In this episode, we begin with a sad story about Boone Cutler, a war hero, author, columnist, music video director, but most importantly, a patriot and true friend. Then, we discuss a story about Scott Besson, the former Treasury Secretary, who is accused of fraudulently obtaining loans from Bank of America to purchase two homes.
00:01:50.080But in the news, Bloomberg News has smeared the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson, with a baseless story that tries to equate the mortgages he holds on two homes with the mortgage fraud that I believe both New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Board member Dr. Lisa Crook, I mean, Cook, engaged in.
00:02:20.080Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's 2007 mortgages for homes in upstate New York and Massachusetts were issued under a customized private banking facility that identified the properties as secondary residents and did not price the loans on owner occupancy, according to documents that I myself have now reviewed.
00:02:41.560The materials that I saw completely undercut comparisons to the Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook's mortgage controversy that were highlighted in a report by Bloomberg News.
00:02:54.260The documents describe a $21 million financing package arranged by Bank of America for Besant when he was a hedge fund manager.
00:03:03.140In a letter, a Bank of America managing director said the lender, quote, understood and agreed that the Bedford, New York and Providence Town, Massachusetts properties were secondary residences, noting the bank, and were well aware that his primary residence was in New York City, according to mortgage documents that I myself have now reviewed.
00:03:27.120An attorney who executed the mortgages on Secretary Besant's behalf wrote that the bank was, quote,
00:03:33.880fully aware that the Provincetown, Massachusetts property was not a principal residence and waived any requirement that it be used as a principal resident,
00:03:43.560adding that there was absolutely nothing improper about Mr. Besant's loan applications with which he was minimally involved as he had delegated the authority to his attorney.
00:03:53.900The allegations in this fake news report by Bloomberg are entirely inaccurate.
00:04:00.640This is a pathetic attempt to portray misrepresentations where there are none.
00:04:05.320The White House put out a statement saying they had full faith and confidence in Secretary Besson almost immediately after the Bloomberg report.
00:04:13.980The loans were retained on Bank of America's books rather than sold to investors or to government-sponsored enterprises, according to information from the bank.
00:04:23.000The bank also said that the interest rate does not vary based on utilization as a primary versus secondary residence, a feature that can remove a typical incentive to misstate occupancy on conventional mortgages, exactly what Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, has been caught doing regarding a property in Virginia.
00:04:45.700Nearly 20 years ago, Mr. Besson's lawyers filled out all the property paperwork properly,
00:04:52.160and the bank has confirmed that it was done properly.
00:04:54.640And this nonsensical Bloomberg article reaches the conclusion that it was all done properly.
00:05:01.200Alex Spiro, who was Scott Besson's personal attorney, said in a statement to the Hale,
00:05:06.980Attestations of owner occupancy and principal residency are standard in these kind of mortgage filings.
00:05:12.700They can be waived for second homes by letter agreement between the bank and the homeowner.
00:05:18.160Application materials list Besson's primary residence as one Sutton Place South, which is a matter of public record consistent with the bank's letter,
00:05:26.600while credit facility documents refer to his place in Bedford Hills, New York, and his place in Provincetown, Massachusetts as, quote, secondary residences, according to documents that I myself have reviewed.
00:05:38.740In the public mortgage documents filed in connection with Besson's properties, the documents contain this has to station that the borough will occupy the property as its principal residence within 60 days and continue to use it as its principal residence for one year.
00:05:54.180That same clause, however, makes it clear that this requirement can be waived with a letter of agreement with the letter, which is exactly what happened in the case of the Bank of America loans.
00:06:04.180quote, I will not have to occupy the property and use the property as my principal residence
00:06:09.560within the time set forth if the lender agrees in writing that I do not have to do so.
00:06:18.840So Bloomberg had cited public filings to suggest that there were similarities
00:06:23.540between Besant's mortgages and those of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook,
00:06:30.140whose 2021 loan documents for different properties reflected primary residence attestations.
00:06:37.560President Donald Trump said he was removing Cook from the Federal Reserve Board last week,
00:06:41.900two weeks ago, citing what he called potentially criminal conduct.
00:06:46.420Dr. Cook has denied wrongdoing, is contesting her removal in court,
00:06:50.860but her lawsuit in the District of Columbia was referred by the D.C. Clerk of Courts,
00:06:57.240Angela Cesar, to a judge, Gia Cobb, a federal judge, who is a member of the same black women's
00:07:06.660college sorority as Dr. Cook, which I think is a shocking, stunning conflict of interest.
00:07:15.420Strangely, the Department of Justice did not contest and ask that the judge recuse herself.
00:07:22.600Now, why should you care? Here's why you should care. Because based on the inflation rate and the current unemployment rate, it is time for a deep cut in interest rates on the American people.
00:07:35.540That would affect the interest rate that you pay when you pay off your credit cards, when you borrow money for personal or business reasons, when you seek to buy a car or, say, buy a home.
00:07:46.760Yet the Federal Reserve this past week grudgingly voted to cut interest rates but a quarter of a point.
00:07:55.600And Dr. Cook was allowed to vote despite the fact that President Trump had terminated her for cause.
00:08:03.180I would note that at least three previous Federal Reserve Board governors had resigned from the Federal Reserve when they were simply under investigation.
00:08:15.100Dr. Cook is clearly under investigation, but she has refused to resign.
00:08:21.560More recently, the U.S. District Federal District Court of Appeals upheld that ruling by Judge Gia Cobb.
00:08:32.740This is the same appeals court that upheld the unconstitutional gag put on me by a federal judge when I stood trial in the Soviet-style show trial in connection with the Russian collusion hoax.
00:08:47.220I sadly must conclude that in the District of Columbia, no Republican, no conservative, no independent, no free thinker, no libertarian, and most certainly no Trump supporter will ever get a fair trial, nor can you expect actual justice from any of the judges or juries that are seated in the District of Columbia.
00:11:26.520And yes, we did talk about his political aspirations.
00:11:30.980Charlie was thinking seriously about running for the governorship of Arizona at some point.
00:11:36.700And yes, he had presidential aspirations.
00:11:39.940I consider that to be extraordinarily noble.
00:11:42.900Frankly, I think that he had the faith, the courage, the discipline, the principles, and the drive to be a great presidential candidate, if not a great presidential candidate.
00:11:57.260So the loss here is greater than just the loss of a leader of the conservative movement.
00:12:03.820Charlie Kirk, I think, gave hope and inspired an entire generation.
00:12:09.500It's interesting to me that his organization, Turning Point USA, has now had more than 58,000 inquiries, an overwhelming number from high school students about starting chapters of the organization.
00:12:23.060To me, this is a very good sign because it means that those to whom Marxism is being very aggressively pushed from the public school system are waking up as to the beauties of the U.S. Constitution, free speech, free enterprise, capitalism, and yes, reverence to God.
00:12:44.620Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk, has been named as the new board chair and CEO of Turning Point USA.
00:12:53.080This comes after Erica Kirk's rousing address to the country where she vowed that her husband's vision would live on.
00:12:59.880In that address, Erica Kirk said they killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love.
00:14:27.720we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang
00:14:30.480desperately trying to characterize this kid
00:14:32.920who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.
00:14:36.400and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
00:14:39.340There is no evidence whatsoever that the man who stands accused of killing Charlie Kirk,
00:14:46.720a man named Tyler Robinson, was in any way part of the MAGA movement,
00:14:52.440was a disgruntled conservative Republican or Trump supporter.
00:14:56.960And that is if he is even, in fact, the killer, something we don't definitively know yet.
00:15:03.060Having written a book about the Kennedy assassination, which became a New York Times bestseller, The Man Who Killed Kennedy, The Case Against LBJ, which I made a case that there was indeed a plot that involved the vice president, the man who had the most to gain, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the CIA, organized crime, Big Texas Oil, and certain other financial institutions to murder John F. Kennedy in the streets of Dallas.
00:15:33.060I also recently completed a book that will publish before the end of the year about the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, because the government has never issued a full or conclusive report on that near miss, that near assassination, having examined very closely the assassinations of New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
00:15:57.060the night of his greatest political triumph
00:15:59.520when he won the California primary in 1968
00:16:02.380and examining the brutal murder of Dr. Martin Luther King,
00:16:08.420I can say definitively that I have no intention
00:16:12.660of believing what the government tells me
00:19:31.540Yeah, I mean, if I had to name three individuals beyond, of course, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, responsible for the greatest comeback in American political history, something that on paper should have been impossible, something that some in our own party said was impossible and wasn't going to happen, that, frankly, would be Charlie Kirk, Scott Pressler, and you, Cliff Maloney.
00:19:58.920And when you began the Pennsylvania effort, some of the old bulls in the party scoffed at the idea that you could increase Trump's share of the mail-in vote, which is notoriously Democrat-manipulated, from 20 percent to 33 percent.
00:20:20.820You know, it was all the old guard, the Karl Rove-esque, the John McCain establishment Republicans who told me to sit down, shut up, and you were the opposite.
00:21:24.080They told me repeatedly that they would recommend that I serve no jail time, that I just walk away if I would just agree to testify falsely against President Donald Trump, which, of course, I refused to do.
00:21:34.800Charlie recognized this vice grip that they had me in, and he became both a public and a private advocate, probably more effective even privately than he was publicly.
00:21:51.240But I know that he argued with the president and some of his advisers that I be given full clemency, that the charges against me would ultimately prove to be fraudulent, which, of course, they were.
00:22:03.360Anybody who's looked at the fully unredacted final Robert Mueller's report, special counsel's report, which they hid from the American people for three years, finally took a federal judge to order them to release it, you can see that they found no evidence of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration, or any other crime on my part.
00:22:27.340Let's focus on the future because politics is always about the future.
00:22:31.400You have a theory, which I totally subscribe to, that if we can lock in Pennsylvania, if we can ensure that it is a red state going forward, it becomes virtually impossible for the Marxist Democrats to retake the White House.0.54
00:23:15.000Here are the two options we have, okay?
00:23:16.620And Josh Shapiro is praying that we take the first option.
00:23:20.060The first option is you sit out the odd years, you hang out, you let them incrementally claw back on all the gains that we made in 2024.
00:23:29.580That's option one. Option two is you say, listen, we're going to do this thing every year. We're going to match the Democrats' playbook. We're going to run a ground game. We're going to chase ballots. We're going to knock doors every year.
00:23:41.000So here's my pitch, and here's my plan for all the Stone Zone listeners. In 2025, this year, we're going to knock 500,000 doors again. We launched August 4th. We'll be there through November 4th for the general election.
00:23:53.500Next year in the midterms, we're going to do 750,000 doors.
00:23:58.7602027, another 500,000 doors in the off year.
00:24:02.240In 2028, whether it's J.D. Vance or whoever the nominee is, I'm a big fan of J.D., we're going to pledge to knock a million doors.
00:24:23.500So in Pennsylvania, we have 50 days, 50 days of voting.
00:24:27.960And so the antidote, the remedy to that is to go out to every Republican that is unlikely to vote on Election Day and say, hey, Mr. Bob Smith, here is a request form.
00:25:18.120And the Stone Zone has my word that I will go out and raise the money, I will hire the individuals, I will deploy the door-knocking team, and we will knock the doors needed to make PA the red wall.
00:25:31.500Folks, if you're just tuning in, you're in the Stone Zone.
00:26:09.400Well, I say, listen, you know, I'm a liberty lover first before I'm a party member.
00:26:13.860And my advice to anybody who's just getting into the fight,
00:26:16.340whether it's because of this horrific tragedy with Charlie, whether it's because you realize
00:26:20.760the good versus the bad. Unfortunately, I hate to say it like this, but it's representative
00:26:27.540of Republican versus Democrat. Do not get in the battle to build a party. There's a lot of
00:26:33.120great friends of ours, Roger, who are in the battle. They're in the party. I'm not saying
00:26:36.860that the party is bad, but find a candidate like a Donald Trump. Find a candidate that you really
00:26:43.760support. That to me is the effort. Don't get caught up. If you're in a meeting and you're an
00:26:48.700activist and you find yourself spending a majority of your time arguing about bylaws, arguing about
00:26:55.140different motions and who makes a second, go out and talk to the voters. That is the real battle.
00:27:02.860That is the opportunity we have. The American people are with us. If the gut reaction of voters
00:27:08.360was to stand with illegal immigrants over Americans or to stand with men who think they
00:27:13.540girls over the real girls who are out there trying to be in their own places to play sports.0.93
00:27:19.020I'd give up this fight. But the reason I've doubled that, and you taught me this, Roger,0.92
00:27:23.500is that the American people are with us. And so my advice is find a candidate you align with,
00:27:29.360find an issue you want to fight for, spend your time focusing on that. That's how we make liberty
00:27:35.600win. That's how we save the republic. I think you made a very good point there. I'm not sure
00:27:40.220Everybody caught it, but I'm going to come back and hit it.
00:27:42.260And that is Cliff Maloney had to go out and raise all the money for this shoe leather war to win Pennsylvania.
00:27:48.680We don't have a George Soros standing in the background writing billion dollar checks to Cliff Maloney or to Turning Point USA or any other grassroots organization.
00:28:00.260We have to go out and raise that money.
00:28:02.200So, Cliff, if people want to support your work right now and they realize that this doesn't just go on just in the presidential campaign years, but it's a year in, year out, every year effort to not lose the valuable ground that you made in terms of voter registration and in terms of building the infrastructure to locate, identify and turn out votes.
00:28:58.960Listen, fundraising is the worst part of my gig.
00:29:01.380You know, a year and a half ago, Roger, when we first talked on your show, it would have been easy for me to say, hey, listen, the party, the establishment, they don't want to fund us.
00:29:52.420Yeah, this is a very key point I want to come back and hit.
00:29:54.800And that is, trust me, Cliff Maloney does not have cushy offices.
00:29:58.440He doesn't have a massive salary, doesn't have a huge expense account.
00:30:02.860There are not high paid consultants and grifters.
00:30:06.140This is a hand to mouth grassroots operation where the money you give goes right to the main task, goes right to voter registration, voter identification, voter turnout.
00:30:18.120I frankly, in the 50 years I've been in American politics, I haven't seen anything this impressive.
00:30:24.160Cliff told me he was going to build it 18 months before the election, and by election day, he had surpassed what the old bulls in the party ever thought was possible.
00:30:35.060They thought that this was a fool's errand, but he delivered thanks to the literally hundreds of thousands of donors who stepped up to the plate and went to pachase.com, pachase.com.
00:30:48.680We've got about a minute left here before we come back to a little more.
00:30:52.320I want to talk about the New Jersey governor's race when we return.
00:30:56.540As you know, New Jersey, Virginia, the only two states who have their gubernatorial race in the off years.
00:31:02.980It is interesting to me that Donald Trump ran extraordinarily strong in the Garden State, despite the fact that it was not a targeted state.
00:31:11.580It was not a place where the Trump campaign could afford to make massive expenditures.
00:31:16.820It's an incredibly expensive state to campaign in because, of course, it has both the New York and the Philadelphia television markets, the New York market covering the northern part of the state, the Pennsylvania market covering the southern part of the state.
00:34:12.980Have the folks in New Jersey been wise enough to utilize some of the lessons
00:34:18.620that you that you taught us in 2024 well one i'll give mike crispy credit uh mike crispy a great
00:34:26.900patriot but i got an outreach from mike and a bunch of other patriots in new jersey that said
00:34:32.440hey listen you know how do we get the p.a chase to launch in new jersey so i'm happy to report
00:34:37.640here on your show here in the stone zone that we are involved with the new jersey chase we have
00:34:43.640committed to put people on the ground. We launched in early August for Jack Cittarelli and we are
00:34:49.620committing to knock 500,000 doors for the New Jersey Chase program. And honestly, Roger, there's
00:34:56.580nothing special to say. It's just taking the playbook that we used in Pennsylvania. And I was
00:35:01.840just in Cape May yesterday meeting with some of our people that are investing, strategists. We are
00:35:07.220knocking 500,000 doors for Jack Cittarelli. I'm honored to do it. And I think it could be the
00:35:12.540difference maker to put him over the hump in this gubernatorial election well there you go folks we
00:35:17.640just made no news right here in the stone zone uh and i have to upgrade jack cittarelli's chances
00:35:23.380look this is tough territory i mean new jersey's a very very blue state but the high tax soft on
00:35:29.740crime policies that produce people like cory booker uh have i think run out of steam president
00:35:36.880trump ran a very strong race in the state and cittarelli is coming on strong in the public
00:35:41.360opinion polls. I think victory is indeed possible. And now, frankly, I'm encouraged by hearing that
00:35:47.680Cliff Maloney's technology, his tactics, his techniques, and indeed his handbook, shall we
00:35:55.140say, is going to be used on the ground in the Garden State. So I'm upgrading the chances of
00:36:00.260Cittarelli now as a potential come-from-behind winner. It's going to take this kind of Herculean
00:36:07.280effort but cliff maloney and mike crispy that's an unbelievable combination uh when it comes to
00:36:13.280grassroots action uh and activism so i wish you the very best in that effort uh if you if you've
00:36:19.540just tuned in i'm gonna give it to you one more time you can help this over all effort by going
00:36:23.900to phace.com phace.com that money cliff will get used in new jersey correct absolutely roger and
00:36:32.880Let me say this just as a send off. Roger, I appreciate you. You've always been there for me.
00:36:37.240A great patriot of this country, a true America first man, and appreciate your mentorship and just always being there for everyone who wants to fight for the cause.
00:36:46.820Thank you so much for having me. All right. That was the great Cliff Maloney, who was the founder of the Pennsylvania Chase and one of the key architects of Donald Trump's stunning Pennsylvania victory that made his comeback even sweeter.
00:37:00.720Thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone. I'm Roger Stone. Thanks for tuning in to the Red Apple Audio Networks. Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
00:37:30.720Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:37:34.920You can hear The Stone Zone with Roger Stone weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.
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