The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 34 LIVE： Laptop From Hell (feat. Vish Burra) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

00:00:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:00:30.000 You are in the right place. This is the movement for you.

00:00:33.540 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:00:35.900 It's like a machine. Matt Gaetz.

00:00:38.360 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.

00:00:41.560 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:00:46.360 They aren't really coming for me.

00:00:48.320 They're coming for you.

00:00:50.160 I'm just in the way.

00:00:56.220 Welcome.

00:00:56.740 Welcome. It's the biggest story in the world right now.

00:01:01.320 Hunter Biden's laptop submitted to the Congress, submitted to the Judiciary Committee.

00:01:06.220 And everybody's wondering, how did we get the laptop?

00:01:08.940 What was the chain of custody?

00:01:10.700 And I've got the guy right here who brought the laptop to me,

00:01:15.060 and he's going to walk through all that information and answer all of your questions.

00:01:19.180 We've got major updates regarding Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the fines they've had to pay,

00:01:26.380 new toys from the FBI, how they're potentially using them.

00:01:30.500 But first, I thought everybody would want to know that the Biden administration

00:01:34.620 has recently released one of the worst Russian cyber criminals that we knew about.

00:01:41.760 One of the very worst.

00:01:42.720 And you have to wonder, like, what did we get for that, releasing a Russian cyber criminal right now?

00:01:48.040 I mean, everything you hear out of the Biden administration is how tough they are on Russia,

00:01:52.080 how they're exposing Russia.

00:01:54.140 And so what would it be that would cause them to release Alexei Berkoff?

00:01:59.200 Alexei Berkoff.

00:02:00.100 Now, here are the key points on this particular cyber criminal that the Russians got back. 0.76

00:02:04.120 In 2019, the Trump administration secured his extradition to the United States.

00:02:11.200 He was pursued for years on hacking charges, identity theft, wire fraud, computer intrusion, money laundering.

00:02:18.580 He had a website called Card Planet that sold credit card and debit card information,

00:02:23.500 20 million in fraud purchases.

00:02:26.240 And then in August 2021, the Biden administration released him from federal custody.

00:02:31.560 Our good friend, the leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan,

00:02:36.740 asked the FBI cyber chief about this decision from the Biden administration.

00:02:41.020 Take a listen.

00:02:43.060 Why did the Biden administration release Berkoff?

00:02:47.080 Sir, Mr. Berkoff was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, not by the FBI.

00:02:54.100 I don't know specifics.

00:02:55.640 What I do know is that there was no swap or concession.

00:02:59.120 And it's my understanding that his release...

00:03:01.140 Because we didn't get anything for it?

00:03:03.300 Sir, to the best of my knowledge, there were no swap or concessions.

00:03:07.100 Why do you think we...

00:03:07.800 I mean, you've said Russia...

00:03:08.800 Your statements today...

00:03:10.020 Formidable foe, foremost adversary, and the threat is current.

00:03:14.400 Mr. Berkoff has been described as an asset of supreme importance,

00:03:17.820 one of the most connected, skilled, malicious hackers ever apprehended by U.S. authorities.

00:03:22.060 And you don't know why we let him go?

00:03:23.800 No, sir.

00:03:24.160 It's the Department of Justice question.

00:03:25.920 But you're the director of cyber at the FBI in the Department of Justice.

00:03:29.440 It's part of the Department of Justice, right?

00:03:31.040 Sir, yes, sir, it is.

00:03:32.500 But obviously, we're our own agency.

00:03:34.140 Look, I read your bio.

00:03:36.100 And other than the degree from Michigan, it's pretty impressive.

00:03:38.580 You've worked at the FBI for...

00:03:40.360 You've worked at the FBI for like 20 years, right?

00:03:42.400 You've held all kinds of positions.

00:03:43.480 You're the director of cyber.

00:03:44.300 And you can't tell me why we let the most notorious Russian hacker go.

00:03:49.680 And you don't know what we got for it.

00:03:51.860 No, sir.

00:03:52.720 Were you consulted?

00:03:54.580 It's not an FBI investigation.

00:03:56.460 But you're the cyber man.

00:03:57.520 Just Mr. Gates just talked about...

00:03:58.560 You're the key guy.

00:03:59.800 You're the guy the administration sent here today to talk about cyber.

00:04:03.140 In light of the fact that last week, President Biden said the threat from Russia is imminent.

00:04:08.080 You've confirmed that the day you said it is current, is as we speak.

00:04:11.520 And you can't answer if it was a good idea or not, whether you were consulted?

00:04:14.600 Sir, I don't actually...

00:04:16.220 No, to your question, I was not consulted.

00:04:18.580 You were not consulted.

00:04:19.660 Okay.

00:04:20.420 You think it was a good idea?

00:04:22.080 Sir, I'm not in a position to comment on that.

00:04:23.920 You always know when the FBI or DOJ or any other element of the national security apparatus say,

00:04:32.440 not my department, not my purview, that there is something going on.

00:04:36.620 There is something shady.

00:04:38.020 And here you actually had the FBI cyber chief, who was not consulted on this, saying,

00:04:43.360 oh, well, that's a Secret Service investigation.

00:04:45.480 How could I possibly answer this question?

00:04:47.480 Here's the real issue.

00:04:48.320 Like, did the Biden administration send this guy to the Judiciary Committee explicitly because he didn't know?

00:04:55.660 Because he couldn't answer these questions?

00:04:57.620 See, the American people deserve robust oversight.

00:05:00.620 It's the oversight that I think should embody every committee when Republicans take control of the Congress following the next election. 0.95

00:05:07.320 But here you see how they're going to try to evade, send people who are ignorant,

00:05:11.140 send people who maybe purposefully, maybe otherwise, are deprived of the facts.

00:05:18.200 And we can't let the American people be deprived of those facts any longer.

00:05:22.400 Now, he talks about the fact in there, there's no swap.

00:05:25.560 I'm not aware of any swap for this Alexei Burkoff guy.

00:05:29.040 Let me posit one hypothetical.

00:05:31.500 We are so desperate for an Iran deal right now because Joe Biden knows that these crushing gas prices are going to result in a wipeout for Democrats in the midterms.

00:05:44.440 So they're so desperate to lower oil and gas prices, and they've posted up the way they have vis-a-vis Russia, 0.63

00:05:51.120 that they've now backed themselves into a corner where they have to do a deal with Iran.

00:05:55.960 They're dying to do the Iran nuclear deal.

00:05:58.160 That very deal that floods Iran with money to be able to not just continue their nuclear program,

00:06:05.960 which they definitely still would, but also to engage in other malign influence,

00:06:10.580 not just throughout the Middle East, but even here in the Western Hemisphere, especially in South America.

00:06:16.760 So while posting up on Russia over Ukraine, the Biden administration is giving the Russians their hacker back 0.56

00:06:23.180 so that they can potentially get favorable treatment from Russia to try to back Iran into a nuclear deal because of those poor foreign policy choices.

00:06:32.480 That is how Americans are at risk from these decisions.

00:06:36.480 Like, it is not just that we have a person who you saw Andy Biggs yesterday call a degenerating human in the Oval Office.

00:06:43.460 It's that the decision-making process puts our financial system at risk, our critical infrastructure at risk, our businesses.

00:06:52.000 Everything that Americans hold dear is endangered by the cacophony of strategic failures from the Biden administration,

00:07:01.340 giving back Alexei Burkoff, undeniably one of those failures.

00:07:04.740 There is also breaking news regarding the 2016 election.

00:07:10.360 Imagine that.

00:07:11.640 Hillary Clinton's problems with fines and other issues, but really what I thought was quite telling about the spying and the lying

00:07:19.800 came from my colleague Dan Bishop in the House Judiciary Committee.

00:07:23.340 So we're all very well aware that we've got these Durham indictments

00:07:27.240 that specifically go into the methods that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign used to engage in illegal spying.

00:07:36.400 Remember, while they were accusing Donald Trump of being an agent of the Russian government,

00:07:42.140 just take a listen from Dan Bishop to what they were up to.

00:07:47.420 Director Vornham, has the FBI taken new steps since 2017 to ensure that private government contractors

00:07:54.460 do not abuse access to sensitive U.S. government data stores for self-serving purposes, including political purposes.

00:08:04.020 Sir, I'm not familiar with the background of your question.

00:08:06.460 Well, the DOJ claims in court that Rodney Jaffe, a.k.a. Tech Executive One,

00:08:14.640 exploited sensitive DNS data reflecting Internet traffic to and from Trump Tower,

00:08:20.780 to and from Donald Trump's personal residential apartment building,

00:08:24.460 and the executive office of the president allegedly affiliated with Clinton campaign officials,

00:08:29.660 including Michael Sussman, who had been a cyber lawyer at the DOJ,

00:08:36.140 and tech researchers at Georgia Tech to fabricate plausible-sounding but false allegations

00:08:40.700 about connections between Trump and a Russian bank before the election in 2016

00:08:44.900 and then after the election about the use of a Russian-made phone.

00:08:48.360 Both of these were scams.

00:08:50.200 Mr. Sussman fed them to the FBI at the highest levels while concealing his political motives.

00:08:55.680 So that's the background.

00:08:57.060 And the question is, has the FBI taken new steps since 2017 to see that these awesome stores of sensitive data

00:09:04.840 that U.S. has are not being exploited for political purposes by private contractors?

00:09:09.920 Sir, I mean, compliance is obviously important to us.

00:09:14.320 And, you know, just taking a little bit broader view,

00:09:16.980 we've obviously taken a lot of reform steps over the past couple years.

00:09:22.200 Many of them have been in the public, whether it's FISA, Woods, 702.

00:09:26.220 So I can't speak specifically to your question.

00:09:28.880 I don't know the answer.

00:09:29.700 But the Bureau has taken a lot of reform steps through that time period

00:09:33.320 that all have been discussed in public forums such as this and in the media.

00:09:36.920 You mentioned FISA, Woods, 702.

00:09:40.000 So I think you're talking about the Woods file abuse in the FISA applications.

00:09:43.680 I don't think I'm asking about that.

00:09:45.060 Can you think of any reforms that have been taken specifically to see to it

00:09:49.060 that this kind of private contractor abuse of these data stores can't happen?

00:09:52.620 Sir, not at this moment.

00:09:53.780 I cannot.

00:09:56.040 What are the cybersecurity implications of a private company being able to intercept Internet traffic to and from the White House?

00:10:03.100 Sir, I'm not here to talk about those matters.

00:10:06.120 You've said what you're here not to talk about.

00:10:08.500 I'm a member of Congress asking you for something within your knowledge is a question you're bound to answer, sir.

00:10:14.080 Do you know what the cybersecurity implications are of data being intercepted into and out of the White House?

00:10:20.460 Do I know what the cybersecurity implications are?

00:10:23.660 If you're asking me if I know what the policy is, that backs up when we can and cannot.

00:10:30.280 That's not what I'm asking you.

00:10:31.380 I'm asking you what the implications are, the national security implications of intercepting data in and out of the White House

00:10:37.120 and a private company having access to that.

00:10:40.440 Yes, in general terms.

00:10:41.880 There are exposures from that.

00:10:43.180 Wouldn't you agree?

00:10:44.180 Yes, sir.

00:10:44.640 This article from the Wall Street Journal entitled Durham Probe Reveals Government Access to Unregulated Data Streams, February 26, 2022.

00:10:53.880 Have you seen that article?

00:10:56.200 No, sir.

00:10:56.720 I have not.

00:10:57.180 It relates that the latest developments in the high-profile criminal probe by Special Counsel John Durham

00:11:04.140 show the extent to which the world's Internet traffic is being monitored by a coterie of network researchers

00:11:10.020 and security experts inside and outside of government.

00:11:14.560 There are concerns, obviously, about the privacy implications of private cybersecurity companies being able to tap into the web traffic

00:11:20.940 and then give that data to government at any particular level without warrants or court orders.

00:11:25.500 In what ways does the FBI rely on this kind of data in their investigations?

00:11:33.000 Sir, as I said earlier today, when you look at private sector broadly defined,

00:11:38.560 but when you look at private sector a little bit more narrowly defined about who provides infrastructure for networks, servers, computers, et cetera,

00:11:46.040 those network providers obviously see a lot of traffic.

00:11:50.860 They see my personal traffic.

00:11:52.260 They see your personal traffic on a very routine basis.

00:11:55.500 We have subpoena processes that we go through to request that information when it's relevant to an investigation.

00:12:03.560 So that is how we interact with those companies on a routine basis from an investigative perspective.

00:12:09.060 Well, my time's about to expire.

00:12:10.080 What this article relates is that a lot of that information can be accessed without warrant,

00:12:14.240 and that's exactly the problem I'm talking about.

00:12:15.900 You've spoken two times to the priority given to the FBI at the highest level to the imperative of protecting the rights of Americans,

00:12:22.240 particularly First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights.

00:12:24.920 And I'm looking for some indication that those are more than empty words, more than just a platitude.

00:12:29.660 I'm stunned that, above all the things we've talked about today,

00:12:33.980 that you can't even speak to an abuse that is out in public based on allegations of the Department of Justice involving the use of cyber data.

00:12:44.120 Is there anything that you can offer to the American people to improve their confidence that the FBI is indeed protecting their rights beyond just platitudes?

00:12:51.560 The time has expired.

00:12:52.920 The witness may answer the question.

00:12:55.240 Sir, you're very familiar with the legal process that we have to go through to obtain information from any number of companies

00:13:02.500 or even from victims in certain cases.

00:13:05.440 That is our baseline protocol of how we do business.

00:13:08.760 I'm unfamiliar with the article, so I cannot speak to what it actually says in there.

00:13:13.160 Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit, for the record,

00:13:16.740 the article from the Wall Street Journal entitled,

00:13:18.860 Durham Probe Reveals Government Access to Unregulated Data Streams.

00:13:22.320 Without objection.

00:13:24.380 We're back live here in my House office in the Longworth office building.

00:13:30.020 That was withering questioning from Congressman Dan Bishop of North Carolina,

00:13:34.160 and it showed that these people were so hell-bent to get Trump

00:13:38.420 that they were actually willing to jeopardize other critical data, other critical infrastructure,

00:13:43.700 things that our country has to keep secure, but see, none of that mattered to them.

00:13:48.120 They want to piously tell you that this is all about protecting our country.

00:13:52.640 That's why they had to go after Trump.

00:13:54.140 Trump was some great threat to the country.

00:13:55.860 But now that we're getting the indictments, now that we're getting the information,

00:13:59.540 we see that they were willing to endanger everyone just to appeal to their desire for power.

00:14:07.980 It's a very sickening thing.

00:14:09.140 And speaking of sickening, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the DMC, back in the news,

00:14:15.420 paying $118,000 in fines for lying about what they were doing all over the place

00:14:24.260 to curate lies about President Trump.

00:14:27.420 Take a listen.

00:14:29.080 The Federal Election Commission is now fining Hillary Clinton

00:14:33.240 and the Democrat National Committee over the way it paid a firm to produce the notorious Steele dossier. 0.70

00:14:39.440 The Clinton campaign has been fined $8,000, and the DNC slapped with a $105,000 penalty

00:14:46.280 after a 2016 letter revealed that they violated campaign finance rules.

00:14:51.580 The FEC says both parties failed to properly report payments for opposition research

00:14:57.000 and the production of the dossier, instead labeling the payments legal services.

00:15:01.680 Former President Trump now asking, where do I get my reputation back?

00:15:07.460 I'm joined back here in the Longworth office building by Vish Burra.

00:15:11.940 And Vish is going to get into the Hunter Biden laptop, some prior segments we've done on the show

00:15:17.440 regarding what was going to happen, how these events were going to unfold.

00:15:21.460 It was all very predictable, very predicted by this guy.

00:15:24.920 But before we get into the laptop, the chain of custody questions that everyone in America is asking,

00:15:29.980 you're a New York man.

00:15:32.460 Hillary Clinton, I guess, is a New York woman, certainly not an Arkansas woman. 0.85

00:15:36.980 I mean, what do you make, Vish, of this dynamic where when people like George Papadopoulos

00:15:42.940 are accused of lying, they go to jail?

00:15:45.480 You know, when people like Mike Flynn are accused of lying, and I don't even think he did,

00:15:51.540 you see a life destroyed.

00:15:53.540 You see a career tarnished.

00:15:55.400 But when Hillary Clinton and the DNC, like, they didn't lie on some innocuous matter.

00:16:01.600 They lied about how they were characterizing the private intelligence network

00:16:06.600 that they had set up to go and bamboozle the media and the government

00:16:11.200 and Nellie Orr and Bruce Orr at the DOJ.

00:16:13.980 And you know what?

00:16:15.500 Just pull out the checkbook, write a check, $118,000, your reaction.

00:16:20.620 Well, I think it's very important to take the signal out of all these actions that were taken by the FEC.

00:16:26.420 The idea here is not necessarily to even be punitive directly to the parties involved.

00:16:34.740 These are signals to the apparatus that would get involved in the future.

00:16:39.420 If you go and work for Donald Trump and help him in any sort of way,

00:16:45.020 we're going to bring down the House in how we penalize you and how we go after you.

00:16:49.780 Now, if you help Hillary and the DNC break the law, just make sure you have a checkbook ready.

00:16:54.920 Yeah, so if you purposefully jeopardize our data, like Congressman Dan Bishop demonstrated,

00:17:02.640 if you purposefully go and hire a private intelligence network,

00:17:07.320 hire the wife of a senior DOJ official to shuttle your nonsense through DOJ leaks to the New York Times and whoever else, 1.00

00:17:15.740 if you do all that stuff, the consequences are fine.

00:17:19.240 And then, you know, look at the people who on January 6th showed up with no intent to break any laws

00:17:24.760 or do any violence to anyone, but because barricades were taken down,

00:17:28.220 they get booby-trapped in the Capitol, and we still do have Americans as a consequence of January 6th

00:17:34.200 who have been convicted of no crime but that are held behind bars.

00:17:38.720 Deprived of their rights, right?

00:17:40.260 And that's the whole idea is to signal out.

00:17:42.420 But you think that's on purpose.

00:17:43.520 You think that all of this is a coordinated effort to say that if you are kind of on the populist right of the political spectrum,

00:17:51.260 the entire apparatus will be weaponized against you.

00:17:54.060 And even when you get busted doing the will of the regime, being a shill for the Clintons,

00:18:00.740 hey, nothing, 100,000 and change can't solve.

00:18:03.880 It's all about setting the example.

00:18:06.020 This is the example when you work for a populist president,

00:18:10.060 and then this is the example when you work for the regime-approved candidate, right?

00:18:15.000 When the punitive measures are dropped, this is the disparity,

00:18:18.860 and they are signaling that openly so that the apparatus and apparatchiks around here

00:18:23.880 know that for the future so they can feel comfortable doing these things in the future.

00:18:27.940 It's infuriating, but honestly, Vish, I got to tell you, I was surprised the FEC even did it.

00:18:32.740 I mean, how low do our expectations have to be that when you're like, oh, you know, my goodness,

00:18:38.480 Hillary Clinton and the DNC had to pay a $118,000 fine,

00:18:41.280 you're actually glad that at least it's documented that we were telling the truth and that they were lying.

00:18:47.240 I mean, when I said that it wasn't Trump colluding with the Russian Federation,

00:18:51.280 it was the Clinton campaign shuttling and nurturing and fostering these lies with their own lying distribution network. 0.85

00:18:59.880 I mean, people said that I should put a tinfoil hat on.

00:19:03.080 That should be removed from the Judiciary Committee.

00:19:05.000 And at least now, even though the punishment isn't there, the fact pattern is there.

00:19:09.100 And the question is, when Republicans get power back, are we going to be able to bring sufficient accountability?

00:19:14.860 I'm here with Vish Burra.

00:19:15.980 You're the executive secretary of the New York Young Republican Club.

00:19:18.640 You're very active on matters of policy.

00:19:22.560 You think about these things a lot.

00:19:24.240 What's your confidence level that Republicans will be able to administer accountability for the facts that we are seeing come out now?

00:19:31.480 Well, I would hope that the Republicans, when they take back control, that they would pursue these matters of accountability,

00:19:39.620 especially amongst our investigative agencies, where we want to believe that when they are taking actions against folks,

00:19:45.940 that those actions are backed up with integrity and logic and facts.

00:19:51.360 And we have lost faith in that many times over.

00:19:55.460 Can we just think about the juxtaposition of the Steele dossier story compared to the Hunter Biden laptop story?

00:20:03.220 The Steele dossier story was sprung out of a BuzzFeed report.

00:20:10.600 And think about that when the Hunter Biden laptop story was sprung out of the New York Post.

00:20:16.160 The New York Post is a 200-year-old newspaper started by Alexander Hamilton.

00:20:21.240 And that was, oh, that's right-wing propaganda, blah, blah, blah.

00:20:24.240 Can't trust that. 0.76

00:20:25.400 51 intelligence officials come say that's baloney.

00:20:28.440 But the BuzzFeed article that reports the pee tapes, that gets media to carry its water all across the landscape.

00:20:36.520 And for years, and special counsel, all sorts of stuff was set up and justified based on this.

00:20:42.680 And it's just the American people can see it.

00:20:46.220 Well, what you're describing is that it's not a fair fight.

00:20:48.900 No.

00:20:49.140 That when they get lies, those lies get wrapped up and packaged up as truth.

00:20:54.320 And that when we have the truth, that gets suppressed, deplatformed, and siloed away from the national conversation that we have about these important things.

00:21:05.880 I filed legislation to strip those 51 people who made false claims about the Hunter Biden laptop of their security clearances.

00:21:14.460 It's called the Spook Who Cried Wolf Act. 0.98

00:21:16.660 You can look it up.

00:21:17.360 You can check out our co-sponsors.

00:21:19.240 I'm particularly glad that we got Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with us on that legislation as well, in addition to a number of members of the House Judiciary Committee.

00:21:27.720 I'm joined here by Vish Burra, former investigative journalist at The War Room podcast, producer there, used to direct this show, Firebrand, former member of our congressional staff.

00:21:38.240 And Vish Burra plays a key role in this entire laptop saga.

00:21:42.940 We're going to get to that, but I want to give you all the background.

00:21:45.320 I want to make sure you understand what went down this week in the House Judiciary Committee that set up the biggest story in the world.

00:21:52.820 Take a listen.

00:21:53.380 At the risk of making some enemies on this committee, I'll draw a comparison between the FBI's role in the cyber ecosystem and an event I attended 30 years ago yesterday when Duke beat Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Men's Eastern Regional Final.

00:22:08.360 Sometimes we're Grant Hill throwing the pass, and sometimes we're Christian Layton taking the shot.

00:22:14.020 Having said that, for the FBI to continue supporting our partners and executing successful operations ourselves, we need your support, even the Kentucky and North Carolina fans amongst you.

00:22:26.120 As one of our key oversight committees and allies, your backing is crucial for our continued growth of authorities and resources.

00:22:33.540 So where is it?

00:22:36.400 The laptop.

00:22:41.160 Sir, I'm not here to talk about the laptop.

00:22:44.140 I'm here to talk about the FBI cyber program.

00:22:46.200 You are the assistant director of FBI cyber.

00:22:49.560 I want to know where Hunter Biden's laptop is.

00:22:52.200 Where is it?

00:22:52.960 Sir, I don't know that answer.

00:22:54.640 That is astonishing to me.

00:22:55.920 Has FBI cyber assessed whether or not Hunter Biden's laptop could be a point of vulnerability, allowing America's enemies to hurt our country?

00:23:06.120 Sir, the FBI cyber program is based off of what's codified in Title 18, Title 18, Section 1030, a code which talks about computer intrusions, right?

00:23:17.320 Using nefarious intent.

00:23:19.200 Well, you've talked about passwords here.

00:23:21.360 I mean, Hunter Biden's password on his laptop was Hunter 02.

00:23:24.340 He drops it off at a repair store.

00:23:27.440 I'm holding the receipt from Max Computer Repair, where in December 2019, they turned over this laptop to the FBI.

00:23:36.160 And what now you're telling me right here is that as the assistant director of FBI cyber, you don't know where this is after it was turned over to you three years ago.

00:23:46.140 Yes, sir.

00:23:46.760 That's an accurate statement.

00:23:47.620 How are Americans supposed to trust that you can protect us from the next colonial pipeline if it seems that you can't locate a laptop that was given to you three years ago from the first family, potentially creating vulnerabilities for our country?

00:24:01.660 Sir, it's not in the purview of my investigative responsibilities.

00:24:06.520 But that is shocking that you wouldn't, as the assistant director of cyber, know whether or not there are international business deals, kickbacks, shakedowns that are on this laptop that would make the first family suspect to some sort of compromise.

00:24:24.080 Mr. Assistant Director, have you assessed whether or not the first family is compromised as a result of the Hunter Biden laptop?

00:24:30.240 Sir, as a representative of the FBI cyber program, it is not in the realm of my responsibilities to deal with the questions that you're asking me.

00:24:39.340 Has anyone at FBI cyber been asked to make assessments whether or not the laptop creates a point of vulnerability?

00:24:47.380 Sir, we have multiple lines of investigative responsibility in the FBI.

00:24:51.860 They're all available in public source.

00:24:53.640 Well, I would think you'd know this one.

00:24:55.180 I mean, I would think that if the president's son, who does international business deals, referencing the now president with the Chinese, with Ukrainians.

00:25:05.400 I mean, have you assessed whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop gives Russia the ability to harm our country?

00:25:10.960 Sir, again, we can do this back and forth for the next couple of minutes.

00:25:16.540 I don't have any information about the Hunter Biden laptop or the investment.

00:25:20.960 But should you?

00:25:21.540 I mean, you're the Assistant Director of FBI Cyber.

00:25:25.200 By the block and line chart?

00:25:26.880 No, sir, I should not.

00:25:27.640 Who should we put in that chair to ask questions about this laptop that FBI has had for three years?

00:25:33.680 Sir, I'm not in a position to make a recommendation.

00:25:37.880 So you don't have it.

00:25:39.500 You don't know who has it.

00:25:40.760 You don't know where it is.

00:25:41.880 You're the Assistant Director.

00:25:42.700 You know, earlier you talked about whether or not you were the Grant Hill or the Christian Laitner.

00:25:47.000 It sounds like you're the Chris Webber trying to call a timeout when you don't have one.

00:25:52.240 So who is it?

00:25:53.280 Do you even know who has it?

00:25:54.740 Do you know who we should put in that chair to ask these questions to?

00:25:57.720 No, sir.

00:25:58.200 I don't know who has it.

00:26:00.740 Well, could you find out and tell us?

00:26:02.720 You're going to have to give us briefings thanks to Mr. Lew and Mr. Massey's question about whether or not the FBI was taking a $5 million test drive on the Pegasus system that was being used to target people in politics, people in government, people in the media, people in American life.

00:26:16.880 So will you commit to give us a briefing as the Assistant Director of FBI Cyber as to where the laptop is, whether or not it's a point of vulnerability, whether or not the American people should wonder whether or not the first family is compromised?

00:26:29.480 Sir, I'd be happy to take your request back to our office.

00:26:33.760 Gosh, I mean, will you advocate for that briefing?

00:26:38.200 You will?

00:26:39.400 I will be happy to take your request back to the FBI headquarters.

00:26:42.860 Well, do you believe that that is a briefing that the Congress is worthy of having, I guess?

00:26:49.120 Sir, I'm not going to answer that question.

00:26:52.340 I'm here to talk.

00:26:53.700 The invitation says oversight of the FBI's cyber division.

00:26:59.980 It does not say anything.

00:27:01.700 Well, right, but I mean, this is a cyber asset.

00:27:04.980 This is a point of vulnerability.

00:27:06.460 If there are passwords, if there are business deals, if there are references to things that could harm our country, like you can't even sit here right now and say that, you know, that there's not a point of vulnerability.

00:27:17.800 Maybe there are other crimes.

00:27:18.940 Maybe there are tax issues or whatever.

00:27:20.820 But as it relates to our I mean, it is the first family sufficient cyber infrastructure to protect.

00:27:27.440 You don't even know if they're compromised.

00:27:28.760 Tell you what, Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record of this committee.

00:27:33.260 Maybe the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, which I'm in possession of.

00:27:41.200 I'm not.

00:27:46.860 There's no objection to that.

00:27:54.180 I can't say no objection.

00:27:59.120 I've never had.

00:28:00.500 I will object pending further investigation.

00:28:04.340 What's the basis of that objection?

00:28:07.380 It's the unanimous consent request.

00:28:09.160 And I object.

00:28:10.120 I have a subsequent question.

00:28:11.400 Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record.

00:28:14.040 The receipt may very well.

00:28:15.760 From the Mac shop.

00:28:16.720 It may very well be entered into the record after we look at it further.

00:28:21.220 Mr. Chairman, I have a subsequent unanimous consent.

00:28:25.440 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:28:26.320 Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record the receipt from the Department of Justice to the Mac shop.

00:28:32.240 Mr. Chairman, this is Ms. Deming.

00:28:33.820 Am I next or am I next?

00:28:34.540 Without objection.

00:28:36.700 No one is recognized.

00:28:37.740 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:28:38.720 After a consultation with majority staff, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record of this committee content from, files from, and copies from the Hunter Biden laptop.

00:28:49.420 Without objection.

00:28:50.460 Thank you.

00:28:51.100 You'll be back.

00:28:51.400 There it was.

00:28:54.320 And everybody started asking how in the world Hunter Biden's laptop contents on a disk drive ended up in the House Judiciary Committee and now has ended up as part of the permanent record of Congress.

00:29:07.700 So we're going to get into what happens next with the laptop, how its contents are going to be probably utilized in other congressional hearings.

00:29:15.800 But first, Vish, take us from that laptop getting dropped off by Hunter Biden to its contents showing up in the House Judiciary Committee.

00:29:25.380 I would love to tell this story.

00:29:27.340 So April of 2019, Hunter Biden goes into John McIsaac's laptop repair shop and hands him the laptop and says, hey, I need this fixed.

00:29:39.120 From there, John Paul McIsaac says, yes, I can fix it, but it will take me two weeks here.

00:29:46.200 So leave it with me and I'll fix it.

00:29:48.520 Hunter says, OK.

00:29:49.560 Now, once John Paul McIsaac says, OK, I'll fix it.

00:29:53.380 He hands Hunter a form.

00:29:56.420 And this is standard practice in Delaware.

00:29:58.340 And I think it's actually legally described in Delaware, but standard practice in this industry where the laptop repair shop owner will take the laptop and repair it.

00:30:13.640 And then once once he tries to return it to the owner and seeks payment for the services, if that laptop repair shop owner tries to get paid and after 90 days doesn't hear back or doesn't get a response for the repair property, that property then becomes the laptop repair shop owners.

00:30:36.840 So the ownership of the laptop actually changes, according to Delaware law, based on non-payment by Hunter Biden for the repairs and based on the duration of time between when that was dropped off and ultimately was in the ownership legally of McIsaac.

00:30:58.280 Right. And if it wasn't the legal statute, there was a written, a form that Hunter filled out at the spot right there.

00:31:06.500 Oh, OK. OK. So it may have been a function of his agreement to engage in that repair.

00:31:10.900 Right. Exactly. There was documentation on that.

00:31:14.180 So once now, once that happens and now the laptop legally belongs to McIsaac.

00:31:19.260 After 90 days, Hunter doesn't return. He doesn't return the calls, doesn't pay for it. It becomes McIsaac's.

00:31:25.960 Now, fast forward a few months later, impeachment one buzz starts and that is when McIsaac starts hearing on the news about impeachment one, Hunter Biden, Ukraine, Burisma.

00:31:37.400 That's when he remembered, oh, wait, I do have a Hunter Biden laptop or something like that.

00:31:42.800 Let me just go log in. So until the Democrats kick the hornet's nest with this phony Ukraine impeachment.

00:31:51.060 Right. I mean, this laptop was just collecting dust in a repair shop.

00:31:55.320 Exactly. And probably never would have been opened. Exactly.

00:31:58.440 But because McIsaac is starting to hear this stuff as if it is like current, real, actionable news.

00:32:05.460 Biggest story in the world, right? If you remember at that time, impeachment one was the biggest story in the world.

00:32:10.740 We had Adam Schiff down there leaking out every day that, oh, there was some new damning thing.

00:32:15.140 Exactly. All right. So so he goes and gets into it.

00:32:18.080 And so he goes and gets into it, sees, you know, salacious pictures, bank stuff, Burisma documents, all that.

00:32:24.440 And he says, oh, I am pretty sure this is pertinent to whatever's going on on my TV.

00:32:29.700 Right. And so that's what it ain't exactly like Burisma is Coca-Cola.

00:32:33.560 Exactly. Right. So so that's when he so he says, OK, you know what, I'm going to turn this over to the proper authorities.

00:32:41.280 And he then decides he's going to turn it over to the FBI.

00:32:46.020 But so he doesn't go to the press doesn't go to the press.

00:32:49.360 This was not about partisanship or anything like that.

00:32:52.340 He's just trying to do the right thing.

00:32:54.220 And he's seeing that there might be, you know, trouble in the country around something called Burisma and a Hunter Biden or whatever here.

00:33:00.780 If this laptop can clear up some things, when when does McIsaac give the laptop to the FBI in December 2019 is when.

00:33:09.880 And that's what generates the receipt that people just saw in the House Judiciary Committee.

00:33:14.060 Correct. And he gives them the original laptop, the one that he took from Hunter.

00:33:18.340 But it's very important here. The faith in our institutions was already so detrimental at that time that John McIsaac isn't even sure if he turns over this laptop that it's going to be OK.

00:33:31.960 So he makes a few copies, disk images of that laptop.

00:33:36.400 By the way, if McIsaac doesn't make those copies, we we might still be hearing what you heard at the beginning of that question series.

00:33:43.820 You know, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

00:33:45.980 Exactly.

00:33:46.380 But but this guy, pretty smart, right?

00:33:49.860 Goes under here. He just some suspicion, some doubt.

00:33:54.480 He says, let me make a few copies.

00:33:56.380 So in December 2019, he turns over the original has the receipt that you held up during the committee hearing.

00:34:03.200 And and, you know, he's and the FBI takes it, doesn't hear back from them again.

00:34:08.840 And then he's still seeing the buzz going on.

00:34:11.160 And not only that, he's seeing Rudy's getting slammed in the media of, you know, over this this this Ukraine stuff and Burisma stuff and Hunter stuff doesn't hear any words.

00:34:21.480 Finally, he gets fed up. He says, well, if nobody's going to do anything about this and Rudy's still taking flack and all sorts of other stuff, you know what?

00:34:28.940 I'm going to turn it over to I'm going to turn over a copy of this to Rudy himself.

00:34:32.480 And that is when John John Paul MacIsaac reaches out to Rudy's lawyer, Rob Costello, hands it over to Rob Costello.

00:34:41.620 One of the copies gives the proper documentation as well.

00:34:45.640 The chain of custody documentation from Hunter, from the FBI, everything turns it over to Robert Costello, gives the consent to use it as they see fit.

00:34:55.480 Costello gives it to Rudy.

00:34:57.460 Then Rudy comes and seeks out Steve Bannon because Rudy's a great legal mind, but doesn't really understand the environment of the Chinese companies and the Chinese players and a lot of these other characters that pop up on the laptop.

00:35:09.820 So he goes to Steve Bannon, who's doing the War Room at the time, and I'm the producer there for for Steve.

00:35:17.080 And so that's the founding producer, the one of the one of the founding one of the founding producers of War Room Pandemic.

00:35:24.200 And if you know, quick shout out, War Room started on impeachment, right?

00:35:28.400 The impeachment once. So that all flowed in.

00:35:31.600 And now it's part of the War Room journalism.

00:35:34.760 So talk to me about how you and Bannon get a hold of this.

00:35:37.680 So now, so we get a hold of it in conjunction with Rudy, and we're just, so Steve hands me the laptop and says, you know, I need you to go through this thing, make it your best friend, know how to, you know, where everything is.

00:35:53.080 I start going through it. I find a bunch of things, and, you know, we're working with Steve and Rudy.

00:35:57.960 We're all going through it together.

00:35:59.000 So you were essentially Bannon and Giuliani's Indian tech guy.

00:36:02.100 I was, it's not essentially, that's, it's literally that.

00:36:06.000 That's exactly what you were.

00:36:06.880 That's exactly, I was their IT guy.

00:36:09.460 And, and so we go, so we're going through all this stuff.

00:36:12.480 And that's, and then I learned how to make a copy there in that process.

00:36:16.380 And once I learned how to make the copies, then I started making copies for whoever was asking.

00:36:21.120 And that knowledge stuck with me to this day.

00:36:23.040 So you guys weren't trying to hold this information close.

00:36:25.660 No, no.

00:36:26.140 You were trying at this point in time to proliferate the information.

00:36:29.860 To disseminate the information.

00:36:31.140 What kind of reaction did you get from the media?

00:36:34.520 Well.

00:36:35.040 Biggest story in the world.

00:36:36.720 Clear chain of custody.

00:36:38.200 So, I mean, I don't think I need to really explain it.

00:36:41.500 But just to go over, it was immediately, you know, nuked by Twitter.

00:36:45.460 Where you couldn't even share the story through DMs, right?

00:36:49.020 You couldn't share the, the distribution was limited on Facebook.

00:36:53.600 You had, you know, eventually then the deep state comes out.

00:36:57.100 And you have these intelligence officials saying it's Russian disinformation.

00:36:59.820 Then the media takes that and runs air cover saying it's Russian disinformation.

00:37:04.840 We can't cover it.

00:37:05.660 It's Russian disinformation.

00:37:07.100 We can't cover it.

00:37:07.800 We can't talk about it.

00:37:08.720 You'd think it was Russian disinformation.

00:37:10.600 They could at least find it.

00:37:11.740 Right.

00:37:12.260 No.

00:37:12.540 And that's, that's right.

00:37:13.720 And so.

00:37:14.400 What a joke.

00:37:15.100 And so, yeah.

00:37:15.880 So once ago, so once, now I have copies.

00:37:18.360 I make copies for other people.

00:37:20.200 And I just, you know, after I left the war room, I still have my own copy.

00:37:24.500 And that's when, you know, I came and worked for you over the last year.

00:37:28.460 And then we got a phone, you know, I got a phone call last week saying this guy's coming

00:37:32.540 in and we're going to need a copy.

00:37:34.640 And that's when I made the copy, my copy.

00:37:37.780 I made one for you, handed it.

00:37:40.080 Actually, I handed that copy to your LD, Isabella, who then handed it over to you.

00:37:46.140 And then in the committee, that's what you held up.

00:37:48.880 And that's how it ended up in that committee meeting.

00:37:52.000 Yeah.

00:37:52.140 There's the chain of custody.

00:37:53.280 The most suppressed information in the world.

00:37:58.060 Every powerful entity that we warned you about in the first episode of Firebrand.

00:38:02.740 Big government, big media, big tech.

00:38:05.140 All working together to deprive you of the truth.

00:38:08.940 To be the arbiters of the truth themselves.

00:38:11.420 And then you get McIsaac, to Giuliani, to Bannon, to Burra, to Gates, to now all of America.

00:38:20.720 But, you know, Vish, when you were working in this congressional office, you kind of called this.

00:38:26.860 I mean, we went through some of the features of the laptop substantively that really concerned us.

00:38:34.400 So if you're interested in some of the specific deals on the laptop that gave Vish concern,

00:38:40.600 as he was going through this, you can go back and watch the episode of Firebrand called The Hunter Files.

00:38:45.900 But when it comes to what you're now seeing today in the media as a reaction to our work earlier this week,

00:38:53.400 this is what Vish told you was going to happen.

00:38:57.220 Have we heard the last of Hunter Biden?

00:38:59.480 Absolutely not.

00:39:00.260 So what I will say is that I am probably still the only person on this side of America that could competently make a copy of this thing.

00:39:09.560 And I've distributed over 40 copies to multiple outlets that have peaked.

00:39:15.120 Their interest has peaked after, you know, Joe Biden has won.

00:39:18.780 He's firmly in place.

00:39:19.860 And now people are looking for ways to make their own bones now, now that, you know, they don't have to worry about being the pariah.

00:39:27.340 And so the interest level has gone up in the Hunter Biden laptop since.

00:39:31.560 And I believe you will start seeing more mainstream outlets verifying this thing and coming out and saying that they're that, you know, this thing is real.

00:39:42.120 And these are things that have to be addressed.

00:39:43.760 You know, as being from New York, I kind of see, like, what's what what is happening with Biden could also could could sort of harken back to what happened with Cuomo,

00:39:55.720 where at the right time you kind of needed to get rid of the guy and that these stories would now be deployed to put get somebody else in place.

00:40:02.800 So they could be tools waiting in the wings.

00:40:07.300 Waiting in the wings.

00:40:08.860 Indeed.

00:40:09.840 Now you see a couple of things happening in the mainstream media.

00:40:14.340 First, they're doing exactly what you predicted and they're starting to walk back the challenges on authenticity.

00:40:22.260 Well, yeah.

00:40:23.180 Well, look, I again, I saw this cover four months ago, but I think that now would seem like the right time.

00:40:31.240 I totally believe that that the actions you took to enter it into the congressional record definitely raised the temperature up on on their on the necessity to do what they did,

00:40:42.600 which is verify or authenticate the laptop through mainstream sources.

00:40:46.780 But I also think that, you know, there's there's a lot of malaise through the country right now about Joe Biden and his poll numbers are the lowest of them, you know, in his presidency right now.

00:40:57.480 And so I think that all these things, the confluence of all these events now have led to this laptop being verified.

00:41:07.340 And if you know, wait a second, wait a second.

00:41:08.800 Is it your statement that you believe that these things are coming to fruition now because there is a coordinated effort to take Joe Biden out?

00:41:19.180 Absolutely.

00:41:19.860 Absolutely.

00:41:20.500 And I believe that it's one of the shows that they might need to deploy before the midterms to maybe save a few seats.

00:41:27.020 I totally disagree with you.

00:41:28.200 OK.

00:41:28.340 I believe that they are gaslighting their own protection of Joe and Hunter Biden.

00:41:34.400 I don't think there's anybody at the DOJ or FBI thinking they're going to make their career out of convicting Hunter Biden of anything short of like some little slap on the wrist to sort of inoculate him.

00:41:46.320 Right.

00:41:46.680 Like a vaccine one.

00:41:48.020 Well, that's yeah.

00:41:48.800 But that's that's what I think.

00:41:49.840 I mean, I think that also if you look closely at the Washington Post, Washington Post did two stories.

00:41:55.180 One of them was a story just about how they authenticated the laptop and they in that story.

00:42:00.880 They so they try to sell a lot of discord and confusion by saying that we can only authenticate some stuff can authenticate the other stuff.

00:42:09.000 And what I think this is is an attempt to control the landing of Hunter, you know, of how this case goes and basically make sure that whatever is prosecuted or is whatever stories that they can that they're OK with having prosecuted.

00:42:26.180 Right.

00:42:26.440 And so like a planned release, like a planned release, you're controlling the land, you know, controlling the crash landing.

00:42:31.920 Right.

00:42:32.240 In Florida, Lake Okeechobee sometimes gets so many pollutants in it that the people around there decide to, like, release some water because the environment can sort of absorb and clean those pollutants.

00:42:42.820 You're describing the Lake Okeechobee factor politically through the DOJ and FBI as it relates to the Biden.

00:42:48.560 Yes.

00:42:48.840 And I think also one of the ultimate.

00:42:50.980 Well, that's not then to get him.

00:42:52.200 Right.

00:42:52.400 Because because the whole goal of that would be to preserve the Biden regime with with just some low level, maybe charges or investigations of the Biden crime family.

00:43:03.000 When if you really go back and look at the Hunter Files episode that we did previously, you're going to see like gambling deals, deals with the Chinese. 1.00

00:43:10.820 I mean, you're going to see all kind of stuff that I think rises way beyond what you're hearing about on mainstream media right now.

00:43:16.720 Yeah.

00:43:17.000 And well, I honestly, I also think that this play that you're seeing now is an attempt to I think that at the end of this, Hunter Biden will be pardoned by Joe Biden.

00:43:28.060 And I think that's what this is, is to get it into the I don't think it ever gets that far.

00:43:32.400 I don't think it ever gets that far.

00:43:33.660 I think that part of what they're setting up to not charge Hunter is this notion that, oh, you saw it in I think the Washington Post.

00:43:40.540 Oh, the people who had this laptop before the things they did would, you know, jeopardize any utilization of that evidence.

00:43:48.000 What's your reaction?

00:43:49.560 Why am I the one looking at your evidence?

00:43:51.760 Right.

00:43:52.080 It should be the best investigators and they had it December 2019.

00:43:57.140 Why am I looking at it?

00:43:58.720 Well, and why is anybody before, you know, in my circles looking at it?

00:44:03.420 Right.

00:44:03.780 It was the FBI had it.

00:44:05.920 It was turned over in good faith, you know, to do the right thing.

00:44:09.380 And nobody did.

00:44:10.840 Nobody did anything.

00:44:12.320 Let this man run for president, you know, and and and and then want to say, oh, well, you know, after 20, we were started this investigation in 2018.

00:44:21.100 But then it fell off.

00:44:22.300 But then all recently, it's picked up steam.

00:44:24.300 You know, I think that I think the only reason that this is picking up any steam is because we introduced those contents into the congressional record and their authenticity is not going to be challenged.

00:44:34.620 It wasn't challenged.

00:44:35.360 By the way, Eric Swalwell, Jerry Nadler, David Cicilline, Val Demings, Hank Johnson, none of these Democrats, you know, from the House Judiciary Committee even objected to me putting Hunter Biden's laptop into the congressional record.

00:44:49.160 It went in under a unanimous consent of the Judiciary Committee.

00:44:53.940 So we will not hear questions about the authenticity or viability.

00:44:58.060 Now, the sole question is what criminal conduct, what disqualifying conduct, what points of vulnerability are exposed as we see the contents of this laptop?

00:45:09.020 Now, the number one question I get is, how'd you get this laptop?

00:45:13.100 How'd it get there?

00:45:14.140 The number two question I get is, so what next?

00:45:16.560 When can the great sleuths that are out there watching this program and really just advancing the cause of transparency throughout the country going to be able to look at this data, analyze it?

00:45:28.860 When are we going to be able to have the information from this laptop available to ask questions in every committee, really?

00:45:35.880 I mean, it's hard to think of a committee in Congress that wouldn't benefit off of probing potentially corrupt connections that go directly to the first family, directly to the White House.

00:45:47.600 Here's the answer.

00:46:17.580 All of the workings that we've been just undertaking over the course of this week with our office and their offices.

00:46:25.300 They are working with us to ensure, so far, that this is information that the public has access to.

00:46:32.300 So if that changes, if there's any funny business, I'm going to come on this show.

00:46:36.460 We're going to talk about it live.

00:46:37.620 But so far, it is my expectation that in the coming days, maybe weeks, all of America is going to have access to this.

00:46:45.300 And you know what?

00:46:46.140 You tried to give them access to it many, many months ago.

00:46:49.580 Yeah.

00:46:49.900 You were producing copies.

00:46:51.300 Exactly.

00:46:51.700 Sending them out.

00:46:52.360 Well, how did I know?

00:46:53.300 That called shot.

00:46:54.320 You know, that's not just because, you know, Vish has a crystal ball.

00:46:57.440 It's because I was the one who made the copy that ended up in the hands of Tom Hamburger over at the Washington Post.

00:47:06.260 So that copy that he has, that he used to verify and the Washington Post used to authenticate the laptop is the same copy that you just entered into the congressional record.

00:47:18.680 It's the same thing.

00:47:20.360 Oh, but democracy dies in darkness, right?

00:47:22.780 Yeah.

00:47:22.980 Well, if the democracy is in the Washington Post's hands, maybe.

00:47:26.260 But, you know, but thank God we have brave patriots like you on the Hill who are ready to put your name to, you know, to your action and say, I'm going to put this in the congressional record.

00:47:36.840 I appreciate that.

00:47:37.580 You're a brave patriot, too, for playing your role in this from an investigative journalism standpoint, from your service on our congressional staff, and certainly your efforts this week to get this information before the American people.

00:47:49.840 And information is indeed the new domain of intelligence collection, warfare, so much of the conflict that we see.

00:48:00.280 And so for a moment, just imagine a computer program that can hack into your phone requiring a single click on your end.

00:48:08.800 It's called a zero-click exploit.

00:48:11.300 All they need is your number, and they're in.

00:48:14.320 Undetectable.

00:48:15.440 And it self-destructs remotely.

00:48:17.620 This is not science fiction.

00:48:20.620 It's Pegasus.

00:48:22.420 Pegasus is the name of a Trojan horse spyware program created by the Israeli cybercrime company NSO Group.

00:48:30.460 And as of 2022, Pegasus was capable of reading texts, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing, targeting a device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps.

00:48:45.600 WhatsApp, signal, even peer-to-peer.

00:48:48.500 Essentially, once they're in, they have total control of your phone.

00:48:52.360 And getting in no longer even requires human error or even human action by the target.

00:48:58.200 This would be the end of phishing exploits.

00:49:00.640 Well, thank goodness this technology wasn't just like created by our greatest ally, Israel, right? 0.99

00:49:08.160 Not so fast.

00:49:10.280 NSO Group has sold this technology to countless state actors and even local police forces all over the world, from Mexico to Saudi Arabia.

00:49:19.360 And recently, it has been confirmed that our own FBI paid $5 million for the Pegasus software.

00:49:27.900 It's even likely that Mexican drug cartels are using Pegasus through their corrupt collusions with Mexican government officials.

00:49:36.340 And these are just the customers that we know about.

00:49:39.100 There's probably non-state actors too.

00:49:40.980 It's safe to say that Pegasus isn't being sold responsibly, certainly not being used responsibly.

00:49:48.560 And now Israel won't sell the tech to Ukraine because they don't want to piss off the Russians,

00:49:52.800 but they'll send it to a narco state on our southern border.

00:49:56.620 It's just beyond irresponsible.

00:49:58.840 So what does it mean for us?

00:50:00.620 Here's what Edward Snowden had to say.

00:50:04.980 What needs to happen now?

00:50:07.220 We have to stop this.

00:50:08.580 Inaction is no longer an option.

00:50:12.260 If you don't do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it's not just going to be 50,000 targets.

00:50:19.480 It's going to be 50 million targets, and it's going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect.

00:50:25.920 The way we do that is to halt the trade around this technology.

00:50:31.720 It doesn't matter who you are.

00:50:32.820 It doesn't matter what you do.

00:50:34.320 Your position isn't going to protect you.

00:50:36.000 If you're a minister, a prime minister, guess what?

00:50:38.000 You're on the list.

00:50:38.800 You're a Supreme Court justice.

00:50:40.100 You're on the list.

00:50:41.060 If you're an ordinary person, guess what?

00:50:43.220 You're on the list, too.

00:50:45.280 All you have to do is come to the attention of somebody with the money to pay any one of these companies for the tools to break into your phone.

00:50:52.960 We know right off the bat that, unfortunately, we can't trust our own intelligence agencies.

00:51:01.860 The FBI, NSA, CIA, ATF, and DEA have just a piss-poor track record when it comes to protecting individual liberties and respecting the Fourth Amendment that's supposed to bind them.

00:51:14.040 They don't think so all the time.

00:51:15.420 We know how the FBI spied on the Trump administration before and during the Trump presidency.

00:51:20.580 We know about the robust surveillance state that the FBI has to entrap poor boomers who entered the Capitol grounds on January 6th. 0.79

00:51:29.280 Was Pegasus involved in that?

00:51:31.720 We don't know.

00:51:32.560 We know the FBI had it.

00:51:34.040 Paid $5 million.

00:51:34.780 And we can't really say for certain how the FBI has used this technology.

00:51:40.600 But we know our allies and adversaries have used it.

00:51:45.180 According to the Pegasus Project, which is an investigative initiative by Amnesty International, Forbidden Stories, and dozens of other news organizations,

00:51:53.180 authoritarian governments have been using it, and we know, to surveil and kill anyone who doesn't fall in line.

00:52:00.060 As many as 14 heads of state, countless government officials, journalists, they've all been targets of Pegasus.

00:52:07.600 There is no way to tell how many.

00:52:10.940 We do now suspect that targets of Pegasus did include Jamal Khashoggi.

00:52:18.100 He was assassinated and killed.

00:52:21.060 But we're just getting started.

00:52:22.280 Like, was Hunter Biden a target of Pegasus?

00:52:24.940 How could he not have been?

00:52:27.020 Was I?

00:52:27.820 But we are going to get these answers.

00:52:32.140 Allies spy on allies, sometimes more than they spy on enemies.

00:52:36.400 This is a well-known fact.

00:52:38.880 Israel spies on the United States more than you might think. 0.80

00:52:44.440 And, of course, Israel is not an enemy.

00:52:46.320 They're our friend.

00:52:47.620 But the question remains, how many journalists, politicians, lobbyists,

00:52:52.700 how many of them are impacted by this Pegasus software?

00:52:58.400 And does it impact our foreign policy?

00:53:00.980 Blackmail can be a very powerful tool.

00:53:03.700 Was Hunter Biden the target of foreign intelligence?

00:53:06.340 We've seen the contents now of the hard drive.

00:53:08.740 Who had access to it before we did?

00:53:11.580 If a family member or a politician is compromised,

00:53:15.640 don't you think we should know?

00:53:16.520 How many Americans have been targeted by foreign intelligence agencies,

00:53:19.960 or our own intelligence agencies, for that matter?

00:53:23.020 To get these answers, I'm glad that we've got Thomas Massey

00:53:27.740 asking some of the tough questions.

00:53:30.240 Here's that clip from the House Judiciary Committee.

00:53:32.380 Are you aware of a piece of software named Pegasus?

00:53:38.520 It's provided by NSO Group, Israeli software company.

00:53:42.760 Yes, sir.

00:53:43.560 Does the FBI use this program?

00:53:45.900 It looks like they had a license to it for $5 million.

00:53:50.160 So the FBI has not and did not ever use the NSO products operationally

00:53:57.240 or in any investigation.

00:53:58.320 We did buy a limited license for testing and evaluation.

00:54:03.720 Those limited licenses are part of our normal exploratory process

00:54:08.060 to understand what other technologies are out there.

00:54:12.060 But again, we have never purchased it for use operationally

00:54:15.720 or in an ongoing investigation.

00:54:18.000 So your division hasn't used this spyware domestically?

00:54:21.800 No, sir.

00:54:23.160 Have you detected the use of this software domestically?

00:54:28.320 Sir, there's reporting in the media about Apple filing a lawsuit against NSO,

00:54:34.400 and there's a lot of information in that article.

00:54:37.040 I can't comment further on your question truly due to classification,

00:54:41.520 but if that is of interest to you, we could consider a background briefing.

00:54:46.400 Does the FBI itself exploit the SF7 flaw to access cell phone contents?

00:54:54.260 Sir, I'm not in a position to answer that question.

00:54:56.220 I don't know the answer.

00:54:56.860 Sir, previously, Congress Member Massey asked you about a briefing.

00:55:02.900 I just want to make sure, will you commit to a bipartisan briefing classified on Pegasus

00:55:08.520 and the NSO group and the SS7 issue?

00:55:11.280 Sir, yes, and if I can expand.

00:55:14.120 I mean, it's very important for me personally as a representative for the cyber program at the FBI

00:55:18.800 to keep that as an open invitation in both directions between all of you and me and for me and all of you

00:55:25.820 that whatever information that you would want access to, we would try to facilitate that.

00:55:30.060 Just think about that.

00:55:34.040 When Ted Lieu, not someone I quote often, asked the question of the FBI cyber chief whether or not

00:55:41.720 federal law enforcement was breaking into people's phones, the answer was, gosh, he just doesn't know.

00:55:47.680 So, we're going to get these answers.

00:55:50.000 The briefing that Congressman Massey and Congressman Ted Lieu just referenced is going to happen

00:55:55.180 and I'm going to have updates regarding legislation, changes in authorities that we might be taking

00:56:01.180 following that briefing on Pegasus.

00:56:04.100 Vish, thanks so much for joining me today on Firebrand Live.

00:56:07.040 We're here in the Capitol, we're bringing the news, we're breaking through the fake news

00:56:11.300 and we hope you join us for our next episode.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - April 01, 2022

Episode 34 LIVE： Laptop From Hell (feat. Vish Burra) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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