this a foreign adversary?
00:30:15.000 Is it something even more concerning and nefarious?
00:30:19.000 All we get is the runaround.
00:30:21.000 While a few of us had had enough, we had a bipartisan press conference to go over what we were doing to try to get answers.
00:30:29.000 Take a listen.
00:30:32.000 We are here today because all of the whistleblowers, the hearings, the investigations, the discussions, the work that we have done, have culminated in a negotiation that is happening in real time right now over the National Defense Authorization Act.
00:30:48.000 A piece of legislation I care deeply about as a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
00:30:52.000 And in that negotiation, we are fortunate that the amendment Congressman Burchett offered to the House version of the NDAA provides a beachhead for us to be able to get the answers and to be able to demand the transparency that is necessary.
00:31:09.000 It is insufficient, though, to seek this transparency from the Department of Defense alone.
00:31:14.000 We have to have cooperation so that Title 50 authorities through the intelligence community are also subject to review.
00:31:24.000 That the FAA, the NSA, the FBI, even state and local authorities that have information are able to have that catalogued, assessed, and then put out before the public.
00:31:35.000 It is my belief that the Burchett Amendment is the strongest position when coupled with the additional authorities and additional agencies that I've just mentioned in order to be able to get to that productive result.
00:31:50.000 Unfortunately, we have members of the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee who right now are frustrating the effort that we are putting forward In order to be able to obtain the information and to move forward.
00:32:05.000 I think it is productive that Senator Schumer has engaged on this issue.
00:32:10.000 He's not an insignificant person in this town.
00:32:13.000 But I am concerned about embracing a disclosure paradigm that mirrors the JFK assassination disclosure paradigm.
00:32:23.000 I don't know that there are any Americans Who would view the JFK assassination disclosure paradigm as some sort of vaulted standard?
00:32:33.000 Time and again, we've seen that system fail.
00:32:36.000 I also don't believe that, pursuant to the Schumer language, we would have to wait 25 years in order to get this information.
00:32:44.000 25 years is a long time when you consider what Mr. Burch had said about the lack of Of veracity that the government has provided to the people up until this point.
00:32:55.000 And so we're here to call for the most inclusive, most robust provisions possible to be included in the NDAA. We don't want to see a lot of log jams created.
00:33:09.000 In the event that there's any designation of a national security concern regarding disclosure, we believe that this information can no longer be siloed with the entities that have frustrated disclosure.
00:33:23.000 That there should be broader briefings to members of Congress, that the Oversight Committee, which many of my colleagues here serve on, should be receiving those briefings, that the Armed Services Committee should be receiving those briefings, and it should not just be the fiefdom Of the Intelligence Committee and the Intelligence Community.
00:33:40.000 And if we achieve that objective, I think we can start to restore some of the trust the public has.
00:33:46.000 But as we work through the finer points of that legislation, we felt it was important today to come forward and express where the log jams exist, where the opportunities lay before us, and we will pursue those with great vigor.
00:33:58.000 I also wanted to specifically thank House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers.
00:34:03.000 He allowed the Burchett Amendment to go on the bill without objection, and I think he is to be commended for that.
00:34:10.000 And also when my colleagues Ms. Luna and Mr. Burchett and I We're at an Air Force base and we're told by Air Force officials that we weren't allowed to see information that whistleblowers had expressed to us existed.
00:34:24.000 It was, in fact, Chairman Rogers himself who personally engaged with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and gave us the opportunity to view the images that were taken by pilots of some of these unidentified aerial phenomenon.
00:34:40.000 Work to be done, but we hope that this gives you clarity as to what our goals are, the scope and depth of the mission ahead.
00:34:50.000 We are back live and that was Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna standing behind me in retro on YouTube says she makes plaid look good.
00:35:00.000 Quite the observation.
00:35:03.000 So we often share information with you about how the government works with private companies to go around your Fourth Amendment rights.
00:35:11.000 And it's too often that I have to report to you time and time again of these egregious examples of federal government malfeasance.
00:35:19.000 You are not going to believe what the federal government has been up to with AT&T. And this time, Senator Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, seems to have stumbled on a real big violation of civil liberties.
00:35:35.000 It's called the Hemisphere Project. 0.62
00:35:39.000 Man, if that doesn't sound like the name of some sort of Bond Villains evil project, I do not know what does.
00:35:45.000 So apparently the Hemisphere Project is a program where the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy pays AT&T to provide all Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies with the ability to request searches of trillions of domestic phone records dating back to at least 1987?
00:36:10.000 Plus the 4 billion call records that are added every single day.
00:36:15.000 Senator Wyden thinks that these searches are usually occurring without warrants.
00:36:20.000 That is awful but not entirely unbelievable when you look at the FISA abuses that our own government's engaged in.
00:36:26.000 So AT&T, of course, claims that any of this information would have been compelled by a subpoena, warrant, or court order.
00:36:33.000 But it's hard to know who to believe.
00:36:36.000 The DEA, of course, can issue subpoenas even without the need of courts.
00:36:41.000 What we do know is that Hemisphere is not subject to a federal privacy impact assessment due to how it's being funded.
00:36:49.000 Apparently the White House provides a grant to the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is a partnership between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
00:36:59.000 And then this partnership in turn pays AT&T to operate its surveillance scheme, potentially outside of the bounds of the Constitution.
00:37:11.000 Now, if Hemisphere were subject to a federal privacy impact assessment, that would mean the public would be able to see a report that includes how any analysis of personally identifiable information is handled.
00:37:25.000 A federal privacy impact assessment is both an analysis and a document detailing the outcomes and the impacts, of course.
00:37:37.000 But we'll never see such a document because the feds are trying to keep all of this very hush-hush.
00:37:42.000 Hemisphere is also not subject to the Freedom of Information Act because the Justice Department has labeled the program and its documents all law enforcement sensitive.
00:37:54.000 This designation prevents the documents from being publicly released.
00:37:58.000 So they really don't want you to know what's going on behind the scenes.
00:38:03.000 Senator Wyden's law enforcement source, a whistleblower, has called Hemisphere Google on steroids.
00:38:10.000 And it appears that Hemisphere can pull in phone records of everyone who communicated with the target of an investigation.
00:38:18.000 That is a huge net.
00:38:20.000 And AT&T is quite literally casting that net for the feds.
00:38:26.000 The White House is dodging having to explain the ins and outs of the program, and my guess is that's because they'd have a hard time explaining it to the courts, to the American people.
00:38:37.000 And as we continue to investigate, we'll learn more about this suspect program, and we'll see just what Big Brother is trying to hide from us.
00:38:46.000 The federal intelligence apparatus has morphed into a complete and total police state.
00:38:52.000 Instead of respecting the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, they're working overtime to try to go around it, undermine it, get private companies to do what they couldn't do directly, but then they pay those private companies.
00:39:06.000 Congress has to put a stop to this and hold the government accountable to the people.
00:39:11.000 That's exactly what I plan to do as we move forward with this investigation.
00:39:15.000 And Senator Wyden should be commended for his work and his development of the whistleblower who has brought this forward.
00:39:22.000 I also want to give you a key update regarding the border.
00:39:26.000 We get this report from the Daily Caller.
00:39:28.000 Texas border sector at 169% migrant capacity.
00:39:34.000 The Border Patrol nationwide has about 20,000 migrants in their custody.
00:39:39.000 The Arizona-Tucson sector, 175% capacity.
00:39:45.000 Nationwide, the capacity is just absolutely brimming.
00:39:48.000 Now, you know what I think about the border.
00:39:50.000 Detain or remove.
00:39:52.000 Detain or remove.
00:39:55.000 If we don't have a bed for somebody, then they need to go home.
00:39:59.000 They need to be rejected at the border.
00:40:02.000 Of course, that's not what the Biden administration is doing.
00:40:04.000 They just want more money to process more people into the country. 0.98
00:40:09.000 And they think that's the sweetener to give conservatives to get us to vote for more money for Ukraine, which is crazy.
00:40:16.000 I will never do that.
00:40:18.000 Write it down.
00:40:19.000 You have my commitment.
00:40:21.000 Final story I want to update you on.
00:40:23.000 This comes from Newsweek.com.
00:40:26.000 Seth Rich's laptop to be turned over to the FBI. A judge has ordered the FBI to turn over the laptop of murdered Democrat staffer Seth Rich.
00:40:36.000 Rich was killed on July 10th 2016 while making his way home in Washington DC and in this case it appears as though the records on that laptop have not yet been uncovered and They want to get to the bottom of it.
00:40:56.000 Rich's death sparked a wave of conspiracy theories claiming he was responsible for publicly leaking thousands of DNC emails, this according to Newsweek.
00:41:07.000 But are they conspiracy theories?
00:41:09.000 I guess we'll find out.
00:41:11.000 There's an interesting cycle in Washington, right?
00:41:14.000 First it's a conspiracy theory, then it's Russian disinformation.
00:41:19.000 Then it's true, but not that big a deal.
00:41:21.000 And then it's a basis to go and target, prosecute, defame conservatives.
00:41:27.000 Well, a lot of people have been trying to get to the bottom of the Seth Rich thing for a while.
00:41:30.000 And I think that requiring this laptop to be turned over might give us more answers than we've received to date.
00:41:39.000 Thank you so much for joining me today on Firebrand.
00:41:42.000 Again, a historic day with the erosion of due process and precedent in the House of Representatives with the expulsion of George Santos.
00:41:51.000 It was an act of self-mutilation by the House Republican Conference.
00:41:55.000 105 Republicans voting for it, even including four who stood in the way of accountability for failed Homeland Security Secretary Ali Mayorkas.
00:42:06.000 Make sure you're subscribed, that you've got notifications turned on, and it would be a big help if you gave us that five-star rating and left us a review.
00:42:14.000 Thanks so much.
00:42:15.000 Roll the credits.