Lee Smith | 07-10-25
Episode Stats
Summary
Lee Smith is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Plot Against the President, which was subsequently made into one of the most powerful documentaries I have ever seen. He has a new book out, which is even more shocking, actually, called, Disappearing the President. It is a shocking tale of how a shadow network of powerful partisan activists have waged a years-long campaign to eradicate and destroy President Donald Trump.
Transcript
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The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
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And we're back in the Stone Zone. Joining me now is Lee Smith. He is the author of the New York
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Times bestseller, The Plot Against the President, that was subsequently made into one of the most
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powerful documentaries I have ever seen. He has a new book out, which is even more shocking,
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actually, called Disappearing the President. It is a shocking tale of how a shadow network of
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powerful partisan activists have waged a years-long scorched-earth war to eradicate and destroy
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President Donald Trump, resorting to unprecedented campaign of domestic spying, election rigging,
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brute force censorship, and political violence, and sabotage countless other vital institutions
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in their relentless effort to destroy Donald Trump. There is literally no person in the country
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more knowledgeable about the Russian collusion hoax than Lee Smith, and we are honored to have
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him with us today. Lee, welcome back into the Stone Zone. Roger, thank you so much for the really
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super kind introduction. And like you, I'm excited to see movement on certain things, though.
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I'm hopeful, but not certain we're going to get anything right now.
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Yeah, I'm in the same position. I think things are looking better. I think the public focus on it
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is vitally important. I'm sure that you had kind of the same reaction that I did when I saw this report
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by CIA Director Radcliffe that said that John Brennan, the disgraced CIA director, the admitted communist,
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he admitted that in the lie detector test, the same John Brennan who got caught spying on a Senate
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committee that was investigating his illegal use of torture as CIA director, the same John Brennan who
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signed the visas for four of the hijackers who attacked America on 9-11, the same John Brennan who FBI
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counterintelligence agent John Guandolo swears converted to radical Islam when he was the station chief in
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Riyadh, pushed to include the largely discredited Steele dossier in the president's intelligence
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community briefing. You reported this long, long ago. This was not news to you. You had reported this,
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we're well aware of it. Now we have the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rick Croffer,
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who's a very good man, saying that he thinks that Radcliffe's move was really designed to preempt
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the report that he's been working on for eight months that includes a great deal more declassified
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documents, a much, much deeper dive about the rot and the corruption in our intelligence agencies. So,
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Lee Smith, what say you? Yeah. Well, I mean, what, uh, what, uh, what chairman Crawford is referring to
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is he's referring to the, uh, House Intelligence Committee Russia report that those guys are working
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on since, I mean, since Devin Nunes ran that committee, um, in 2017 is when they started that
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report. Uh, and that report is extensive and that does talk about Brennan. I mean, I, I haven't seen it.
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I'm just saying what, what they've told me, it's still classified that report. I'm telling,
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uh, I'm relaying the parts of that report that, that, that they've told me about that can be talked
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about. And there, and, you know, we've seen it because we've seen that, we've seen that reported
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now that there are parts in the, in the House Intelligence Committee, uh, you know, document that
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talk about Brennan, that talk about, uh, the intelligence community assessment and Russiagate.
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Now, I, I, I don't think that, I, I think that, um, I think that director John Ratcliffe
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is a good guy. I think he, he loves Donald Trump. He supports Donald Trump. So he's not trying to,
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he's not trying to do anything underhanded, but I agree with you, Roger. I think that this report
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is, is, as other people have said, it's a whitewash. I mean, it's insane. Um, we've known most of this
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stuff for a long time and it doesn't really get to the, it doesn't really advance anything new.
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And there are different parts, which absolutely cover up for the bad things that Brennan and that
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group did. I mean, there are just some astonishing things. I, I, I really have to hope that, you know,
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you're, you're, you're a great audience. Your listeners are welcome to look it up and check it
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and check it out. But, you know, we all have more important things to do with our lives. So I'll just
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say the sort of ridiculous things that it's saying stuff like, oh yeah, it's still, uh, it's still a robust
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document using proper sourcing. I'm like, this is just insane the way that these bureaucrats talk
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about each other. But, you know, I mean, we, we all know that that's the kind of work they were
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going to get. If you tell the people at Langley here, write a report on what people at Langley did,
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that's absolutely the product they're going to turn around. So again, I don't think that director
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John Radcliffe is a bad guy. I think he's a good guy, probably a great guy. As the, as,
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as, uh, Donald Trump's director of national intelligence at the end of Donald Trump's first
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term, Radcliffe declassified a whole bunch of really important documents. So he's a good guy.
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And we know a lot about Russiagate, thanks to the efforts of John Radcliffe during Trump's first
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term. So I don't think he's trying to obfuscate anything here, but yeah, we want that report that
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Devin Nunes started. We, the report that, uh, that chairman Rick Crawford is talking about.
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So those things are all really important for our understanding. I'll just say that the craziest
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thing, uh, the craziest thing about, about that document, the craziest thing about the reporting
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afterwards is, well, yeah, of course, Brennan and Comey wanted the dossier put into that intelligence
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community assessment report, because that's all they had. There was never any evidence
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that Donald Trump was colluding, conspiring, uh, uh, contacting Russia. Never. All they had
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was the dossier. It had to go in the ICA. And that's why Devin Nunes, uh, Devin Nunes in my first
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book on, on Russiagate, the plot against the president. That's why Devin Nunes called that
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intelligence community assessment, Obama's dossier. And that's the title of one of my chapters in that
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book, Obama's dossier. So we've known this for a long time that they had to put that in there.
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They had to put all that steel reporting in there because that's all they ever had.
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This whole fake story paid for by the Clinton campaign.
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I completely agree with your assessment of John Radcliffe. I think he's a good man. And I think
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this has been an important contribution to getting public focus, uh, back on the epic
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corruption of what I've continued to call the greatest political dirty trick in American history,
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uh, and certainly the greatest single abuse of power. I'm sorry, but Watergate pales in comparison
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to this. Watergate was, uh, an operation, a bunch of misguided private citizens, uh, broke into the
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Watergate. Uh, I have my own theories about what they were looking for. You can read it in the two
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books I've written about it. It's not, I'm gonna get sidetracked on it. Uh, but we also saw another
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example this week of the, uh, of the, uh, uh, uh, uh, corruption, I guess I have to call it, uh,
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in the games played by the CIA. For six decades, the Central Intelligence Agency insisted, uh, that they
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had no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald. They weren't tracking him. He wasn't on their radar.
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Uh, that turns out to be an egregious lie, uh, that they had him under surveillance. They were
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monitoring all of his communications, uh, and those reports were not being handled by low-level
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bureaucrats. They were going to the CIA director, John McCone, and to the, the then deputy director,
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Richard Helms. Uh, so they were not only in essence monitoring Oswald, they were actually handling
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Oswald. Uh, and they set up the famous, uh, uh, altercation on the street in New Orleans in which
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Oswald was handing out pro-Castro leaflets in an effort to establish the narrative that he was a
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communist. By the way, none of this, in my opinion, means that Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed John F.
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Kennedy, because he didn't. Uh, it's a story for another day. But it does demonstrate the fact
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that even now, with the president ordering the National Archives and all branches of government
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to release all data regarding the murder of John F. Kennedy, that the government held the so-called
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George Joannides, uh, documents back. Joannides was the, was the FBI official, pardon me, the CIA official
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in charge of, uh, overseeing the monitoring of Lee Harvey Oswald. Uh, and, uh, he's also the CIA
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operative who was in charge to, uh, to stonewall the 1978 House, uh, Select Committee on Assassinations,
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re-examination of the Kennedy assassination, with the CIA flatly refused to cooperate in. They turned over
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no documents, they provided no witnesses, and they answered no questions. It just speaks to the epic
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corruption, uh, of the CIA. Uh, there is no greater patriot than Devin Nunes, who I think did an amazing
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job as the chairman of the committee. Just having to put up with Adam Schiff every day, he should get a
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medal for that. Yes. I mean, the, the, the, this guy is the, uh, is the, uh, the most incredible
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congenitor liar, uh, in the history of American politics. Uh, uh, I'm sure you recall when he said
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that he had seen more than circumstantial evidence of Russian collusion. Well, congressmen produce it.
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Where is it? You never produced anything. Uh, the fact that he continues to get away
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with these lies, he actually got a promotion to the U.S. Senate, is, uh, it's hard to stomach,
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to be quite honest with you. Uh, I was happy to see Kash Patel announce that there's now an open
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investigation into Comey and Brendan, because I, there's no question they need to be held accountable.
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There are some statue of limitations questions. What's interesting here is that both Brennan
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and Comey not only used the Steele dossier, uh, wedging it into the intelligence community,
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uh, assessment that was presented to Obama, but as you pointed out, uh, Obama knew it was coming and
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he used it essentially as the rationale to, uh, uh, authorize Crossfire Hurricane, the, uh, the CIA,
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FBI effort to, uh, uh, uh, surveil and bring down Donald Trump, also later used as the rationale for
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the appointment of, uh, Robert Mueller as the special, uh, counsel. Uh, this, by the way, is why I think
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they came back and pressured me. As I say, after spending 30 million dollars, uh, and, uh, conducting
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an exhaustive investigation, they couldn't find the Russian collusion because it didn't exist.
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Uh, and that, therefore, they just, they decided that perhaps they could flip me and get me to testify
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falsely against the president, which I refused to do. Uh, there was no Russian collusion. There was no
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WikiLeaks collaboration. I passed not one, but two different polygraph tests on that very subject.
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So, uh, I'm really very hopeful that they will be held to account here and that there will be
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indictments. The, the problem here is one of statute of limitations, or maybe not. I would make an argument
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that both Brennan and Comey engaged in treason, and there is no statute of limitations on, on treason,
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but, uh, while Brennan and Comey both lied before Congress about pushing to include the
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so-called Steele dossier in the Intelligence Committee's assessment, um, later on, uh, as late as 2020,
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uh, in Brennan's interview with Special Counsel John Durham, uh, he yet again lied, uh, about, uh,
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that there may be some legal vulnerability there. For reasons I don't understand, then Attorney General
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Bill Barr cleared Brennan of wrongdoing, claiming falsely that the CIA had stayed in its lane. Uh,
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I think there, uh, is also the possibility that, uh, Comey lied at a later date before Congress as well.
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Uh, I still have the same concern, which you and I have discussed, which is that any indictment brought
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in the District of Columbia, uh, is going to get a hostile, uh, partisan judge, uh, going to get an all
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Democrat jury, uh, and of course you have the coverage by the fake news media, which will seek to discredit,
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uh, any, uh, uh, uh, accounting by these people. I saw John Brennan yesterday on MSNBC.
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This guy's arrogance just, uh, continues to blow my mind. I mean, he's there yet repeating the same lie.
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He basically said yesterday, oh, no, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't push to include the Steele
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dossier when we know the exact opposite is true. Lee? Well, well, that's going to be the problem.
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I mean, you know, I mean, we're all reading the same reports about the, uh, and I don't know. I,
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I'm, it's just not clear to me that if the FBI has announced an investigation, because that's,
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they're not really supposed to do that. My sense is that what's been announced is that, uh, uh,
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John Radcliffe, uh, made a criminal referral, which went over to DOJ. So that I think that's what we
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know for sure. I've seen reports that, that, that there's an FBI investigation now, but that, that,
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that might be racing a little bit ahead, but definitely Radcliffe made a referral, um, you know,
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for an investigation by at over at DOJ FBI. Um, yes, if it is a perjury charge, that's going to be a big
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problem because as I've been explaining in these different books, I mean, look, no one called it the
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Steele dossier until January, 2017, when they were passing this thing around before they were not
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calling it the Steele dossier. So just the idea, you know, I mean, Brennan has been weaseling out of
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this one for, for, for half a decade now there, there, for instance, Roger, there's a, uh, an article.
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Uh, I mean, I, I know all the press reports inside out. I have all the dates. It's June 23rd,
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2017 Washington post what the story is about. It's about how John Brennan put the Steele dossier
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on Barack Obama's desk, right? That they sent it over. I mean, did it really happen? I don't know,
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but John Brennan is the source for the story that was published in the Washington post,
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but it's never referred to as the Steele dossier in there. So the idea that Brennan, you know, that,
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that, that Brennan, uh, somehow is going to get in trouble because he said he didn't put the Steele
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dossier in there. It doesn't make sense to me. They never called it that, right? The, the way that
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they, they thought of it in an entirely different way. And they were very careful. John Brennan,
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and I try to remind people of this. John Brennan is not a good guy. He's a bad guy, but he's not a
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dumb guy. And this is something that, you know, Congressman Nunes and Chairman Nunes, you know,
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repeated again and again. He said, look, you know, Brennan is a very slippery guy. These,
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these guys are, are, are not dummies. They get to the head of these agencies and these institutions
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by being, um, being more clever as bureaucrats, right? Not by being more patriotic or not by
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necessarily being the best at their jobs, but by being more skillful bureaucrats who know how to use
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paperwork. So the idea that they're going to catch, um, Brennan on this, on a, on a perjury charge,
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it, it, I, I, I don't see it. I think there probably are different things. And you mentioned
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before, uh, when Durham went to Langley to interview Brennan in August, 2020, I, I, I think that there
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are different things that may have happened. And while Brennan was preparing for that interview,
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perhaps even in the aftermath, I'm hoping that DOJ and the FBI FBI looks at that, looks at that
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period. But I think the 2017 period, again, I'm, I'm, you know, I, I can't speak to the statute of
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limitations, what it is exactly for every charge and how it might be extended. It just seems to me
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that there are different places that if they're looking to hold John Brennan accountable for what
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he did, it seems to me that maybe the, uh, preparation for that intelligence community
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assessment is not going to provide a lot of leads, but that August 20, uh, August, 2020 meeting or
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interview with John Durham may be fruitful. All right. We have to wrap it there. Uh, I want to thank
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our guest, uh, Lee Smith, the great Lee Smith, urge you to check out his book, Disappearing the
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President, the New York Times bestseller. Whatever you do, don't touch that dial because we'll be
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right back. The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.