Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell have been booted from the House Intelligence Committee, and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is being targeted by the Deep State for standing up to permanent Washington. FBI agent Charles McGonigal has been appointed as the new head of counterintelligence in charge of the New York field office, and he's working for a Russian oligarch who wants to influence our government in order to get rid of sanctions against him and his associates. What does this mean for the Russia hoax and beyond? And why is this happening in the first place? Rep. Gaetz was one of the few in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents. Matt is a problem in the Democratic Party, and we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him. If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up, and not burn her to the ground, then you're in the right place. This is the movement for you. Firebrand - Matt Cates Rep. Adam Schiff, D-D.C. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-R.I. (D-California) Rep. Mike McCaul - D-California Rep. Ilhan Omar - R-Massachusetts Rep. Tulsi Gabbard - R. I. (R-Mass., Rep. D-Mass.) Rep. Steve Israel - R, Rep. Joe Crowley - Rep. I-Ohio Rep. Rick Scott, R, I-R; Rep. Ted Poe - I-Massachievement Rep. Jeff Mateen Kaczor, Rep., I-District Rep. Robert Goodlatte, I.R. Rep., and Rep. Pete Peters - I.D., D-District of Columbia Rep. John Heacock, D. I., R-District Of Columbia Rep., District of Queens, NY Rep. R-New York Rep. Braden County Rep. Bill Pascrell, I, R., I.J. Rep, I Amachos R-N. , I- I-Vt., and I-D-R-Vanderpulcros and R-Syracchia R-Bryan Coppert, Iman Kacosta- R-Iowa Rep. Oleg Andreyefforts to protest the Russia Hooper s appointment to a new job in Washington D.I., a post on the Intelligence Committee.
00:04:42.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:49.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:52.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:04:55.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:04:58.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:05:35.000I'm Congressman Matt Cates, broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. We've got a short show for you, but key updates we've got to get through.
00:05:48.000Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell booted from the House Intelligence Committee.
00:06:05.000I would expect that a vote would be upcoming on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding her service on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:06:11.000The reason that vote was not required for the Intelligence Committee is the Speaker of the House has broad authority over who gets to sit on the Intelligence Committee.
00:06:21.000So Kevin McCarthy, keeping a promise, being the best version of himself, Swalwell and Schiff off the Intelligence Committee, Ilhan Omar, very likely soon to follow.
00:06:33.000Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will have its major energy bill on the floor.
00:06:38.000I'm going to talk about that, why it's important, why there are some Florida-specific issues that we're going to be leading on and addressing.
00:06:45.000And I see we got the live stream up and running, folks watching from Florida today.
00:06:49.000Ohio, Kentucky, thanks for letting me know.
00:06:52.000Even Red Rural Oregon watching on Rumble right now.
00:06:58.000Great to have you as part of the movement.
00:06:59.000But the main thing I wanted to discuss today, the big news.
00:07:04.000Charles McGonigal, a Fed, indicted for his illegal work on behalf of a Russian oligarch and the receipt of illegal payments.
00:07:14.000Now, this is how this all comes together.
00:07:17.000Back when the Russia hoax first started against President Trump, you'll remember that there were reports saying that a friendly foreign government had information that Trump was potentially working with Putin or working with Russians in the campaign.
00:07:32.000It was, of course, nonsense that was just bar talk from George Papadopoulos at a London pub, but part of the team that did the initial intake on that information that ignited the Trump-Russia hoax, Charles McGonigal.
00:07:50.000He was working in the D.C. office of the FBI. Now, after he was a part of some of that investigative work that destabilized the presidency and was just totally nuts for years, he gets a promotion.
00:08:12.000at the new york field office as the special agent in charge of counterintelligence now you know this isn't topeka kansas right this is new york city some of the most Really competitive kind of intelligence and counterintelligence space on the planet Earth.
00:08:31.000It is a highly contested intelligence domain, New York City.
00:08:52.000He's supposed to be stopping all of that.
00:08:54.000Going after the Russian spies and assets.
00:08:58.000Now, one of the most famous Russian oligarchs is a guy named Oleg Deripaska.
00:09:04.000Oleg Deripaska, rich history, don't have time to get through all of it, but needless to say, a guy that our own government was watching very closely because we know he is, in many ways, an appendage of Putin.
00:09:17.000An appendage of that system that has corrupt, crony, klepto-capitalism.
00:09:24.000Not even capitalism, really government control of the economy.
00:09:27.000But they're allowed to then go and take these ill-gotten gains and plow them into capital markets and participate in capitalist systems.
00:09:34.000And that is where guys like Oleg Deripaska...
00:09:36.000Fused the kleptocracy of the Russian Federation with what we see going on in cash transfers, real estate transfers, buying stock positions in businesses.
00:09:50.000So McGonigal's supposed to be going after this guy.
00:09:53.000And he's just got his indictment unsealed this week, where in fact, instead of going after him, he ended up working for him, trying to help Oleg Deripaska evade sanctions.
00:10:08.000Conspiracy to commit money laundering.
00:10:10.000Of course, everyone's innocent until proven guilty, but I'm telling you what the charging documents say, what the indictment says, that the feds are having to acknowledge about one of their own.
00:10:21.000So McGonigal goes up to New York, and he works there up until 2018. He retires in 2018. Then he goes to a law firm, and this happens all the time.
00:10:33.000Where the law firm is giving legal advice and consultation to this Russian bank or Russian entity about sanctions compliance, but really it's sanctions evasion.
00:10:43.000And then McGonagall, for setting the deal up, is getting paid $25,000 a month.
00:10:49.000Then, soon thereafter, after that relationship with the law firm, the Russians and McGonagall are saying to each other, well, why are we using a law firm to move the money through?
00:10:57.000Why don't we move that money through our own shell corporations that we create with our friends and allied interests?
00:11:06.000And so the Russians start putting money that ends up being about a quarter million bucks into this New Jersey bank account run by a cutout of McGonagall's, one of his friends.
00:11:20.000And there's a lot of work done in this indictment from the FBI and the Department of Justice to suggest that Look, McGonagall, he was a Boy Scout pretty much when he was with the Bureau.
00:11:32.000It was only after the Bureau that these specific allegations about sanctions evasion, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, lying to the federal government really emerged.
00:11:43.000That's when the criminal conduct reaches a chargeable level of acuity.
00:11:50.000The business entity that ended up taking the corrupt foreign money when McGonagall didn't want to use the law firm anymore, It was set up while he was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence of the New York field office.
00:12:37.000So while McGonagall is in this big counterintel position at the New York field office, one of Deripaska's buddies needs a daughter to go get an internship at the NYPD, and McGonagall sets the whole thing up.
00:12:51.000He goes to the NYPD and establishes this relationship with this daughter of Deripaska's close associate, someone who actually, they believed, was a Russian intelligence officer.
00:13:04.000One of the top counter-intel people, promoted by James Comey, involved in igniting the Russia hoax, was turned, if these allegations are true.
00:13:17.000And what we don't know is when he was turned.
00:13:21.000And that is what I think the Judiciary Committee needs to find out.
00:13:25.000I'm working with Jim Jordan now to demand that Director Wray answer questions about the monitoring, the screening, and what assessments are being done now.
00:13:34.000Now that our own government has had to charge McGonagall with working for this Russian oligarch, Are we looking at the decisions that he made along the way?
00:13:44.000What investigations had resources deprived where there could actually be a threat to our national security?
00:13:54.000What investigations were advanced on behalf of Oleg Deripaska or crazy Russian oligarchs?
00:14:02.000Some of the work that McGonagall ends up doing after he leaves the FBI on behalf of Deripaska is to dig up dirt on some of Deripaska's oligarch competitors.
00:14:14.000And so it makes you wonder, was every investigation, was every referral for criminal prosecution truly based on evidence developed?
00:14:24.000Or did you have circumstances where this guy was essentially moonlighting for the very Russians that he was supposed to be getting, While allowing this government to accuse President Trump of being a Russian agent.
00:14:39.000We'll continue to follow this, and we will soon have the answer back from Director Wray to Jim Jordan and I regarding the threat to national security exists as a result of this betrayal.
00:14:57.000Want to talk now about some of the folks who absolutely were at the forefront of the Russia hoax Beyond McGonagall, they sort of took the baton.
00:15:09.000Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, Kevin McCarthy today, taking them off of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and I fully support Speaker McCarthy's decision.
00:15:21.000Let's actually pull up the Schiff Face the Nation.
00:15:24.000This is Adam Schiff on Face the Nation in August of 2018. Take a listen.
00:15:31.000Can you agree that there has been no evidence of collusion coordination or conspiracy that has been presented thus far between the Trump campaign and Russia?
00:15:42.000I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.
00:15:45.000Now, that's a different statement than saying that there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy.
00:15:51.000Bob Mueller will have to determine that.
00:15:53.000But, of course, the entire meeting at Trump Tower...
00:15:55.000Right, so you acknowledge that the FBI has not presented it thus far?
00:15:58.000I'm drawing this distinction because this is what the White House is arguing here, that the president is drawing a distinction, that he is saying when he says hoax and witch hunt that he means one thing and that it's not really trying to disassociate himself from what his national security team says.
00:16:15.000Well, first of all, we haven't seen what Bob Mueller has produced in terms of the evidence yet.
00:16:20.000So, in terms of FBI proof, they're not going to present proof to the Congress.
00:16:23.000We're doing our own investigation, and we have revealed evidence, I think, that certainly goes to the issue of conspiracy and collusion, a lot of which is now public.
00:16:32.000But I do think that the president continues to cast doubt on whether he accepts the fundamental conclusion that Russia intervened.
00:16:42.000Of course, those claims were never evidenced, and Adam Schiff's pronouns are now booted and removed.
00:17:06.000This question derives from New York Times reporting saying that the FBI opened an investigation into the possibility that the President was a Russian asset.
00:17:15.000Do you believe the President of the United States is a Russian asset?
00:17:19.000What matters most is the President's actions.
00:17:23.000Whether he's compromised or not, he is acting like a person who is compromised.
00:17:44.000Adam Schiff had an actual responsibility on the Intelligence Committee to have oversight over the FBI to stop people from being turned, to have the right policies and legislation and review in place so you would never be reading an indictment like this of a person like McGonagall.
00:18:02.000But instead of doing his actual job, They had to go create the hoax that somehow Donald Trump was compromised.
00:18:09.000It's like my friend Jim Jordan always says, they always accuse us of the stuff they're doing, and we are not sorry to see Schiff go.
00:18:17.000Matter of fact, I will be introducing legislation not only to see that he is removed from the Intelligence Committee, but to express the sense of Congress that he should have no access to classified information at all.
00:18:30.000I'd rather give George Santos access to classified information than Adam Schiff.
00:19:42.000There was certainly evidence of collusion, not evidence that met the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, but this president in no way is cleared.
00:19:51.000Do you accept the findings in the Mueller report that do not support some of those claims?
00:19:58.000Well, I accept that I probably should have been out there a little bit earlier because who knew how many links there were, 200 pages of links.
00:20:05.000I accept also, Ari, that prior congresses did not have an imagination to see a president or a campaign have so many concerning conduct and not write laws to prohibit it.
00:20:16.000But it didn't meet the standard beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:20:21.000Sure, but to be clear, so you're no longer maintaining that he is effectively a, quote, Russian asset?
00:20:27.000No, I think he acts on Russia's behalf, and I challenge him to show me otherwise.
00:20:34.000Do you know who was acting on Russia's behalf?
00:20:37.000The federal agents that were taking money from Russia.
00:20:40.000The people who had been able to influence the direction of investigations That at some point were turned and we have an obligation to the country to figure out when they were turned.
00:20:51.000But Donald Trump was never a Russian agent.
00:21:12.000Coming up this week also we have the House energy bill and I want to talk about this because this was one of the major issues discussed in the midterm elections.
00:21:21.000Republicans believe that inflation is crushing people.
00:21:24.000It's especially crushing middle-class people and rural folks have to deal with compounding inflation because to get to their job they often have to drive farther.
00:21:34.000Their goods have to come From farther away places in the interior of the country.
00:21:39.000And so that additional fuel charge you see stacked and restacked at every level of the supply chain.
00:21:46.000And so if we're able to lower gas prices, then we believe we have fulfilled The initial step of attacking some of this inflation.
00:21:56.000We also have to curb the government spending that is causing this inflation.
00:22:00.000But H.R. 21, which I do intend to vote for, would stop President Biden from essentially playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
00:22:10.000Now, you've seen Biden try to manipulate gas prices by digging into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
00:22:17.000That is there for our national security.
00:22:21.000God forbid if anything went on in the world where we couldn't get energy, you would see quality of life in this country plummet immediately.
00:22:28.000And so that is for all of us, and yet he used it for politics.
00:22:33.000We also want to make sure that we have common sense when it comes to where we are utilizing American energy so that we are not subject to the whims of dictators like those in Iran or Venezuela.
00:22:48.000And that we're not overly reliant on Russia or any other country.
00:22:52.000We should be working to ensure American resilience and American dominance like we had under President Trump.
00:22:59.000Now that does not mean that we have to drill in every conceivable place.
00:23:03.000There are places where drilling is popular, where drilling makes sense from the topography.
00:23:09.000Places like the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, Texas, where they want all the drilling they can get even off the coast of Louisiana.
00:23:17.000But off the coast of Florida, we have sensitive military missions that cannot coexist with drilling.
00:23:24.000Specifically, we take air-to-air shots that are hundreds of miles long to ensure that our country always holds the high ground against China.
00:23:33.000And I can't even believe I have to say this out loud.
00:23:36.000But it is a terrible idea to shoot experimental missiles over oil rigs and all of the transit that goes to and fro to service those rigs and the people who work on them.
00:23:47.000So we have legislation that will be an amendment to HR 21. That will simply reinforce the policy put in place by President Trump that created some drilling exclusion zones off of Florida.
00:24:01.000But the overall effect of the bill undeniably will be terrific for our energy posture and our economic posture and we'll make sure through our amendment that it does not compromise national security.
00:24:12.000Speaking of President Trump, Just getting breaking news as we're on the show that Facebook and Instagram are gonna let Trump back on.
00:24:23.000Though the timing is interesting, right?
00:24:26.000I mean, they had this guy kicked off for years, and then right as Republicans are taking over the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, right as Elon is providing documents and information and access to witnesses, all of a sudden you see Instagram, Facebook, the meta entities deciding they're going to let President Trump back on.
00:24:51.000Don't think that just because you let Trump on, our investigative oversight will not continue.
00:24:57.000We are going to find out what is happening at these companies because they shape the access of so many millions of Americans to the digital world.
00:25:07.000And as we've often said, we do not believe that the Constitution ought to be playing second fiddle to the terms of service on big tech.
00:25:16.000Thank you guys so much for joining me.
00:25:25.000So very much appreciate everyone listening.
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