On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee released documents detailing the scope of the Biden-era Justice Department investigation into allegations of 2020 election interference by the Democratic National Committee and the DNC. We're joined by Eric Tietzel, CEO of the Center for American Renewal, to discuss all of this and more.
00:01:55.300I was reading about this Arctic frost probe.
00:01:59.200To me, this seems to be beyond Watergate levels of scandal.
00:02:04.220Obviously, Americans have been hit with a lot of crazy news over the last year.
00:02:08.520The news cycle has been absolutely absurd.
00:02:10.600So maybe the magnitude of what's going on here is lost on a few people.
00:02:14.660So maybe you could kind of give a quick rundown of why this is so monumental and scandalous.
00:02:20.740There's a saying that's been running through my mind for a few years now.
00:02:24.740It's the idea that every accusation is a confession.
00:02:28.500And the accusations that we've heard thrown at President Trump, his administration, the entire conservative movement, is that we're what?
00:02:37.140A threat to democracy, an existential threat to this republic, right?
00:02:42.080And it turns out that the actual threat to democracy, the actual existential threat to our nation, is coming from the side pointing fingers.
00:02:52.220It's coming from those who would weaponize the massive power of the White House, of the Department of Justice, and the federal court system, and turn it against their political opponents for partisan advantage.
00:03:05.420That is exactly what we've just started to learn the details of with the release of these troves of documents from the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
00:03:40.540Well, it started because President Biden instructed his Department of Justice, specifically Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, and eventually Jack Smith, this special prosecutor, to do just what you said, to investigate this, quote, unquote, attempt at election interference.
00:03:58.280And any time you launch a federal investigation, we've seen this play run numerous times, people understand that once you have the predicate established, anything that you find becomes fair game.
00:04:12.260Even if it's not illegal, even if there's no wrongdoing, anything you find while you're ruffling through somebody's underwear drawer suddenly can be part of a disclosure.
00:04:23.140It can be embarrassing to individuals who are involved.
00:04:26.560It can reveal tactics and strategies that are not illegal, but when brought to light, undermine the work that people are doing on behalf of clients or on behalf of ideological movements.
00:04:38.900And so what's going on here is the use of federal power to destroy, it has to be said, to destroy the entire conservative movement.
00:04:51.240This dragnet that was put into place by Jack Smith with the blessing of the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States and with the assistance of federal judges like this Judge Bosberg, who has been in the news all throughout this administration for his attempts to use his power to stymie the Trump administration.
00:05:13.020By the way, the guy was a judge on the secretive courts that were allowed to spy and surveil on American citizens without any justification whatsoever, as we know from the Durham report and other information.
00:05:28.380These people perpetrated this dragnet and it encompassed elected officials, including congressmen and senators, it encompassed the heads of organizations like Ed Corrigan and Mark Meadows and encompassed attorneys for the president like Jeff Clark and John Eastman.
00:05:47.320Um, all with the, um, all with the, um, all with the goal of digging up information so that they could either find or allege supposed crimes or simply just embarrass, uh, these people for a political advantage in the midst of an election year.
00:06:04.360Hmm. I mean, I, I saw in the, in some of the discussion around, I mean, like even like turning point USA was being effectively peered at by, by the, by the, by the Biden team.
00:06:14.580I mean, how expansive was this? Cause we're seeing numbers thrown out. Obviously there's a lot of pages in the document that were released, but I don't know if people are quite aware of how expansive this operation was.
00:06:27.280We're still learning. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents that have been released. And by the way, uh, I have a feeling there are many more documents still to come.
00:06:37.800Um, it should be noted that, uh, the house released troves of documents, uh, with the assistance of the, the, the Trump department of justice, but the Senate side did it because of a whistleblower.
00:06:50.000Uh, this is somebody from within DOJ who was willing to come forward, go to Senator Chuck Grassley, who's known to protect whistleblowers and say, what happened here is wrong.
00:06:59.240And you need to know. So more is certainly to come, but to your question, um, they literally threw out the widest possible net you could imagine.
00:07:10.080I mentioned elected officials. Apparently it's hundreds of, uh, subpoenas that apply to dozens and dozens of individuals, leaders of organizations, lawyers.
00:07:21.240Um, in some cases, um, in some cases, people who look to your point had nothing to do with anything, even tangentially related to this, the center for renewing America, for example, had not even commenced operations on January 6th, 2021.
00:07:37.140And yet our banking records were subpoenaed. I mean, there is no, no possible rational basis for any sort of legitimate federal judge to sign off on these kinds of subpoenas.
00:07:51.240And yet it was done. And there's only one explanation for why partisanship, the political usage of government power to harm your enemies. And that must not be allowed to happen ever.
00:08:05.480Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's hilarious. You guys weren't even cooking yet. And they already came after you. I mean, that's insane. That's insane. Uh, my, my question would be, I mean, I was thumbing through the documents last night and this morning.
00:08:17.380I didn't see any expiration dates on there. What do you think they would have done if the last election went, you know, a different way?
00:08:25.000Oh, we know what they would have done, uh, because they're still doing it anyway to our friends and colleagues of the movement. Uh, my friend and former colleague, Jeff Clark, for example, has had his career ruined, his reputation tarnished all because he gave legal advice to the president of the United States.
00:08:41.260And even though he has never been indicted because he didn't break any laws, the bar associations have gone after him in non-legal means to, to try to bankrupt him and to ruin his professional career.
00:08:54.320This is what they are doing and what they will do if they are ever allowed to have power again. Um, I am tremendously grateful that president Trump won reelection in 2024. We should all be because, um, the, the limits that these people would have, uh, held themselves to when it came to the restraint of their power do not exist.
00:09:22.360People would have been in jail the way Steve Bannon was put in jail. People would have been bankrupted lawfare. These organizations would have had private and privileged information about things like their, like their donors released to the public, um, which would have been a massive violation of the privacy.
00:09:40.240Not just of people like me who live and work in DC. And maybe you sort of say, well, you, you know, you signed up for this game, but average everyday American citizens who write a check to some organization because they see it as an extension of their values, they should have their names and reputations pulled into this.
00:09:57.080It's absolutely un-American. It can't be allowed to stand based on what has already happened. And people need to remember this moment for the future because they're going to do it again. If ever given the opportunity, there can be no doubt about that.
00:10:12.480Mm-hmm. Well, it's kind of, it's kind of the same sort of way of thinking following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which is, look, the response needs to be so severe that this becomes unconsciousable, unconscious. It's the word I'm looking for. Unconsciousable. You know what I'm trying to say. It's a scrabble word there.
00:10:29.220For, you know, for leftist political violence to ever, you know, occur again. I mean, that's the type of environment you have to create. So kind of similar to this, because this is scandalous at the highest level, the Judiciary Committee, what options do they have here to ensure that these types of people are prevented from ever touching the weapons that would allow them to conduct this sort of operation again?
00:10:53.700Great question. Well, sunlight is the first step and the most important disinfectant. So we're getting going and that matters. I'm so grateful to you and other conservative alternative media that's covering this story, because you're not going to find it in the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times and the corporate media, because these are their friends, their allies.
00:11:14.040In fact, they were active participants in perpetrating the same false narrative about what was happening with election interference and with the January 6 riots all throughout.
00:11:25.720So it's up to us to share this information and to tell this story and to make sure that people know.
00:11:31.240And we should do that because when average, everyday Americans, people who don't necessarily pay attention to what's going on day in, day out, or who may feel overwhelmed, as you alluded to earlier, Tate, with the sheer amount of news and information that's happening, it's hard to triage and know what's really massive and important and what's just kind of a passing story.
00:11:50.820We have to say, we have to share and give people a sense of magnitude of this. But then we also, to your point, need to expect Congress to take action. Here's an idea that's been thrown out that I think is dead on. Impeach Judge Boasberg.
00:12:05.380As Ted Cruz said in the press conference that the Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans had yesterday, you have to have a factual, evidentiary basis to subpoena somebody on these grounds, or, as he also did, to submit a letter that said, hey, Verizon, not only are you supposed to give us all of this sitting U.S. senator's cell phone information, but you can't tell him that you're doing it.
00:12:31.520Because we have a belief that he will destroy evidence if he knows about it. You can't just make those claims. It has to have a basis. Americans have rights, and privacy rights are one of them.
00:12:43.620And the amendments to the Constitution guarantee a protection from unreasonable search and seizure. That's exactly what happened here.
00:12:53.120This guy has been complicit in undermining the very roots of the American justice system and has no place in the federal judiciary. That'd be a great place to start.
00:13:04.640Yeah, well, because this name, obviously, Judge Boasberg, has been discussed at length by a lot of shot callers. He's been, whatever press is reporting on it, he's a centerpiece of a lot of these articles.
00:13:15.500Maybe you could frame specifically what his role was in this operation, because he's not a household name, because he's a loser, primarily.
00:13:24.220But he's not a known quantity, I would say, in the mainstream of the political zeitgeist. Maybe you could kind of frame what his role was in this operation.
00:13:34.320Yeah, no, he's not a known quantity, because he's not supposed to be. Federal judges are not supposed to be part of the political process.
00:13:40.960It's a separate branch of government that should have no business playing partisan games.
00:13:46.680And yet he has been in the news. And if you ask the average American to name a federal judge anything below the Supreme Court, he might be the one name they would know, because of the repeated instances in which he has popped up as part of these partisan exercises.
00:14:02.140Whether it was related to his work on the FISC court, the FISA courts, this Jack Smith nonsense, or the federal injunctions he's placed on Trump administrative actions since the president was elected this year.
00:14:15.760This is a guy who was put on the federal bench initially by Barack Obama in about 2011, I believe.
00:14:21.540And in the last few years, he was elevated to chief judge of the federal district court for Washington, D.C.
00:14:29.660So he is the top federal judge for the region encompassing Washington, D.C.
00:14:35.480He's the guy who gets to make decisions like this.
00:14:38.580And he is the one who signed off on the subpoenas demanding privileged private information, phone records, banking information, employment records, and more from sitting U.S. senators, from congressmen, and from private organizations like ours.
00:14:56.060All without the necessary factual evidentiary basis that an objective judge would require in order to take such an extreme action, which, by the way, it's hard to imagine what that justification could possibly be given the stakes here, right?
00:15:15.620When you're talking about the appearance of injustice and the partisanship of the judiciary system, there should be an extra high barrier because the American people have to believe, they have to believe that the justice system is fair and blind.
00:15:33.400And even if you did have a reason, which didn't exist, to go after political opponents in an election year, you shouldn't do it because that's not who we are as a country.
00:15:44.820I mean, because I'm reading here, like, former AG Merrick Garland, ex-assistant deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, and former FBI director Christopher Wray all signed off on the investigation.
00:16:27.220And at the very least, it's grounds for disbarment.
00:16:29.820If you are known to have committed, you know, a criminal conspiracy, that's a crime and certainly something that could be punishable in various ways.
00:16:41.980For us at CRA, I know we're taking a long, hard look at this, and there are both criminal and civil routes that you can take in response to an action like this, all of which I think need to be on the table.
00:16:53.960In addition to the most important step, which you're helping us with, which is building public awareness so that we never see this happen again.
00:17:04.380I mean, yeah, because I'm just seeing this, and it's funny because obviously the probe was into election interference, sort of this narrative that was spun.
00:17:12.080This, to me, looks like election interference.
00:17:13.700We're trying to take out an entire apparatus of a political movement right before an election.
00:17:19.640I mean, look, people need to remember, Donald Trump won re-election after being indicted at the federal and state level, like, dozens of times.
00:17:31.800The, the, the, the, his opponent for president of the United States allowed his Department of Justice to pursue federal criminal investigations during an election year.
00:17:48.140This is, if, if the blob at the State Department saw this happening in some far-flung place around the world, they would declare that the election was, was rigged and unfair.
00:17:59.040And yet it's happening right here underneath our noses.
00:19:54.820And if it wasn't clear because of the abuse of power through DOJ and these scam investigations, then it's clear because they tried to assassinate the president at a political rally.
00:20:07.580Then it should be clear because they did assassinate our friend and hero, Charlie Kirk.
00:20:14.800And we have reached the precipice where we have to make a choice as a nation.
00:20:19.800Are we going to do what is necessary to take the steps back, to take the country back, and to ensure the political violence and the weaponization of the government against political enemies stops forever?
00:22:20.780And it has energized the movement to fight and to fight to make America great again, to fight to renew a sense of America as a nation under God with institutions and with people and with histories that are worthy of protecting.
00:22:36.180Right. And so that's what we're going to do.
00:22:39.620You know, I've been in this town for a long time.
00:22:42.660Nobody has a lower opinion of Congress than me.
00:22:46.020But the truth is there are heroes there.
00:23:04.700Yeah. I'm glad you hit on that point of, you know, why there why what would motivate sort of the Biden team to sort of conduct this sort of operation is going to be really important.
00:23:16.100And I think this also applies to the increase in political violence we're seeing from from the left is you don't really start, you know, conducting affairs like this or you don't start attacking people unless you feel like you're losing.
00:23:27.460Like vindictive would be an accurate adjective, obviously, to apply to this.
00:23:31.640But I think fear would actually be because they're they're they're so afraid of their entire project getting unraveled before their very eyes by how dynamic and powerful the the MAGA sort of movement is.
00:23:42.840And I don't think you conduct something like this unless you're like genuinely concerned that, oh, we're going to get we're going to lose power.
00:24:11.380We saw the IRS release the tax information of conservative groups way back when Lois Lerner was there under President Obama.
00:24:18.380We saw the FBI going after everyday moms and dads who are going to school board meetings to question the transing of their kids.
00:24:25.840Recently, my organization, the Center for Renewing America, has revealed the ways that the Biden administration and the federal bureaucrats who run the Census Bureau weaponized the 2020 census for political advantage that is only now coming to light.
00:24:42.320And we're doing a lot of work to try to undo that.
00:24:44.680Sadly, it turns out that you just can't trust folks to constrain themselves and to operate according to the rules that this system needs in order to operate.
00:25:00.240And until we do, until the American people have a deep sense that it doesn't matter what party you're a part of, you're a person who's going to respect the law and the Constitution and what it means to be an American.
00:25:11.420Think twice before giving power back to the progressive movement.
00:26:01.380How that information was then used and weaponized in the political prosecution of the president of the United States and aides like Jeff Clark, John Eastman, and others.
00:26:14.880And of course, we need to bring these people in front of Congress to testify under oath and tell us the truth about what motivated them, who told them to do what they were doing, who funded what they were doing, and more.