The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - December 02, 2021


Episode 18： Insurrectionist Bennie Thompson – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Hosted by
Matt Gaetz
Mentioned
Benny Thompson Chris Cuomo John Solomon Reports Cuomo Primetime Stephen Wolf Andrew Cuomo Bob Kent Ronan Farrow Steve Bannon Eric Holder Melissa DeRosa Alec Baldwin David McGee Levinson Dave Lindsay Boylan Chotwe Antar Lumumba John Sullivan Donald Trump Mark Meadows and 5 more
Episode 17： Stand Your Ground (feat. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz Episode 19： Censured (feat. Rep. Paul Gosar) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Episode Stats


Length

27 minutes

Words per minute

171.81

Word count

4,679

Sentence count

327

Harmful content

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAZETTE) talks about being targeted by the Deep State, and how the deep state is trying to destroy his political career. Rep. Gaetz is a conservative congressman from Florida who represents a district that has long been a hotbed of anti-Trump sentiment. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:01.000 The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:00:03.000 Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress
00:00:06.000 who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:00:10.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:00:16.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:00:20.000 If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer,
00:00:23.000 if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground,
00:00:27.000 then welcome, my fellow patriots. You are in the right place.
00:00:31.000 This is the movement for you.
00:00:33.000 You ever watch this guy on television?
00:00:35.000 It's like a machine. Matt Gaetz.
00:00:38.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
00:00:41.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
00:00:46.000 They aren't really coming for me. They're coming for you.
00:00:50.000 I'm just in the way.
00:00:52.000 Insurrectionist Benny Thompson.
00:00:57.000 Bet you won't see that on the mainstream media, but it very well may be true. 0.80
00:01:02.000 Justthenews.com is an entity that has breaking news, investigative reporting,
00:01:07.000 and its publisher, John Solomon, is on the show today.
00:01:11.000 Spoke with him earlier regarding their really illuminating reporting regarding Benny Thompson,
00:01:17.000 the guy who's leading the January 6th committee and his prior associations with an insurrectionist group known as the Republic of New Africa.
00:01:27.000 But first.
00:01:28.000 Breaking news that is just coming in tonight.
00:01:30.000 CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has been suspended indefinitely.
00:01:34.000 Breaking tonight.
00:01:35.000 CNN is suspending anchor Chris Cuomo.
00:01:38.000 Chris Cuomo suspended indefinitely by CNN for his role in advising his brother and then governor Andrew Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal.
00:01:49.000 The details from documents that the New York Attorney General released just yesterday.
00:01:53.000 They showed how Chris Cuomo would use his press connections to prepare the then governor's team as accusers started to come forward.
00:02:01.000 CNN.
00:02:02.000 What a corrupt organization built on lying to its viewers. 0.83
00:02:07.000 They lied about the Russia hoax, lied about Trump, lied about me.
00:02:11.000 And the breaking news today is that they are even lying about themselves.
00:02:17.000 Chris Cuomo specifically.
00:02:19.000 Some of these lies may have been criminal under oath taken during the investigation into Cuomo's brother.
00:02:26.000 Just to get a sense of how the CNN propaganda machine works, listen to what a CNN technical director said on a Project Veritas secret recording.
00:02:37.000 He's discussing the network's coverage of now debunked allegations against me.
00:02:42.000 If the agenda, say, is to, like, get, like, Matt Gaetz right now, isn't he?
00:02:47.000 Like, he's a Republican.
00:02:49.000 Like, he's a problem for the Democratic Party because he's so conservative, right?
00:02:54.000 And he could cause a lot of hiccups in passing of laws.
00:02:57.000 So it's, it would be great for the Democratic Party to get around.
00:03:03.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again and make it so that it can't be buried and, like, just, you know, settled outside of court.
00:03:12.000 And it's like, you know, if we keep pushing that, it's helping us.
00:03:18.000 That's propaganda.
00:03:19.000 It's helping us in some way.
00:03:21.000 One way CNN kept running these stories to hurt me was through their flagship primetime program, Cuomo Primetime.
00:03:30.000 At the time, I was alleging that the lies about me were rooted in a criminal extortion plot.
00:03:36.000 To refute my allegations, Chris Cuomo gave one of my extortionists, former intelligence officer Bob Kent, the opportunity to explain that this was no crime.
00:03:47.000 It was all on the up and up.
00:03:49.000 Here's a portion of that interview.
00:03:51.000 One of the guys who you were working with on this and approaching the gates has a criminal record for being a fraudster.
00:04:00.000 Why would you be associating with somebody like that?
00:04:03.000 So I was contacted by David McGee in October, and he asked me to meet with somebody, with Stephen Alford, because Alford wanted to help with Levinson and believe that he can get him out.
00:04:19.000 Now, after the rescue attempt fell apart in July, I had no contact with Dave after that.
00:04:24.000 I said, sorry, it didn't work out.
00:04:26.000 We went forward.
00:04:27.000 He wished me, you know, best of luck in my future endeavors.
00:04:29.000 And then when he contacted me in October, he asked me, is it possible to rescue?
00:04:34.000 Is Levinson still alive and is it possible to rescue him?
00:04:37.000 So I went back to the network and I asked a question.
00:04:40.000 And they said, yes, we think he may be alive, but can't do it the way he did it last time.
00:04:44.000 You have to go from the top down this time.
00:04:47.000 So, and when Dave vouched for Stephen, that was good enough for me.
00:04:51.000 Bob Kent paints the picture of at least three people working together to try to get my family to give them $25 million or else.
00:05:02.000 Kent is the former intelligence officer.
00:05:05.000 He was working with former Department of Justice official David McGee, who is identified as Attorney A in the indictment of the third man they were working with, Stephen Alford.
00:05:17.000 After the airing of this interview that I just showed you a part of, Chris Cuomo declared my claims of extortion fugazi.
00:05:26.000 Just a deflection.
00:05:27.000 He said he had solved the case and there was no extortion of my family.
00:05:32.000 Here's Cuomo again.
00:05:33.000 And the misdirection play by Matt Gates, I think blew up on this show tonight.
00:05:39.000 I think Bob Kent is credible and I don't see anything in his suggestions to the father that would qualify under any legal reckoning of extortion.
00:05:47.000 Listen, yes.
00:05:48.000 I, with that story, I like to proceed with caution.
00:05:51.000 I believe in innocent until proven guilty.
00:05:54.000 100%.
00:05:55.000 We've already established that.
00:05:56.000 But there are two different things.
00:05:57.000 So I don't know.
00:05:58.000 The investigation of what Gates did.
00:05:59.000 Yes.
00:06:00.000 You gotta wait for the facts.
00:06:01.000 Right.
00:06:02.000 We don't know them.
00:06:03.000 The whole thing about-
00:06:04.000 Extortion thing?
00:06:05.000 Extortion, yes. 0.99
00:06:06.000 This may be classic CNN propaganda, but it's trash journalism. 0.88
00:06:14.000 Stephen Alford has pleaded guilty to his part in a very criminal fraud that Chris Cuomo deemed legitimate. 0.76
00:06:23.000 Facts matter, they tell us.
00:06:26.000 CNN has issued no correction to their reporting that the extortion of my family was fugazi.
00:06:33.000 Despite someone pleading guilty to that very crime.
00:06:38.000 And CNN didn't even cover Stephen Alford's guilty plea.
00:06:43.000 Now, Chris Cuomo finds himself in the news.
00:06:47.000 For again, lying to his viewers.
00:06:50.000 Recently released documents from the New York Attorney General's investigation into now disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo show that CNN brother Chris was not
00:07:02.000 quote, most often peripheral to the crisis communications strategy.
00:07:09.000 Lying on TV may be your job, but lying under oath is a crime, Fredo.
00:07:15.000 Here's what Chris Cuomo told us when he was originally busted, abandoning journalistic ethics to protect his brother.
00:07:24.000 I never made calls to the press about my brother's situation.
00:07:27.000 I never influenced or attempted to control CNN's coverage of my family.
00:07:32.000 And as you know, back in May, when I was told to no longer communicate with my brother's aides in any group meetings, I acknowledged it was a mistake.
00:07:40.000 I apologized to my colleagues and I stopped and I meant it.
00:07:44.000 It was a unique situation being a brother to a politician in a scandal and being part of the media.
00:07:50.000 I tried to do the right thing, and I just want you all to know that.
00:07:55.000 This is also what Chris Cuomo said under oath to investigators, this according to Politico New York.
00:08:02.000 Quote, Chris told investigators during his sworn testimony that his media knowledge brought a unique perspective, but characterized his role as most often a peripheral figure.
00:08:14.000 Testimony from others painted this attempt to be significantly involved in the crisis management effort.
00:08:26.000 Somebody is lying.
00:08:27.000 And of course, that somebody is Chris Cuomo.
00:08:31.000 Just look at the documentary evidence that was developed during the investigation run by the New York Attorney General.
00:08:37.000 One series of March 2021 text messages between Chris Cuomo and Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, revealed that there was an absolute dynamic of collusion between CNN and those affiliated with Governor Cuomo.
00:08:54.000 At a time when sexual allegations against Governor Cuomo were fomenting, his little brother asked Melissa DeRosa to quote,
00:09:02.000 Please let me help with your prep.
00:09:05.000 Let's think about this for a moment.
00:09:07.000 A news organization, at least what purports to be a news organization, communicating and strategizing with the office of the governor of the state of New York before a story went public.
00:09:17.000 Corruption.
00:09:19.000 Cuomo even tapped his network of journalism sources to put his brother in better position to respond to reports that Ronan Farrow was developing regarding Governor Cuomo's ties to an event where he allegedly forced a woman or tried to force a woman named Lindsay Boylan to kiss him at a wedding.
00:09:37.000 I don't know if any of this is true or not, but what we do know is that Chris Cuomo was directly involved.
00:09:44.000 Cuomo to DeRosa on March 4th, 2021.
00:09:48.000 Quote, I have a lead on the wedding girl.
00:09:51.000 Yeah, I mean, the guy said under oath he wasn't doing any oppo, but a lead on the wedding girl?
00:09:56.000 Then again, DeRosa to Cuomo on March 9th.
00:09:59.000 Rumor about Ronan getting ready to move.
00:10:02.000 Then Cuomo responded.
00:10:03.000 If Ronan has nothing better than Boylan, that's a great sign.
00:10:07.000 Ugh.
00:10:09.000 Another panic text from Chris Cuomo.
00:10:11.000 We are making a lot of mistakes we can't afford.
00:10:16.000 I can't say I'm surprised by this, but even Alec Baldwin gets a supporting role in this wicked saga.
00:10:23.000 Cuomo of CNN apparently was coordinating an effort through a friend to get Alec Baldwin to put up a rant on Instagram against cancel culture as a frame for the allegations against then Governor Andrew Cuomo.
00:10:38.000 As for the notion that Chris Cuomo is some truth telling journalist or that CNN is an actual news organization.
00:10:46.000 I think blew up on this show tonight.
00:10:48.000 And now, our interview with John Solomon, publisher of Just the News, regarding January 6th committee chairman and possible insurrectionist, Benny Thompson.
00:10:59.000 Take a listen and enjoy.
00:11:01.000 So I'm here with John Solomon.
00:11:04.000 And John, you've got a very big piece up on justthenews.com regarding the chairman of the January 6th committee, Benny Thompson.
00:11:13.000 How did this story come to you?
00:11:15.000 What have we learned about Chairman Thompson and the Republic of New Africa?
00:11:19.000 Yeah.
00:11:20.000 So this takes us back in history.
00:11:22.000 We've got to go back to 1970.
00:11:23.000 But back in those days, Benny Thompson was known as an alderman in a small city outside of Jackson, Mississippi.
00:11:30.000 And he was sort of on the radical side of politics at that point.
00:11:34.000 He was a supporter of this group, Real New Africa.
00:11:38.000 And he went to their defense, even though this group had on multiple occasions engaged with police.
00:11:44.000 They were accused of killing at least two officers that we know of and a third that they were suspected of.
00:11:49.000 And he was defending them, saying that the police were the problem that they didn't. 0.94
00:11:56.000 They deserved to be killed because they were picking on this poor group. 0.92
00:12:00.000 Now, let's tell you who this group was. 0.99
00:12:01.000 This group wanted to secede from the United States.
00:12:05.000 They wanted to take Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and turn it into its own republic called the New Republic of Africa.
00:12:15.000 And they wanted to do so by force if the government wouldn't do it willingly.
00:12:20.000 And they were engaged in a lot of criminal activity.
00:12:23.000 There's all sorts of stories.
00:12:24.000 The FBI considered them a terrorism group at the time.
00:12:28.000 And this was a group that Benny Thompson, as a young alderman before he joined Congress, was trying to defend, blame the police for picking on.
00:12:37.000 And we learned about this because some old FBI agents, retired FBI agents, saw that Benny Thompson on television with the January 6th committee said,
00:12:45.000 I wonder if that's the guy that used to defend the RNA.
00:12:48.000 And they gave me a call, and I went and got the records under the FBI's FOIA site and some other places and literally got to tell the story of his support of an insurrectionist group, a violent group,
00:13:00.000 long before he was suddenly for cops and against insurrection with this current set of hearings.
00:13:05.000 So that's the story behind it.
00:13:07.000 It's pretty remarkable that he was on both sides of insurrection over the course of his career.
00:13:12.000 Well, we really get a sense of this group by analyzing their goals.
00:13:17.000 And like you say, the goal of the Republic of New Africa was essentially to take the SEC states, make a different country,
00:13:25.000 and then use that country to wage war on the rest of the United States.
00:13:30.000 Some of the FBI documentation that you're citing in your piece on justthenews.com
00:13:35.000 talks about the assembly of weaponry and other equipment that someone would use in guerrilla warfare.
00:13:42.000 How did you get a hold of that information?
00:13:44.000 And what does it tell you about the means that this group that Benny Thompson had had some association with was willing to go to?
00:13:52.000 Well, listen, they had a stockpile of weapons, and that was one of the tragic incidents that occurred in the summer of 70, I believe it was.
00:14:01.000 A combination task force of the FBI and the local Jackson, Mississippi police went to arrest some people at one of their compound houses in Jackson.
00:14:10.000 And as they were coming out of their cars, they were ambushed.
00:14:13.000 This group opened up fire on them with all sorts of weaponry.
00:14:17.000 The sheriff talks about all the weapons they found, a huge arsenal of weapons.
00:14:22.000 And tragically, a police officer was killed.
00:14:26.000 I was able to locate the police officer's son, who later went into law enforcement himself and then became a judge in Jackson.
00:14:34.000 And he has very painful memories, had forgotten a little bit that Benny Thompson, the man now on stage at the January 6 riots,
00:14:41.000 was the same guy that defended his father's group.
00:14:45.000 And one of the amazing things, a week after that tragic episode where a police officer loses his life, he is ambushed.
00:14:52.000 There's not any doubt about that. Eight to nine people went to prison for the shootout that occurred that day.
00:14:58.000 Benny Thompson joins a bunch of activists and holds a news conference.
00:15:03.000 And during that news conference, these activists blame the cop for getting shot, saying they should have just left this group alone.
00:15:09.000 They got what they deserve because they dared to enforce a lawful warrant that had been issued by a court.
00:15:15.000 That's the sort of Benny Thompson that people don't know.
00:15:18.000 They see this affable old man, you know, who's on the stage there now.
00:15:22.000 He looks like he's very experienced, very wise.
00:15:24.000 But that is the same Benny Thompson that 40, 50 years ago was advocating for a group that the FBI considered a major threat in the 1970s to national security.
00:15:34.000 One question that arose after I read your piece on just the news dot com is the association between Benny Thompson, the chairman and this group that initially doesn't seem to have much of a geographic nexus to his area of public service.
00:15:50.000 He's an alderman in the small town of Bolton, Mississippi, and the Republic of New Africa gets its origins in Detroit of all places.
00:15:59.000 It did.
00:16:00.000 And yet this young, ambitious politician is giving this type of advocacy for an ethno-nationalist secessionist group with roots far away.
00:16:12.000 But then I guess the Republic of New Africa makes the decision to move from Detroit to Bolton, Mississippi, of all places.
00:16:21.000 What does that tell us about about really the early and pervasive connection that seems to exist between Benny Thompson and these insurrectionists?
00:16:30.000 Well, all throughout Benny Thompson's career, he has remained close to some people.
00:16:35.000 One of the former members, I think he was the vice president of this group because they treated themselves like they were a separate nation, later goes on to run for mayor.
00:16:43.000 Benny Thompson campaigns for him.
00:16:45.000 This is Congressman Benny Thompson endorsing Jackson mayoral candidate attorney Chokwe Lumumba.
00:16:51.000 When I see Republicans from Rankin and Madison County supporting the other so-called Democrat in this race, I know that something is fishy.
00:16:59.000 He stayed in contact with a lot of the people associated with his group, particularly that former vice president.
00:17:04.000 But they came to his backyard in the summer of 1970.
00:17:08.000 They wanted to make the capital of the new republic in Benny Thompson's hometown in the shadows of Jackson, Mississippi.
00:17:16.000 So, yeah, they started in the Malcolm X movement down in Detroit or up in Detroit,
00:17:21.000 but very quickly thought that the place to set up their headquarters just happened to be the place where Benny Thompson was a young alderman.
00:17:27.000 And then he carries out these friendships.
00:17:30.000 He keeps these friendships throughout his whole life.
00:17:32.000 And it's really never gotten the attention that it deserves.
00:17:35.000 When you talk to that now retired judge and how painful the memory as a young child seeing his father killed that day.
00:17:42.000 And then watching a week later, he said, I remember the news conference where they were smearing my dad's reputation,
00:17:47.000 saying he deserved to be killed. He should have left that group alone. 0.87
00:17:50.000 He was just doing his job. He was executing a warrant.
00:17:53.000 And it's a very different Benny Thompson in 1970 than the guy that seemed to express some sympathy for the Capitol Police on January 6th.
00:18:04.000 I think everyone has sympathy for the officers that day and what happened.
00:18:07.000 But Benny Thompson has not always been pro-policing.
00:18:10.000 He's not always been anti-insurrection.
00:18:12.000 Earlier in his career, he was on the opposite side of both issues.
00:18:15.000 And I think that's why this story is so important.
00:18:17.000 Yeah, maybe whether or not Benny Thompson is for an insurrection relates to the politics of the alleged insurrectionists more than the act of insurrection.
00:18:27.000 So we know from your reporting that this was a violent group.
00:18:30.000 We know from your reporting that the FBI deemed it a terrorist group.
00:18:34.000 We knew that their goal was to create this division from the federal government.
00:18:39.000 But what I don't get the answer to definitively in your reporting, are you able to confirm whether or not Benny Thompson was a member of this group?
00:18:49.000 Or was he just someone who advocated on their behalf and against police when they were trying to accomplish their political goals,
00:18:57.000 which were buttressed by, it sounds like, a great deal of violence and bloodshed?
00:19:02.000 So the story that Benny Thompson crafted throughout his career is that he wasn't a member of the group, though they were in his community,
00:19:09.000 and he had this nexus and he was defending them.
00:19:11.000 He was someone who sympathized with them, felt that they were getting an unfair shake,
00:19:15.000 despite what many of us would consider in America a hideous thing to secede from America and maybe take land by force,
00:19:22.000 which is what some of their documents are called.
00:19:24.000 Certainly they killed some police officers.
00:19:26.000 That's something that all of us reject.
00:19:28.000 But we're doing some additional records work.
00:19:31.000 We have heard from some FBI officials who worked undercover at that time in these groups that there may be more to this story
00:19:38.000 and even more to Benny Thompson's connection to the events just before that fatal shooting of Jackson.
00:19:44.000 Now, again, we haven't found those records.
00:19:46.000 We have FOIAs in.
00:19:47.000 We're talking to people.
00:19:48.000 If we get more, we'll report it.
00:19:50.000 But at this point, the public evidence is that he sympathized with the group.
00:19:54.000 He stood up for them.
00:19:55.000 But he wasn't a member.
00:19:57.000 If that changes, we're going to let the American people know right away.
00:20:00.000 And they just so happened to move their headquarters from Detroit to his little town in Mississippi as this advocacy is developing.
00:20:09.000 And a key thread as well is that it didn't end in the 1970s.
00:20:13.000 This isn't something where somebody can say, oh, gosh, this was all the way back in the 70s.
00:20:17.000 I've developed, I mean, your reporting suggests as recently as 2013, he was out there really creating additional political ties to people who were at the highest levels of this organization.
00:20:29.000 Any suspicion that, you know, Benny Thompson's staff, consultants, people that have been around him politically, others he's endorsed or supported have the same sympathies or membership in this insurrectionist domestic terrorist organization?
00:20:45.000 Not that we found.
00:20:46.000 Listen, his rhetoric over the years, he's not always been very pro police.
00:20:49.000 He's often been harsh and critical of police, not just in the 70s, but in the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s.
00:20:55.000 So this role that he finds him in now as reaching out and feeling terrible for those officers that went through that terrible day, January 6th, is a different sounding Benny Thompson, even a few years ago.
00:21:07.000 He is much more in the Black Lives Matter sort of suspicion of police power and the relationship between police and the black community.
00:21:15.000 He's a member of the Black Caucus.
00:21:17.000 He's spoken out in the past about the need for reform and the belief that black communities are disproportionately mistreated by police.
00:21:24.000 So he's been on that side of the fence for a long time.
00:21:27.000 The connection to this group surprised a lot of people.
00:21:29.000 Listen, some Democrats called me and said, no, that can't be the Benny Thompson we know today.
00:21:33.000 I'm like, it is.
00:21:34.000 Absolutely is.
00:21:35.000 Look at that.
00:21:36.000 We found video footage in the Mississippi State Archives and we put it out there and you can literally see him advocating for this group.
00:21:42.000 In the case of the Republic of New Africa, they are charged with obstructing justice.
00:21:48.000 This, I believe, is an attempt on part of law enforcement officials to stop the Republic from building its community.
00:21:57.000 I think the real question comes down to what else don't we know?
00:22:00.000 And so what we're asking for are the intelligence files of the Jackson Police Department because they had 1970s intelligence files on extremist groups in Jackson and some more FBI documents.
00:22:13.000 And then we've asked the family of the officer who was shot and tragically and killed.
00:22:18.000 They got a lot of information in discovery.
00:22:20.000 And so there has Benny Thompson replied to your inquiries.
00:22:23.000 I know is the time of your reporting.
00:22:25.000 You hadn't got a response.
00:22:26.000 But have you posed the direct question about his membership or involvement in criminal activity and any denials?
00:22:33.000 Did you get any denial from him?
00:22:35.000 What we got were crickets.
00:22:36.000 The communications director said, we'll get back to you.
00:22:38.000 And he never did.
00:22:39.000 And we made multiple calls, multiple emails.
00:22:41.000 We've even tried to stake them out at events.
00:22:43.000 And, you know, eventually we'll be able to have a conversation with him.
00:22:46.000 But meanwhile, we're going to track those records because, you know, the great thing about 30, 40, 50 year old documents, they're frozen in time.
00:22:53.000 They capture what police knew at that moment.
00:22:55.000 Hopefully we'll get some more documents and try to get you answers to these questions.
00:22:58.000 You know, John, one of the allegations that Benny Thompson makes against police and law enforcement is that they're ginning up obstruction of justice charges against the Republic of New Africa for politics.
00:23:14.000 You and I were all over the Russia hoax and the way that the lack of a foundation really for the underlying allegation that Donald Trump was a Russian agent then morphed into this politically motivated obstruction of justice allegation.
00:23:30.000 Did you find hypocrisy in that? I found that particularly rich that here's a guy who is overseeing an entity, you know, that that seems to be trying to create process crimes around people like Steve Bannon or Mark Meadows.
00:23:45.000 And yet that's what he was accusing law enforcement of back in the 70s.
00:23:49.000 Well, it is. There is an irony to that. And this story actually originally broke before the ban in contempt citation.
00:23:56.000 But think about it even from take Benny Thompson even out of it for a second. Take a look at our Justice Department.
00:24:02.000 This is the same Justice Department that refused to find Eric Holder in contempt of Congress 10 years ago when he refused to provide evidence in the Fast and Furious investigation where a Border Patrol agent was killed,
00:24:16.000 where guns were illegally crossing the border at the Obama-Biden ATF's own direction.
00:24:23.000 Our own government was trafficking in guns. And it wasn't important enough for that Justice Department then to compel Eric Holder.
00:24:30.000 They let him off the hook. They wouldn't take that contempt citation to court.
00:24:33.000 So Congress had to do it. Now, all of a sudden, the same Justice Department finds the vigor and the speed to do it against Steve Bannon.
00:24:40.000 I think the story of hypocrisy and double standards, which we saw all throughout the Russia case, right?
00:24:47.000 Look at the difference between Mike Flynn and Andy McCabe.
00:24:51.000 This idea that there are two systems of justice only gets solidified more and more with every story that occurs,
00:24:58.000 whether it's Steve Bannon in contempt versus Eric Holder being getting off the hook,
00:25:03.000 or Benny Thompson being able to advocate for an insurrectionist group and now be against it.
00:25:08.000 I think the American public are keen. They have figured out that there's a double standard in Washington
00:25:13.000 and it pervades everything from the Justice Department to the politics in Congress.
00:25:17.000 And they're smart enough to see through it now.
00:25:19.000 Now, there may be a double standard at the DOJ, but there is only one set of facts.
00:25:24.000 You know, what happened happened.
00:25:26.000 And I know that you and your great team at JustTheNews.com get to the bottom of it.
00:25:31.000 It sounds like this is very much a developing story and that your team continues to work.
00:25:36.000 John, how can folks follow this reporting?
00:25:38.000 And also, John Sullivan's got one of my absolute favorite podcasts in the world.
00:25:42.000 I love it when I get to join you as a guest on Just The News.
00:25:46.000 So let folks know how they can follow that and how they can keep up with your reporting.
00:25:50.000 Absolutely. JustTheNews.com is our website. Easy to remember.
00:25:53.000 We have news 24-7, breaking news and investigative news all day long.
00:25:58.000 And my podcast is called John Solomon Reports because that's what I do.
00:26:01.000 I like to report. And we do that daily Monday through Friday.
00:26:04.000 And thanks, Matt, for mentioning that.
00:26:06.000 It's a good and we have a lot of fun doing it.
00:26:08.000 I never thought I would do a podcast.
00:26:09.000 Now that I've done it, I love it.
00:26:10.000 And I know you love it, too.
00:26:11.000 It's a great medium to have a conversation.
00:26:14.000 Well, and a lot of the stories that you're breaking at JustTheNews.com,
00:26:18.000 frankly, a lot of the stories that you've been breaking throughout your career
00:26:21.000 face a lot of headwinds with corporate corrupt media.
00:26:25.000 And if the American people are wondering what they can do to be more engaged
00:26:30.000 to push back a regime that they think is harming them, seeking out independent,
00:26:35.000 uncorrupted, straightforward news is the best way to be informed.
00:26:39.000 And, you know, it was Madison who said that, you know, the citizen was the highest role in our democracy.
00:26:44.000 But that means we need an informed citizenry.
00:26:46.000 You guys are doing a great job of that at JustTheNews.
00:26:48.000 And I appreciate you bringing to light the double standards, the hypocrisy,
00:26:53.000 and the really troubling associations of Chairman Benny Thompson.
00:26:56.000 Can't wait to follow the story, John.
00:26:58.000 Thanks for joining us on Firebrand.
00:27:00.000 Thanks, Congressman. Great to join you.
00:27:01.000 Thanks.
00:27:04.000 Thanks for joining us on Firebrand.
00:27:06.000 Make sure you give us that five-star rating, write a review,
00:27:09.000 and make sure you're subscribed with notifications turned on.
00:27:12.000 Join us next Thursday for more Firebrand.